To the Bat Cave

Ian says I should write a book. A firsthand experience of living with the MonSter.

Stop cringing laughing. I could not possibly do such a thing.

In the past nearly 6 years, I have read quite a few books by PWMS and cannot yet say I have read one that didn't make me feel downright queasy. And I don't mean from the little details of quirky shit the disease pulls on you for fun. I already know what a prick MS is. It's all the sanitising of the realities, to protect privacy and dignity, to protect the delicate sensibilities of those who don't know the MonSter very well, yet, so as not to scare them to death before MS has a chance to get at 'em. All it serves to do is give a nice version that won't upset the troops too much while failing to express the utter fucking misery of living inside something that screws up everything you want to have and want to do. Hence, my slow and painstaking creation of my Bat Cave a couple of years ago, where I quite happily existed in semi-isolation until about last January. Since then, while much happier in many ways, I have gradually deteriorated to a point that I can't continue like this.

*sigh*

So I'm going to rebuild and refurbish my haven and re-immerse myself into it. It's going to be hard work, I have all these renewed pleasure and past times to unlearn, feelings and needs to re-bury and expectations that really aren't compatible with living in a hole in the ground. In preparation for all this, I've been sort of spring cleaning my cupboards last night and today; the mental ones, that is. Geez there's some bloody crap lurking in the back corners of my head, and I don't just mean de'myelination, baby.

I mean stuff that my brain can't categorise or effectively process, like jigsaw puzzles, telling the time and a dissertation on reasons why it's good to be a rock. I realised that some stuff is missing - like the peace of the place I used to hang around in all day and night, my own Bat Cave where no-one dared cross two warning signs and a shar pei to reach me and where I didn't feel any need to reverse engineer that process.

I'm going to stop all this bouncing around...

...and going out, cut the dramas and the need to look human, perform tricks and participate in the lives of those who would wring me out like a dish rag. I might also be able to avoid J. Public who can't read the Disabled Only parking signs and can't help but walk down the wrong side of the footpath and expect me to weave around them with my crutch, but that's not so easily managed.

There is an even bigger upside to not allowing myself to be called out all the evenings the Goddess sends; my petrol bill will come down! At something like $1.58/litre at the moment, that's really gotta help.

PS I think it's time to put a sign on the front door, too, like this...

"Warning - TWO more warning signs ahead"

I can't survive out in your world, people, I just don't have that stamina stuff or get fed enough to make my sacrifices worthwhile...and besides, I'm deciding whether to stop blogging (pfftt), start a new chapter on my MonSter's birthday next month, or continue this one for one more year - that takes up a bit of energy too, ya know!

Decisions, decisions...

Now if I could just find the sign pointing to the EXIT, maybe all would be ok.