when I got out of Horsham

…I was lucky I did. If I had stayed there I would not have properly completed this weird metamorphosis into Lynne without the nasty mole.

it was an exhilarating stay (compared with the one I just spent in Reading for 8 MONTHS.)

I hadn’t the faintest thought of aliens. They weren’t a part of my life view.

I did, however, have some embarrassing attributes. I didn’t have any trouble at all getting along withe the other patients, comparatively speaking. It was dangerous and difficult but fun. The ceilings arch ovrthhead as if you were in a church. Everyone hangs out in the hallway.

I must have already been drawing a bit because at the end of my stay I drew a pair of two large, orange cockroaches mating, their side hairs meshing. There was something very visceral about it because when I showed it to the social worker when I was trying to secure my discharge she freaked out a little and let me go.

I have talked over and over at length about the years of bug phobia. I will decide later whether there is anything else that needs to be said about it.

In England women are supposed to be normal, you can’t imagine how much all of this hurts me.

the bug phobia was sick and crazy and unbelievably desperate. My father helped me out of it 3 times and finally I was free of it. But my whole body is scarred from picking at what I believed to be “nits” (bug eggs) under my skin. I went out with bandaids all over my hands. It turned into a form of cutting. It felt GOOD to dig at my flesh in self-hatred. I am over it now.

the alien encounter is different. It is terrifying but beautiful and exciting. If you don’t believe it and it disturbs you just call it my imagination.

I used to love Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf!