Yes. I am indeed back. A good... what, six months later?!

And I have changed a lot. And by a lot, I mean a lot. Yes, I'm still the same somewhat freaky student living up in the North. I still have the same barmy group of friends (though D now has an on-off relationship with a guy called Ash and now lives across the river with F, E, M, T, and G) while I'm living in a little house with J, JH and V.

It sounds like quite a natural progression, but it seems like such a long time ago that I was babbling on about potatoes and living in college, throwing up copiously on the nightbus. Sometimes I feel like it was a whole life ago.

I mentioned before that I often felt numb and depressed and just that little bit suicidal. Well, everything has intensified. Self harm doesn't really cut it any more (oh look, a pun), it's more like self-destruction. Between D and my ultimate agony aunt (well, technically uncle), L, I've been bullied into going to the doctor again. Yes, again. This time, she had a slightly more interesting answer for me.

Apparently, it's more than likely that I'm bipolar. Or, as they used to call it, manic depressive. I haven't read too too much about it, but I've read enough to know that the symptoms sound scarily like the way I feel all the time. One minute so hyper people tell me to slow down because they haven't got a clue what I'm saying and I've lost so many inhibitions I'm getting to the extent where I'll actually go home with random guys from clubs, then the next minute so depressed I'm locked in my room with a razor, unable to move from my bed without bursting into tears and screaming out loud.

All very fun stuff.

I have an appointment with a psychiatrist for the next couple of weeks. I've been told it's really likely I'll be on medication for a long, long time. Yes, I'm terrified. I wrote another book over Christmas, making my grand total of completed novels Three. What if this medication stops my creativity? What if it stops me from being myself? I'm so scared that it's (ironically) making me want to crawl into my duvet and die.

Yet help comes from the most unexpected places. I just found the courage to talk to an old schoolfriend from years and years ago with a similar problem - it's strangely comforting to find out that somebody else is feeling a similar pain. And it's also good to know that somebody else would sue our primary school if it was possible (only kidding). Whatever - it makes a change to know I'm not the only one in the world like this.

Sometimes I just want to bury myself in a hole and go to sleep until something, anything gets better.

Sometimes I want to hug everyone in the world and tell them how much I love them.

Sometimes I want to do both at the same time.

Somehow I think that won't work.

I hope that something can make me better. Because, to end on a rather pessimistic note, this sucks. And I wish it was all different.

Misty x