blood nerve and bone

 Madness is a funny thing. It's a horror movie trope, a psychiatric label, a societal label. To me, though, it's an identity in and of itself. The first Mad moment in my life that I can recall is my first memory of plurality. I was eight years old, barely, and had just been informed I was going to move over 4000 miles later that same week, and I vividly remember telling my mum in the kitchen that I "didn't feel like myself." I knew who I felt like, but somehow, I knew it was Mad to admit to, and so I didn't admit.  I was a Mad teenager, too. I would (allegedly) go into piles of old prescription drugs laying around my house and take whatever I could find that'd get me a buzz. It became routine. I'd self-harm with anything I could get my hands on, so long as it wasn't obvious, because again, I knew it was Mad. No one had taught me explicitly anything of the concept of Madness, yet I knew Mad was bad. In my late teens and early twenties, I really went...

 Throughout my years in education, I was surprisingly good at the whole thing. I wasn't the typical "good at school" nerd, for lack of a better way to explain the type of person I'm thinking of. I got myself in trouble, I did stupid teenager shit more than a lot of my peers did, and school didn't come naturally to me, except English and geography. But, I left school with all 7s to 9s in my GCSEs. I went on to do two A-Levels and an equivalent course, and left again with 3 A-stars. I say it to brag only a tiny bit, but I fear I might have lost a lot of my bragging rights. My first adventure with university was actually very different to my current one - and out of character for myself now. I studied BSc Psych at a university in north-east England for a year. I did really well, considering my circumstances of undiagnosed bipolar disorder and alcoholism I didn't particularly feel like addressing. I have the certificate - a Certificate of Higher Education in Psych...