We laughed together quietly, though not quietly enough for Mum not to hear. She barrelled into my room, cradling a bundle of fresh laundry.
“What’s going on in here?” she asked, all suspicious, like Poirot. She spotted my blotchy face and I saw her freak-out face forming. “Evie, have you been crying?”
Mum’s eyes flicked from Rose’s face back to mine again, like she was analysing Rose for crazy-by-osmosis.
Rose – bless her – kept a poker face. “I’m just helping Evie pick out what to wear.”
“Wear where? Where are you going?”
“Umm…to the cinema.” I wasn’t going to tell Mum about my date. She’d have opinions. Negative opinions.
She still looked surprised though. “The cinema? Evie, that’s huge. Are you sure you’re ready? I mean, you’ve not mentioned it… Have you talked it through with Sarah? I mean, the cinema! That’s great…but, are you ready for that?” She looked at Rose and then realized she’d hinted at the crazy. “I mean…well, not that it’s a big deal…”
“Muuuuuum,” I said. “You’re not helping!”
“Oh… Okay, but I do wish you’d tell me these things, Evie.”
“Mum,” I sighed again. Rose and I stared pointedly at her until she took the hint and left.
“Now,” said Rose, clapping her hands together. “Take off the dress and show me what lacy tops you have.”
I did as she said. “I love you, Rose.”
“Yes…yes… Oh my God, Evie, why are you wearing cowboy boots?”
Fifteen
We were meeting at the cinema. Like dates do. My date. And I. For our date. DATE. Rose had calmed me down enough to put some make-up on and shoved me out the door with the strict command of “tell me everything”.
Oli’d actually asserted himself when it came to deciding what to watch. I’d had my eye on this new indie comedy called And Rainbows but he’d messaged quite firmly saying he’d booked us tickets for the new Tarantino.
BAD THOUGHT
He won’t have booked an aisle seat. How am I supposed to run away if it all gets too much if I don’t have an aisle seat?
I’d been given a new method for dealing with the resurrection of bad thoughts – courtesy of Sarah. I was supposed to start owning them, rather than the other way round. This involved a process she’d scribbled down for me, with strict instructions to practise.
How to own your bad thoughts
1) Put them through the Worry Tree.
What the heck is a worry tree? Well…it’s a bit like those flow chart tests you get in women’s magazines that tell you what sort of orgasm you’re supposed to be having or whatever. However there are only two branches to the tree.
Is there anything you can do about this worry right now?
2) Acknowledge that you’ve had a bad thought.
Sorta like “Oh, hello there, you fine young man of a bad thought, I can see you, you know.”
3) But do not “indulge” the bad thought.
Example of indulging a BAD THOUGHT
Bad thought: Hey, you, do you think that maybe you’re always going to be mad? That maybe, Evie, darling, you should just give up on this whole “recovery” thing and go back to the unit and get sectioned for ever and never have a boyfriend because you’re so fucking crazy?
Evie: Oh my, you’re right. I am crazy. How long do you think I have left before everyone realizes and gives up on me?
Bad thought: Hmmm, maybe a year? Then you’re screwed.
Evie: A year’s quite a long time.
Bad thought: You’re right. Six months. Who do you think will be the most disappointed?
Evie: Mum probably…but then Rose…
Bad thought: Yeah, Rose. Man, you’re really going to screw her up, aren’t you?
Evie: *nods sadly* I know.
* Continue until Evie lies sobbing on her bed for no visible reason.*
What next? Well, after you’ve successfully acknowledged but not indulged the bad thought, you…
4) Return your mind to the present moment.
Note: Modern psychology is currently OBSESSED with The Present Moment, like it’s the elixir of life or something. You do this by either focusing on your breathing, or listening to all the noises around you and concentrating really hard on them. Sort of like meditation, like the Buddha did.
5) When you find your mind drifting…
Which it inevitably will, because the present moment is so utterly boring compared to freaking out and fretting obsessively, well…
Return to step two.
Over and over.
There you go, thoughts owned.
That’s about five hundred quid’s worth of therapy, right there for you. But does it work? Ha, that’s the problem. You have to exert brain control in order to do it, and isn’t a lack of control over your brain why you’re in therapy in the first place?
As I walked to the cinema to meet Oli, I did try and own them. This was my backlog of bad thoughts so far:
BAD THOUGHT
You look like crap.
BAD THOUGHT
How are you going to eat the popcorn? You can’t seriously dip your hand repeatedly into something – think of the germs multiplying. You’ll get sick and vomit down yourself and Oli will hate you.
BAD THOUGHT
Will it be awkward? What if we don’t have anything to talk about?
BAD THOUGHT
What if you have a panic attack in the cinema? You’ve not had one in ages, but you’ve not been to the cinema in ages…
So I really tried to concentrate on The Present Moment to calm myself down. I looked up at the leaves on the trees and thought how pretty they were, the first tinges of yellow tarnishing the edges. I listened to the steady whir of traffic as cars passed me. I counted my steps on the pavement – up to ten each time. And, soon, Sarah was right… I was almost there and I hadn’t spiralled into a sobbing incoherent mess.
The cinema was in the distance, all new and shiny and the-most-exciting-thing-to-happen-to-this-town-in-five-years. Oli was in there, with his basil eyes, and his questions about monkeys, and his tendency to prefer violence in movies…and all of these were good things and things that made Oli Oli. And I was going on a date to find out more about what made Oli Oli, and he was going to find out more about what made Evie Evie because that is what dates are and that is how love begins to maybe happen and I so wanted to fall in love. Because love means someone accepts you for who you are, unconditionally; it’s like you’ve been given a giant “well done” sticker from the universe, and I was well on my way to starting that so why…why…
…despite all my best efforts, did Proper Bad Thoughts start to win things right at the last moment?
PROPER BAD THOUGHT
You may be owning them, but you’re having an awful lot of them.
PROPER BAD THOUGHT
What if you start not being able to own them?
I stopped dead in the car park and got honked at aggressively by a bald man driving a BMW.
I barely heard him.
WORSE THOUGHT
It’s really, maybe, coming back again.
Sixteen
I was late. I found a quiet alleyway round the back of the cinema and I stayed there for a bit, wiping the tears from my eyes the moment they spilled so as not to wreck my mascara, and breathing in deeply for three, and out for six…