my knees are cold

I have been feeling so shitty this past week. We had to call the cops in to take my mother to the hospital for her mania on Tuesday morning. We had a terrible night. She was up the whole time and I barely got any sleep because she kept singing at the top of her voice and shouting at the whole house to "PRAY! PRAY! I AM THE THIRD MOST IMPORTANT YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME! ALLAH IS NUMBER 1, MUHAMMAD IS 2 AND I AM THE THIRD! ALL OF YOU ARE STUPID!" And then she screamed the Azan as loud as she could and banged on our bedroom doors. I had my hands over my ears the whole night.

She spent the morning in a lingerie-like slip that barely covered anything, shouting out the door at frightened neighbours and singing some more to the song that is her favourite every time she is high: I Believe I Can Fly. Sometimes her voice would go so high that she would choke on herself and start coughing and it was so fucking hilarious but I couldn't possibly laugh. Everything felt so twisted, including the things I was thinking. I know how horrible this sounds but when she was singing out to the neighbourhood, I kept chanting in my head, "Please really believe you can fly. Please just.... jump." But of course she didn't. The policemen came, my mother flirted (as always) (still in that godforsaken slip) and my next door neighbour who is a good friend tricked my mom into getting ready to go to a 'club' at 9 in the friggin a.m. They took her away, albeit with a bit of struggling and shouting downstairs and that was that.

I don't know what to do anymore. Technically, my mother has already lost it, but she's seriously losing it now. Even when she was first diagnosed with Bipolar her relapses only occurred at worst once a year. Now she gets manic every couple of months. It is so fucking taxing and depressing and distracting for the rest of us. I ended up having a meltdown on my second day of work, which was Tuesday, because my manager kept asking me to smile and I just couldn't. She talked to me for a while and asked me to go home early that day. I spent the rest of the afternoon at Haji Lane by myself, sitting by the window in Pluck, drawing and eavesdropping on other people's happy conversations. My workmates slipped me really sweet cheer up notes on Relish order forms on my way out.

Yesterday was my third day of work and my first time on the night shift. We had a pretty busy night but it felt good to have something to do. I ended up leaving the restaurant at 11.50 after all the cleaning up and reached home at close to one, but it was okay. I also met Syadza for a while before work and we had Ben & Jerry's and shaker fries and lots of nice walking around. I realise we always sort of gravitate towards Suntec City even though we know there isn't much to do around there.

Today was a haze, interspersed with lots of exasperated groaning on my part. Talked to Syadza for a while just now and I feel better and I hope she does too. Hi Syadza, I love you and everything will be OK <3