h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So on Saturday I did return to London for Saucy Jack Day. A day for touring of the annonymous sites of the brutal Jack The Ripper murders.

... got to

Scary! I saw ads for a Ripper tour, and was intrigued, but not brave enough - or even had the time...

*waiting for a long and juicy description of it all!*

ohhhhhhhhhhhh, that sounds interesting

tell us more...........

please

I'm going to go on one of those someday... if I have my way it will be summer of '07, but one of these days.....

The tour was not an 'official' tour, one of Sprotlore's members was our guide, he hadn't been impressed by his experience on one these Ripper tours.
We did the sites out of order to cut down on time and energy spent marching, to leave more available for drinking.
The sites of these murders have for the most part changed in appearence considerably and as I say they are unmarked and have complete annoymity.

out of time again...

Let us know more, when you're not in a rush?

The London Dungeon does quite a good Ripper tour. It's not to the actual sites, it's more of a reconstruction.

I made some jokes about our tour guides 'shiney knob' no-one laughed at. Someone else made jokes about the 'shiney knob' some people did laugh.
I made some jokes about not looking at the 'London Gherkin' which did get some laughs.

Mostly I said little to anyone on tour, our guide mostly stuck the name of the vicim and the times associated with the murder, the names of eyewitnesses. Such facts although interesting bits and bobs I wasn't really taking in.
Nothing striking a cord with but the complete discretion of the sites of these brutal killings.
I was feeling detached, cold and distant - not really part of the group... not really part of the reality. And this was foreshadow of my feelings to come in the evening ahead.

After we'd toured the murder sites we went to the final pub of the day. Not the one originally planned. This one was too small for our gathering. I was forced to stand. Between 6pm and 6.05pm the longest five minutes passed. It was absolutely clear to me by now that I did not belong there, that should leave, that I was only going to grow moodier more depressed and disolutioned as time passed.
I couldn't make out what people were talking about. What I could hear was meaningless to me. On the few occaisions people tried to converse directly with me I had nothing to say to them, and felt ecruciating discomfort in forcing out the words I did.

As the evening eroded on certain people asked me 'are you alright?' I'd say "fine, fine".
Finally someone asked if I was 'tired' I said euphemistically speaking'
Finally at 10.30 I mustered the strength to leave.

Oh, hunni...

Did you know any of those people, or were you trying to feel included in a group of strangers?

It's evil, that feeling isn't it? The sort of 'distancing' thing; I am here but not here, rapidly goes into a sort of spiral of "ohmigod, nobody on this planet has a clue where i am at"

I usually endure half an hour or so, if it hasn't improved by then, i sidle off, having made damn sure i am close to the exit.

Oddly enough, i am better in a group of total strangers than with "sort of" friends. And unlike most people, have no trouble doing "public speaking/performing" stuff; in fact i enjoy it.

Social stuff can be very weird. It's probably even worse as a woman alone; 'cos even if you go to a bar simply for the music, assumptions are made; you might as well walk in naked with a sign saying "Alone: therefore looking to pick up a bloke, any bloke will do"

Hope the next excursion is better; keep on trying.It takes a lot of guts to have a go,

zdt

I also know the feeling, a lot more recently as well. Generally I end up feeling like a fugitive desperate to get away

Me too. I sympathise completely.

Having gathered my stuff together in silence I made my way out of the pub, unable to muster the will to go through the niceties of saying 'goodbye' to people, which at the time I regarded as a 'crock of sh!t'.
I walked purposefully to Aldgate East tube and gone on the line to Victoria. I sat on the tube with Tool's 'Lateralus' album in my ears... My face red with the quantities of bitter I'd consumed, pondering why it is that I force myself to stick it out the end, why I thought chuffing my through 30 ciggarettes was going to suddenly make the way I feel about the entire evening change character. Also wondering if Saucy Jack regarded himself as an artist or an avenger or both, I didn't think any of the suspects still debated were the one.
I didn't think I ever wanted to subject myself to another event again, I didn't know why I bothered with meets, why I bothered with life. I knew the reason I smoked those cigarettes was because I'd want to take one to my arm, I denied myself that release, I denied to myself that that was what the chuffing on endless acrid cancers had been for. I looked forward to getting home and cutting and burning or taking a packet or two of pills...
On the from Victoria I starred at my phone... eventual I sent a txt to Rachie more or less saying sorry for not having said goodbye.
I wanted to send a txt to Tim & Loz, I wanted to keep going all the way to Brighton, to crash at there place, to be with people that I felt safe with. To be somewhere safe and with people that don't make me feel like some freak to be tolerated, humoured... pittied.
But I couldn't do that to them, they don't deserve to be bothered by a creature like me.
The train draws into the Heath I get off, I almost fall down the steps off the platform, not because I've had more than dozen pints, but because there is a pain tearing at me.
I'm walking to the park, my pace slows, someone stalks past... the street is empty, I buckle over and a long silent scream erupts from throat and contorted face, I move on, I'm in the park and again I can barely stand, I grab the railing of the cricket pavilion... I can't stand the pain; my soul is trying to tear itself apart from cells and sinews of my body.
Do you understand that kind of pain?
The whirling – lashing - tearing - Nessian pain?
Have you felt that?

I haven't had that kind of pain.
But I do wish that it never shows it's ugly face to you again.

I think your friends would have taken good care of you, had you stayed with them. You might ask them on a good day, if you could come over on a bad day?

I've felt that kind of pain--luckily mostly in short, infrequent bursts. It's horrible feeling like a freak, innit?

You don't half write it well, though. (My opinion. Not yours.) Very atmospheric.

Hey, have you read 'Frankenstein'? I loved the sensitivity with which Mary Shelley portrayed the outcast's struggle with being 'different'.

Have you recovered somewhat from your ordeal?

'I've felt that kind of pain--luckily mostly in short, infrequent bursts.'
Can I ask you about it?
How long is 'short'? How frequent is infequent? How would you describe it?
They're like mindquakes with me, short and low intensity and you can ignore them and they go away eventual, they've sapped your strength but there no 'visible' damage.
To the 'big ones' where I writhe and silentscream and want to tear my body apart so that that which is trying to tear itself away from my physical body can escape through the wholes and the pain of it's tearing it's aspect from will stop which go on and on as long as there is any energy to sustain it.
And the ones in between like last week.

'It's horrible feeling like a freak, innit?'

In the sense and context we're using then there is no denying it's awfulness.

'Hey, have you read 'Frankenstein'?'

No, I've not. I'm atrociously ill-read, especially in the horror genre.

"I loved the sensitivity with which Mary Shelley portrayed the outcast's struggle with being 'different'."

Sounds like I'd cry or something.

"Have you recovered somewhat from your ordeal?"

I s'pose so, more or less. I don't exactly know how i relate to it a this precise moment.

How short? Hard to say, as it comes in waves. I class it as a type of panic attack. There was a year when it happened several times a day--or once a day, depending on how you look at it.

How would I describe it? A gradual buildup, starting with a desire to do something unpleasant to myself... I feel kinda weird being this specific about myself in this particular way. What you have already said describes it very well. I relate very much to this:"the 'big ones' where I writhe and silentscream and want to tear my body apart so that that which is trying to tear itself away from my physical body can escape through the wholes and the pain of it's tearing it's aspect from will stop which go on and on as long as there is any energy to sustain it."

--But I never get 'em that bad any more. And I've never self-harmed on the same scale as you. A decade on, and the following symptoms are triggered by PMT or unaccustomed social occasions: "they're like mindquakes with me, short and low intensity and you can ignore them and they go away eventual, they've sapped your strength but there no 'visible' damage."

More intense ones (like your 'in-between' ones) happen to me every two or three months and are usually triggered by a combination of biological stuff (hormones, blood sugar, caffeine, sleep patterns, light levels, exercise, temperature) and personal disasters. I get them over a period of one or two days, but they're only at their most intense for a few minutes at a time. I have a list of things I run through to try to sort myself out, as I never again want to feel like I did ten years ago. I'm sorry that you've been feeling that way. Nobody deserves to feel that way, ever.

Except maybe Hitler.

And Pol Pot.

And... okay, *some* people deserve to feel that way!

"Sounds like I'd cry or something."

Nah, it's not written in that kind of way. I reckon you'd enjoy it, if you can get past her slightly old-fashioned writing style. Did you know it's considered to be the world's first sci-fi novel?

Thank you. *hugs*

...

'Did you know it's considered to be the world's first sci-fi novel?'

Yes.