Free Bloodletting by Victoria Leatham Page B

another spell in hospital.
    The idea of going in again appealed but I was worried about my studies. I didn’t want to miss any seminars. Hospital stays could last weeks and that was too long. I’d never catch up. So I said no, I’d stay home and cope as best I could. Dr G didn’t think this was a wise idea, so suggested a compromise: I could go to hospital and attend uni on special day release.
    For some weeks then, every couple of days, I’d catch the train from the hospital to the campus. Neither place was directly on the railway line, so there was a walk at each end. As I was now on a sedative as well as Prozac and Lithium, this trip wasn’t easy; I was constantly exhausted and each step was an effort. On the few times I arrived at the English department early, I’d collapse on the floor outside the seminar room and lie down, grateful to have even ten minutes’ rest. I didn’t care what people thought.
    While I was able to force myself to attend seminars, I didn’t enjoy them anymore. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t follow what other people were saying and I couldn’t understand the readings we were given. Nothing made sense. It was as though I were surrounded by a thick fog and I desperately wanted to escape it. The frustration grew to the point where, for the first time in my life, I began to feel violent— not just towards myself but others as well. I wanted to scream and throw chairs. I wanted to push tables over. I wanted to punch and kick and hit. But I didn’t, instead I sat there with my jaws clenched, hour after hour, wondering what was next. I then did the only thing I could think of: I told my psychiatrist.
    The obvious solution seemed to be to stop going to seminars and take the rest of the term off. But the truth was that I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get better. Just giving up made no sense to me—I wasn’t going to do that. University was the only stable thing in my life.Without it I would be adrift and that was a terrifying thought.There had to be another way. Perhaps, I thought, I could change the way my degree was structured and instead of doing coursework, I could do a thesis or long essay.That way, I wouldn’t have to be in a classroom.
    The course coordinator agreed to see me, and I told him about my problem, about the drugs, the hospital, my desire to throw chairs, and my suggested solution. My psychiatrist had agreed to supply any medical certificates the university might need.The course coordinator listened carefully, then said it wasn’t quite as simple as that. He would need to check my academic record and meet with several other members of the department before making a decision.
    A week later, I was told that if I could come up with a suitable research topic and find a supervisor, then yes, I could complete the second half of my degree by writing a 30,000 word essay. All I had to do was find a topic and a supervisor. I chose Jackie Collins, transgression, and asked the head of the department to be my supervisor. She agreed, stipulating that I wasn’t only to write about Jackie Collins’ bonkbusters but to compare her work with that of a nineteenth century equivalent. I found one.
    Home again, and feeling better, I winced when the owner of my flat cut down the only appealing feature of the entire property: the frangipani tree. I’d not complained when the bloke upstairs sold my bike to buy smack, nor did I leave when someone tried to climb in my bedroom window. (The bloke upstairs, perhaps feeling guilty about the bike, scared him off.) I tolerated the cold, the ugly orange tiles in the bathroom, the cramped conditions. It was the removal of the frangipani that did it.
    It was time to move again.
    It was time to live in a place I actually liked. The new flat was light, clean, had a luscious tropical garden, and was near the beach. For the first time since I’d lived in Sydney, I didn’t trip over people asking for money whenever I walked out the door.
    My