I just get bored I mean really bored that evolves into frustration almost instantly. That gut twitching feeling that you can’t seem to shake off, it lingers deep inside like the annoyance of toothache, I just want to go to sleep, please can I just go to sleep so this feeling of uncomfort and frustration leaves me if only for a while. I smoke you see but if I don’t manage to fall asleep within an allotted time the craving for nicotine soon reveals its self again or is it just the boredom and lack of brain stimulisation, either way you try to fight it for as long as possible hoping and praying to just suddenly fall asleep but it’s not happening as the already frustrating twitching intensifies with the cravings of nicotine, you finally secome to the cravings and get out of bed and go into the kitchen to roll a cigarette you sit down in the lounge and light it as your brain starts to go in to overdrive pondering about all sorts without even a hint of provocation. How on earth can you think one thing one minute and something completley different the next is beyond me, it’s as if someone is flicking through your mind at random, like someone flicking through the channels at random with a tv remote. I put my cigarette out and TRY to go back to bed and i dont say the word TRY lightly either, because if you knew what it feels like to undergo these demoralising episodal rituals you’d be wanting another cigarette. Aint that the truth because the hurendous rituals are that lengthy that by the time your mind is happy with the rituals your needing another cigarette, but only for to begin these horendous rituals once again. I put my cigarete out once more in an old mug that i use as an ashtray wich i then poor down the toilet every time and flush it away just to determine my minds certainty of it being distinguished to prevent any kind of fire, i return to the living room replacing the mug bag on the coffee table and so they begin again the rituals from hell that prevent me from doing so much in my life appear again as if like clock work, i have a 3 seater sofa on which i have two cushions on either side of the sofa, where i tend to sit at the end where the coffee table is. I have to pick the cushion up several times and bat the sofa clear of any ash that might have accidently fallen, i then have to check down the side of the sofa to see if any ash has fallen down there either, but as this mind has exactly that, a mind if its own, strange that isnt it when you think of it like that a mind with a mind of its own, well this mind now tells me to continue to bat the sofa free of ash with the cushion and check down the sides several times more until the frustration levels rise inside me as if almost feeling defeated and being forced to prolong something against my will when all i want to do is just get in bed any lay peacefully with myself for a while, but not for this obsessive compulsive mind, its got other ideas. I have to continue this ritual a while longer only this time im checking the cup to see if the cigarette is still in there which is clearly not having only just flushed it away down the toilet but no its still not happy back to the toilet we go just to check that it has been flushed away and it clealy has but just to be sure we will flush the toilet once more, but now ive touched the toilet and my hands smell of cigarettes and in its mind that can only mean one thing and that is one of contamination, you sigh a huge breath knowing whats about to come the life draining soul destroying rituals contnue further as you begin to wash your hands, three squirts of anticeptic hand wash just because thats the number its selected that its happy with as the threats of horendous consequences churn through your head if you dont comply with your minds say so, but never happy the uncertainty sets in as your tireing vulnerability leaves you wide open to continue the rituals over and over, finally its happy so you dry your hands on a towel as my knuckles begin to sting, bright red and cracked as blood weeps slightly out of the wounds. Finaly i can go and get in bed. But Did i turn the cooker off. Bare in mind ive not used the cooker for days so clearly it isn’t switched on and even if i had accidently caught one of the knobs when passing, it would still be off anyway as it needs switching on at the wall from the master switch. But hey this mind aint happy, so off we go some more if by now we hadnt had enough. I have to check each individual dial making sure every one of them is turned to the top in the off position and then stand back and look at them with the eye line one by one just to clarify one hundred percent that they are actualy all turned off but as your mind by now starts to switch in to overdrive as the autopilot has well and truly kicked in, the mind screams at you internaly with the horrific threats of death if you dont undergo the same ritual over and over again, as if a school teacher shouting at a pupil in class for not paying attention which sets doubt in yourself to weather this cooker is actualy really switched off or not, but clearly it is, ah but is it as your mind argues over and over all the while still continuing to remind you of the possible consequences if you don’t fulfil its demands. Finaly after a while its happy but check the switch to make sure its off you tell yourself as you start to walk away but is it your mind shouts as you stop and return to it to check once more, There is another switch at the side of the cooker switch which now also comes in to play did i catch that swith by accident when i checked the cooker switch and so this continues over and over until the mind sees fit for you to retire to your bed, and suddenly it hits you ive got to turn the kitchen light out now and law and behold there are 2 other switches at the side of that switch. So you can only imagine how much more time i have to spend fulfiling these debilitating rituals. Finally the mind secomes and sees fit that its happy for me to retire. But if only that was true, I still have to undergo several shakes of my quilt until it falls just right on my bed, it’s almost as if my tortured mind is pursuing complete and utter perfection, the pillows come next of which I have four of so you can only imagine the shaking and straightening up of those that is required in order to appease this forceful threatening mind before I can try to lay in bed peacefully once more, wishing to be able to just drift off to sleep so I don’t have to revisit and undergo the horrendous rituals until tomorrow that is, i do often dream of living a normal life without these debilitating rituals, but for now I remain a slave to my mind inside my own head and continue to obey this evil mind to try to safeguard all that is good in my life.

By Brett Pomfrey