Of course, the whole twenty minutes on the train, I was very annoyed. Once the train arrived in town, I got off and waited for her, not out of courtesy this time, but simply to express how annoyed I was.
"You could of waited for me!", I said to her as she approached me.
She said nothing.
So I decided to leave it. I've done nothing wrong and yet i'm the one who is left feeling shit because of her inability to do what anyone would do. And it's only because it's me that she does it. She doesn't like me. It's the same with my mum, although not as much these days. My mum doesn't like me much either because of my depression. You'd think that my mum of all people would be understanding of an illness when she has cerebal paulsey herself. She hates it when people aren't willing to give her that little bit of extra time to say something or do something and rightly so of course. Yet, she's hesitant to even acknowledge that her son has a problem, choosing instead to berate me for it. Again, it's not so much now, but in the past, I've felt so victimised by her and Laura and it's only now that things seem to be getting better - without any support from either of them I might add. It's only been with the help of people like my friends in college and the people I talk to online and James Riley who have helped me feel better about myself. I just feel that for at least the past three years, I've been made to feel like my illness is my fault by my own family and even though i'm now beginning to feel better, i'm still being punished for it with acts like that which I've just described with Laura.
Of course, this isn't the only time it's happened either. There are many instances in which I've been pushed aside. How am I supposed to change things for the better with both my mum and Laura if neither are willing to change with me?
I am glad to say that frankly, in terms of emotional support, I don't need them. They've made me not need them. I've had to learn to detach myself from them because neither of them were there to support me when I needed them the most. And although the relationship with my mum is slightly easier recently, with Laura, it's still terrible. I try and try so damn hard with both of them, yet I still get treated like shit.
So, back to Thursday. Got in work, told Gary that I'd printed off the rest of the business cards, since he wanted 50 and I'd only printed off 20 to make sure he liked them.
"Where's the printer?", Peter asked me, referring to the printer that Gary had bought off Chris for �25.
"You wanted me to bring it?"
"We need it"
"But I thought you bought it for me", I turned to Gary and said, but he interrupted me.
"Well alright, how about you have that one and we have your old one?"
"Yeah, that's fine"
So even though I pretty much knew now that Gary had assumed that I was doing the cards out of the goodness of my heart, I was glad that I at least got to keep the printer.
The day was pretty boring. Nothing much happened at all. My mum came into the shop around 2pm, but Gary was out. I asked her if she had talked to him about me wanting payment for the cards I had designed him. She said she hadn't and that it wasn't a good time to discuss it with him so I said that I'd do it instead. Peter was there too and he asked me what I was on about and I explained that I had not done those business cards for free, but, that Gary thought that I had. Peter seemed to think that I should tell Gary that, but still, the thought of saying "oh and by the way, you've gotta pay me for those", isn't something I want to do.
Since the day was so damn boring and Gary had gone home for the day anyway, I decided to go home early, around 2:20pm.
Yesterday, in the morning, I had put the kettle on and went into the living room to watch TV. But I had forgotten to go back to the kettle. Laura had come downstairs by now and had gone into the kitchen to make herself a drink. To my surprise she actually made me one and brought it into the living room for me. Absolutely amazed I was.
Now of course, to most people this would be trivial, but like I said at the beginning of this entry, this is most definitely not something that happens often. Infact, I can't remember it happening at all, which is why I was so surprised that she did it.
I took my old printer into work and when I got there, there was a new guy whose name I later found out to be Dan, Peter's Dad. He had come over from Denmark to see the shop, as he has business dealings with Gary. He had brought his laptop with him and asked me to hook up my printer to it. However, after trying to match the lead to the port on the back of the laptop, it appeared that my printer was way too old, as there was no port for it. So, as if it was nothing at all, Dan then gave me �80 to go buy a new printer, as if it was pennies to him! �80 is a lot of money to me.
I did ask he asked and went to buy a printer from down the road, but by the time I got back, he and Gary had gone to some meeting so I had to wait to hook it up, as he'd taken his laptop with him.
The day was pretty uneventful. All I did was sit about, and walk around the shop aimlessly.
Gary and Dan came back after a while and I gave Dan his change and proceeded to set the laptop up with the printer. Finally, a computer to play with! Of course, what I completely forgot was that Dan = Danish = Non-English Windows! Everything was in Danish.
Still, that didn't stop me. I knew what to do regardless and although there was a bit of a problem getting it to work, I soon had it up and running and I was pleased.
Dan asked me to open up an Excel file and print it off for him to test the printer. It was some sort of work plan and it had everyone's names at the top who worked in the shop. I saw Gary's, I saw Peter's, I saw Colin's and I saw Laura's. I didn't see mine. I already know that Gary has no need for me in the shop, but for him to not even include me in some sort of workplan was a pretty big put down for me. However, there was a horizontal scrollbar on the Excel page which I didn't use and i'm hoping that perhaps my name was just a little off the page and I couldn't see it. But really, I wouldn't be that surprised now if it wasn't. I feel more like some sort of charity case working there. Everyone makes me feel like it. I don't do that much important stuff. Everyone else always jumps to it because they don't trust me to do it as if i'm some sort of invalid. The only reason why i'm still working there is that i'm still hoping that if I work there long enough then I'll be able to show everyone that i'm just as capable of doing the job as anyone of them are.
Gary paid me for the days I had worked in the shop that week. He asked me to count it just to make sure he had got it right so I did and he'd done it wrong.
"Yeah, you've done it wrong", I told him.
"Have I? What have I given you?"
"�90"
"And what should it be?"
"�120"
"You've worked four days this week?"
"Yeah"
He then kind of sigh and counted out another �30 for me and handed me it, before apologising for giving me the wrong amount.
That made me a little happier. The fact that I had �120 in my hand which was all mine. I went the back five minutes later to put �50 of it in the bank which put my balance up to �80 and that pleased me too. When I got back however, Gary said that I could go home and then turned to Laura, saying she couldn't. Of course, this should be a good thing, but to me it wasn't. Him telling me I could go home but Laura can't meant that he needed her there, but not me. That I wasn't of help there. That she was. It really is the worst thing to be told - even indirectly - that you're not needed. It makes me feel so useless.
I told him that I was starting college next week so I wouldn't be able to work and that I'd call him to know when I could. He said ok, but didn't sound that arsed. It was an almost patronising acknowledgement of what I'd just said.
"I can work Monday though if you want me to", I told him.
"Nah that's alright, Monday's gonna be mad"
"Ok"
Now this confused me. If it's going to be mad then I would of thought help would be a good thing. That it allows him to be somewhere else if I help out with stuff too. But I guess it just reaffirms the fact that he doesn't think much of me in terms of how valuable I am in the shop which again, is such a blow to my already low self confidence.
On my way home, I bought a pizza. Chargrilled chicken and smoked bacon with cheese. How nice does that sound? Sadly, it wasn't. Also, i'm currently holding it responsible for a pain in my chest that I've still got over 24 hours later. It's like there's something stuck in my chest, as if I've swallowed too much at the same time or something. But throughout last night and today, I've had a pain in my chest that at times has been excruitiatingly bad. The kind of pain that makes you double up. I actually tried making myself throw up to see if I could dislodge whatever's stuck, but to no avail. Perhaps there's nothing there and it's a pain with my body itself and not a foreign object, but whatever it is, it's hurting a lot and i'm hoping that it won't stick around too long. Right now it's not too bad, but everytime I swallow, a second later, I can feel whatever it is in my chest again.
I'll end on a good note, however, by saying that when I came home yesterday and went to my bedroom, there was �20 on my desk and I wondered why. Later, my mum explained to me that while cleaning my mum she had found �40 of my own money! It must of dropped down the back of somewhere and I'd forgotten about it. �40 of lost money, all mine!
