Not the best raspberry mojito I've ever had...

Well, it's fairly early on Sunday morning and guess where I am? On a yacht with action geek? In a heap in the gutter? Luxuriating in my fancy sparkly bedsheets? No. I'm in my old bedroom at my parents' house after one of the most spectactularly disastrous nights out of my life.

Things started pretty well. I managed to get myself into an outfit that

A. Didn't make me look like "atomic mutton".
B. Suited the ridiculous weather we' re having
C. Actually fit without the need for safety pins and odd stances.

My best mate picked me up and we went to her house to wait for the taxi. She showed me the guys she's been e-mailing online and I helped her to sift out the hideous ones who seemed to appear to share the same gene pool as Shrek.

We got into town and went to a really nice, quiet bar where I don't know why, but we started to drink Kir Royales. This was a bit of a stupid thing to do because champagne always gives me killer hangovers and it was one of the drinks ex and I had as welcome drinks at our wedding so I was having bizarre sensory flashbacks.

We stayed in there until about half nine then went to meet some of our other mates in another bar. I had spent most of the evening so far just whinging about supertwat and thought I had got it all out of my system. I especially thought this as my mate had been helping me to compose some funny return texts to the dodgy scouser and we had been having a right laugh at some of his cheeky replies.

We met the rest of the girls in another bar and they ordered a round of raspberry mojitos. Now normally I would have been like a labrador after a ten mile bound round a hillside faced with one of those lovely fruity boozy cocktails but I wasn't. I felt like I was trying to drink sand and whilst everyone else downed drink after drink, I literally couldn't swallow anything or even get one sip of the stuff down me. Everyone kept trying to gee me along and I did laugh a lot (especially when one of the girls admitted that at Pontins last year on a hen weekend she had snogged some lad who had then turned out to be 14 and had just won a "junior magician" competition - it's not often a grown woman admits that she has inadvertantly snogged a baby paul daniels!!)

However, I just couldn't get into the swing of things and by the time we had visited a couple more bars, I was feeling decidedly blue. I couldn't even raise a smile when my mate told me the story again about how one of the worst moments of her life was realising she was snogging some bloke up against the window of the pound shop and that he had given her a love bite but she had to teach at school the following day; it's not often a primary school teacher rocks up for work with a huge love bite which she receives pressed up against the window of "Poundland"!

We ended up in a shitty little club which normally is a right laugh as it plays exactly the right combination of cheese to sing along to and dance like a loon. I walked in and as soon as I did I saw one of my mates who is also the girlfriend of one of supertwat's mates. I don't know what happened really after that. I went to say hello to her but suddenly needed to get out. I went to the loo to try and calm myself down but I just ended up on the floor of the cubicle having a massive panic attack. I came out of the loos after someone had been banging on the door for ages and the whole room was absolutely packed. Every area of mirror space was taken up and people were virtually whacking each other with handbags to catch a glimpse of themselves. It was like a cage full of very well made up and slightly tipsy battery hens.
I don't quite know how it happened then but a path seemed to clear right in front of me and I caught a full shot of myself in the mirror. I had mascara all down my face. My eyes were really puffy and swollen and a panda would have had fewer dark circles. I saw clearly for the first time how tired I looked and just how much weight I'd lost as I could see my ribcage across the whole front of my chest. It was then that I had the mother of all panic attacks. I just needed to get out.
I fought my way through the massive queue of girls and ran as fast as I could down the stairs of the club (which is no mean feat in high heels and on a spiral staircase) and just made it out of the door and onto the street before I literally collapsed just to the right of the club doors. Now, I don't know if this would have been indicative of any town across England but, as I lay there on the floor, completely unable to breathe and just sobbing, people were stepping over me to get into the club and the doormen completely ignored me.

I managed to crawl over to a table and chairs at the far end of the patio area and pulled myself up onto the chair and sat with my head between my knees. Bearing in mind I'd only had 2 and a half drinks then I was nowhere near drunk. I was struggling to breathe and I just couldn't stop crying and shaking.

I then felt an arm round me and it was my mate who is ex's mates girlfriend. She was lovely and just kept saying "It'll all be alright; he's only a boy. Don't get yourself like this over a boy".
My best mate then appeared and was almost hysterical as she could't find me in the club. They contacted my dad and he came to get me as I just needed to get home. I sat on that chair outside the club and lay my head on the table and just sobbed and shook uncontrollably for the 20 mins it took my dad to get there.

I've never been one of those girls who cries in club toilets. In fact, I've always raised a rather wry smile at all the "He's not worth it; you're better than that" conversations I've heard over the years so I couldn't believe the depths to which I'd now sunk.
My poor dad then appeared outside the club and my best mate helped him to put me in the car. I was completely hysterical by now and couldn't breathe at all. I kept saying over and over "Daddy, I don't even know who I am anymore; I don't even have a name". My dad said that I would always have a name and that it was my family name and that I was his little girl, my mum's little girl and my brother's big sister and I always would be and noone could take that away from me.

He said that I wasn't to go home to my house but was to come and stay with them for a bit. He took me to my house to collect some things and then drove me back to theirs. He made me a big cup of tea and my mum made up my old bed again in my old bedroom. I sobbed most of the night and woke up this morning to my lovely dad having made me breakfast in bed. I'm not sure whether or not I'll end up staying here for a few more nights though as I feel utterly wretched.

I don't think ex will ever know just how much pain and suffering he's caused for both me and all my family and friends. I'm trying so hard to carry on with things as normal but I just can't get my head around the fact that he is gone.

Have got to go now cause I've got to do a load of lesson planning for work tomorrow. Funny but I actually can't wait to get back to work - even if it does mean that I'll spend the whole week rehearsing a gymnastics display with my class for the summer fete (a fete worse than death!) and practising the songs for the end of term production; not sure my eardrums will actually survive it!

Anyway, off now to go home and collect some stuff and have a shower cause I'm filthy after collapsing in the street - poor mum she's going to have to wash these sheets now, they're black!

Will update again soon.


XXXXXXXX Candy

P.S Just noticed that my blog has started to archive itself into months as we're now in June. How cool is that? I'm an experienced blogger now! Wonder if I can put that on my CV???