newday

You're sure waking up in a strange room without your memories is nothing more than horror story cliché for others, but you get a strong familiar sense of “not this shit again”. You know who you are, at least. You know this isn't your room. You take [[an inventory]] of what else you know.

You're wearing a hoodie you know belongs to you, and sweatpants that are yours. In your pocket is your phone, although it's out of battery. You have some change, too. That's about all. You don't feel hungover, which suggests a blackout, not an unusual event considering your condition. The room you're in isn't exactly unfriendly - there's some posters on the wall opposite you, and the cool light of dawn is filtering through the slat shades. It's a little messy, some clothes on the floor next to a laundry hamper. The sofa you woke up on is a little lumpy and uncomfortable, but it's not the worst. There's a TV but you can't find a remote. There doesn't seem to be a landline. There's no computers that you can see, although you don't want to dig too much, not knowing whose possessions you're dealing with. You're alone. [[Explore.|kitchen]] [[Find a phone charger.]] [[Call out.]] [[Put TV on at the switch.]] [[Try to remember what your last memory was.]]

The first door you push open leads to a kitchen. There's a pile of dishes in the sink, and some groceries still in a bag on the countertop. You check the fridge - there's milk, but you're not sure what the date is so you can't tell if the use-by means it's alright or not, and don't want to risk sniffing it to check if it's okay. There's some yoghurt pots, too, but same issue there as with the milk. In the breadbin is a half-loaf of white bread. You check it for mould - it looks fine. You stuff a slice in your mouth dry. Whoever lives here won't notice a single slice, surely. You take a second, after rationalising that, for good measure. You find a clean glass and fill it up with tap water, chug it, then do that again. You feel slightly better. There's no clues to where you are in here, though. You go [[back to the living room.]] (set: $investigation += 1)

You try not to disturb this stranger's belongings too much as you search. You find a cable! And a plug adapter! But it's the wrong type of cable for your phone. You internally have a rant about iPhones and every other type of phone being different, grumbling about what makes Apple so god damn special, but it doesn't get your phone any more charged. [[Find something else to do.]] (set: $investigation += 1)

You raise your croaky voice and ask, "Hello?" No reply. "HEY! Is anyone home?" Nothing. "I'm peeing on your couch! Piss all over your cushions!" Yeah, definitely nobody home. [[What next?]] (set: $investigation += 1)

You flick the TV on with the buttons on the side of the screen. Who needs remotes? Not you! It's on HDMI output, though, and the HDMI cable in question is hanging uselessly, connected to nothing. You can't find the button that switched it back to regular TV. You assume it's on the remote you just decided you didn't need. [[Shit.]] (set: $investigation += 1)

You know you've been in a bit of a haze lately. You can remember some time recently - probably within the past fortnight - hanging out with an old friend at their home. You petted their dog and drank a little and watched cartoons. You've been engaging in some self-destructive and risk-taking behaviours. Clear signs that you're in the middle of an episode - but being able to identify that you're doing something bad for you and being able to stop are two very seperate skills, and you have not yet mastered the latter. You went drinking... recently? There was a period of time after that that remember parts of. You suffered a horrid hangover, then recovered at some point, and grabbed some bread and snacks and fruit juice. You have no idea if that took one day or two or three. You've been keeping your blackout blinds shut tight over your window, and you tend not to look at clocks, so, who knows. It feels like it was maybe two days. Then... Then what? You don't remember leaving the house. You're pretty sure at some point you had a bowl of cereal with melted ice cream instead of milk because what you had in the fridge had visibly curdled. So you must have left the house at some point after that. In any case, it's been too soon since your last drinking session for you to be able to afford another, and, as you've already assessed, you don't feel hungover. Well. That was a whole load of [[useless introspection.]] (set: $investigation += 1)

Now what? [[Find a phone charger.]] [[Call out.]] [[Put TV on at the switch.]] [[Explore.|kitchen]] (if: $investigation > 4)[ [[Explore the rest of the house|hallway]]]

[[Find a phone charger.]] [[Call out.]] [[Put TV on at the switch.]] [[Try to remember what your last memory was.]] (if: $investigation > 4)[ [[Explore the rest of the house|hallway]]]

There's two doors in the hallway. You poke your head into one and find the bathroom, empty. The other is ajar and appears to be a bedroom. [[Bathroom]]. [[Bedroom]].

[[Call out.]] [[Put TV on at the switch.]] [[Try to remember what your last memory was.]] [[Explore.|kitchen]] (if: $investigation > 4)[ [[Explore the rest of the house|hallway]]]

[[Find a phone charger.]] [[Put TV on at the switch.]] [[Try to remember what your last memory was.]] [[Explore.|kitchen]] (if: $investigation > 4)[ [[Explore the rest of the house|hallway]]]

[[Find a phone charger.]] [[Call out.]] [[Try to remember what your last memory was.]] [[Explore.|kitchen]] (if: $investigation > 4)[ [[Explore the rest of the house|hallway]]]

You rinse your mouth with a bottle of mouthwash that's standing on the edge of the sink, and use the toilet. The bathtub is a little grimy, and the mirror is streaked from having been wiped down poorly. You can't judge - it's not much worse than your bathroom at home. You've got bags under your eyes, but that's not really a new development. You don't appear to have shaved your hair recently either, which is a good sign - that's happened a couple times during blackouts, and once, you got a pretty rad undercut out of it! The other time, though, you just wound up bald and felt miserable for months waiting for it to grow back. You have a surreptitious little peek into the cupboards, and close them swiftly when you spot loose razorblades. Don't need to be going down that kind of path in a stranger's house. Definitely one of the ruder things you could do. All that's left next is to check the [[bedroom|Bedroom]].

Empty, as you suspected. The sheets are creased and unmade. Definitely belonging to a kindred spirit. There's some dust-covered pictures on the wall of flowers, and you strongly suspect they were there when this person moved in and they just never bothered to take them down. There's a laptop next to the bed, on charge. You open it, hoping you might be able to at least find out whose house you're in, and maybe you can open an incognito window, log in to your own accounts and contact people, let them know you're safe, find out where you are, try get a lift home if it's too far to walk. But - of course - there's a password on it. The hint is 'babe <3'. You have no idea who this person even is, never mind who their 'babe' is, so you don't even try to guess. You also consider that using a loved ones name as your password is like, discouraged in basic password creation 101, but whatever. It kept you out, at least, so it's at least mildly effective. Heaving a sigh, you shut it and put it back where you got it from. Nothing left but to [[leave the house.]]

You squint at the first rays of daylight as you open the front door. It was unlocked already, so you don't feel too bad about leaving it unlocked when you go. You're emerging from a small terraced house, in what seems to be a council estate. Which is all fine and well, but you don't recognise it at all. Checking the street name doesn't make things any clearer. You wander aimlessly, seeking some manner of clue. In the distance, you spot [[a corner shop.]]

You read the dates on the newspapers outside. They don't mean much to you. (if: (history:) contains "kitchen")[Seems like the milk and yoghurt in the fridge would've been okay to eat and drink after all, at least. Not that you plan on going back for them. ] You count the change in your pocket quickly - £4.57. You go inside, figuring if they can't help you, you can at least buy a bottle of juice to keep you going. The shopkeeper looks at you from over the counter, still a little bleary-eyed. "Can I help you?" he asks, without any enthusiasm in the offer. "Er. Yeah. Can you tell me where I am?" you ask. He tells you. You're nonplussed. You ask how far it is from your home. "'bout an hour away?" he shrugs. Excellent. You're miles from home and you've got less than a fiver to get you back. "Right. Um. May I use your phone?" He shrugs, passes you the handset. You dial in one of the few numbers you have memorised by heart and move over to the cooler so he doesn't overhear [[your conversation.]]

"Hi, mum," you begin, but are immediately cut off with a stream of panicked and relieved babble, then a lecture on not answering your phone. You explain that your phone's dead, you're an hour away from home, and don't know how you got there. The line goes silent. "Hello?" "You don't know how you got there." "Yeah. I think I've had another blackout." She sighs. "Okay love. Find out the postcode and I'll be there soon." You cover the reciever and ask the shopkeeper - he tells you you're best off waiting in the library around the corner, but gives the postcode for the shop anyway. [[You relay that info to your mum.]]

She agrees to come pick you up. You sheepishly thank the shopkeeper and offer him a 50p tip as thanks. He grunts in acknowledgement and pockets it - you take that as a dismissal and follow his directions to the library. There are opening times on the door, but they vary between 8am and 10am each day, but you're not sure which day it is, or what time it is. You push the door open anyway and try find someone to ask. There's an older lady sat at a desk not too far into the building. She's copying numbers from cards into her computer, and doesn't look up when you ask her, "Hey, um- are you open now?" "Door's open, isn't it?" "Yeah, I just-- sorry. I wasn't sure." "It's fine. We're open. Welcome," she finished, with a handwave that doesn't make you feel terribly welcome, but you thank her anyway and head [[to the computers.]]

It takes what feels like forever for the one you picked to boot up. You click the browser icon and watch its treacle-esque progress. You relate - you feel like that trying to wake up most mornings. It doesn't make it any less frustrating. When it finally loads, you type in a url. [[twitter.com]] [[gmail.com]] [[facebook.com]] [[tumblr.com]]

You type in your username and password, glancing a little at the moments that show up, trying not to take in too much information from them - news raises your blood pressure, and if you get too upset, well, that's generally when blackouts happen. Your feed is absolutely barren - only your tweets are showing up. Following - 0 Followers - 0 Well. Looks like you've blocked everyone again. Fantastic. Now you're going to have to apologise to a bunch of people - again - and let them know they can follow you again if they want to, but that they don't have to. And why would they? This happens at least every 2 months. Most people are probably sick of it. You read back your tweets - the latest [[from two days ago.]]

You can't log in. You type in your url to at least assess the damage, and it says the page isn't available. Ah. You've deactivated. And probably changed your password. The joys. People are probably worried. You try [[recover your password.]]

(if: (history:) contains "recover your password." )[ There's the reset button. You put in a new password, hoping you'll actually remember it. You've lost track of how many passwords you've used over the years - so many it's not even worth guessing any more. You've locked yourself out of accounts that way. There we go. You're [[back on Facebook.]] (set: $sites += 1)] (else:)[Nothing worthwhile. A few spam emails, and one pizza coupon that would be interesting if you actually had any money, but you don't, so you delete it. What else? [[twitter.com]] [[facebook.com]] [[tumblr.com]]]

You're really not supposed to be on here. Several psychiatrists have told you to delete your account, since one wave of anons telling you to kill yourself landed you in hospital once (you say plural, but you strongly suspect it was just one of your ex friends with a shitty grudge). And then a bunch of your current friends began reblogging stuff saying "if you like this show you should probably kill yourself lmao" even though they knew you liked it, and that landed you back again. And then finally The Discourse started making you think you were actually the abuser in your old relationship even though you'd been diagnosed with C-PTSD after your ex told all your friends you talked shit about them behind their backs so they stopped talking to you so you had nobody to help when your ex started treating you like shit. So you wound up in hospital //again//. But you've got, like, 6 years worth of posts on here. It's not so easy to delete all of that. Well, maybe for some people it is, but you're a data hoarder and you have pictures saved on your hard drive from when you were 11. You've got LiveJournal icons on there somewhere from when you were 15. You can't do it. [[Check dashboard.]] [[Check the 5 messages that are giving you some anxiety.]] (set: $inbox to 0)

>i want to die! i wish i was dead! why am i not fucking dead already! >i'm just wasting space here i'm wasting everyone's time. what the fuck. i should just go loup off a bridge tbh >like all i do is eat and cry and drink and whine and make everyone around me sad. why not eat a handful of pills! >what's even stopping me? everyone hates me enough already i'm hardly gonna upset anyone. >fuck this i'm outie. Ah. Fantastic. [[Delete tweets.]] [[Leave them.]]

You put in your email, and it sends out a change-password link. Fairly simple. You go to your [[email|gmail.com]].

One of your friends posted statuses about you. One asked where you were, what was wrong, why your Facebook was deactivated. A shitty friend that you don't like but you're scared of pissing off (because he tells everyone that people who gets sick of his shit are scum and abusers or makes up stories about them being part of "weird" subcultures so everyone laughs at them) commented, saying, that you "probably just needed a break from Facebook! It's fine, don't worry, this happens all the time." Assures everyone you're never really in danger. Because he's the expert on your brain, of course. Asshole. [[twitter.com]] [[gmail.com]] [[tumblr.com]] (if: $sites > 3)[You think you're done here. [[Wait.]]]

You hastily delete them like you're sweeping dirt under the rug hastily before a flat inspection. [[Unblock and refollow friends.|Unblock and refollow friends.1]] [[Not yet.]] (set: $sites += 1)

You leave them there, a testament to your own stupidity. You don't even know who's seen them. Maybe everyone! Maybe no-one! You don't exactly remember what order the tweets and the blocking spree happened. Everyone who followed you knows you're a basket case anyway - it's even there in a disclaimer in your bio. Whatever. [[Unblock and refollow friends.|Unblock and refollow friends.2]] [[Not yet.]] (set: $sites += 1)

(if: (history:) contains "Delete tweets.")[Might as well refollow everyone now you're less of a mess. You have a peek at their profiles before refollowing, morbidly curious whether any of them thought you were dead or not. Nothing on anyone's public accounts, apart from a few of them asking if each other if anyone knew what happened to you. Apparently not. There's concern, but no outright panic, unless it's locked away in their locked twitters. You're kind of relieved. They noticed you were gone, and were worried, but not so worried you felt bad about it. Then you start to feel bad for not feeling bad about it. Can't win with brains like this one, can you? [[gmail.com]] [[facebook.com]] [[tumblr.com]]] (if: $sites is 4)[You think you're done here. [[Wait.]]]

You might as well get your shit together before subjecting them to your bullshit again. Time to see what else the internet has to offer while you're waiting. [[gmail.com]] [[facebook.com]] [[tumblr.com]] (if: $sites > 3)[You think you're done here. [[Wait.]]]

(if: $inbox is 1)[You scroll through, your eyes glazing over a little when you come across text posts, trying to avoid seeing anything that's gonna piss you off or upset you. You focus again when you see things you're interested in, like cute dog pictures or fandom stuff that doesn't have purity politics attached to it. Despite being well-practised in avoiding shitty posts, you still catch enough of one to get your blood pressure up a bit. You navigate to your own blog to get it off your screen and practise breathing exercises, picture the words you saw on a scrap of paper and then imagining it lighting on fire. It soothes you a little. You scroll through your own posts instead. You know //you// haven't posted anything that'll upset you, at least. (if: $sites < 3)[ [[twitter.com]] [[gmail.com]] [[facebook.com]]]] (if: $inbox is 0)[You try scroll down, but those unread messages keep catching your eye. You shouldn't have logged on. If you didn't log on you wouldn't have known they were there. What if they're more 'kill yourself' anons? What if you've done something horrid while you were blacked out and now there's a callout post floating around about you and everyone hates you forever and you'll never be allowed to be a better person and you should just kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill-- You take a deep breath. You tell yourself not to get worked up. It might be friends. You have been missing for a couple days. It might just be spam, even. You [[open your inbox|Check the 5 messages that are giving you some anxiety.]].] (set: $sites += 1) (if: $sites > 3)[You think you're done here. [[Wait.]]]

It's just a few friends asking if you're okay, and one of those fucking 'hey play my game' spam asks. You take a deep breath and reply privately to the friends asking for you. It's a vague reply, but to be fair, you only have vague answers - but you're safe, at least, so you let them know that much. Explain you've had a memory blackout lasting maybe about 2 days, but you're okay, just a little befuddled. You hope that's enough to comfort them. [[Check dashboard.]] (set: $inbox to 1)

The internet is surprisingly boring after potentially several days of not using it. You decide to log off and wander around the library. Pick up a few books, read the blurbs, flick through a few pages, put them back. The librarian notices you. "If you're reading them, could you put them on the trolley instead of putting them back?" You get flustered, try explain you were just reading being nosey because you were bored and waiting, you didn't mean to cause a hassle, don't want to give her any extra work. "It's fine. Even reading the blurbs, just chuck them on the trolley. Helps us. Counts as use, so we get more funding." She goes back to ignoring you. You grab a couple books that look interesting and take them to a table, [[flick through idly.]]

You don't especially know why you picked up a book on bipolar - you're currently living in mixed episode hell, nothing on paper is really going to make that go away. It might make you feel less alone, though. Most people don't get that mania isn't always a happy thing. They hear you're manic and think "hey, cool, at least you're not depressed and useless!" Like, sometimes that's true. But [[sometimes?]]

Sometimes it just means you're restless and ratty and keep starting projects but never able to concentrate long enough to finish it so you've got the entire contents of your cupboard pulled out to tidy up and reorganise but remembered as soon as your last tshirt hit the floor that you also [[have to paint your spare room;]]

You're all of the energy, with none of the euphoria that mania can bring. You're endlessly miserable. You're not quite depressed enough to be suicidal, but if you were, you'd be motivated and energetic enough to actually do it, so it's a dangerous cocktail. You're too depressed to get dressed properly and take care of your hygeiene, to remember to eat, but you're too hyperactive to stay in bed and save the rest of the world from seeing you. But this book seems to gloss over that. Sure. Mania is totally all fast cars, drugs, sex, alcohol and unopened credit card bills. That at least sounds sort of glamorous. You suspect it was written by someone with, at best, second-hand experience of living with bipolar. [[So you close it. Put it back on the trolley.]]

so you crack open a paint tin and slap the roller on the wall for about an hour then you go to make yourself lunch because it's 4pm and you forgot and your stomach's roaring so you stuff 2 packets of crisps and a string cheese in your face [[then do the dishes;]]

but you don't put them away because, hey, you just thought of a good way to sort the cables at the back of your TV so you know which is which and you don't have to play 'which ancient console am I unplugging whoops [[wait never mind that was the light';]]

so you do that, then sit down for a breather and turn on a game and get lost in that for 5 hours and suddenly it's 2am and your cupboard contents are still all over the floor and on your bed and [[the paint tin's still open and the dishes are still out;]]

so you try your damndest to get all of that tidied up at least a little bit but instead you just shove the cupboard pile on the floor and cover the paint tin up and nap for 3 hours because that's all your body needs now. And when you wake up you see the mess you've made but you can't get in the mindset to fix it all so you leave the house and run errands and forget what you're doing and because you're out and you brought your debit card you come back with £40 worth of impulse buys and no food and there's none left in the cupboards so you order takeout you can't afford. You know you're making a series of fuckups. But you can't stop. [[Now, though?]]

Some time passes as you flick through other books you pulled out - you're barely reading them, but you're sitting still and achieving a healthy level of dissociation, zoning out and forgetting about your situation as your eyes harvest up irrelevant facts about a football club you've never heard of. And then you're startled from your zoned out state by a familiar voice [[saying your name to the librarian.]]

"Uhh, no, I don't know that name... Is it the kid over there? They came in about an hour ago, they're the only person in I don't recognise." Your head shoots up during the conversation and you spot your mum. She's barely presentable - hair half wild and pyjamas on underneath a coat - but, then again, neither are you. You wave and say hey, carrying the books you pulled out to deposit on the trolley. The second you put them down, your mum pulls you into a tight hug, then pushes you back and stage-whispers [["What the fuck happened?"]]

You shrug. "I don't remember. I don't know how I got here." You glance at the librarian who's not looking at you, but you suspect she's still listening, maybe judging. "Can we talk about it in the car?" She nods, and escorts you outside, gripping your arm tight as if you're about to disappear again. You thank the librarian as you go, and she just nods. When you're in the car and belted up, she lets out a long sigh of relief, and asks again, [["What the fuck?"]]

You reiterate that you really don't know. That you've been struggling, that you're mixed state so you're full of energy but also depressed as hell and you had a blackout, evidently, you woke up in someone's house, unharmed but confused, and they were gone so you just left, walked 'til you found somewhere with a phone because yours died and there were no chargers. Speaking of - you plug your phone in to the car charger and it sparks to life, slowly, as if it's mad at you for letting it die in the first place. She nods slowly. It's not the first time you've went missing after a blackout, but it's probably [[the furthest away you've ever been.]]

"And are you... totally unharmed, y'know...?" She rubs her forearm without looking at you. You double-check, rolling up your own sleeves. Nothing fresh. "Looks like it." She nods slowly, then starts the engine. "Okay. [[You gonna come stay with us for a little while?"]]

You consider the offer. You've moved out and back in a couple times, for a variety of reasons. It wasn't super fun being in your mid 20s and still living with your parents, especially when your friends who don't have a cocktail of mentall illness were out and enjoying it and managing just fine. But your flat's a disaster area. You're struggling to take care of yourself. You moved in alone this time because your last flatmates made your life hell. But this... This isn't working out. And you've only 2 months left on your lease. And if you moved back in with your parents you wouldn't have to finish painting that fucking wall. [["Maybe."]]

She nods, and starts driving. Asks if you wanna talk her through what you're thinking, so you do. As you finish up explaining, your phone finally flickers into life, happy enough with the amount of charge it's gotten. It's only 10%, but it's plenty for it to boot up. She begins to reply, but her words are cut off by a stream of notifications from your phone. A bunch of missed calls from her, dad, a couple of your friends too. Some texts from friends, asking if you're okay, telling you that you're there if you want to talk, and that they saw your tweets. [[(Oh god, they saw your tweets.)]]

You text back some frantic apologies, let them know you're safe, let them know your phone died, let them know your mum's looking after you. It's embarassing, mostly. This shit, again. But at least some people care. You've been like this before, and been totally alone. You've come around from blackouts and had nobody notice, nobody check, nobody give a fuck. You've had your mum call up your old flatmates while you were missing and your phone was dead and they just told her "I think they're at a party? Don't worry, we'd know if something was up with them." Then you woke up in a hospital recovering from a really bad suicide attempt that you had no recollection of and when you got discharged and sent back to the flat, let them know what happened they just... shrugged it off. No worry, no guilt for having not checked in on you or having misled your mum, no nothing. At least now you have people who, at worst, halfway give a shit about you. [[Who would be a little bit sad if you were dead.]]

Which in some ways makes it way more embarassing that you keep blowing up on twitter and deleting everything and disappearing. It's actively inconveniencing people. But it's making you want to be less of a mess. [[For their sake, at least.]]

You and your mum talk a little longer on the journey home, before you hook your phone up to the aux cord. Turns out the last playlist you listened to before your phone died was your <a class="enchantment-link" href="http://playmoss.com/en/suoli/playlist/survival" target="_blank">emotional survival playlist</a> So, at least you were trying to get by. No matter what you did. No matter why you ended up 50 miles from home. You're not doing great. But you're doing a lot better. You might never be totally better. But you feel like you're gonna survive. [[...]]

Fuck it. They'll see the mess when you approve their follow requests, but it'll at least let them see how much you're struggling. You don't know how to properly verbalise that without going on sprees like this. You have a peek at their profiles before refollowing, morbidly curious whether any of them thought you were dead or not. Nothing on anyone's public accounts, apart from a few of them asking if each other if anyone knew what happened to you. Apparently not. There's concern, but no outright panic, unless it's locked away in their locked twitters. You're kind of relieved. They noticed you were gone, and were worried, but not so worried you felt bad about it. Then you start to feel bad for not feeling bad about it. Can't win with brains like this one, can you? Might as well see what else the internet has to offer while you're waiting. [[facebook.com]] [[gmail.com]] [[tumblr.com]] (if: $sites is 4)[You think you're done here. [[Wait.]]]

Double-click this passage to edit it.

End. //Thank you for playing.// This is a semi-autobiographical game. Bipolar is bullshit. But I'm getting better at dealing with it, after getting medicated and cutting out people who were aggravating my issues. If you're diagnosed and struggling with it, or suspect you may have it, <a class="enchantment-link" href="https://www.bipolaruk.org" target="_blank">Bipolar UK</a> has some helpful resources. <a class="enchantment-link" href="http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/bipolar-disorder" target="_blank">mind.org</a> is pretty good, too. The playlist I linked is a selection of songs that have either lifted my mood for long enough to keep my head above water or just straight up saved my life. I hope it helps someone. Also, this is my first attempt at really putting any code in a twine game, so I hope it worked. If it broke, please email me at xxsuoli@gmail.com so I can figure out how I fucked up. Thank you again. I hope all of you do better than survive.

This game contains some potentially triggering or upsetting content(link: " (listed here)")[ (mentions of past suicide attempts and abuse; references to self harm; online harassment; memory loss; mental illness generally)]. It's not too rough, but if you don't want to risk it, that's understandable. Otherwise, click here to [[begin|wake]].