An easy target

Sheesh. It's 8.23am on Saturday. I've been asleep since Thursday night, after staggering my way from group therapy, reeling from the lambasting I took for being late. Oh, and for the unforgivable crime of buying a coffee and a doughnut on the way.

Apparently drinking coffee and eating doughnuts is a crime in the country whose national emblem is practically a Boston fucking Cream.

What my dear acquaintances in group therapy fail to understand is that they're lucky I make it to group therapy at all. Indeed, being a few minutes late is a small price to pay when it would be so much easier for me to not attend. Some weeks it isn't even a choice. I don't choose not to attend, I just can't face the thought of leaving the house. It doesn't matter that it's group. It could be a meeting, a social event, a walk to the convenience store, anything. There could be a guy on the front lawn giving away a suitcase of money. Basically, group can take what I'm able to give them and, if that isn't enough, then they can fuck off because they're obviously not as ill as I am if they have the option to be so nauseatingly pious about something as trivial as timekeeping.

Ah yes, the doughnut.

So apparently walking in late eating a doughnut quadruples the severity of my crime. It's because of what they call "optics" in the business world. The natural flaw in human nature that assumes that as I walk into the hospital where my group therapy is held, I must be thinking, "Hmmm...I'm not really late enough yet. Maybe I should buy a doughnut just to really rub it in. That'd really piss everyone off."

What my esteemed acquantances fail to understand is that the coffee and doughnut at 5.30pm - or, just to bend to the finger-waggers - 5.50pm, may be my first meal of the day. If I'm so anxious that I can't leave the house then I can't do grocery shopping. If I can't do grocery shopping then eventually my food in the house will run out. If there's no food in the house then - naturally - I can't eat. D'uh. If I don't eat, then there is the chance I may either fall asleep or pass out during the two-hour group therapy session.

Besides, it's a big fucking deal for me to even buy a coffee these days. That's a luxury, a special treat, a once-in-a-month occasion. How can I possibly justify BUYING a coffee when I can make it at home for free? Bad enough that that's the case, let alone enjoying said coffee for the duration of the elevator ride just so that a bunch of whining people can make me feel doubly guilty for buying it in the first place. Maybe that's what they really mean when they say, "double double" in Tim Hortons.

Note too that the majority of criticism came from a group member who (a) has a job (b) has a lover and soul mate (c) owns their own house, (d) was bowing out from group that week anyway, forever. Wow. Must be tough to deal with this guy who has the audacity to turn up late with a coffee and doughnut. How to cope? Must be awful. What a shame. How infuriating.

For next week's group I must remember my place. I'll try to remember that as my arms convulse uncontrollably from the lack of venlafaxine in my bloodtsream because I missed Friday's dose, making typing a bit of a trial. As I sit here with my calves cramping up because I haven't consumed any fluids in 48 hours. Barely able to focus from such a long sleep, jawbone aching from the tension. It's not wellness, a career, friends, family that I need, I just need to be on-time to group therapy and everything will be OK.

Fuck that shit.

So now I'm not good enough for ANY Canadians. Not even those stricken with the same mental illnesses as me.

Way to make me feel alone, very alone.