Last night I went out to a new goth club. It was over 40C again here yesterday and I was bone tired, with that hot, angry restlessness that makes relaxing not just difficult but very unsatisfying. I met up with my shrink earlier in the week, who told me that I’m stressed and driven because I’m involved in so many ‘start up’ projects, all of which are high risk and take loads of work. She suggested that every project needs money and at least one partner to make it work without it killing me. I also met up with an amazing guy from Scotland, Ron Coleman, who said roughly the same thing but with a whole lot of practical suggestions and details about how the hell to do that. Damn exciting!

My shrink and I also talked about ‘adult days’ which are days where I have to be responsible and run things. It’s not that great a way to describe them, since some of my adult parts are decidedly not useful on adult days (like me!) and some child parts are, but it’s what we’re working with at the moment. I wind up with too many of them. It becomes like a parent who never gets a break, stuck in parent mode 24/7 and starting to crash. I don’t get a lot of days off from this. Everything gets scheduled. The anxious driven-ness can turn even fun and play and friends into work, something we have to do. There’s not a lot of room for going wild in any form.

Last night I went to a new goth club, and let a little bit loose. Many multiples will tell you that different parts handle things like alcohol differently. My system seems to have two settings – can’t handle it at all, no upside, no good feelings. The first drink makes legs prickle and any more make us sick. Or there’s me. I can’t seem to get drunk. I’m 30 (or at least, the body is) and I’ve never been drunk. We’ve been psychotic. Or high from allergic reactions. But never just gone out and got a bit plastered. This irritates me. I pushed things a bit last night and found that I never seem to get to a place where I feel anything. I don’t get sad, or giggly, or feel more relaxed. I just drink things, which to me taste like cordials. To the rest of my system taste like kerosene, mainly. At some point, if I drink enough, I throw up. That’s so bloody disappointing. I’m sitting in a club, dressed up, that mix of hyped and insecure that’s just begging for some alcohol to wash away the sharp edges, and I’m waiting to feel something. Nothing kicks in. I find myself thinking wistfully of the last time we had a local anaesthetic at the dentist and took all evening to get our head screwed on straight again.

Then Nine Inch Nails comes on and lights a fire in my bones. I get up to dance next to a speaker pounding bass through my body like an electric current, the air tastes of smoke machine and I’m shortly deaf in my right ear. And it feels fantastic.

I love the contrast between the expectation and the reality of places like this. There’s no Matrix style stripped back nightclub full of harsh and frightening people. There’s young ones and oddballs and freaks having a good time in a safe place. A few dancers have come from a fancy dress party. One is super friendly and still has green body paint in his eyebrow. We commiserate about how difficult the green is to wash off. Another is still wearing his Crocodile Dundee outfit. He is fearless and theatrically acts out each song. During Billy Idol’s White Wedding he’s on his knees proposing and bouncing himself off the floor with one hand. People laugh and smile at each other, close their eyes to dance. The room has no air conditioning and feels like a furnace. I’m sweating everywhere. Even my wrists are beading sweat to drip off my finger tips. We dance and escape to the air con downstairs or the crowded beer garden, then dance again. I can’t dance as much as I’d like, so I take photos and amuse myself by irritating people following me on twitter who are used to sensible, thoughtful tweets about mental health.

Weirdly, this morning, no hangover. I’m the brightest and most cheerful person in my house. Considering that most mornings we feel pretty crap, and some mornings we get a really bad fibromyalgia ‘hangover’, this is weird, nice, but frustrating. I’d swap in a heartbeat, it would be much better to have the kind where you have a decent night first and no one to blame but yourself.

So, for now, I’m chalking that one up as a highly successful experiment and looking forward to more. Music makes me feel great. Alcohol is expensive and mostly irrelevant. I need better boots. ‘Not adult’ time is good for me. Cool bananas. I can work with that.