#about it is difficult

Long story short, I think it's incredibly difficult to truly appreciate just how fucking weird brains can be when pushed to their absolute limits (especially where trauma is involved). And nothing quite encapsulates that for me more than the circumstances which lead to my involuntary hospitalisation on the other side of the planet last year! Basically, due to a cumulation of insanely stressful life factors between January and June last year, I ended up having a psychotic break featuring hallucinations, persecutory delusions, and delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately, I was still acting just normal enough before my pre-planned trip to the US last year that nobody quite picked up on it until after I left Australia (although in hindsight I was definitely having hallucinations before the trip). Anyway, I quickly grew more deranged after that due to a combination of factors, such as being socially isolated from my support network, missing my connecting flight to NYC at LAX (and absolutely lacking the executive function to rebook one), as well as being separated from my luggage. I also misplaced my wallet and glasses (but somehow managed to hold onto my passport, thank god). Thankfully, I did have my credit card details stored on my phone, so I managed to book a room in a Holiday Inn for several days, which I only left to eat at the McDonald's across the road in a state of constant hypervigilance. I became convinced that I was a secret CIA sleeper agent and that the CIA had killed my cousin (who had suicided some nine years prior). Eventually, I decided that I desperately needed to return to Australia and tried to make my way back to the Australian embassy, missing its closing time by 15 minutes. Lost and confused, I spent a lot of time wandering about in circles hoping that whoever was tailing me would lose my scent. I sent my lawyer an email from an Apple store stating that I had "shaken the fabric of reality and discovered my moral values" and that I wanted to go home now. I got hungry and hunkered down in a McDonald's again. I sat there for a while having occasional moments of clarity where I would be like 'holy shit I think I am losing my fucking mind'. During one of these moments, I asked to borrow the restaurant's phone and called 911 on myself. I then had a very vivid and soothing hallucination of my Honours thesis supervisor who I had not seen in a decade putting on a bad Australian accent (he's American) telling me that everything would be okay and I would get through this. Then the police turned up and I screamed at this LAPD officer about how I was a proud Australian citizen, that I was going to become PM one day, and that when I was Prime Minister (of Australia) I would ... *check notes* fix Los Angeles International Airport? And then I got sectioned. lol As for how all this relates to Meredith Stannard, I think it's very cool and sexy for me to have already been a massive fan of a character who more or less experiences canonical delusions (and implied hallucinations) so I can continue processing this absolutely bizarre batshit experience that happened to me the way I know best (terrorising fictional characters). It definitely gave me more insight into how somebody in that frame of mind (and not sleeping for days!!) might end up putting dots together that aren't there because their frames of reference are wrong, or they believe God is sending them signs, or what have you. tl;dr I was always fascinated by how Meredith's sanity slippage has a very slow build up (she carried that red lyrium sword around for YEARS!) for her to just finally snap the way she does, and although I have written snippets set in that time frame before, I think I'll be able to do it in an even better and more meaningful way now.