Am I Mad?

By Amy Maiden

Based on a true story...Maggie Pentons life had become a drag living in her birth town in Blackrod, Scotland, with the small-minded people all bollocks and bullshit.

Long gone was the teenage dream of finding true love and happy ever after. Carrying the burden of suppressed emotions of death, friendship betrayal and relationship failures, Maggie sets out to find her true path, to remove the blocks that were crushing her soul.

From luxury apartments and mental institution to life on the streets, Maggie got on the train journey of her life, to be thrown into a different world, putting her faith to the ultimate test.

It left Maggie questioning,

Are ghosts real?
Is there a god?
Or am I mad?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467890489

Book preview

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© 2012 by Amy Maiden. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/09/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4678-9047-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-9048-9 (e)

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Contents

Amateur Witch

Snot Tears and Tantrums

Then I Met Harry

Relationship fuck ups

Things Go Bad To Worse

The Erratic Electrics

Total Rewind

Death

Mental Institution

The Dog The Cats And

The Radio

Sofa Surfing

The Shift

Swing

Communicating With

My Guides

Am I Mad?

Flora—The Goddess of Spring

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Amateur Witch

I hope, I say I hope, what I really mean to say is that I have hoped, prayed, Stamped my feet, shouted out to the universe, begged, pleaded, demanded and finally when all else had failed and all doors seemed like they were closed. I just dropped on my knees like a baby who is learning to take the first steps and bam straight down on to the floor and I cried, hysterically cried.

I need change!

I cried this to the source, the creator, the main guy, God, anyone! ‘Is anyone there? I want change’, I would plea.

‘Who is there?’

‘Is there anyone there?’

‘Can anyone hear me?’ I shouted, ‘because if you can, I would like change, I need something to change, I would welcome change, I would embrace change, I would accept change’. I desperately want something to change.

I cried this to the walls, my plants, Buddha and my African statue. Sobbing and snivelling in true style to the nothingness of my apartment, tears streaming down my face with the fully accelerated throttle of self pity.

‘I am really unhappy, can you not see that?’ I wailed at my plants.

I am more than just unhappy; I am dejected, dysphoric and feel spiritless. My life is shit.

My sad little life is shit! I carried on with my tears; feeling comforted in my own sad little state of shitness. I am unhappy with my choice in friends, my choice in men and my career. I wanted to do so much better with my life. How did I end up here?

I am miserable, I grumbled.

I want this constant feeling of utter misery that has consumed my heart to disappear, the sadness to dissolve from my soul. I am sick of this small little town, with its small minded people.

Something has just got to change. Change is for the good, change is for the better and I want change right now I demanded. I hate my life!

As I was not really expecting anyone to listen to me, I got my ass off the floor, wiped my snotty nose on my dressing gown sleeve and slung myself on the sofa and began to compose myself.

‘Why can’t my life change?’ I sighed.

Immediate transformation, I could just click my finger and change my world. Just like that!

I could be zoomed up, recalled, reprogrammed and start afresh. I could have a transfer in life. I could go and play for another team in another country because this life I have got right now is shit. I feel shit.

I carried on continuously moaning, whining, complaining and grumbling to the walls of my apartment for the rest of the entire night. Taking great care that I pointed out exactly what was so shit about my life.

There is a saying—mud sticks, let me tell you from my heart. How very true that particular saying is, when I say that it infectiously sticks to you like a bad smell. I can say this, I know, because I have been there. It is not nice, if truth be told it is rather shit, so I say open and honestly that this is true, very very true. Mud sticks.

Some years ago I had the chance to experience a real mud bath in Turkey. You climb in the therapeutic hot spring. The mud feels warm and milky against your skin. You then start to rub the mud over your body, smearing huge dollops up your arms and over your neck, how lovely it feels baking itself dry in the hot glorious sun. Casually you stroll over to the natural mineral of earth’s paddling pool, slowly and peacefully you immerse your body into the water and rinse away the mud, you are now feeling refreshed and revitalised with skin that is now silky and wonderfully smooth.

Then there is the human mud bath, which consists of the bitchy horrible people. The men, the woman, the straights, the gays and the drag queens who like to target others. These groups of people all form their little clans with their want to be leaders. If you don’t conform to the beliefs and the ideas of this petty crew you are out of the crowd, End of. Poisoned darts are now to be thrown into your back for now and ever more.

There is a saying that great minds have wills, average minds have wishes and small minds like to discuss other people. The town I live in is full to the brim of these small minded people with their prejudice opinions and their narrow minded pea size brains. They are so consumed in their own sad pathetic excuse called existence, caught up in their own bullshit they have zero else going on in their meaningless life. Therefore like to take great pleasure in causing misery to others. This type of person loves nothing more than to target an individual then callously bitch behind the intended victims back with their mouths full of gossip, spreading rumours like the plague. This is also true and how this mud bath stinks, like the tip where you dump all your rotten rubbish, discarded and left to decay, the smell is putrid, vile. It skinks!

This human mud bath is a very different kettle of fish altogether. It is nothing in comparison to the relaxing Turkish mud bath I enjoyed in the sun all them years ago when life was once ace. This is nowhere near, I mean this bath is a whole different story, there is defiantly no strolling going on in this shit, you race to rinse the mud off, you are utterly surprised, gobsmacked even at the amount of mud that has dried. It had dried hard, forming into thick crusty layers.

It takes quite a bit of dunking your body up and down in the clean water, but the water never seems to run clear, frantically you start rubbing your body desperately scrubbing at your skin trying to remove the mud, the putrid stinky mud.

When you have had human mud chucked in your direction, you know it; you can feel it and you can sense it. You can smell it in the air, like the sweat pouring from the deceiver who has just committed the crime.

You two faced backstabbing bastard I would think to myself about the person who has slung the mud, but I put on a front, a brave face and I pretend that I do not care, that my feelings have not been hurt and I try to let it go.

But underneath the surface I am aware of the resentment that is starting to build up. I am left feeling choked, suffocated; I can feel my chest start to tighten I am completely dumbfounded, mortified with that person, the mud throwing shit slinger.

Over and over again I tried to run to the clean water, only to find the layers are rebuilding, as soon as I think that I have washed away the very last layer of the shit, I realise that I am being covered in yet more shit, only it has returned thicker and viler than before.

A person knows when they have had mud slung at them, the big catapult of shit that hits you full force in the face, the rumours, the whispers, and the dirty snide glances you get.

I was not going to stand back whilst some cocky little fucker slings shit at me and tries to ruin my life.

I went from wild rages, snot tears and tantrums to the feeling of remorse the next morning, feelings of regret of Oh My! What have I done?!

‘Why couldn’t I just let it go?

‘Why did I have to say something?’

I shout at myself that he or she was just not worth it. But I know why I just couldn’t let things go. I know why I had to say something. My outburst never made the slightest bit of difference to helping my situation. I only ever managed to make things a hell of a lot worse.

As I was sat down in my shit life thinking about the change I wanted, praying to a god I did not really know existed. Was he real? Is he there?

Is he a he?

Is he a she?

Is he a he/she?

Did he live in another place somewhere else above us and he watches down on us like we are little people in dolls houses. He could just pick us up and play with us whenever he felt like it?

Is there a God?

I would ask myself over and over, if there is a God which religion does he belong to? I am not sure which religion I should join there are loads.

I moaned away to myself in my head, to have faith surly I must need a religion?

But you are not religious, the little voice in my head would say.

But then who do I pray to?

I started to read as much as I could all about different religions. I need someone to pray to. Up until now all my heartfelt pleas for change have just been directed at anyone. The Creator, the source, the main man, mainly my plants… I needed someone to pray to.

Do I just say a prayer silently in my head?

Will he hear me? I thought about this for a bit; who do I choose? I was starting to get confused with the whole religion thing. But as I was determined a religious path was the right path for me, I kept up with my search. I am on my way to being on my new path. My new religious path I declared to myself. The thing was, as I was coming across each religion I would think to myself, yes I like that bit about it, but then again I am not really too keen on other aspects regarding that certain type of religion, it is not convincing me to sign up.

Or I would sway into another religion and think to myself… yes… I have cracked it. This certain religion has got some good things going on to suit me. Some parts of it I like but after spending a bit more time reading other people views. I would change my mind again. Leaving me then questioning my choice. I am just not sure.

I was not sold on the whole concept of the no sex before marriage malarkey.

I would frequently change my mind. Almost daily to what religion I was now considering committing myself to. Or if a religious path was the right road for me. There were a lot of contradictions in convectional religion. I was confused, I could not decide.

‘To be religious, I must need a religion right?’

‘So which religion do you want to be’ the little voice asked.

I googled everything I could find on the internet about the different kinds of religions. I read articles, bits of the bible and the Quran. I went to charity shops and purchased books on different cultures with different points of view. Why does everyone fight over which God is the one, the main man, the top dog? I would ask my plants.

‘Because each one thinks that their God is superior’ my little voice said.

Yes but which one should I choose?

At my age and already being a mother, bringing up my children and not ever been married. I did not want to conform or reform.

Plus I knew I did not want more children. ‘My children will be having children soon and family life didn’t work out for me’ I announced to my plants. I do not like being controlled by a man. I do not want to be tied down. I want to be free and already I was now living my life exactly the way most religions were against. Here I was living my life that most of the religions say that a woman is not supposed to do.

Why is that? I wondered.

I soon discovered that there were quite a lot of different religions to choose from Christianity, Islam, Atheist, Hinduism, Chinese traditional religion, Buddhism, Primal—Indigenous, African traditional, Sikhism, Juche, Spiritism, Judaism, Bahia, Jainism, Shinto, Cao Dai, Zoroastrianism, Tenrikyo, Neo-Paganism, Unitarian, Rastafarianism, Scientology—

Not for me I moaned.

No defiantly not, far too many rules in those conventional religions and I have already broken far too many rules and apparently if I choose a religion that most people follow I am already living in sin. I don’t want to choose a religion that automatically makes my life a sin. I want something that I can have faith in and also be the woman I desire to be.

Can I not have a religion where a woman is free to make her own choices, to have sex when it suits her, whenever she pleases and live life without so called sin? I would ask, although I wasn’t quite sure who I was asking.

I decided that I wanted a religion. My very own religion, I wanted a religion that suits me, suits my needs, a religious pick and mix. So I can be happy. I want my GOD and I do not want to be a sexless spinster. I do not want to be a spinster, but if it turns out I might be I certainly don’t want to be a sexless one I moaned on.

So in the search for my religion and studying the many various religions I came across paganism… hang on… I thought this seems cool. Yes this is more like it freedom for woman, it has nothing against marriage free sex. The woman in this religion, are valued for the beautiful creatures that we are. As without woman man would not exist. Yes this is it. This sounds more like me, defiantly, a pagan I started to be.

I have got a religion, I have got a faith, I shouted out to the world yippee.

I am a pagan I have found a religion. Yes a pagan girl for me I sang in my head… My birthday on the 25th I imagined Excitedly, I could now swap the traditional Christmas day for Yule on the 21st December so I get a bonus. Thinking that now I would no longer have to share my birthday. My birthday will now become my day, a day for just me. Always having to share my birthday with everyone is crap, now I can cook the Christmas dinner for all my family, on the 21st this is it and I have found my path.

I carried on with my thoughts happily chatting away to my plants. I do not want to be stuck in some loveless marriage with boring sex or worst still no sex at all. I can leave if things do not work out, we wouldn’t even have to get married and even better we wouldn’t have to live together if we choose not to. We could make our own choices and not be judge. We could just love each other for as long as it lasts and well if things between us do not work out then that is fine. I will just meet someone new and start over again. Yes I like this religion, it is all about love.

Being a pagan is relatively easy. You support and worship Mother Nature and you recycle. Pagans pursue their own vision of the Divine as a direct and personal experience. Paganism is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity.

Modern Pagans are not tied down either by the customs of an established religion or by the dogmas of a revealed one, are often creative, playful and individualistic, affirming the importance of the individual psyche. There is a respect for all of life and usually a desire to participate with rather than to dominate other beings. It is all about love.

I am sold, committed, yes I am a pagan. I announced.

So I was settling into my religion or that is what I thought when one evening I got side tracked whilst I was googling, this night I came across Wiccan. As I read more on Wiccan and the craft I started to wonder, could I be a witch? Like Samantha from the TV show bewitched.

I found I was being intrigued more than intrigued if truth be told, I was becoming boarder line obsessed, with spells and witchcraft sites.

I would spend hours reading about other Wiccans and the happy life they had HARM NONE was the message everyone would say. This religion sounded good all the people were also into Mother Nature; they also are animal loving and caring. This is it I thought to myself, bang on; this is the right religion for me. I have found my true path. I integrated being a pagan with becoming a Wiccan.

My childhood vision of witches flying around on broomsticks with pointy noses, black teeth, cursing evil through the night was after all something we fear as kids. No Witches Rock! That was it. I am a witch. So now all these thought were replaced with images of nice witches doing well for our planet, saving the rain forest. They would celebrate eight seasonal festivals called Sabbats. Craft rituals, like all Pagan rites, are often conducted out of doors and I love being outside I thought to myself, and involve simple rites to celebrate the seasons and the gift of