It seems there are very few things I won’t do to for attention.

As the third of four children, my entire life has been a screaming fit directed at fixing the gaze of my parents, extended family members, teachers and even total strangers squarely on me. After more than two decades of such behaviour, I have become acutely aware of my ways. Although the events of the previous weekend have revealed that my “look at me-ing” has become so deeply ingrained in my behaviour patterns, it is now subconscious.

Now, Rational Dannielle would never fall from a horse on purpose, but I can’t help that Subconscious Dannielle far more devious and ruthless. She’s also a cunning little minx who thinks about the long term, because the initial fall was only Stage One of show pony plan. Stage Two had plenty more to give the next day.

There was a delay of some hours before I hit the emergency room. It wasn’t until the next afternoon when I realised the only way my hand wasn’t in pain made it look like I was groping myself in public when it occurred to me that this was not normal and definitely was not suitable for work. So I had my roommate drop me off at the emergency room.

“I’m sorry to say it, but you’ve broken your wist,” the doctor told me. But she had no cause to apologise. This was extraordinary news.

I’ve never had a broken bone before. I used to watch enviously as my primary school friends were showered with attention when they would appear on a Monday morning with a broken bone from their adventurous weekend pursuits. Playing sport or doing literally anything on The Farm boasted huge rewards for my friends: immediate sympathy, special treatment and a living graffiti wall. They would come to school plastered up and I would stew in my tidy tray. But apparently my desire for attention of any kind was over ridden by my lack of interest in doing things, because I continued honing my favourite crafts every weekend: revealing in my solitude and pretending I was gifted because I was of a slightly higher than adequate intelligence for my grade (first one out of a class of less than 20 kids to be able to read? Obviously I am the second coming of Stephen Hawking). So when the doctor asked if I wanted a sling, I didn’t hesitate.

A sling was like a giant neon light telling the world I was injured and deserved concerned glances and looks of jealousy-tainted admiration from those who asked how I earned my sleeve of honour. Like a child who would throw sand in the eyes of an innocent fellow pre-schooler so the teacher would glance sideways admire her sand castle (me) or a the college student who jumped at the chance to be the only girl to do a keg stand a “frat party” (also me), I was happy to wear the equivalent to a giant red flashing arrow pointing out my minimal fracture.

And let’s be honest here, I didn’t do much to make my condition much better. It didn’t put ice on my wrist because it was too damn cold in my house already. I did put a compression bandage on it, but that was merely because I was hosting a house party, and I wasn’t about to let my cool injury go unnoticed. That bandage was about as medically beneficial as adding chlorophyll extract to water and just as much about showing off. When the doctor asked if I had been taking pain medication, I had to fudge the truth a bit. “I was going to take ibuprofen,” I told her, “but I didn’t have any at home so I just went to sleep.” I didn’t want to tell her my pain mediation was a mixture of cider, vodka and medicinal tequila. As cool as this doctor was, I doubted whether she’d approve of my treatment plan.

Hmm. I think I need professional help… just think of how sorry people will feel for me!

I have now added an entire species to my list of enemies.

Yep, right up there with the sick puppy who created the Dental Elegance television advert and coriander is one of the most heinous and ruthlessly malicious species on the planet: rabbits.

You might be under the impression that they are sweet little mammals who only live to give Bambi life advice or dress lazy a Disney princesses, but that’s just what they want you to think.

Under their cute, fluffy-tailed surface beats the heart of a monster. These hopping balls of hatred thrive on destruction. For one, they leave many a veggie patch in a state of utter desolation. They’re also on a warpath with one of our country’s most beloved marsupials: the bilby. Furiously jealous of the bilby’s success as a deliverer of festive eggs to children who don’t really need to be eating a kilo of chocolate, the rabbit has been on a rampage against these furry Top Blokes; overtaking their homes, stealing their food sources and, no doubt, taking their jobs. It’s disgusting.

Not content with unauthorised veggie snacking or pillaging Bilby settlements, the rabbit is launching attacks on kind-hearted, charming people. Namely, me.

It might be a while until we get to the point here, but bear with me and I will reveal the chilling events of the weekend which has led my to this spine-tingling conclusion.

A group of us from The Office decided to act like normal people and have plans for the weekend. We had a couple of visitors to the region amongst us, so we decided to show our friends the land we lived on and booked a horse trail ride. We saddled up and went on our way, with the horses plodding along without much need for encouragement, or even steering for that matter. Everything was going fine, albeit a little on the slow side. Being the unapologetic show pony that I am, this wasn’t enough for me.

Let’s be honest here, I do like to play up to my Queenslander reputation, and am happy to pretend I know things about agriculture (sorghum is used to make Milo!). In fact, I once let our federal minister for agriculture assume I was reared on a farm and didn’t correct him despite knowing full well that the only farming activity on our block was that time my dad tried to outsmart the system and grow his own damn steaks. And after all, I did have three riding lessons under my belt from a woman in a long-term relationship with a man called Clancy. I was practically the man from Snowy River. So I was totally up for a casual trot.

So there I was, leading the pack atop a horse called Akubra of all things feeling like one of McLeod’s illegitimate Daughters (or at least a removed relative who had miraculously popped up just in time to run the homestead after another death/birth/ agriculturally-based tragedy). I had found my groove and I was only slowing down so people could catch up and see how somewhat adequate I was at remaining seated on an incredibly tame and un-energetic animal.

Everything was going fine until the rabbit-folk decided to intervene.

I had just broken out into a trot when a fur-covered little demon popped up out of its evil underground lair and gave my noble steed a right royal fright. While my years watching The Saddle Club made me expect a spooked horse would rear up on two legs and somehow cause lightning to crash nearby, my fall from Akubra (I’m actually annoyed because there was a horse there named Grace and that would have made this whole episode much more palatable had I literally fallen from Grace) was somewhat less dramatic.

Akubra did a step to the right like he was Jonathan Thurston cheekily darting through a sky-blue defence line and I went left. But I wasn’t technically “thrown” off the horse; it was more like I’d greased up my thighs and the saddle was made out of non-stick cookware. I slid off that saddle like a fried egg out of a frypan.

I hit the ground, and while I’m told I didn’t hit my head, I do finally understand the science behind those cartoon characters who see stars after an anvil lands on their head. Except I was shocked to find that there were no Looney Tunes characters flying around in a circle above my head: all I experienced was having what seemed like a shitty yellow Instagram filter over my eyes, like I was planning on hashtagging my vision with #nostalgic and #iamsoartisticanddeepbecauseiselectedtouseabuiltinfeatureofthisphotapp. I was mildly concerned at this point, because there was also this sensation of having black static in my eye and I couldn’t really see properly. This was a problem because I quite like being able to perceive my surroundings; it’s one of my favourite hobbies along with respiration and having an adequate blood supply.

Thankfully this subsided after a few minutes and I was right back on the horse. Yes, holding the reins with what turned out to be a fractured radius was uncomfortable, but at least being back in the saddle made me feel like a tough country girl.

It also meant I was a good one-and-a-half metres above a fucking bunny rabbit; I’ll be damned if I was going to let another one of those hateful bastards get close enough to me to finish off the job.

Believing in yourself only gets you so far, particularly when half your stomach lining has been flushed down a toilet.

I’ve long held the belief that belief in itself can conquer most things. Sure, if your abilities aren’t there you’re not exactly going to nail it, but a bit of self-belief means you put in a reasonable effort. Believing you can reach that high note in Celine Dion’s It’s All Coming Back to Me Now helps you make the all-important serious-power-ballad face needed to kill it at karaoke. Believing you can run up that gentle slope which seems impossibly-steep usually gets you over the hill without peeing your pants. There are countless examples of people channelling their inner Little Train Engine getting over their own steep hills (whether said hill is a metaphor for trying to look like a professional in bright pink trackpants or doing something legitimate like finishing a triathlon is irrelevant). Most times they get over the hill, other times it’s a bloody trainwreck.

A simple barbecue buffet dinner turned into me grabbing the face of a complete stranger in an attempt to dramatise the Shannon Noll version of What About Me (which is a song essentially crying over spilt milk) before throwing myself on my knees on a two-metre square dance floor on a “quiet” night. As the majority of said buffet made its way from the toilet bowl through the septic pipes at the we staked out in, I aggressively danced the night away thinking the only drama that would befall me was the DJ cutting Daryl Braithwaite’s Horses short. How wrong I was.

“It’s mind over matter,” I was reminded the next morning as I clutched a giant cup of lemonade while trying to keep relatively still to stop my stomach bile from spraying out my nose.

It was only roughly 8.30am, but already it had been an eventful morning. I know I talk a lot about moments when I question my decision-making skills (or lack there of), but vomiting up my breakfast (a handful of tablets, as actual food would have been too harsh) after a “casual dinner”  certainly falls under that category.

There I was, hunched over the toilet bowl, mentally preparing myself for the onslaught of day ahead. I’d already become aware my stomach was entirely empty after a simple cough resulted in the splashback of acidic yellow gunk hitting the toilet water, so I assumed food would be out of the question. If I had been wearing my glasses as the time, I perhaps would have noticed the glowing red veins in what usually is the whites of my eyes spell out “you’re fucked”. But as I was seeing through the surprisingly flattering filter of poor vision, my reflection in the bathroom mirror was airbrushed to the point of delusion: I can totally make it through the day.

As a plucky young college student, my ability to bounce back from hangovers was astounding to the point of sheer annoyance for my friends. As they kept their blinds drawn and festered in bed for hours after a big night, I bounded through the morning with the energy of a bouncy ball and the sound effects of the talking toy aisle in a department store after a snot-nosed kid pressed the button on every Tickle-Me Elmo doll. I would bask in the sunshine and poison the grumpy world with my chirpy mood. Everything was funny and world was giving me a big thumbs up. Being “hungover” (if you cold call it that), for many years, put me in an excellent mood.

So imagine my shock when my nutritious breakfast, which included a couple of paracetamol capsules and a maxolin tablet, bubbled up in my throat like a bout of surprise rabies. Not five minutes after swallowing my “cereal” for the morning, I let out a small burp, which was followed by a foamy mass of disgusting bubbled out of my mouth, tasting like the belly button fluff of Satan. It was like I had swallowed a dishwasher tablet and washed it down with vinegar. There weren’t many positives to the experience, but at least I can say that I now know what those paper mache volcanoes feel like after being used for a year 7 science experiment.

“This is not how Dannielle does hangovers,” I told myself. I pulled myself together, whacked on some make up and made a mental note to text my roommate confirming that I would see her at our weights class that afternoon and walked out the front door with my head held high.

There are plenty of things to be learned from the first Spongebob Squarepants movie, but aside from wanting have a big night on the ice-cream, I left the theatre with an overwhelming feeling that you can do anything, you just gotta believe. After all, Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t lie to me about something like that, even if she was playing an illustrated mermaid at the time. it only cemented my ideals that mental strength equals actual, tangible strength and can result in powerful achievements. Like a baby mustering superhuman strength to pull their obese father from a rip in the ocean, I too could do great things if I put my mind to it.

But back to The Day After The Night Out: I had developed a crazy case of the shakes, making me look like an ice addict with nits. I sat, trying to contribute to discussion and worked like a dog to keep myself from falling off my chair (not from shock, but because apparently my head was now the weight of a four-door Hilux carting a load of firewood and an over-fed pigging dog). I wanted to stay strong, but my insides were calling for me to crumble into the admission that hangovers are real. I didn’t want to believe that this was my life, and kept trying to convince myself that my will to function was stronger than my sudden desire to lay in the foetal position in public. Inside my head a violent back-and-fourth dialogue echoed: one voice came from a figure wearing a Lorna Jane slogan singlet telling me not to give up, and the other sounded from a blob-like human being soaking in a cesspit of self-loathing and its own filth telling me I couldn’t do it. It isn’t often I take the word of my imagination’s equivalent of Bart Simpson washing himself with a rag on a stick, but apparently this time it was too tempting.

I tried hard, but this time self-belief/delusion could do nothing to conquer my physical state. Sure, I could (and did) use an over-sized water bottle to prop my head up, but nothing should keep my metaphorical chin up. I was defeated. Within ten minutes I had crashed into bed, after a rushed drive home with the windows down so i could “get some fresh air”.

With the clarity of hindsight, I am trying to salvage a life lesson from the rubble of my appalling life choices. It’s a difficult process, and I would be lying if I didn’t say I was clutching at straws in trying to make a positive from this steaming turd of a situation. And while the age-old proverb indicates to me that said turd cannot be polished, I choose to believe otherwise. Believing in myself got me less than a quarter of the way through the day before I collapsed into a heap of disappointment; just imagine the piss-stained wreck I would have been had I not believed in myself at all.