Almost A Year Has Passed…

It’s been almost a year now, and although the environment which brings me down so much hasn’t changed, I have done something about it. Over the summer following the last entry, I had some of the best days in a long time. The relationship between me and my boyfriend really took off, and we are still together now. I’ve been with him for just over a year and four months now. I turned 17 in August, and where I have never been able to commit to someone, somehow I have found a stability and safety in him. He makes me smile and I feel warm when I’m with him.

My eating habits are still as bad as they were, probably more disordered actually, but I’m more accepting of it now, and it’s a coping mechanism which I can turn on and off. I don’t think about calories every second of every day, but I do fast sometimes for over a week without anything more than a drop of water. But I know when to stop. I smoke a little now, and a lot of weed. I think it has helped with the transitions between how I was then and how I was now.

I get more panic attacks than before, but I’m not as depressed. I have a week in about two months where I’ll go into a slump and feel shit and not get out of bed, but that’s a massive improvement on before. Sometimes I don’t even get that  – I only get depressed at home. I realised that, and so I moved out.

I live with my family in the holidays but in term time I live with my boyfriend in his University halls. The Uni he goes to is really close to where my family live and it’s really easy to get to college from there because there are direct buses. The system works perfectly. My dad let me live with him when I said I needed to go, because he realised how hard it would be for me to go back to college with the situation at home as it was. My parents are splitting up officially now, and I have to say I’m relieved.  I feel guilty that I’ve left my sister with the whole thing, but I think she can cope. I just know that I can’t.

My mum has always had a drinking problem but it’s just got so much worse that I can barely look at her. My dad however, who I never got along with and who always treated me like I was never good enough, seems to have been kicked in the backside my ”suicide attempt” and has been wonderful. He tells me he loves me and worries. The worrying isn’t great, but when you come from a family who never say “I love you”, it means a hell of a lot.

I put “suicide attempt” in marks because I don’t really consider it as such. I think it is far more insane than any ‘normal’ suicide attempt. I don’t think that I’m insane – don’t all mad people say that? anyway – but ‘normal’ suicides can be done by any desperate person. You only have to find yourself on the edge to have the courage to jump. A perfectly stable person could go through an experience which just leaves them shattered and teetering on the brink of darkness, and they might just decide in that fatal moment of desperation that the prospect of fighting through it is too bleak. Mine wasn’t like that. I was clear-headed and calm, I hadn’t taken anything or drank anything, I wasn’t unhappy, I wasn’t angry…I wasn’t really anything associated with suicidal.

I just decided that I felt nothing for my life. I had a little tiny bit of wonderful in it – my boyfriend – and a lot of shitty in it – my family and college and me. It countered each other out in the end and I just felt numb. There was nothing there at all, and all I wanted was to feel some sort of passion for my life. Whether that passion was to die, or to live, it didn’t matter – as long as I FELT and WANTED something. The depression had killed all of my dreams and my hopes and I had nothing to wish for. Nothing seemed worth getting out of bed for. So I decided to force myself to choose. To place myself on the edge of death, with a breathing space of time in which I could back out. I would wait an hour or two for the pills to kick in, and then choose. If I didn’t choose then, I would die, and if I decided that I didn’t want that to happen, then I would tell someone and get myself pumped.

It was even more masochistic than that though, because I wanted to feel pain either way. If I had wanted to die I would have had to go through such prolonged, agonising pain that would last days until I finally died. It would be slow and it would make me regret it. I would suffer – that was the point. If I was to put the people around me through my suicide, I would damn well suffer for it. Not because I wanted to be a martyr, but because that was the logic of the time. Of course I was too self-involved to realised that an agonising death would only hurt those that loved me more. But the logic of the time was that they would be hurt either way, and at least this way I paid for it and there wasn’t any mess. If I chose to live, then I would have to suffer having my stomach pumped or such like, and I would have to have all of my secrets revealed and go through psychiatrists and psychologists and have my family know everything. This was almost harder to deal with than the first punishment.

I did go through the councelling, even though it was me and my parents that sorted it out – the hospital took one look at me and assumed that it was attention seeking and left it at that – they didn’t listen to my story at all. I went through all that hassle – they never found out that much about the E.D. stuff; they found a form I’d been sent to fill out, but didn’t read the whole thing and only got as far as ‘personal image’. They thought I was the same as every other teenage girl thinking she was fat. I was somewhat disappointed that they didn’t care enough to bother to read the whole thing. They might have learnt something. All this, and because I have a fear of things going wrong with my eyes. When I’d waited an hour and a half, my eyes went blind with white spots and I couldn’t see. It was this that made me ask for help. Not because I wanted to live. It was the reactions I got from my boyfriend and my family that made me want to live. Mainly from my boyfriend. Because he’s the one that really loves me and accepts me. He saved me really.

I haven’t cut in months, and the last time I did was only the one session and before that there were months where I didn’t either. That seems to have passed. I won’t say it’s gone because I don’t know what might happen to provoke it, but for now, I feel okay. Not great, but okay. As long as I’m away from that environment, I can survive it.

Broken.

You know the type of crying where it reaches your stomach and you can’t stop or breathe? I’ve been like this for about half an hour now. I wanted a family bike ride and I got it. I just wanted everyone to be happy. Together. It obviously isn’t meant to be because it couldn’t have gone more wrong.

My sister ruined it by getting angry and childish and running off. Well, cycling off, but it’s the same thing. Only, it got worse because it started to rain, and instead of staying in the car and waiting for it to pass like my parents (and I had the plans not changed), she decided to go all attention seeking and cycle off. So I followed her because she had refused to wear her helmet because it was making her ‘hot and faint’ – again, it’s early april in england and its raining. Only, not only did it rain, it hailed.

So we’re out there on the track in the pouring rain and spitting hail, her only wearing a little top and tracksuit bottoms. She thinks she’s so cool. She did all of it just to piss us off. I know she did, a stranger would have known the signs. Typical teen. Fun, yeah? Hardly.

We got back, and sat in the car. It stopped raining. She started jumping about all hyper, rubbing our annoyance and upset in our faces as she sang made up tunes. I sat in the car as they put the biked back on the rack. We couldn’t keep going now, we were soaked – her especially. Had she not acted like a self rightous idiot we could have carried on. But no.

I sat there, and I started to cry. No one knew – far too preoccupied. It became obvious though, even though I had my hood pulled over my head, because I didn’t stop the entire 30 minutes drive home. Not counting the time before we left. And after, when I had to sit alone in the garden because I couldn’t wait for them to open the door before another burst came.

When she got into the car, everyone was so annoyed with her. Dad was furious. We were soaked through and I was clearly livid. It was only when she said, “how come when I do a “stupid thing” I get shouted at, but when she does, she gets pity?”. I told her to f**k off, (I really was livid, it had brought back all my anger that I find so hard to deal with as it is), and she replied, “why don’t you just go take some pills?”

And then everything turned. Anger disappeared to be replaced by this heartwrenching pain inside me that I have tried so hard to deny. I have tried so hard to be happy, to be better, and I don’t know if I can do it anymore. I have tried and tried, and all I wanted was to make everything better after what happened.

My throat is caught and I can’t breathe.

All I ended up thinking, and I would cry when seeing where I was still, was, “if only I had waited a couple more hours, I wouldn’t be here right now. The pain would have gone and they would be burying me in the ground, instead of trying so hard to love me. If only…if only…if only I hadn’t asked for help.”

All I can see is endless weekends lasting forever and never ending. Weekends where I see people that ‘love’ me, and try to be happy. Weeks and weeks and weekends and weekends of trying and trying to be brave and keep smiling. But it isn’t fake smiles now, because that isn’t the point. It has to be real, I have to be better. I don’t think I can though. I don’t think I’ll ever be better.

I’m a wreck. She’s right. I’m pitiful.

Sleep Is For The Weak

My boyfriend and I broke my bed the other day whilst having quite *cough cough* forceful sex, and I haven’t been able to sleep on it for a few days. He’s coming over this weekend to help me make a new frame from an identical bed we have. Luckily, my bed was one half of a twin pair.

Other than that though, I don’t want to sleep. At night I can relax, and usually don’t sleep then anyway. It just doesn’t settle well with me. I don’t like sleeping alone, and I don’t like sleeping in silence or the dark really. Daytime is safer, more secure, and nighttime is a time for parties and fun.

I miss self harm. It’s the first time that I’ve missed cutting. A large part of me wants to start cutting my legs, and lying about it. If I did it in a certain place, on the inside of my thigh, not even my boyfriend might see it. The only reason I stopped was because it seemed right. It was what everyone wanted.

The scars are on my arm and they’ll be there forever. I have to cover them with make up next week because I’m in a play and can’t wear a bandage. Part of me feels like such a freak, but really, I’ve accepted myself for who I am. I’ve told a few friends now, and they still like me. They worry, of course they do, but they know that I would never go too far.

Although, that I’m not so sure….

My childhood best-friend told me the other day that a friend of his was rushed into hospital after taking a paracetamol overdose. She was trying to kill herself. I don’t know if I’ve told you this already, but even if I have, you can see it’s been playing on my mind. His reaction…he was so worried and concerned for her. She was just a friend he had made this year, he can’t have known her longer than six months. I’ve known him since I was a baby, we’re like brother and sister.

It would hurt him so much, him and my family, and everyone else.

But there I go again, stopping myself just because of other people’s feelings. It isn’t how it’s meant to be. I want to do what I want and not worry about their feelings. As long as what I’m doing is for me and not to purposely hurt them, then at least there is just cause for me to behave however.

I know I won’t kill myself. It’s just…the amount I think about it, it’s phenominal.

I took five laxatives today, and I purged food before too. Technically yesterday, but seeing as I’m not sleeping it makes little difference. Tomorrow (when the sun comes up), I’m going to do everything that I need to do. I’m going to tidy up the house, go down to the beach, ask for a job at the cafe and at the restaurant down there, and go for a run.

I’m going to have half an apple for breakfast, and half when I get back from the beach. I’m going to fake a big lunch. Because my diet is so bad, what with it not being regular, my weight goes up and down like a yoyo. I’ve put on half a stone just this week, and it’s getting towards the end of the month and I need to be lower for my personal weigh-in.

I’ve let myself accept that this month might not count, because it’s been a tough few weeks emotionally. I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been, and yet, I’ve also been the angriest. I’ve never felt rage such as this. The need to destroy.

Tomorrow is a new day, and although I won’t have lost much by the end of the week, I have until Tuesday. That’s…four full days between now and then. Today (Friday – seeing as it hasn’t started properly yet), Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Tomorrow is the only day I have to sneak around my mum.

On Saturday and Sunday I have day-long rehearsals, and on Monday and Tuesday the performances. This month I am not letting anything other than fruit and veg pass my lips. No sauces, condiments, fatty, salty or sugary foods will grace my plate. Hardly ‘grace’, more like ‘contaminate’.

Feeling A Bit…Odd

I have to say to all those people online who have given me support: thank you.

I needed to do that first because they have been so warm and supportive, and they could never understand how much it has touched me. I come online knowing that I have to write, because if I don’t, they might worry whether I am still here or not. Just being here…and they don’t even know me. They took the time to write because they thought that my life was worth something and they don’t even know me.

That’s beautiful.

So I have eaten loads in the last couple of days. Without purging. Like, the amount an obese person would eat in a week, that is how much. Anyway, I had the munchies so there wasn’t much anyone could do. I’m strangely blase’ about it. I had a bit of a panic attack last night, about food, that is, and so I took some laxatives…

I don’t regret taking them. I just don’t want to get addicted to them again. My body was so screwed up after that. Before, I would be having at least three laxatives every morning, and an average dosage throughout the day would be about…eight? Anyway, I was solidly abusing laxatives daily for about six months. There was a few times when I would take 20 in one go…or was it 40? I think I’ve done both, actually.

The whole thing was painful, unnecessary (they don’t make you thin), but slightly rewarding mentally. Until I actually changed tact and thought about the biology of what I was doing and how screwed up my body was from it.

As long as I don’t get addicted, I’ll be fine.

Talking of addiction, I have been feeling really weird since having that weed. I mean, I’ve smoked weed before, but this was something else. I think I was high for two days straight. I think my body got used to it or something, because since then, and it’s been about three days now, I have felt really…odd.

I’ve been really scarily honest with people, my anxiety about the truth is slightly gone, I’ve been wandering around laughing to myself, imagining the weirdest things, staring for hours, having really bad headaches (I never get headaches), and being really eerily calm…but then it twists and I feel really paranoid about everything because I know that something has messed my brain up…and I’m not thinking normally. I’m not being myself.

I don’t feel like myself, and I’m being too open and not caring. I went to the bathroom and when I was leaving it, I saw a disposable razor that no one had used. I picked it up and held it in my hand, intending to keep it for the next time I self – harm because (although I tend not to use them anymore) my other one is getting a bit horrible. Anyway, I walked straight out of the bathroom, it just hanging in my hand, and had a brief conversation with my mum. She knows that I don’t use disposables, but she probably made an excuse in her mind.

Then there was when my dad kept coming into my room this morning to talk to me, and I swear I was half asleep but with my arm on show. Either way, usually I would hide the razor in my trousers, or up my sleeve, and I NEVER let my arm out on show. No matter how conscious I am.

The thing is, my friend (one you’ve not heard about before) is a bit like this. It’s not about not caring, it’s about not even thinking about it. You don’t really care about your life enough to care about the reactions you get. Sometimes, I do things just to shock. Make life a little more interesting. Not that I don’t have enough to think about…but I still do it. I guess in a way it’s a way of me bringing people into my world. Giving them a window into my head.

I don’t know whether this strange behaviour and feelings is because I chose to commit suicide, or because of the weed. But although the things that I’m doing and feeling are quite in my normal boundaries, there is something not right there. I can’t pinpoint it, but it bothers me.