Beautiful Pain

I know you thought that you were getting rid of me but I missed my connecting bus so I've now got a few hours to kill before I have to catch the next one. Therefore I thought I'd do something that I haven't done in a while and pour out every single one of my thoughts. There are quite a few so unless you've got a strong stomach or are incredibly bored...I'd advise you to look away now.

I want to be close to someone, really close to them - in body and in mind. I have rekindled my Christianity in a vain attempt to find some peace, or something, in my life. Right now I really need someone, or something, and since I don't want to have to see my friends cry again anytime soon I found myself at Church. Despite what many of you might think, I have not gone mad. I have always been curious about faith since I went to Sunday School as a child and have watched my mother go to Church every Sunday since then. It felt like the thing I was missing and for the moment, it's keeping me alive. I know that it's a cowards faith as I'm only there really to cling desperately to some form of reality, but it's a faith all the same and maybe someday God will even forgive me for all that I've done and welcome me back.

The title of the blog is something I was thinking about on the plane this morning. Am I becoming too fond of depression? It sounds absurd of course but I wonder if just maybe a part of me is afraid of what I could be without it - without self injury and without medication and without therapy. What's left of me? What would be left of my life? Am I really relishing my pain? I never stop talking about it, making you and others feel uncomfortable. I think that the idea is not all together unfounded, although it is sad and slightly unnerving.

I sound like I'm having a mid-life crisis I know. At 17. I know. But to be fair I've done a hell of a lot in those 17 years and by some people's standards I have reached middle age. God. The truth is I am very unlikely to go to Uni, now. I can't afford it and though my father can he believes I should make my own way in the world, which is fair enough. But really I don't think I can. I don't want to become him or my mother. I would rather be a nun than spend my working life in Guernsey at some private bank going further and further up my own arse until one day I just disappear and no-one notices until I'm washed up at Fermain, or something.

So I have decisions to make. I have to choose a life. But first of all I have to choose a Nikita.

Faith

Who am I kidding?
Faith in what exactly? This is exactly why I went back to Church, and it's exactly what's tearing me apart now.

I'm going away for a bit.
Use the UK number if you need me.

x

It's here

Over me
Looming
Stuck under it

Poppies In July

Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns

And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep!
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.

Sylvia Plath

And the raging swirl of depression rages.
Adieu.

Rollercoasters

I know that this is an overused analogy but suppose that my life is a bit of a rollercoaster. Think of last night as the big dip which is approached at about 500mph and you're not sure if you're going to survive it because it's fast and manic and oddly detatched.

This morning is that long straight bit when you've no idea what might happen - is the ride over? Or is there going to be another life-threatening loop? No-one knows at that moment - even if they've ridden this particular rollercoaster before.

The point is that people don't die from plunging towards the ground on a rollercoaster. Right? Right?!?!

Don't judge what you don't know

I went to the gym yesterday and there were a lot of women in the changing room. Now I'm not a girl who wanders round with nothing on - I've always got my towel and I change in a dedicated room. It takes a lot to walk from the shower to my clothes then into a room. I do not appreciate Barbie girls making comments in hushed tones about certain red lines on my arms.

...

I know that they are there.
I put them there.
They are my fault.

...

If they want to look, fine but why or how they are there are nothing to do with anyone else unless I choose to tell them.
Have they been in my head? No. Are there any flaws on their airbrushed arms? No.

So they can fuck off with their giggling remarks.

It's a long way to good grades...

I promised a Uni roundup and now I'm back to college and that comforting routine of only working for about five hours a week I thought I should make a start. I'll go through them in order. Tough if you don't want to know, because I want to write.

Exeter

Nice campus, and very green. Bit contained - as in it was a Uni in a green bubble. I think I may prefer somewhere a bit spread around. The entry level is high too - AAB. Slightly too close to Guernsey too but I might apply anyway.

Keele

Up in Newcastle-Under-Lyme in the middle of nowhere. Again it was a campus Uni with a load of trees and smiling students. It's a bit land-locked and the town kinda creeped me out but it's my CCC entry level which right now I have little hope of exceeding.

Edinburgh

Gorgeous city and pretty buildings, I liked that the Uni was all over the shop. However I found the town a bit touristy and I was accosted by four Hare Krishna people which was annoying. It's BBB entry for my course.

Glasgow

For some reason I always fancied this city even before I went there. Stayed in the same residences as Keir so can testify that they're all the same. Smaller bathroom than Edinburgh but I'm up for a compromise. Major downside is that it's a five year degree and not sure I can finance it but we'll see. BBB entry.

Southampton

I went here to please my mother. It took twenty minutes from our front door to the Uni and that did not make me a happy girl! I know this city, I've lived in this city, this city bores me. And frankly so did the Uni - plus there were about fifteen Guernsey people there. AAB entry.

I still have to visit Warwick in two weeks time, but it's AAB too which I am no way going to get.

I got BBCC in my AS Levels and have just had a meeting with my tutor who feels I did not acheive my potential. Nah, you don't say! Year 12 was a shit year personally for me so I'm hoping in year 13 with the help of resits I can pull my sorry ass up to BBBB.

I now have to re-write my entire personal statement because my tutor feels that it's very me but far too chatty. Very me! Wouldn't want to come across as myself to an Admissions Tutor now would I?!

Hope you're all well, talk to you soon

The Invisible Girl

That's actually the title of a book by Peter Barham, as well as the title of a poem I wrote and was quite proud of until I saw he'd found the damn thing first! Anyway. How are you all? Preparing to go back to Uni in most cases I expect. I visited a lot of those places this summer and I'll write a detailed overview when I get back to Guernsey on the 10th. Good Luck to Laura who's going to Uni for the very first year.

I have lost a few people over the summer, a few friends. Not to death, but to normality. Maybe none of you are close enough to feel the impact, maybe you're just different people but I know that in the cases of some my calls and messages are no longer answered; letters no longer written and meetings no longer arranged. I don't blame them, not at all, I think it's pretty hard to be my friend - in fact people have told me that it is - but I love them for trying.

Do you remember when I first started being honest on this blog? Do you remember your reactions, what you thought? I was in deep then and I've been in deep several times since then - just ask to see my mental health record at the hospital! But I've been managing most of the time, surviving the bad days and celebrating the good - sorry if it seems I haven't written much about the good on this page it's just it's easier to write about bad.

Well right now I'm in deep again. So much so that during my weekly phone calls with the oracle that is Dr H, he has started to raise concerns and hint at staying here in the UK to receive 'treatment' once and for all. Tosser. I've got college to do, a Mum to keep level, sisters to guide, a Dad to hide from and a past to ignore.

It's entirely possible that the girl I am today is the girl I will be in ten years time - infact it's probable. Maybe I can find someone just as warped as me and we can get married and have messed-up kids. Although I don't think I could handle a kid like me - no way. Talking to a psychiatrist about domestic violence, coming down to breakfast with scars on show, disappearing for a week. I couldn't take my kid doing that! I'd kill both of us! Yet my Mum seems to be able to block it all out, my sisters ignore it and my Dad punishes me like I deserve. They've got it down to a T!

I was on the phone last night to the person I love possibly the most in the whole world and she was outstanding. Maybe she even saved my life. Who knows what's about to happen?

So I'll leave you here with a thank you and a request;

Thank you for sticking by me for two years or more.
Please speak now or forever hold your peace if you have any leaving me to do, or comments to make, or criticisms to...do. I'd rather get it all done in one holiday.

Love you

Sparkles

Sod today, just sod it.

I am writing again, and back to my miserable little bitch self.
I am running every evening in the biggest shirt I can find, listen to the angstiest music.
I made a young man happy.
I feel ill.
I should take the meds, I know, but I don't want to.
I am knackered.
I am leaving for Scotland on Sunday.
I have horrible hair, and arms, and face, and well I am horrible. And ugly. And annoying.
But hey.

This is Niki. 17 years old, daughter of a mafia man turned manager and an accountant. Living in a three bed semi and driving a Ford. Sounds boring, it IS boring.
You see all the blades and the drink and the drugs and all the stuff you don't know about is shit. And it happened. Now it is not happening. I must get over it.

I live where I live and I live how I live. Sometimes bad things happen, sometimes good things do. Live for tomorrow, not for yesterday or the crappy past 16 years. Drink Irn Bru and cry watching Casualty.

Because despite amitriptyline and sodium chloride tears, this is Nikita.