Saturday, March 31, 2007

My demons have a date with me

So; it's not been brilliant around here recently. I'll not go into all the details - mainly because I'm in a messed-up kind of way and only writing this to save myself from impending insanity.

It seems that years of winging it and doing pretty well without trying have come to an end; I got my report card yesterday and for the first time in my life I was sorry that my parents were getting a copy of it. I knew how those kids felt when they hid it in their bags and intercepted the post for years. Finally I'm seeing what the school have been telling me for years; I can't cope. I can't just turn up - that's not enough. By the time I get there I'm exhausted from just making it out of bed and into the car, intellectual thought is not high in my mind and this is not a great time for that to be the case.

I've tried to carry on these past few weeks - do whatever it took to survive, usually that gets me through the other side but now? Now I don't know what else to do. I've tried to write and to run and to draw and to scribble and to shout. I took the pills, I didn't take the pills. Neither made any difference. I cut, I didn't cut - I couldn't feel fuck-all anyway.

I let myself get the shit beaten out of; just because it's easier. Less fuss. I let myself. Nothing to do with him at all. So now I'm in bed; under strict orders not to move unless I want myself in an even worse state - which to be honest is looking attractive just now.

It's Easter holidays though, so at least I can reasonably stay in bed all day without being interrogated...

Just a quick thing though I want to say thank you to my best friend Saff; she called me last night and spent hours listening to me cry and trying to sort me out. She's invaluable and I love her.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Anger

The very first time I was sat in front of my GP regarding my *lack* of apparent mental health he told me that he saw a very angry young girl. This, perplexed me somewhat, I'd never thought of myself as angry before - and up until this past month or so I've never understood what he meant.
Last session with Dr H he noted how angry I appeared to him; as though my demeanour was forced because it was hiding anger. This, of course, was my cue to throw a fit. Luckily he didn't bring out the straightjacket...

Just recently I've begun to understand anger; I am usually stuck in periods of self-loathing - anger directed purely at myself. But now I find myself in a new world of anger. I can feel it rising up inside me; it takes so much strength not to shout and scream and just throw things. What scares me the most is the urge I've had to be violent; this is not good. I am not my father, I know; I would never act on these urges. But what if one day I did? Maybe that's what it's like to be my dad - anger that he just can't surpress. Even if I'm not being attacked or aggrivated by anyone I just find myself in angry tears willing pain upon myself and anyone who ever hurt me.

I am angry and it scares me. I've felt things very strongly in the past but predominantly sadness or ecstasy - this anger is like a whole new form of energy. It drives me to speed along the coast not paying attention; it drives me to go to the gym even though I'm not physically up to it (I passed out on the treadmill today; luckily no more harm was done to my poor ribs apart from further pain!), the anger drives me to do things I know are not rational but I can't stop myself from doing them. I HAVE to drive fast. I HAVE to exercise. I HAVE to write an essay.

I'm sorry for glossing over the car crash; I have a lot of shit in my head about it.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

'Abuse Culture'

I've stolen that phrase from somewhere; I'm sorry I can't remember where.

Before I start I better point out that I'm sort of low and pretty fucking angry so be prepared to take my rambling with a pinch of salt.

SO I was looking through the book review listing table thing in the paper this morning and what are about 50% of the books about? Abuse; surviving abuse, childhood abuse, domestic abuse... Are you noticing a trend? I know that people like to feel loved and wanted; maybe we even want sympathy - you know how many times I've come on here pretty much broken and needed picking up. But why the sudden increase in the publication of people's survival stories?

Does it really make the survivors feel any better? Do they gain anything from it? I understand, of course, that therapeutic techniques such as talking and writing are invaluable to discover how we feel about our past (and present) trauma; but publication?

I guess I was just wondering. Feeling alone and angry. Needed to write.

Respond how you will, if you will.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Baby it hurts so bad

Evnin

I'm in Leeds.

I was in a car crash on the M1. I survived. Obviously.

But it hurts. It hurts so much.

*deep breath*

That hurts too...

Right now I can put my hand on my heart and swear I wish I weren't here.

Things have gotten bad.

17; that's all I am.

I've been through fuck knows what but has it made me stronger? No. Hell no.

I am a wreck.

I don't want to be this.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Forget you're broken and you might get fixed...

Last night whilst talking to the oracle who is Spencer at work, I had a sort of epiphany, if you could call it that. I was rambling on about something to do with the French assistant who left us each a bit of life advice; mine was as follows "You're irreparably broken, Nikita, but if you forget you're broken maybe you can be fixed" - or something along those lines. Me in my childish naivety didn't get it at first; well it is a little contradictory... But perhaps she meant that the past will always be with me, but I don't have to be with the past. It will always be in the past; I need to learn to keep it there, because right now I'm living that past everyday I wake up - and it hurts, a lot.

When I go to University (or should I say if) I will make a start at getting better; I cannot do it here where I so frequently 'walk into doors' or into four or five other people who've already hurt me when I walk down the High Street. I need to learn to be brave and go to groups; I need harsher therapy because as much as I love sitting talking to Dr H every week it's not getting me anywhere except to make sure I at least talk once a week, and deprive the health system of Kleenex.

So I send this to you, my loving void, as a fucked young lady; that is my truth. Who would I be if I weren't? Pointless question; I am me and whilst I am hurting so deeply right now, perhaps one day I can live with it.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Perdre

The french verb 'to lose'.

Well it's Thursday and I'm in that dark quagmire once more; this is getting tedious, I know.
I am 17 years and nine months old, today; roughly.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah...

I thought I was done with all this; didn't I promise you guys that I was? Didn't I say I would never let myself get this far down again? Truth be told I should be used to this; should be well-rehearsed in the art of hiding away, should know when to stop reaching out to people so they wish they had their phones off... But I don't. I never did do very well on my own...

When I'm happy it's almost as though I seek reassurance that I really am happy; when I'm sad I seek solace in someone else's kind words or embrace. I fear I may be co-dependent...infact I'm pretty sure of it.

The song which gives this post its name has been on a loop in my car; turned up so loud the poor thing vibrates and when I start to cry in queues of traffic women look down their noses, men leer and children grin on; unaware as yet of what it is to be depressed.
Many people have been telling me for many a year that depression is an illness; I simply see it (in myself only) as a weakness; as something I should get over.

Before this turns into yet another self-pitying rant, I shall leave. X

Friday, March 09, 2007

Je ne suis pas sur

Quite by accident I haven’t written in a while, a while by my standards anyway; I thought I’d give you all a rest from the junk sprouted so regularly…

Last weekend I did a mini indoor triathlon; it was only a few km and involved rowing rather than swimming but for some obscure reason it meant something to me. I’ve had a gym membership since I was twelve and at one point just before I was thirteen I was going everyday and neglecting to eat much. Classic teenage scenario. Anyway once that was rather forcefully put a stop to I didn’t go again until I was about fifteen and only every now and again. These past two weeks I’ve been going everyday in my free period, I’ve been eating just one meal a day and eating cereals and drinking water in between. I went this morning only to find I’d forgotten my trainers so I went home thinking it didn’t matter if I didn’t go; I sat down and got a drink. I got up and went back to the gym. I had to go; I felt too guilty if I didn’t. Just like the other day when I ate chocolate…but we won’t go into that.

I haven’t cut since I’ve been going to the gym and it would appear to the more fastidious readers that I’ve replaced one obsession with another; which I freely recognise. My question is which is worse? Is one more detrimental than the other? Millions of people go to the gym everyday because they want to keep in shape, or get fit; I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. Am I right? Some people might argue that anything which exercises control over us is something to be wary of; as with anything which forces us to do things we may not want to. Surely going to the gym everyday and eating healthily is advantageous over taking a blade to ones arm.

On a less surprising note; I have no English ability whatsoever to speak of. Since everybody was far too kind to tell me that my poems were shite and my prose laughable I suppose the grade E on my poetry/drama English re-sit might just serve as confirmation of my fears. Reassure all the Universities that I shan’t be massacring their literature programs as previously planned.

This afternoon I have been to lunch with my father; I graciously ate a tuna sandwich while he polished off the biggest lunch I have ever seen, complete with a dessert and three pints of lager – even though he was driving. I’m not going on another drink-driving rant, I promise. On leaving the bar we went out to the car park and first my car; it was too dirty, not parked straight enough and messy…apparently. Then he saw it. The Scratch. Some bastard either at work or college took a chunk of paint out of my Fifi and he saw it; needless to say I was given my due disapproval from His Lordship for not ‘taking care of it’ before he skulked off and I went to get checked out. I did receive an apology text and a voicemail saying if I called my insurance he’d get the guys at work to take a look at it.

Still it was a large enough blow to penetrate the damn black fog tugging at my heels and enough for me to shirk all invitations for the weekend to write this in bed. I shall, of course, go to work and the gym; this gives me more motivation to push my body further, because I am stubborn and always out to prove myself; you’d think after seventeen and a half years of him not noticing I’d take the hint.

So now it’s the evening and I’m just here thinking, about the E in English, the C in French, the three Bs I need… Plus the insurance for the car which will go up if I make a claim, to add insult to the already serious injury of £700 for a teenage driver. Plus I’m hurting through my own fault and others. Plus I feel sick from a mistake I made earlier (I’m ok). Plus it’s that time of the month. So don’t annoy me, ok?

x