Domestic Goddess

You know, I think Will's new night job might just be a positive thing for me - rather than a negative one as I feared.

Last night when he woke I cooked us both a meal - not usually in my itinerary. Then later when he'd gone to work again I fixed myself a snack, looked after the dog and tidied the kitchen and his (pig-sty) of a wardrobe. This morning I mopped all the floors, did the washing up and fed the pets... do you see a pattern emerging?

I'm up earlier than I ever was before, because I've got things to do I suppose. I hate to admit it but this is perking up my confidence substantially!

It set me to thinking. I've always, always been told that I don't put a great enough value on myself or my acheivements... to me, ever since my GCSE's I've been in decline. C's at A Level, dropped out of Uni, can't cook... anything I see as a tiny flaw I will attack myself over and over for. I don't think I do anything right, or as good as someone else - in my eyes everyone is better than me, and it's always been like that. Some people find it adorable, but most find it irritating and frustrating.

But these few days I seem to be building it up again... perhaps I can dry the washing, perhaps I can cook a few things.

Perhaps I'm not useless.

That's terrifying to me - my entire life is based around the premise that I am, ultimately, not good enough.

So at the same time at being thrilled of my new acheivements, I'm also slightly scared and cold at the thought of my long standing self-deprication disappearing.

But right now... I have to run to the chemist ;)

bisous

Nope

Stay with me on this one, please.

Today I enrolled at SkelmersdaleOrmskirk College, as a part-time student. I'm just going to be doing a counselling level two course... I hope it will earn me favour with the Uni people. I also hope it will make me a little more of a person again. I felt that since I had to leave Uni in April 08 I was useless, uneducated and my confidence was literally in tatters.
In April it seems I fell apart, and ever since then it's got worse of course - but more often it's got better. I don't have nearly the same level of professional support I had in Guernsey, but somehow Will and I have muddled along.
Whilst I signed up today and had my picture taken for my ID the smile was genuine. I was thrilled - made up to have been accepted. Until then I'd convinced myself that enrollment would be impossible.

Even now, it doesn't seem real. It might be a tiny baby step but it's mine, back into education and back into life.

On the other hand Will started his new job tonight, working 10:45pm-7:00am. So I'm all alone for five nights a week. Am I scared?

Petrified, is the word.

I'm not brilliant alone for a long time, let alone at night. But I'm trying... I took the dog for a walk, went to the shop and now I'm eating apple turnovers watching tv, until bed.

I'd be lying if I said I'm sorted for the night, but I hope I'll be alright. What makes it worse though is that I have my psych app first thing in the morning and Will won't make it back, even if he did he'd be too tired to come anyway.

The appointment I'm dreading... the psych seems to think herself drastically 'better' than me since she is mentally healthy and earning god-knows-what a year. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm sure she'll be fine.

Sorry for the diary-like approach to this, just needed a chat really.

Surprising Uplift

I never thought I'd say it, but I'm doing okay.

No New Year's resolutions, no miracles... just taking the pills everyday, bypassing the razorblades and blocking out the voices.

For once, I have no words... nothing to say. Doesn't bode well for a blog does it? If truth be told I don't quite know how I feel, or what's happening to me.

I know it's not all perfect and problem-free, but just now I can't even focus on that. I've tied myself up in knots now and I can't remember what I was going to say!

I'll leave it here, but as William starts his new night job on Wednesday I'll be writing a lot more, I expect.

Welcome to the rest of your life

Happy New Year everyone, I hope that it is happy and full of health and that the hurts of 2008 can begin to heal.

It was a quiet one this year, just us in bed watching tv and sharing a kiss as the bells chimed and a new year rolled in, full of promise and fingers crossed that this year will be better.

I've never been sure whether I like the New Year celebrations or the philosophising it somehow throws everyone into. Each year we remark on what went wrong and vow to not let it happen again - but we know a great deal of it will. This year I will still have bipolar, living will still be expensive for people everywhere and suffering will not be abolished.

Yet somehow, somewhere in my brain I am full of hope. I am praying to a God I don't know whether I believe in. I am smiling for an invisible camera. And just for a minute or two I really think we can make this work, 2009...

...Good Luck


"Everybodys out on the run tonight but theres no place left to hide

Together wendy we'll live with the sadness

I'll love you with all the madness in my soul

Someday girl I dont know when we're gonna get to that place

Where we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun

But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run" - Bruce Springsteen

That time....

Christmas crept up, and then went all too quickly. In Liverpool? Well the day was quiet, and pretty much perfect...just the two of us. 

It was the first year ever that it passed without blood being drawn, without violence and without bitter arguments. Was I surprised? You can bet I was...

A few times I caught myself panicking, my heart rate creeping up and tears forming behind my eyes - but I turned and saw Will and the falling stopped. 

No tears, no arguments, no pain... well fuck me this must be what Christmas is 'supposed' to be like.

And now we're stuck in this odd time between Christmas and New Year... do you get back to 'normal', do you carry on relaxing? Do you think over the year passed, or the year to come? Do you think of things to give up, or things to take up?

Will it be a New Years Resolution, or a New Years Revolution?

Let's hope it'll be better than last year... but I don't want to build up ideas of perfection or grandure... I hope 2009 will work on what I achieved last year, and instead of taking steps backwards... will move forwards. 

Of course there'll be a few bumps along the road...

... wouldn't be life otherwise, would it ;)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone... it may be uncertain, or you may not be ready. But it's here :)

Pills

I've a pill to make me happy
A pill to make me sad
A pill to make me wish
And a pill to make me dream
Plus a pill to just remind me
That I'll never be the same.
My pills make me sleep
Then perk me up,
They make me happy
Then tread me down.
You know what gets me most?
There's a pill
To make me human
To change my mind
When they said
All along
That
I could never be
Would never be
Enough.


Just a crappy little poem there as I was thinking over the issue of mental illness and therapy and so-called cures. I know that there is no cure for bipolar, or anything else. Why is this? Because, really, no-one knows what it is. A diagnosing doctor can't tell me how it feels, the nurse who frowns at my cuts can't say she's never thought about it, the HCA who mops up my blood can't scold me for bleeding...

We all bleed. Everyday. Not always blood or tears or sweat, but humankind. We bleed through injuries and hurts and cuts. We lose people and we fall in love, we sleep and we dream and we wake. We go through a million cycles everyday, just to be called alive... so what I do/did is just a visual for the world. It just says to people I am like you. It reminds them that everybody does hurt, everybody is hurting.

I am what all people feel, but refuse to look at.
I am called ugly for my scars.
I am called selfish for my illness.
I am called a freak for my feelings.
Well guess what?
We are all scarred.
1 in 4 people are mentally ill.
Everybody feels.

So this Christmas... hug a crazy person, we're just like you ;)

Love you

Christmas Season 2008

Gorgeous photo there of the the Guernsey Christmas lights... not mine of course!

I wanted to apologise for the lack of posts or comments, my laptop broke first and then it fixed itself, and then the Internet broke... Fortunately a few things came together, at last. So we still have no phone line to dial out on, but the Internet works - so that's all you blog lovers need to know ;)

So here's what happened today...

Will and I took our gifts round to his Nans house so that she can take them all up to Doncaster on Christmas Eve, then we decided it would be good to go to the big indoor market in Liverpool. We got about two miles outside town, and the car battery died. We called the RAC and they say since our membership runs out next month we'd need to buy another year before they came out. Yeah-fucking-right. 

So we called Highways Agency and they said for a couple hundred they'd gladly tow us to Preston and charge us for each day we leave it there.

Right.

So we called Aunty Gill... only her car wouldn't jump ours.

So we hailed a cab and took it back to Skelmersdale, and eventually got hold of Aunty Ang and she duly dispatched Uncle Rob in the people carrier to tow us home. At 30mph the automatic towed the manual with no brakes... we got home, and I started to breathe again.

But like Nan said - it woulnd't be Christmas without something going wrong.

And it made me think, it's often that crappy things happen this time of year... and we shrug a lot of it off, because of the festive season. We let people get away with it, we smile through near-bankrupcy, we block out old memories...

One Christmas I walked into town only to pick up my Dad from jail. I was 13.

One Christmas at my Dads house an argument erupted and things were thrown, blood was drawn and we were out on our ear walking into town in our jammies. I was 12.

One Christmas I attempted suicide, but every Christmas - at some point - I wish it worked.

None of this post is written in the 'correct' manner befitting the season. None of it is happy or optimistic. 

I'm sorry for this, but near the end of the year I start thinking back. I start feeling down. I ignore all the progress I have made, and I just think. 

Perhaps this season has a lot of soul-searching to answer for.

But perhaps it's just all about growth. Human growth. Maybe the more thinking we do, the more gifts we give, the more painful bridges we hold together... the more family contact we 'endure'... the more we grow.

Just in time for next year ;)

Wrong Way

Today on PostSecret (see my blogroll), a certain secret touched me...

"I've been using Manic Depression as an excuse to give up

I should be using it as a reason to try harder"

Have I been doing this? 

There are a lot of things I dismiss as being unreachable to be, beyond my mental capacity - too stressful and likely to cause an episode. But if there's anything I learnt writing my personal statement for the nursing degree it's that I have to work harder.

Rather than shying away from things, I need to gravitate towards them... things people wouldn't expect me to do, I want to do. 

Bipolar may be my decision maker... but it needn't be a restriction.

What an epiphany.

How often do we all do this though? Shrug off a suggestion or ignore an opportunity... only to beat ourselves up about it.

Perhaps the lesson here is not to let anything limit you.

Perhaps we should all try it on the edge for a while... it might just lift you higher than you've ever been.

Love

I am in love

With a boy

He loves me too

I am in love

With you

I need you

To love me too.

I need you

To see my eyes

To feel my scars

To touch my soul.

I am in love

With pain

With hurt

I am in love

With band-aids

And steri-strips.

I love to hate

A cure 

For bad

A healing

For cold,

I love to hate

That you just...

... don't understand.

Quick Turnaround

I know I only just blogged a few hours ago but I'm sitting in bed watching music television waiting for Will to come home from town. I can't go to sleep without him at least in the house.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the image I project to the world at large. Of course this time of year I am fully sleeved - so the scars aren't the problem. 

Today for example. I dressed in black jeans, black patent flats, a navy Edinburgh hoody, a green pashmina and of course a sling. (Why are they such yucky yellow/brown colours?)

On my face I wore a smile for the most part, but no make up - I wore my hair loose, long and curly and brown with a side parting and a lot over my eyes, just as Will likes.

Today I took a bath first thing and combed my hair in the lounge (a recent trip to IKEA meant that we have gone from no mirrors in the house, to two of the things). My skin was pretty clear, my eyes really dark and my hair much longer than I remembered. 

I feel like I have emerged, that I've been wrapped in a bin bag for a few weeks. Nothing has changed - same clothes which really need replacements, same hair colour, same scarves... but today? I wore it all with confidence - and for the first time felt that it doesn't matter ultimately what you wear, so long as you do it with a little confidence.

This is the most recent photo of me I like... one whole year ago. 

Next step on my road to health? Take a new photo...

Angel of the North

This picture was taken standing just next to the structure named above... the best kind of sunset. Not perfect, not the trademark colours, not the perfect clouds... but the light, well that could warm anyone up surely?

The last few weeks of late have been less than festive, the house looks beautiful and Will had a fabulous birthday - but as ever my heart wasn't in it. I always strive so much to be perfect, so much in fact that I don't take any notice of whether the people around me actually think there's a need for me to do better. I do ok.

I tore my trapezius muscle the other day - not badly, (in the shoulder) and since have been wandering around in a dumb sling which I try to ignore and go without but I just can't be stubborn this time - it hurts too much not to wear it! Since this injury it seems that my mental state has been a lot better.

I can't help wondering though... is this the best I will let myself get? Will it be a case of me not acheiving anything more than this? Is it best to admit defeat now?

Such depressing talk... my apologies.

4 Years...

... since I raised that fateful blade!

No idea how I've made it this far

Connie

Yesterday I received a Christmas card. Not a card from a family member I never met, or a friend I lost touch with... but a woman I have not seen since I spent the night at her B&B in May.

I went to her freezing cold and alone, fresh out of a police cell in the South of England. She welcomed me into her home and gave me her ear to listen, not asking what I had done, what the scars on my arms were or what on earth I planned to do with myself. She made me okay.

I want to say thank you to her.

All because of Pop Tarts

Yes, as I stood there over the toaster making our morning treat for this week... Pop Tarts, I started to think.

To be honest it wasn't the morning, because I am getting up later and later these days... people comment on my weight loss - well the secret is sleep - if you don't get up till tea time, then you don't eat until tea time.

I feel guiltier by the day, I know it is the meds but everything seems so dull. I am a lot more aware of myself than I used to be - on the train home this evening I couldn't even eat for fear of other passengers watching me. I don't really phone my Mum unless I have to, because I can feel in every word she says the utter disappointment, the confusion - the wondering how her daughter could have messed up so much.

She doesn't know the half of it, that's what gets me.

If she's judging me by what she knows then what about the rest? She has no idea I've been on benefits... that I live off Will instead of a job... that I turned that 'nice boy' against me all by myself. Her tone cuts me right down into my soul - because if she thinks that what she knows is bad, then what on earth would she think of the rest?

I find myself less and less concerned for the people I have left behind, after all it was being in that environment that put me in hospital after hospital... wasn't it? I don't even know anymore... perhaps the bipolar wasn't from past trauma, perhaps it wasn't from extreme stress...

Maybe it is all I am, and all I have ever been.

And then the toaster goes and all of a sudden all my thoughts are channeled into how on earth I'm going to get it out...

You haven't lived...until you've cried

Then my darlings, I can safely say that I have lived. So have all of you. 

All together we are living and we are alive...we cry and we feel.

Tonight I am crying...but it's okay right? Because I am living.

This is what they call living.

Right.

Well...

...I did it again. No matter how many how jokes I make about being reformed and a good patient and taking my meds. Sometimes I just can't make ends meet; sometimes the thoughts and feelings in my head overwhelm me so much the only thing I can do is to hurt myself. To pick up any object which could possibly cause harm (trust me my brain can find fault in a pair of tweezers), and use it in such a manner which would turn a lot of stomachs I'm sure.

And the result is one or two or maybe more abrasions on my otherwise milky-skinned arms. Angry, red marks which sting when I look and stab when I have to tell Will, marks which I pick at and peel away the fibrin, trying to make me better. Marks which aren't alone, but have at least 100 companions.

So all I can do is to admit it was wrong, patch it up and try to avoid my gaze for a week or two. All I can do is to say 'sorry', to anyone who has the misfortune to see.

My mind a quagmire
of dark and deep,
A pit without bottom
a tunnel without light.
Sharp and think
come taunts of death,
Fear and loathing
quash help and faith.
The end has no beginning,
and the beginning no end.
A piece of string
from a reel of harm.
Pain delves deep
into a failing soul.
A wingless angel
cries in a noiseless voice.

- Nikita Le Sauvage, 2007

100 things about Nikita...

1. I was born on the 15th June 1989, in Guernsey - CI
2. I was three weeks late
3. Subsequently I was pretty round
4. Subsequently my parents nicknamed me dumpling
5. I have two sisters
6. One is 15 years old and nicknamed bubble
7. One is 9 years old next week
8. I have a cat, called Mittens
9. And a dog, called Baby
10. I have lived in five different towns
11. My favourite was Doncaster
12. I have been engaged since July 8th last year
13. I live with my fiance
14. I love to sail
15. I can play three instuments
16. Including my voice
17. I am grade 7 at all of them
18. The other two are keyboard and clarinet
19. My mother is tone-deaf
20. My first poem was published in 1999
21. My second in 2000
22. My third in 2001
23. I won a poetry scholarship in 2006
24. I didn't take it
25. My first regret
26. I was personnel director in my Young Enterprise Group
27. We won the south-east competition
28. I was school captain
29. I was the first school captain
30. I was a prefect
31. I've only ever won one trophy
32. It was for services to the school
33. I passed my 11+
34. I was accepted to girls college
35. I chose mixed grammar school
36. I took 10 GCSES
37. My grades slipped by the time I got 3 A Levels
38. Six universities accepted me
39. Hull was where I ended up
40. Nine months later I quit
41. I've written over 200 poems
42. None of which I like
43. 10th December 2004 was the first time I hurt myself
44. It's been four years
45. 8th January was the first time I attempted suicide
46. I sometimes wish it worked
47. I am bipolar
48. I have borderline personality disorder
49. I've tried too many meds to count
50. Anti-psychotics are where I've settled
51. I'm a book addict
52. I've a list of every book I ever read
53. I own most of them
54. My favourite shop is Fat Face
55. I can only afford Primark
56. I've broken two toes and two fingers and numerous ribs
57. I always hated sports day
58. Because I never won
59. Save for the wheelbarrow race, once
60. I hate my boobs
61. I'm not body-confident, at all
62. I don't think I deserve compliments
63. I have only ever had one car
64. But I learnt to drive at 9
65. In a tractor
66. I worked 4 years in a garage
67. None of which I was old enough to drive
68. But I did
69. I passed my theory test with 100%
70. I scraped the practical first time also
71. I love ice cream
72. But have a mortal fear of mushrooms
73. And aubergine
74. And peas
75. I cannot cook
76. I've given up trying
77. I write a poem a day
78. I've written my journal everyday since June
79. My longest run yet
80. I love my iPod Touch
81. I have over 150 DVDs
82. Some are Will's
83. The CDs are mainly mine though
84. I prefer CDs to downloading
85. I am afraid of the dark
86. And things which crawl
87. But not babies
88. I would love a family
89. But worry I'd do it wrong
90. I wake up each morning to check Will is still with me
91. So far he's never not been there
92. This list was easier than I imagined
93. Though mainly drivel I expect *EDIT* This isn't technically about me... so in here I'll stick that I can speak 4 languages competently. Only 2 fluent.
94. You've probably not learnt anything
95. But I have
96. I prefer showers
97. But will bath in darkness only
98. There are no mirrors in my house
99. I can't look in changing room mirrors
100. But I love the reflection in Wills eyes

Blog Control

Well hello everyone. I found myself with many things to say over the past week, but somehow stopped myself - as though I was afraid of being judged. Which is odd as I don't ever recall being judged badly in the history of this blog. It's also annoying as now I don't think I've anything to say. 

I love this time of year so much... the cold bites and the wind stings but I somehow manage to feel quite secure. Cosy even. This is a drastic change to how I've previously felt... things always seemed to go wrong and everything felt bleak. I think the change has just coincided with me trying to teach myself that I can't live for everyone else... it just isn't possible. 

One thing I will miss is Guernsey... and my friends. It's been so long since I've seen them and I do often feel like I have none left. But again this time of year reminds me that I do have so many people close to me... even if their closeness is not physical.

I know what I meant to write... a '100 things about Niki' list, sort of like Carmi did. But now I'm just not sure there are that many things to say about me.

It's been a while...

...since I rose at 7:30am.
It's beautiful isn't it? Even now the winter is approaching and it's not as light as it might be in spring. Still the crispness of it all is beautiful, and standing at the back door watching my breath dance around daintily like the smoke of a candle extinguished.
I stood for quite a while, watching the yellow new sky turn to a fresh blue above the flats. I glanced around at the lights being pulled on and imagined all the showers and baths being turned on as waited for my own lukewarm dip (that woke me up no end).

After my bath I IM'd a few people who did not share my sentiment...their replies all centered around student grumbles and groans which I took to be the alcohol probably lurking in their system. But no worry, I was like them for a little while - without the liquor - and they'll see it one day, even if just for a moment.

You want to know my most beautiful morning? It was an autumn morning in Glasgow...I woke up on the floor of a student flat surrounded by a group of friends. I looked out of the window in the kitchen and the Glaswegian orange night lamps had been replaced by a sunrise with every colour I could ever imagine. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

My recommendation of one thing to do before the end? Camp in the open, just in a sleeping bag and survival sack. You'll get soaked and probably not sleep at all but maybe you'll be lucky and spend the evening under a show of shooting stars, and wake up to a clear sky - the beauty of which drowns out the M27 bypassing the New Forest, and even diverts attention from the deer trying desperately to get into the bins next to the cabin...

And now back down to earth...wake up Will the sleeping beauty and get down to the garage to try to pry away my car from their oily clutches.

I know

There is a smile. It's on everybodys face at some stage in their lives. It's the smile which knows pain.
You might think that only a few unfortunate people can have this smile.
That would be a mistake.
This smile will strike everyone, and ignore no-one.
It's shown to another who seems to be doing fine.
They might be fine just now, but one day the smile will pass across their lips.
It hurts.

I decided to return to an old blog format, one that consists of many different elements - basically I can't think of one big idea, so I'm throwing a few in at once. Plus my journal ran out of pages but the car's in the shop so haven't gotten around to getting a new one...

To be honest a few things have happened in the past week...Will and I are floating the idea of moving back to Guernsey. They do a few places for nurse training reguated by the UEA and if I could get one then we could move back. Naturally it's not that simple and the idea comes with the necessity of finding the money to rent on the 'rich persons haven'.

Lately I have been yearning more and more for the simple life, like I had back at school. Sure there were a lot of mental health problems, that's another point 'for' Guernsey - the healthcare is brilliant, but I still drove my little car to school and around to the beach whenever I wanted. I taught sailing and could go whenever I wanted.
Now of course there is rent and gas and electricity to find, my health rests not with the CAMHS but with the CMHT - nothing is easy anymore.
Will has a boat but it's way down in Dartmouth and we can neither up sticks whenever we want or leave it floating sadly in the harbour down there.

I guess the main deal-breaker is just a tiredness, felt by everyone who has a responsibility - maybe to a partner, or to children, or even to a job. I'm tired of being a grown up. I want to shake my head and stamp my feet. I want to protest that my chidhood was cut short. I want to scream from the rooftops that I am only 19 years old.

19 years. That's all I've had - even Will has had 22 - did I miss the classes on paying rent? Organising Dentist appointments? Paying for petrol? My sister is 15 years old, the same age as me when I first attempted suicide. That's scary, that petrifies me everyday. Since I was 15 I've done a lot...I've been to A&E in about 10 hospitals, I've gotten into Uni - and left, I've gotten pregnant - and miscarried. Why did it all have to happen so soon? Why are my arms littered with scars? Why do I take anti-psychotics every morning, not birth control? Why-oh-why are my liver function tests so bad you'd think I was a 50 year old alcoholic?
And then there are the people...why did I disappoint my Mum? Why did I hurt Dad? Why have I abandoned my baby sisters?

I know an episode is coming, I will regret writing this diatribe. But I also know that I don't understand, anything.

PS I will seek medical help in the morning.

How Mad Are You?

Just a quick drop-in today. I watched a programme yesterday (see the link at the bottom of the page), which made me think. I like that - I like that an essentially useless thing, can be useful.

The programme is essentially an experiment, with 5 'normal' participants and 5 'mentally ill' participants.

It challenges 3 mental health professionals - and the contestants themselves - to decide who among them has suffered or does suffer from a mental illness, and who is just plain 'normal'.

Already the professionals have spotted one man with OCD, but they wrongly assumed one woman had no mental health issues.

It makes me wonder - if you saw me in a crowd, would you know that I'm 'crazy'?



http://www.bbc.co.uk/headroom/newsandevents/programmes/horizon_hmay.shtml

Ma Vie

My life may not be straightforward, and it may not be conventional
It may not please everybody, but perhaps it touches some
My life is getting used to being lived for me first
And others later.
Everyday it makes me feel guilty for claiming it back,
It tells me I need to do more.
But really, whatever I can do should be good enough.
Each day that I live in the outside world,
And not desperately in a hospital
Each day that I wake up and swallow it down
Is a triumph.
I wonder if I mean enough
Or give enough
Or help enough.
Perhaps my existence makes no mark,
Perhaps I change nothing,
Maybe - just maybe...

...I am okay.

For now

Sunday Night

I've never been one to give up on someone. No matter how much they may appear to hate me, or think what I do is wrong, I have always maintained that eventually I would win them over.
Unfortunately I have made my first exception.
My eldest sister, J, aged 15.
We haven't spoken in nearly a year, she never forgave me for leaving Guernsey with Will, she was hurt when she found out about my Dad.
Apology after apology I've given her, even gifts in my desperation.
But now I have decided to let it rest. I remember being 15 - I took no prisoners, I wouldn't take apologies from anyone.
I just didn't want to do it without writing about her. She's beautiful - taller than me already, perfect hair and teeth...a better physique and wearing make up when I've only just started. She's clever too, wants to be a lawyer and she's well on her way - you won't find her getting engaged at 18 or quitting Uni.
So here's to her, and one day being friends again

What it's like to be bipolar

There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones.

Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people.
Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere this changes. The fast ideas are too fast, and there are far too many, overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friend's faces are replaced by fear and concern.

Everything previously moving with the grain is now against....

you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and emerged totally in the blackest caves of the mind.

You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.

- Kay Redfield Jamison, MD


I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.

- Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Angels

Don't worry...no Robbie Williams in sight.

I was thinking last night, as Will and I talked about my latest episode, about the people who were always there for me before my betrothed.
They never knew, never saw the scars or the pills. But still they were there...and of course they did know, because I'm crap at hiding things.

Now there are three photos above my bed..a white camellia in the middle, Will and I at prom on the left, and on the right there are my girls. Four girls in beautiful dresses hanging above my bed. I like to think that they are watching over me, that as I lay in bed sleeping or watching a movie or just hiding from the rest of the world, they are there to help me still.

We don't talk that often, as life has thrown us all over the UK. We have new friends, in new homes with new lives. But when I look up through the tears of bipolar, or just of life, we are all there together - happy and full of hope for our lives outside of Guernsey.

Over the two years some of us have gotten engaged, one of us had a baby and three of us continue to battle with mental illness.

Here's to all of us meeting up again one day, getting dressed in our best and going out with hope in our eyes...so there'll be a few extra boys, a gorgeous baby girl and hours of therapy sessions...still they'll be there to hold my hand, my purse and (hopefully not) my hair.

La vie sans lumière

That's how I feel like I'm living right now - not in darkness, just without light. You know that time of the evening just after dusk where the cities still glow in the distance and the street lamps are still orange but you need a light with which to read.

I'm in one of those towns, watching a city breathe. In the morning the motorway hums in the distance above the waking of the birds, at lunchtime the roads are jammed with commuters trying to make the most of a 40min lunch. And in the evening, the motorway starts to slur and as the sky turns to marl the lights flare up, a twinkling array of orange and yellow which seem to make you squint with the achingness of it all.

It's like a life lived from a distance, always cautious and curteous - avoiding confrontation or anger. Occaisionally depression sets in but you don't complain because what good would it do? Time after time terrible things seem to happen to you but because of your thoughts you don't wallow in it, you move on and accept that you can't have deserved the goodness anyway.

And the lights, when you see the lights you long to be there with all the 'other' people who get promotions and friends...you ache to be right there in their false embrace, surrounded by their wealth and seeming longevity.

But then your light comes on...throws attention to the half-finished decorating, the floor you mean to replace. The pets who aren't well trained, the food which is from a discount range. These things are real and they might not be illuminated, they might sometimes be lonely but they are never false. The sound of your little flat may be drowned by upstairs and next door, the light from it may not even reach your garden...but it's heard, by the people who are worth having...by the people who walk away, sometimes, from the city - to be a part of the world.

What I mean is that life may be a little dark in comparison, but light it shines goes much farther than the horizon.

Frost Run

The title has no connection to the post, I'm just sitting here alone pretty cold and it feels like no matter how much I put on or how many blankets I find I'm still running from the cold, and it never lets me get too far ahead.

For a few days I stopped taking my medication, becasue I thought I had got better - I was making jokes and smiling all the time.

It turns out that was because of the medication.

Will made me see sense and I have started it up again, which means enduring all of the crap that comes with a new psychiatric medication - sleepiness and grumpiness and general bitchiness.
I self harmed last night also, which was disappointing. More than disappointing.

I think disheartened, is the word of the day.

Every Morning

(This isn't two posts in a day - the last one was before I went to bed last night)

Every morning I wake up and regret.

I told myself that no matter what happened or what I did that I would never have any regrets...well I do.
I regret not getting through Uni, at least not the first year.

It may seem small and you may tell me I can try again, and you'd be right - but it's not the same. On my first attempt I failed, things got tough and I ran.

I look around Facebook and see all these beautiful friends of mine happy and thriving at Uni - whereas what do I do?
Nothing. I sit and wait to get better, pretending that I'm in recovery so that people won't ask why I don't work.

I let my mother down.

Rain on the Pretty Ones...

No words of mine today darlings...just the lyrics of Ed Harcourt. (No idea where they came from - just found them on an old memory stick.)

I'm the hunter who's killed by his dog
I'm the statue burnt down into lead
I'm the problem you don't want to solve
I'm the lover who dies in his bed

So rain on the pretty ones
Your useless lives don't speak to us
Rain on the pretty ones
You leave no footprints in the dust
Adventurous you used to be
But now you seem so dead to me

I'm the doctor with a needle in his arm
I'm the cartoon that makes you feel sad
I'm the secret that everyone has
I'm the cancer that never turns black

So rain on the pretty ones
Your useless lives don't speak to us
Rain on the pretty ones
You leave no footprints in the dust
Adventurous you used to be
But now you seem so dead to me

I'm the actor who's scared to perform
I'm the sunshine that hides in the clouds
I'm the father that couldn't be found
I'm the cuckoo that never flew south
I'm the Christian that cannot forgive
I'm the dreamer who jumps off the bridge
I'm the sinner who hates how he lives
I'm the liar who gets what he gives

A Moment

This evening is strange for me. I feel contented, and I feel safe.
But I feel so alone.
I feel dark and suffocated.
I feel like I can't make anything okay.
I chatted to a good friend last night and told her everything was okay.
But I lied.
I am struggling, still.

Drawing In

The clocks go back on Sunday here in the UK and that means that it's going to get darker, colder and all the more winterier over the coming weeks.

Personally I love this, I love the dark evenings under a blanket, I love the jeans and tops I start to live in, I love the wellies I'll need to take the dog for a walk.

I'm not at my most literate today though I have been writing a poem a day in the back of my journal for some time now, and it feels good. The meds are at a steady level, I can rise before lunch and the wedding plans are well underway.

Love you

Reinvention

You'll notice (I hope) the colour and font changes to the blog. I thought that it was time for another fresh start. Not that I am unhappy with it or anything like that, a little change just felt right. And the colour of my bedroom wall is a perfect colour to match with.

I worry that my choice of colour for my blog reflects badly on my personality, and that the hot pink of blogs gone by will put people off, and make them feel that there is nothing of substance to be found. Which I hope there is.

You might also notice that my grammar is all over the place today - I apologise for this and rather shamefully blame it on my latest medication. Whilst the stuff infiltrates my system I'm running on half empty, and awake only about 5 hours in every 24. All in the name of mental wellbeing.

I appreciate that drugs are not always the answer, but on the otherhand I recognise that I do have a condition and if I am to use medication to reach some sort of level-footing then right now I am not in the position to say no.

Perhaps if this medication takes then I can actually put some thought into this blog, and say some of those things of substance!

Much love xxx

Back

Hey there everyone

So the new puppy is settling in, she is called Baby and thankfully is now getting to know Mittens the kitten.

Today I got my brand new meds - Seroquel. I figure now I'm on anti-psychotics I've joined the ranks of the truly crazy!

Watch this space for updates on the crazy house.

Wedding

Now I don't want to say lots and lots tonight, I don't want to upset Will (if he reads) and I haven't even allowed comments on this post - it's just venting that inevitably follows a few rough days.

A few days ago we ordered my wedding dress, but I don't know what size to get or even how to pay for it.

Every time I mention ordering invites my beau changes the subject - it's only four months until the wedding.

I keep asking if we can put the final deposit on the reception, but he says it's booked for now and we'll pay soon.

My point is I feel out of the loop. I don't know what's happening. I don't know about Will's finances. I'm a control freak.

I just needed to put this out somewhere. A new post, with comments enabled, will be here soon.

Crappy crappy crap crap

It happened again. Last night we had a fight and I hurt myself.

So it doesn't happen as often anymore. So I don't buy double-edge blades anymore.

It still has me, right in its silver, sharp grip.

And?

I knew it was too good to be true. Selfridges was a farce. No-one knew I was coming. I was herded from one place to another for two hours. Everyone there was fatter than me. It was humiliating. Course it wasn't going to work.

I am not going back there. Ever.

Just forget it, you know? It's way too hard. Cannot wait for these bloods to come back then the pills start, and me as I am today will hopefully disappear.

Diagnosis

So it finally happened. Four years of pills and doctors and hospitals and pain...all brought together by two different psychiatric disorders, finally with a name.

Cyclothymia (rapid cycling bipolar disorder - annoyingly called 'bipolar lite')
Borderline Personality Disorder

Next comes the treatment. Which is good, right? I get the right treatment, and the rest of my life can start - hopefully with only a few pills each morning, and an outpatient appointment here and there.

On Thursday I have to have blood tests done, to check I'm okay for the new pills. I just hope they don't affect fertility, as I do so want a baby - and no-one has told me what they actually are going to be.

I'm all for it.

Also on Thursday I have an interview at Selfridges, an interview I want so much. For a job I always fantasised about.

Fingers crossed for a bit of good wind.

eBay

Now, we all know what it is but my goodness I had never experienced anything like it before. I have been popping along to buy my trademark kitsch earrings for some time now...but selling? It never even occured to me.

It all started when Will decided to sell one of his treasured Rolex watches (for purposes unknown to me he has 4, and 2 are exactly the same...)
After that I decided to sell a few bits of clothes...then an ornament...then an old PS2...then some bags.

Is it at all possible that selling is more addictive than buying on eBay? I'd like that...it makes me money, rather then taking it from me.

(Is it just me or do eBay transactions not feel like real money? Like it's a giant game where you hand over simoleons or something (SIMS money) and then get giant pink flamingoes for the garden...)

Anyway, just a lightheardted post for a change.

XXX

PS I wonder how many times I have said 'anyway' on this blog over the years...

How about that?

Here's a coincidence for you.

I am from Guernsey.
My next door neighbour is called Mike. His son/nephew (can't remember), lives in Guernsey, with his wife from Sark....

Isn't that mad?

Well to me it was entertaining

Update

Each day that I neglect to write this blog is another day that I lose touch with most of you whom I only know through this medium. This saddens me. But all the more recently I find myself with little of interest to write. I know that the context of a blog is writings from an average person on their average life, but my perception has always been off. Where some people would write of my recent weekend in Manchester, I don't. When some people would write of my on-going mental health struggles, I don't. When some people would even write of my police investigation experiences with my Dad, I just don't.

I could tell you how frequent my self-harm has become. I could tell you of my charity work. I could tell you of my University rejections. I could tell you of my longing for the sea. I could tell you of my weight loss.

But I don't, do I.
xxx

Check out www.twloha.com . For some reason the story on there has been getting me through.

"To Write Love on Her Arms is a work in progress. This began with one broken girl, one painful night; addiction, depression, cutting. This is a glimpse at the five days that followed, a decision to love and to begin telling her true story. To Write Love on Her Arms is becoming something bigger, something hopeful. It's the realization of what life can be when we commit to meeting a need. A friend of mine told me there's no such thing as suicide prevention. This is an attempt to prove him wrong, to say that love can change a life. We can hold back the darkness. Rescue is possible. "Believe your voice can mean something.""



"The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds.
We miss them in the storms.
Tell them to remember hope.
We have hope." - Renee, twloha


Much Love

Nineteen

Yet another birthday passed on Sunday. A whole four years almost of this blog, in its various forms...
The only way I can rationalise it is if I've got through nineteen years already...then the rest has to be easier...right?

Love to you all

Growing up but falling down

No more apologies today guys, yes it has been a while since I wrote to you all - but I don't feel I could have helped that. I just hope that you have all been well and that you will all come back to me one day!

I am hoping to settle near Liverpool, where I am right now.

Maybe it is time to succumb to lithium.

Who knows.

Miss you

Another Absence

Many more apologies

Life has dealt me another blow. I discovered I was pregnant but then I suffered a miscarriage.

I have left University in favour of living off Will and trying to decide where to live - right now we're in Weymouth for the Kite festival.

I urge you to e-mail me on my new address which can be found on Facebook and we can catch up - not up for public sharing just now.

Hope you're all well

Missed me?

Hello all you people

Apologies for the absence - life has been interfering damnit.

New pills, new lease on life. Working the 12 steps for self-harmers. Charity plans. You know the drill - I come to you all excited and a few weeks later I'm drunk on your cyber doorstep.

Horrible feeling Will's bought a new car or something ostentatious. I'll pretend not to be interested of course, then steal it at night and go on therapeutic jaunts to ASDA and other retail suckers.

See you soon

cipralex and money my life

Wish upon a star

You know that moment when you wake up from childhood? You know the one, when you realise you're not going to live in a castle, or be an astronaut, or have a crown - or whatever your particular dream was?
I had that moment the other day. The worst moment in a long time. I realised I wasn't going to live in a castle and spend all day chasing my children around until my husband rushes in the door and sweeps us all up.
I still have dreams of course - to pay rent and bills, to have children, to marry Will, to get a nicer car... They're still dreams, but they're attainable. They're justifyable.
I'm not saying kiss goodbye to all your dreams now, I'm just saying beware. If you haven't had 'that' day yet, run from it for as long as you can.

Animosity

Because I'm a lazy wench and not very festive I shall take this opportunity to collectively wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

There, that's that out of the way.

I've often wondered what it would be to have a meeting. A meeting with everyone who ever read this blog, and decided to stay with me as I chart the peaks and troughs of each wave of my life. Some of you I have met, of course, whilst others are the stuff of pictures and Facebook profiles.

I wonder whether we'd get along in 'real life'. I wonder whether we'd like each other. I've wondered where we would meet and what we would do. Would we talk or stand/sit embarrassed that this group of strangers, with whom we've shared our lives, are right here with us?

Just a thought for the New Year

PS - great article on Saturday Paul

Blogland Publicity

Good Evening all

I've written nothing of substance for quite some time, however today I have been struck by several ideas and thoughts which I feel would be perfect to explore here. I have promised people that I will write a diary but guess what? Screw that, this is my diary - this has been my life chart for over three years and though it has had its not so good moments it has still always been the first place I turn to when I need to justify my thoughts.

On that thought: sex blogging. I am pretty sure that there are very few readers of this page who also frequent this blogging phenomenon. I have just watched a Channel 4 programme, and though it focused on sex blogging it also raised interesting points on blogging at large. Most people I know have, or have had, a blog at some point and they've had readers. It has become apparent that many published authors were found via their blogs - this staggered me as it alerted me to the fact that these blogs attract millions of hits everyday. Maybe not mine - but the ones of substance.

Oh and on the subject of sex, since women are becoming more liberal, I had never embraced it until I met Will - it was something to be feared and something that men could use as a tool against women to hurt them. It was something I just wasn't supposed to think or talk about - but now I am in a stable relationship and sex has just become something which is spontaneous and makes our relationship more fun - and cheeky ;)

The next thing I wanted to talk about was the time of year; of course it is still officially autumn but outside it feels like winter. I just walked to the village in search of fatty food and everywhere you look there are beautiful shining crystals of ice - I could see every exhalation of my breath and those who hastily walked past me wrapped up in coats and hats and scarves and gloves - you'd think they lived in the Arctic, not East Yorkshire. I just had on boots, joggers and a hoody and I took my time walking. I saw the frost, I slipped on the ice, I laughed as my breath looked like delicate smoke. In Edinburgh there is snow, in Manitoba there is snow; here there is none, neither in Hampshire, neither in Guernsey.

Today I handed in my third and final essay of the first semester, with a sense of pride - it was something I did quickly but thoughtfully, like many of my essays. I went into town for Starbucks. I went to the Doctors and I picked up my ever-increasing repeat prescription. I came home. I finished packing. I cried. I hurt myself and then I cried a little more.

This, dear readers, is not the stuff of books - this is the stuff of my life.

And miles from where you are I, lay down on the cold floor

It isn't long until Will leaves for Scotland.

I had another CPN appointment today, my medication might change.

Will is 21 on Saturday.

I haven't written a poem since October 2006.

Writer/human/thing...in despair.

Force 7

I've been feeling 'iffy', as it were, for quite some time. I dismissed this as depression and nothing to take into consideration; sure Will took me into hospital and I discharged myself, but I figured a big fuss over nothing.
I've been having a lot of memories which forced into perspective a lot of my previous memories, and it now emerges that the bipolar disorder with which I have been diagnosed, has fabricated many of my memories and traumatic events.
Today I went to the neurologist (a condition of my discharged AMA) and he told me that legally I cannot drive for one year as they think I have epilepsy. I have to have more tests to see if they can confirm that my fainting is actually seizures; and thus epilepsy.

NO DRIVING

FOR A YEAR?!

YEAH-FUCKING-RIGHT

Peter Pan and Goblin Market

So I am busy. Not just at Uni but in my head and my life and my finances and my thoughts. Right now I am reflecting, reflecting on all the chances I didn't take and mistakes I made and friends I lost.

I threw away a poetry scholarship to Cambridge, a scholarship to UKSA and a Volvo...but those things wouldn't have changed my life, just made me a little different. I'd still have thought the same, just maybe lived a little different.

I still listen to Shania Twain, I still browse Clinique catalogues and I still say 'fuck you' to people who judge me. But I do none of them with conviction.

I don't cut myself but I do hurt. I don't drink but I do crave. I don't frown but I don't smile.

I'm still a mess of a person. But slowly I'm realising that I am a beautiful mess. And if I want to wear a sleeveless gold dress on a cruise to Amsterdam then I'm downright gonna do that...and I did.

We went to Amsterdam for a few days and it was fab; it showed me that I am me, no matter what my surroundings might be.

Un mot, et tout est perdu

Well, well, well, well....

Nowt much to say here from Le Hull...

I am considering giving up French...

I have done no Christmas shopping...

I want to be a Primary School teacher...

Will's blowing up monsters on his PS3....

I am always hungry...

I am always tired...

Musings

Hi everyone, anyone...

This past week hasn't been my best, save for handing in an essay and going to an English lecture I have not been to Uni. I've been scared to go into Cottingham. I've been scared to leave my room. I've forgotten things, and people. I've been sad.

Today, it's a little less foggier. I still feel sad. But not so sad. My medication got doubled and next week I have three appointments with various professionals who want to help me...me! Fancy that...

I haven't got dressed today, and I don't intend to. I have a lot of work to catch up on I'm sure, a lot of apologies to make to tutors and lecturers. I shall concern myself with that on Monday.

I'm still in love, and by some miracle I think I'm still loved. I know I sound up my own arse today but it's one of those days...so deal with it ;) I've got things to worry about, and uncertanties and sadness. But it's okay. I'm not on my own.

Thanks everybody for bearing with me

You've missed me right?

Well sorry but even if you haven't it's time for a proper update, methinks.

You all know that I'm at Hull Uni, studying English and French with a view to attain a Joint Honours in these obtuse programmes of study. Ooh only one week in and I already sound like a pretentious, somewhat scatty, english graduate. Fancy that.

You don't know that I've been very down lately. Really down. I did not go out for Freshers (not that I drink anyway) but still. I do not leave my dorm room open, I close it and lock it. I do not get up until 4pm for my 4:15pm lectures, and sometimes I don't even rise for those. Now I know that Freshers is tough on everyone, I know that everyone's in the same boat.

But it doesn't feel that way.

Since I left Guernsey back in...July? I've seen no Psychiatrist, taken no medicati0n (save for my secret emergency stash of Diazepam, and now even that's gone) and basically not opened up to anyone - not even the man I am going to marry.

Of course now I've booked an appointment with the Uni Mental Health team - whatever the fright that is. Registered and booked an appointment with a local Doctor. And cried all over Will for what I estimate to be around 3-4 hours a day. I even ate last night and didn't throw it up, for the first time in a long while.

I have been eating, of course, I shan't let myself get ill over this. But it seems every other meal I do force down, forces its way back up. Why? I have 'aucune idee'.

Nastiness aside, I now have two fish swimming around in a bowl next to me. Frankie, and Benny - because the petstore is right next door to which American eaterie....
I did have Sharky and George, but I seemed to have killed them both within hours of carefully introducting them to their new home. So, never one to be phased, I sent Will out the very next day to get me two new recruits. And I'm pleased to say that they're doing well. Frankie is the Goldfish and Benny the Comet, by the way...

Oh and before I forget. Yes I am living in halls and no there are no pets allowed. But you won't tell will you?

This is the earliest I've been up in days. I look around and yes, my room looks like home - not a patch of wall bare. I see Will asleep on the floor over there, next to my single bed (he too has been snuck in, to take care of me). I don't see anything that upsets me or scares me, yet I am both of those things. Why? Who knows...

I promise this was not intended to be what it has become, a long and pitying rant from a middle class girl with nowt but a few bad scrapes to be upset about. So, once more, I apologise.

Oh but I have gone quite a little while without harming myself in any way now...go me.

Welcome back readers, it's like neither of us ever left.

The University of Hull

Well hello there my gorgeous readers (if there are any of you left!)

So I am officially enrolled at Hull Uni, doing BA Joint Honours in English and French. I have attended lectures today, and apparently I do still know a thing or two!

My room's pretty big and my blockmates aren't at all bad. I've forgotten totally all my MSN details since it's been so long so watch this space for yet another new address - my phone numbers are also new so let me know if you want them.

I can't think what to say

I'm not fat

Just thought I'd let you all know that I am not fat. Nope. What Will says goes and he says I am not. So there you go. I'm a perfectly healthy, and very possibly sexy, normal size.

I'm living in Doncaster atm pending my start at Hull Uni sometime in September - I will find out exactly when I start and whether I have anywhere to live, I promise I will.

Sorry if I've been hard to get hold of lately; I'm not sure what to write most of the time or I don't have anything of note to say... Either way I'm still around and you can get me on the e-mail at anytime - I check them most days.

I hope you're all doing okay, I will start reading blogs again soon I just need to get settled and then service will resume as normal.

Smile and be beautiful

Obstacles

So you know the bit about leaving Guernsey and finding the dream boy and planning the wedding etc etc...what you don't know is that I am a somewhat stupid person. I figured all of this would 'cure' me of my ills and put my bad memories to rest.

But for two weeks now I wake up several times a night being shaken by Will from a nightmare in which I'm reliving every bad experience ever...it's like being there again, being through it again. It upsets not only me but Will also.

I cry and I'm still cutting.

What's going on? I do not know.

I got my A Level results today and they weren't what people expected of me, I'm going to Hull University rather than Edinburgh and strictly speaking I didn't even make the grades for that...

So I'm living the dream, but still the black nightmare appears to write the scripts.

Love

So. I am in love. I am engaged to the most beautiful person you will ever meet. Soul-mate, life partner, husband...whatever you choose to call him that's what he is. I call him mine. Someone wants me and I want them. We are in love.

I have no idea what to write. I can't write. I'm too happy and overjoyed to even think about what writing is. Writing's always been my escape and my salvation, well right now Will is all of those things and more.

*sigh*

Current status? No idea...

I've had a lot of shitty problems lately, I'm sorry if any of you have e-mailed me and I've not replied...basically I didn't get them through one way or another.

I'm living in hotel staff accomodation with the boyf.

I'm jobless after losing mine.

I'm fat because chinese food makes me happy.

I'm lonely because the boyf is at work.

I need to get out of this Island.

I'm in love and it is scary as hell.

I have a lot I need to say; I left my medication and my therapist.

I can't say any of it.

Life Update

I've been neglecting this little space recently; posting photographs and odd words with no real insight into my actual current life, I'm sorry. Well here I am now and I'm going to tell you it all. I'm afriad...

So I have finished 6th Form College and as of Thursday 22nd June I will have completed my A Levels - the results are out on the 16th August. I go back for final assembly on the 29th June, if I'm here then in Guernsey. Right now I have no idea where I might be then. This Wednesday my boyfriend is moving back from his home to Guernsey where we and a bunch of friends are going out for a belated Birthday party on Friday 22nd June. After that we're job hunting in either Guernsey or Jersey.

Guernsey doesn't sound or seem quite so awful when you've someone here loving you, someone willing to move hundreds of miles to look after you. In September we will either both be moving up to Edinburgh University or I'm taking a year out to spend time in the house he just bought in Venice doing it up and the like - depending on my A Level results.

As for the crazy stuff, well I'm doing ok. I haven't seen my psychiatrist for a good few weeks now, through clashes in both our schedules. But I have been taking my medication and spent last week reducing it - I'm not going to base my happiness around the boy who loves me but I don't want to be on the pills when they're not really necessary. I know now the signs of when I'm getting down and I'm better equipped to stop it, and if all else fails I know what medication works for me and what doesn't.

Family are all well, my Mum and Sisters are thinking of moving over to the Mainland when I leave; but that's just an idea at the moment, so far as I can tell. I don't see my Dad very much and I think we're both happier for it, I think there came a point when it hurt me to be with him and know he didn't realise what he was doing, I realise now that if he's going to change it'll have to be off his own back - I can't do anything more for him. I'm eighteen years old now and he's forty-seven. We can't play role-reversal now, I'm ready to start my life, just for me.

Last week I went to the beach, to swim, for the first time in three years. I wore a bikini and I swam with my boy on the beach. I got a suntan on my arms and my shoulders for the first time since I was just fifteen. I got driven around. I got looked after. I felt like a someone. I feel like my life is starting, I feel like Nikita is now living for Nikita - not for Mum or for Dad or even for Friends. I want to be happy and for the first time ever I feel I deserve it. Or course I feel selfish for churning all this out, but I know I probably shouldn't.

I have moments when I panic, but I can see through them. I can drink without getting inebriated within an hour. I don't smoke. I don't go to Church, rather I live by little philosophies and quotes which I like. I smile at people. I study when I have time. I chat to people who I love. I know that this is by no means it, I know I am only eighteen and there are tougher times ahead. But I know what I've gotten through and I know where I'm going tomorrow, the rest is superfluous and all part of the ride, right?

Eighteen

Well there we have it folks. The ripe old age of 18. I am now an adult. Ish.

I feel I should share some wisdom, but I haven't found any yet - gimme another 18 years and I'll get back to you.

As it is I'll leave you on this...

... Fall in love quickly

Smile unquestioningly

Look deeply

Live forever

GGS 6th Form Leavers Ball 07

The best evening of my life

Wobbly

This might not be the best time to write a blog because I am in a somewhat snappy and unimpressed mood.

I had a fantastic French exam on Tuesday.

It is my prom on Friday.

I take offense so easily, you know? The slightest little thing and I'm in tears and wondering what I've done wrong. I'm emotional today. I'm tired.

No, not pregnant. Before I get accused of that.

I dunno

Change

I've always written or bragged about being someone who can handle change, maybe even someone who thrives on change, and maybe I used to be. Used to be. I've got to know what it is to be me more than ever before this past academic year and I've got my safe routines; I always take my pills at my locker, I always give Kayleigh a hug and walk round the school before classes start. I always go to the Candie Store to get lunch, then go to the gym and then home for a shower. These are all tiny things but they're things I've come to rely on. I don't mean I'm never spontaneous; there's nothing better than a piece of cake in Pelicans or a wander round the shops with my girls.

What do I do now? Find new routines when I'm working here there and everywhere? Find a new place to eat lunch while I'm travelling? Fit revision and clearing out my room into the day to day business of surviving?

It might seem like I'm exaggerating all this and maybe I am, it's just today though that I realised change isn't always that great. And while change might be great when I have the choice, when it's thrust upon me I don't feel comfortable with it. I haven't planned for it.

One day at a time then, I suppose

An End

I will post more photos of the end of my era, but I shall wait until all exams are conquered. Sorry I look so fat in here; it's the girls of my English Lit class. I'm going to miss that class the most. Mr Samuel Thompson was our mentor; he is getting married on Saturday. The end.

Fuck Yes

You know what? I've been writing this and known some of you for quite some time; you know I'm a fickle bugger and one to drown in self-pity on regular occasions. I am self-obsessed and let's face it, pretty selfish all together. Tonight I have absolutely no idea how to make my life work. But you know what?

I feel fucking fantastic

It makes no sense. But then things rarely do, I've learnt to spend a little less time deciphering the good moments and just relish them - there'll be plenty of deciphering to do when the next down comes. But just now, right now; I feel amazing.

I feel like surfing, I feel like hiking out on a damn big yacht, I feel like staying out all night on the beach, I feel like travelling a million miles to see an acquaintance, I feel unstoppable. I am going to ride this wave out until the very last wash; my board may be scuffed and a little run-down, but it sure as hell still slices that water.

Don't ever give up

Ugh

It's all I can say today.

I'm alive.

Through all the pain your eyes stayed blue

Just before you all realise; no this photo has absolutely no relevance to what I'm going to post about today. I just found it on my laptop and realised it's over a year since I last stood looking up the skirts of La Tour Eiffel in Paris. Funny how time flies when you're having fun huh? I know it's a stereotypical view of Paris - but I don't care, I even bought a 3 euro beret when I first went to the city of romance. One day I shall run away there and just spend everyday sitting in a cafe outside Notre Dame and strolling past the stalls on the Seine.

*Enough of that romantic clap-trap.*

I really don't have a reason for posting today. I have just got broadband installed and so I am now to be found most evenings at my laptop beaming my ugly mug out via a webcam to any poor person who happens to be online. Wireless is dangerous. Although I will say it's giving me something to do at 3am when I seem to be waking up at the moment.

However just now I should be doing a French Listening practice test. I love french. I just can't bring myself to spend an hour listening to some english person trying to talk about police brutality in french. I will do it before school tomorrow, I promise.

Someone give me a purpose

Crying in the Dark

Forgive me, I need to get this out before it consumes me.

I am so lucky. So lucky. I have a house to live in, I have family, I have friends and I have air in my lungs. I am loved. I love.

Yet

I am crying. I am crying because it hurts so much to have these things. It hurts. It has done for as long as I can remember. I heard such a sad story yesterday and I've cried about it - I can't tell you as it's not mine to share.

I ignored my best friend, Saffron, all day today. All day. I ignored her. I wouldn't let her close for a hug. I wouldn't answer her honestly.

I have my beautiful boy who loves me and who I love.

So what the fuck is all of this in my head? These tears? This hurt?

What is it?

I have no credit on my phone, thankfully. There's no-one calling me and I can't call anyone. I've pushed too hard this time.

Poetry In Motion

I went to this fantastic evening last week at Guernsey's new Performing Arts Centre.
Grace and I set off in Reginald the little Micra and arrived much too early to be greeted by all of the poets posing for their group shot.
Mr Samuel Thompson, our A Level English Lit teacher is a member of the PIM group and is a fantastic published poet - I have both of his books. I like to think we made his evening by showing our support - indeed he dedicated his second set to "All the young ones out there" - by the immortal Bruce Springsteen.
All of the poetry was fantastic and the handouts of collected works have been read and re-read a million times over the weekend. There were so many different styles and I came away with a notebook full of new ideas, as well as a big grin on my face.
The retiring collection was in aid of Help a Guernsey child and they made a welcome sum that evening from the full audience in the black drama studio.
If anyone wishes to read or learn more about the Poets in Motion please let me know - I can't recommend them enough.

PS I am in love. I spent the best weekend of my life with the most beautiful boy in the world and I love him...more. XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Don't Touch

This morning I write to you frustrated, I am out of my numb and ponderous stage and have now moved to being highly annoyed and ridiculously jumpy.
Why? Well to be honest if I knew anything I'd not be asking that stupid question now would I? I'd be basking in my own glory wearing something suitably divine and looking like heaven. Which I do not.
I am fed up with therapy. It's too much like hard work - there's a reason I blocked all those shitty things out and to be honest talking about them with a middle aged man who's now annoyingly like a friend while he sits there getting angry about things I am not is doing nothing for my temper. I am reducing my medication also because I would rather like to go to University without being under the care of some CAMHS team or another - I would like that particular part of my life to be scrubbed from my UCAS application and just for once I want to see whether I can do it on my own.
Y'see that was the whole point of going to Uni far away; to start again. Who the hell am I kidding? It was to run away. And that's what I'm damn well going to do; I am going to run away without a diary or a prescription or a blade or a tear.
For the summer I am working in a Hotel, a Bank and a Hostel.
I am not able to join the Sail4Cancer team at Cowes because the parentals think I should be working on my long summer; not making use of possibly the last one I'll ever have without debts.
I am spending money like there's no tomorrow and damn it, it's not making it any better.
I am lonely and I'm damn well glad of it.
I'm going sleeve-free and I don't give a damn because the scars won't get any better without sun exposure so everyone else will just have to deal with it; people at the gym have been ignoring it for years. Apart from the old people - they don't like it at all.
This mood, I know, marks the beginning of a manic time. And you know what? Damned if I'm going to stop it.

I am aware of how many times I said damn.

Ah

I've no idea what the hell I'm doing here. I just needed to connect, I think. Spiritbear, who dropped by the last post - which was very kind of him, noted that I pour my heart out here.

This struck me.

I am very honest here, yes. Possibly even too honest.

But this is by no means an account of my life. There are a lot of things I cannot say here, wouldn't say even if I could.

I don't know. Ignore me. Keep sparkling.

The big H

That 'H' of course being hiding, or hidden.

All this week I have been being supported and guided and damnit downright cajoled into being around people at school and in the evenings in the probably correct thought that 'it'll be good for me'. So I did it. I stayed for all my classes, I did all my assignments and I gratefully accepted at least 10 hugs a day to keep me together, literally.

Until Friday. Friday I woke up and couldn't do it. Friday was a day no matter how many hugs I was going to get I couldn't be with people; couldn't be me, couldn't be who I am for them. So I stayed at home all day until I went to my psych appointment, which I have also been avoiding.

We talked, for the first time since we met three years ago in A&E, about my Dad. About his violence and his abuse and his alcoholism and his friends and...things I cann't write down even now. I sat and I spoke to my hands and cried into my skirt for an entire hour. I poured out every bad memory which had been plaguing me at night for weeks. I talked; not about my mood over the past week as I've spent every other session doing, or about whichever medication he thinks would be good for me. I talked. I don't know if it's wise but I asked to stop medication, so I'm now working on that.

I went to Dr H on Friday with a view to get myself withdrawn from his care (ironically he said I wouldn't have been allowed anyway) and came out from what was the first useful therapy ever. It made me sad and it made me cry but it made me stare in the face exactly one of the biggest things I've ever had to come to terms with.

And the ending never comes

I am struggling with some thoughts at the moment, some thoughts and images which I really hoped I would never see again. They are plaguing me and really they're quite difficult to come to terms with, to bear even.

I had such an optimistic week planned; and it fell through each day as my hopes and expectations were dashed; it was a fate I have trained myself to withstand yet this week I cannot decipher exactly what is going on inside my mind. I had lunches with friends but one way or another my daring and somewhat dangerously formed hopes provided no rewards. I let myself get into a position where I was at the mercy of others; and that's not something I like to do. Obviously I accept that I sometimes need help but I have not for a long time put my fate in another's hands. Until this week when I was reminded exactly why such barriers were created.

I wonder what's happening sometimes; I hate to drag age in again but I'm only seventeen - very nearly eighteen; should these thoughts and analysis even be coming from someone who as my mother so expertly put it; "hasn't even lived"? I think I've experienced a few misfortunes in the short amount of life I've had, but perhaps I am merely being melodramatic? I've never claimed that I have it tougher than anyone else, but perhaps I have it better than I think? I know that my entire life story is not told through these pages; some of it is too painful for me to type, let alone to put in public domain - so afraid that I am of rejection. I have found myself talking; via e-mail or MSN about things I wished I could forget, but am slowly realising that I won't. I've received a lot of beautiful words via e-mail from equally beautiful readers - but through reading this page alone my life-story is not apparent. I often wondered about writing it down, but who on earth would read it?

It's times like these when my mind is flooded and I've no idea what day it is that I wish it would just all end; but I am not suicidal - those thoughts come later when I begin to realise that it's just another day and those thoughts in my head are just there, all is calm in my mind when thoughts of taking my life arise. I have cancelled doctors appointments and all sorts this week; for I feel that I'm not worthy of the help I supposedly *need*. Maybe you think this is just the apathetic nonsense of a teenager. I don't know.

Mini-Golf and Monsters

Don't you just love sarky and somewhat pretentious titles which you assume will have nothing to do with the actual content of the post? Well I do.

However that particular title is relevant; it is the brief description of my saviour.

You can't have failed to notice that I've been drowning in my own self-pity for a fair while now; I write to you today with my spirits somewhat lifted.

On Thursday my best friend in the entire world and her boyfriend got me round to their house and we watched 'Monster House' - which believe it or not I found funny. They taught me how to cook and her boyfriend who's in a similar state to me talked to me, at length, about how we could help each other. At the end of the evening/early morning I hugged both of them and drove home ever so slightly more cheerful.

The next day however I decided they were humouring me and didn't really like me; I hid in bed until 2pm. Then they called me and invited me to play Mini Golf, which I accepted. It was the best afternoon I've had in a very long time. The game was amazing and we had a real laugh - it was hot and I rolled my sleeves up and we were all comfortable with it.

No-one ever say that girl-friends are just there for shopping

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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