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