0

Good Intentions, Bad Impressions

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Hi there.

I haven’t been on here for a while, and there are many justifications for that, each with varying degrees of reason; i.e. pure laziness. There is however, one main explanation.

Nine months ago, I created a post listing insensitive things that my family had said regarding my lifestyle and depression. It was a way of letting out my feelings without possibly causing hurt to those around me, and I, like many people in this world, wanted to feel understood. I failed to take into account though, the fact that everyone has their own interpretation of things. I was overwhelmed and depressed and I needed an outlet.

And then someone in the comments called my mum a coward.

This was understandable. Throughout my time on here, I had written down mostly negative experiences and thoughts about my life, which of course, often featured my family; as they still do. Few positive stories were told to counteract the negative ones.

It was common sense that those who read my writings would gain unfavourable impressions of my family. But being slightly naive at the time, my mind either failed to register this or did not recognise the significance of this at all, until the second my eyes fell upon the words: ‘your mum is a coward’.

See, my mum is many things. She is stressed, busy, and very sensitive to words. She can take her anger out on others and say the most hurtful things. One thing my mum is not, however, is a coward. She is the least coward-like person I know of. If something needs confronting, she’ll face it. And I think I’ve inherited that trait.

My mum is also loving, sweet and generous. I’m fiercely protective of her.

I do actually have a tendency to boldly confront those who insult my mum: most recently two months ago, when my aunt and I shouted back and forth at each other for around forty minutes. I might elaborate on that another time. That argument still stings.

I really hate that my actions led to my mum being called a coward. The commenter had good intentions, I know, and yet, I still resent myself slightly for it.

The people who know and love you the most can hurt you the most. That’s given. They know what hurts, and if they’re thinking irrationally or believe it’s deserved, they’ll use it. Most of the time though, they simply do not realise the impact of what they say.

The latter was the logic behind the list. My family had good intentions, they just did not know how to express it in an encouraging way, rather than criticising. They’re still like that.

I think I thought that people would understand that only one side of the story was being told, that it was only the negative experiences being written. But in this world, sometimes negative experiences are all people have. And I am so grateful that my life isn’t one of them and I really hope that I can change lives for the better one day.

I’m sorry if I misled anyone.

~o~

I have school tomorrow, and I am scared. The summer holidays are soon to be no more.

Eleven months ago, I wasn’t going to school at all. I was depressed; to someone who hasn’t experienced depression, it might seem like an inadequate reason, but there isn’t much more to it. Your mind can be your worst enemy. Your mind knows you the most, and it can hurt you the most. Depression can take over your life, and for a few months, it completely took over mine.

Eight months ago, I started going to school at 3.30pm, until 4.30pm.

Two months ago, I was going to and from school by bus, at 2.15pm until 4.30pm.

And now I am scared. I’ve never been brilliant at sleeping and getting up at socially acceptable times, save for a few years. My body has been used to sleeping past midnight since I was seven; before I inadvertently give out the wrong impression that my single mum couldn’t care less at the time, I would like to say that it was because my single mum began running a business that closed late all by herself, to support us. My mum really tried to get me to sleep early, she did. She still does, but to no avail.

Here I am at 4am. School is at 8pm tomorrow. I’m so scared. Am I going to get up? Am I going to go in regularly? Will I go in at the right time, everyday, the way I never have for this school? I don’t know, and I’m scared. There is a lot of pressure.

Can I handle it?

X

0

Blue Skies, White Clouds

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I’m not actually in the mood to write anything. When I started this blog though, I vowed to myself that I would post at least once a month, so here goes.

~o~

I started taking antidepressants this month. There isn’t much to elaborate on, except that it’s going to take a while for them to kick in. Mum doesn’t want me to take them because prescription drugs remind her of my grandma – who tragically passed away from cancer before I was born – and despite what the doctor says, she worries that I’m going to become addicted. She was really stressed out about it at first.

Mum’s trying though, and for that I’m grateful. She helps me to remember to take them every day, and she always gives me a cup of water to have it with. She’s trying.

Personally, I don’t think much will change. I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as she makes it out to be.

~o~

I’m going back to school, so I suppose that is something; before January, I hadn’t been since September.

Mum made this arrangement with the school where I go in for the afternoon and stay an hour to do some work every day. There’s this private room I go to, next to an office. Sometimes there are a few students. Teachers leave me some assignments at the reception, and I do them. It’s nothing much, but mum says she’s proud of me anyway.

I haven’t been in on time though. Not once.

She keeps saying that she’ll be prouder if I get up earlier and get there by myself, regularly. If I could go there at the normal times and walk home, or get the bus – like I used to. I’m not sure if I can do that. Not yet, at least.

There’s a lot weighing down on this. It’s a lot of pressure. Again, I don’t think it’s a big deal.

~o~

I’ve been reading this interactive novel for the last few weeks. Well, it’s an app, but it’s in the form of an interactive novel. It was an app, until it ended and was taken off the app store. I played the finale a few days ago.

My favourite character died. I know it’s only a character, and it’s stupid to get attached; it’s just that this was the first time I’d ever related to a character so much. We were really similar.

She had trust issues, a fear of commitment, and struggled emotionally. We had the same sense of humour, the same attitude. She was strong and weak at the same time.

She had a relationship with someone but pushed him away because she was afraid of getting hurt. She constantly doubted herself. And when she overcame it all, when she was finally ready to let someone in – she died. She had been running her entire life. She was ready. She was finally facing up to her feelings, the feelings that she once pushed away, the reason why she had ended it with the person she had loved in the first place, and she died.

It should be okay to run. It should be okay to hide. As long as you stop eventually, and get better, it should be okay. You should be allowed time to be ready.

I wish I could ask the writers what would have happened had she lived. I wish they would have explained her character in depth and elaborated on why she had to die. Their funds were cut, so they had to end it quickly. I wish that they’d talked about it before moving on to different projects.

I guess I thought that if she could have a happy ending, so could I. I know that it’s only a character but damn it, she deserved happiness.

I just really thought that she deserved a happy ending.

X

0

Reflections, Revelations, Resolutions

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It’s the last day in 2014 today.

I’m writing this now because I imagine that I’ll wake up late at night, and consequently be too tired to do anything productive; it’s 9am and I haven’t slept yet. This is what my life has come to.

Every month, I have this sleep cycle. I’ll start sleeping in the early hours of the morning, and then gradually fall into that state of unconsciousness later and later until I sleep so late that it becomes early. I can’t stop. It’s hard enough to sleep and wake up to the world as it is.

I’m just really disappointed that the worst part of the cycle came around right when I was supposed to get a fresh start.

~o~

A lot of things have happened in 2014. For some people, it was the best year of their lives, and for others, it was the worst. For every death, there is a birth, they say. What goes around comes back around.

What I can say, is that as a young adult, I have grown more as a human. Perhaps not intellectually – I have not attended school for three months due to depression – but physically and mentally.

Physically, I have changed. I have gone from being unable to leave the house without eye-makeup (which at the beginning, was hilariously drawn on badly) to going out, albeit in a more self-conscious manner, bare-faced. I’ve also gained enough confidence to wear my hair up in a ponytail. Which should have been natural, I know. I simply always had the assumption that it made me look significantly worse than I normally did. Perhaps it was because of the influence society has on us today, perhaps it was me. It was probably just me and my self-esteem.

Without a doubt, however, I can say that the biggest difference this year is my mental well-being. At the start, I was a moderately depressed teenage girl who was still managing to go to school despite everything. I thought that I needed help so I kept going to the doctors, who all simply told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and couldn’t possibly be going through anything serious because I was too young. They said it was just normal teenage hormones. I read a portion of my written speech about life with anxiety to a doctor once and he called me dramatic.

On the plus side, I’ve become more understanding, patient, and hopefully, more mature as a result. My insight on life has changed quite a bit. I think I’ve changed for the better.

Unfortunately, I have also been subconsciously suppressing my emotions to cope. And I have being inching closer and closer to breaking point. If I were of age, I would have probably turned to alcohol.

So here I am now. Depression has taken over my life. I haven’t been to school in three months. I eat one or two meals a day. I have a meeting with CAMHS a year from when I wrote the speech on anxiety and depression.

Here I am, at fourteen years old.

~o~

In 2014, my resolution was to not eat an individual packet of crisps. Challenge completed.

~o~

My New Year’s resolution in 2015 is to sing once in a while.

I love singing, I sing all the time, but I imagine that a time will come when it is the hardest thing to do. I spent almost three hours learning La Vie En Rose on guitar today. I don’t usually play guitar, I don’t know many chords, and my fingers really hurt, still, it was worth it. I can’t quite play it in time to my voice. It’ll take a lot of practice to get right, I’m not sure if I ever will be able to do the song justice.

It’s one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard. The words, the tune, everything. It’s so sweet and elegant.

I just hope that one day, I’ll see la vie en rose. And that I’ll be happy. That the whole world will be happy.

Here’s to a happy new year for everyone.

X

2

Riding the Waves

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It was simply one of those days yesterday. When everything falls apart.

I feel numb, but I feel sad at the same time. I’ve never had a combination of the two before, so I’m curious as to what this signifies. I’ll tell you what I remember. Please know however, that the following happens only once in a while, and is likely the result of emotions building up over a long period of time. And no, it is not as serious as it sounds.

~o~

It was in the early hours in the morning, and I was sitting up in bed, applying moisturiser to my face in preparation for sleep. My mother came home. She was quite obviously in a foul mood – not helped by the fact I was still awake – nevertheless, I tried to make the best of the situation, and showed her some posters I had made for her business on the computer. She complimented them and expressed enthusiasm in me teaching her how to design one herself in the future. She then made a remark about dedicating the second potential lesson to learning how to underline, to which I eagerly replied, “I’ve seen a five year old do it, I’m sure you can do it too!”

Perhaps it came out wrong, or perhaps it was a consequence of her stress, but this incident sparked an outburst of anger (of possibly the largest magnitude) which lasted for around three to four hours. It was a one-way shouting match, with hurls of insults thrown at every single opportunity. My duvet cover was flung down the stairs, my pillow was tossed across the room and my bag was thrown into the hallway.

The commotion woke my brother up, and he proceeded to talk with my mum in the next room very loudly about me. Instead of comforting her, he joined her and came into my room to call me a ‘selfish cow’. My mother repeated this statement very heartily.

She said that she didn’t like shopping or talking with me anymore. She said that I didn’t deserve her love, and that she would be better off living without me. She said that I was ‘too clever for my own good’. Why couldn’t I just go to school? Why couldn’t I organise myself? Why couldn’t I just understand that my problems are silly, that her problems are based from the real world?

My older brother went along with everything she said. He always does. I can’t blame him though, because he’s struggling with his own fair share of problems, and he’s always in a mood when he’s woken up. I just wish that one day he’ll mature enough to understand that it’s better to be unbiased during times like these. It’s better to comfort the hurt rather than spread salt onto the wounds. Because that’s what I do, that’s what I always try to do. And even though it’s not always good enough, it’s something. It helps.

I don’t really remember anything else. I remember getting sticky notes of insults in scruffy, capitalised writing for the first time (my mum always writes neatly no matter what), and I remember being cold. That I then put on some fluffy socks and tried to sleep in a forward fold yoga pose (flexibility really does present itself useful in the rarest of times). I tried to reason the best I could, in a calm way. I was extremely calm. I remember being hit twice, on the head and the arm; she rarely does that, only when she’s absolutely furious. She apologised, but said that I had deserved it regardless.

I remember that I was trying to compile a list of ten reasons I was ‘sometimes good enough’ for my counsellor during it all. And that I crossed at least five out.

~o~

That’s it, that’s what happened. I still feel numb. Also, slightly sad; which again, is unusual as I normally experience these emotions in a cycle, safely separate from one another. I was shaking slightly when I was recounting it all to the counsellor. I don’t think the words have truly kicked in yet, and I hope they never will. None of it’s true; at least I hope not. I just can’t help but believe.

If anything, this incident has made me determined to help people even more. I want to do something, I want to be there for someone who is going through much worse. I can take a stand, and I will. I’m going to help people when I grow up. I’m going to understand.

My birthday is in a few days. I’m turning fourteen soon. I can’t believe it, I’m growing up. Let’s hope it’s better than being thirteen. X

6

Nothing to Expect

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“I’ll be home around three.”

That’s what my mum said on the phone.

It’s been over three hours now, and she’s not back. It happens all the time, and I’m used to it, but I really thought she’d come home before I went to bed for once. Even if she comes home at three in the morning. It’s better than staying for thirty minutes in the afternoon.

She has someone else in her life now, and her priorities have shifted.

They’re not dating, because it’s inconvenient right now, but he is as important as my brother and I. He has been all she talks about since March (I mean this in the most literal way possible) and it’s irritating to say the least. I want my mum to be happy, but I also want her to be able to separate one aspect of her life from another. I want her to keep to her word. She’s been forgetting most things I’ve been telling her recently, and yet being given a chocolate bar is too significant to be forgotten.

I understand. She’s stressed out and she needs someone to lean back on, to provide support. He does that.  But she trusts too easily, and that’s worrying. Because sometimes she gets attached to someone who lets her down, and she gets hurt. She’s been hurt her entire life.

Maybe I’m just being overly concerned and it’s normal to be won over by the smallest of gestures. I wouldn’t know; I’m the complete opposite. My trust takes a long time to earn, and even then it’s not always worthwhile.

I suppose that when love knocks on my door in the future I’ll ignore it. If it sticks around even after being constantly pushed away, then it’ll be worth it.

I just wish she’d understand my anxiety, my depression, at least.  I wish that she wouldn’t shout, wouldn’t constantly pick at the little things in hopes of ‘fixing’ it all. Simply going to school is not a solution; it’s not going to make everything go away. Saying that everyone gets depressed is not going to cheer me up, saying that her life is harder, even when she has someone to run to, is not comforting. Telling me to stop crying is not going to make me stop. Blaming everything on a lack of routine will not somehow get me to sleep.

I’m seeing CAHMS next week, so I’m not seeing my counsellor anymore. There’s no one else to run to now.

Come home, mum. Please understand me, please.  I’m begging you…

I just wish she’d understand. X

0

Life Keeps Changing

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It’s funny. how things can change completely in a matter of months. Weeks, days, seconds even.

You occasionally get nostalgic over old photos, but you never really think anything of it.

~o~

I haven’t been on my laptop properly for around a year. It was slow, it was difficult, but I cleaned it (both physically and figuratively) so it should be fine now. Not the best, but at least I can help my mum save the money we were going to spend on a new laptop. I’ve been trying to spruce things up for the last couple of days (changing your desktop background really does give a fresh feeling), and I thought that it would be fun to look at some old photos.

Time really does fly by, doesn’t it?

I barely recognised myself; everything was different. I was laughing and smiling, without a care in the world. I didn’t care how I looked, I barely cared about anything, I was living in the moment. I was confident and I was happy…and I felt like crying.

There were pictures of my mum, pictures of my cousins. There were even some of the old house, and I think I’ll miss that place forever. But what struck me most was that nobody really changed.

Of course they’ve all since matured in their own ways, but physically, they still resemble themselves. Even my mum. She dyed her hair red yesterday, because she thinks she’s becoming ‘old’ (although I think she looks young as ever). My cousins too.

I’m the only one who really changed.

My eyebrows, my eye shape, my smile, everything. And it’s not surgery or anything like that, it’s what I did to myself because I just wanted to be pretty, to fit in. I told myself that it would fix everything, but of course it didn’t. It made everything worse. It made me even more depressed, because I still wasn’t pretty enough.

There is a large amount of pictures on my iPad. They have the perfect lighting, the perfect angles, the perfect make-up. I didn’t take them because of vanity, I just wanted to convince myself I was good enough. And it’s funny, because it’s almost like a time lapse. There are all these gradual changes, experiments, and you can tell that the subject of the picture becomes more and more aware of how they want to look. Until they no longer look like the person that they used to be.

I found a recent picture of myself, and placed it next to the one on the screen. You would think they were sisters, you’d never think they were the same person.

It’s been four years, and I barely recognise myself. X

2

Amongst the Darkness

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I’m insecure.

It’s probably the most obvious thing to anyone who reads my blog. But yes, I’m insecure.

I never used to be, though. I never used to care about how I looked. I was confident in all my abilities; I literally thought that everything I did was better than everyone else in the class. The thought of whether I was ‘good enough’ never even crossed my mind.
I think I was too proud and confident. I don’t want to be that girl again.

And now I hate everything I do.

The drawings have too much shading. The words are too childish, the songs aren’t powerful enough. The notes are too weak. They’re nothing compared to someone else, someone who is more gifted and experienced, someone who is more talented than I’ll ever be. I’m too depressed to put effort into my work anymore. I just do what I can, and even if the grades are good I’m still not satisfied. They could be better.
Nothing I do is ever good enough, because I’m not good enough. I’m nothing.

You could say I’m pretty, but I’m not pretty enough. I’m not beautiful. I’m dumb, I’m pathetic, I’m not worth it. I’m the normal weight for my age (I don’t know my height so I can’t be exactly sure), but I think I’m fat. My cousin says I look average, and yet everyone else seems to be more slim. I don’t know. I just hate everything about myself. I hate the self-pity.
And then I hate that I feel like that because I shouldn’t feel that way. I should be happy.

The only resolution I’ve managed to stick to this year is a ban on all crisps, which I’ve been keeping since Christmas. It isn’t even hard, because I’ve been eating less anyway.
I haven’t been on the exercise bike. I haven’t been doing the splits and practising different yoga positions everyday before bed.

I can’t even walk the hour home from school since it’s the holidays, and even if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be in school for most of the time. I’m not sleeping early. I’m not doing a trial run for homeschooling. I missed my singing lesson and my meeting with the school nurse, I’ve been late for the last few appointments with my counsellor. I cried in the Head of Lower Year’s office. And I can’t even get up early to go shopping with my mum and my brother because I’m sleeping late in the morning.

Why can’t I keep my own promises?

~o~

She shouts at me when I cry, she gets frustrated. She says that I don’t know how hard her life is, that I’m making it harder, and that one day I’ll understand that she was right. She says that she won’t pay for my counselling anymore if I’m late again. She says that it doesn’t matter if I go far in education, because I’ll fail in life if I don’t turn this around.
She thinks she’s the only one who I can talk to.

I remember that a while ago, I couldn’t stop crying. I was really depressed, I wanted to die. She was shouting. Then she found me with a pair of scissors, and she started shouting louder. I wasn’t going to do anything. I just like holding them, it gives me a sense of power; it’s like I could do something if I wanted. All I could have done was scratch myself. The scissors are too blunt to do anything else, I’ve tried. It’s just a way to calm down.

I told her I wasn’t going to do anything, and she didn’t believe me. She didn’t believe me when I was telling the truth. She said she did, but I could tell.

She said that if I ever did anything, she would do it too. If I ever found the courage to do it, to go, then she would follow suit. I don’t even have an option anymore, something to do if I’m falling apart.

I’m trapped. X

5

Waiting for Rain

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I’m scared.

I’m feeling more and more depressed each day. I’m not motivated enough to move, to put on a brave face for school in the morning; I haven’t been to school for over a week. I’ve been crying everyday, I’ve been sleeping in the early hours of the morning. I’m getting worse.

I think I’m ugly, I think I’m dumb. I think I’m worthless, that I’m a failure, that nothing I do is ever good enough. I’m not pretty enough, I’m not satisfied with anything I do, and I know that if someone else were to live this life, they would live it better than I would. I’m not worth it.

I just want to be happy again, I can’t remember being happy. I want to laugh, I want to smile, because I think I’m falling, and I’m scared I won’t get up again. I’m tired of faking it all.

I’m scared.

~o~

I had an appointment with my school nurse, and I missed it. I missed my singing lesson too, and I’d never missed one before. There’s another lesson today – in around three hours. I haven’t slept yet. I have to go in.

In my last appointment with the school nurse, she said that she’s referring me to CAHMS. She said that’s it’s very probable that what I’m experiencing is not caused by teenage hormones. There’s a long waiting list for CAHMS, though, it could be six months before I see anyone. What am I supposed to do for six months?

~o~

Two weeks ago, I went to see a psychiatrist. I’d been wanting to see one for a while. I wanted someone to listen, to take me seriously, because the doctors didn’t. It’s your teenage hormones, they said. It’s normal, they said. And when they finally did take me seriously – after I cried in their office, and my mum explained the full extent of the situation we were in – they wouldn’t do anything. They gave my mum the contact details of a psychiatric hospital, and she spent the entire morning arranging the appointment.

It was only a one-time thing, because it was so expensive and far away. I took the day off from school, and my brother came to help with the directions.

They suspect that I have social anxiety disorder and depression.

I can’t go back to see if they can confirm their suspicions.

~o~

I’ve changed over the years. Not just emotionally, but physically too. I’ve become ‘prettier’, you could say, in most people’s eyes. You wouldn’t recognise me.

I used to have really scruffy eyebrows. They would stick up all over the place and flick up at the end. My relatives always used to compare me to my ‘dad’ because of them. He left us, I changed them.

I have a hair parting. I have an eyelid crease, a new smile. The sun’s taken a liking to my hair and given them highlights. I raise my eyebrows so that my eyes look bigger and friendlier, otherwise it looks like I’m glaring. I straighten my hair sometimes. My eyebrows are plucked now, never out of place and always properly groomed. My clothes are more fashionable than they used to be. I don’t leave the house without makeup on anymore.

It’s funny, because before all those changes, I was happier. I didn’t understand why people were so fascinated with their looks, why they felt the need to wear makeup. They didn’t need it.

And now I understand, because I’ve become one of those people; I look in the mirror, and I hate what stares back at me.

I’ve been debating about getting a nose job for around two to three years now. I think I’m going to get one when I’m older, if I can get through this. A slightly slimmer nose that won’t stand out so much. And I’m definitely going to get Botox under my eyebrows too, to raise them, so I won’t need to raise my eyebrows all the time. It’s become a bad habit, and I’m starting to develop small frown lines in my forehead already.

It wouldn’t make a big difference, I know. It wouldn’t be a quick fix. I’m not going to suddenly feel pretty, I’m not going to feel like the most beautiful girl in the world. It’s not going to change everything. But maybe, I’d feel more confident. Maybe I’d look in the mirror and genuinely smile. Just once. That’s got to be worth something.

And you know what? That would make all the difference in the world. X

7

One Day

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“One day, you’ll understand what it’s like to be me. How I’ve made it so easy for you, how much you affect me.”
That’s what my mum said before she left for work.

It doesn’t matter if I’m crying my eyes out, if I’m wishing this life would end. Because in the end I’m just an immature, delusional thirteen year old who has no real idea of how the world turns. I have no idea what it is like to have responsibility, to be organised, to love and to never have. So what if I’ve been depressed for a year? Everyone is depressed after all, and in the end I am too young. This is just a stage teenagers go though. This is nothing serious, not compared to them.

They say that all I think about is myself, my mum and my brother. They say I must not care. Do I even know that school attendance is compulsory?

They say that I need to get up and do something, but I have no energy. I have no willpower, no motivation. I need to distract myself and read. When the story ends, I will read again.

They say I need to get out of bed and get on with my life. That all I need to do is sleep early, and then everything will be alright, and I’ll go to school, I’ll be happy, so what if I have anxiety issues? They shout, they try to drag me out of bed. Sooner or later their words seep into my brain and the mask cracks. I cry, and they carry on. I wish I had the courage to die.

~o~

I’ve been wanting to get a tattoo of the words ‘One Day’ for around a year now. When I’m above the legal age, of course, and mature enough to come to a decision.

To me, ‘One Day’ symbolises hope. It means that in the future, it’s going to get better. Someday there will be nothing holding me back, and I’ll be free, free to run wherever I want to go. One day this life will be nothing but a blurry memory, and all that there is to it is the lessons I have learned. One day I’ll be happy.

I told my mum this, and with her permission, I drew a fake tattoo on her wrist, something vaguely similar to what I wanted. It’s one of the best fake tattoos I’ve drawn, probably the only thing that has somehow lured a feeling (closely resembling proudness) recently.

My mum runs a business, and two days ago she rang to tell me that a lot of people had actually thought she’d gotten a tattoo, including my aunt. And that ‘One Day’ means a lot to her too, so she’ll probably get herself a tattoo of it sometime in a future.

~o~

“One day, you’ll understand what it’s like to be me. How I’ve made it so easy for you, how much you affect me.”

I can’t believe she said that. She knows, she knows how much I want the words ‘One Day’ tattooed on my wrist, because I’ve told her so many times before.

She doesn’t comfort me when I’m crying, which I’ve accepted, considering the circumstances in which I do and the stress I’ve caused her as a result, so usually she either shouts or insults me in a harsh voice. That’s fine. It hurts, but it’s fine.

She was talking about her future tattoo, the one that I inspired, and what it meant to her. And now I just don’t know anything anymore.

She said that to give me some insight, I know, into her way of life. And I do care, of course I do, I care more than she thinks. I try to understand more than she will ever know. But it hurts, it hurts because it just means I’ve messed everything up. I shouldn’t feel like falling, I shouldn’t be mentally restraining myself from a knife, I shouldn’t be wishing I had the courage to die. I should be in school.

And in a way, I wish my counsellor doesn’t suspect I have social anxiety disorder. That I could live a happy life, with lots of friends, in ignorant bliss. But in another way, I do, because as a result of everything I think I’ve grown. It’s made me weaker, because it’s worn down my defences, but I just hope that in the end I come out stronger than before.

But now I not so sure. ‘One Day’ meant hope, it meant being happy someday, about no matter how dark the days get, there will eventually be light again. But she’s tainted them with those words, and it hurts. She’s taken my hope.

And you know what, that’s fine. She can take my hope, she can take my tattoo, she can take my words from me. Because I’m not sure if I want it anymore.

~o~

I went to see my counsellor yesterday. It’s not something that occurs on a daily basis; the period of time between each appointment varies a lot.
She says I’m too self critical of myself, which is something I’m quite aware of. If someone tells me I’m pretty, I don’t believe them. Any positive comment that is aimed towards me, I immediately brush off, as though it’s a reflex. They’re lying.

She says it’s because I think of myself in a negative way. Compliments contradict what I believe, and therefore I cannot make sense of them. She’s got me to write a list of positive things about myself. I don’t believe them.

My singing teacher says that my singing’s really good. My english teacher says my writing is beautiful. My relatives say I’m pretty, my class says I’m a really good artist, and my doctor says that I’m not fat, that I’m a perfectly proportionate size.
I don’t believe them, I don’t believe them at all. They’re lying.

What can’t I believe them?

~o~

It does feel nice though, to confide in a stranger everything that you have held back for two weeks. And by everything, I mean most things. Sometimes I forget. It’s probably something to do with selective memory.

All of the good feelings evaporate, however, when the session’s over and I have to catch the bus home. I hand over the money, and then I remember that she’s only doing this for the money; she has to make a living one way or another.
Maybe a part of her does care. All I know is, is that I have to be out of a comfy and safe room after fifty minutes.

~o~

Around two weeks ago, I arranged to see the school nurse. It was like going to see my counsellor, except that every five minutes or so she reminded me that attending school is mandatory.

Although it did feel slightly better, mainly because missing five minutes of your lesson and seeing the school nurse for half an hour is for free. On the other hand, she won’t do anything. What I am experiencing isn’t enough. Which I understand, really, I do – this is nothing compared to others – but shouldn’t help be available for someone who requests it? Is it so hard to get just one person, a medical professional who can do something, to listen?

~o~

When the session finished, she wished me good luck for Year 11 in September. I told her that no, I wasn’t in Year 10, though I really did appreciate her gesture, and thanked her for that. She then apologised and wished me good luck for Year 10.

I don’t recall ever surprising someone before, as much as I did, when I told her that in fact, I was in Year 8.

Did I look like a Year 10? She said that although I did look slightly older, it wasn’t because of that. It was the way I thought, the way I spoke.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes it’s a bad thing,” I said.

~o~

I got 100% in my English Exam.

I don’t understand. I didn’t revise, I was barely in the lessons. My Head of Year came in and took five minutes of my examination time talking to me about my attendance.

I don’t even think that I put much effort in, I couldn’t concentrate. The entire time, I was just fiddling with my hair and looking up at the clock. I felt dumb doing it, which I often do, no matter what anyone says, or how high my grades are. Most people told me that it was okay, but slightly hard. There’s only one other person in my class who got the same mark as I did, and they’re the type of person who usually gets everything right.

I don’t deserve it.

X