You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness

So where do I begin?
I haven't blogged in what feels like forever, I'm not even sure if anyone cares, although I've noticed that I now have a couple more followers (which I am very grateful for!). I don't particularly mind if nobody bothers to read my work, it is just there for my comfort and as a way to relieve my thoughts.

We had to draw an idea of what our mind looks like in psychology the other day. I really wanted to fill it with words such as 'consumed by food' 'anxiety' 'depressed' 'self-loath' 'empty' 'hate everyone', and then I realised that this person isn't me anymore. And besides why would I want this strange, self-obsessed person to be me anyway? Instead I filled it with four words - emotion, thoughts, positive, negative. I explained how when I have a positive thought it affects my mood and emotion, and likewise when I have a negative thought it also affects my mood and emotion. I believe this sums up most of us quite well, let alone me. My partner just drew a crazzzyyy scribble all over his piece of paper and then gleefully declared that he could not describe his mind, other than to say that it was a 'whirlwind'. Its true he is a whirlwind. I love crazy people, they seem to look at the world in a different way, as if they have donned a pair of glasses that tint the world with vibrant, vivacious colours.
I've been discharged from the Maudsley hospital, since I turned eighteen a month ago. It felt like the worse thing in the world, but I'm starting to realise that it has actually done me the world of good. I can move on now, and let it all just go. I'm still on the tablets and I am happy about that. They make me feel normal, and they make day to day life enjoyable.

So I've been okay actually, I might even venture as far as to say I've been 'happy' whatever that means.
I'm going to Ghana next summer to help build a community, and then onto university. I've got exams coming up soon, and I've been oscillating between working hard, and not even bothering to work at all.
I've decided that I HAVE to loose weight, I just have too. But not in an obsessive kind of way, in a healthy kind of way.

I feel like there is not much to say anymore. But that's quite a good thing actually, because when I do have lots to say its usually because I am in a very low place. Christmas is coming and I'm actually looking forward to it for once! I sat at the breakfast table the other day, and told my mum that this is the first time I've allowed myself to feel excited for Christmas. Its a strange thing being ill, or sad, or whatever it is. It kind of haunts you, clings to you like a comfort blanket, and its only until you begin to let go and believe there is a world of possibilites beyond the duvet that protects you from the outside, it is then that you can begin to get better.
I believe I am on the road to recovery, hell I might even be there. I'm not thin, not even slim, but somehow that doesn't seem to fill me with physical sickness anymore. I'm not anxiety ridden either. I'm just me. Well I'm beginning to find 'me', maybe I will let you know when I've completely found her.

I hope everyone else is well, I really do.
Who knows when I will write again, maybe it will be tomorrow, maybe it won't. xxx

Procrastinating as usual

I am procrastinating again which is not good.
I have a lot of school work to do, and its been pestering me as usual. I've pushed it to the back of my mind, but half term is over tomorrow, and I can no longer avoid putting it off.

I always have so much to say in my head- a beautiful, flowing story. But when it comes to write, I seem to freeze up. I forget what needs to be said.

I went a little crazy today. I threw stuff around the room, hurling it into the walls. I ate a lot of food, shoving it into my mouth to somehow fill the void of pain and emptiness. I turned off all the lights in my house, shielding my eyes until all light switches had been pressed, because somehow being in the dark feels safer. It feels like I am making my house conspicuous  so that people will not knock on my door, making me jump and cry out in fright. So that I can be left alone to self destruct quietly. I sit and continue to eat my food, feeling a sickening churn in the pit of my stomach. A feeling of uneasiness also consumes me throughout the day.

I've enjoyed writing with frequency lately. Sometimes though, I think that I would have nothing to say if I did not talk about my illness and my problems. Jan told me that I cling to sadness because I am afraid of the world, and I use it to fill the void in my life. I think I need to start filling that void with something new, something intellectual.
I wish I could write like this about politics, or history, or art or something, anything intellectual. This illness is not new and exciting, it doesn't quench my thirst for knowledge. Instead, it sticks like glue, peeling away slowly until there is nothing left of you, or it, or anyone else.
I like the thought of being intellectual. My doctor Femi tells me that he is certain I will fulfill my dreams, and my educational aspirations. I want three A's at the end of my A levels. I believe I am currently at a B standard in all of them, but I will work hard to improve them. I have decided to put some structure in place, to stop my life turning into a train-wrecked roller-coaster of a ride.
Here are the improvements that I am going to make,starting from tuesday:

- Every day after school I will stay for an hour to do homework
-Every day I would like to complete two pieces of work
- Every day I would like to go to the gym for at least an hour (preferably two)
- Every day I would like to have an hour to myself, to read, write, relax, wash my hair and fix it, paint my nails or do whatever
- I don't want to do homework at the weekends, I want to go out and have fun- I am going to make a conscious effort to do this, rather than staying at home cooped up. (If I get out and about more, then I am hoping my mood will improve)
- I will get in to bed at 9pm every evening, and read for an hour before falling asleep at ten. This will ensure that I have nine hours sleep.

Right I am going to try and get cracking with my homework. I think I have procrastinated enough by writing this post. Hope everyone is well xxx

Walk around the wall, don't beat it down

You hold onto sadness because its a security net. Its safety, its familiar, its comforting. Happiness, I told Jan, can be embraced and fulfilled till I'm bursting at the seems. When I'm sad though, happiness is a foreign concept. I forget how to feel happy. Or more accurately  I don't allow myself happiness. Instead, I wallow, I weep, I let everyone come rushing to help me. Just because its easy that way.
When you are happy everyone stops thinking you need help.

Doctor Femi told me that without medication depression will eventually subside after four to six months. But thats four to six months of pain, he told me. I'm starting to believe that it will subside because nobody wants to be sick for that long. Suddenly sick becomes too heavy on the shoulders. Suddenly sick is not what you want to be, and not what you thought it would be. Sick didn't live up to your glorious expectations. Instead it gave you cold reality. Sick has turned you against yourself, made you the number one enemy, when really you are crying out to be the friend. "Sadness and I walked hand in hand for a long time" Jan tells me. "Sadness and I were bestfriends."

I was meant to get the bus into town today to see Jan. I shun my mother for being unorganised and manic, running around frantically shoving things into her bag, cursing herself for leaving it all to the last minute to get ready. Today I did this, which was unfortunate as it made me late, and made my anxiety worse about going into town. My mum dropped me off. I should have just faced my fears and gotten on the bus. When I left Jan though, I came on the bus home.
As I sat in the waiting room, I had a moment of realisation. I thought about the Maudsley Hospital and how they had written a review of my assessment. I need to get a copy of that, I thought, so that when I am older I can read it. Another thought then popped into my head. Its time to let it go. All of this sadness needs to be shown the door. This thought startled me. Am I ready? Can I let go? Do I even know how?
Jan and I had a deep discussion today. She asked about my dreams, and my sleeping pattern. I told her about my recurring nightmare I have, where I am trapped in a world covered in sandstone, where council buildings tower over me, and I cannot escape. Just when I think I've seen the promise land, when I think I am safe, it turns out to be a dead end. I am trapped. Jan asked me what I thought this signified in my life. I told her I think it represents all of my insecurities and my paranoia, that towers over me, consumes me, never letting me escape its clutch. I also told Jan that I am sleeping a lot, and I am constantly tired. I wake up every night though. Always between four and five am. I get up and I am wide away. I force myself back to sleep though.
What if all of these signs aren't symptoms? What if they are just a product of my nature, my biology, my life, the way I just am? It doesn't have to be depression...does it? Just because I wake up every morning at four or five am. Just because I am loosing my memory or I feel sad, does it really mean that I am depressed?

Jan said something interesting. She said that sadness is may way of coping with the world. That I don't know any other way to deal, so I use sadness instead. I am not a fulfilled person yet, and so I take the sadness and I try to fill myself with it, in the hopes of feeling whole. I do not feel whole. I feel like an empty, used shell.
Telling Jan my nightmare made her envision a wall. The wall is my depression, my illness, my troubles and my problems. I am constantly hacking at the wall, Jan tells me. I am trying to destroy it, trying to pull it down until all that's left is ruble. Instead all I need to do is walk around the wall. To say "Fuck it all" (as my mother vicariously shouts from time to time), and laugh in the face of my fears.

Please follow!

Hi,

To the occasional passers who stumble across my blog, please do consider following or at least writing a comment. I could do with a friend or two to talk too! (That was a lot of to's!) And to just have some interaction, considering this is a blog.

Thanks x

I am still living

Is it a crime to say yes to food, and no to starvation? Is it a crime to find the weak voice that lays rotting inside of you, to dust off the cobwebs and say without shame or humiliation the three words that we all dread; I AM HUNGRY.
It certainly is of a high powered, self driven, obsessive compulsive food freak to face her inner demons rather than oh-so easily ignore them.

Today I had my last ever 'parent's evening', where the parents i.e my twitchy, jumpy mother, comes to talk to each of my subject teachers. Psychology was first, and both teachers had praise, although they did worry about my struggling with the last past of the course that really gets hard work. Still they even told me not to work so hard. That felt like a bit of a paradox to what she had been ranting about through gritted teeth, a couple of weeks ago about how we all need to up our game. Photography was slightly less pleasing and at one point I thought I was going to literally have to restrain my mother, to stop her from exploding with anger when the teacher made a comment about me needing to work harder, despite my slaving efforts. Philsophy and Ethics was by far the best, they are both lovely teachers and they wanted to "bottle up my hard work and sell it".

A week has pasted since my low point, where the doctor told me that he would consider putting me into hospital if my depression got any worse. I have been taking 100mg of setralin rather than 50mg per day. My mood has improved. On thursday night I went to the park with my sister and we had a laugh. I took my camera with me, deciding to get to work straight away by improving my comments from the photographer teachers about needing to take more photographs.

On friday night it was the annual Halloween party at my school that everyone attends. It was good, and I even got busted for running back out with a friend and trying to hide behind the mini van, after our plan to find our secret stash of alcohol went to pot after we realised it had been taken. That was very thrilling and funny. I did want to try and get with a boy that I have liked for ages though, which didn't happen. I'm starting to feel like I will never get a boyfriend at this rate.

Tonight I've been looking through old photographs of me, and its certainly put into perspective how much weight I actually need to loose and how much I would feel happier if I did.

Why does my life seem to revolve around, my mood, school, and my weight?
Its all a little monotonous and tiring.

At least my mood has not gone rocketing up sky-high then crashing back down to an all time low. Its stable which is a good thing.

I'm so so so tired. I slept for several hours today after deciding not to go to school but my energy levels have diminished to non existent. I woke up early for my detention for being late the other day. I started crying thinking about school and life and how miserable I feel. I couldn't stop crying. We rang the doctor up at the maudsley and made an appointment with him. I think I know his son actually but I won't be telling him that. We sat and talked and I burst into floods of tears when he told me that I could no longer come back here after my 18th birthday in three weeks. Three weeks is not long enough to cure me of my life long illness. In the fourth week I could be ready to die and it won't even be his problem. Don't worry the GP can handle all your concerns he told me. The GP my arse. Last time I went to there I was sent away feeling even worse.
The sad matter of fact is that once you are classified as an adult everything in life stops becoming so 'cushy'. Including the help I need for this depression.

At the end of the session I asked him what is the difference between this being a moderate depression and a severe one. He suggested that a severe depression is where symptoms will include hearing voices or having a distorted sense of reality. I'm not at that stage but it rings a familiar bell in the back of my mind where my perception of reality was once distorted.
I asked him if hospitalisation needed to be an option and he said not that he thinks. However he also said that if I were to go to A&E now he would definitely consider admitting me.
He made me promise that if I feel like killing myself that I have to go to A&E. I told him I would.
I'm not sure how I feel about a hospital. I think I'd worry more about how everyone else would react rather than how I would feel.

School is a major factor in my depression at the moment. I really need to talk to my teachers I think and tell them that I am finding it a bit difficult to cope but I'm not sure what to say to make them understand yet not reveal too much.

My doctor has increased my dose of setralin to 100mg instead of my dose of 50mg. He will be monitoring my progress from now until three weeks time to see how I cope with it.

I don't want to be eighteen. I've never not wanted anything more in my life. All I want in my life is to stay in my bed under the duvet not having to even bother thinking about school or friends or people or life. I texted my best friend Emily to ask her if she wanted to chat. She knew something was wrong with me because I briefly spoke to her earlier. She decided that taking a nap was more important so now I am left to write to nobody really on this blog.

I hate selfish people. Why doesn't she just ask me how I am? She knows I'm ill, so why not be considerate.

I don't know how to feel anymore. I'm resigning emotionally from life. I think I will now just be a walking zombie. Fuck everyone else.

what now?

I feel like I can't go on anymore. It has all gotten very bad, very quickly. 

I know what my mum would say if she knew I was talking like this, she would tell me to get a grip and to 'stop being sad'. I'm not sure its that easy. Maybe it is, maybe I'm just a lost soul trapped in my own negativity. 

It feels different this time around. I'm ready to check out of life, that I am sure of. Yet there is no angst or anxiety, nervousness, crying fits and hysterics. I am calm, and I like it this way. When a sense of overwhelming emotions washed over me earlier, instead of crumbling to the floor and sobbing my heart out I just felt numb. Talking to people is also becoming a colossal effort. 

I don't know what to do. The school work is pilling up and I know that I will get in severe trouble tomorrow but I don't think I even care. 

I just want to check out of life for good. I don't want to kill myself though, but I have been self harming badly today. And vomiting. So much for the end of that, although it was very minor vomiting. 

I just want to go so badly. Why was I even created. I didn't choose to be born, and I don't want to be here feeling like this, and feeling an immense amount of guilt because I am a selfish brat who has everything in the world, and when I compare my problems to those that have absolutely nothing and struggle to even live, I am a mere shadow in the breaking of dawn across the horizon. 

Please just let me go. Let my family and everyone who has ever known me just forget me and be happy with their lives without me. I just want to go so badly. So so badly. 

Deluded soul

Everything was going oh so very right and somewhere along the way it turned out to be oh so very wrong...

A couple of weeks after the medication and we arrive home after my third visit to see my doctor at the Maudsley. I hug my mum and we laugh about nothing in particular and I tell her how happy I am. I survive a week of school, and the build up to my driving test which I wasn't as nervous about as I thought I would be. I also didn't sink into any low moods, depressive states, cry or have a panic attack over it. I did however, fail, but I will just keep trying until I pass.

Last week was not so good. I started cutting my wrists again with a piece of glass, and I tried and failed miserably to make myself sick (something I haven't done in several months). I'm a little bit afraid to tell my doctor that my tablets aren't working, because I am worried what my state of mind would be like if I came off them. He also mentioned that he was "relieved" they worked, otherwise we would have to try an alternative method of treatment, by going down the "talking" route. I kid you not, I have spent a good half of my love analysing and talking in depth about my issues. Talking is no longer a helpful process in my recovery for me.

So I am faced with a dilemma. Do I stay on the tablets or do I confess that I have been self harming and self loathing? I know if I say this though my mother will be devastated  and I do not want to put her through any more anguish, especially after all she has done for me. I also found out from a close friend of mine that a girl I know, whom is a perfectionist, has become an anorexic. I am jealous, and for this I hate myself a lot, and hate her a little.

I want to take a leap of faith this friday at a party and just go and talk to this boy that I have liked for ages, but my weight physically stops me from feeling attractive or confident or worthy. I need to loose weight. It is the ONLY foreseeable thing that will make me happy. And getting good grades. And having a boyfriend. But all of that will come with being thin.

thin= happy happy happy 

I am a deluded soul, lost in a world were wrong is right and right is wrong.

I can feel my heart beat running away

I haven't posted for awhile, which has been stressful as I've felt the need to vent so frequently the past couple of days, let I haven't had the time to just sit down and write.
I'm not sure where to start...perhaps with my last session at the Maudsley. The rain was pouring as we drove there and it was freezing cold. We arrived fifteen minutes early, so I sat in the waiting room with a nervous looking young boy and his mother and a thin young girl. She looked young, maybe eleven or twelve at the most, and her knee caps were starting to protrude from her skin. I was so fascinated by them both that I couldn't help but stare a little, which too my embarrassment  was met with raised eyebrows from them or their parents. As I sat waiting for the doctor, I wondered what had triggered the girl, so so young, to stop eating and to become anorexic. Why is she anorexic? At her age, I wasn't even aware of myself as a person, or even aware of the world, let alone serious mental disorders like hers.

The meeting was very boring. Actually it felt more like my A level Psychology lesson, when he became to inform my mother of how the brain works, and how the neurotransmitter, Serotonin, is helped by the tablets to stop the re-uptake of the chemical. It was all very boring, and when he asked me how I was, and how the drugs had been going since the past week, I looked at him blankly, as if to say I hadn't even considered the question might come up. Ha the absurdity of it all. I must have a goldfish memory, because I sat there dumb struck trying to figure out just exactly what I had been feeling the past week. I offered him little information, besides the normal symptoms of feeling nauseous and having nightmares. I did not tell him of the suicide thoughts, or rather musings. I couldn't do that to my mother. I also had the urge to slash my wrists just now but instead I wrote a mantra of my wrist, that my friend Candy told me the other day:

"It will all workout in the end, and if it doesn't then it isn't the end"

I love that saying so much I even want it tattooed on my body, and I am certainly not one for destroying the figure with graffiti, so that is really saying something.
Today and Friday weren't such good days. I described it to my mum as I crawled into bed with her on the Friday morning as feeling "unwell inside my head". I didn't want to go into school, but I did and I'm glad I did because my anxiety drastically improved. Today though I have been feeling nervous about driving, especially because my test is coming up so soon. I will let you know whether I pass! Fingers crossed I do, first time round. I feel a lot more prepared for it now then I did a couple of months ago.
I've been having OCD thoughts recently as well. Like last night I suddenly had a thought that if I didn't check the gas was off and the back door was locked then something very bad would happen. I asked my mum if she ever felt that bad things would happen if she didn't do something else to stop it, and she said never. She told me to just relax and to stop thinking negatively, but its hard to make her understand. The thought came as quickly as it disappeared. It came from out of the blue. I wonder if when anorexics say that they "hear voices" tell them what to do, it is similar or exactly the same as to my thought process.
Will I ever be cured of my problems? That sounds like something pathetic and self pitying only a first world, white girl would say. I hope I am not this person, or rather I will not be this person once I discover who I am. 'Lost identity' can be my only claim to a persona at the moment. Who am I?

Every day that goes by I am more and more grateful that I dropped English literature. I love writing, but Philosophy and Ethics is far more fascinating, enjoyable and less stressful. We even get a cake lesson on a Friday afternoon. We didn't get that in English! Its strange because English has also been my strong point, and I've always loved to write. I enjoy writing this blog, and the thought of the future me reading back on this moment, thrills me even more.

I have to end this blog now, but I'd like to finish by talking about the rest of the Maudsley appointment. When the doctor was talking of the levels of depression, he mentioned three. Almost non existent which can be cured by exercise and a good diet, mild depression which can be cured by therapy and chemotherapy, and then severe depression which usually results in hospitalization  This struck a cord with me, when he began to describe severe depression and how one tends to self loath to the point of hopelessness. I described to him through choked tears, that I would lie in my bed for hours, and sometimes on the floor, just crying and crying. My mum began to cry at this, and it was so sad to see, I wish I hadn't mentioned it. It was years ago when my room was being redecorated, and all of the furniture had been moved out except my mattress. I remember crawling from my mattress onto the floor in a time of despair and just cried and cried until the sun stopped shining and I was plunged into bleak darkness.
I was also given an overview of my psychiatric assessment that I thoroughly read. It was very interesting actually. It said I have minor OCD, which I never realised. It also said that I do not have an eating disorder and that I am not clinically depressed, although the parent report on me did result in clincal depression, which was interesting. I'm not sure whether I am happy about this or not. I told my mother about the eating disorder results and she said "Well I don't think you have an eating disorder". I just looked at her blankly. Sigh, will she ever escape the cage she lives in inside her head. Will I ever escape mine? Maybe she's right, maybe I don't have an eating disorder. I haven't been sick in months, although that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about it.
Like I've said before, if there was an easy way to be sick I would be, but there isn't, and the process of being sick just makes my body tired even thinking about it.
On another note, I over ate tonight because of my anxiety, which was counter productive, seeing as I am trying to loose weight to decrease my anxiety. The cycle never seems to end.

I will post more soon hopefully.
Don't hate me for sounding all so wrong on this blog. I'm sure this isn't the real me.

When did everything so wrong, suddenly become so right??

Today I've had a revelation. I finished school at lunch time, and I went to Costa with a good friend of mine, Candy, who has been on holiday for several months. We got talking about another friend who was referred to CAMHS for anxiety, several months ago. Candy tells me that she was also going to go to CAMHS in year ten, and when I ask why she tells me that her mother is bipolar. This is SHOCKING news to me. It really goes to show that however much you think you know about someone, you never know everything about them.
We started talking about weight and she told me she had tried to make herself sick in the past but she'd never been able to. Candy talks in such a light hearted, humorous manner about it all, that I struggle to comprehend how a beautiful girl who has a bipolar mother, is so strong and powerful. She doesn't love herself though, and that's sad because she doesn't realise how beautiful she is inside and out. Something interesting that Candy mentioned to me is that she has never properly fallen for anyone, and she does not want to be in a relationship. She said to me "How can I expect other people to love me, and look at my body, when I do not love myself, and I do not like how I look". Possibly the most truest thing I've ever heard. Candy also told me about how her mother has been admitted to hospital several times, which fascinated me. She said that when she gets on a high its the worst, and when her mother plays music really loud and stops sleeping, Candy knows that thing are getting bad. This also fascinated me, that loud music has become some sort of warning sign for Candy.

Its strange having someone so perfect tell you their heart saddening life story. She is so perfect and she doesn't see it, but I can't persuade her otherwise and I won't try because everything that she is going through- when she tells me that if she could be anorexic she would, when she tells me that she walks into zara and it kills her a little bit that she can't put together the beautiful clothing to make a piece of artwork on her body because she just isn't good enough body wise- I can relate to it all in a sick, twisted warped way.


When did everything so wrong, suddenly become so right??

I've been thinking about suicide recently. Not about actually doing it ( I am in a much much better place then I was in the spring time), but just about the concept itself. Like today for instance when I was queuing up for my drink and I handed the woman my Costa card, I thought to myself, if I ever did try to kill myself again I would make sure that I spend all of my points on my costa card before I do it, otherwise it will be a waste of me having used it a million times and collecting all those points, just to die in the end. And also I would do weird things like cut off all my hair, and have a wild time with my friends before I went. And go on a country walk with my mother and sit on my sisters bed and laugh with her about nothing in particular. I need to stop talking like this, its sickening. Apart from these musing thoughts, the medication is going well. I am going back to CAMHS in two days, to discuss my meeting at the Maudsley. I think they were quite shocked that the Maudsley put me on tablets as well, and the mental health nurse that I see at CAMHS told me to remove all the tablets in my house when I first went to see her, and was also trying to keep me away from using any medication just in case I OD, so I do not think they will be happy about this.


I will keep Candy in my heart forever, and she will always be my friend, even if our lives force us into inevitable, separate paths. I'm so glad we opened up to each other...better late than never as they say.

She is so strong, I have the most admiration for her.

A rant about the past week

There is so much to say, yet I don't really know how to say it all. Earlier this week I visited the Maudsley Hospital (which I will later post about). It went much better than I thought it would, and the staff there decided that it would be best if I went on medication for a period of time to help with my anxiety and depression, although they did not seem concerned with my bulimia, they were very helpful and said that if I had an 'niggling questions' I could easily talk to a specialist about it. I am also going to be talking to a dietdican which I am thrilled with...I really am willing to do anything to get to a comfortable healthy weight.

Taking my tablets posed as a serious problem on what would have been day one, (Wednesday) because the pharmacist gave me the wrong tablets!!! I had a fear this may happen after reading 'Anorexic mummy' blog on how she was given the wrong medication. Luckily my mother read the leaflet with the tablets that came with it, and realised that they were the wrong tablets after reading several symptoms that did not confer with the side affects of the tablets I was prescribed. It even said that the tablets can cause acute liver failure, if they are missused! After screaming and shouting at the pharmacist, my mum was finally given the correct tablets, and I began using them on the Thursday. I was unfortunately looking at a university open day on Thursday, and so I felt sick and nauseous the whole day. Friday was a lot better, with little to no side effects, although I have to admit that I did have terrible nightmares that night about my sister (whose 13th birthday was also yesterday!!) becoming psychotic. It was a very disturbing nightmare, and I really hope it doesn't occur again.

Today is Saturday and I am feeling slightly down. However I account this to the fact that I am two weeks behind on all of my homework, and I could go out tonight but I don't know what to wear, and I just feel fat fat fat today. This makes me feel guilty, because I do want to go out and I know I would have fun, however I  am not suppose to drink alcohol with this medication, and that was a warning point heavily emphasised on the leaflet that came with the tablets, and also I have no idea what to wear. I know people say you don't need alcohol to have a good time, but from a 17 years olds perspective, I have to disagree.

I thought writing down my problems would make me feel more at ease but I still feel tense and not happy. I think the best option is to just get cracking with my homework, however much I hate it!!!

In other news, I have also been predicted my grades for uni. For Photography I have been predicted a B (I got a B last time), for Psychology I have been predicted an A (I got an A last time as well), and for Philosophy and Ethics I have been predicted a B (I received a B in philosophy and a D in Ethics, last year which rounded to an overall C, but I am retaking ethics to boost it up a couple of grades, so that my overall mark at the end of the year will be a higher).So I have been predicted A,B,B. However to get into the universities I have been looking at, I need at least AAB, which means I am going to have to persuade either philosophy and ethics or photography to boost my predicted grade up to an A.
In the end though I would like to get three A's or an A* in psychology and two A's. I am willing to work hard for it, even if its not showing just yet!!!

Recalling my summer

The air is still and lifeless today, and I have that 'sunday feeling' of slight dread for what tomorrow will bring. I am angry that I am going to the Maudsley soon. It has forced me to confront my issues again, which were perfectly happy sitting there at the back of my mind as an unwrapped present.
I have been on a real high recently. The summer was great for me. I went to Turkey for two weeks, and I had the confidence to wear a swimsuit despite weighing a stone more than my holiday I took last year (where I covered up in knee length shorts and a top). I think it helped that there weren't any other English families staying in the same hotel as us. I only tried to make myself sick once, for which I failed miserable at, and  was rewarded with heart palpitations. I did storm off one night at dinner when my family were making me angry, and I locked myself in one of the toilets in the communal bathroom, but I had the decency not to make myself sick because I was conscious that other people would hear and that I had just touched the door handle which would have contained a feast of germs and bacteria, and I wasn't going to be foolish enough to stick my finger down my throat after touching that.
Sometimes I think I would be sick so much more if it didn't actually involve me having to stick my throat down my fingers and go through that length process. And I would certainly do it more if my being sick was soundless.
After Turkey, I went to Reading Festival for three days and four nights. It was stressful to begin with, as the travelling was strenuous and tiring, and my friend was aggravating me. I also got trampled on in the first music act that I went to see (Crystal castles), which left me feeling shaky and wanting to go home. I did enjoy myself overall though, and I definitely recommend that everybody should have the experience of a festival just once in their life, but I don't know if I will do it again. Whilst eating and my weight was not that much of an issue to me on holiday, I certainly did feel that I stuck out like a sore thumb at Reading with everybody in their short shorts, whilst I wore long dresses and leggings with dresses. If I went again I would have to be thin to properly enjoy myself. I did take a gleeful satisfaction from eating the bare minimum at reading, and I kept thinking to myself how nice it would be to eat as little as this in my day to day life, and yet not feel hungry. I brought a huge bag of food along with us, but my friend ended up eating all of it, which annoyed me to no end because I had paid for it, but also pleased me that I had resisted.
Coming back to school this year has been 10x better than last year, so I have been on a high from that as well. For a start, I have a solid group of friends now, whom I love and who love me, where as last year I was starting new and I didn't know a single person. I also feel more confident to talk to random people, and I have managed to portray more of the real me, the loud, funny self that I kept hidden for so long at that school.
The work load has intensified without hesitation, and it's only the first full week back. I'm struggling to do it all, despite forcing myself to stay behind after school to complete it, (although so far this has proved futile, as  I am doing more talking than working!)...But all in all everything has been great. Also, GREAT news...I have started the GYM!!!! I went for a trial induction before my trip to Turkey, but due to the holiday, Reading Festival and then getting ill, I have only been able to start officially last week. I decided to let the woman weigh me, which is a very big ordeal considering that I NEVER let anybody know my weight and have always refused at the doctors and the asthma clinic, although it is vital for them to know. She told me that I was categorically obese, which I knew already from doing my BMI on the internet. I find this slightly ironic that an obese girl is going to an eating disorder hospital. Anyways it has made me determined to get down to my goal weight which is nine stone, and so far I am quite away off from that. I wonder what my family and friends would say if they knew that I was categorically obese? They would probably laugh. I don't think people would know, on observing me, because I do actually have quite a slim waist and I am tall, but its obvious to see that I am definitely overweight.

I do not want to let this Maudsley appointment shatter my happiness, so I will be strong and tough it out. Its only for three hours, and then hopefully I will never have to visit that place again.
Is it strange (and slightly twisted) that I would be happy to go there if I was shockingly thin, and people genuinely thought I was ill, rather than being the larger than life girl that I actually am.

Inspired to write again

My visit to the Maudsley hospital, which will be commencing next week, prompted me to revisit my old blog and my old demons.

Whilst googling the hospital I stumbled across a blog entitled 'Anorexic Mummy', which is a blog that has been written over the course of three years, documenting the life and the ordeal of a mother having to watch her child battle anorexia. 

I found the blog so inspiring that I decided to re visit this blog which I have not seen in years. 

I am kind of afraid to read what the old, slimmer me, use to think and say and write. I decided to just write this new blog on the spur of the moment, and not get caught up in reading my old posts (the very few I have) which might stop myself from writing down what I feel now, in this moment. I feel like I am changing all the time. How can I be sure of who I am? How can I be sure of what is up and down, what is wrong and right, why I have a burning and unrelenting desire to be thin?

The maudsley hospital will not be a pleasant experience. I do not want to wait in the waiting room, with my overweight body next to girls who are on the doorstep of death. I do not want to be recorded and watched on camera. Didn't anyone ever tell them that the camera adds ten pounds? That's hardly going to go down well with eating disordered patients now is it!? I do not want to sit in the room, with top psychologists who have given up there time, and have been paid by the NHS to see me. Silly old me, who forgot what is real and what isn't. I don't feel justified to take this valuable session, that would probably be snatched up by ten other girls in a heartbeat, who are in a far worse condition than I am in. 

When I say in a worse condition, I do not mean to imply that my condition is bad. It is not. I make myself sick occasionally and that is that. I do not personally think it is bad, although I can see the devastating effects it has had on others, and I realise that it is not healthy or in any way good. But it makes me feel better and at the end of it all, isn't that what we all want? To just feel better, when the black hole in your life grows bigger and seems to suck you in further. 

The only problem that I feel needs thoroughly addressing, is not this so called eating disorder that they claim I have, when realistically I don't (making yourself sick on the odd occasion, doesn't count). It is my anxiety and paranoia that is the real issue at hand. 

Today I visited Nottingham university, and it was so so so beautiful. The grade requirements are AAB, and I am hoping that I will be able to go there to study Psychology next year if they let me in and I decide that Nottingham is the right path for me. Today whilst I was there, I started to have a panic attack. I also got one a couple of days ago when I visited Kent university and had to sit in a lecture. The fear comes from having to sit with crowds of people in uncomfortable situations...I just don't like it to the extent that I fear and avoid it. 

I ran out crying at Kent, which was rather embarrassing as I hate showing emotion around others, (which is a pointless thing to hate, seeing as I am the most emotional person on this earth) and I just couldn't stop the feeling of death that embraced me with the panic attack. 

I tried explaining this to my mother when she quizzed me on it later on in the day, but I could tell that the concept of death in what she perceived to be a relaxed situation, was lost on her. 

I can't cry at the Maudsley hospital, I just can't but I know I will. I won't cry when they ask me about the Bulimia side of it, because that is something detached and emotionless to me. But when they ask about my thoughts, how I feel that I have to do certain rituals just so that my day will be good or it will stop something bad from happening, or the fact that I am always afraid to bump into people I know/use to know because I have an intense fear that they will judge me on the way I look and how much weight I have gained since last seeing them, or the scary fact that I always feel that somebody I know is watching me from afar everywhere I go, and the horrible gut-wretched, stomach turmoil feeling I get when I have to leave the house....these discussions are what will set me off into a state of hysterical sobs. 

I'm wondering if I have slight schizophrenia? It is most likely that I am I talking nonsense, its just my thought pattern is a little disturbed. And when I try to explain it to my mother she cannot grasp at the fact that I am not in control of my thoughts. She tells me over and over again that I control them. This makes me think though that our brains work differently, and that maybe she is normal and I am not. I can't stop my thoughts creeping in slowly and flashing there like a neon sign, urging me to listen even when I try not to. My mother can't understand this though. 

I realise that nobody will probably read this post, and that is okay with me. I think it will just be nice for me to be able to look back in a couple of years, and know the kind of person that I am in this present time. 

If somebody is reading this though, please comment. I would be really interested to hear your perspective on things. 

I may write again another day to update my blog on how the Maudsley hospital went. I wouldn't even mind going if I looked thin, but I don't, I look grotesquely overweight which is because I am. Maybe one day my BMI will enter the healthy stage again, rather than maintaining in the depressing overweight category. 

Bye x