The Burdens

I wrote an abridged list of my miseries - forgive the total lack of eloquence as well as the many things I omitted - in the hope that the cathartic process of their expression will give clearance for brighter things to grow. It's time to burn this all and start a fresh tomorrow for the very last time. 

I have no place to call home and sofa-surfing is incredibly draining and demoralising 

I am a problem - I'm a burden to anyone and everyone I spend any length of time around given that I can't control my emotions or my eating disordered behaviours and I'm tired of making everyone's lives a misery as well as my own

I don't have the money to find my own place and the services can't work quickly enough 

This has quite possibly been the worst half term of all time - I spent my Halloween trekking around Sussex for six hours looking for somewhere to spend the night instead of having a good time with my friends or family

I don't feel supported or cared for anymore; not even by my own mother who I had thought I could depend on. Even though I forgive her I cannot forget the hurtful things she has said and done. I cannot shake the feelings of betrayal, and for her now to deny moral support in me finding somewhere else to stay is only making me feel more alone than ever. I didn't watch her spend years in a severely unhappy relationship with my Dad and learn nothing - there is no denying that we need time and space from each other before the situation deteriorates any more. Right now it is only a ticking time bomb before another dangerous situation explodes between us when I feel suicidal whenever I am in the house

I don't want to be sad anymore but I don't know how to be happy

I can't find peace anywhere

I am ugly and fat - I'm not even thin enough to be deserving of pity

I can't seem to do any work for sixth form as I'm overwhelmed by misery and anxiety at my situation

My bedroom is a mess

I can't sleep without having horrible nightmares - when I slept last I dreamt that I was being raped and no-one would help me and then that someone attacking me leapt onto my back and I didn't have the strength to shake them off

I'm exhausted by the constant battle against food, against fear, against sadness, against anger; against myself

I feel physically terrible - I'm tired of feeling like shit 99% of the time and being under the weather with a cold coming on doesn't help AT all

I'm worried about my brother Tristan as I know he is struggling mentally but there seems very little I can do to help him

Every effort I make to help others is never enough - if I make breakfast in bed for my Mum, babysit my brothers and cook them dinner, get myself to work without troubling anyone for a lift to save me struggling all the way to the station… it is only appreciated for the briefest of moments before I get shit for something else

I'm tired of being spoken about so negatively behind my back by members of my own family and I'm sure thought of negatively all the time

I'm horrifically worried about the ELAT test on Wednesday as I'm the least prepared I've ever been for any test in my life. I gave one of the books from Oxford University I could have used to revise from to a patient at my last unit to read and I think she has died which makes me more miserable than you can imagine and also means that there is no chance of me getting it back

I feel like I am letting everyone down by failing to reply to messages or letters in good time but I don't want to respond when I'm in such a bad place when I desperately wish to be a positive influence to others

It makes me bitterly sad to see all my friends getting on with their lives - my sixth form friends now flourishing at university, many of those I know from various inpatient units now recovering from their conditions and loving life again - all whilst I remain stuck

I miss my friends more than I can say

I can't forget the things I have seen: E being brutally force-fed as I cried and girls screamed and tried to escape; L slitting her wrists with my paint tile that I had left on the table and seeing the blood that drenched her bedroom floor; T vomiting in the washing machine before she was restrained and injected in her room where she screamed 'rape' for hours on end; walking past the isolated ward on the AMU a few days following my worst overdose and seeing a lady being resuscitated after a heart attack, then returning after my cigarette for her to be gone...

I can't forget the things that I've experienced: being taken advantage of by a guy I didn't know when I was paralytically drunk those years ago; having the naso-gastric tube inserted up my nose and into my stomach to be sedated and drip-fed constantly for three weeks; watching my life slur by in strange dream-like scenes as my present senses began to diminish and vitality faded whilst I was at A&E during my physical worst; being conspired against by mental health professionals when they assessed me for sectioning without my knowledge before admitting me to an institution that has left me permanently traumatized; being screamed and spat at by a woman suffering from severe Anorexia herself and told I was a selfish cow who didn't deserve to be here; being rushed off in an ambulance after my fourth major overdose, impaled with needles and wires as the sirens screamed; having my own mother grip my wrists nearly to breaking point before we fought so viciously until she called the police…

No-one understands how I feel

I want everything to go away but I'm judged for any means of escapism that I resort to

I don't know where to go or who to turn to

I miss my boyfriend and I am ashamed to see him tomorrow when I don't deserve him and he doesn't deserve to be burdened with me. I am terrified that I will lose him for I know I will not survive that loss

Lou Reed is dead