Ça c'est l'histoire

Even positivity generates anxiety. For the first time in a long time - albeit for the wrong reasons - I'm feeling lighter and brighter; even, dare I say it, beginning to really look forward to Paris. I just pray that my relatively stable (with tendency toward mania or delirium) sustains itself throughout the trip away. One great fear is that it won't.

I haven't been away without my Mum since I was 12 years old so besides the thrill of the fast-approaching vacation there is inevitable trepidation. I cannot deny that my prevailing worries are orientated around my illness - which shames me in a sense, given that I know there are many more dangers in the big wide world other than food and my insecurities about my weight. I'm not worried about the threat of food, because, admittedly, it won't play a part in my trip away. I'm living off air and water again, but for once that scares me somewhat I'm horribly uneasy about how we will go about ensuring I have at least some marginal calorific intake over the four days so as to prevent collapse. Lucy will be incredibly supportive, that's a certainty; but how can I go about indicating that I'm about to pass out and that perhaps a drop of milk in my black tea would be a wise idea, when it's the last thing I want in reality? What if there is some physical crisis and everything is ruined? I am terrified of letting my dearest friend down.

I'm doing my utmost to put my excruciating concerns over my body image aside. I am determined that we will have the experience of a lifetime together - I just don't want to tarnish the. It's such a quandary: if I were to eat (which in my present state I cannot) I would have the physical energy but my mood would hit the floor, whereas if I did not as will be the case my mood will most likely be more elevated despite the odd unavoidable down I'm sure, but I will be at risk of exhaustion and thus the inability to do everything that we plan to, or at worst collapse. It's not as though I have much option - it's at a stage where it isn't that I don't want to, it's that I literally can't do it. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed that this so far remarkably resilient body of mine holds out the best it can, and that I can have the courage to accept the support of Lucy when it gets to the point where at least some calorific liquid needs to be consumed. It's an absolutely terrifying prospect.

Nevertheless, in devotion to the positivity I intend to impart throughout this entry, I am finally looking forward to the trip. We have so many things planned and it should be a wonderful experience for us both. Of course, pessimism taints my hopes in that I am fearful beyond words that something awful should come about so as to impede our adventures before they have even begun, but I am striving to bear in mind that there is nothing I can do about these worries - I just have to let them go, or at the very least displace them with a more pleasant occupation.

Another problem with high moods other than the likelihood of a pitiful subsequent crash is the feelings of disorientation. Everything feels so exhilarating, whirling by with such speed and unpredictability that none of it seems real. Last night I began to question whether any of reality was real or not which resonated with sickening nostalgia of my period of psychosis, when every little detail of life's fabric was completely symbolic and linked to previous or future happenings or my fate, reality a haze of distortion and confusion. It goes without saying that I haven't declined to that dizzying state again, but in my thrill the memories were fresh as the tomorrow of yesterday. 

We will be together after all which is perfect. I've been really struggling with being alone and it's getting to the point that I'm having to retire from sixth form on a more frequent basis simply because everyone else has a lesson or another priority so for a period I may have virtually no company, which I seem clinically incapable of coping with. I still feel an outsider, no matter how hard I try to smile or timidly participate in conversation with peers. There seems to be this great, perpetual pressure over me in any given social situation; generating feelings of substantial discomfort and unease which I cannot shake. It's a complete enigma: absolute intolerance of being alone but at the same time afraid of talking and being burdened with the difficulty of trying to relate to others. At least in Paris I will be with one of the few people in this world who I don't feel so awfully on edge around. I love Lucy more than I can say, and at long last I'm sensing that exhilarating excitement of exploring the beautiful city with someone so precious to me.

People Are Strange

I'm commencing this entry in the context of great uncertainty as to how to begin. I will endeavour to keep the narrative of a lighter nature than it typically transpires to be, but I'm afraid of setting such an expectation given that, as ever, it's when things are particularly difficult that I feel the need to write self-indulgent essays by way of some desperate catharsis. So please forgive any misery-ridden expression to follow.

It's an unpleasantly contradictory situation to be in - feeling both horribly alone and overwhelmed by the scrutiny of others. I've recently found myself suffering such a circumstance even more than usual. In starting my second year of sixth form over again I can't help but feel lost and abandoned without the small but wonderful circle of friends whom I would usually dote and depend on. Once again I seem an alien in an environment I was already far from comfortable with. To be on an entirely different level to my peers - not in superior way - is incredibly isolating. I simply cannot relate. How could I? These people know nothing about me or the suffering behind my social front even though that is through no fault of their own, so when they go about their trivial chatter it's inevitable that I feel more distant than ever. The sense of exposure doesn't help my already soaring anxieties. It's horrible to be literally stared at by most of the younger years and unforuntately this is not paranoia talking. Paranoia is merely the consequence of their glares: I wonder what is going through their minds to cause them to feel the need to blatantly nudge their friends and point, then follow me with their eyes and whisper amongst one another. Are they gossiping about that girl wearing the weird clothes? Or worse, are they questioning why I should be allowed out in public looking as fat and grotesque as I do? It has got to the point where I've had brush ins with year 8s, being assaulted with sarcastic remarks or less-than-kind comments after I ask them (admittedly not-so-politely myself) to stare at something other than me. In all honesty it's troubling me more and more everyday in accordance with my increasing discomfort with my own body, living with the burdens that I do.

People are strange. Everything seems unsettling and frightening when one seems a stranger to the rest of society; either completely unknown or known too much. Socialising is such a daunting process, made worse by feeling on a completely different planet to everyone else. There are very, very few who understand, who I can actually converse with to a degree which exceeds the frustratingly unfulfilling conditions of empty small talk. Lack of empathy combined with my heightened sensitivity render the smallest remark as a source of great distress for me. I wish there was some way of presenting what I've been through and how I'm still struggling terribly without fearing the judgement of others. Despite being reserved and introverted in nature it makes it all the more difficult to get through the day when no-one appears to have any comprehension of how much words can hurt. Even the most inadvertent comments about mood, personal experiences with regards to hospital or food - from those suffering from eating disorders as well as those who are lucky enough not to be afflicted with such a soul-destroying disease - have the power to trigger the depressive, self-destructive voice in my brain until there is very little spirit or rationality left in me. I don't really know what to do anymore. It's a perpetual enigma; to be both terrified of being alone and fearful of human contact, desperate to communicate socially but utterly unable to relate.

I know I've got to hold on but I'm so exhausted that it's painful. I'm going to Paris with my best friend in less than a week and I don't feel ready at all; I want so desperately for us to have the time of our lives together but I'm so very fearful that my raging insecurities will ruin everything. This new adventure simply has to be a turning point for me; a goodbye to pain and trauma - but I have this absolute terror that I won't even make it on the trip. I somehow need to nullify this despair and emotional instability within five days. I need to no longer be on the brink of suicide by Sunday night.

Think of the good things. Grin and bear being around others until the agony of isolation subsides. In crisis seek those you love. I know all of these things but it's a challenge to say the very least to put them into practice whilst my mind and heart feel cast adrift in a vast ocean of emptiness.

I know that biting the bullet is the hardest part so I'm trying my best. I'm persevering with sixth form in spite of my hopelessness, in an effort to pass the time more than anything until France. Something has to inspire my hope and joy again. If I can make it, hopefully life will become less of a torturous experience and more a blessing, or at least a challenge I feel equipped to face.