how do you measure a year?

As we say goodbye to 2014, I want to share some of the moments from this year that have stuck with me. I want to remember the hurt, the pain, the weird, the wonderful because it all meant something. I want to spend this last day of the year reflecting and remembering what I can of what 2014 gave me. It's been the worst but the best year of my life and throughout the year, I had a note open on my phone where whenever I remembered, I wrote down something that happened.  Now I am going to share these for the first time ever...

January 2014. It's the 2nd day of this new year and I am sat on a train, audibly sobbing to a train of people pretending they can't hear me. My destination is a private London hospital where I have been admitted to and I am feeling a fear I could never have comprehended before this moment. I'm scared of how alone I feel. I'm scared of what is waiting for me. I'm scared of getting better. I'm scared of the fact I know I will be leaving a substantial amount heavier than I am right now. I'm scared of what the other patients will think of me. I'm scared of how worthless I feel.

July 2014. London is having the most insane thunder storms, there's 3 different ones in 3 different directions, I go outside and put my arms out, stare up at the sky and feel incredible.

April 2014. It's the early hours of the morning. I don't know what day it is. I don't care anymore. I've never felt so scared and alone in my entire life. I feel like a failure. I've lost everything. I've given up on myself. I spent hours prior having incredibly vivid hallucinations about throwing myself in front of a tube, a car, a bus, anything that could wipe out my existence in one step. I've taken too many pills. I'm dragging a kitchen knife along the centre of my veins as though it's a game of operation, I hit the edges and I'm out. The blood smells like burning metal and feels somewhere between relief and giving up.

November 2014. She tells me she's in love with me and I realise that every moment of the pain was worthwhile.

June 2014.  My best friend and I are stood at the front of a sold out Islington Assembly Hall seeing Sara Bareilles live for the third time together. Her arms are around my shoulders and I'm wiping tears from my face as she plays the opening chords of "December" and I'm really, really fucking glad that I'm alive.

January 2014. It's my first night in hospital and I can't sleep. All I can hear is the girl in the room next to me screaming and shouting. She says she wants to kill everybody. She is a Persian Princess and is biting, kicking, screaming and spitting at everybody who comes into her room. I pull the covers over my head and cry wondering what I am doing in a place like this. It takes 3 hours for her sedation to work. The next morning when we pass outside our floor's kitchen at 9am, she hugs me and gives me a cornetto ice cream, I take it off her and she watches as I open it and take a lick. Her eyes are like a child giving someone a present, holding a breath, hoping that they'll like it. I say thank you, head back to my room, throw it in the bin and spend the next hour purging. I don't feel anything.

February 2014. Oh my god, Taylor Swift was metres away from me performing my favourite song of hers "All Too Well" I'm so overwhelmed I think I'm going to pass out.

May 2014. I'm walking out of the apartment I'm staying at and a dead pigeon falls out of the sky at my feet. I trip over it and spend the next 45 minutes wondering if having a dead bird fall at your feet is sign of good luck. I never did find out.

June 2014. Two of my friends have come over to the apartment I'm staying at for an impromptu Tony Awards viewing party. Jessie Mueller and Carole King are performing together and I can't stop crying because it's so amazing.

October 2014. She takes 3 buses across London at 4am just to come and be with me whilst I'm hurting. I can't describe this feeling.

August 2014.  Two months ago I started watching the TV show "Pretty Little Liars" and I've just finished binge watching five seasons, because why the hell not!

September 2014. I'm hanging out at my friend Becka's friend pub in Soho with her, our friend Kerison and my cat who is on a leash fast asleep on a lap. We're drinking gin and it dawns upon me that I am sat in a pub, with my cat on a lead and somehow this doesn't even make the top twenty of most ridiculous things to happen to me.

May 2014. It's a Sunday afternoon and I'm lay in the bathtub of my hospital room's en-suite listening to Joni Mitchell's album "Blue" at full blast, the sun is shining and I realise that not everything has to hurt.

July 2014. I'm sat in my new favourite writing spot in Soho, I'm writing about him, and then a song comes on that just makes me know that he is with me. All the time. He lives in my heart.

December 2014. It's early in the morning and for some reason I'm the first of us both to be awake. This is rare. I'm lying listening to the rain with the love of my life nestled into my side with her arms wrapped protectively around me. Life is so beautiful.

June 2014. The Red Arrows are going to be flying over Buckingham Palace. I don't usually care about things like this but I'm staying around the corner of Buckingham Palace and as soon as I hear the helicopters in the distance, I'm filled with this childlike excitement and grab the keys and race up onto the roof of the apartment in just a towel with soaking wet hair and watch them fly past with a trail of red, white and blue smoke. Wow, I suddenly realise that I'm LIVING in London and this is just a casual day for me.

September 2014. I'm wrapped up in a throw, roasting marshmallows over a bonfire in my friend Victoria's garden and drinking gin. Life is good. Little do I know what is waiting for me around the corner. It's only going to get better.

October 2014. Lindsay Lohan tells me my outfit is cute.

April 2014. I want to change everything about myself. I hate myself and I hate the traces of who has been left on me. Hair. Hair. It has to start with the hair right? I go and get inches upon inches cut off my hair had my hair and am now fashioning a shoulder length bob. I feel free. This is liberating.

July 2014. I accidentally get a kitten.

May 2014. It's a terrible night. I'm exhausted and my head is screaming at me. I've gained a huge amount of weight because of the medication that I'm on and I've just had enough of it. I spend the day in bed refusing to leave or eat anything. Nurses have been trying to coax me out of bed or to eat something all day and evening. One of my doctors enters my room for the third time that day and I just lose it, I start screaming and I'm howling with sobs. I can't breathe, I can't feel anything. I wake up 13 hours later to find that I had been sedated.

December 2014. I'm at the Harry Potter Studio Tour with the love of my life. Could life get any better than this?

April 2014. I'm back in hospital, after a gruelling group therapy session which I have stormed out of, I'm sat crying, when a very famous musician sits down beside me, puts his arm around me and just sits there in silence with his arm around me whilst I cry. People are really special.

October 2014. It's Halloween. We're hand in hand walking around London's Southbank. My heart is so content. I can't remember a time before she existed. I didn't know it yet, but I'd found her.

June 2014. I tell myself I'm enough, and I almost believe it. This is progress.

September 2014. I start a new job and gain a new family.

June 2014. An entire outdoor weekend of free theatre proves to be just what the doctor ordered.

November 2014. For the first time in a very long time, I pick up a razor and don't see it as a weapon to hurt myself with.

July 2014. I'm at an event photographing Keira Knightley. My love for portrait photography has flooded back to me.

October 2014. I have my own flat. My very own place to call mine, finally.

September 2014. I'm browsing Etsy and I never realised how much I needed a taxidermy rat dressed as Captain America until right this very moment.

21st October 2014. My life is changed forever. For the better.

November 2014. For the first time ever, somebody has the ability to bring me out of a panic attack. She holds my hand, strokes my face and looks into my eyes and suddenly I can breathe again.

December 2014. I'm seeing Taylor Swift with my favourite person on the planet.

23rd November 2014. Love, just love.

December 2014. The most romantic night of my life. I'm so in love. I'm the luckiest person in this universe and my life is incredible. What difference a year makes.

friends.

"My love. In the grand scheme of things, if we magnify what the world is, there are 4 billion people on this earth. If we were to write a list of allllllll the people that are living and breathing on the earth,  we have a long list. But that name is just made up of letters, right? The same letters I'm using to type this out. But those combination of letters represent life. A human beings life. It does not reflect anything about them but that they exist and think and breathe.  But that we know by seeking them. We don't see the underlying feelings or thoughts until we know them. Every name on that list is happy and sad and feels pain and struggles immensely, more than we'll ever know. They are worthy of those thoughts and feelings, even though on this piece of paper they are just another name. But they cry. They hurt. They struggle. They breathe. The fact that 3,999,999,999 other people also feel pain and grief and suffering doesn't lessen the world's suffering.  There are 4 billion hearts beating, but that doesn't mean yours is not important. If does not mean that you are not worthy. Because if we minimize ourselves as one person with a problem, you disregard that we are ALL people and we ALL have problems and that's okay!!! We're allowed to live and be upset by stupid things or by the bigger things. You're allowed to. And we all get through, many times not unscathed.  

What you are dealing with is not your fault. It has never been your fault. Mental health is the same as physical health. We get sick physically with a cough because of a virus, just as we get sick with the chemicals in our mind being askew. That's not your fault. And what we all work through with our issues is finding that we are worthy or working towards the healthy. And it's a fucking tough fight babe. And we're bound to fall and scrape our knees on the way. But don't let those small cuts and bruises become scars, let them be battle wounds.

I've seen you show strength and agility and fight, and I know that right now is just lost but it can and it will be found. And I believe that if you take one step at a time and work as hard and as much as you can, it's going to be okay. And some days it'll be just a centimeter and some days a kilometer, you'll be okay. Allow yourself to have both days and to make mistakes but to get right back up and fight." 

- My best friend has the most incredible soul. I needed to share her  beautiful words to me with more people, she is just so wonderful and I adore her with every fibre of my being. 

raise your hopeful voice.

Every once in a while, the universe conspires to bring something into your life that will evidently alter your very state of being.

You are in the right place at the right time, with the right combination of people and something just happens that suddenly loosens the pain in your chest and gives your soul a moment of pure relief and release. You can feel it replenish the broken parts of you.

To put it simply, theatre nourishes my soul. Throughout my entire life; as an audience member and as an actor, theatre has sparked a flame inside of me that has never burnt out, and has been one part of my identity that was not erased by depression or anorexia. 

Sometimes, the right combination of cast and creatives come along and do not just create a piece of theatre, they create magic. 

At the lowest moment of my relapse, on one terrible night, I knew that I had to do something to quiet the darkness that was consuming me, so I purchased a ticket to see a show that I had seen before and very much enjoyed. What I wasn't anticipating, however, was a combination of incredible talent and energy that penetrated through every destructive layer of my mind and made me feel for the first time in months.

It was a catalyst for a myriad of inspirational and positive forces into my life. 

Since that night, I have been making weekly trips to see that same show and having exactly the same visceral reaction to what stoked something within me on that absolutely horrendous "rock bottom" night before I was readmitted back into hospital. 

Excessive? Yes. I have an extremely addictive personality, a trait that played a great part in anorexia gaining full control over my entire existence. I was addicted to losing weight. I was addicted to destroying myself. My addictive personality was instrumental in the self destruction that caused me to attempt to take my own life. However, it is also my addictive personality that drives my determination towards recovery. If I can find something that invokes such strong feelings within me that aren't destructive, be it theatre, art, books, music... I will indulge myself, I will allow myself to be exposed to something hopeful and positive time and time again, because I know of what the alternatives to not feeling them are. 

For me right now, a musical is one of many, many things that are aiding my recovery and allowing me to rediscover parts of myself that have remained buried under years of depression and self loathing.

I have never underestimated the ability a text, a piece of music, or a group of people, can have on helping people rebuild themselves. Art has the ability to transcend whatever boundaries or walls we build within ourselves, and connect our souls to something.

I have been introduced to not just some incredibly talented, but also some incredibly kind people through this particular piece of theatre. People who have given me hope that there is a "light at the end of the tunnel" and also that there are some remarkable acts of compassion out there, and also people who emit a tremendous amount of kindness into the world. Acts of which I was certain didn't exist in my world and that I had no hope for and no belief that I deserved them. 

I didn't ask or search for the adjustments to my core beliefs that have occurred over the last few months, but they came along at the perfect time and helped get me through something that I didn't ever see there being a way out of. 

We can just stumble across fortunate accidents, little serendipitous acts can come from nowhere, change the course of our lives and irrevocably alter us for the better.

I need to keep remembering that I can allow myself to hope. I can allow myself to believe that things can and will get better, because they can, and they will. 

some kind of wonderful .

“The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna. The real work of deep grief is making a home there.”

Rebuilding yourself is hard. When you have been living with your self destruct button firmly switched on for the last decade of your life, there comes a point where it switches off and the dust around you settles for a few moments and allows you to take in a new reality. You stand around in a hazy mist of stillness and realise that, amongst all of these ruins of negative thoughts and rules that have controlled you for so long, there is a person in the midst of it all. A person who was taken over and manipulated by a disease to become merely a shadow of who they really once were. Once the depression becomes manageable, and the negative thoughts begin to slowly become less automatic, a space begins to clear up inside of your mind where the real you has been suppressed. 

It's terrifying. My reality has completely been altered. For so long, I was plagued with thoughts of self loathing, I lived by core beliefs and values that were all my illness, not me. I wasn't a person, I was an illness. 

My sense of identity was lost entirely. I didn't value myself at all, I hated myself. I had no self worth and measured it entirely by how much I weighed, or my ability to restrict my food intake. I could talk about the "reality" that my illness created both for me, and inside of me, but that isn't where I am now. I am in a state of repair, and healing, and I want to write about that. 

A very wise person told me "It takes so much courage to confront our challenges and insecurities and you are proving that we never have to let these take over our lives." I realised she was right. It does take courage to confront those. An enormous amount of courage, that nobody in recovery (in my experience) ever seems to give themselves credit for. I was so focussed on what I could or should be doing that I lost sight of what I was actually doing and that I wasn't actually letting this take over my life anymore. That in itself is a huge achievement, to pull yourself up from rock bottom, ask for help and give every single piece of yourself to getting better and building yourself into a healthy person again? I think that is possibly one of the bravest things that a person can do, and I did that. 

I am learning who I am and experiencing things without the illness, without a barrage of thoughts telling me that I am not worthy or good enough for anything in life. I am learning what interests me, what I can derive enjoyment and pleasure from and I can feel unadulterated joy without rhyme or reason. 

I am only in the "building the foundations" stage of recovery, letting the real me emerge out of the darkness and be free to think and feel as myself. There is so much work to do each and every day, but I have a small sense of self worth inside of me now. I am enough, and that is enough for now. 

this slope is treacherous.

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote on here. Everything got very dark and my depression spiralled to a very, very dark place. In November, I felt at such a loss with myself and with this illness that I couldn't see any way out other than to take my own life. Thankfully, I was taken into hospital and have begun a degree of trying to build myself back up. 

I saw this blog as a reflection of how ill I actually was. I had the "fake it until you make it" philosophy ingrained in me, so I felt the more I tried to show that I was okay, or making progress then the more progress I would actually make. But that isn't how life works. 

One lie of "I'm okay" created so many webs of lies about my recovery that all got entangled and meshed together. No I was not okay, no I was not making all of these epiphanies and discoveries, they were just small recognitions in my thoughts. I've felt like a fraud. Writing comes so naturally to me, I figured I could write myself out of my disorder. That in itself is a huge signal of how ill I was. I was sat at my computer, writing away under my middle name Bella, preaching about epiphanies I had had about my disorder, when my mind was still consumed with self loathing and hate. People who love me were reading my blog and not able to connect the words with the girl who wrote them. I was trying so hard to "fake it till I make it" that I was just faking it and making it less and less. 

My situation has changed dramatically since I was last here, I spent months as an inpatient after an overdose and I can, hand on heart, say that I have made some progress at least. At the moment, however, I'm really struggling,.

It's so hard to keep your head above the tide. It's so hard to not let the darkness consume us. It's a huge fight to not succumb to the bad thoughts and feelings, but doing so is an incredible feat. I am proud of myself for the days, even the moments, when I can keep my head above water, and laugh, and smile and feel something. Something that isn't pain. I have felt joy, I have felt joy and I am fighting to keep those moments alive. I want that joy in my life, I want it to stick. 

I am going to continue to keep writing under my middle name Bella, because that way, I can remain anonymous. I started to use that name because I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin at all, I hated every part of myself, down to the name, but now I'm learning to feel comfortable and it's so hard. I have been having bad day after bad day, but I've got a support network who are going through what I'm going through and know exactly what I'm feeling, and just having people there with that ability has made the most enormous change in me. 

I am under no illusions that this is going to be a quick process and that I will be "adjusted" any time soon. I'm just doing the best I can. Taking one day at a time is the only way you can do it really and even then, I feel like each day has so many different moments in that it is hard to class a day as a "good" or "bad" day really.

I guess I'll just have to take it as it comes, but I want to steer clear of writing about my feelings in a public forum, because I still try so hard to keep up this illusion that I'm okay and to commit myself to recovery, I have to be honest and open in every single aspect of my life. I will return to this when I feel I'm in a place where I don't have to hide parts of myself away and give an illusion that I am somebody I am not. 

Thank you all for your continued support and messages, I have seen that over 8,000 of you have been reading my little blog and I am sorry to anybody that I have let down who has believed in me. I just want to believe in myself and not see myself as never being good enough. 

the price of love is loss.

There is an enormous amount of love in the world. I think if we were to really look at humanity, look back at important events throughout history and the present, one thing that would stand out is love. It's out there, it's always been out there, but sometimes it can be really hard to find. We are a species that create war, who kill, who discriminate, who abuse, who hate. But we are also a species that has love in abundance. You look at tragic events in history, or even just in the news, and one thing that you won't hear about is a lack of love or the lack of an outpouring of help and community that derives from that. I've seen it over and over again first hand.

 Maybe that's why I am the way I am. I wouldn't quite classify a pessimist, I'm trying to bring myself out of that way of being (as hard as it is) I would like to be an optimistic person in everything. I'd like to say one day that I am an optimist, but I've had simply too many bad things happen to me again and again to have the mentality of an optimist instilled in me over a short amount of time But I am happy to say I am trying, and my god, I've seen some pretty amazing things.

For all the negative in my life, there is a positive that outweighs it. Control is outweighed by love. As simple as. I am at a place right this second where I'm perplexed and amazed at myself. Something has happened, and I'm too tired to go into it. But it's a negative force that has hit me many, many times. Now go back 6 months, and what has happened would have affected me so badly that I can guarantee you, I would have stopped eating because of it. I would have let the words stick with me, I'd have scrutinised every single meaning behind them and punished myself. Badly. I'd have been unable to see past them. I'd have replayed the words over and over again, getting more upset and agitated each time. I'd have let them get to me so badly that I would believe they were a truth, I'd believe that the mindset caused by them was "normal" and I'd have allowed my control and my self worth to slip. I would have believed I was a failure, I was this ridiculous, inane, pathetic excuse of a human and that would have been the tipping point for me. What was once a huge trigger, is no more. 

I need to attempt to keep reminding myself that I am a good person. I am a kind person. I am a worthy person. I'm fragile, I shouldn't be punished for simply stumbling as I move forwards.  I need to really believe that. 

There are people out there who choose to be my family. Who choose to love me. Who choose to be there for me. Who choose to pick me up when I fall, hold my hand whilst I stumble, and bask in the joy alongside me when I feel it. They are the people that count. They are the ones who mean the most, who have furthered me along in this incredible journey. It's down to them that I am here now. One of them sent me this beautiful poem in the week;

The sun will shine tomorrow

The rain will somehow end

This is not only a promise

It’s just the way it is

Bad times don’t last forever

The tough times they never stay

The heartache and the let down

Will soon go away

In times of deep sadness

The pain is all too real

And it’s hard to believe

That with time the hurt will heal

The dark clouds that hang above

Will eventually move on

And the storms that dance around

Will soon be gone

Stay strong and keep in mind

That again, the sun will shine

Isn't that beautiful? I am so grateful that there are people looking out for me and who think to send me beautiful things like that. 

My outlook changes each day, some days I feel like giving up, but today, I have felt so in control and so overwhelmed at the love for me that I am proud of myself. And others are proud of me too. People I love being proud of me for good reasons is incredible. 

all at once my heart took flight.

Sometimes, I forget that my mind is constantly at war with itself. The white noise very quickly became a normality to me, and scrutinising every thought and every interaction, and the constant self criticism became a part of daily life. I fought, but I never won the battle, let alone the war. There was always some part of me that could not get out, no matter how hard I tried to swim, the current of fragmented, disordered thinking patterns and behaviour held me under. 

When I can have these tiny, fleeting moments of joy, the noise inside my mind stops. The self criticism and doubt, the black and white thinking, the pain... It all just temporary subsides and and something else is begins to filter through for a brief moment. It's taking a huge gasp of breath and breathing life into you. 

It's like the feeling of finally getting water after days in the desert, it's like being wrapped up in a warm blanket after getting soaked from the rain, it's like finally you're warm inside, your brain quietens down and your mind, body and soul are able to soak up positivity. Sometimes, it's just for a few seconds, but my god, those seconds are worth it. I revel in each and every second. I live those moments, I let them in, I let them in through every pore in my body, I live them with every fibre of my being. They are the moments that make this battle less treacherous.

Sometimes it is impossible to see beyond the sadness and the pain. When there is a voice constantly in your head telling you that you are nothing, nobody, that you are a burden to everybody around you, that you deserve the pain you feel, that you should be punishing yourself for simply existing, and that you would be better off dead, it's incredibly hard to block out. But just getting a few moments of relief from that, for muting the voice, and letting happiness in, creates a volume switch in your brain. You are able to turn the volume of the voice down slightly, even by a fraction. One good moment can set a series of doubts to what that voice is telling you. The more you get, the more you start to realise that the voice isn't telling you the truth. You are worthy. 

I can't feel love because of that voice. I can barely feel anything at all, and when I did feel, all I felt was sadness, pain, self loathing and shame. 

I have had the most incredible few days in the last week, where I have actually felt joy.  My intake of love is increasing by the day. 

it's cloud illusions I recall.

I always seem to accidentally  preempt bad days by talking about the good ones (though I'm not going to let that stop me) today was a bad day.

I had another slip up. When you wake up with low self esteem and feeling like the world is pretty much against you, it's almost impossible to change your outlook. No amount of CBT tricks can override that feeling for me. I just have to roll with it. So I did, I hauled myself out of bed, endured a panic attack, faced the struggle of doing my make up and hair with one hand (I had to take a trip to A&E yesterday due to an accident at work which has damaged the nerves in my little finger so it's strapped to another finger and pretty much immobile) and made my way to work.

I can sense when it's one of those days that won't really get better, unless a miracle comes along, so I try not to push anything too far. I did some meditation, I took my valium on the train, I listened to music, I didn't rush, I went at my own pace, and I thought about all of the positives in my life.

I had potential things to look forward to after work, if not the following day, and also on Tuesday. I thought if I focus on them if trying to "be present" didn't work as well as it could, then I'd be okay.

Over the few hours I was in work, my skin got thinner and thinner. My self loathing grew larger and larger. It was like I was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, any second I was just going to erupt and the tears would come and wouldn't stop.

Thankfully, they held back until I'd at least finished work. Then, not long after, sure enough, I was walking through my town's city centre and I had never felt more alone. I felt unwanted. I felt like I was nobody.  I felt like I was some kind of monster for being so difficult and such hard work to love. I felt like everybody was staring at me, pitying me. I thought about how my illness has affected me, how my life is so different to other people my own age. What a failure I've been. How I wasn't even able to finish my A Levels because of my illnesses. How I am too sensitive and how I let myself upset over the most innate of things. 

I spent my entire bus journey quietly sobbing. Gaining even more unwanted attention. I just listened to "Glory and Gore" by Lorde and prayed to God that I would be home as quickly as possible.

Thankfully I was, but I was so angry at myself for being so self loathing and sensitive and just annoying. So I went and threw up. And it felt great. It felt like I finally had some kind of control over what I was feeling for the first time all day.

But then the guilt hit me. It hit me hard. I felt disgusted with myself. I felt so terrible that I'd allowed myself to "give in" I just cried even more and I could feel a vicious cycle coming on. So I just got into bed and I slept. 

I feel so much lighter now. So much clearer. The fog that I woke up with wrapped around my brain, has gone, and I feel like myself again. 

I got myself out of it as quick as I got myself into it. It's something I now have proof of, I can do it, however rapidly I'm spiralling, I can change my course. It is possible. When I'm bad, my mind keeps me in this illusion of an infinite dark sky where there's never any cracks for the sunlight to get in. But that isn't true, and once I'm able to show myself that is not true, and what I'm feeling is just an illusion my brain is playing on me, I can make my way through. 

something beautiful, a new chance.

Today, I stumbled. Metaphorically, of course, not literally. It was a waiting game really, when I was going to have my first slip, and today just happened to be the day. 

But it's okay. I can pick myself back up, dust myself off, and carry on with my journey. I can try to not let it set me back, or let these compulsions and thoughts take over my brain and drag me backwards into the past. There is no point regretting my actions today, I am sad, yes, disappointed, yes. But cycles of behaviour don't just stop, we have to keep fighting them and instilling new, positive behaviours into our life. 

I had an interesting discussion about regret in terms of self harm scars a few days ago. I like to think of scars as battle scars. Proof that you fought the fight, and won. That you overcame. A scar, by definition, means that some form of healing has taken place. Wounds have slowly healed over, gained new strength, gained a new layer of skin to them. The human skin isn't an easy armour to carry anyway. Rarely, do we ever "fit" into our own skin, we don't feel comfortable in it, we aren't happy with it. It's is never, ever thick enough. It cuts, it bleeds, it burns, it dies, it scars, but it also heals. 

Sometimes a little adjustment is all that is needed to feel acceptance in yourself. Adjust your view, adjust a thought, adjust an outlook; maybe then, your skin, your armour might feel a little more comfortable. 

Having thin skin isn't a flaw. It's human. We aren't all capable of being able to let a comment, words, thoughts, anything not get to us. The saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is complete and utter bullshit. Words can do more damage than a wrecking ball. It's okay to be sensitive, it's okay to not be comfortable with who you are, or what you look like. It is rare to come across people who were born with the "perfect" layer of skin to be able to brush off negativity. 

If you have scars, you have scars. It's an unfortunate consequence. I used to get incredibly self conscious of my scars and cover them up with make up. I remember seeing the horror on someone's face at work when I rolled up my sleeve and they saw my arm had been hacked away at. I know for some people, it's just "another part" of them and I am in awe of their confidence. I would like to think that we are capable of eventually accepting our scars. Metaphorical scars too. We don't have to like them or love them, or think about what lead us to inflict pain upon ourselves. But accepting they are a part of us, is accepting that we have fought the fight against our mind, and we are healing. We may not be healed, we may only be a day into recovery, or a week, or a month. But what we are is better than we were before. 

random acts of kindness.

Today at work, a stranger handed me this note. Completely out of the blue. What a beautiful spirit. They say "be kind, for everybody is suffering"  And I wonder, did he know? 

I always think to one of my favourite plays, A Streetcar Named Desire, in one of my favourite scenes, Blanche's final words in the play; "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers" and we do, don't we? 

We all start as strangers, each and everyone of us. Circumstance and situations lead us to become something more. But each and every stranger we encounter has their own life, their own world, their own belief system, their own struggles. Maybe just a friendly smile could be the only smile, the only light they see that day. Isn't it just nice to bring a little bit of happiness to somebody, whether you know them or not?

Kindness is underrated. 

was a prisoner inside, now i'm breathing the air

I'm sat eating a bar of chocolate, and I keep wondering what would "she" say? How would "she" feel? How would "she" react? 

When I talk about she, I'm referring to anorexia. My eating disorder became so embedded in my brain, it became me, I became it, together we were one. Now our connection is tumulus, not quite severed, but it is not quite the symbiotic relationship we once had.

She was my first real love. My first real friend. My first real driving force. I want to say letting go of the anorexic, eating disorder ridden me has been a lot easier than I anticipated, but in actual fact I've spent over a year getting to this place. Bit by bit, our bond got chipped away, it wasn't noticeable. At the time I thought nothing was happening, but seeds were being planted in my brain. Parts of my brain began to break free from her grip over me. 

She stole me away without me realising. She took me prisoner and she wouldn't let me go. She told me over and over again that I was nothing, that I was worthless, than the only value I would hold was to be thin. And I believed her. I hung on her every word. She made me feel special, she made me feel wanted. As long as I was striving to be thin, I thought I had control, when in actual fact, it was her that was in control. She caged me, she chained me in, I was confined to one goal and one goal only.

Every second of everyday her voice was in my head;  "Don't eat, purge what you do eat. Fat is nothing. You are nothing. You wonder why nobody likes you? It's because you're so fat and ugly. At least if you're thin and ugly, you'll at least be thin. That girl is thin, why can't you be that thin? Why are you such a failure? You're nothing. You're lazy. You're disgusting. You make me sick."

She made me doubt people's love for me. "How could anybody ever love you?"she taught me that compliments were people's way of laughing at me. "They're really insulting you, whatever they're saying, they really mean the opposite" she taught me to smile and politely thank them and then go home and cry and listen whilst she told me how grotesque and what a failure I was. 

But she was there for me when nobody else was. Nobody ever stayed around, but she did. She was there when I needed someone, she was there to spur me on, to make me want to achieve my goal of being thin. I was reliant on her, as long as she was there, I was safe. I was in my comfort zone. My comfort zone was starve, purge, hate. An endless cycle of soul destroying, torturous thoughts, where I felt nothing but shame and disgust.

She brainwashed me. For years, she manipulated and controlled every aspect of my being. She convinced me that thin would equal happiness. She used my body dysmorphia against me, she used my other mental illnesses against me, she twisted them to what she wanted and what she needed them to be; failures. Failures on my account, they were there because I simply wasn't good enough or thin enough. For years, I was burdened with the notion that I had brought about my own mental illness, and that was yet another failure to add to my increasingly long list. 

She had me under lock and key; I can't look at any other female without instantly racking up which parts of their bodies were smaller than the parts of my body. No matter what their shape or size, and due to my body dysmorphia, I can't understand that a UK size 20 has bigger thighs than me, or a bigger stomach. I can't see it. It's a blind spot for me. There is an inherent lack of comprehension that remains within me in regards to body size. All I see is people smaller than me.  

She was happily living alongside me, inside me, and I was happy for her to stay, we would have probably been set for life. But then I found love in small places, friends, extended family, and then they set to war. One voice told me I was worthless. Others told me I was worthy. One praised me for being thin. The others cried over my weight. One told me I was ugly. The others old me I was beautiful. 

Slowly, I found myself listening more to positive. The people who saw something in me that I clearly couldn't. I trusted them so implicitly, I knew they would not lie to me, I knew what they were saying had to be truth. Maybe not "truth truth" but a truth how they saw it. And that floored me. Never had I ever been made to feel anything more than what my mind had told me I was. Their love started to drive the other "her"'s love away. I wanted to trust what I could see, what I could really feel. 

It's a very strange adjustment to make, but the impact it has had on the rest of me has been remarkable. I still have some deep rooted issues with other mental illnesses that I suffer with, but finally, in terms of eating, I feel like I can breathe a little bit again. 

I find myself somewhat hypocritical writing this, because only today I had thoughts back of being too fat and restricting what I ate. I am in no way recovered. My eating disorders are still a huge factor in my life, they are just manageable now. Despite those thoughts going round my mind, I still "allowed" myself to eat a chocolate bar, I still "allowed" myself to indulge. Two months ago, I couldn't do that. Allowance of indulgence required a sacrifice; eat a meal, throw it up, don't eat anything the next day. Eat something with too many calories in, throw it up, exercise, don't even think about eating anything else for at least a day. But now, I allow myself these luxuries, they aren't luxuries, they're non disordered ways of thinking. 

Sure I do slip, but I'm only human. I'm just working on making sure those slips don't turn into falls.

One day at a time. One day at a time. 

the tune without the words.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

I love rediscovering old favourites through old journals. The image is from tumblr. 

everything that happens is from now on.

I've finally done it, I've started to put this blog "out there" so to say. Up until today, only four or five  people in my life knew it existed. The only people who knew the real me, what was going on with me. But today I decided it was time to start sharing it amongst people, and the truth be told, I'm terrified.

These are people who call me "constantly happy" "so bubbly" "a ball of energy" these are people who I have spent weeks, months, years fooling. People who think they know me are now going to find out they don't know me at all. I'm not the person they think I am. Are they going to think I'm weak? I'm a bad person for not letting them in? Are they suddenly going to pity me and not have fun with me any more? 

So, to all of you who are reading this and thinking "what?!?!" I'm sorry that I wasn't strong enough to tell you who I really am and share this with you. It doesn't mean I respect you or like you any less. It's just very hard for me to let my walls down, and take this "mask" off. 

I just want to make absolutely clear that I am not doing this for me, I'm doing it for other people out there who go through what I go through every day. I've already had messages from people who have thanked me for starting this because they can relate to it and it has caused them to take action and get help. And that is all I want. I'm not doing this for attention, I don't want people to feel like they are walking on eggshells around me now that you know. Just please understand that I have my good and my bad days, I'm not a complete and utter mess trying to pretend to be okay all the time. 

black and white begins to colour in.

"Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life." 

My mind is a maze. To me, if I'm not the perfect person, perfect at everything I do, then in my mind, I'm a bad person, I'm a failure and deserve to be punished. There's no in between for me. One mistake, no matter how trivial, means that I'm a terrible person and can't live with myself.

There is no in between with how I react to things. It's either a complete overreaction; sobbing, hysteria, shouting, screaming. Or nothing. There's no middle ground. I can't just take something on board, I have to run through every single "bad" scenario possible and then freak out over all of these imaginary scenarios. It's so unhealthy and it's something that I wasn't really aware of until today. I knew I overreacted a lot, but I never really looked at how or why. 

The last few days have hurt my heart a lot. But I think I'm better for it. I'm trying to tell myself that pretending that I'm okay brings a whole new series of problems, it affects every state of my being, it penetrates through to my relationships. It puts too much pressure on those who love me and it leaves them at a loss. Pretending I'm okay brings a whole new cycle of behaviours that have been brought to light to me that I didn't even know existed. When you're so busy putting up a mask, you don't think of the domino effect that it has on your behaviours and emotions. As long as you're pretending that you're okay, it doesn't matter. But it does.

I  have been told of the behaviours that I've been displaying, I know need to stop pretending that I'm okay and look at all of the issues that pretending that I'm okay causes for me and the people closest to me.

My behaviour has caused resentment and dislike towards me by people that I adore and who love me and all it makes me want to do is drop my "mask" and just focus on everything that comes about because I have that mask up. It's been so ingrained in me for so long because I've spent so long pretending I'm okay that I've never noticed or been shown the ramifications of what that does.

Mood altering medications do exactly what they say; they alter your moods, they can make you more low, they can bring you up, they can cause suicidal thoughts, they can do a lot of stuff. But I don't solely blame those, I blame the fact I've spent so long trying to keep this mask on - even to those closest to me who I tell virtually everything to, I keep some stuff hidden from them to not cause them worry or pain - that I've failed to see what that has done to me, my behaviour, my thinking and what it's done to those around me. And this isn't something new, this has been ongoing for years.

But how do you just stop pretending and and actually really face up to what you're going through 100% without breaking down and letting it win? I don't know. 

there's beauty in the breakdown.

"So let go, jump in.

Oh well, what you waiting for? 

It's all right, 'cause there's beauty in the breakdown.

So let go, yeah let go,

Just get in, oh it's so amazing here,

It's all right, 'cause there's beauty in the breakdown."

Sometimes, you have to decide to let go of the hatred you hold for someone. Even if it isn't hatred and just a strong dislike. Let it go. Negativity is a waste of energy, a waste of your mind and a waste of your time. 

Maybe you can't always forgive, but you can forget. Holding onto hate can cause your heart to turn very bitter. No matter the reasoning behind the negative feelings. Freeing your mind of the negative energy simply gives you more room for positive energy. 

Build bridges. Bridges don't necessarily have to have the same foundations they once had. Once it's burned, it can never be replicated, it won't be the same, it will be different. But build them anyway. You don't have to love or like the person, you just simply have to let go and move forward.

I made a choice today to try  let go of all negative energy to a few certain people who have harmed or wronged me or my friends and family. If it's unforgivable, they don't even deserve another thought, they're forgotten and not forgiven, but I can't hold onto it, it's not healthy. If it is forgivable, I'm need to learn to let it go, I want to attempt to rid all of the negative energy out of my life. I don't want to hold onto grudges or previous wrong doings. We're all human, we all make mistakes. 

one golden glance of what should be.

After a prolonged period of time last night, I found myself holding a pair of scissors with the intention of old habits. However, for the first time ever, I found a part of my brain was overpowering the desire to cut. It was telling me that I was better than this. I was worth more than cuts along my flesh. That inflicting pain upon myself, when my mind causes me so much pain and suffering anyway, wouldn't get me anywhere or help me achieve anything. 

I ran a list through my head of all of the amazing things that have happened to me since I last hurt myself. Of what I didn't gain the last time I did it, and the time before that and the time before that... The release is only temporary. No matter how disgusted and ashamed of myself I was last night, I fought back. I fought my mind for myself. And this time, I won. 

Does this mean that I am learning to respect my body more? Am I starting to like myself on even a subconscious level? Is the love that I am receiving from certain people penetrating that deep that it has brought me to here? There are so many thoughts spinning around my mind, but for once, they aren't negative, they're positive. 

I achieved a lot last night and I am so proud of myself, as silly as that may sound, the pride I feel has caused me to break down in tears. Even if it doesn't last forever, this feeling of achievement is more than I can even begin to describe. 

catch me, i'm falling.

I hate myself. 

What is so wrong with me that I have to always do or say the wrong thing. Why can I never do anything right in my life? Why do I have to be so sensitive about every single thing? Why do I manage to annoy everybody all the time? Why am I such a burden? Why am I even here? 

Why have I let something out of my control make me so upset and angry? I cannot process these emotions quickly, it takes me a long time and whilst I'm feeling that I then have all of these "sub emotions" that come into play; irrationality, self loathing, paranoia, anxiety, and so many more. It doesn't take a simple "deep breaths" for me to stop feeling these things and understand why I felt them, it can take me hours.  This is what I call "the danger zone" it's when I react to those emotions without caution, or without thinking about the repercussions  I cut, I purge, I go to some very dark places and it takes me a very long time to get out of that danger zone.

I've been in that danger zone now for seven and a half hours. There has been no light yet. I've felt incredibly alone and isolated, through nobody's fault, and I've quite literally had to sit on my hands for a large portion of the night to prevent myself from hurting myself. 

I've had panic attack after panic attack. I' I'm like a wrecking ball. I've gained all this momentum and I can't stop. Where does it end? When will it end? 

Bad days can change everything. They can set you back. I'm trying, I'm really trying. I want to keep moving forward, I need to keep moving forward. Help. 

another dream, another love you'll hold.

"now they'll walk on my arm through the distant night,
and I wont let them stray from my heart,
through the wind, through the dark, through the winter light
I will read all their dreams to the stars.

i'll walk now with them,
i'll call on their names,
and i'll see their thoughts are known,
not gone,

not gone.

they walk with my heart, not gone
and i'll never let them go, not gone."

there's a grief that can't be spoken.

I've been staring at an empty page for a while now trying to think of a  profound, or beautiful way to put what I want to say but I think the only way I can do this justice is to just say exactly what I feel. Raw emotions, no edits, no glossing feelings over to make me look slightly less unhinged. What I'm writing is straight from the empty space where piece of my heart - that was taken away from me six years ago - used to be.

At the age of seventeen, I'd lost quite a number of people to death. But none of them could prepare me for the biggest loss of my life. There isn't a manual to tell you how to grieve, or how to cope with the loss of a loved one. I wish there was, it would make life so much easier. But that's life isn't it? Experiencing life and experiencing death. 

Nothing could have prepared me, it wasn't an expected death, not that I think that makes it any easier. No amount of time or words would have relieved or numbed the pain even in the slightest fraction. 

We spent an excruciatingly long night camped out in a tiny relatives room on 3 small sofas praying for a miracle, for the medicine to work, for anything.

But no amount of praying or wishing or hoping could have changed the outcome, the next morning, the words "there's nothing more we can do" were spoken, and the world that I knew was altered forever.

They removed the monitors and machinery keeping him alive and I held his hand and whispered in his ear. I can still feel his hand, how it felt that morning. It was different to every other time I had held his hand, this time it was lifeless, it still dwarfed my tiny hands and I knew this was the last time I was ever going to see him alive and feel the complete security and warmth that I felt every time that I grabbed his hand.

It didn't take very long, I suppose it never does. You remove the machine keeping the body alive, because the  body can't keep itself alive, and it's a waiting game of how long it can sustain itself before finally giving in. It was twenty minutes or so. I say it wasn't enough, but what amount of time would have been enough? 

I felt it instantly, a gaping hole was punched through my chest, my legs were no longer able to hold me and I fell to the floor. I'm still there now. 

I can visualise it all as though it was yesterday. And it does feel like yesterday, sometimes I hate the way my brain holds onto every painful detail, it makes the flashbacks and nightmares a lot more hard to recover from.

The pain in my chest that he left has become a normal sensation now. I don't think it will ever disappear. It aches, it burns, it hurts. This is my life now, a world in which he doesn't exist. 

It was an indescribable loss and I'm not going to sit here and try and find a collection of words that can't  even remotely articulate the emotions correctly.

One thing I can say, is that there have been times when I have felt his presence around me. As ridiculous as that may sound, there are times when I've sense him behind me, or in the room with me. His scent floods my senses and I'm immediately comforted. There was even a period of time when I felt something sit on the end of my bed each night and move a framed photograph of him and I next to my bed from another side of the room. Make of that what you will. But I take that as a sign that he still walks beside me. He may not be physically present, but for as long as I am living, he remains at my side, in my heart, and in my soul. 

I wish I could attest that "time heals everything" maybe it does. Time, that little paradox; running out by the second but on an indefinite infinite span. I have yet to be healed by time. But I have hope that I will. 

So, as we approach the night that six years ago changed my life forever. I am trying my hardest to remember the wonderful, beautiful, loving, inspirational person that he was. Not the huge gap that he left behind. I am who I am because he loved me, he taught me, he shaped me, he made me soar, and he was there when I fell.