Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain

Okay. So. I haven't blogged anything in over a month. I guess the reason is that things are actually pretty good for me right now, I'm doing better than I have done in ages, I haven't self-harmed in well over three months, I get up, I go out, I sleep, I make plans, my life isn't exactly 'normal' but I don't feel like I'm constantly struggling just to keep breathing.

There is only thing that has happened recently that is threatening to take away this stability.

I turn 25 in a couple of weeks (how the fuck did that happen!?!) and a few weeks back I got the same letter that everyone else gets, asking me to make an appointment for a cervical screening.

My gut reaction was absolute panic and dread. The thought of it just made me feel sick and nothing has changed. I don't want to go. I just have this... feeling... that it will completely freak me out. I'm not an idiot, I know it's not going to be at all 'sexual' and that it's clinical and they're professionals and all of that crap, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a situation that will inevitably trigger shit off. It'll make me feel out of control of my body and what happens to it.

There is a history of female cancers in my family and I know, with every bit of rational thought inside of me, that I should make an appointment and get it done. But the fear is so genuine and deep that it just won't let go...

I know that what happened to me is probably on my medical records and that if I explained how I feel about it that they'll probably be extra nice to me but I don't want that either, I don't want to be fucking defined by what some bastard did to me when I was 17. But by not going, that's just as bad, that's giving him something else over me, it will no longer just be effecting my mental health, it will be putting my physical health at risk.

You're hideous, you know that, right?

Does it ever go away? Like. At all.

Because everytime I think it's better something will happen and it's just there.

Today it was an unexpected bus route, being a stones throw away from the house that it happened, the pub, the pavement I sat down on with my friend waiting for his Dad to pick us up. Something broken. Something changed. The world. People. Myself.

And it's all happening again. Thoughts. Images. Smells. Sound. The sound of his voice. Do you like that?

I hate it and I get so fucking angry. That after all the time it isn't any better. It isn't any easier. It hasn't gone away.

So what?

Is this how it is forever?

The memories so close to the surface. Places you can't go past without reliving it.

Being broken, all over again, in a matter of minutes.

I have a new therapy assesment in a couple of weeks. I had every intention of going in there and spilling my guts. But now...

What's the point?

If I can't forget. If I can't somehow change the situation.

Then what good does crying about it with some stranger ever hope to achieve.

Tonight. I know I won't sleep. I won't let myself turn out the light.

And no matter how much I try and lose myself in a book. Or think about all the plans I have for the future.

Nothing will change how fucking scared and broken I feel right now.

If he wants me broken, then I will have to be whole

I've been discharged from day treatment. I was ready. I'm well enough not to be there. In fact I am healthier and well-er than I've been since before last summer. I'm not self-harming (75 days). The only time I've drank I stopped after a couple because it just make me feel so sick. I'm sleeping fine, although still plagued with nightmares a lot of the time. I can count on one hand the number of days I haven't managed to get out of bed. My anxiety management is good. I haven't had any hallucination type things going on. I do dissociate, but not severely and not often enough for it to be considered a 'real problem'. I am well and reletively happy. I got through last week, the time that's the hardest second only to August, and it was nowhere near as painful or as hard as I expected it to be.

I may not well in the same way that 'other people' are well, but I am well for me.

And I finally got my appointment through to see the psychologst in a couple of weeks, which I am slightly less okay about, but want to do this, I really do.

April is the cruellest month

Last night was punctured with bad dreams. S&M. Bondage. Torture. I'd wake up for a couple of minutes and it was like I'd forgotten how to breathe. The waking never lasted long, though, and almost instantly it was back into the dreams.

I woke up this morning and felt sick. Ashamed. Guilty.

I hate who I am. I hate what I've done. Betrayed by my own body. Betrayed by false promises. Betrayed by so called friends.

Inbetween the body memories the self-loathing is so intense.

I remember. I dissociate. I go numb. I don't want to feel. I can't feel.

On the outside everything is fine.

I don't drink.

I don't self-harm.

I talk. I laugh. I engage. I keep busy.

On the inside I am rotten. Ugly. Disgusting.

I will never forgive myself.

I will never forget.

Your nightmares follow you like a shadow, forever

I've started having rape dreams, nightmares, I wake up and I feel sick of the things that have come into my head during the night. I know I can't control it and I know that I shouldn't feel guilty about it but I do. I really fucking do. I wake up and I hate myself. I blame myself and shout at myself that I must be sick in the head to dream up such horrible things. I get so angry. I feel so ashamed.

Hardly any of the dreams involve things that have actually happened to me. The most vivid one was about a woman who tied me up and put tissue paper down my throat so I couldn't scream out without choking, It kept repeating over and over again on a loop. It was so real. I woke up and for most of the day I was convinced that it was real. That it had happened. I felt so dirty. The thoughts that I'm a whore get really, really intrusive and intense. I spend most of the time I'm awake going over and over in my head what did happen to me to try and make sense of it to myself, to see that the dreams are just dreams. That makes me feel fucking awful. I can't close my eyes without seeing his face. I try and describe it to myself and I get terrified. The rapes repeat over and over and over again. Then I go to sleep, eventually, and I dream up a whole lot of other crap.

Every night it takes me hours to get into bed. I sit in the dark huddled up and shaking. Trying not to cry. I am so scared of being asleep.

I've tried so many things. Sleeping tablets. Leaving the light on. Compulsive checking of doors and windows. Leaving the TV on. But nothing helps.

I feel like there's something wrong with me. That I am sick in the head and an evil person for having these dreams.

Loser. Liar. Faker. Phoney.

It took me three hours to work up the courage to go to bed last night. I wouldn't take my meds or turn the TV or the light off. The thought of being asleep made me want to cry. I feel so vulnerable right now. I have so much hatred inside me. Anger. Shame. Fear. Guilt. Everytime I close my eyes I can see the word WHORE as plainly as if it was burned onto my brain. I can't escape it. It hurts so much. To feel like a piece of meat. To feel like an attention seeking LIAR. Sometimes I am so convinced I've made this shit up. Or that it's somehow a way of cleansing myself from the reality of being a SLUT.

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe

Today I went to the day hospital for the first time. It seems to be pretty much the same as it was when I went last time only with a lot more 'clients', the nurses and the structure haven't changed much. Today's group was on anxiety and I found it quite useful. I'm going three days a week for six weeks.

Afterwards, I went back to the hospital for ward rouind and... I'VE BEEN DISCHARGED! On the one hand I am really happy about it, on the other I am a little sad that I won't get to see the psychiatrist again because I really started to like her a lot, despite our 'history', she talks to you as if you're on the same level if you know what I mean. But I'm really, really glad that I don't have to go back to the hospital again.

I've come off Haloperidol completely now and I'm feeling really good about that. I haven't taken any in nearly a month and things seem to be under control on that front, and I think my mood has improved because I have more energy when I don't take it. I'm still being pescribed Zopiclone but I haven't taken any in over a week and I'm sleeping fine most of the time. I'm still taking Seroquel, Lamictal Mirtazapine and Paroxetine.

Tomorrow I am going to see my (new) CPN, I am hoping that she will have heard back from my therapy assesment by now. I am going to try and tell her about the abuse related anxiety I'm experiencing, and that sometimes I feel really unsafe during the night and end up sitting in the dark shaking. This is something that I feel like I need to work on, and something that I feel ready to work on, I want to prepare myself for the summer as best as I can and maybe if I tackle some of this stuff now before it gets to anniversary time then it'll give me a better chance at coping. This is why I am really hoping that she'd heard back from therapy.

Today is 40 days since I last self-harmed or drank. Overall I am feeling really positive. Some things are still really tough but I want to fight through those times, instead of wanting to run away and escape them. I am feeling rather inspired right now.

To my younger self

Dear 17 year old me,

I know that you want to hate yourself for what happened. I know that blaming yourself is easier than facing up to the fact that you were powerless and not in control. I know that you think that you caused all of his problems, that he wouldn't have ended up being the person that he was without you but it's not true. You can't turn someone into an alcoholic. He bought your drinks. He encouraged you to be like him.

I know that you think that there are things you could have done that night to prevent what happened, but you can't go back and change what you didn't do, you can't go back and make yourself sober, you can't go back and lock the door, you can't go back and make yourself less vulberable. You couldn't have predicted what was going to happen and you can't beat yourself up because of that.

You were really unwell. You existed on booze. You were physically and emotionally weak. That doesn't mean that you were to blame, either. It's not your fault that you were sick and that by being sick you maybe weren't able to protect yourself as much as someone who was well. Maybe if you were in the same position now things would be different but you can't live your life thinking of what might have been. You can only be who you were at the time and being sick isn't an excuse for someone to hurt you.

Rape can happen to anyone, anywhere. It doesn't matter if you know the attacker or not. Did you know that most victimes know their attacker beforehand? Being friends with someone, even being their ex-girlfriend, doesn't make any difference. It can happen at night or in the middle of the day. It can happen in a park or a car. It can happen in your own house. It can happen in your friend's house.

What happened to you was real and you're allowed to be upset about it, you're even allowed to be angry about it, you're allowed to hate him, you're allowed to be scared, you're allowed to forgive yourself for all the thing you did or didn't do, you're allowed to speak out.

Someone told me once that keeping this stuff inside was infectious, that it poisoned you, and that it would eventually leak out. You can't put the lid back on the can. You can't run away from it just because it's painful.

It's time to stop blaming yourself. No-one is going to tell you to forgive and forget but if you talk to someone about it then maybe you can start to make some sense of it all and try to move on but you have to give talking about it a shot. Do you really think that it will make you feel worse than you do already? The only way is up.

I know that you feel guilty. That you feel that what happened wasn't 'that serious' and that you're making things up but think about it, why would you do that? Why would you be hurting over something that didn't happen? The question isn't was it real, because it's real to you, the question is what you do about it.

The only person that is going to call you a liar is you.

It's time to stop blaming yourself. You don't have to be a victim. You can be a survivor.

It won't hurt this much forever.

This too shall pass

I feel bad that I haven't done anything for EDAW 2012. It kind of crept up on me what with being in the hospital and my headspace being a bit fucked. Just know that I haven't forgotted about it or that I can't be bothered. Know that it's possible to recover. Know that an eating disorder will never allow you to find peace with your body or soul. Know that you're not alone. Know that 'this too shall pass'.

I've been in recovery from anorexia for nearly three years. I go through periods where I don't struggle at all, where my behaviours and thoughts are normal, and I feel like I would never relapse, and then I go through periods where I feel vulnerable and it's all I can think about and sometimes the behaviours come back. The difference now is that I can stop a bad day from turning into a bad week. I can pull myself out of it before it gets to that point. I know my eating disorder really well and I know how and when it can sneak up on me, so I can prepare myself for the rough times. I still have to watch myself, though, and keep myself in check. There are things that I can't do, like diet or exercise, and I'm only just starting to realise that and accept it.

I continue to struggle with binging and purging, and I remain at an 'obese' weight because I haven't yet worked out a way to lose the weight and stay healthy. If that means that for now I have to 'settle' at being 'fat' then so be it. I am trying to live with that.

My eating disorder is something that I will fight for the rest of my life, definately, and sometimes it's something that I have to fight on a daily basis, but sometimes it's not and I try to hold onto those times.

Ward round went well. I'm still struggling with who the psychiatrist is and how it connects to my anorexia and thoughts and how I used to be, but it's not unbearable and I think I'm dealing with it as best as I can. I'm on leave again until Wednesday and then the week after hopefully looking at being completely discharged. My new CPN was there and she seems really nice, she's going to come and see me on Tuesday. Obviously, it's too early to say anything but first impressions were good.

Today is a month since I drank bleach and I haven't self-injured/poisoned since then. I haven't drank since then, either.

Despite the memories and non-memories she brings up, and the fact that she tried to section me back when I was seriously starving myself, and that I ended up in the EDU for three months, I've actually started to like and respect her and I kind of wish she could be my community psych but she only does inpatient.

I couldn't talk about the anxiety I'm going through, the room was full of so many people and what I really needed was a 1:1 session where I could feel okay to say what I wanted to say but I know that's the nature of ward rounds and that hopefully I can bring it up when I see my CPN.

They've put me back on Paroxetine, or atleast they are giving me enough tablets to take every day instead of every other day so I'm assuming that I'm meant to take them every day. I'm fairly happy if that's the case. It helps with the panic attacks. I don't think I'm going to go back on Haloperidol but I might ask for a Seroquel increase at some point if the shadows get really bad or the bugs come back. Despite the fact that I don't really talk to anyone about the bugs and shadows but I haven't taken it in a couple of weeks and at first I really noticed it but now not so much. It's sort of sorted itself out.

She thinks that my medication needs a serious review and that if she was in charge of my care long term she would make some changes but because she's not, she's going to leave it to the community consultant to sort out. I don't know how I feel about that. I hate changes to meds. I feel like I've been through it so many times and now I would just like to stick with what I've got, even if something else might work better, which I know is a crap attitude but coming off something and then starting something else is just so shitty.

So pretty much a good day.

You are a dream among the sharks

Yesterday, I saw the psychiatrist that I used to see back in 2005 when I was severely anorexic and she didn't recognise me because 'I looked so different' and it's all I can think about that now I am overweight she was probably thinking that I've let myself go completely and that I'm disgusting. I have changed so much and it scares me to think how far away I am from being anorexic and a little part of me gets jealous at the old me and wants that life back. I wasn't expecting to see her and so I wasn't prepared for it. I can't connect myself with my past, I don't know if it's my brain protecting me or something, but it's like so much of my memory of being at my sickest is blank or confused and I can't cope when I'm confrotnted with it.

I need to be honest. I think I fucked up my therapy assesment. I wasn't able to talk about the rape. He kept asking me what I wanted to get out of therapy and what I thought triggered me but I just couldn't say it. It was in my head but it wouldn't come out. I just said stuff that happened in the past, he asked if it was physical or sexual and I just said sexual but that was it. Now I'm scared I won't get therapy because I fucked up. I've told so many people recently, why was it so fucking hard yesterday to mention it? I'm really panicing about it.

I don't know if I'm doing as well as I am pretending to do. I am feeling really anxious. The shadows are there but I can't talk about them because I can't explain them. I don't want to be in the hospital. It was breaking me. I feel safe at home because I am so scared from the infection that I know I won't cut myself but last night I had really bad urges and I couldn't sleep. I'm not suicidal. I want to live. I really want to live.

I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay. I have to be. I'm not going back to the ward. I have to be okay. I am. I am. I am.

Anyway, I wrote a poem...

The First Time

His eyes are like winter

I didn't notice until
we'd already kissed
a heavy awkward
kiss

There was no warmth
in his mouth
I waited, silently,
hardly daring to breathe
waiting, for heat to strike

Our hands touched
softly at first
then tightly
gripping until
it hurt

I can't breath

The air between us
is poison, a sweet poison
that's tasteless and toxic

Can you feel his touch?

Fingers bent and ugly
inhuman, a tongue
like a snake

I try to escape

My legs disconnect
from my body, my brain
shouting run, my heart
beating out the pattern
of my feet

A shadow appears
out of nowhere,
touching me,
holding me
back

I can't move

Every muscle
screams in
agony

Weeping
without tears

I try to move
again

His hands
pull my hair

Reach for
my throat

I gag

He whispers to me
I love you

I can feel the weight
of his love
on my chest

Feel the weight
of his body
crushing my
bones

I try to scream
but another
cold kiss
and I'm
silent
again

I wait

Hardly daring to breath

I take it like a man

I count

One

Two

Three

He falls asleep
at 4AM

I shiver on the floor
half naked

I smell of vodka
and sweat

I try to move
my legs

I try to reach
the door

I try to
run away

You can't say I didn't try

Where you end and I begin

So, I guess I should update...

I've been in hospital. I went to A&E in a state, decided I needed to be admitted to psych but there were no beds so I had to stay in the A&E ward until one became available, I was there a couple of days and I caught chicken pox so couldn't be moved because of infectiousness and then I got Septicemia in one of my cuts so I was hooked up to drips and things. I had to wait until I was medically fit before I could move to psych and I moved last Saturday.

The psychiatrist is the one that I saw in the summer the last time I was in there, the same twat who takes me off half my meds, nurses that won't give out PRN's until you're literally in pieces.

Friday night I had a fight with another patient, threw a tray of tea everywhere, cried a lot, swore a lot, and so they thought it would be good if I came home for the weekend to get a 'break' from it all.

It's not a supportive enviroment, people are trying to piss people off, or telling tales, it's driving me mad!

I feel a lot better in myself, I don't feel suicidal and the Septicemia thing has really scared me away from self harming. I don't want to do it ever again. My anxiety is really high and I'm seeing shadows but I don't want to bring it up because I don't want to stay on that ward a second longer. I'd rather bring it up with my own psych.

I have a therapy assesment tomorrow with my old therapist. I'm scared but hopeful.

No one ever gets to me

So, a positive start to 2012...

I went for a walk around where I live last night in the dark on my own. That's the first time I've managed to do it here in probably years. I'm fine walking around places I don't live but walking around here is just so anxiety provoking, the fear that he may follow me and find out where I live, even though he's atleast a town away. I feel really pleased with myself. I did it and I didn't freak out about it.

I think slowly the things I learnt or talked through in counselling are becoming a part of my daily life. I spent so much time thinking that it didn't make any difference because I didn't have a kind of epiphany moment and it was such slow going but just little things that I've talked about and got out of me do make a difference and I think I need to remember that when things get tough.

I know I need more support, or therapy, or somewhere that I can talk about things in more detail, because I'm not sure I can survive the summer without it but right now I'm making it through the days fairly easily.

It's not the first thing that I think about. I don't have flashbacks or nightmares very often and when I do I don't drink or hurt myself because of them and I have dissociated in ages. I feel like I've healed a little bit.

Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes

I hate to admit it but I'm really struggling. I should be past this. It's been over 10 years since I developed and eating disorder. I should be better already.

I thought Christmas would be okay but I spent the three days purging and since then I've been scared to eat over a certain amount. My head is telling me that it's okay to only eat twice a day. That it's okay to count calories. That it's not restricting if I eat a certain amount. That it's just dieting. I went to look for my scales and then remembered that I chucked them out over the summer and now I'm in tears because I don't have them.

I am obese. It's a medical fact. Partly down to medication and partly down to binging. I need to lose weight. I don't know how to lose weight properly. A part of me misses being underweight. A bigger part of me misses just being normal. At my sickest I weighed 97lbs, at my heaviest I weighed 196lbs, I weighed myself about a month ago and I weighed 186lbs. I want to weigh between 125-130lbs. That's healthy for my height. Not to high and not too low. But my head tells me that I should try and beat my low weight. That it wasn't really all that low. Even though I was at death's door. It wasn't that bad. I ate too much even if I didn't eat at all. I don't want to go back there but I want to be thin. Is there a compromise? Is there a middle ground? Do I have to be anorexic or fat? Is that my choice? One or the other?

My head is such a mess. It's been less than a week and already everything is overwhelming and too much and I can't cope with it. I don't want to have to worry about my weight. I don't want to be the fat kid anymore. I want to be thin. I want to be well. I want to be normal. I want to be thin. etc etc etc.

I need to lose weight I need to lose weight I need to lose weight I need to lose weight. I'm being completely open with my parents about what I'm eating. I'm not doing it in secret and they are encouraging me to diet. Telling me that I should weigh myself once a week in Boots like I used to when I was at my sickest. Telling me not to eat carbs. I don't know what to think. I've got it in my head how much I'm allowed to eat and if I go over that then it's not okay. That I have to punsih myself if I do. That I have to be strong. That I have to do this.

I don't want to be sick. I want to be okay. But my head. My head is so confused.

Help

So you did your best and faced such music as anyone cared to play

So... It's been forever since I updated, it's hard to know where to start.

I ended up in hospital after drinking a litre of gin and becoming hysterical and suicidal. I saw someone from the booze bigrade who said they would be in touch with me but never did. I managed to get myself back to a somewhat normal state by using my PRN Diazepam everytime I felt like I needed a drink. I haven't drunk on my own for a couple of weeks now, I also haven't self-harmed either.

In the midst of all this it became apparant that I wouldn't find anywhere to live in Leicester anytime soon and that whilst I was living back with my parents I needed to go back under the Nun CMHT. I was told I could go to the day hospital, and then told that I didn't fit the criteria. At the minute I have seen my old CPN, who I don't particularly get on with, and she is going to be my care-co again. She said she would refer me to psychology, but she keeps going on about me repeating DBT and I am really not impressed by that. She is leaving in a couple of months though so I will have someone new. Hopefully. There has been no mention of seeing a psychiatrist but for the most part I am happy to be on the medication that I am on.

I have finished rape counselling and feel like I have gone as far as I can at the moment, although I know I have barely scratched the surface. I know I need to go deeper. To heal. Because I don't feel healed. Although I feel a little less...heavy. I am wondering if there is a crisis centre here in Nun or maybe Coventry. I know when the summer comes around I won't be able to cope...

I have spent the last week with a good friend, travelling around the country stalking Tim Minchin. It's been amazing. That's all I can think of to describe it. AMAZING.

This will be my third Christmas in recovery from anorexia and I'm having THREE meals in as many days and I'm freaking out about it a little bit. I am also having a lot of chatter in my head about going on 'a diet' in the New Year and losing as much weight as possible. I am sick of being fat and obese. I just want to be thinner...

Anyway, that's about it, Happy Christmas everyone, I love you a lot and appreciate your support.

Some things you lose and some things you just give away

Somewhere along the line of the last few months my parents have found out that I was raped.

I am finding it almost impossible to cope with.

My Dad keeps calling it a 'suitcase' that I'm carrying around that he knows about but that I don't have to open for him, it sounds like a pretty reasonable metaphor but it makes me feel sick just the fact that I know they know and that they're finding there own ways to deal with it and reason it out when I can't do it for myself. They know I was in crisis counselling. They know that I get flashbacks. They're reading books on PTSD...

I've spent seven years trying to keep it a secret from them and I feel like I've failed.

It feels like when they found out about my Eating Disorder. I felt like sure a failure. It wasn't my secret anymore. They were watching me all the time. I couldn't escapse it because it was all around me.

This probably sounds stupid, considering the fact that I am fairly open about what happened to me online, and to a few select friends in real life, my ex boyfriend, this is an open blog, if you're a friend of mine from FB or twitter or any forums I post in online then you would be able to find my blog and read it, and I am totally fine with that, I am fine with the fact that strangers might stumble upon my rambles... I am not ashamed of what happened to me. I try to be as honest as I can be with myself through writing here, exploring my feelings and the after-effects, going through the constant interal battles of blaming myself and feeling real enough of valid enough to be hurting. I will talk about my flashbacks, about nightmares, about how fucked up it makes my thoughts sometimes. I am open and honest and I accept that means that I leave myself open for people to see the ugly parts of me...

... I just never wanted my parents to find out about it.

I am fine and I'll learn to take what's mine and live without guilt

I had my initial group assesment at FDL (personality disorder service) on Friday. It was... okay. They just talked a bit about the difference between personality disorders and other mental illness, which I already knew so it was a bit pointless, and then they explained a bit about what they do and had some current service users talk about how it's been for them. It seems pretty intense, one of the programmes is five days a week for a year, then there's a two day a week one,and it's all group work, there's no individual therapy at all, and I'm not sure about it, at all, but I filled in the form to go back for an individual assesment and I'm hoping they'll help me decide what's best for me then, or atleast give me a better idea of whether or not it will be worthwhile. I really don't know what my own thoughts on it are right now.

Then I had my last session at LRC. It went well, I feel like I've achieved something and she told me that I shouldn't feel stupid because I couldn't do much 'talking' and that maybe I did all I could do at the time and that I can always ring the helpline if I need them.I didn't do a lot of hard stuff, I did talk about what happened to me but I was awkward and difficult and I didn't seem to get very far with it. There is still so much I need to deal with, to talk about, it still effects my day to day life, I still get flashbacks and nightmares and the only way I know how to deal with them is to drink or self-harm, I still can't sit with myself, I still can't see myself in a relationship, I still can't see myself trusting a man enough to have sex with, I can't see myself ever having sex again, I am still severely Tokophobic, my skin still crawls... I don't know. I agree with her that maybe I talked as much as I could at the time, but I also know that it wasn't enough, that it isn't enough, that I need more help or therapy or support or whatever to get through this, to heal, because I don't feel healed. I feel like I've taken the first step, but that's about it...

Feeling close but keeping my distance

I haven't SI'ed and the urges have gone away. I'm not sure how long it's been since I last did it, it's over a month since I threw out my tools and I think I've only done it twice since then so it's been awhile, and it's been much longer than that I haven't had to seek medical treatment, so I guess I'm doing well on that front.

Eating is a bit all over the place, binging, throwing up a couple of times, hating my body, vague restriction plans that I know will never happen, I just want to get back to being a normal/healthy weight and not feel so disgusting.

Still shaken up from 'the sighting' as much I try to calm myself down and tell myself it wasn't keep the resemblance is just making it hard to really believe that I will never see him again, and that urge to get in touch and have it out with him is so strong, I don't know how I'm resisting it, I think it's fear, the fear of him denying it, because if he denied it then I would, too, but of course he would deny it because that's just what people do... How do I trust my own memories? How do I go back to that day? How do I move on? How do I make peace with myself? Do I try to forget? Do I go into every tiny little detail? Do I just... do nothing? What do I do?

I'm struggling with knowing I only have one counselling appointment left. I've only really just started talking about stuff and now it's going to be over. I'm meant to be keeping a thought diary and something has come up in it that I would like to talk about, about how I feel manipulated into feeling guilty about what happened to me because of his actions afterwards, with the voicemail and the disappearence and then the email about 'forgetting the past' over a year later, but it seems like such a huge thing to bring up in a last session. What happene afterwards affected me a Hell of a lot more than the actual rape did, for a long time I was caught up in the emotional side of it, the huge amount of guilt I felt, the feeling that he had killed himself and it was all my fault, trying to work out what that messege meant, was it a final apology, a kind of 'suicide note' because it felt like one, I felt like that was the corner I was backed into. I carried that guilt around, that responsibility for someone's suicide, that I was the cause of someone's suicide for over a year. That broke me.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I've only just started talking about what happened, let alone exploring the feelings around it, I just don't know what to do next...

Still dancing with your demons

For the first time in weeks I have strong urges to SI. I am meant to be in London with friends but I cancelled on them and now have nothing to do but sit around and feel incredibly guilty and worthless. My mood is dropping, I hate to admit it but I can't deny it, the tiredness, the need to isolate, the fear of being awake for longer than I need to be. I just want it to stop. I want to be normal. I want to be happy.

I have one session left at crisis and I feel like I've barely even started to deal with it, but at the same time I feel like I want to leave, that maybe not going to a rape crisis centre will be a good thing because then I can go back to pretending it's not real. Maybe it isn't real. Maybe I'm an attention seeking liar. I don't trust myself or my memories at all. They seem false, or too much, or something out of nothing, and in these moments I crave a kind of certainty, I want bruises, I want violence, I want my life to be in danger. What I don't want is what I have. It doesn't seem serious enough. It doesn't seem real enough. It doesn't seem validated. I am still fighting with the urge to get back in touch with him, to see if he remembers, to see what the voice mail was all about, what he was really sorry about, does he know, did he know, will he remember, does he feel guilty, does he even know who I am anymore?

Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I don't believe what happened, sometimes I'm scared, sometimes I feel like a liar, sometimes I feel like I'm making too much out of it, sometimes I think I think it worse than it was, sometimes I feel guilty, sometimes I feel ashamed, sometimes I hate myself, sometimes I hate him, sometimes... Sometimes I want it to happen again so I can feel validated. To say that it was violent. I was attacked. Sometimes I want it to be late at night. Outside. Some dodgy looking old man. I want to beaten up and my life threatened. Sometimes I want a real rape.

It's not war (just the end of love)

I realised today that I am terrified of my anorexia returning, and that it has a big part to play in my current relationship with food, in that I eat too much of the wrong thing because I feel like it might be the last chance to have it, that all or nothing feeling, I'm in the all phase right now but I want to get that under control, I don't want it to be a phase, I want to eat more healthily and lose some of this excess weight in the right way. But that fear of being sick again, of losing the weight and still hating my body and myself, of depriving myself of the comfort that eating gives me... I know I am stll disordered but I'm not anorexic, and I live in a kind of fear of becoming anorexic again. It's the last thing that I want. It truly is. If I start to lose weight will it trigger it. If I don't eat something that I want to eat will it trigger it. If I say no to a meal out or a dessert or wanting to eat cake instead of a proper dinner will it trigger it.

I'm in a vulnerable place right now. I'm probably quitting university. I'm living back with my parents. My future isn't really something that I have even the vaguest idea about. This is when the anorexia could kick in. That feeling of power and purpose. I overeat, or eat crap instead of real food, because I am terrified that saying no to anything will be the start of that Hell returning. Of tests and poking and measuring and appointments and meal plans and fear and anger and resentment and hospitals and Ensures and endless, endless numbers.

I have too much to lose. It would kill me if there was a next time, I am sure of it.

Lost in the supermarket

I saw someone in town that looked like him. For half a minute I was convinced that it was him. The fear. The panic. The numbness. The memories. Waiting for the flashbacks. The nightmares to kick back in. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting... The feelings start somewhere towards to floor and rise up until they're clinging around my throat, making it hard to breathe, to swallow, to speak.

I have been struggling with anger recently. Feeling so angry at him. At myself for letting it happen. For not being heard. For not being strong enough to stop it. Maybe it's something that's wrong with me. Something damaged inside. Something that gave out the wrong signals. Something I did or didn't do. Something I said or didn't say.

I want to confront him. I want to make him understand. I want to feel like there is someone else in this memory, that it's not all just me. I want to believe that what he did was wrong and I want him to admit it because if he doesn't realise, then I don't think I can move on. I want to survive, and I am, but it's not enough, I want *more*, I want closure, I want revenge (kind of), I want to be told that it wasn't my fault, that he knew what he was doing and knew that it was wrong. I want the life I imagine that he has. I want the world to be on my side and not his. I feel so guilty feeling like this. I mean, really, what would it change? What would it take to make anything change? I could forgive him and move on but I'm not sure I can do that, so instead I want some kind of absolution from him, for him just to say I'm sorry, I was drunk, I made a mistake, he made a mistake... Is it just that, a mistake, is rape just a mistake? If he was drunk and I was drunk is there really anything wrong with that?