I wish I didn't do politics

"We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice."
- Woody Allen

Today feels like one of the worst days of my entire life, waking up to David Cameron's fat gloating face.

To be blunt, I am so angry at the ignorance of people, the fact that probably only a handful of voters actually took the time to read the manifestos or to have a quick look through the history books.

It's about principles, not character and charisma, or atleast it should be.

I remember what my Grandad told me when I went with him to vote when I was little. Tories want to take from the poor and give to the rich. Labour want to take from the rich and give to the poor. Liberals want to take from no-one and give to everyone.

One of those thing is impossible in practise.

I am sick of hearing how brilliant Nick Clegg is, the one hit media wonder who's 'support' didn't quite manifest itself into votes. Big fucking suprise there. Do people realise that the Lib Dems have about only a 4% approval rating? How full of empty shit Clegg was. I am sick of people saying how against the Tories they are and yet how they're too lazy to do anything about it or to make that sacrifice and realise that sometimes it is not about voting for who you want, but for tho one who is most likely to keep the ones that you really don't want out. It's marketed as a three horse race when in reality it's just a two. The party that I am in support of didn't even have a representative in my area.

I don't know if I am the only one who feels the weight of past genreations when it comes to the election but I feel it so hard.

I am angry and upset and I have an exam in under an hour that I will most definately fail because I cannot focus on anything.

Nearing the end

“Of course there's a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don't take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates.”
- Abbott Lawerence Lowell

Right, it's the last week of uni, all my assingments are done and ready to be handed in, I have two exams to get through and then it's all over.

As most people do, I have gained rather a lot of weight over the course of it. I've heard people talk of the 'freshmen fifteen' and that has most definately happened to me. Not only do I have that excess weight to carry around (which has put me firmly in the overweight BMI range and at my heighest ever weight) but last summer was a tough one and a situation occured that lead to me eating in an incredibly erratic and unhealthy way, neglecting the fact I am vegetarian, binging and gaining and binging and purging yet still gaining. Other than that uni has mostly been okay, I overdosed in October and SI'ed serverely enough to be medically hospitalised overnight last term but mostly I have tried to grit my teeth and get through it. I'm in DBT but still struggling a lot with the BPD diagnosis and the stigma attached. In a way I don't feel like I am treated as someone who has mental health issues but who is just 'awkward', I don't know how much of that is fact and how much is just my own insecurities manifesting themselves.

Anyway, this time next week it will all be over and I will have survived my first year. There have been times when I've felt validated as a writer and those moments alone have made the whole thing worth it. I would have liked to have had flatmates but my accomodation was crap and I only made friends from my course so I got quite lonely and spent a lot of time coming back home. I think that loneliness contributed to a lot of the 'slips' that happenened and increased my depression.

I'm fairly certain that most people didn't expect me to make it but I have done, and I am at least in part a little proud of the fact that I am still in one piece.

Ink, metal and hair dye

"In all ages, far back into prehistory, we find human beings have painted and adorned themselves."
- H.G. Wells

Some girls need to wear full make-up before they'll even leave the house. Some wear designer clothes, showing off their material wealth with a little logo you can barely see unless you're looking for it. Some girls get out of bed looking like they've just been to the hairdressers. I am not and have never been one of those girls. I have never been 'beautiful'.

I was never taught how to put on make-up despite having three older sisters, I was overweight and ashamed and either wore my school uniform or tracksuits and I had a terrible fear of hairdressers from the age of six onwards and only in the last few years have I conquered it, although still not entirely enjoying the experiance as most girls do. Despite this I had beautiful hair. Long, wavy and naturally a brilliant shade of brunette.

At fourteen I'd had enough of being overweight and bullied so I went on a diet that turned into and eating disorder that turned into severe anorexia nervosa. When I was eighteen and at my worst the lack of nurishment made my hair fall out and fade into a dull, lank, lifeless mess. Fairly representative of the girl I had become. I turned to hair-dye, pinks and purples, bright colours to take any focus away from my body and face. When I got out of the hospital I cut most of my hair off for the first time in my life because it was no longer beautiful. It was an incredibly liberating experiance. I kept dying it different colours. I wore band t-shirts and jeans and genrelly didn't attract any attention elsewhere.

Over the last couple of years I've been more drastic, prefering to wear short, androynous styles dyed bright shades of red and purple and I have discovered clothes and stopped being afraid to stand out. Settling for a style that's somewhere between vintage and soft goth. I take my inspiration from Vince Noir and buy things that I love no matter how bright or shiny or glittery. I got my lip pierced and wasn't scared of the attention it might bring to my face.

I recently got my first and second tattoo and I can honestly say that I adore them both. I was sitting in the bath just ten minutes ago and staring at my ink and feeling completely in love. They are beautiful and they are a part of me. Therefore a part of me is beautiful.

My body image isn't great right now, a part of me doubts that it will be. I am at my highest ever weight with a BMI of 28 which is above what is considered medically healthy. Yet, in every other way my self image is better than it has ever been. More than that, I feel like I am developing my own identity, becoming the person that I have always been too scared to be.

I am not afraid to stand out, in fact I rather relish in it.

Ink, metal and hair dye are not only a part of my body but a part of my personality, and they make me feel just that little bit less hideous and sometimes just that little bit beautiful.

Some days I'm still fighting to walk towards the light

"Dreaming, dreaming of how it's supposed to be

But this tunic's spinning around my arms and knees

I feel like I'm disappearing, getting smaller every day

But when I open my mouth to sing I'm bigger in every way."

- 'Tunic (Song for Karen)' by Sonic Youth

For the first time in years I cried over something I've eaten. Actually, full-on, sobbing, running to the bathroom and getting everything ready to throw up before slapping myself around the face (metaphorically) about being so bloody stupid!

I have cried binging to throw up, I have cried after binging and not throwing up and I have cried when clothes haven't fitted or when I've gained weight but it has been long time since I have cried whilst eating something perfectly acceptable and 'normal'.

I am not that person anymore. I am not. I am not a seven stone kid who gets weighed and poked and prodded and needles stuck into every other day. I am not a 'client' on a psyche ward or EDU. I am nearly twenty fucking three and a student and a writer and I care about things over than weighing under a hundred pounds and being the skinniest girl in the street. I believe in things. I have friends who I am able to love and appreciate and not be a bitch to. I go out and get drunk and fall into and out of bed and do exciting, alive things rather than waiting around to die things. I eat and I drink like a 'normal person'. I don't buy my clothes from the kiddies section or else borrow my eleven year old nieces.

I am not someone who cries and gets hysterical over a bowl of fucking cereal.

"Vile deeds like poison weeds bloom well in prison air, it is only what is good in man, that wastes and withers there." - Oscar Wilde

"This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone." - Chuck Palahniuk

"Just like any woman,...we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same." - Francesca Lia Block

"This is the weird aftermath, when it is not exactly over, and yet you have given it up. You go back and forth in your head, often, about giving it up. It’s hard to understand, when you are sitting there in your chair, having breakfast or whatever, that giving it up is stronger than holding on, that "letting yourself go" could mean you have succeeded rather than failed. You eat your goddamn Cheerios and bicker with the bitch in your head that keeps telling you you’re fat and weak: Shut up, you say, I’m busy, leave me alone. When she leaves you alone, there’s a silence and a solitude that will take some getting used to. You will miss her sometimes...There is, in the end, the letting go." - Mayra Hornbacher

"And you know that if anyone had a clue how wrong it felt to be sober, they wouldn't dream of asking you to stay that way. They would say oh geez, I didn't know. It's okay for you. Do that mound of cocaine. Have a drink. Have 20 drinks. Whatever you need to do to feel like a normal human being, you do it. And boy I did it. I drank and I snorted. I drank and snorted. I drank and snorted. And I did this day after day, day after day, night after night. I didn't care about the consequences because I knew they couldn't be half as bad as not using. And then one night something happened. I woke up. I woke up on a sidewalk and I had no idea where I was. I couldn't have told you what city I was in. And my head was pounding and I looked down and my shirt is covered in blood. And as I'm lying there wondering what happens next I heard a voice. And it said man, this is not a way to live. This is a way to die." - 28 Days

Angels for everyone

"And if you were with me tonight
I'd sing to you one last time
A song for a heart so big
God wouldn't let it life"
- Jimmy Eat World

It's been two years since the beautiful Elin Julie's suicide but not a single second that she's not missed or thought about. I feel so terribly sad, for all the times she said she was worried about me. I'm thinking of London and how much of a selfish bitch I was being so stupid and ill and inflicting myself on beautiful, wonderful people. I am thinking of my best friend of that time, an ex SH member, who pretty much dropped me as soon as she got what she wanted out of me. I am thinking of how different I look now, at my highest weight that technically makes me overweight and how people must be thinking I've let myself go or am greedy or have no self-control. Stupid thoughts. I am thinking of all the friendships I've fucked up through being ill, either not eating or just being drunk and drugged and not in control and making shit situations both for myself and people who I love. I am thinking that I don't deserve forgivness.

Most of all I am thinking that the world has lost someone truly beautiful, genuinely kind and altogether wonderful. My heart is with everyone that loved her and is thinking of her today. All we can do is make her proud.

When does a person who writes get to call themselves a writer?

"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."
- Kahlil Gibran

This is my answer to a question that was raised on a forum I frequent about the difference between making works of art and being an artist indetifying as such.

I consider myself to be a writer. I actively sumbit work for publication (whether it ends up published or not is besides the point) and I am a student of Creative Writing.

I don’t however consider myself to be a photographer, even though I take photos and sometimes like what I see, I see it a lot more as a hobby, something that I enjoy to do, rather than as part of my indentity.

If I didn’t write I don’t think I would be the same person. I know that sounds incredibly pretentious but I can’t help it. I came to writing firstly out of a need for some sort of healthy expression and then later as pleasure and then eventually it become something that I couldn’t see myself without.

Whether I ever end up published isn’t really the issue, I’m a poet because I want and need to write poems.

I think that if you believe in what you're doing than you are an artist, some people can paint but not want to be artists, same as some people can add up but don't want to be accountants (does that make any sense?) it's about what you feel you are or atleast what you would feel was missing from your indentity if you were without it.

Fame and money and publication are not the only measures of success, sometimes it's as simple as touching one person emotionally, bringing them joy with what you've created. Even if that person is yourself.

Virginia Woolf said that writers must be androgynous. I'll go a step further. You must be bisexual.

“For a long time I thought I wanted to be a nun. Then I realized that what I really wanted to be was a lesbian.”
- Mabel Maney

I need a girlfriend more than I have ever needed anything in my life. I need to know, to feel, that I am attractive to women. I honestly, 100% do not give a shit about being found attractive by men, it means nothing to me, it's cheap, it's all about the fuck, I can't cope with it and I don't want it at the minute. Maybe I don't want it at all. I still find men attractive but I have no desire to be intimate with them. Fuck having a 'what does this mean sexuality crisis', that's not my style, I don't care who I want to love I just want someone of the female variety to fucking love me.

I feel ugly.