Wednesday 23 November 2011

Happy now I'm on happy ground

This is me:




We were on the ferry going to France. I was excited about going on holiday, I was 17, happy and care free. Me and my sister decided to wear big dresses that would blow in the wind, and spent the majority of the journey laughing while we tried to not show off our knickers to the rest of the people on board.
Can you tell from that picture that only six months before I was at my darkest time? I was 5 1/2 stone, I couldn't eat, in constant pain and fighting for a diagnosis.
Here, I am in my first remission. If I remember correctly, it lasted about 10 months. I can't even describe how it felt. To come out of such a darkness. It was during this time I met my first boyfriend and he fell in love with me.
This is what I fight for. Even when things are bad I will remember this feeling, its ok to be down because it will be so much better when I come up.
This is the gift I get out of this curse. And I captured it in this picture to never forget.

Monday 14 November 2011

Trust your breath in me for a moment, we'll lose the world

I go through phases when I'm fine with my illness and when I'm not. Usually the worst time is when I start feeling unwell again after a period of remission.

I find myself wondering what it would be like without it, and remember how unimaginable I find this.
People sometimes do crazy things to try and escape their problems, and it doesn't make them go away. Sometimes I have the urge to run away, just to hide for a couple of days. But my problem is me. It will follow wherever I go.

The closer someone gets to me, the more they see the real me I hide beneath my false thick skin. And even though part of me is aching to let someone else in, I find it so hard. It is almost impossible to break my constant pretense of being 'normal'.

It gets to a certain point, when someone sees so much, I can see it hurts them too. Its like I am capturing them and pulling them into this web of pain and sadness.

And this is the part I hate the most. I want to let them go. They should be free of this, and they are. I find myself watching people decide to stay or go.

A lot of people do go, though sometimes I don't think they realise it. They stay close but distant, they chose to never properly understand. They only see the girl on the surface. I don't push them away or pull them in. I envy these people but its not usually an angry feeling. I see them as light feathers, floating away in their freedom, their innocence of the darkened corners in the world. It almost makes me happy to see it.

Its the people who stay I don't properly understand. That they would choose this to be part of their life. That they would stay in the gloom. I am so grateful to them, they are obviously the people who care the most, and in fact, they are the people who help me bring in some light. They can see a lot more of me than I can. They can see the part of me who is a 'normal' person, with interests and hobbies and passion, as well as the struggling girl inside.

For me, everything is a cloudy muddle. I see both girls, struggling to come together as one, with disease sticking its head around every corner. Everything takes its turn in dominating, and probably balances out overall. Sometimes I have to force myself out of my head, to remind myself I'm still real and alive. I have to smell the air, and feel the cold, and see the flowers and hear the music, to clear my head and remind myself, everything is actually so tiny and insignificant.

Wednesday 2 November 2011

I'll keep on spinning untill I find myself again

I don't even know how to start this post.

I am tired, I am weak. I suddenly have this feeling of the whole world spinning around me, and time is zooming past while I feel like I am only looking out of the window for two minuets. I have stopped while everything else keeps going.

My mind feels like a big fuzzy cloud that I can't clear. I can't clear it enough to think about what I have to do. I find myself watching a yellow leaf blowing on a tree, and I don't know what I have been thinking about. I watched a heron by a stream, and wondered what it would be like to be him, while people around me talk about things we have to do.

I am yet again reminded of how easily people forget I am different. I pretend to be like them, obviously it works. They don't see how many more things I have to think about. But right now I can't think about anything.
I think people think I am lazy, but they don't see how hard I am pushing against walls in order to get things done.

Sometimes, I just can't. And that's what people don't understand. The inability just to get something done.