And I was in floods of tears after a few posts. Why? Because a lot of them sound like I wrote them.
This one, especially:
"I miss who I was.
I miss the girl who laughed. I missed the girl who looked at the upside of everything.
I missed the girl who was happy, and innocent, and free.
I miss the girl who would look in the mirror and not find every flaw.
I miss the girl who didn't let other's words bother her. I miss who I was. I hate who I am."
and:
"I love all my friends. I secretly pray that I'm not the one they all hate."
^ and unfortunately, that one did happen to me :/
Anyway, a while ago, I realised that very same thing as the first post. Three years ago, I was happy. Hell, even amongst the shit I went through I was happy 2 years ago. Then I was happy. I was loved, I was in love, I had just gotten my first job, first car, losing weight...and then I needed space from the man I loved (for 3 years), and I was confused. Then a few months later, when he told me he didn't love me, I broke down. Seriously...And there's probably a post about this already, about the suicides and what not, but shush, this is about the feelings behind it, and not the actual self harm etc etc (so no need to worry mummy).
It was May 30th (ish), a few days after the funeral. My grandma and I had just travelled from Burton down to Cheltenham, straight after the funeral, in the middle of the night, to stay with my mum and her partner for a week or so, just to get away. A few days in, my mum took me to a fancy salon to sort out my hair, which, thanks to a combination of peroxide and stress, was falling out by the handful and turned to straw. The photo was taken in garden, in front of the cottage, while I was sun bathing. By this point, I had had about 2 weeks of 'space' from my ex. Look at the girl in the photo. She's 19. She's beautiful. She's got this fantastic blonde hair and the personality to match. Up to this point, she'd been going to Slimming World and lost nearly a stone in weight! She's getting her head sorted. She's happy.
About a month after this, my mum had convinced me to dye my hair dark again, so, while in Tesco with my sister, I was just browsing the hair dye when she walked up to me and grabbed a nice looking colour. "We are so dying your hair!" she said with a grin. I was a little unsure, since mum had said she wanted to get it done properly, but I was happy and excitable, so we bought the dye and went home. Which lead to this:
The first picture with dark hair in 3 years! At this point, the girl in the photo is still 19. She's still lost the weight. She's still happy. But then her ex-boyfriend tells her that he doesn't love her, and her entire world comes crashing down around her. She starts to self harm again (which she had done a few years previously, when being bullied). When she moves to university, she takes an overdose. She misses class to a point that she can't remember the last one she went to. Still working weekends and going home, she becomes lethargic and stops cooking good food, relying on the Chinese across the street. In that one year, she gains a whopping 2 stone in weight, and goes from a size 16 to almost a 20.
A year after moving out, she hasn't quite realised how much weight she's gained. She looks happy here. Her secret? She's been feverish all week, has barely eaten and is trying to revise for second year exams, whilst fighting off a wanker that she dated for a month (those in the know will know who). Her best friend, Lauren, has dragged her out of her flat for the first time in over a week to come to the park on that beautiful day, and while she was out, and with her friend, the girl was happy. Well, she was cheerful, not quite happy. She had fun. But dissolved under a black cloud the minute she was home. It took her about 6 months to realise that it was her friends that she needed. She was the life and soul while she was with her friends. Alone, though, she had her thoughts. And they hadn't been that kind to her for years. They'd always make her sad.
So now, she's alone, and still missing the man who broke her heart nearly 2 years ago. She's still overweight. Still trying her best to lose it. But then something happens. She gets dressed, thinking she looks great, but then catches herself in a store window, or a mirror in Primark, and she thinks that she looks awful....and immediately wants to go home and curl up in bed. Not just change, like any normal person. Just stay indoors, where nobody could see her, and how awful she looked.
She stands in front of the mirror in her knickers and a vest top, wondering. "Why am I not good enough?" she thinks to herself as she pokes the fat of her stomach. "Why do I fail at dieting?" she mumbles as she prods her thighs. She looks up to her face. That once beautiful face. Those bright blue eyes, shining with happiness. Gone. They're still blue, but they don't shine. The once beautiful girl who stared back was gone. She had been replaced by this unhappy monster. This fat, ugly girl who walked around with a black cloud over her head. Who, as much as she tried, was never truly happy. Until she tried to be someone she's not. Until she went to a gig with back combed, orange sprayed hair, a drawn on, cut up orange T shirt and a phoenix tattoo.
She wasn't the unhappy girl in the mirror. She was the gig whore. The girl who drove up and down the country, just to see her favourite bands play. This one, her absolute favourite, she'd dragged to her friends to 2 gigs in 2 nights. They'd had an amazing time. For a few hours, she was the beautiful girl in the mirror again. She was happy, if only for a few hours.
So cutting up her clothes and driving across the country is never a waste of money. Because it makes her happy. If only for those few hours that she is singing with her favourite singer, having him hug her when he sees her (because she managed to make herself known to her idol), chatting to him about the gigs and stuff, all the while just loving to be near him because she admires him so much. He's Joe Dexter. He is the lead singer and bass guitarist for the rock band Orange. He has cystic fibrosis. She thinks he is amazing. So when she is with him, either chatting, laughing, singing...it's almost as though, for that moment, she is amazing. And not selfish. Selfish because she is depressed. Why? Because she's fat? Because she's ugly? Because she's stupid? Because she's unloved, heartbroken? Truth is, she doesn't know why she's depressed, most people don't. She just knows that its selfish. Especially next to Joe. He has a genetic disorder which means his lungs are basically fucked. But he's a freaking rock star! That's why she loves him. And why she thinks knows that her mental disorder is selfish.
Some of you might be wondering why this thing is in third person. I am one of these people who talks in third person rather frequently. ("Oh, Kaydie fails at driving...." "Kaydie has to pee...." etc), and when talking about my depression and my feelings, it just seems to be much easier to write about the girl in the photo. Like she isn't me. It's like I'm writing about another person, a fictional one, even. One who suffers exactly like me, but isn't me, so for a while, I'm not suffering.
I'm just a writer.
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