Twenty Eleven

5lbs down for the year so far. A decent start. I guess.

I have my monthly weigh in with the nurse at my GP on Friday. I’m oddly nervous.

On the one hand I don’t want the scales to show I haven’t lost enough weight for her liking. I don’t want to be a failure. I like that I have to be accountable for my weight to somebody else. It’s more motivating than doing this just for me, if that makes any sense at all. But on the other hand, I don’t want her to become concerned if I’ve lost weight too fast either. I can’t remember what I weighed at my last weigh in, just what I was near the beginning of the year. So I’m not sure how much I’ve lost in the last four weeks. I also don’t like somebody outside of my circle of trust and control and anonymity knowing my exact numbers to the nearest tenth of a kilogram.

Sigh. I just don’t even know. 5lbs of loss in under 2 weeks doesn’t feel good enough to me. But it’s a start, I guess.

So, what else? I probably have a lot of catching up to do but everything seems insignificant right now. It’s not that there’s anything profound playing on my mind or anything, it’s just the same old, same old.

This week I booked a month off work this summer to go back home for Canada to visit. Originally it was going to be for 2 weeks but it was only £50 more expensive for four, so I’m going for it. I’ll be broke (I have a Cruise in October to save up for as well =/) but at least I’ll be there.

Guh I’m so effing exhausted, but I’m gonna try to get my head into my work so the day doesn’t drag. All I want is to be back home in bed right now. I’ve had a viral chest infection for well over a month now, and more recently a cold on top of it. I feel miserable and just want to curl up with my hot water bottle and sleep it away. Sleep my life away.

So. There you go, a quick update. I’m going to go try to find some coffee now. I’m supposed to be going to the pub at lunch with some friends from work, but I don’t want to break my decent streak so far this week (Monday all I ate was some salad in the evening so negligible calories, yesterday I had a blueberry muffin after work for a total 300ish calories) so I’m probably going to tell them I’m sick and don’t want food and just get a diet pepsi to sip instead.

Saturday night we’re supposed to be getting pizza and having a little birthday “not-party” for my aunt’s new friend in the psych ward she’s confined to (did I ever write to tell you guys that my aunt has been living in the psych ward for the past nearly 4 months?). It’s this other woman’s birthday but she has nobody and isn’t allowed leave so we’re going up there. Or, we’re meant to be. I might skip out and just stay home where I can starve in peace.

I should probably hate that this is making me an even more solitary creature but honestly I just don’t even care. I just want to be left alone. My online friends are enough company for me right now, and even some of them I’m getting annoyed with. A two hour skype session with my best friend and his family is enough social interaction for the week. God, how lame do I sound right now?

Whatever.

Back to work. Stay beautiful, dolls.

Vee xox

Explanation?

After the string of previous posts on here, I’m pretty sure none of this is going to come as a surprise to you, and you’ve probably already guessed, but the whole reason I was away for so long was because of how depressed I was.

Am, I guess. Since I don’t really feel much better.

Sigh. I’m so frustrated with myself, all the time. I’m so depressed yet I’m not doing anything about it. For example, I know I’m depressed. I’ve been depressed to varying degrees since before I was a teenager. I was hovering close to rock bottom when I moved here to England, and slowly built myself up a little. Then when my ex and I broke up, I plummeted, wishing myself dead all the time, and hating all of the Gods I’m not even sure I believe in, when I woke up each morning for not killing me in my sleep. I wanted to die SO BADLY, but I was too weak willed to do anything about it.

I’m better now than I was then, but in the past six months to a year or so, I’ve felt myself slipping back.

So, I was just at a point where I lost interest in everything. I didn’t read blogs anymore, nevermind bother to write in my own. Even though blogging is deeply cathartic for me, so it’s probably the worst thing I could have done given the circumstances. Nothing specific actually happened to make this happen, it was just a long, slow process, and eventually I just stopped bothering. A couple friends texted me to ask if I was alright, because I’ve been MIA from Twitter and Facebook and my Beauty Blog. I’m not a quiet person, so clearly something was wrong.

But I just nod and smile and say I’m fine, I’ve just been tired and haven’t felt like blogging/tweeting/facebooking. And it’s not a lie. I am SO tired. Those of you who have been reading my blog will know that this is nothing new, per se. But I’m just tired on a whole different level. I’m tired of struggling. I’m tired of living my life. I’m tired of BEING.

That doesn’t even make any sense. I guess what I’m trying to get across is that I’m still deeply depressed. But I need this. And I need to refocus on my goals. For me “Stopped caring about anything” includes watching what I eat, and I’ve been eating in strange phases for the past while. I’ll overeat, then starve, then eat normally. Which is fucking my body around, but at least my metabolism is working, or at least it should be.

What I need to do is refocus on my goals. I need to rein myself back in – again, I know – and MAKE myself care about this.

Because Ana cares about me. Because you care. And even though I’m a massive disappointment to myself, it hurts to think of disappointing you.

So here I am.

Now… I’m just at a point where my mentality is almost extreme indifference to everything. I simply can’t find it in me to care. Which is good I suppose because I also have this indifference toward food. Right now I can take it or leave it. And I’m choosing to leave it.

I can’t remember if I already wrote about this here before or not, but I’m going back to Canada this summer. Not to live, but for four weeks. The two weeks I spent there last time were nowhere NEAR long enough at all, so I’ve worked it out with my manager to spend an extra week (originally I was booking for 3 but he’s agreed to let me go for 4). I’m looking forward to it, but if I have to go there at my current weight, I’ll be damn tempted to kill myself rather than let my friends and family see me STILL SO HUGE.

This is random as well, but while I was sitting at work waiting for a call, I was thinking to myself… none of this feels real. The things around me feel fake. I don’t even know how to verbalize it. Like… there’s a thin but solid hazy shroud around me, separating me from the people and the world around me. It’s not solid and it doesn’t distort my vision, but it just SEPARATES. I look at things but I don’t feel like I’m really SEEING them. That I’m actually CONNECTING to the world in any way.

And you want to know the retarded part? Even though I don’t want to continue feeling like this, I still refuse to go to the doctor to actually seek help about it. It’s like, if I don’t have to go to the doctor and I’m not actually diagnosed, I can continue ignoring it. It’s not REAL. I’m so fucking held down with the way the people close to me perceive me. Like to go to the doctor and be put on antidepressants makes me less of a person. My family will fawn over me asking oh, why does she feel like that, I can’t believe she’s depressed, blah fucking blah. They won’t leave it alone. And it will somehow distort their image of me. At least, that’s the way I keep thinking. So I can’t. I won’t.

I’m not even making sense to myself anymore.

Lots of rambling – you know my style! – just to say I’ve been gone, I’m not doing so hot right now, but I’m here, and will continue to be here. Because lord knows I NEED this and I NEED you, or I’m royally fucked.

Updates!

Ok, just as I loaded up Blogger to post this, I opened up the Chococat 2010 Diary that I bought to write daily calorie stuff in, AND IT SMELLS LIKE MOTHERFUCKING CHOCOLATE.

That is ONLY awesome because it isn't making me crave it.

Anyway.

Today wasn't a great food-day. I definitely went over the 300 cals I was allotted for Day 3, the Sunday Dinner notwithstanding there was ice cream for dessert and J assumed I wanted a ton so she gave me a full bowl full Fuck, I love ice cream. So that was my weakness for today, I ate more ice cream than I should have.

I was toying with the idea of changing plans and starting ABC again tomorrow, but for the sake of a few calories it isn't worth restarting. Not least of all because the totals are already written in my diary! I mean, tomorrow is a 400 day and the day after is a 500 day anyway, so for the sake of "restarting" I'm practically on the same daily caps anyway. So, tomorrow remains Day 4 =]

Didn't get a chance to weigh in this morning, as I woke up late and was rushing around for when my grandparents turned up for dinner. Probably up slightly as I had a few chips (fries) and part of a slice of garlic bread last night at Bingo, but not by much.

Tomorrow's plan of attack!

Breakfast: Apple with cinnamon and Splenda: 80
Lunch: 10-kcal Soup: 10
Dinner: Weight Watchers' Frozen Meal: 300
Total: 3809

Which means I should be just on target for the day. =]

It makes me happy to restrict and plan within an allowance and hit it!

I sound really upbeat today, and I'm making an effort to try to be more positive in general (it's another resolution for 2010, but I'm not sure how long it will last). But the truth is that right now I'm fantasizing about falling in the ice and snow and breaking my leg in three places so I won't be able to go to work for a few weeks.

And then I get really disappointed that it won't happen.

I think I'm more depressed than usual today because I had an amazing dream last night. I dreamed I met this gorgeous, amazingly sweet guy and we were hanging out and doing day to day things together but it was so fucking nice. And then I woke up and remembered that I've been alone for a year and a half. I haven't been laid in two weeks short of two YEARS. And my depression over my loneliness just got me depressed all over again about everything. This whole bullshit with my job just makes the past four years working for this company a waste. Four years I COULD have been doing something with my life instead of going nowhere fast. That I'm stuck at square one again and have nothing but a 5 thousand pound credit card debt and a broken heart to show for it.

So. Happy New Year.

Let's make 2010 the Year Of Change.

(comments to come tomorrow)

Update

Whew.

So, I've come to a decision kind of.

I'm definitely going to apply for the Japanese Studies course here. But I'm going to wait until the next application period instead of doing it now. The deadline for this period is in around two weeks, which doesn't give me time to get everything in line and get references from old teachers from my high school back in Canada. And I'd like to be able to go to an open day and speak to people in the department, and won't have the option in the next couple weeks.

However, the timing kind of coincides nicely and gives me some options.

My good buddy S told me before I went away that her department is hiring at the moment. Not on a permanent basis, for a one year contract with the company. It's actually the same company I work for now, but in a different department and a different building. Instead of pensions, which I work in now, she works in Health Care. But anyway. If I apply for one of those jobs and get it, it gives me a year to work and try to save up as much money as I can for when I won't be in full time employment. This should take me up to at least next February - which is when my sister's wedding is over in Canada. Since I'll be working / finishing employment, I don't have to worry about taking two weeks away from school to go over there for it. Then the school term runs from October I believe. Which gives me 7 months, during which time I'm sure I can find something else, or the company may extend my contract for an additional 6 months.

(Note: The comany we work for works that way. When I stopped temping and applied to work for the company directly, I was given a one year contract. Which was then extended by six months and then another six months before I was finally given a permanent contract with the company. The same happened with S when she moved to the HC branch. She was given a four month contract, which was extended for another four months and then they offered her a permanent position. A year to eighteen months is all I need to fill, provided I get into University next year)

This is still something I definitely want to persue, and I'll continue using my own digital aids to try to learn the language as I can in my own time. But the year gives me more time to prepare, more time to save up money that I'll need and pay off my credit card debt so I have a clean slate before I start getting student loans. It gives me a little bit of security in the time leading up to re-entering fulltime education. But it also gives me one year to make sure that this is NOT just a phase and a passing fancy. If I can keep this up for another full year and my interest and passion hasn't faded, then I know I'm making the right decision and going to university for something that is not just a whim, if that makes sense.

So, that's where I stand right now. I think if the application period were a couple of months from now and I had a little more time to prepare, I would go for it, but as it is I only have two weeks and that is not nearly enough time to get everything in order, especially since my case isn't as straightforward as it is for most people who enter University each year. I have the whole difference in the education systems between Canada and England to contend with, and when I last applied I was urged to get my application and information in as early as possible, and to contact the head of admissions in my chosen department to let him know of my circumstances. So January is just too close.

I'm hoping they might have a Spring term that starts though. I think the program I applied for before had two application periods, one for classes starting in October, and one for classes starting in March or April. Which would be ideal, but I can't find any reference to that for the Japanese Studies program. Which, again, is another reason to speak with someone at the University.

That was fairly longwinded, but right now I'm pretty happy with my decision. And even though I'm absolutely fucking dreading going back to work on Tuesday, I feel a little happier now that I've made some plans for the future and have somewhere to set my focus and my gaze. I'm not just staggering blindly through the dark trying to find a job that may someday become a career or figuring out what I want out of life. At least now I've got a plan for the next five years. And since the program includes one year of study in Japan, I'll get to experience living there for the year and will either love it or hate it and decide to move there or come back here. But at least now I feel like I have options. I have a mother fucking FIVE YEAR PLAN.

Contemplating Change

After all the time I've bitched about my job, especially the stress that's been added lately, it's clearly past time to make a change. I've accepted the fact that the next month or monthS will be spent applying for a thousand jobs that pay barely more than half what I'm bringing home now, going on interviews or never hearing back before I finally found something. I'm resigned to the fact that the only other alternative is hating my job and letting it make me near-suicidally depressed in my home life too.

But, I've been thinking about alternatives. One of the dudes who works in my old team told me last week that he's leaving. He's going back to university (he already has a degree which he has never and will never use) and is going to work for his dad in the meantime. We had a very brief email exchange at work early last week, and it's gotten me thinking.

I told him that, if there was something that really interested me, I would go to university. That the only reason I'm not at school right now is that I don't know "what I want to be when I grow up."

But, is that entirely true?

I told my aunts ages ago that I was looking into Japanese Studies courses. I'm fascinated by Japanese culture and want to learn the language badly. But at the time the only means of studying not-on-my-own was a £660/week private tutor. That's more than half the money I'm bringing home right now, whatthefuck. So I put it off.

But tonight whilst randomly searching the internet, I stumbled across a website for a school in Japan that will sponsor foreign students for a 2 year student Visa to live and study Japanese at their school.

And then I happened to discover that one of our two Universities right here in the city - the same University, in fact, that I applied to two years ago and would have been accepted and offered a place at had I attended the open day and not withdrawn my application - does, in fact, have a Japanese Studies course. In fact, it has several combined courses, ranging from Japanese Studies with *insert other language here* to more practical applications like business classes.

I find myself sitting here seriously considering my options. Just a couple of weeks ago, my aunt asked me if I didn't want to be studying right now. She said "Now's the time to do it, while you're living with family and don't have a mortgage or anything to pay for."

Regardless of which school I applied to, if I were accepted the school tuition/facility/etc fees would be between £10,000-15,000. (A two year course at the school in Tokyo is around £10,000 plus room and board and money to spend, and the one here is a 4-year-course-with-one-year-study-in-Japan and the tuition is £3,225 a year)

If I had money lying around I would do it. As it is, I'm terrified that I'll apply and get rejected. Or that I'll apply, get accepted, be declined for bursaries because they're decided on your "household income" and J is on the same wage I am right now, and my aunt is bringing in ten grand a year more than either of us. Or that I'll get accepted and wind up not getting approved for student loans because of my nearly £5,000 of credit card debt (although my credit can't be THAT bad since my bank randomly appear to have increased my credit limit by £1,400 two weeks ago).

I think what this boils down to is fear.

Fear of independence.
Fear of being out in the world on my own.
Fear of failure.
Fear of change.

Just fear in all its forms.

But more and more lately I've been thinking that this is something I really want to do. I want to become fluent in the Japanese language, I want to learn its history and all about its culture and its people. And more recently I've been thinking that, one day I would really actually love to LIVE there.

But I'm also scared that this is a phase. It's something that I've been very into for the past year, but what if suddenly I wake up and it's just a passing fancy? Like every other fucking hobby or interest I've had in my life. Even my writing - the book I wanted so badly to get published before I'm 30... Well, it's still an ambition I have but I haven't written more than a several-page generic email in the past God only knows how long.

I don't want to take a risk and make a jump and wind up wasting it and regretting it.

But maybe this is fate, if you believe in fate. I've finally found something that - right now at least - I really, really want to do. And in the same breath I'm thrust into a position at work that I would almost rather cease to exist at all than remain in. I'm basically being forced out of the career I've had for the past four years, and my choices at this point are find another full time admin job, or get something part-time and go to fucking school already.

I don't know what to do. I'm scared. I can't make big decisions on my own, yet at the same time I'm the only one who CAN make this decision for me. Even my decision to move halfway around the world was made completely on impulse - an impulse I haven't regretted, mind, but impulse all the same.

Maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe what I need to do is just... leap. Jump into the unknown, and if it falls apart, I'm no worse off (except a little older and more in debt.)

Fuck me. I don't know what to do.

A little mid-morning introspection (and more about me than you ever wanted to know)

I don't know exactly what triggered this inward discussion. But on the weekend, I started thinking about myself, prying inside my own mind. And I... I don't even know how to put this into words so that it makes sense... So expect much nonsensical rambling.

Basically, I'm... largely unable to articulate my emotions. I can't say what I feel. And a lot of that has to do with being so bound and oppressed for so long that I no longer feel comfortable doing so. It's hard for me to say how I feel. On here is one thing, because it's anonymous and I can say what I really think without fear of backlash. But reality is another issue altogether.

Growing up for me was hard. I didn't have a particularly happy childhood, and I know that same thing can go for a lot of people in this community, too. I had to grow up at a young age, and before I was a teenager I was playing the adult. At the time there was nothing odd about this, it was just how my life was. But looking back, I never really got to experience a real childhood, to live life the way every other teenager does.

My mom was only 17 when she had me, and I hate to say this but I think she was too young, and somewhat ill-equipped for the job of motherhood. She married my father when I was a couple months old, but they divorced before I was 2. My father could be abusive, and one of my earliest memories is of hiding underneath a table while my dad choked my mom in the kitchen - then, my mom crying and getting me to go stay with my grandparents.

When the marriage eventually and inevitably ended, we lived with my grandparents and my aunt. I may have mentioned this before, but my aunt was only 14 when I was born, and maybe that relatively small age gap is one of the reasons we're so close. And also because she played a big role on my childhood.

Almost immediately after divorcing my father, my mom started seeing who is now my stepfather. I have very few memories of my early life - I remember getting horrific sunburn on my back when I was living with my grandmother, around the age of 3 or 4. I remember a drawer at my dad's house that I used to keep a ton of stuffed animals in - a parrot in particular - although I don't remember my dad's house or my weekends there with him. I do remember playing Uno with him, and riding on the back of his motorcycle with my fingers tucked into his beltloops.

I don't remember much. But I remember always hating my stepfather.

Maybe my life would have been a little different if he had stuck around, but I honestly don't think so, nor do I like to waste my time on the "maybe"s and "what if"s. To make a long story short, the last time I saw my dad was on my 6th birthday, when he turned up to tell my mom he didn't want to see me anymore. By this time we were already living with my stepfather and my half-sister had been born.

My grandmother constantly tries to push me to get back into contact with him, but I don't actually want to. I don't see the point. She professes that probably my stepfather threatened him to stay away or something. But in the years following, my dad still did some pretty shitty things that can't be blamed on anyone else but him. For example, when I had to apply for a new passport when I was 12 or so before I came to England for the summer. My dad had to sign the application form, and when my mom called to ask him to, he laughed and refused. Until my mom told him that if he didn't, she would be suing him for all the child support he hadn't paid since I was 6. Stuff like that.

I never really thought about him over the years, until I found out when I was 16 or 17 that he had adopted my cousin, who was a girl the same age as me. Suddenly, all the feelings came flooding forward. Because it wasn't just that he didn't want to be a father, he didn't want to have a daughter who was a teenager already at his age. It was that he didn't want me.

But I couldn't tell anyone how I was feeling. How, ten years later I was finally feeling the sting of his abandonment. Because by this time, I had already learned how to master and suppress my emotions, to a fault. I didn't know how to let myself feel it or vent it.

I should skip back a little and explain. When I was a kid, I used to tell my grandmother everything. I used to spend weekends at her house and we used to talk through the night about everything and nothing at all. I used to vent to her about all of the shit going on at home - my stepfather is an abusive asshole and always had been.

I vividly remember him screaming and shouting at me, just because I was there. My brother and sister had been fighting and of course I would ALWAYS get pulled into the crossfire, even if I wasn't at home when the reason for his rage had happened. And he ALWAYS overreacted to a ridiculous degree. I remember that he used to threaten to give us away, tell us to pack our bags because he was going to call child welfare to take us away because he didn't want us. I remember actually keeping a tally chart hidden behind one of the small posters by my lower-level bunk bed in the room I shared with my sister, of the number of times he made this threat.

The tally had reached 13 in the space of a few weeks by the time I gave up.

I remember being so completely terrified of him that I would shut down, I couldn't think or talk or move, could only cover my face with my hands and sob and tremble uncontrollably, hyperventilating until I felt faint. But of course, if I cried I got screamed at more, got slapped because I "needed a reason to cry".

My stepfather stopped hitting for the most part by the time I was a teenager. Me, anyway. He used to use whatever was around to hit my brother and sister, and I used to tell my mom and she would yell at him. My mom always said that she believed in corrective smacking - but NOT in hitting your hid with an object or anything other than an open hand. I actually can't remember my mom ever so much as slapping me. I never gave her a reason to.

My stepfather however, grew up in a house of alcoholics, where his father used to beat him with leather belts and his mom used to hit him with wire coathangers. My stepfather is an alcoholic with serious rage issues, and he used to take that out on anyone around him. The doorframe around his bedroom door broke, and he kept a large, long piece of wood to hit my brother and sister with, until I told my mom and she made him break it and throw it away. I even remember one afternoon where my stepdad was shouting at my brother over something trivial, and he called him a "fucking cocksucker" and picked him up by the throat and threw him onto the living room couch.

He used to lock our dog in the basement when we went out or while he was at work and we were at school - for HOURS at a time. And then he used to beat and kick the shit out of that dog when he got home from work and he had pooped on the floor.

I was SO GLAD when that dog ran away.

I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't hate him with my entire being.

Before my mom married him, when I was maybe 8 years old, I remember taking her aside and asking her not to marry him, begging her not to marry him. Of course, I was ignored. Maybe, if she'd listened to me, I would have been able to save her life.

When I was in high school, things just got worse. When I was 10 or 12, my grandparents and aunt moved back to England, leaving us, in a sense, alone. I remember having to work on the weekends at my mom's place washing dishes just so I would have enough money to replace the single pair of black trousers that I had to wear to school, in which a huge hole had worn through the inner thigh. I remember being in high school and having to walk to school through hip-deep snow in -50 degree weather in the winter, with shoes that barely had the soles hanging onto them. I remember coming home from school having not eaten anything all day, and having nothing in the cupboards - having to wait until my mom got home at 9:30 at night so we could have something to eat when she brought fast food home with her from her job.

Because buying beer and marijuana and making sure my stepfather had everything he wanted was much, much more important.

When I was in 10th grade, the shit hit the fan with force. By this time, I had shut down. I lived in my basement bedroom and spent as much time away from the house as I could. I stayed at my friends' house on the weekends, and if my stepfather was on the day shift, I would go to work with my mom if she was working evenings. I used to sit in the back and do dishes, even if I wasn't getting paid for it, because by god, it was better than being at home without my mom acting as a buffer from her husband. When she wasn't around he was always worse, and would almost always bitch at us ABOUT HER. As if her numerous failings and incompetencies (as numbered by him) were a direct result of our existence.

One night in particular, I'd gone to work with mom. My stepdad had stopped by for something to eat around 6 and was in a good enough mood, then. But when he picked us up after work around 9:45, it was immediately obvious he was in a mood. He tore off before my mom's door was even shut and ignored her when she cheerfully greeted him. Speeding dangerously home, he suddenly started shouting at me, saying I was not to leave the house until he told me it was okay. That I was grounded and would not be going to work with my mom again.

I had NO IDEA what I had done. But I was unsurprised.

When we got home, I went to my room and cried silently in the way I had learned long ago. To this day, I can't have a proper cry, I can't sob. All I can do is sit quietly as the tears roll rapidly down my cheek.

The house was tense and we all walked on eggshells. Which was, again, nothing new. For years, whenever he was on the night shift, more nights than not I would be woken up when he came home at 4 in the morning, slamming the door, stomping around, and then bashing through the kitchen so noisily I expected to find the entire living and kitchen area destroyed when I finally got up. I was always SO terrified that he was going to come wake me up - he had been known to wake everyone up to yell at us in this manner before.

For so, SO long, all I wanted was to die.

But anyway, a few days after the after-work incident.. it was a Friday. Fridays, my brother and sister's school finished at 12ish, and my high school got out around 2. So we were all at home in the afternoon. Mom and Him were at work, both due home around 6:30. I'd filled the sink with dishes and soapy water, and my brother and sister were in the living room playing (I'd been babysitting them since I was around 9 years old), when someone knocked on the door. My brother ran down to answer it (he was around 10 or 11 at this time) and next thing a woman walked into the kitchen.

Turns out my sister had told her guidance counsellor at school what had happened That Night, and she had in turn called child welfare, who had in turn called the police - about an hour later two police officers turned up.

That Night, my brother had gone to a friend's house after school. My stepfather told him to come home at 7, but he didn't. My stepfather called several times and my brother refused to come home. So he drove there. He physically dragged my brother out to the car, where he hit him several times, both open and closed-fisted. When they got home, he pulled off his belt and hit him again. So hard that the leather snapped and he left a huge welt on one side of my brother's ass. When the belt snapped, he picked up my brother's hockey stick and hit him with that.

Yeah. If I had known what had happened, I would have called the fucking police myself.

My brother and sister gave statements and my mom cried and glared accusingly at my stepfather - it was the first she'd heard of what had happened. He'd told my mom he's "smacked" my brother, but not that he'd beat him with fists, a belt, and a hockey stick.

After that, my stepfather had a huge vendetta against my sister. He would overreact and scream at her more than usual over any little thing. That summer, he made her stay at a friend's house for a week so he wouldn't have to see her. Even now, my sister blames herself for all of the shit that ensued in the family. My stepfather blamed her - but she had done the right thing!

In the end, he got off with a suspended sentence and community service OR a fine. He paid the fine, and bitched at my brother and sister and I because he couldnt' afford it and it was our fault he had to pay it.

I remember before the trial, my mom taking me aside and saying "if the judge wants to talk to you and ask about what kind of a person is, please tell her he's a good father etc etc." To keep the peace. YEAH. FUCKING. RIGHT. In the end, because I wasn't present when it happened and had no knowledge of it, I had no part in it at all. And I kind of wish I had.

That was when I decided I needed to get the fuck away. That's why, when the opportunity presented itself to MOVE to England instead of just going to stay for six months, I fucking leapt.

All of this is to say that I was forced from a relatively young age to shut down and not show my emotions. I couldn't tell people what I thought or felt because I had to "keep the peace". Lord only knows what would have happened if I had actually stood up to His Assholishness. It took me years to work through some of those barriers, but a lot are still in place.

The year I moved here, I was talking to a friend over the phone and we were joking around when I realized I couldn't even LAUGH properly. I'd laugh closed-throated, so there was barely a sound. It was more of a kept-inside snicker. And I had to physically make myself stop doing that. Because it was okay!

I still can't cry properly. Even after my ex left me for another woman and my world came crashing down around me, when everything hurt so much worse than it ever had in my life before, I couldn't give myself over to the breakdown that wanted to happen. That probably NEEDED To happen so that I could move on a lot sooner than I did.

And I can't say what I feel. I can't say I love you unless it's already been said. I can't tell someone when they make me angry. I can't tell someone when something they've done has upset me. Because in the past if I ever did, there was always a backlash. Even telling my ex that I was upset by something, he used to get mad at me for crying and say I was stupid for getting upset for some stupid reason.

And I can't bring myself to tell someone when what they're doing is hurting / annoying / whatever-ing me. Because I've got some deep-rooted survival instinct that stops me from doing it. Deep down I always expect there to be some huge backlash everytime I say something. Whether it's going to come or not, I can't help it.

This is a lot, lot longer than I was anticipating. It was originally meant to just be an explanation of my emotional ineptitude - actually, that's not right. I'm a very emotional person, I'm pretty moody, I get irritated easily and I can cry over anything. I guess what I mean is just my inability to show it or say it. But in order to explain that I felt like I had to give some background information as to why that barrier is there.

Maybe one day I'll get past it, but I don't know.

Also, I want to add that writing this was painful. Because it felt a lot like reliving it. And writing about my mother's husband made my chest constrict with such a high level of anxiety as I haven't felt in a long time.

Oh yeah, I'm so looking forward to visiting my mom and her husband at the end of August. =/

**PS: although I said that "maybe if she had listened I would have been able to save her life" I want to clarify that my mom is alive - but she has no "life" to speak of. He's crushed her down so far that she no longer feels worth anything. She doesn't bother to take care of herself because she's not worth the effort. She has only one or two friends, who she rarely sees, and she does absolutely nothing but sit at home and take care of his needs.

Fighting

...hopefully NOT a losing battle.

I'm in full-on binge mode. I can feel it swelling up inside of me. I'm not even hungry but the need to eat and eat and eat is almost overwhelming. Earlier it was just "good" homemade food that I wanted but now I'm in a place psycholigically where it doesn't matter what the fuck it is.

So far I've been okay. I've had a couple of the very small brownies I brought in, and lots of water, and nothing else. But when I go home, there is food. And I'm in a mood where I almost want to make a huge batch of peanut butter cupcakes and then devour all two dozen of them.

I feel like a complete failure admitting this because, although last week's food was bad and couldn't technically be called a "binge" I guess (portion control wasn't TOO bad), I've only been restricting properly for ONE fucking day and I'm already a mess.

Part of me is telling me to just get it out of my system. To eat everything I want tonight, and then throw away EVERYTHING so that the ONLY food left in the house is my aunts'. But I don't want to be a failure before I've even really gotten into it. If I had been restricting and fasting for two weeks, I could understand the need to binge that's welling up inside of me, that's cresting over me like a fucking tsunami. But I haven't. I've had one meal a day for the past two weeks, and that one meal has NOT been restrictive. Somewhere between bingeing and restricting is where I'd been. I want to say "normal" but normal people eat more than once a day, right?

But the fact of the matter is, I've gained weight. I don't know how much but I'm estimating that I have put back on the 5lbs I lost the week before. I am planning to NOT step on the scale until Saturday morning, that hopefully whatever damage was inflicted will be undone by then. Because if I look at the scale and see 200 again I... just have no idea how I'd react. Even when I weighed in at 198 a couple of weeks ago, it was bad but damn it, it was under The Magic Number.

So the huge other side of me is screaming at me not to fuck up. To be GOOD for fucksakes. To understand that my body can not possibly be that hungry and starved of nutrients and calories and shit. And even if it IS, that's just a better oppourtunity to let it burn and enjoy the ride.

I've never felt like this before. I've had my bingey moments, don't get me wrong. But I've never felt it like THIS and I don't know how to react or what to do. I don't want to give in. And if I do, I will feel worse than I do right now. So is it worth it? No, it's not. But I'm sure you out there can appreciate that it's not always up to us what we do and don't eat. And I'm terrified of fucking up, of being unable to get myself under strict control. Why was it so easy before Birthday Madness? That first week back here was so easy. And before all the shittaliciousness that caused me to fall off, back in February, it was so easy.

So why is it so hard right now?

Usually my drive to eat, my inability to reign in the fat monster inside of me, is linked with stress. But I'm not stressed right now!

Since I moved here I never really forged any close friendships except with my ex, who turned out to be a monster douche. Now I've got a really close friendship with S and I love her. My working life is going amazingly well. I just got a raise so I can stop obsessing over my half-year review coming up in six weeks, because obviously my manager is damn happy with me! I'm going on two rock ass vacations before the end of the year. I'll get to see my best friends for the first time in three years, and then laze around in the sun in a four-star hotel on a beach in Cancun. In a few weeks I'm moving to a slightly bigger house in a much nicer neighbourhood - once my trips are paid off I can look into buying some stuff for my room, to make it My Space (not to be confused with the social networking 'site). There isn't a man in my life right now, but for the first time in a while I'm not actually depressed over that fact.

Everything in my life feels like it's slowly starting to fall back into place, that the pieces of the puzzle are slotting themself together and I'm feeling optimistic for the first time since I can't even remember when.

So why do I feel like I'm losing my shit?

It's not just the whole wanting to binge and sabotage myself. I feel like something contained deep down inside is fighting to come out. That its bonds are cracking at the seams and something is going to explode. I feel like I'm going crazy.

Give me strength girls. And thanks for listening.