I'm not a naturally miserable person so being, trapped, I guess, in this state of melancholy is laboriously exhausting.  I am constantly being told how pale I look, even my mum, who inevitably holds back, mentioned it to me this evening.  Much as I hate to admit it, pale would seem right considering how drained I feel.  Zapped of life.  And usually, from a down day, I am able to pick myself back up to my old smiling self, but it is getting harder, and more fatiguing.  The more tired I am, the more difficult it is to sleep and so I become even more tired which makes me hate myself even more and the more I think about how much I hate myself, the more I cannot sleep.  Once vicious cycle.

I hate feeling so helpless, when you know that someone you care about is upset, and you can't do anything to change the situation.  And they are always there for me, I just want to be able to give back the same amount of comfort and support, but I feel like I am failing.  As trite as it sounds, I wish I had a magic wand, to just be able to wave with one quick flick of the wrist, and make everything better.  The unfairness of it all is so unjust, so unwarranted and makes the situation so much more frustrating.  I wish there was something, anything, I could do to help.

It has been a bitter-sweet day.  I faced a few challenges, which in hindsight seem pathetically petty, but I coped with them.  The herbs on the herb shelf in the kitchen had been muddled out of the alphabetical order I have them in, I panicked a little, but it was fine once I put them back into the right order.  I know this sounds crazy.  I went to the doctor’s on my own to have some blood taken for tests, and was more or less completely fine with it.  I went to the supermarket and, because my Grandmother is staying for a few days, there were a few different items from usual on the list, including generic, ‘chocolate biscuits’.  Well, I did not have a clue what to get.  I stood in the aisle, looking at the overwhelming variety of calorie-drenched, fat-filled, anxiety-inducing chocolate biscuits.  And they were all sitting there on their little perches, in their vibrant packaging as colourful as parrots, looking back at me, eyeing me up and down, throwing me into a panic.  But I survived.  Then I had another letter from someone who always, without even trying, manages to make me feel like shit. 

Now all these ‘challenges’ I faced, and conquered, seem so utterly trivial compared with what some people are facing at the moment, and I hate myself for being so selfish.  Now all I can think about is how worried and upset someone I care about is feeling and I don’t know what to do to help.

So I am sitting here now, avoiding sleep and subsequent nightmares, making origami shapes to keep my mind distracted from unwanted thoughts.

Sod's Law has been skulking into my life aplenty this week.  Yesterday in particular, I had one heck of a near miss...literally, a matter of seconds and all hell would likely have broken loose.  Luckily, the ‘terror-trigger’, for want of a better word, was spotted, right in the nick of time.  As if in slow motion, it crept up, resembling a ghost car, hovering, like a horror movie star wanabee.  I felt like I was in a horror movie at any rate. 

I spend my life acting as a sentinel on the lookout for this ‘terror-trigger’: always wary to the point of scepticism; always cautious to the point of obsession; and always terrified to the point of paranoia.  How typical then, for this ‘terror-trigger’ to turn up in this one particular place at this one particular time, almost catching me unawares. 

Leaping into panic mode, I almost lost it.  Luckily, I wasn’t alone in what would have been a nightmare situation.  Luckily, we were able to laugh about it, as we do, easing the fear and turmoil bubbling up inside me.  It was one of those situations that provoke an array of emotions (both at the time and looking back): first of all fear; then relief at the near miss; a dread of what could have been; then terror in waiting for the moment to pass; frightening flashbacks; a sense of comedy at how pathetic things have become; and actually, rather an unexpected distraction from having to be afraid of what I was about to face...the scales in the doctor’s surgery.

I dove into the back of the car and hid, lying down, as if undercover, on the back seat.  What a palaver came next!  It felt like an age, lying there, anticipating the worst, and not being able to see what was happening for fear of being seen myself.  I am just so incredibly glad I was not alone!  How horrible it is to be left alone with one’s fear.  How wonderful it is to have such a fantastic friend!  Time ticked on and ‘terror-trigger’ eventually emerged and evacuated the scene and I was able to surface and enter the surgery.

The doctor could not have been any nicer, but that did not make getting on the scales any easier, or make me hate myself any less.  I managed it, but I felt I had no choice.  I wasn’t forced, but I just cannot say no, especially under pressure.  I have to go for blood tests tomorrow, which, actually, is not bothering me in the slightest.  Just the stupid scales bother me.  Stepping onto them was the absolute most difficult feat I have faced in a while.  I’m still feeling like utter crap about it now, which has caused me to make really stupid mistakes all day and led to me taking it out on myself because I feel like such an obtuse imbecile.  What frustrates me is that it does not make any sense at all.  It is so completely irrational, and I know it, and I am so completely inane. 

Well now that is something that has never happened to me before...

I don't really know how to word what happened, but the closest phrase that describes it is, someone 'had a go' at me in the street.  There was no significant commotion or shouting or a real uproar, but it was nevertheless, an upsetting and horrible experience, to say the least.  And I just stood there, vegetative, and took it.

I don’t know whether to call it irony, or, Sod’s Law.

The thing is, I had been bothered about bumping into this particular individual all day:

1.    1.  I went to the town where, let’s call them X, is educated, and so was apprehensive about meeting them there. 

2.    2.  I went into the actual place where X attends education and was concerned about colliding into them there. 

3.     3. I caught a particular bus home and was anxious about running into X on that. 

I was, relieved, I think is the word I am looking for, to have passed the whole day without seeing X, or his little friends.  Apart from almost having a panic attack in the bus station whilst on the phone to my mum, I had managed to confront my fears! 

It’s curious how some things stay clear in your mind when you think back to them.  I think, that we, or I anyway, worry tremendously before making any decisions.  I fret about any consequences that could arise, I agonise over making the correct choice, I fear upsetting others or letting people down as a result of my stupidity.  What I am getting at here, is that I was, once again, worrying about making a decision, that is, at which bus stop I should get off.  I very nearly got off one stop earlier than usual, and if only I had!  The should-I-shouldn’t-I deliberation going on in my mind is extraordinarily clear.  There must be a reason for things like this.

But the past is the past and cannot be changed, obviously, so I got off the bus at the usual stop.  I noticed some people waiting in the bus stop, but, because I’m so shy, I am, in public, so focused on getting things right, not making a fool of myself and so on, that I just concentrate intently on what I have to do – get off the bus without falling over, thank the bus driver, start walking home, which route to take home, cross the road – watch out for cars etc.  I know it sounds ridiculous.

I noticed people in the bus stop, but didn’t take in who it was, being so fixated on my routine.  But then I heard, somewhere in the distance, like a familiar voice in the back of my head, someone calling my name.  When I was sure it was me, my name, someone calling after myself, I slowly turned around to see X coming after me.  When I say, ‘coming after me’ I do not mean that to sound at all in a threatening way, I just do not know how else to put it.

I was astounded, almost overwhelmed, that X had even acknowledged me, let alone speak to me considering their behaviour over the last few months.  But this pleasant surprise was ephemeral, fleeting to say the least.  I felt threatened.  Intimidated.  At fault.  Worthless.  X asked me what I was playing at and then recited rampant rhetoric about how I had destroyed everything.

Great way to end the day...

A few things upset me about this encounter.  Firstly, the Sod’s Law thing mentioned earlier.  Secondly, how I just stood there and took it all.  Thirdly, how very pitiable the whole situation has become for a mere teenager to act so pompously, due to indoctrination and manipulation.  And fourthly, X had an audience, without which, I do not think X would have performed.

It is all about image.  Life is all about image.  They have to look good, make sure it appears as if they are doing the correct thing.  As long as it looks as if they are right, nothing else matters.  Not even how rubbish and worthless and meaningless and hollow and rejected and at fault I am made to feel.  As long as they still have their aura of pure perfection, nothing else is of any importance.

No wonder I have my own image issues...

Do you ever get tired?  I mean, really tired?  So tired you feel you cannot do anything, you cannot face the day, cannot face the world, or even the people you love.

On these days, I just feel like giving up.  What's the point anyway?  I try my hardest, my absolute, and yet, it is never good enough.  I feel like a failure, so I might as well just give in and carry on as I am.  But then that makes me a failure too.  I'm trapped in an ironic limbo between success and failure where I need to fail at this consuming eating disorder in order to be a success.

I'm tired of being a failure.  I'm jaded from lack of sleep due to distress over the failure that I am.  I'm knackered of never being good enough, no matter how hard I try.  I'm tired of people thinking I am not trying to change.  I'm exhausted of constantly making the effort, but to no avail.  I'm sick, and tired, of living like this.  Because it's not really living. It's just existing, lost, lacking an identity, breathing and moving, but not feeling.