Below is an account of my life, as seen through the eyes of a troubled mind. In January, 1998, I was diagnosed with major depression and secondary anorexia nervosa. This was not the beginning of the problem by any means. I see that date as marking the beginning of the end. I had lived with depression all my life, even as a very young child. I see the start of it when I was about 5 years old. For most of that time I was also struggling with eating problems, I suppose you would call it 'borderline anorexia'. At some times during my life I have been at normal weight, at others I have been only just below. At at others I have been dangerously underweight. A week before my first birthday, my father started his first year as a mature student at university, and I decided that one day I would go to university. Later on, I knew I also wanted to do research, and achieve a PhD. These dreams were what kept me alive through all this time. Whatever happened to me, however depressed or suicidal I became, I kept that in my mind, with a sense that I would be 'alright' when I went to university. I was bullied at school, and felt rejected by the world. But I gained GCSEs, A-Levels and then attended Lancaster University. By this time the anorexia was extremely bad, I was very underweight and took overdoses of laxatives nightly. After January 1998 I came off them completely and was put on anti-depressants. A year later I was admitted to hospital as I was having seizures. Assuming I had epilepsy after prior seizures, I was given epilim, and this was what caused my emergency admission in January 1999. I had lost my memory completely. I missed all my classes from the Lent Term. People suggested that I intercalated, but I decided to stay, completed my coursework and attended exams on courses I had never attended or couldn't remember. That summer I also met my partner Chris, who helped me realise that I do not have to be hated by everybody, and that maybe I am not as bad and evil as I thought all my life. In July 2000, after a lot of hard work to catch up, I achieved a 2:1 degree in BSc (Hons) Geography. I then progressed and in October 2000, I began my PhD. I'm lucky to be alive, and I could not have done it without the support of Chris and my parents and family. And of course, there was my commitment to studying and the love of research. Please click on the link below to read my account, or on the other links to read portions of the diaries I have kept over the years. *i'm all alone in a world you must despise i'm going to university when i'm grown up. i'm gonna do research. i'm five when we move. from a small village to a big city. i hide behind the sofa all the time. 'when are we going home?' i treasure the memories of the place that was safe. the place where other people thought i was human. i hate this place. i want to go home. why can't we go home? the kids at school hate me. everyone hates me. parents lie when they say my hair is ok. it's not ok. even the other kids' parents call me freak. i thought it was ok to have red hair. i was wrong. i'm always wrong. the people at school won't speak to me. i hate me. i'm only 5 and i hate me. *head like a hole. black as your soul i'm sick of this girl she keeps using me. she tells me i'm stupid. lost in a world of my own, my only escape from this place. from the emptiness. i wish i was dead. what happened to life? where did it go? why is there nothing here when i look in the mirror? i don't like food. at school i am told off for not eating my sandwiches, and why do i never have pudding? sometimes it's ok. if i eat i make people happy. that's the only way i can make people happy. when will life let go and make me die? nothing matters in my life. she tells me i'm stupid. i know i'm stupid. i'll never go to university. i'm too stupid. she does things then blames it on me. i hate her and everyone thinks we are so close. i hate her and i hate me more. at lunch time i walk around the playground, wishing i was a kid again. i'm not a kid i'm a freak. i know coz i've seen it in the mirror. i'm a little monster. there's nothing left inside here but hate. ~emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is is godliness and god is empty just like me my body goes mad and i have breasts and periods. why is this happening to me? now i am even more a freak. they laugh at me coz i'm only ten and have period pains. they tell me to grow up and bear it and when the pain starts i can't even stand up. what is this life inside me? all i want to do is bleed till i'm dry. knives make me bleed clean. i have to be free. i have to get away from this body. they say i've lost bodyfat - lost my puppyfat and nothing is wrong but where did i go? i'll never make it now. i'm too stupid and big to get to the university. i have to go to university. then maybe i'll be free. *bow down before the one you serve. you're going to get what you deserve i get to the bigger school. i tell myself every morning i am nothing i know nothing i must slave to get to the university. there is my goddess with me now my medusa. don't look in the mirror or you'll turn to stone. don't touch the food don't let it inside. i wish i could die. the girl has gone somewhere else but now i have a whole school hating me. i hate this place. why can't i fit in? i don't care any more i'll keep on going whatever. i don't care what they say. i will get out of here. one day. one day i will. there's a guy i like it cuts me like i knife so i get a real knife instead. cut out the feeling. starve out the feeling. anything to make me numb. i cannot feel. i am machine. i am numb. everything is darkness. i wish i was dead. i deserve this pain. i was meant for pain, medusa promises me. my parents don't care. they can't see what's under their nose. it's bad to have high grades cos my brother has dyslexia. don't ever mention what you did at school it's bad it's wrong. if you get bullied for it you deserve it. be ashamed of you what you are. only medusa cares. she says it will be better when i'm thinner. when i'm smaller it won't matter. your emotions are food. deny food and deny feeling. now there's the guy i'm with. he wants me to be thin as a rail because then i'll need him still. i stay with him cos i don't care any more. university is all there is. inside me, all there is is hate. this is all i deserve. true emptiness. +i am denial guilt and fear ... i am the lie that you believe-and i control you another school and other people. they're not so bad but i'm a stranger to them. they don't really care. if i disappeared they wouldn't know. nobody would. a-levels. the secret key. but they all see through me, they know i am a fake. they know i am nothing and they know i am stupid. grades and pain. the only cure for pain is emptiness. i like the darkness. i can't see myself my ugly sick self in the dark. i am only real when i'm starving. i'm with the guy who wants me to starve. helps me any way he can. all i do with him is hate. i hate my body let him have it. i don't care. i can't feel it anyway. i hate everything. that's all i have now. i am just a machine. i do exams. i work and work so hard. i take pills to make the pain worse, just to make me feel real. running to the bathroom every half an hour. just for a pound or two of weight, just for the emptiness and darkness inside. just to feel real. 20, 30, 50 numbers in my mouth go up as the number on the scale goes down. i drain myself of all life. i can barely live inside my skin as me. i'm losing my grip. i am reaching out for my goal, it's in my sights. i hate life but i can't die yet. i'm getting out here. it's my only chance. ~i'm never coming back. i'm never giving in i don't know how i'm living i'm leaving finally. i can see the horizon things may finally get better. all i lived for was this moment. my parents drive away. 350 miles from that hell hole i'm never ever going back. i'm here. i did it. i got to heaven. why doesn't this thing ever get better? i thought it would. it's controlling me i can't go a day without pills all i buy is pills. what am i a drug addict? anything goes wrong i take pills for punishment. for emptiness. fuck everything. all i wanted was this. now i'm here i can die. maybe not yet. christmas i have to go back. my last time there. i tell parents. they are sad. they make me eat a little. i go to the doctor. my bloods are fine. doctor says don't make her eat. leave her alone. she has depression. depression caused the anorexia. we'll give her pills to take every day. just to help you cope a little better. no more laxatives i come straight off. i live in a dream world of anti-depressants and in the haze i finally leave the hell hole. now i'm never going back again. in a dreamy world with no food all day but ice cream at night. i don't know how i do it. i never weigh myself - i used to live on those scales. the guy doesn't understand. he says i'm hooked on the pills but i'm not. i was before. he bought me laxatives before. i was hooked on them. i get side-effects, change the drugs now i'm on dothiepin. knocks me out at night till there's nothing left. all there is inside my head is silence. but she's still there. she's always holding my hand. i wake up and there's a mask on my face. i'm moving but i'm lying down. i see their faces looking worried oh parents what have i done? where are we going? hospital white and cold. maybe a seizure they say, the men in white coats don't know. i go back to university. christmas comes i have been here in university nearly in heaven for a year. no more hell hole. parents come up for christmas. memory is hazy. i had fits and collapsed. put me on epilim for epilepsy, stupid doctor doesn't mention that i am anorexic. they say i'll be ok on the pills though. i have no memory. don't know what's going on. who are you who am i where am i? i can feel my body is dying. +i have lived so many lives inside my head total memory loss. i am in hospital. i am confused but refuse the epilim. i get out. explain to academic department. get some extensions. they say i maybe should intercalate. if i do that, i have to go home. i decide to carry on. i keep going whatever. i get a rat. he's my friend my only friend. medusa is gone for a month and i am normal weight again. then she climbs back inside, taking care of me cos i am still so alone. is there nobody else here in my world? i find a person but my little heart is pierced cos i am so weak and angry at myself. i cut i burn i starve i am dying in a thousand ways. all there is is blackness. i cut so i bleed so bad. i cut with broken glass silver scars that will never heal. score 'hate' on my arm so i will never ever forget this is all i am. i have never known darkness like this. i thought i'd learned and knew never to trust to like. in the midst of the blackness i don't let go. something inside me keeps on. i make a grasp for the bank as i'm drowning in the blackness. and there's a face there. someone there. i don't notice for a while. but it's still there. for my 21st birthday i decide to die. then there's that face again getting closer this time. my birthday is nice. i feel maybe they don't hate me so much. the broken glass and the knife go away for a while. my life is changed. someone there who cares. someone believes there's something inside me. but it's still a struggle. my last year. i have to work so hard to make up for last year's wasted time, wasted memory. i read about the postgraduate options. i reach out, maybe it could possibly be? if everything is ok why am i losing weight? i get my place but exams take it out of me. i am in love we are together. nobody ever made me feel like this and he cares. but a check up and i'm ok. i got through. i get an award from the university. i'm going to do it. i'm doing a phd. i'm here. i'm home. lyrics thanx to: * - nine inch nails, pretty hate machine ~ - switchblade symphony, mellon collie and the infinite sadness + - nine inch nails, the downward spiral
