Ohhh there are thoughts buzzing like flies in my head.
I think I’m slightly high, I can sense the thoughts moving around, flirting with each other and then dancing, trying each other on for size. I love when words dance to their own rhythm.
I’m listening to Queen. There is a part of me that’s quite fragile. Queen connects me to the times where I was invincible. Also brings Amy a little closer – it’s like a part of her is here with me, and that’s comforting, and it eases the stabbing, choking pains. ”Ooh, you’re making me live… …In rain or shine, you’ve stood by me girl… ….You’re my best friend”
I haven’t slept at all in a couple of days, unless you count a 20m shuteye which was solid nightmare.
It was the same scenario every time – I’d be chatting to a mate at a bar, her on my left. Fags in my arse pocket in my jeans, right hand side. Someone comes up to me and puts their hand in that pocket and cops a feel. I turn around to challenge and they say they were just taking a fag, and I go to turn back (‘whatever’) and then something, a cloth, is brought over my face and I can’t breathe and the world swims and I can’t see and I hit the floor, I can’t breathe and there’s liquid everywhere, I try to throw up but there’s liquid choking me, and then I pass out. Eventually I come around but I can’t see or hear properly, it’s all jumbled like when you’re so wasted you have to hang onto the floor, and I’m still drowning, and then it passes and I slowly manage to get up, I’m somewhere I don’t know, and then *cut*. No more. And then the whole thing repeated – four or five times over until I woke up.
Oddly enough I’ve not been triggered/dissociated/flashbacking at all, despite having both been drugged and having had breathing restricted (not at the same time). I think my head is moving too fast for it to be possible. I am pleased about that at least. But apologies if this post is very bitty.
I was thinking earlier that I’m so very atypical because I don’t give a shit how I look, except for weight – and I’m unable to pass judgment on my weight without knowing what the scale says to ‘tell me what I should be seeing’. But like, my face, hair, skin/scars, teeth, nails, I’d not change. I’d not be ME if I looked different, and whilst I don’t much like ‘me’ most of the time I do have a strong sense of self. My hair could be thicker, my teeth are shite (wine, smokes, pukes, plus a tongue bar = not so white, pretty eroded, with random chunks missing), my nails are hopelessly stunted and bend and tear. It should be fairly obvious by now I have extensive scarring (plus I keloid, so there’s a lot of texture there). But I’d not be ‘me’ without that and I’d not change any one of those. I can’t make a judgment on whether I’m pretty or not when I look in the mirror. Unless I look Really Fucking Terrible (as in unhealthy) I can look at my reflection without feelings of revulsion or disgust. I like playing with makeup and clothes – I get ‘quirky’ as an adjective describing me, and people often say to me, I wish I had the courage to wear some of the things you do. It’s fun – I can be a fresh-faced teen (do it right and people age me as 17-19; I’m 25), or I can do the aloof glam thing, or I just do quirky – which is cute things I like which just happen to be in fashion when I buy them yet they last me years. My basic makeup STYLE normally stays the same, focus on eyes with liner flicking out, but it goes from sharp dramatic liquid to gel to highlighter/illuminator to smoky kohl. Sky blue, turquoise, forest green, grey, brown, charcoal, black, deep black… And then a sweep of shadow, with a contrast or a lowlight at the edges. Slick of mascara, mousse foundation just to smooth complexion rather than set a base, blusher depending on jawline (puking) and paleness. Either nude or RED lippie. DONE ~ = but the liner colour and type, and the shadow colours make or break it – and the lips add the interpretation. But – it’s a mask. It’s a game. The persona comes off when the make-up comes off, but it can go back on whenever I want it to. It’s so freeing and liberating.
A lot of the time, I don’t want to play at being a persona. So I don’t wear makeup. And that’s fine too. Because I don’t use makeup to HIDE myself, I use it to shape how I’m perceived. It’s a tool, that’s all.
I reckon I had BDD (separate from ED) until I was 17. I remember being 4 and looking in the mirror – I’d read Roald Dahl’s ”The remarkable story of Henry Sugar” and discovered it was possible to have moles/blemishes removed surgically, and I remember dreaming of the day I could get mine removed. I saw a monster when I looked in the mirror, when I was that small. Looking back at photos, I was seriously fucking cute and smoodgable. Nothing to do with weight, though I was throwing up on purpose when I was six. I didn’t want to lose weight until I was 11 or 12 (and then it was lose my child’s stomach, not about numbers). Obviously in my teens I thought I was hideous – I think every teen does, to a point. All those hormones, and hormone-ridden skin, and rapid changes with your body, and academic pressures and social pressures and establishing new boundaries with parents, it’s a shitty stressful time. I definitely had an ‘ugly duckling’ phase, too. Not many photos, for the best – I’ve learned my body, my style, what works for me and what doesn’t. That took time.
At the end of FF admission #1 I had some photos taken of me. I was BMI 15.5 in them so I knew there was no way I was FAT (and I used to have a BMI of 28). My hair was its natural colour (which is a really clear light brown) and it had GROWN so it was long enough for the weight of it to be enough for it to be straight instead of ‘kinky’. And at this point in my life I’d just taken responsibility, owned my actions, and understood nobody was going to or even able to do it for me – that was freeing. And I am happy. And when I saw those pictures, they were the first pictures of myself I IDENTIFIED with, and which I liked. And I’ve been grand since then in terms of not dreading looking in the mirror, or judging myself on the fact I have a carbon copy of my father’s nose despite the fact that his has actually been broken.
Today has been STRESSFUL. I could have a big rant but I did that for about 10 minutes straight at work (and I managed that entire rant without swearing!) and that was very therapeutic. And I now have sauv blanc which is also therapeutic.
I’ve made an important decision. To follow.
Grace's Musings 