Who do you call when there's no one?

I just tried calling 5 friends, all in different parts of the world. Most of them were out, living life. The rest went to voicemail. And that's what my life is about.

I've left Paris, that city that killed me but not enough to end this, but unfortunately I haven't been able to leave myself behind. Clinical depression, apparently that's what I've got. And what I'm starting to realize is that as far as a veridict it goes, people still don't take you seriously. You're still able to laugh it off in conversation, to make yourself the punchline, and no one will have their heart skip a beat for you.

My family keeps asking me, what do you want us to do? That just makes me angry. Would I really say the same if any one of them was going through what I'm going through? Because what I want, no, want I desperately need, is for someone to not have to ask. It's impossible to pull someone out of the darkness without joining them there first, but no one's willing, and the only person I have left to talk to is my shrink. How sad when you're left with no other option but to pay someone to listen to you.

I could try and explain to you just how tired I am of myself but no words can do it justice. I'm hanging on, and I'm doing it for them, despite the fact that it doesn't really seem like they need it.

An honest update.

So much to tell, so many stories. Today as I sat across the table from my friend, he held my hands and told me that he thinks that I'm incredible. His eyes told me something else. That fine line between friendship and love. I've lost it so long ago. I can never tell what's real and what isn't. I dream too much. Reality eventually becomes a blur.

Did I ever tell you there is three of us? It's not just two girls, but there's a boy too. He is beautiful, blonde, and has the biggest ears. The last time I saw him I must have been eight. I never forgot him though. That's what family means, never forgetting. He doesn't remember me anymore, he only remembers her, because she's always been good that way, I've always been bad that way. I'm not really memorable, people forget me, and I understand. It's easy to forget me.

I fell in love a few months ago. I didn't even notice. I thought it was just an obsession, I was sure I couldn't love him because I love Peter, but I was wrong. I fell in love with him and he never cared. Dispensable.

The Paris fairytale is almost over, and I am so glad. This year has without a doubt been the hardest of my life. And the future scares the shit out of me.

?

What do you think makes us love?

Back on a dark note.

I have no one who understands. I tried to tell my family, I spelt it out to them, and they didn't hear me. I used to read those stories about people telling their parents about their eating disorders and depression and their parents not believing them, and I took comfort in the fact that I knew that mine always would. But I got it all wrong. First I told my sister, she's always been my best friend.

I have panic attacks.

Nothing.

I think I have an anxiety disorder.

Nothing.

I think I need therapy.

Nothing.

Today I told my mum. I never thought she wouldn't understand because she is such a worrier. I always believed that she would do something, all I had to do was tell her.

I know I have an anxiety disorder, I say. I read out the list of symptoms to her and point out the ones I have. I explain to her the difference between sadness and depression, the inability to control yourself when you begin to panic. I say it all, but I'm talking to a wall.

We can't have you on drugs, is all she seems to say. They will make you gain weight.

The minute you said those words I gave up the fight. Because those words say everything to me. I have almost killed myself to make myself the perfect daughter you want, I have starved myself for months, I have thrown up food, I don't remember the last time I ate normally. I don't remember the last time I saw food as simple. There are scars on my body saying how I feel. But it was the same with them. The day you saw them and asked for an explanation, and I suppressing the horror of the truth coming out muttered some lie, you took it. You didn't ask me for more, you never cared to look over my body again. You dismissed it. And I thought mothers carried the truth in their gut, that they always knew when you were lying, that if they saw burns all over your wrists, they would understand that you're not okay, that they would try to save you, instead of not even seeing them. You looked straight at them and you didn't even recognize them. I accidentally leaned onto an ashtray, I say. How could you have believed me? How did you dare to believe me? My wrists say everything.

As I hear you worry about my weight and not about me, I feel my heart disintegrate. I don't know if you're the reason I stopped eating that day, but I sure as hell know that you didn't stop me. Other kids lie, go to great lengths to hide their hungry stomachs from their families, but I say it to you as it is. I'm fat and I won't eat, and you're okay with that. You've never asked me to stop. And now that I'm falling apart, now that I am literally no longer in control of anything, now that the panic attacks have settled in to stay, you remind me to watch my weight. All I hear is that I should give up my mind for the size of my jeans.

You don't know what an eating or an anxiety disorder is. You don't know what depression is either. So when I accidentally brush my scars past you, or when I say it clear and loud over the phone, you don't hear me. I don't know how much louder I can say this - these three things are killing me, yet you still don't see it as serious enough. As long as I lay off the cookies.

Sorry

I'm so sorry for having disappeared. To tell you the truth it's been a complicated few months. And I'm kind of spiraling further and further down into becoming a complete mess. I'll write soon.

Vi

the next twelve months

dear peter, i've never seen the sky more beautiful. i want to soar off this porch and glide into the horizon, evaporate into thin air, right where the blue meets the pink, right where you and i were once born. there's only a few hours left of the last twelve months. i haven't seen your face once, barely heard your voice, but i've loved you without hesitation through the falling snow, and the emerging summer, the blazing sun and the wild waves, and the devastating heartbreaks. i've loved you through all of this, i'll love you through all that is yet to happen. tonight you're a world away, but to me you are much closer than any of the people who are sat right by me here at the table. i wish you were here, or i wish i was there. i look at the heart shaped tree in my garden and i imagine that that's what my heart looks like. i am starved for you. my fingers are barely feeling. i wonder how the next twelve months will play with us, whether they will bring us together, or tear us further apart, but i pray that they will let us meet. i wish you everything. blinding beauty and sadness that teaches you how to love stronger, inspiring skylines and waves made of wise whispers. love, and snow, and raindrops, and breaking speed limits just to turn the breeze into the wind, so the letters your heart writes to those you love are sent faster. i know that i may not be the one you choose, and i know that we cannot choose who we love, but i also know that my heart will protect you forever. my fingers bleed for you, and all my words ache for your eyes. i write love letters to you even in my sleep. you're the reason i'm still breathing. you're the straw that doesn't kill me. i listen to the radio downstairs and to me those words are empty. the lyrics all profess a new year that will be happy and great but i never understood how twelve months that never happened can be glorified. i don't know why i've always found windowsills so comforting. i crawl up on them as if i were a cat and i stare into the sky, making out the distant lights as stars, and i blow wishes into the night. i wish the whole world was a metaphor, so i could find it endlessly beautiful and revealing, so it could feed me everyday, so i wouldn't be so afraid to live. i love feeling hidden, i love protecting myself from the outside world with curtains, or darkness, or closed doors, so i can dream. dreaming feeds me so much more than living does. i wear a promise on my finger, i believe that in a way it keeps you always by my heart, where i can guard you when you're sleeping. dear peter, i don't know what the next twelve months will bring, but i only hope they bring me to you. dear peter, please know that you are the most beautiful boy i have ever known, and that to me your every breathe is a story in itself. dear peter, may the next twelve months guard you with their wings.

The heart

the heart, it steers everything into motion. it sets of the most unbelievable triggers, it awakens. it tells me stories about love, about loss, about the chance of a future. its the most vital part of us, i really do believe in its existence. i believe there is so much beauty inside us, its buried right under your skin, and sometimes, in your weakest moment , it shines. i am not one to preach about romance, or God, or even the good and the bad inside us, but i believe in emotion. and i believe people are most beautiful when at their most vulnerable. they show something real, they involuntarily share something with you, their secrets. i believe that life is meant to be lived with the heart. i believe that the brain is there to remind us to be smart, but only when at our weakest. it isn't about being careful, or about setting up safety nets before you leap. it's about leaping without a single thought in your head, it's about letting yourself crash, about letting something destroy you. it's about letting everything in, letting love in, whether it be to a boy, or a girl, or even a passion, about not being afraid to break into pieces. it's about physically wanting someone, about the traces of your breath near your neck in cold weather, about glances at people you're too afraid to fall for, but fall for anyway. i think there's so much to life that so many people miss, it's like they live, and never figure out why. but whether it rises you to the moon, or whether it takes you down to dragon caves, just remember, rock bottom is a beautiful place to start.

The epiphany

It suddenly hit me, what if nothing that I write is actually remarkable?

Fireflies

I suddenly just realized how much i'd like you to read my words. maybe thats the real bridge between us. my words reveal the real me, they're what i live with. and yet you've never built that ship to understand them. to you i really am i foreigner. I'm like this strange artifact you don't quite understand. i seem so distant, so out of touch with reality, and it frustrates you because you don't understand where all the passion goes. you don't see that canvas where i spill my words out. maybe thats been our problem all along. you don't know me, but only because you can't. only because i write words in a foreign language, and you wish i spoke in yours. i don't know why this is how i found a connection to writing, i don't know why my own language never spoke to me as loudly as this one, but this one taught me how to love, and how to fall too, it taught me all the emotions and all the facts. i was bound from then on. you don't chose them, they chose you. your words come and find you, and then they take you away. you're like a prisoner trapped on a journey, they don't let go of you, you have to follow them, you have to trust them to take you wherever they lead. that's such a beautiful image. they hold your hand, they tell you that it's alright, that you'll understand soon, that you're not really meant for this world, that you're not cut out for it, you're here for a different purpose. you have to translate life into words, you have to remind people how to feel. the day my words found me i was bound, i was in love, i was safe. i knew i could trust them. they spoke to me in a language i understood. i became a fairy, not belonging to this world but crafting my own. i used fireflies as light and made out footsteps into the jungle. now i was home.

Why don't you know me?

Isn't this what it's all about? Talking to your parents and actually feeling better about yourself from the conversations? Because when I talk to him, I feel more loved. He tells me that I'm pretty, he says if you weren't my daughter I would have fallen in love with you right now, he tells me I've lost weight, he tells me that it'll be okay, he reminds me that after all college years are the best of your life, and he encourages me to keep going. He's being my dad.

But when I talk to you, I feel destroyed. I love you, mum, I really do, but I feel like you're destroying me. I wish I could explain it but your words stab me right in the heart, and they haunt me, and they have put me off food forever. Your words have bred this monster inside of me. And I don't want to hold you responsible for this, because you're not, it's all my doing. But why don't you know me? Like really know me, like a parent is supposed to know their kid? You're meant to feel me, you're meant to see past every silence, past every lie. You don't though, you believe that I'm a pathological liar yet you can never tell the lies apart from the truth. It's bittersweet really, you believe my lies and you refute my truths.

I wish we had stayed a family. There's nothing I want more than that. Nothing.