May 2005

“Don’t rest your life around this hope”.

I’m 21. I’ve only been coming out in town for 7 months. In the space of 2 years I’ve gone from being in the grips of anorexia, to exchanging it for the hope that I can be who I want to be and also find happiness.

I can’t deal with bad nights out. I have too much invested in finding something that finally sorts my life out. It’s literally the end of the world when it’s shit, when my alcopop-fueled people-pleasing goes pear-shaped, and the ones who come and make me smile don’t show up.

I’m home now. Semi-pissed I binge eat, everything I can see. I do it to the point of no redemption, not in my rule book. I react by taking an overdose of paracetamols and my prescribed Sertraline tablets. I’ve no idea what it will do, whether I will collapse ot not. But I had to do it, as a symbolic confirmation of my self-condemnation.

I freak out and walk back out of the house into the dead of night. I take my Joy Division tapes and walk a loop in and out of the town centre around 4 times. Hoping someone will spot me, save me. But no.

After about 5 hours of walking I can’t do anymore. College is a safe haven, my new friends on the degree year above me will certainly be in. But it’s ages until the doors open.

I jump on the very first commuter train on this Thursday morning, in a fashion that will become deeply familiar in years to come.

What’s prompted this? A girl is making playful suggestions that she fancies. I have never experienced anything like this before. Yet I have spent too many years believing (and praying) that the day I meet somebody romantically will be the day I am saved from myself.

I’ve got the shakes, which I think must be due to the tablets. don’t know what else may happen. I want to be saved. I don’t feel depressed, just desperate to be saved from it.

I get off the train at Meadowhall, and wait for the train back in the direction I came from – in a fashion that will become all-too familiar in the rest of my 20s.

There’s still 2 hours until college is even open. I don’t know what I expect to happen. Maybe the severity of my acts will make the universe align to my current needs.

College finally opens. I still at the back of the refectory, acknowledging every face. Waiting…