Journal Excerpt #1

I can promise you that YouTube completely makes me forget about time. I don’t know what it is about learning new things and figuring out other people’s perspective that intrigues me, but I love it! When I’m reading something, I can get so bored if I’m not hooked on it early, but watching something… It makes everything click. It makes everything so much more interesting. I’ve noticed that it is now 3:14am, and I have been on YouTube since 10:00pm. I originally got on the computer to journal, and YouTube is where I ended up. So now I shall journal. I’m also getting bored with this font, so let’s change it up a bit. There, papyrus is my absolute favorite font to journal in. I don’t know why, but the way it looks so neat and hand written at the same time is amazing. I’m currently also listening to my iTunes playlist. I’m sorry if I’m becoming boring with all the scattered thoughts, but I really want to capture everything. Earlier today I was in the shower and I was talking to myself… strangely enough in a British accent… and I kept thinking that it would be so cool to journal what I was thinking all the time. If only there was a way, but since there’s not currently anything that can do that, I must hold in my thoughts until I have time to jot everything down. I was thinking about the date I had tonight. I was getting ready for it… hence the shower… I kept thinking about what I wanted to wear and if that would call for shaving my legs. I decided I needed to just in case I wore my skirt. I ended up wearing the skirt, so I’m glad I shaved. I also talked to myself about my little protector. Kimberly Weaver. She has been very protective of me when it comes to Davis (The boy I had a date with). She thought we were a cute couple (we aren’t actually a couple) but she told him that if he hurts me, she will do things no male wants done to him. It’s pretty scary coming from a 10-year-old. Yeah, so for the date we went to McDonald’s. I ordered medium fries and a mocha frappe. I prefer that because I don’t eat so much that I’m full, it’s inexpensive, and I like the hyper feeling the mocha frappe gives me. For those of you who don’t know, a mocha frappe is pretty much just chocolate and coffee mixed together with whhipped cream and chocolate syrup on top. Starbucks also sells it, but I prefer McDonald’s. Anyway, we ate at McDonald’s, and then we went to the movies in the mall. We were going to see Dark Knight Rises (the new batman movie). There has been stuff on the news about shooting happening at the showings of this movie, and during the whole movie I was scared to death. The movie ended up being amazing, and I love it so much, but I couldn’t help be paranoid. Every time someone got up or made a sudden movement, I would look and see what it was. Davis sort of joked about it, but I was genuinely afraid. During each gun firing scene I thought to myself, “maybe this is when they’ll open fire, so the shots will be masked by the sounds of the movie”. I was fine during the movie and there were no shootings, thankfully, but I couldn’t help think of different scenarios of what would have happened. Would I be fired at and Davis jump in front of me? I know you might think that’s a bit vain of me to think, but I think he really likes me, and I think he might actually do that. Maybe I would get shot right off the bat, before anyone could save me. Did that scare me? Only a little… I was feeling weird being on a date. It just seemed to bring up memories of my past, and I was feeling overwhelmed. At one point I think I actually wanted something bad to happen. I wondered if people would miss me. I know it’s crazy now, but I really thought it… even if it were only for a split second. During the movie I ended up feeling all the emotions that Bruce Wayne felt: heartbreak, grief, betrayal. I feel like I connected to the character. I really enjoyed the movie. Because of all the memories and such, I was a bit on edge when we left. I was petrified of his driving. I wish I could have just taken the wheel, but I can’t drive a manual. He offered to teach me, but I replied that I would never need to know how to drive that, I’m only going to ever own an automatic. He asked me, “So, where does this date put me, on your friend’s list?”, and I just laughed and said, “I don’t know.” I wanted to say that he was already on my friend’s list, but I really didn’t want the conversation to continue, mostly because I didn’t want to hurt him. He probably got the message when I hugged him goodbye and didn’t kiss him, but maybe he didn’t think anything of that… I don’t know! I can’t tell how his mind thinks. I really feel like he sincerely likes me. I’m not used to that. After my relationship with Will, I’m so used to being “liked” so that someone can get in my pants. I don’t mean that lightly either. The previous 2 weeks before this date, I have gone out with 2 different guys, and they both had the intention of having sex with me… and I think that’s the only reason they wanted to go out on a date. I ended up seeing 2 great movies, and one of the dates actually didn’t end in sex, but that’s only because his friend wanted him to come over. I feel like I’ve lost all self-respect. I don’t feel like anyone can truly like me, so I’ll just take what I can get. Maybe there is something special in Davis, but I don’t think he knows what he’d be getting into, and I’d rather not completely reveal myself to him, so I’ll tell him the truth if he asks, and that is that I’m not ready for a relationship. I am physically, and I’m mature enough for one, but emotionally, I’m so damaged, and I don’t think I can handle it. I find myself thinking about Will all too often. I need to break from him and the memory of our relationship before I can move on and look for someone else. I also find myself comparing most of the guys I might like a little to him. If I don’t feel what I felt with him, or more, I don’t see a future in it at all. I need someone I can be my complete self around. Like I was with him… I don’t know if I’ll ever find that. Maybe he’ll come back? I doubt that… He’s gay. Yeah, that probably has something to do with my low self-esteem lately. The one boy I could be myself around, and the one boy who I thought loved me as much as I loved him… it turns out that not only did he cheat on me, but he lied to me for so long. He said he thought about this other side of him since early high school. I wonder all the time why he would have even asked me out (and proposed to me) if he thought he might be gay. Maybe he was still figuring it out, or maybe he thought he could sway his way of thinking by getting deep into a relationship… I don’t know, I just wish it would be clean cut simple, but it’s not. I have emotional turmoil because of it. Every time I try to relate to something, I always have a memory of him to share. I don’t want it to be that way, I want to be able to completely move past him, but I can’t. I don’t know how. I’ve even resulted back to self-harming when I feel too stressed about it. It’s not just the memories; it’s the self-image as well. I feel I’m not good enough for anyone now. I look in the mirror and I’m disgusted, I just want to… I don’t know… I want to change… So badly! I look at my body, and I just think to myself that I’m so fat, and I look at my face, and I see all the marks form previous break outs, and I see my eyebrows, my nose, my lips, my ears. I don’t think I like much of anything. I like my brown eyes and my hair. That’s probably the lot of it. My upper body is so muscular and masculine. I threw the discus, shot put, and javelin for the track and field team in high school, so I’m built, but I don’t like it. I feel like my shoulders are so huge, then my waist is okay, but then it all pops out again at my hips and thigh area. I like the hour glass look, but I feel like I have too much sand in mine if you catch my drift. I’m actually starting my new diet tomorrow. I have a diary for it and everything and I am determined to see it through. I am currently 176lbs. For my height (5’4”), a healthy weight would be 120lbs. Once I hit that weight, I will work to stabilize my diet and exercise and keep it there. Until then, I’m taking extreme measures. I have a no food diet, only water to drink, and a progressively tough workout schedule. I say progressively tough because it starts out quite easy, and progressively the exercise becomes more and more hours of the day. I’ve become desperate I think, and I don’t have anywhere else to turn. I’ve seen horror stories about anorexia on television, but I don’t think mine will escalate to that. I know I know… It can happen to anyone and when you start you can’t stop. Yeah, I learned that about self-harming, but I feel this will be different.  Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. I just feel like I need to do something. Call me impatient all you want, because I am. I might be at an “average weight”, but do you really think that makes me feel any better? Not really, considering that the average American is overweight… yeah, it makes me feel horrible. The fact that I’m getting increasingly heavier, I don’t know what else to do… I’m just desperate. I don’t like attention! So if you or anyone else tries to pin that on me, you’re all wrong! I don’t care one little bit what others think of me. I want to be thinner for me. It will give me confidence. I don’t care if “fat” was seen as beautiful, I would still want to be thin, because that’s what I see as beautiful. I don’t self-harm for attention either. I don’t want anyone to find out, and after every cut, I feel regret. “What did I do that?” “Gosh, that was so stupid!” “I hope no one sees this.” “What are some things I can say to cover up the truth?” These are just a few things that run through my mind afterward, but the afterward doesn’t matter when I’m in the moment. All I’m thinking about is the pain, the agony, the self-hatred, the memories, the hopelessness, the desperation. I want it all just go away, so I cut, and for a moment, I feel like I’m back in control of my pain. I love seeing blood when I cut. If I don’t bleed enough, I feel like I was a chicken and that I didn’t have what it takes to cut deeper. I hate myself for not cutting enough. Then afterwards I hate myself for cutting in the first place. I know the techniques used to prevent it, and I ignore them. I know how I can handle things better, but I choose not to. This is probably very selfish and inconsiderate, but I can’t help it. Cutting (and in the past, scratching) is the only thing I can turn to. I just get this giant spout of energy and I don’t know what to do with it, but when I cut, I feel calm… and I can sleep, or read, or anything I was unable to do with the emotional state I was in. It’s like a drug to me. I get in a certain state of mind, and self-harm gets me out of it, and I’m able to go on with my day/night. I’ve even been in so much anxiety over memories that I couldn’t sleep, but as soon as I cut a few times, I was able to fall asleep. I also feel shame in what I do and what I feel. I’m 18 now and I feel like my emotions are a little adolescent for me. I feel like I should have outgrown all these feelings, matured past this… But I can’t! I don’t know how. I’m going down this long tunnel of darkness and I don’t know how to get out. I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m recently Baptist and everyone at church talks about letting God handle your burdens and that whatever problem you have, he can handle it. On the other hand, they talk about being a grain of sand on the great beach that is God when it comes to how we are in comparison, and that no matter what God loves every one of us equally. This should bring great happiness to me, but it just makes me feel worse. I feel like that’s just one more person that I’m letting down, and what’s worse is that I can’t hide it from him. I can go to church and act happy in front of everyone, but he knows how I really feel. I don’t want to say that I’ve lost my new found faith because I haven’t. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but I don’t feel my emotional distress has anything to do with my beliefs. I don’t know exactly how to explain this, but simply put: I believe in God and I try my best to live for him every day, but sometimes God isn’t what I need. He fills a certain part of my heart, but not always the part that needs filling. I really don’t know how to explain it. I pray all the time, and I want to get better, but I just feel like the two aspects are so far away. I don’t mean to doubt anything, and I know you have to “meet God halfway”, but I just don’t think it can help me in my situation. I don’t even know why I brought God into this. To be brutally honest, when I’m in a certain mind set, I don’t think about God or Jesus or anyone for that matter. I only think about myself and what a horrible life and body I have. It sounds really selfish to put it that way, but it’s the truth. When I want to cut, or I hate on how I look, I don’t have anything on my mind except exactly that. That’s something that I can explain. If I’m in the moment, I’m always completely focused on what I’m doing. If I wasn’t, If I got distracted by something such as God, or writing, or drawing, then I wouldn’t cut… hands down. I’m writing this as if I’m writing to a specific person… but rather I’m just referring to my computer journal as a friend. I do however, need to be up by 9am… and it’s currently 4:25am, so I think I’m going to attempt to get just a little sleep. Wish me luck on kick starting my diet, and let’s hope I don’t have to cut tomorrow. I will be back tomorrow though, so I will talk to you then.  (: –Alyssa