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I want to stop. Not in a suicidal way. I just want to stop moving, talking, doing, breathing. Anything. I want to stop anything and everything. I just want a pause button. But I want the right pause button.
Sometimes I feel defective because I have a pause button for things that I don't want a pause button for. My friends are always asking me if I'm gay or asexual and the answer is I don't know. Sex and intimacy is like a motor way to me. Like everyone else is zooming by without a problem - why would there be a problem; driving on the motor way is entirely normal. They are all experimenting or in concrete relationships and I'm just at the side of the road with a broken motor. No one interests me like that and I can see the way people look at me, a girl in baggy clothes who doesn't want sex and has never had sex. I don't even like people touching me, just generally. I feel like the broken down car that everybody stares at. Just staring blatantly out the window of your car, at the other car that is helplessly smoking and looks like it is about to explode and you can't understand why because your motor is running and everything is fine. You just drive right by. Thinking about it too much confuses you.
My pause button also stops my sociability. Everyone else seems fine with that. But I'm an introvert. I need time to re-charge. I try and force myself to go out because my friends complain when they haven't seen me in so long. They don't pause this in their lives, they don't understand. If I go out too soon I feel like crap. I over think things, I panic and I constantly compare myself to other people. I then get home and feel really upset. I just need some time, then I can go out and do whatever because I have re-charged so i can act like everyone else.
That's what my pause button does. That's all. Everything else run. All. The. Time. It's like trying to watch 35 different TV shows when they are all on at the same time. It's nauseating.
I work. A lot. I'm beginning college and I am constantly working towards a goal or just working in general. If I don't get the work done I stress. I set myself a date to get certain things done by and if they're not done then it stresses me out.
I am always fighting with my parents. I'm aware I'm hormonal. No that I want to be. But they don't seem to... deal with me in the right way. I have tried to address them calmly and say what I don't like them doing and they get really angry which makes me angry and everything spirals out of control and no one can be paused. I once asked my dad if he would stop leaning over me to drop the blinds in the kitchen, in order to get to them he leans over me and then is hovering against my back and his arm is moving next to my head and I really don't like my personal space being invaded. It's a horrible feeling, it makes me itch and writhe and I can't think straight. I don't like anyone being that close to me, especially unexpectedly. So, I asked him if he would stop doing that. He retorted by telling me to grow up. It made me really angry. Just because he couldn't understand that I like my personal space and that he was invading it. Immensely. Then the arguing escalated and we both hunted each others feelings because there was no pause button.
I don't want to confide in people because I think about it for a bit and then decide not to. My life is relatively fine, just because I'm not impressed with it doesn't mean I should make it out like I'm the only one in the world with problems - I apologise for being melodramatic throughout this little soliloquy - so piling my complaints onto other people's problems just seems so childish and self-centred. I've had that done to me when I'm trying to get through stuff and it's not nice. So I avoid doing it myself.
My thoughts don't pause either. I don't think my brother likes me. Maybe he loves me because we're family, but liking me for my personality is another thing. My brother is 30 this year, he has a wife and 2 kids and his own house. I'm 16. I have literally just finished high school. Both of us are just so different in where we stand. I feel really awkward sometimes because I have no idea what he is like. He has lived with me up until I was about 7. He watched me grow up through them years, so I feel like he thinks he knows me. He didn't even know I was finishing high school this year, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt though, he has his own life to live and I'm not a part of that. I don't know anything about the guy. I couldn't tell you if you could trust him or not. I couldn't tell you what his best friends name is, or what his first pet was called or even when his birthday is. I just know it's sometime in December. Sometimes he'll say things that aren't true like "she doesn't like spice." I know. It's really petty for me to think about and it shouldn't annoy me. But it does. I'm a bit older than 7 now, sure, 7 year old me didn't like spice but why would that stay the same throughout my entire life? it shouldn't. It hasn't. I think this is why he doesn't come round to the house with his kids, or why we don't all do something as a family. He talks to my mum on the phone everyday and keeps her updated but she wants to see his kids, it's different talking about them and actually seeing them. I don't remember much about my brother when we lived together, but I think I loved him a lot, I think we were close, I think he lives in an illusion in which I'm still 7 years old and obsessed with my big brother. He gets confused when I don't feel comfortable talking to him or when I don't know what to say in front of him, he doesn't know how to respond to that. I'm sure he doesn't think much of it though because we only actually see each other a few times a year.
I feel like I'm disturbed when I say this, and I've never told anyone, but...
I don't think I love my brother.
I don't know the guy. My parents do. My older sister does. But I don't. I really, really don't. I have no idea if he has a sense of humour or if he is serious. It's hard for me to interpret what kind of person he is while listening to his voice on the other side of my mum's phone. He is not a part of my life. I don't mean this in a 'boo-hoo what am I going to do I have no brother anymore I have completely disowned him!' I just mean that he is not really a significant model figure in my life. He's never really been there like everyone else's older brothers have been. I blame the age gap. It really is nothing else.
My older sister doesn't understand me. She goes out partying most weekends and ordering pizza with her boyfriend on weekdays. I prefer my own time. I once cried my heart out because I was supposed to be going to a gig in Manchester and I was panicking about it, I was going into the city late at night, anything could happen. She had ordered a taxi to the train station for me. I really did not want a taxi. That was the worst thing for me. Forced social interaction with a stranger in a confined space. I needed air. Fresh air. I needed to clear my head. I could have walked. Once I started getting worked up she panicked and said she would go with me for some of the journey (she got out at her boyfriend's house). But it just made me panic more because suddenly she was clambering out of the vehicle with her happy-go-lucky mood and shoving the money into my hand. Then I was moving. But I wasn't because I was still as stone. The car was moving and nothing was on pause but me. I was the only clear picture. I had griped my seat belt until my hands were white and shaking. I hadn't even realised we had arrived until the taxi driver shouted at me. I panicked so much that I ended up dropping the money in the back seat and practically falling out the car. Then I panicked because I thought he didn't see me drop the money, maybe he thinks I ran off with it. But his car pulled out. I felt really dizzy and ran round the corner of the station and threw up. I was late so I met my friends and I never told them anything about it, partly because they didn't say anything about how I looked and partly because I wanted to forget the whole thing. I thought about it all night when I was out. I got home and thought about it more. I got no sleep.
My mum says not to bottle things up. So I try talking to her. Then we end up fighting because I bring up the fact that she said I shouldn't bottle things up and now she is telling me to be quiet because I 'go on too much.' This is true. I do. But I have a lot on my mind. So I bottle it up again because it seems like the best way to deal with things.
When me and my dad fight he always ends it with 'you need therapy.' It might be true but I don't want it. A lot of people I know go to therapy for attention. Or they go just because they can. I don't have time for therapy. And I REALLY do not want someone to just sit and write down all the problems they THINK I have. I know me better than they do. They might know the brain and over time get to know my brain. But I know me. I know I have problems but I sort them out. I sort them out because I can and then the problem is gone. If it comes back I sort it out again. If anyone interferes with my cycle it is aggravating.
I bite my nails so far down they bleed. Then I bite the skin. It's stress related. It's habit. It's nerves. Take your pick. Mum tells me that I should just get them amputated. I can't do anything with them anyway. They bleed every time I grip something. If I grow them I get self conscious because some of my nails grow weird (my fingers got burnt by an iron when I was younger).
I can't stand heat. It hurts my fingers a lot. I have a really low tolerance for it. The sun burns, it doesn't actually burn my skin but it's warm and makes me sweat and it burns. I have cold showers. I can't do the dishes. I hate heat.
I think I have this thing called 'Maladaptive Daydreaming.' I don't want to self diagnose. Especially with something that is not even scientifically proven. But... I'm addicted to pacing. I will just listen to music and pace my living room for hour at a time. I don't just pace though. I imagine that people are sat in my living room and are talking to me. I don't actually see them. I don't actually hear them. I just imagine it. Like a child. I think it's a coping mechanism for me. When this happens not only can I control the conversation but also how I think people perceive me. It helps me because it's like I'm trying to prove to myself that I can socialise.
Sometimes I skip meals. On purpose. No one knows. I'm pretty good at doing it discreetly. It started when I was younger, about 13. I realised how bad my diet was. I would just eat all the time. I would have a bowl of cereal for breakfast and as I sat around waiting to leave for school I'd get bored and have some toast with my mum. Then I would get to school and eat lunch with my friends. Then I'd eat throughout my school day because eating food in lessons was rebellious for me back then. I would then get home and eat whatever my family did. If they grabbed a packet of crisp and several biscuits, I would. Then I realised. My friends didn't have breakfast so their massive lunches made up for it. My parents wouldn't have time for lunch at work and would make up for it when they got home. I was eating for about ten people.
So I cut out the snacking. All of it. I wouldn't even eat fruit. With just three meals a day I lost about a stone and a half in a week. With that I wanted to lose more. I started getting up later (well not really - we'll get to this point later). Then as i was rushing around the house to leave people wouldn't force me to eat breakfast, most were at work anyway. Then I stopped eating school dinners. They were horrible and I wasn't missing out on much. Then I began to 'make my own tea,' - so I'd tell my parents when they got home. The reality is, after not eating all day I would want to cave in so badly and just eat the house. I'd make myself eat something small so I wouldn't ruin tea, then I would never get the will power to eat tea.
Then as I lost more and more weight I was doing really well. I was healthy. I genuinely looked like a healthy young girl but I wasn't. I am not a naturally skinny person so I think the whole 'staving myself' thing didn't really show too much, at all really. My family are all pretty big too. After a while I started to eat a full meal a day. Then I started to feel faint and panicked. I started to eat two small meals a day and exercise regularly (cue the beginning to my addiction in pacing). I'd say I'm much healthier than I used to be. But I could still lose more weight.
I don't think I'll ever tell people that I starved myself to be healthier.
I wake up early in the morning. I remember when I first started doing this. I was reading the Harry Potter books. I wanted to finish them all. But getting home from school and doing all my work and watching some TV took up all my spare time. So, I would have to read in the morning. It started off just being half an hour before I usually got up. And then an hour before. And another. And another. It got to the point where I was getting up at four in the morning to get things done, nobody else in town was awake and I felt so productive, it made me feel really good. Again, I think this is more of a control issue in which I can be productive when everybody else isn't, that way when someone else is more productive than me it was okay because I was up at 4AM and they were not.
My sleeping has improved somewhat though. When I got up really early I was then really tired by about 8 PM. It got to be a nuisance so I got up a little later. The natural time my body wakes up now is about 6AM. I get tired towards 10 PM. It's relatively healthy now, although the odd day I wake up really early it makes me really happy.
This is why I never really slept over at any of my friend's houses. They still think I'm weird for that.
I can go months without my period. I mean without anything at all. No pain, no sick feeling, no heating up, no headaches. Nothing. I think the most I have gone is four months. When I do get them they are very light and short. They move around a lot, they are never at the same time of the month. It's bad, I know. It's probably due to not eating, stress and excessive exercise. All of which I have admitted to doing.
Some people say that admitting your problems is the first step to recovery. Is it though? Does it not just make me more messed up that I acknowledge that I have issues but don't do anything about it? Does it just mean I have been stuck in this 'stage' of recovery all this time ('time' being about a year)?
I feel like I'm crazy. Like I need a pause button. I need to stop everything just to straighten some things out. Then I'll be fine. Then I'll be on my way, speeding down the motor way without a care in the world because everything is fine and I am normal.
I. Am. Normal.
But I'm not at that point yet. It's a goal. I'm just going to have to achieve it.
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