2008- A daydream

2008

I move the pasta across my plate with no intention of eating it, I have a few bites for taste and wait for an adequate time to pass so I can leave the table without drawing attention to myself.

Not that I would anyway, I always ate alone whilst my parents sat in a separate room, my siblings were wither too young to eat at the table or at boarding school so it was just me.

I scrape the food in the bin and cover it up with other rubbish, again not that anyone would notice but I wasn't going to risk the lecture and abuse I'd receive if anyone found out.

I gently walked up the stairs (I was frequently shouted at for making noise even if it was just my footsteps) and shut my bedroom door.

My bedroom had just a single bed in, too small to fit anything else. 

I once had the larger room but offered it to my younger siblings, hoping it would help me become part of the family, it in fact made things worse. I was now shut off in the box room.

My mother had beautifully decorated it from the Laura Ashley catalogue, it looked like a guest room.

That was the issue, it wasn't my room.

The walls were floral in a duck egg green and curtains my mother had sewn to size herself.

I wanted to be grateful but this wasn't my room.

I wasn't allowed posters on the walls or anything that could express my identity. 

I had a beautiful mirror on the wall, with delicately painted flowers on the frame, the mirror however was covered by a pillow case.

After weeks of verbal abuse from both school and home I couldn't stand to see myself in the mirror anymore.

All I could see was my big nose, my frizzy curly hair, my bad skin and fat cheeks.

The words of the bullies imprinted on my brain, tainting every thought I had. 

Unable to cope with my own thoughts I lay on my bed and did the same thing I did every day.

I'd put in my headphones with the volume of full to drown out reality.

I would imagine what it would be like if I was pretty.

What it would be like if people liked me.

I'd imagine what it would be like to have a family that greeted me when I walked through the door.

What it would be like to have someone on my side, to not feel completely alone.

Not eating was my own version of self harm.

I could do it silently, discretely, I didn't want to draw attention to myself, whenever that happened I was always called "Selfish" "Ugly" "Horrible" or a "Bad person".

I never really understood where that came from, the insults weren't relevant to whatever they were shouting at me for but none the less it leaves a mark.

It may sound strange, but lack of food gives you this high feeling, numb and cut off from reality.

It makes those comments that much easier to take when you're drifting in and out of a daydream.

A daydream where you are anyone other than yourself.


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This is about my teenage years and whilst my family may not have acted well towards me they are good people and we are in a much better place now. This post is not here to make people feel guilty or point fingers, it is to demonstrate how I became the person I am now and how the problems I am having now are linked to previous events.