Being sixteen sucked a lot more than I thought it would.
I wouldn't recommend it. Or choose to live it again. Even if it was to live it a different way.
Being a teenager feels a lot like a form of madness anyway, but add manipulation
into the mix and you get a lifelong nightmare.
My mother is an unintentional, subtle bragger. The kind that openly talks about her
children and family to complete strangers.
She did the very same thing to her driving instructor; I don't know what she told him, but
she told him enough for me to get invited to go and help out at the drama club he was a
part of.
I was sixteen. And on a mission to prove to everyone that I wasn't that 4 year old with
the anxiety issues anymore.
So I went. Having been convinced by my mother it was a good idea.
I willingly got in the car with him, had a conversation and went to the drama club.
He was a nice guy, friendly. The kinda person that had a lot of friends, knew a lot of
people in the community and everyone liked him.
He specialised in teaching people to drive who were nervous.
On paper, this guy was good.
Over time, I learnt he wasn't all that friendly or a good person in the slightest.
I was never an average sixteen year old, I was still so young
and so naive. And my understanding of what was right and what was wrong
was very little.
I never knew that him holding my hand or hugging me or touching my leg
was inappropriate. I completely disregarded it all. I brushed it off as him being
friendly.
Gradually, over time, the attention he gave me became unwanted.
He would text me several times during the week. It would usually be just
general talk, but it was frequent. As if he was purposely making sure he was
present in my life.
He told me I had a problem with saying yes. And he mocked me for it.
I immediately hated anyone that made fun of me. I removed them from my life
because they weren't worth the drama.
But removing him from my life was more of a challenge than everyone else.
I could ignore everyone else and they'd drift out of my life.
I couldn't ignore him.
He was arrogant, he belittled me, he manipulated the way I thought.
I felt obliged to always say yes to him. And saying no just wasn't an option.
Until eventually, he went too far. Little to my knowledge he planned what he was
gonna do that night. And maybe all along, everything was planned and I was just blind to it.
He picked me up night after night, every week, like clockwork. But he drove a different way
that night. It was a small village, there were backroads and dead ends everywhere.
He parked up a dead end, in the pitch black, where even if I ran I wouldn't know where to go.
The only sounds were the engine and probably my heartbeat doing overtime with panic.
This was the worst possible situation and I've never felt more uncomfortable in my entire life.
I couldn't run, I was frozen to the spot.
I could barely even breathe thanks to my heartbeat.
I played with my phone, head down, making no eye contact for as long as I could.
He didn't like that. He didn't like the focus being on something other than him.
I guess it frustrated him and he decided to take control.
He told me to get in the back of the car and it was the only time I ever said no to him.
It was a mumbled, quiet 'no'. But it was said more than once.
He stole my first kiss from me, I didn't want him to steal anything else.
The fact that he, a man in his 40's, had (and was) prepared to have sex with a clearly
vulnerable sixteen year old girl in the back seat of his car in the middle of no where
makes me want to throw up.
I gave no consent and no indication that I ever wanted anything from him.
And yet, for months and months after I would search my mind for something that I
must of done wrong.
Because as far as I was concerned it was all my fault.
After that, I still went with him to the drama club every week. He still drove me there.
And it's like nothing ever happened.
He thought I had a problem with saying yes, but I had a problem with saying no.
He was mad at me, I could feel it. He didn't get his own way and maybe he wasn't used to that.
In a short space of time, we had two arguments.
One by text: He decided he was going to drive in on his motorbike and wanted to pick me up on it.
Saying no to him was still a huge challenge. I was barely capable of it. He was so good at controlling
and manipulating me. It's like he had a higher power over me. Even after I said no to him before.
But it was slightly easier over text. And although I said no to him, the texts between us threw me
into complete emotional distress. He ruined me. Without even being there.
I didn't see him for a week or two.
And then he had a motorbike accident. I wasn't sorry. I wasn't sad. I wished death on him.
I genuinely, wholeheartedly wished he was dead.
He broke his knee and couldn't drive for a few weeks.
After that, the second argument came. He picked me up as usual and for the life of me,
I cannot remember what we argued about. Something completely irrelevant.
It was one of those arguments where everything was building up and it was inevitable it was
gonna explode at some point. And it did.
He turned the car around sharply and recklessly drove me home.
I went home crying and attempted to feed my parents some lies about what had happened.
After that, I never saw him again.
And began the hard process of trying to forget what had happened.
But failing that, I lived with it.
I always considered it to be minor. Because worse things happened to people.
We moved out of the area, but no matter where I go, it's always there.
xo
A playlist of my favourite songs can tell you more about me than any words
I can get to stumble out of my mouth.
I grew up with a boyband listening sister who then moved onto listening to RnB.
And logically, you'd half expect having been subjected to that music it'd be the kinda
music I listened to - but it's the only kind of music I don't like.
I shared a room with her for almost all of my childhood - much to my dismay.
I drew a line in the middle of the room, I took her stuff and put it in the bin, made sure
the cigarettes she was hiding were on full display to our parents and ripped her detention slip up
so she'd get into further trouble (she needed it to show at school).
Sisterly love was not something I possessed.
It got progressively worse as we got older, of course.
I agree with nothing she has done so far in her life.
And I think it's fair to say we don't 'talk' it's more like.... flippant commentary.
You know, when someone asks you how you are and you ask them but neither of you
actually give a flying shit? It's like that.
The only thing that ever made any sense to me was music.
I consider it a lifeline.
A surge of panic goes through me when I go out without my ipod.
Listening to music, head down or glancing out the window, making no eye
contact with anyone is how you can normally find me on public transport.
I relate to music the way people relate to friends.
Music is the only thing that's been consistent in my life.
People have come and gone, but music never leaves.
If anything, it keeps on coming back. And multiplying by the week.
There is song for every moment and ever feeling I've ever had.
And that's why I listen to music.
My brother moved out first. Then my sister.
And then there was me.
I moved out twice. And learnt that both of my sister's are dating complete assholes.
Which for the life of me I could not fit an explanation of that into a blog post... it
would end up like the thickness of a bible.
I've lived in England, Wales and Scotland. In motels, B&B's, on a island and on caravan
sites.
And yet, I'm still living with my parents in a flat in a town that I have no attachment to.
I've never had any attachment to any place we've lived.
Nowhere has ever felt like home and it still doesn't.
Therefore, I have no idea where home is. And never really know if I will.
This week, like most weeks really made me realize if there's one thing I suck at
more than anything, it's multitasking.
I cannot focus of doing more than one thing at a time. In the same day.
It's running and come home 3 times a week.
Anything else I have to do on those days is usually done wrong, half-assed or not
at all.
Much to the annoyance of most people involved I imagine.
Media interview 2 was accomplished this week.
It's ten times worse than being in the paper....
Having just got over being in the local paper (which barely made a difference)
I am now beginning to mentally prepare myself for an interview being aired on TV
in the next few weeks.
It's for the local news which is aired to a fair few counties. Sooo it's a much bigger
audience and if this doesn't make a difference than I am officially collapsing into a heap on
the floor.
I kid you not.
I have not agreed to having my face on tv for a laugh...
P.S - I am currently planning on not watching it when it airs. Not at least with everyone
else in the same room.
xo
It turns out when you pledge to run 100 miles for charity you kinda have a lot of work to do...
Training. Planning. Researching races. Paying entry fees. And my least favourite of all, promotion.
Promotion would be relatively easy - by all means it's not 'difficult', just tedious - if talking was
a normal occurrence in my life like it is for everyone else.
You send press releases out knowing quite well there's even a slight chance the phone is gonna ring
or you're gonna have to sit in front of someone sometime soon and talk to them like you actually
know what you're talking about.
I have a habit of feeling like everything I say makes no sense whatsoever. Like, it's all shit.
I'm just talking a bunch of crap basically.
But promotion is over and done with. Flyers are pinned to every ad board I could find.
And I missed the phone call but thankfully did an interview via email
and my face is currently in the paper (...I know right).
I was unfortunate enough to have my face in the paper many times when I was a kid.
She thought it would help me, but she was wrong. Mainly, she wanted exposure for the
condition I had and she wanted more people to be aware and understand better.
But did I really need to be the poster child?
It was my face and her words. And as a child, it didn't add up to me. I didn't
understand. I just went along with it.
She kept all the newspaper cuttings in a kitchen drawer and showed people
now and again.
A few years passed, I hit about 11 and I no longer wanted to play nice.
I hated her from then on, for putting my face out there for the entire country to see.
It had been years of the same bullying, the same moving around, the same switching schools
and the same being misunderstood by everyone. And I just wanted to be better.
As far as I could gather, aged 11, nothing got better by my face being in the paper.
In fact, in the long run it made things worse.
I would walk into school to hear that they'd seen me in the paper.
And my heart would sink to the ground because I didn't want the attention it
brought. The only thing I wanted was for it to be gone. For everything to be normal.
She probably still has the cuttings somewhere.
Not much really changed with her. A few years later she agreed to taking part
in a documentary that I was filmed for but later would not air.
Even up to last year, she still did it.
She, once again, agreed to taking part in a different documentary before
talking to me about it first and before I know it I'm sat in front of a camera.
The whole thing has no logic in it and never has.
So I grew up hating her for that. The papers, the media.
If sitting in dozens of white, clinical, empty rooms as a very young child wasn't
enough. She then made me sit in front of people asking me questions I wouldn't be answering
while they filmed me.
You see what I mean about no logic being involved?
Above all, I spent a hell of a lot of years being bitter and frustrated at her
for putting me in positions I never wanted to be in and making decisions for
me.
If it was down to her she would still be making decisions about my life
and I'd still be not getting any better or moving forward in any way.
I'm still bitter and frustrated. But at different things that aren't entirely her fault, I guess.
I planned my suicide four times, which she's unaware about.
There's been dozens of cuts on my arms, she's never noticed.
I've cried myself to sleep every day for weeks and weeks, she's never known.
A stranger on the internet has literally saved my life with a song
(The Way She Feels - Between The Trees) and yet, she doesn't even know there's
anything wrong.
Our whole relationship is just lost. It's as though it's just floating through the air.
It's not connected to either of us and neither of us are trying to connect it and put it
back together.
It's just... open.
xo
