You Are Terrifying and Strange and Beautiful, Someone Not Everyone Knows How to Love

I know sometimes

It’s still hard to let me see you

In all your cracked perfection,

But please know:

Whether it’s the days you burn more brilliant than the sun

Or the nights you collapse into my lap

Your body broken into a thousand questions,

You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I will love you when you are a still day.

I will love you when you are a hurricane.

- Clementine von Radics

This was all I wanted to hear, what I longed to hear. To be loved despite becoming a hurricane force destroying everything in my path. I had become ugly and frightening and I saw that all etched on his face. Horrifying and volatile, he’d seen something in me usually reserved only for the darkest depths of my own buried mind. He couldn’t love me anymore. To him my illness became me and I could not be extracted from the dark, thick, tar like mess of mania that had smothered me. The lightness and clean love we had known was in the past now, what was left were fragments of a relationship that had been balancing precariously on the edge of sanity. I had fallen, and he didn’t want to follow. I cannot blame him for this, but it hurt to have my safety net wrenched from under me. He was there but not present. There were no gifts, no flowers, no magazines, no letters – no condolence. He was afraid of this nonsensical being I had become. And what was worse, it was him that I’d run to.

He heard the strangest things fall from my lips, they hung in the air between us, little clouds of poison polluting the normality we’d known. It would never be the same after this, I’d disturbed him. My peculiar utterances shook rid the logical, sweet girl he’d known and I became a kind of mystery you don’t want to unravel. There was a Jekyll and Hyde monstrous moment, and the revelation that there was another version of my being that was unassembled and dishevelled shook us both. However, I knew myself, what I truly believed and why I behaved the way I did. Although the actions I displayed seemed erratic and chaotic, to me they strung together like little mismatched remnants haphazardly forming some kind of togetherness. They were an integral part of my being. He didn’t know this, and I couldn’t explain it to him. There is only one love I deigned to disclose the inner workings of my distorted head to, and she smiled and nodded kindly as I unfolded these wistful and grave ideas and laid them at her feet. I didn’t have that affinity with him. I’d lost him. We didn’t speak about what had occurred, and the silence engulfed us. I told him I felt lonely once and he asked, why, was I not with my mother? As if the simplicity of being alongside someone so familiar could cure the ache of losing my mind. No, I was not with her. I felt lonely because I was alone. 

I Hope That the World in Which You Find Yourself is Better Than The One You Leave Behind

I don't really know where to start with this post, but I guess a good place to start is to let y'all know I'm okay - genuinely, I am alright! Although it's been a whirlwind few weeks and my memory of certain parts is hazy,but I now feel content and calm. Being in hospital with 17 other people you don't know isn't always easy (imagine halls/big brother but with everyone dealing with a lotta lotta issues) but I'm fortunate enough to have met some extraordinary people here. When I was first admitted to the ward I was incredibly confused, and quickly tried to carve an order of semblance into my chaotic life. I lined up my make-up on the mottled green bathroom side in the order in which I would apply it to my face, as opposed to delving into my make-up bag like a lucky dip. I drank untold amounts of builders tea, which I don't even like! Somewhat more embarrassingly I also instagrammed the shit of my weird life. As the lucid moments passed I was left with the sometimes devastating remnants of a psychotic episode. Each time this occurs in my life it is although the world I have become a part of is destroyed (hence the blog title, taken from 'Curve of The Earth' - Mystery Jets new album which is BEAUTIFUL) and I have to piece a new one back together from the shattered remains of the last, with improvements and alterations.

 I read somewhere that predictability is the cousin of death. My life had become mildly mundane, but I loved it. I had time during my commute to read and message friends, my job bought me enormous joy and at the end of the day I'd swim or see friends. This,it seems, was not quite good enough for my wild head. This is my third initial hospital admission - lucky number eh! I know what I'm leaving behind this time, and what I'll be taking with me. I'm often guilty of trying to make things 'nice', cuter and more appealing in general. No more. I'll still be using my panda highlighters on a regular basis but trying to make you look like a better human isn't my responsibility anymore. I've done some horrible, nasty, spiteful things - and I'm fine with that, I can live with myself. I done them for a reason. I cannot take them back, nor would I want to. I am not afraid of the darkness I embody, I like this intrinsic element of life and the way I still surprise myself by not always being pleasant and kind. In no way am I saying I'm going to become a foul person and start joyriding in my grandma's car, but I won't be trying so hard to make excuses for you being a bit of a !@#$%^&* person anymore.

I met a kind man this admission. He was younger, and cute, and has an alliterated name so I knew immediately he was brilliant. He calmed me down, made me tea (more tea!) spoke his secrets to me and stroked my hair as I read. He saw my worst and at no point was afraid of my mania, my incoherent ramblings and erratic energy. He didn't look away. He enveloped it and soothed me, and for that I will never forget HH.

It was the briefest of moments in which our worlds collided, however he made me feel truly safe. One particularly frustrating day I was running up and down the corridor (12 bedrooms, it's a fair length for laps) and he stepped out of his bedroom into the line of fire. 'MOVE!!' I hollered at him, laughing. He grinned and held his arms open and I quite literally ran and jumped into them, Ryan Gosling Rachel McAdams Notebook style! He was a slight thing but he caught me like it was the easiest thing he had ever done. He kissed my cheek and told me he would always catch me - what a cutie right?! This incredibly short, sweet encounter (he got kicked out after about a week of me knowing him) taught me a great deal, making me realise what I need in my life and what I need to let go of. By nature I'm a fairly nostalgic person, however I think it's been slowly damaging me constantly looking to the past. I've been harboring a love that's dead, and I think I'm finally over it.

That story is one of many I've collated this admission. One morning, just after coming out of my episode I rose early, before sunrise and made a tea (MORE TEA!). I stood at the meshed patio door to the bleakest courtyard I've ever seen, pressed my forehead against the cool metal and cried. The tallest girl I've ever met, a fellow patient, came and stood next to me. I whispered, more to myself than her, 'how am I ever going to get out of here?' The simple beauty of her answer will stay with me forever - 'Hope' she replied, 'your password is Hope.' That moment of clarity is made even more precious by the fact that she didn't speak to me again for a week or so. Her words struck me and I remembered the importance of possibilities, and the hope for the unknown being exciting rather than terrifying.

After that morning things became easier. I sleep late now, read poems, drink Vanilla Redbush (tea I actually like) with my friend and enjoy the nothingness of being here. Whatever becomes of my life, whether I'm in a dead end retail job, a relationship that isn't quite right or, worse case scenario, am detained under the Mental Health Act, I will not cease being wildly optimistic - it's just not in my nature.

Peace, Love and Vanilla Redbush to y'all, thanks for reading! xxx  

Do You Think Anyone Listens To a Girl Like You? You're Nothing In The World...

The first time I saw Suffragette I went with Mother McKenzie. As we walked into the cinema she turned to me and asked, “I wonder if there’ll be any men in there?” Bemused, I replied “why wouldn’t there be?” It hadn’t occurred to me that a film featuring women, about women and made by women wouldn’t interest men. My mum was partially right; as we walked into the sold out screening the men were scattered gingerly amongst an ocean of women. However, this still didn’t seem abnormal to me – I felt immense happiness that a film based upon such an important part of our history drew so many to see it, proving wrong the people who said for so long that it wasn’t worth making, as it wouldn’t make any money.  And so we settled down with our Five Guys (my first, amazing) and watched Maud’s story unfold. I cried numerous times and when it ended I really, really didn’t want it to. Excitedly I turned to muma ready to discuss how stupendous the suffragettes were, how grateful I was for how they changed the future for us and just generally how brilliant the film was. “So, what did you think?!” She looked at me and pulled a face – “bit slow wasn’t it?” she responded.  I was crushed! Her so-so reaction instantly changed my perception of the movie – was it terrible? Was I just being over emotional? Was Helena Bonham Carter really that annoying?!

I wanted to know I hadn’t been wrong about Suffragette so went and saw it again the following evening with an ever so lovely friend. I snuck furtive glances at her during pivotal moments of the film and it’ll be the only time I was relieved to see her cry. I knew I hadn’t been wrong about Suffragette – it is an important movie and you should go to see it, be you male or female.  Maud repeats through the film, ‘I’m not a suffragette’ in the same manner that women around me utter ‘I’m not a feminist.’ Feminism, in it’s purest form, by definition, is advocating rights of women equal to those of men. We are worth no more, no less than our male counterparts yet there is a disparaging attitude in our society towards being a feminist. So rather than me explain again why I’m a feminist, let me use these instances to ask you why you’re not...

There was a teeny girl recently who was left needing stitches because a boy in her nursery hit her face so hard. Upon arriving at hospital an absent minded hospital worker told her, ‘he must like you’ – such a simple explanation for such inexplicable behaviour. At just four years old this girl had to not only try to comprehend  that she’d been hurt by another person, but also that this violence was actually a form of affection.  It’s an old myth that if a boy pushes you over in the playground it’s because he ‘likes’ you, but what is that teaching a young generation of girls? That you should be flattered if you get hurt by someone? That it’s acceptable or even desirable to have pain deliberately inflicted on you by another person? It doesn’t seem appropriate to telling young people this myth anymore – it excuses violent behaviour, trivialises it and even makes it endearing. If females (or males for that matter) have the idea that you’re being hurt because someone ‘likes’ you, what happens when you become the victim of assault later in life? It’s your fault because you’re just  so cute your aggressor just couldn’t help flattering you with a black eye – no, that doesn’t sound right to me either.

You may have already heard of a girl called Emma Sulkowicz, a Columbia student who carried her dorm (university to us English folk) room mattress on her back to protest the school’s failure to expel her alleged rapist. She carried this mattress around for months, even taking it to her graduation ceremony to ensure her school would have to acknowledge what happened to her.  She entitled her mattress carrying stint as Mattress Performance: Carry that Weight – representative of the burden that accompanies being a victim of abuse. While researching for this piece I read an article written by the NY times about how the accused male felt the mattress project was ‘not an act of free expression, it is an act of bullying, a very public, very personal and very painful attack.’ The accused male had three separate charges against him by three women; when the women heard about one another’s experiences they decided to support each other and file complaints (which the NY times makes it sound although they were sitting around gossiping and ‘colluded’ against him).  There was a groping case, which was initially decided against him, but he appealed. When the case was heard again the accuser was unable to participate in the process as she had graduated therefore the decision was overturned. The second accuser became exhausted by the barrage of questions and discontinued her case. Finally, in Miss Sulkowicz’s case there was not enough evidence, and her request for an appeal was denied. Why was the male’s decision to appeal his verdict granted, yet Miss Sulkowicz’s was not? Even during the trial these women were made to feel inadequate, harassed, or silenced.

‘Everyday Sexism’ is one of the most compelling cases that change is needed in societies across the world. The concept behind Everyday Sexism is that it gives women the space to speak about their experiences - however small, however severe and validate that we can complain about these incidents as they are unacceptable.  Laura Bates took thousands of stories that women submitted to her and compiled them into book format for what (I find) is a heavy, shocking and often harrowing read. There are chapters, ‘Women in Public Spaces,’ ‘Girls’ and ‘What About the Men?’ to name a few. ‘There are times I wish I wasn’t female because I’m fed up of being scared of walking down the street on my own’ is one entry. ‘I was 12 and a guy in a car followed me, saying he wanted to fuck me’ is another. One from the workplace reads ‘A HR manager told me on our first day “If you are going to report sexual harassment, first think about what you were wearing that day.”’ The point of this book isn’t to shame men, rather to help them understand the structure of patriarchy and how what may be an offhand comment to them may be humiliating and shameful for us.

Take that attitudee somewhere else pal

 The struggle to get the vote was a shockingly short time ago; a hundred years ago we were second class citizens. Although much has changed in the years since, we do still have a way to go. I want my grand-daughters to be shocked that there weren’t better support systems for the victims of sexual assault, I want them to think cat-calling is a ridiculous concept and I want them to earn as much as their brothers – I want them to look back on the things that we struggle with now and never have had to experience them because a hundred years from now our society will have developed.*

*I realise the problems I've highlighted are relative to the UK; feminism means something different in England, Ireland and India, each location facing it's own issues. Most of the negative feedback I’ve seen about Suffragette is that it represents a singular view of white women and does not encompass the lives of marginalized women worldwide. This may be true to some element, but that doesn’t take away from this film being an important representation of what happened in England during the nineteenth century. If it gets more people talking about women’s rights not only then but also of the present time, in my eyes that is a very positive thing.