Older, but definitely not wiser.

I did something today I never thought I’d do. Maybe I need the validation, maybe I need the sex. Maybe I need to know someone still actually wants me because I know, from where I’m standing, I’m unwantable.

I’m undesirable, a bore. Someone that doesn’t warrant or deserve love. I don’t even deserve sex. So I did what I swore I’d never do and texted an old fuck buddy.

Our last liaison was not so successful. After being cancelled on so many times, something to which I’m no stranger to, I decided that I couldn’t do it anymore. Not because of the sex. The sex was fun. It was adventurous, and made me feel good. But the fact I’d change my plans for him so many times and he’d let me down, I couldn’t handle the disappointment anymore. Not just once or twice. But nearly a whole summers worth. How we met that night was a fucking miracle in itself.

I know why I did it. You do strange things when you’re depressed. Trying to convince yourself that someone actually cares, when deep down, you know they actually don’t. Maybe I need to be fucked to get the demons out. To feel like I’m actually still a woman and not some freak. Not some experiment gone wrong.

Sex and depression aren’t easy. You want sex because you crave the touch of someone, but you’re so depressed you can’t imagine anyone wanting to actually be near you, let alone fuck you. When you’re actually in the mood and you find someone who you actually want to fuck, and fuck hard, all the cares and worries disappear and all there is, is you and them. Nothing else. No anxiety, no pain or hurt. Just two people, fucking each others brains out in a hot sweaty mess. But if you’re whacked out on antidepressants, chances are, you can’t do fuck all anyway.

I’ve been on and off antidepressants for nearly 3 months, and it’s really fucking hard. Trying to get through some days unmedicated is the hardest thing I’ve done. Especially the days when all I want to do is jump off a building . Let me tell you how tiring it is, trying to be happy. Trying to get through each day without wanting to die. It’s beyond exhausting. Sometimes knowing you can end it all is the only relief you get because you know the pain will end soon.

It’s a vicious circle. I stay off my meds because I want sex. But I don’t get any because the one man I’ve fancied in a long time, probably (and with good reason, because I’m a fuck up) hates my guts. So, get medicated. Because the pain of being hated is worse than wanting sex. Realising that man, doesn’t care, doesn’t want you anymore, maybe doesn’t even want to be friend. It’s soul destroying. But I still care. Always will. I can’t turn how I feel off like a tap.

So, go on the meds. But then, you don’t feel like having sex, because everything is numb. From your brain to your arse, you feel nothing. Although the pain of not being wanted is still there. That’s not numb yet. So keep taking the pills. And then in a moment of madness, get drunk and text your old fuck buddy, the one you thought you’d deleted. Wow what a plan. I’m really on the road to recovery here.

Who knows what’s next. A chance trip to meet up with someone who doesn’t even know how my age yet. And he’s somewhat younger. Imagine the shock when he realises I’m old. Maybe it’s time I became a slut again. Maybe get back to my hedonistic days of doing who I want, when I want and not caring about anyone. That seems to be the plan. Caring gets in the way. Gets you hurt. Especially when they don’t care back. Maybe just take whatever I can get and be done with it. Who knows if I’ll even meet up with old fuck buddy. Probably not. I never fucking learn.

@specsygurl

A freak like me: a rant.

My least favourite subject discussed today in counselling: my birthmark. The one defining feature that I can never shed. Never hide, never cover, never rid myself of. And yet as much as I protest to other people that I’d never cover it up to appease those who cringe at the sight of it, there are more times now than ever I wish, like a hideous halloween mask, that I could take it off and disappear into the background.

Everyone has an opinion on it. Oh you should do this, oh I’d do this if I was you. No. No, you don’t fucking get to tell me what you’d do or what I should I do until you’ve lived in my skin for at least a week. You don’t get to tell me shit because you’ve never known the humiliation of being pointed at because you look different. Because you don’t fit society’s ideas of what’s acceptably normal beauty wise. And don’t fucking tell me, beauty isn’t everything when you blatantly favour beautiful women over what society would term a plain normal, average woman.

Society will drag you into it’s ideals and tell you what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Then tell you, beauty is within! Embrace your inner beauty. What a confusing contradiction. Fuck society. And fuck anyone who thinks it’s their opinion to tell me it’s what’s inside that counts. It isn’t.

I’m not denying for any moment that someone with undeniable beauty hasn’t worked their arse off to get far in life. But those with less than aesthetically pleasing looks, have had to work even fucking harder. We’ve had to prove our worth in more ways than a pleasant smile or dazzling eyes. We’ve been the ones judged on what we can or can’t bring to the table because our looks won’t get us anywhere. Every person I’ve met that doesn’t or can’t relate in anyway to what it’s like to be judged because of a facial difference will never ever understand. Try as you might to pretend, until someone asks you why you look how you do, asks personal questions about your love life, your intimate details, questions whether or not you deserve to have a place in society, then you’ll never ever be able empathise with anyone who doesn’t conform to normal.

The last meeting I went to for my support group, a young girl with a birthmark brought the subject up of how people, particularly strangers, feel it’s ok to point out that yes, you have a birthmark. To completely change the subject because they feel the need to have their curiosity answered. Their desire to have their own needs met, far outweigh the need to have my autonomy and my feelings intact. Never mind the fact that this is the one topic that anyone with anything remotely different in their appearance has to deal with and answer everyday; no, as long as that persons’ curious need is fulfilled then fuck my feelings. And I’m expected to apologise if I come across as rude because I’m having a particularly shitty day and I don’t feel like discussing the red mark that covers pretty much most of face and body. WELL HOW FUCKING RUDE OF ME. HOW FUCKING DARE I NOT FEEL LIKE DISCUSSING THIS ONE THING THAT EVERYBODY ALWAYS FEELS ITS THEIR RIGHT TO ASK ME ABOUT.

I get that people are intrigued, I do. But sometimes the way people ask. Like I don’t have any feelings at all. Parents are the worst, hushing their kids up. Kids ask because they’re born without the prejudice that we inherit and build as we get old older. They’ll ask in such a way, as soon as you tell them, they accept it and move on. Why can’t adults be like that with pretty much 99% of the shit and prejudice that being different in this world presents.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been put on this earth purely to be a freak. To be something stared at from afar and up close. To be an exhibit in the museum of ugliness. Just so that ordinary people’s love of the grotesque is sated. I don’t deserve to be loved or have any right to be desired. I simply exist to satisfy the needs of the morbidly obsessed.

Let me tell you how fucking tiring it is to be me sometimes. Or for anyone with a facial difference, or anything that singles them out. To have to put on my cheery birthmark face, because after all ‘it’s what’s inside that counts!’ It’s fucking exhausting. Pretending to be the ‘poster girl’ for birthmarked people. Not allowed to be known as simply, my name. No, I’m just the girl with a birthmark. That’s the only role, the only definition I’m allowed. I’m getting really fucking tired of it.

Never mind the fact that quite often I’m dying inside, I don’t always want to talk about how I look. And I don’t want fucking sympathy or pity. Sympathy is even worse. The pitied cries of ‘oh you’re so brave! To have your face and still you leave the house every day. I couldn’t do it it I looked like you.’ That there. Why don’t you just fucking kill me now if you think I look that horrendous, that YOU wouldn’t want to wake up everyday and have to have to face the world.

To be honest, most of the time, I don’t give a flying fuck what most people of how I look. Aside from the fact it’s other people’s business what their opinion is, at the same time, I don’t want to know it. I’ll still get out of bed and try and live the best life I can because deep down, I know I’m pretty lucky. So I don’t ever want pity. I certainly don’t want your fucking sympathy bullshit. I want acceptance. But I’ll never get it. Not in this world, not with this society where you can get more likes on social media for putting a profile pic with a filter than you can for putting an untouched photo of something raw and real. People don’t want reality, they don’t want to see different. They want normal, they want beautiful. And I don’t fit that criteria. I never have, never will. I don’t fit in.

So, this is my face. And I don’t fucking care if you think I’m ugly.

@specsygurl

Big mouth strikes again

I ruined perhaps one of the best friendships I’ve ever had. Because I can’t keep my mouth shut. You’d think after 40 years I’d realise but no, jealousy got the better of me and I had to put my foot in it. And now, here I am, wondering if life will ever be the same.

It probably won’t, so it’s up to me now to try and make the best of a bad situation. I fucked up and didn’t get the job I wanted, and now all I can think about is how to get through the next week without succumbing to the inevitable. The thoughts in my brain that tell me I’m useless, and I’m better off not being here. It’s hard fighting them when you’re alone, and everything points to them being right.

Even heavily medicated, I still know they’re right. I might not know what time of the day it is but I know deep down, my life is a big mess. I’m not sure how to shift it, how to clear this fog around my head that tells me I’m useless.

For now, sleep. Sleep is all I can do. To keep me out of trouble, to keep me going from one day to the next. Until I figure out what life is meant for. Sleep.

The old demons return…

Urgh, the things you’ll do to get through the day sometimes. Those days when you’ve fucked up, when everything is out of your control. And you can’t see the light through the dense fog that clouds your own mind. Nothing goes your way and all you hear is that voice in your head that you try so hard everyday to block out.

That voice that tell you, you’re useless, you’re fat, you’re a freak, you’re ugly, you’re worthless. All the hard work in building yourself up, just comes tumbling down in an instant. Like watching a building implode with dynamite: thats your self esteem. That’s those demons in your head telling you, don’t get your hopes up that you’re anything other than below average. Everything you’ve done, all the hard work at this point, reduced to debris around you.

And all I can do is walk. Walk so far, for so long, that I don’t know where I am. Because thats what the voices tell me to do. Walk. Walk to that bridge, walk to that train station. And all that stops you when you’re standing on that platform waiting for the next fast train to come rushing through is that you don’t want to fuck up someone elses life while you’re in the process of ending yours. Until someone is standing on that platform, or hovering by the edge of that bridge, I don’t they will ever fully understand how exhausting it is to have a mental illness. To just want the noise in your mind to be over.

I guess this is something I should know by now. It’s not like it’s the first time. Or the last. But you wonder sometimes, how much longer will I keep going? How can I keep finding the strength to live when the lows hit so often? When will I actually get better? Despite everything. Despite all the heartache, the rejection, the knockbacks.

My counsellor says I’m stronger than I think, but I don’t know anymore. All I know is I want to be happy. I want to silence that voice in my head. The one that rears when I’m in the deep of a low episode. The one that tells me that I’m better off not being here. The one that makes me want to get so drunk, just so I can sleep. Block everything out and not be awake. So I do, and eventually the numbness wears off and I wake up. But even if it’s just an hour, I get some sleep. I’m well aware that my demons won’t be fought with a bottle of vodka, they won’t be silenced by a walk or even a run. When I stop, and the silence of being still hits, they’re still there. And I don’t know anymore how to turn them down.

@specsygurl