So among many things when I first left adelaide, when I first got sick I put on alot of weight.

I mean, ALOT.

20kgs in a year to be exact.

Im not really sure why, if anything I ate less than i normally would, but bottom line is ive had that weight stuck to me ever since.

In all honesty it doesn't bother me that much, only when certain people point it out like its something i should be bothered about. And really i didn't think it all that bad in my heart of hearts. 

But society and bullies and all that silly stuff wore on me a bit and my small self esteem.

So Im finally at a point i can get rid of it properly.

But its really hard cause i really love food. especially bad food.

two weeks in and i drew this:

But perhaps if i tell the internet about it, it will be more incentive to stick at it.

Wish me luck.

DIETS ARE HARD.

Goodbye Barma

I have trouble speaking my words, but writing them has always come easily to me.

And oh, I need to write. I need to get this out, the only way I can right now.

Im sorry, but my baby is gone and I am suffocating.

It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon. It’s been so cold lately, I was so happy for the sun.

I woke up with Barma under the blankets at the end of my bed, hes so fluffy and warm and sometimes he licks my toes. I look to the end of my bed and whisper “Barma’ and he pops his little head up out of the blankets and looks at me for a full ten seconds before flopping his head back down and sighing. 

Myrtle (the name I gave that damn black fog in my head) has been very loud, very loud lately. I had spent most of Saturday morning crying in my bed for no good reason, just because I was so full to the brim with those devastating feelings that had no face or form I could discern. No rhyme or reason. Barma wiggled his way to the top of my bed and he'd lick my tears and I'd laugh because it was hella gross, but that would kick me out of my moods.

It was cold this morning though, so I put on his sheep skin jacket. It was his favourite. And he just looked so damn cute in it.

Alisha stayed home because she wasn’t feeling well and I was glad because Barma wouldn’t be alone. He hated being alone. Didn't stop him from trying to follow me out the door though, like he always does.

We went to church, and it was a good day. I was proud of myself for making it through the day, because it was well worth it. We were late getting home though. I keep thinking had we got home a little sooner, maybe we would have found him before ...

He wasn’t there when we got home. He didn't greet us at the door in an excited haze like he usually did. But this wasn’t unusual, he had this weird super power to somehow escape the back yard. I built the fence higher, I plugged the holes and put tin where he tried to dig. But somehow he’d get out. His separation anxiety was a violent thing. But he only tried to get out when he was alone though so Im still confused why he left when someone was still home.

We went for a drive to find him and we couldn't, and a little panic set in, deep in my belly. After checking all the usual places we finally checked home again and I checked my phone. I had a missed call.

The missed call was from a lady, she said she had Barma and then what she said next stopped my heart. He’d been hit by a car. She was bringing him home. I tried to call her to find out how bad he was, find out where she was. Because I knew if I could just get to him it would be okay. We got through things he and I. We always did.

We got home, I could see Mums silhouette in the window rocking Barma back and forth. Dad greeted us at the door.

‘He came home?’ I said

Dad shook his head.

‘How bad is he?’

Dad shook his head again.

‘Worse’ was all he said.

‘How can he be worse? ‘ I said

‘Hes dead Bek. Hes gone. That lady just found his body and brought him home.’

It was like being hit by a train.

I ... I don't have enough of the right words... I am always so full of words but right now they abandon me. I don't cry proper, I'm not the kind of person who screams or shouts or explodes in any way. I’m very implosive kind of person which is largely to blame for the appearance of Myrtle. But its like those words held the power to make me suddenly combust and combust I did. Dad was choking out I'm sorry and I think he tried to hug me but all that existed was my boy, and me and this terrible, terrible sound.
If I could just get to him it would be okay. I could fix him. We'd get through this . We always did.

Mum was cradling him and I started noticing the world enough to realise the horrible screeching and wailing was coming from me. I felt like I was going to be sick and my vision tunnelled when I saw him there. I clung to him, he was still warm and soft, his eyes were wide open and it looked like he was awake. But it was wrong, he wasn’t awake. And I could hear myself unleashing that awful sound again. I called for him to come back. I couldn't stop myself. It's like I was watching from outside of me, watching me on the ground, rocking my lost boy, screaming. I remember being scared of me, from that weird disconnected vantage point. I remember shouting at Dad to 'Bring him back! Bless him! Bring him back!'. And then I started to pray and pray and pray. I could do it, I can bring him back. And I willed it over and over, because he looked so alive still, he was still warm, his heart couldn't have been stopped for very long, I was certain his life was still within my grasp and I willed every power I had to pull him back, to come back, and I was raving over and over 'bring him back, bring him back'. I was making bargains with Heavenly Father, "use my faith" I said. "GIVE HIM BACK".

Somewhere in the midst of everything crumbling, a loving small voice said he wasn’t supposed to come back. His time was up and he was where he needed to be. His work was over.

I was too far gone to do anything but scream back at it.

You killed him! You killed him! You took my boy from me!
And I was lost. I don't remember what happened, just that time must have passed because the colors were different when I came back and Myrtle was there to greet me.

She whispered that it was my fault. "If you had of tied him up or checked the fences more carefully, if you had of walked with him more, if you had got home sooner, if you had gotten him desexed sooner none of this would have happened. You killed him. You did this. He is dead because of you, you lazy selfish stupid..." and on she went.

And part of me still believes that. Part of me knows I could have prevented this had I been more diligent.

The other, larger part of me knows that most of this was out of my control and that Barma did this, he had something broken in him that no one could fix, and he made his choice and that no matter what Myrtle said to me, there was nothing I, or anyone could have done.

Fury held hands with my shocked grief and I was mad at the people who killed him and left him there to die on the road.

Eventually, my explosion turned inward and the agony raged inside instead of outside. That awful sound I was making stopped and everything went quiet. I stopped praying because I knew he was gone and HF wasn’t giving him back. I turned my back on heaven in my pain.
I lay beside Barma on the floor, just stroking his fur and smelling his smell and pretending like it was just us napping on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But I like to be doing things when I feel out of control. So I changed and got his things ready. I wrapped him in his blanket just as he started to go cold and we walked out through our sunny green yard to Chucks grave. Dad and Jonny had dug a hole next to Chuckie. I let Dad put him in the earth, because I knew I wouldn’t get back up again if I did it. I was floored. I was floating between feeling and not feeling, letting tears and stray sobs form in fits and bursts. I had no words, yet was so full of them but I had no energy or will to say them. We put him to rest with his favourite toys.

Part of me still wants to rush back up there because I swear he's still alive if I had just prayed harder or made Dad bless him he'd come back. I feel like I buried him alive, because he looked no different, just like sleeping, but his eyes were wide open. We couldn't close them.

Its been half an hour since then, but I just had to write. I had to do something because if I stop the grief is so overpowering. I've had loss before, and I know what its like. This isn’t new to me. Yet is is, because he was mine and I was his. He saved me and whenever I was blessed enough to imagine a future for myself he was in it. I imagined him being there at my wedding and I was halfway finished with making him a tux. (I liked to make him costumes because he was so damn cute). He would be an old dog once I had my own babies and he would watch over them. No matter where I tried to imagine myself he was always there. It was us against the world and I knew no matter where I would go in this life, if he was with me the darkness wouldn’t take me. My light in the darkness, the beacon in the storm.

That dog saved my life. In my darkest hour he was there to pull me back from the brink. He was who God put in place to stop me destroying myself because he knew me and knew that no person could. Barma loved me unconditionally, didn’t punish me for my mistakes and flaws. He didn't see me as different or sick or broken.

Barma came into our family before we were ready for him. We were mourning Chuckie still and he came too soon. He peed everywhere haha and was a source of both happiness and contention in my family. 

However, to me, he came at just the right time and I didn’t even know it. He was Leia’s dog, but she was still hurting too much from Chuckie's sudden departure and Barma was so different from Chuckie, alot more to handle for a little guy, and we didnt know what we were doing, didn't know about socialisation and that getting given him at such a young age was too soon to be away from his Mum and brothers and sisters. He developed terrible anxieties and 'cheeky' is a kind way to put some of his behaviours developed as a result of being taken from his family too soon. So his first few months of life were messed up and rocky. We didn't get along so well in the beginning, I was too messed up to do much of anything. Then he was hit by a car when he was four months old (trust me the irony of his death is not lost on me) accidentally by carelessness on our part and the carelessness of the driver in our driveway and he had a broken leg as a result. I remember coming home to everyone shouting at each other, I dont know where I was before that, but i remember coming home and just seeing him, his big eyes, wet from the rain, looking up at me and it was the first thing that kind of kicked me out of my head. Ive never spoken to my parents like that, I shouted at them in fact, telling them to stop going around in circles with blame and that Barma needed help. He needed an operation and his recovery took a while. Everyone had school and stuff except me, the insane one, so it was just me and him alot of the time after that. And that's where we made our bond. I'd sit by his basket while he lay there with his broken leg before and after surgery. And then he'd sit with me at sleep at my feet when I was up late painting.

I fixed the damaged that had been done to him in his heart and made him a better pet. At the same time he fixed me. He was always there and I felt braver and more wanted and needed than anywhere else when he was with me. When night terrors, panic attacks and insomnia hours plagued me he was always there when I woke up and he would soothe my fears and bring me back to reality. He was ever patient with my recovery. When Id want to hurt myself he'd get in my way so it was impossible to do so. I'd be mad in my pain at first but eventually I'd end up laughing at him and I don't know how many times he saved me.

Recently, we just taught him to dance. We would jump up and down around him and he'd hop up and down on his back legs and pump his front paws in the air. He was incredibly smart, smartest dog I've ever met. We never deserved him. He was even smarter than us at times.

The amount of adventures we had on the endless days I spent alone and sad kept me going. He was so full of light he kept mine burning.

I don’t know why this happened now. I don’t know why I wasn’t allowed to see him grow old as my life progressed and eventually give him back to HF after he'd lived a long and happy life. I don’t know why he was taken from me.

I don’t know what to do now in the days that will follow. I've lost a part of me that gave me so much life and now I feel like its been torn away and I'm in darkness still looking for him.

This is not fair. This is not okay.

I don’t know when it will, if ever, be okay. I don’t know how to let him go and move on from this.

This isn’t real.

This isn’t real.

Barma saved me. 

I don’t know how ... I don't know whats going to happen. Whats going to happen to me? Come back. I cant do this without him. My world has lost a light. I don’t know what to do. Give him back. He's my baby, my heart and soul, my rock. What am I without him?

I know hes running happily somewhere, with wind in his hair, and earth below his feet like he loves.
I just wish it were here.

All Shall Fade

2014 has rolled around.

I decided this year is the year Im going to take back my life, and I know its going to be really tough but Im excited all the same. 

Relapse, high, relapse, high, relapse, high. Cycle, cycle. 

Im excited for this New Year and all the possibilities it holds. I can do ANYTHING I WANT!! :D! I can BE whatever I want!!  - Me, February 2013

I...
I tried. I tried really really hard. I did my best.

'not good enough'
'you didnt try hard enough.'
'youre pathetic'

2013, I took up school again. I studied a Bachelor of Modern Languages. This decision was based on 'i liked languages once. i bet this is the path for me. Lets be a linguist'.
The first semester comes and goes. Pressure for assignments mount.

'youre not working hard enough'
'why aren't you studying. its not that hard, this is easy to understand, why don't you get it like everyone else?'
'stupid lazy girl, GET. UP.'

words mash together and distort on the page. i cannot focus on sentences.
so i use flash cards.

memory memory, 
why don't you remember?
its easy, so easy, the people you practice with remember, why don't you?
what the hell is wrong with you?

the first exam goes by. i turn up 3 days early for it, because i mixed up the days.
When i finally get through it on the right day and get my results- all my hard work boiled down to 52/100. I passed by 2 points. My lowest academic score ever.

Second semester. I struggle. I fail. I'm forced to drop out.

'pathetic'
'you never finish what you start'
'you're a nobody again, you're nothing'
'you're a dead-end kind of person'
'worthless'
'failure'

So i try to get into the work force. But nobody wants a 21 year old with no qualifications or experience. The rejection letters and emails pile up.

'you're terrible at this.'
'nobody wants you'
'good for nothing'
'why are you even applying for that job? you'll never get it'
'see? just give up'
'end it. now.'
'you're a disappointment'

Suddenly, its 'HAPPY NEW YEAR!'. Everyone reflects. The patches of memory i can recall are only a string of failures.

Surely there's more than that? 
Surely something more happened. I know something did... i know it did... 
why isn't it there? 

the thing is... with time everything fades.
my daily battle is my memory.
i wake up tired. i put on all the weight i lost in 2013 and then some.
i dont dream. i have no ideas.
i dont feel. Social interactions is this constant exhausting dialog in my head.

'oh shes telling me shes engaged. thats good news so smile'
'now shes talking about trouble with wedding organising. bad. quick, frown and nod in agreement'
'the baby is doing something, quick copy the 'awws''
'they got ripped off at the store, i should be angry, act appropriately outraged'

I struggle to feel anything apart from the bad stuff. its either nothing or extreme sadness, extreme elation or extreme anger.
Im getting good at normalcy though-well i think i am. I know im getting better despite everything.

I also know people are dying. I know war is happening, famine and much worse things than what im going through.
It doesnt change how i feel though. It doesnt change that this... thing... in my brain is the hardest and most crippling thing ive ever faced.

im so sad. im so so so sad.

i guess im still mourning the loss of my future i worked so hard for. I am guilty of asking 'why? why now? why did you do this to me. I did everything right, i did what you asked me to do. why, why did you take what was so precious to me away? why freeze me in this hell while everyone else gets blessed and moves on with their lives?! this isnt fair, why are you punishing me so.. what did i do...'

I am at war within myself.

The good things I have keep me alive. I have a dog, who gives me purpose when the dark doesn't consume. I have a family, who i know loves me, (though i feel nothing as a result of this weird no feelings thing, everything is logical conclusions) and a calling which brings me points of light in grey and shapeless days. I'm grateful my body is getting stronger despite still being so tired and weak, I'm definately stronger and I can go for longer and longer each time.

But this is the pits.

I don't have anything to say most of the time to people so i've been working on trying to figure out how to small talk and well.. talk... again. Its so hard to say what you mean though, i mess up my words a lot.
I still don't know what is real and what is not. Like people judging me and other anxieties- i don't know whats just in my head and what is real. At the same time as me wanting to be remembered and included and not left behind as everyone moves on with their lives- i simultaneously want no one to talk to me or come near me. hugs? skype chats? out of the question.

I guess its fair to say i'm a pretty messed up piece of crap and a pretty terrible human being right now.

Im getting better though. with no hope on my horizons, its my small miracle that I'm getting better at all.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Amoung New Years resoultions such as: more excercise, lose weight, and doing that thing that I never do every year I promise to do it...  I made a seemingly simple resolution that Im quite proud to have accomplished.

Yes.

I am going to write an entire blog post on the sole act of reading a novel.

Depression takes alot from you and also, strangely, gives back to you in weird unrecognizable ways. Like all trials do I guess.

I used to LOVE to read. Id chew up books like Id eat dinner after a fast Sunday! I loved all stories and words. I thought some of the most beautiful things Id ever see in this world came from the images conjoured up from the pages of a book. I even seriously considered becoming a Librarian at one point :).

But depression took away some very core parts of me. Amoung casualties are that journal writing doesnt happen anymore. Drawing/painting things just for me, not for someone else, doesnt happen anymore. And reading for pleasure doesnt happen anymore.

They tell me it will all come back in time and that my brain is still recovering and re-activating and my body is still correcting all the imbalances but as Ive said before, Im VERY impatient. And I feel like Im some kind of war veteran with missing limbs you know?? Its weird living without these parts of me that brought me so much joy in the past.

Ive tried to do it all again, to read, to paint for myself and to write in my journal. All can be started...but its like beating my head against a brick wall!! And its frustrating!!! It came so easily to me before, it was as easy as breathing but now its like... Im trying to pull a massive boulder up a mountain!!

Relapse, high, relapse, high, relapse, high. Cycle, cycle.

In highs, I attempt to reclaim what Ive lost. In the relapses... I WANT to so badly, I want to create, I want to achieve... but forming sentences to explain how I feel or trying to remember what I had for breakfast is like a stuttery mess. Mind just goes bonkers and nothing looks normal and the world is my enemy.

Im on a high right now, and I hope this one lasts :). Im excited for this New Year and all the possibilities it holds. I can do ANYTHING I WANT!! :D! I can BE whatever I want!! 

I decided this year is the year Im going to take back my life, and I know its going to be really tough but Im excited all the same.

While Im feeling good and thinking straight, Ive applied for Uni in studying French and Film and Media :). Im really excited about this. Its going to be really hard but Ive decided to love and cherish every minute of it. 

And.... Back to the subject.... :P

Ive begun to reclaim my ability to read and focus and remember what Im reading!!!

I read this book. And it was amazing. 

Even though it was slow-going and I had to re-read almost every paragrah a few times before I could focus on the words and remember... It felt really good to achieve a New Years resolution and to do something that I used to love so much!!

And far out, I never stopped loving reading!! :D

I bet this is just the beginnng, that its just going to be hard for a while but once I get back into it Ill think straighter and focus better and Im REALLY excited about that!!!

2013 will be beautiful. I just know it.

*speechless*

POSSIBLY

One of the best things I've ever experienced...

Amazing.

Hot chocolate... ON A STICK.

*faints*

Ah yes... About that project...

Procrastination.

Im hilariously inflicted.

On that note,

Here I am sharing a video blog I finished editing...

....nearly two years later than when it was first created...

...

:/

My First Week in Adelaide :)

There is Wisdom in Writing...

Today is a good day.
I feel pretty great today.
Whether that is attributed to the weather, the excercise, the meds... I dont know. I am just ...really grateful and alive today.
I feel very awake, and as a result of that I've been making the most of it. Sitting in the sun, playing piano and guitar, reading scriptures and books without losing my focus- far out I have missed focus!!
Today I can focus and today I am hopeful.
Today I felt like I had to read and write.

Journal writing has always been important to me since the age of 11. I think I loved it so much because it was a place I could vent, a place I could preserve memories and a place I could always go to for laughs at things I used to do and to marvel at how much I had grown.
I stopped writing my journal last year. I'm sad and glad about it, I dont particularly want to remember or record the last few months. But on that note, today I decided to read my own blog.
You might remember this post: Dear Self.
Im so glad I wrote it when I did.
Ive forgotten my own advice and the person who wrote it.
I feel very blessed, happy and just... hopeful I guess. I remember how I felt when I wrote it. I havent felt like that in a very long time.
Its just proven to me how very wise the counsel to keep a journal is.
You might remember this talk from a few years ago (actually, this is five years old- WOAH time passes so fast!!) and if you do not, watch this:

Remember. Learn. Gratitude.
That's what journals are for. I've gone on to read my old journals- specifically, the times Ive recorded my own testimony and times where I've recognised the Lords hand in my life (it took a while as ALOT of my journals are full of  the crushes on boys I've had and teenage dramas *face palm* LOL ).
These dark days are long. But they become brighter, clearer and hopeful when I can look back and see things with hindsight. Its crazy the things I've learnt, the things I'd forgot and the perspectives I used to have. Keeping a record of my days not only benefits myself, but in turn benefits the people Ill meet in days to come.
I think this is one of the very few times in life where looking back benefits your path forward.
We all seem to have a fascination with the past, our own world history because we want to learn from our past. Why not take that into your daily life- make a record of yourself, your feelings, beliefs, mistakes and successes. Learn from your own history.

Today is a good day, Im grateful for the words I have written in the past- it helps me be optimistic about the future.
Also, it's the first day of spring today.
If realizing that winter is over is something that doesn't make me cheery I don't know what is! :)