Naomi

I feel like there have been so many rapid changes in my life, changes that I don’t even realise properly until I look back, because they are too intricate and small to describe in detail. So many of them involve other people, so they are challenging to talk about. Yet I want to tell you everything, because most of those changes are happening within me. And there have been people reading these diaries since a time when life could be really tough for me.

I am trying to figure out how to approach writing my diaries now, when I have more to write about than anxiety and depression and doing things on my own. I am not used to writing about other stuff! Anxiety still plays a big role in my everyday life, but it has diminished. Some days my mood is low, and I can’t really speak much or do anything but lie down, but it doesn’t last as long as it used to. Because almost every day, I’ve had to get up and out of bed and go somewhere and put on a face that other people can see and talk to. Some days it is hard, but some days I transform as soon as I see a friend’s face at school. Recently, it’s when I forget myself that I feel most like me. There are people around whom I actively LOVE myself, because I have all kinds of different parts of me invested in them. I feel more visible than I can ever remember feeling. My communication channels have burst open.

It can be such a relief to have a Saturday all to myself now and then. I don’t like my moods to be dictated by other people. I like to be a whole entity by myself, and not feel like something is missing when I am on my own. Like I explained to someone earlier this week: being on your own is like romance, but with yourself. He replied that romance is better with two. I didn’t agree.

I think throughout all this change, I am still me. Of course I am. I have the same arms and legs, the same moles and scars, the same teeth, the same internal organs, and (I think) the same brain. Sometimes I feel like a heightened version of me, sometimes a lesser one who is often confused by “life.” But I embrace confusion and all the other tiny emotions that I didn’t know existed till now. ♦