This Winter

by Alice Oseman

Maybe, eventually, I’ll just stop sleeping altogether and become a vampire. I’d be good at that.

I used to think that difficult was better than boring, but I know better now.

I hate the way people react when they learn Charlie spent a few weeks as an in-patient. As if it’s the most horrific thing they’ve ever heard. It’s because it automatically makes them think mental asylum and crazy people, instead of treatment and recovery and learning to manage an eating disorder.

That’s the other thing they don’t get. They think eating disorders and mental illnesses can just be fixed at the drop of a hat. They don’t understand that it’s a process. That it takes time and treatment and effort and bad days and good days.

It baffles me sometimes that people can just say stuff like that. That people can just have no idea about things.

“Trying your best? What d’you want, a fucking congratulations certificate?”

“That’s because he treats me as something other than fucking mentally ill!”

I know she is, but her best isn’t really good enough, and it shouldn’t be about how she feels anyway.

It’s getting sort of dark now. Dark and cold and rainy. I think about how nice that is, and then I laugh to myself. Since when did they become my favorite things?

I’m quite aware that it’s my fault that my family are annoyed with me, so I guess the best way to sort that out is to just go away completely.

wanting to just stay here forever with him in the porch, live here in the cold with the rain falling next to us, make a bed out of the coats and a fire out of the coat rack.

Look, boyfriend jumpers are the best, okay? Big, comfy, and they smell good.

I know I probably should. I should explain about the argument with Mum and all the arguments we’ve had over the past few weeks. I should explain

how difficult it is to keep trying to do better when there are so many people who just refuse to understand how hard it is. I should explain that I barely slept last night because I was so anxious about dinner and, even though I actually did quite well, I still felt like everyone was watching me, waiting for me to fuck up and ruin the day. But it’s so much easier to not think about it.

And documentaries like that are designed to horrify you and sensationalize mental illness, particularly less ‘socially acceptable’ illnesses like schizophrenia.”

“No, it’s him who should be sorry. You shouldn’t have to argue with people about this.”

When people know you’re mentally ill, most people either want to ignore it completely or they treat you like you’re strange, scary, or fascinating. Very few people are actually good at the middle ground. The middle ground isn’t hard. It’s just being there. Being helpful, if help is needed. Being understanding, even if they don’t understand everything.

“I think sometimes you’re so scared of being a burden that it makes you terrified to ask for help.