This Winter

by Alice Oseman

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

😭😭😭😭

Mum has this thing where she avoids talking about anything even slightly deep or emotional.

Mum is me. I am mum 😭

I rarely get dressed up, since I am the most unsociable person ever to grace the earth, so I take the opportunity to brush my hair, which is probably the first time I’ve done that this entire holiday. Ten points to me.

Please that's so me everday 😭

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.

Ugh i hate these people

And it made me realize that my coping mechanisms—the restrictive eating, the self-harm, and my other compulsions—are just that: coping mechanisms. It’s not about just stopping myself doing those things, it’s about figuring out why I feel those impulses. What the emotional stuff is underneath.

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

Why the fuck i can't relate with 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.

Nick’s got a new puppy.” Tori snorts. “Can you two just get married, buy a house, and get three dogs already?”

Nick is Charlie’s boyfriend, who comes round our house all the time. I think they’ll probably get married one day so they can have their own house and not have to walk to each other’s houses every single day.