I have had a splitting headache this weekend, and I still remain shattered despite taking it easy. Perhaps now is a good time to let you lot into something that even the uni do not even know. I have something known as M.E. For those who haven't a clue what I'm talking about:
http://www.meassociation.org.uk/content/view/90/173/1/1/ I was diagnosed at the age of 15.
I don't usually tell people who don't need to know because I don't want to be treated any different. I don't want to take it easy or have extra time in exams. I want to work my socks off, and I want to be given the hard jobs. Yes I pay for it the day after, and if its another work day I drag myself through it. Trouble is it mounts up, and today I am in pain all over. I am exhausted, and almost too week to type.
Don't get me wrong, I am much better now than when I was first diagnosed. It was a long process involving a weeks hospital stay for observation. Back then it wasn't taken seriously, but luckily my G.P was incredibly supportive and put me in touch with a support group. The initial course of my illness saw me almost bed bound, and I missed almost a year and a half of school. I had to learn all the G.C.S.E Syllabus on my own, with very little support from the school who didn't believe I was actually Ill. I scraped through with reasonable grades, 3 B's a C, and 4 D's.
The main blow was having to give up dancing. From the age of 4, dancing was my life. I danced most nights of the week, and had some amazing experiences dancing with my own dancing school and other ballet company's including the Chelmsford ballet company http://www.chelmsfordballet.co.uk/ .It was my dream to be a professional dancer, and I was accepted into performers dance academy in Essex http://www.performerscollege.co.uk/ . But this wasn't to be. After 6 weeks bed bound I tried in vain to dance again in my own living room, and ended up passing out and throwing up everywhere. I had to give up my dream, and it broke my heart.
I've tried to go back, and probably could hack a weekly class and the odd show, but the frustration of not being able to dance how I used to was too was too overwhelming. Now I just dance at the odd party, and in my head (I'm always dancing in my head)
All this and much more have been documented in my old diary's. I stumbled upon them whilst clearing a path through the loft space for a television engineer. Reading them this weekend has been an emotional experience. There is stuff in there that I cringe at, stuff that makes me smile, and stuff that makes my heartbreak. I know growing up isn't easy, but my teens were quite horrific when I look back. It all started off in the diary below. Reading this one was highly amusing, I remember feeling so grown up, but I sound so juvenile! It documented my first kiss, and how I would always love a boy called Daniel. We lived 3 doors away from each other, and met down the bottom of our gardens for our first teenage fumbling's. It captured the excitement of my first concert (East17) and a slightly weird obsession with Chesney Hawks.
Of all the diary's, the most personal is the one below. I cried when I read it. I was a screwed up mess, just trying to get through the day. This diary documents some very horrific moments of my life. Its a little surreal to read, and almost feels like it was just a film I watched too many times. But in amongst the horror are some really beautiful moments, poems wrote to me and by me, Sketches, photos, and letters. This diary actually did me a world of good, and the journey it took me on is quite a fascinating read.
I always covered my diary in things like "KEEP OUT MUM and DAD". No kids wants their parents to know what's really going on in their lives do they? When I moved out in 1999, I left my diary's in my old room. I forgot all about them till mum became unwell and we had to move her out. It was whilst packing up her stuff I discovered she had wrote something on the blank page at the front of my diary:
lol Of all the things, she had used my precious diary as note paper to write down her fish and chip order. On the downside it was possibly then that she learned the truth about me, and I fear It broke her heart.
It wasn't all bad though, really it wasn't. There's some hilarious moments captured in this scribble so don't feel too bad for me. All teens feel everything worse than it actually is :)
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