Lorna George's Blog

I’m going to preface this with the disclaimer: This entire post is just my own thoughts. Mental Illness isn’t a “one size fits all” issue, and everything I express in this post has absolutely no basis of expertise aside from my own life experience.

You don’t have to listen to a single, solitary thing I have to say. I’m just one more twat on the internet with an opinion, but maybe, just maybe, I can help someone by sharing this.

***

I always find depression and suicide are difficult subjects to address, really. I know I have a great deal to say about both, but generally I steer clear of talking about my own experiences on the matter. That said, seeing my social media blow up after the deaths of both Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, reading and hurting for other people coming forward with their own stories, and quietly fuming at others who have no understanding and would rather point fingers than learn anything, I’ve decided today is as good a time as any.

I’ve suffered with reoccurring depression since I was around sixteen or seventeen. I’m not a medical professional, so I couldn’t tell you if there was any specific trigger, but I know that the doctor I was seeing at the time dismissed it as teenage hormones. I was left feeling foolish for trying to talk about the yawning darkness that seemed to threaten to swallow me at any moment, and that if I ever brought it up it was just silly complaining, because everyone dealt with it.

I struggled through for a few years, learning quickly that no one wanted to see how miserable I was, so smiling and laughing, and finding some kind of solace in being the person that my loved ones could come and talk to. I knew how it felt not to be listened to or taken seriously, so it felt good being able to make sure other people didn’t experience that.

By the age of nineteen, I was an insomniac, I had an eating disorder, I’d begun to self-harm, and finally, I tried to take my own life.

I failed, but it was enough of a wake-up for me to finally get help. I changed doctors, I was prescribed anti-depressants and had regular therapy. I managed to claw myself out of the deep, dark hole I’d fallen into, and after a year or so of intense treatment and rehab, my weight returned to normal, I could sleep again, and I stopped wanting to hurt myself.

After that, I noticed each year that while I’d always have good days and bad days, my worst time tended to be from January to May. My doctor diagnosed me with S.A.D (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and I learnt to recognise the signs early and manage them as quickly and efficiently as possible so that I didn’t spiral downwards to a point I couldn’t recover from again.

Unfortunately, when I was twenty-seven, I had a relapse. I don’t know how it got so bad so fast, but my weight ballooned up this time, I stopped sleeping, I missed work, stopped socialising, and began to self-harm once again. It wasn’t until I took a pair of scissors to myself, sitting alone at 3am, bleeding and sobbing, that I realised I needed help.

I was again prescribed anti-depressants and intensive therapy, and taught an entire repertoire of coping mechanisms that didn’t involve cutting myself to pieces just to feel something.

That’s the thing I feel a lot of people don’t understand about depression and self-harm. I suppose it varies from person to person, but for me and many others, it’s a way to feel something other than the consuming hopelessness and misery. It’s a terrible realisation, but the sharp sting of physical pain is frequently preferable and easier to manage.

For those people who have said to me or anyone that everyone gets sad sometimes, I want you to go back and read that last paragraph again. Because you need to sit down and shut up.

It took me longer to crawl my way out this time, and on some level I can’t help but wonder if I ever fully recovered, but I dealt with it day to day as best I could. Some days better than others, but always fully determined not to let the chemical imbalance in my brain win. I’m a stubborn bitch, and in this instance, that’s served me well.

But I’m tired. I’m now thirty-three, and the past six months I’ve been slipping again.

I’ve suffered tremendous and heart-breaking losses the past three years. I’ve moved away from my family, my marriage fell apart, my writing career has withered away to nothing but the occasional blog post, and I’ve been used, hurt, and abandoned by an entire slew of people who haven’t even thought twice about the devastation they’ve left in their wake. I don’t feel valued or wanted, and I’m starting to feel like my entire worth is just simply based on how useful I can be to others, and what kind of existence is that, really?

On top of that, two of the most important people in my life have recently died, and one of those committed suicide. I miss him terribly, and I frequently feel responsible for not being there to help him through his dark time, and bring him back into the light again.

But I wonder, have any of you noticed? Through this entire narrative, I haven’t once mentioned having a network of support aside from medical professionals, and my own pig-headedness.

Now, that’s not because they haven’t been there. I have people I can call when things get too hard to handle, but I frequently don’t bother unless I’m truly teetering on the edge of a crisis.

No matter how many pretty infographics people share online, the truth is that most will only be supportive of depression through the early stages. After a while, they get sick of hearing how unhappy you are, because honestly? It’s exhausting.

Having spent many years trying to be a source of support to other people going through bad times, I want to say that it’s incredibly draining. I don’t blame any of my friends or family for occasionally getting impatient with my teetering moods, for telling me to try yoga, to just get some sleep, to try a different diet, to go out and get some sunshine, to smile anyway. I know that they care about me and just want me to be okay, and I appreciate more than any of them that it’s fucking tiring to deal with depression.

That might sound bleak, but I see so many people saying if you’re depressed that you need to ask for help, but it’s not that simple. Some of us have asked for help, and received nothing but scorn, or worse, indifference. Some of us have gone to people we love and trust, only to watch them slowly back away after a few months.

After a while, you stop telling people. You stop talking about it. You become isolated, and that only exacerbates the feeling of loneliness and self-loathing depression stirs inside of us.

That’s why it’s so hard. It’s very easy to say on Twitter or Facebook that you should talk and feel loved, but in practice it’s not that simple. That’s why I don’t talk about it. Time and experience have taught me that unless someone has been there themselves, they have no concept of what you’re going through, or even how to help. All you end up doing is isolating yourself further.

Depression isn’t black and white. It’s something that each person has to cope with in a way that suits them. My advice? See a doctor. See a therapist. Call a helpline. Go to people trained and capable of aiding you.

Just because depression makes you feel alone, and frequently isolates you just by its very nature, doesn’t mean you have to suffer in silence. It just means you have to go to people who understand your needs, and can provide you with the weapons to fight your way out.

Believe in yourself.

Don’t let the darkness win.

***

List of International Suicide Hotlines

So I finally did it. After a night in, a little too much wine, and lots of encouragement, I put myself on tinder.

It was nerve-wracking at first. I thought the whole idea was a little barbaric; basically a menu of human beings that you can reject with little to no effort. Now I am very pragmatic about sex, but I’m also a romantic at heart and something about the culture of the app just made me feel a little repulsed.

I set myself some rules. I would always read bios. If they linked their Instagram I’d have a look. If they linked a song I’d listen to it. If they had a photo of a dog, that immediately increased their chances.

Now I know what you might be thinking. I was taking this fairly seriously, and tinder is a hook-up site. Well, on some level that’s true, but I’d been on there a day before I saw more and more men writing in their bios things like “I’m not here to collect matches” or “I’m not looking for a one-night stand, I’m looking for a relationship.”

I was looking for a relationship too, but the world of online dating was very new to me, hence the rules I set myself. It seemed to be that you could tell who was there for the same reasons as me, and who should have just used the bio “My Name Is Buck…”

Unfortunately what I hadn’t counted on was the fact that sometimes people are liars.

There were a few who seemed nice enough, but couldn’t seem to maintain a conversation. There were others who seemed sweet but a little desperate. There were some who were friendly, but harassed me with dick pics the second I gave them my snapchat.

A few guys seemed super lovely, then vanished, and I soon found that was fairly common too. Much better than those who continued to talk with me only to later reveal they were dating several women at the same time.

Now you can call me naive, call me stupid and old-fashioned, but I just think that if you go on a date with someone, then arrange a second date with them, you should probably not be seeing other people too? To me that just smacks of “You’re okay, but I’m keeping you as a bench-warmer in case I meet someone better…”

Then there were the guys who said they were there for a relationship, but actually just wanted a fuck buddy. One guy was incredibly sweet and attentive, used me for sex, then flew off the handle and acted like he was the injured party when I questioned his sudden coldness. I’ve never felt so used in all my life, honestly.

I went into tinder with a lot of nerves and innocence, and deleted it from my phone a few days back feeling utterly horrified and disillusioned by the whole thing. I saw a side to people I really didn’t like, and it’s shaken me hard.

That said, I’m not giving up. I’m on OKCupid now, which so far seems to stand me in much better stead to meet like-minded people. I feel like my experience on tinder was unpleasant, and I have a slightly thicker skin because of it, but really I think that’s awful. A month and a bunch of strangers left me slightly more damaged than I was in the first place, and I can’t imagine they even thought twice about that.

Be with someone who makes you happy. Be with someone who makes you smile, who makes your life better just for being in it. Be with someone you could take a nap with. Someone who you could go on adventures with. Someone who can make even the most monotonous shit seem fun. Long term, you’re going to be doing a lot of laundry, and going on a lot of trips grocery shopping, so be with someone you can do those things with and not want to hit with a chair.

Be with someone who you trust, who’s on your team and wants you to succeed at everything you try. Be with someone you can make laugh, and who can make you laugh. Be with someone who has your undivided attention, who you want to listen to, who you want to help and support, whose hand you never want to stop holding. Be with someone who listens when you talk, who remembers stupid details about you and your life, who makes you feel good about yourself, who wants to kiss you a lot.

Be with someone you can read in the same room as, who you can be comfortably silent with. Be with someone who understands that needing personal space doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Be with someone you can slob out with and watch films in your pyjamas and eat cold take-out from the night before. Be with someone who wants to do everything and nothing, so long as it’s with you.

Be with someone who wants to romance you. Be with someone who wants to get naked with you. Be with someone who you want to touch, who you want to bring off, and who doesn’t treat it like a chore to reciprocate. Be with someone who makes an effort for you, who you want to make an effort for, in all things.

Be with someone who sees your flaws and accepts them, who you know isn’t perfect themselves, but who you cherish all the more for that, because you’re both only human when all is said and done. Be with someone who treats you with respect and care, no matter how much time passes. Someone who is still going to say “please” and “thank you” even when you’ve been together for fifty years.

Be with someone whose company you enjoy, who you’re attracted to, who treats you well. Be with that person, and be good to them.

Taken from “The Longest Drop” by L. Davidson

Available on Amazon

All proceeds from the sale of this book go to Leeway: Domestic Abuse & Violence Services

Perhaps this is a huge cliché, but as with a great many “bookish” people I had a very lonely childhood. I didn’t have many friends, I wasn’t good at school, and I never really seemed to fit in anywhere. I found my solace in books, in the school library, tucked away at home on weekends and reading stories about people doing great things and seeing incredible sights. I would open the pages of a book and be transported away from my very dull existence to somewhere infinitely better. One of my favourite escapes was, of course, the Discworld.

It might not surprise a lot of you to know that the very first Terry Pratchett book I read was Equal Rites. I was thirteen (or thereabouts) and I just randomly picked it up at the library because the cover was interesting. I was already very big into fantasy, so anything that mentioned witches or wizards was a sure-fire way to grab my interest, but once actually into the story it was so much more than that.

Even now I find it difficult to explain how I was pulled into the Discword so completely, and so very, very quickly. It was a fantasy book, of course, there’s no denying it, but at the risk of sounding hard on other authors it was also somehow more. Much more. There was a tone to the writing, a humour that I felt kindred to, as well as a dark prod at the human condition I had never seen before. I never have since, either. I believe it was this unique style that captured my imagination, along with the vibrant characters and spectacular world-building, that made me view writing, particularly the fantasy genre, in a very different light.

Terry Pratchett wrote the things I loved, and still love to this day. He wrote about magic and dragons and dwarves and trolls and far-off kingdoms, but very much as his style of writing was, he also wrote more. He wrote about war and prejudice and murder and that very grey area between what is right and what is wrong. What’s more, he did it all in such a way that you didn’t even realise that what you were reading was a satirical commentary even remotely applicable to our own, very real society.

Terry Pratchett made me realise that where so many people had tried to tell me that the dragons flying about my imagination was somehow a sign of foolishness or juvenile interest that would and should fade over time, I could keep them and still have something worth saying. I wanted so much to make a difference in the world, even then, to make people see the evils around us and perhaps make them question their own responses to it. I still want that, and I strive for it in every little thing I write, and I have Terry Pratchett to thank for teaching me with his own work that you can always be more – your writing can always be more than the labels humanity is quick to slap onto anything that dares show its face.

Like millions of others I was deeply saddened to hear of Terry Pratchett’s passing, and even three years on, I still feel as though I have lost a dear friend. Of course, I’m not half the writer he was, and I suspect I never will be. If Sir Terry was Sam Vimes then I would be Nobby Nobbs by comparison. That said, I learnt a great deal from him, and his books will always line both my shelves and my heart.

People are so weird about sex, aren’t they?

Thing is, I don’t want to be disrespectful to anyone’s personal belief system here, but it seems sometimes like that’s very much a one-way street. Someone –like me- who thinks it’s perfectly fine to have sex with whoever you feel like (so long as both are willing participants, to be clear) will almost always be spoken of with disdain by others on the other end of the ideology.

I was out the other night with a friend, and there was a couple sitting on the couch kind of opposite us. They kissed a bit, then he got up to… I dunno, have a smoke or a piss or something. Seeing she was now sat by herself and looking a little flustered, my friend asked her if she was okay. The young woman told us she was on a date and that she really liked him, which honestly was fairly obvious, but very sweet.

My friend then kind of winked at her and asked if she was going to take him home, and the woman’s face dropped, her tone flattening immediately. “No. I’m not like that.”

“Not like what?” I laughed, kinda drunk, if I’m honest, because her meaning would have been fairly self-explanatory if I’d been sober.

“Yeah,” my friend jostled good-naturedly. “You like him, he likes you… what’s the problem?”

“I’m not a slut.”

The silence that followed was awkward, as the penny finally dropped. I mean, it was less of a penny, at that point, and much more of a grand piano, but there we are.

How are you meant to respond to something like that? Because while maybe this stranger hadn’t meant to call me and my friend sluts, she did. And honestly? I gave her a pass at the time, because we’d kind of butted in, but on reflection she must have known because of how we’d been talking to her.

“Fair,” I said, picking up my drink and raising my glass to her. “I am.”

“Me too!” my friend laughed.

The woman’s date came back, and the four of us were ushered out almost immediately by tired bar staff who were waiting to go home. We wished her and her date good luck, and out we stumbled into the night, thinking no more about it for the rest of the evening.

Now I could sit here and tell you that my vagina is a fairly restricted area. I could say how many men I’ve had sex with, and believe me, it’s a low number for a woman of my age. I could explain how shitty my sex life has actually been, how inexperienced I actually am, and that when a guy says to me “What are you into in the bedroom” I genuinely have no idea because I haven’t tried hardly anything.

But you know what? None of that is actually relevant. I would sleep with someone I just met, if I liked them enough. In fact, I have done, and I don’t feel any regret for that. I’m not ashamed of it, and it angers me that in this day and age there’s still this culture where women who enjoy and want sex are treated as something disgusting.

I lost my virginity when I was twenty-two, and to a man I was then with for seven years. In all that time, we had sex very, very rarely, and he got me off fewer times than I have fingers on one hand. And the worst thing? When I asked older, more experienced women in my life about it, I was assured that was fine and even normal. When I brought it to his attention, he tried once, then told me he “couldn’t be arsed” to keep doing it.

Women have to fake their orgasms, women shouldn’t masturbate, women shouldn’t have sex on the first date. What is this nonsense? No. No, it’s wrong, and it’s terrible to see and hear it still being reinforced.

I refuse to fake my orgasms, I masturbate regularly, and if I go out with a guy who I’m both physically and mentally attracted to, I’m going to sleep with him. Why wouldn’t I? Having come out of that long-term relationship a long while ago now, I’m absolutely not willing to be with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with me. That’s just practical. It’s just as important to me as knowing he can make me laugh, that we have things in common, and that we enjoy each other’s company.

Now I’m not going to say that my way is the one and only right way, because it isn’t. I know sex isn’t crucial or important to everyone, and it isn’t going to make or break a relationship, but to me it matters. I enjoy sex, and I feel a real sense of attachment to a partner afterwards. I want to be with someone I can enjoy sex with, who wants to enjoy sex with me, too.

If that makes me a slut, fine.

People can judge and scorn all they want to, I guess, because the right ones understand, and the best ones don’t pass judgement on others with such little care.

It happened a few weeks back, just a chance meeting, and then we decided to meet for drinks the next day. I spent the morning in my usual pre-date panic, figuring out what to wear, how to do my hair, my make-up, building myself up into a state of very unattractive anxiety that I can usually hide from people who don’t know me that well. Thankfully, my housemate can spot my panic a mile off. She helped me look presentable, and bolstered my forever-wonky confidence.

By the time I was finished getting ready, I felt nervous, but much better about the whole thing. She wished me good luck, and just as I was about to walk out the door, my phone buzzed. My date had changed his mind.

I’m going to be honest, it was better to know then than to be sat in a bar waiting, or like that last one who just got up and left, but still. It stung.

I made a joke about it to my housemate, who truly looked as disappointed as I felt, and I sat back down in the kitchen with her. She then told me it wasn’t that there was anything wrong with me, that she knew lots of other women it happened to, and that it was probably just that he had bottled it.

“Uh-huh.” I smiled disbelievingly, then shrugged. “Boys smell anyway. He was probably a douchebag.”

“He was a douchebag,” she told me firmly. “That isn’t the behaviour of a decent person.”

I couldn’t argue with her logic. All said and done, someone who cancels ten minutes before a date is probably not someone I’d want to be in a relationship with, anyway. Especially without giving any reason or apology. I looked at the message again.

“Come on,” She said, standing up. “We’re going out for lunch.”

I was already a little more dressed up than I would usually be, but she went upstairs and got ready, and we went out into the city together. She took me to a cute little shop with a café under it, and we ogled all the pretty things we’d love to fill our little cottage with. We talked about interior design, and jellyfish, and painting, and then we went downstairs and had lunch.

We sat in this pretty little space and talked about food. I’ve been trying to get her to do a cooking channel on YouTube with me for a while now, and we discussed that and what we could do to make it as fun and interesting as possible. We chose a name and a theme, and all the different video ideas we had for it. (Watch this space, guys! It’s happening soon!)

As we sat there eating and chatting, she got a message from two of her other friends to say they were in a nearby pub. I know one of them, but only knew of the other, and she asked if I wanted to go join them.

So, then there were four ladies, drinking in a cute little pub around a fireplace. I say four, but I should mention it was technically five, as I also got to meet Pico the Dog, who was gorgeous and snuggly and let me scratch under her chin at regular intervals. We talked about shitty dates, shittier men, and then loads of funny and positive things that reminded me no matter what, I still have so much going for me. I am, and will always be, in a much better place than I was two years ago.

After a few drinks and lots of dry humour we parted ways, and my housemate took me to a huge vintage shop in the city centre. We wandered around for ages, investigating weird little trinkets and curiosities, laughing at ugly jewellery, trying on all the hats, and just generally having a blast. We talked about the possibility of me attempting to salvage my long-dead stand-up act, and how I could get the ball rolling for that again.

We went around a few other shops, and then headed home. I wouldn’t have swapped that afternoon for anything, especially not awkward drinks with some guys who I luckily found out early had no semblance of courtesy.

It reminded me a lot of a night just before New Year, when my housemate had a few friends over for drinks. I was dealing with a guy who I liked way more than he liked me (as is always the way of things with me) and despite all that, I remember having a small half hour with my housemate and one of her friends, where we discussed boobies and all their varying shapes and sizes. That was my favourite part of the whole night, because it was genuine and fun, and I was with people who valued me.

And this? This was the best date I’ve ever been on in my life, because friendship is the best kind of companionship there is.

When I was told that my Grandmother had passed away, I didn’t know what to feel. I had never met her, and my mum never talked about her if she could help it. By all accounts they hadn’t seen each other since before I was born, although mum never really went into the details. It must have been bad, though. Mum wasn’t the kind of woman to carry a grudge for long, and since the feud had started over twenty years ago, I could respect the fact that it obviously caused her pain.

It was a fluke that I even found out about her passing, actually. Neither mum nor dad said anything, and at the time I had no idea if that was deliberate or not. Now I think that if it wasn’t for the phone call, I wouldn’t have heard anything about it at all.

‘Hello?’

‘Oh, hello?’ came a friendly, female voice down the line. She sounded like an older woman, and her tone was uncertain. ‘I’m terribly sorry to trouble you, but could I please speak with Mrs Reynolds?’

‘Mum’s not here at the moment,’ I told her. ‘Can I take a message?’

I sat down on the rickety, wicker chair beside the phone, glad to take the weight off my aching feet and fishing for the pen I knew I had shoved in my hair-bun earlier. I only ever tied the cloud of tight, cork-screw curls up when I was at work, but the rest of the time I liked to have it down. I wasn’t a small girl. I was 5’11” and well built, and the simple mass of it balanced me out somehow. My job was at a garden centre, and it made life much easier to have it fixed out of the way when I was carrying pots and bags of compost about. Plus it doubled as storage for pens.

‘I see,’ said the woman on the phone hesitantly. ‘Is this Renatta?’

I blinked in surprise, having assumed this was a client of my mum’s. She worked as a carer, but rarely gave out the landline number. Most people rang her mobile, as they were much more likely to get a hold of her that way. In her line of work, she didn’t have any close working relationships except with the people she looked after, and the only person who ever called from her office was Sally, a perky young woman of thirty-something, who was usually ringing to find out if mum could do extra.

‘It is,’ I answered slowly. I knew mum didn’t like to get her work involved with her home life if she could help it. ‘Who is this?’

‘Oh, this is Trudy. Trudy Gibson?’ came the response, and I could tell that she didn’t really expect me to know who she was. She was right, too. ‘I’m a friend of your Gran’s. Her neighbour, actually. I’m so terribly sorry for your loss.’

‘My loss?’

She became very flustered then, tried to fob me off quickly as she realised I had no idea what she was talking about, but eventually gave way to my persistence. I suppose I felt sad, but probably not in the traditional way people experience when their grandmother dies. I was sad that I had never known her, that she and mum had been estranged and would never have the chance now for closure. I was sad that she had died alone.

‘I’m very sorry, dear,’ Trudy said when I fell into long silence after she told me the news. ‘I had thought you would know, but I suppose it’s difficult for your poor mother. She missed the funeral, and I’ve been trying to contact her about what to do with the house. I know she wants it sold, but all of Germaine’s things are still here, and some of it… well. Some of it is dangerous.’

‘Dangerous?’ I echoed. ‘Dangerous how?’

‘Oh goodness,’ Trudy sighed, sounding remorseful once again. ‘It’s so hard. I don’t know what you’re aware of and I’ve already done enough damage… your mother is obviously grieving, of course, but someone needs to take care of things. It wouldn’t do for some unschooled pedestrian to try and dispose of it, and I daren’t do it myself. We were never compatible, you see. Different branches of practice.’

My brown eyes were wide in my face as I listened to the woman babble on, and I had to agree with her initial statement. It was hard. Neither of us could speak freely unless we were certain, absolutely certain of what the other knew or didn’t know. There were rules, after all, and they were there for good reason.

I was only twenty-one, and my mother was very private about things. I had grown up in the safety of that, respecting her decision and perfectly content to take it up for myself. Now, though, my curiosity ate at me, and I had no guidance.

The trouble with witches is that while they only have two rules, one of them makes things very difficult: We aren’t allowed to talk about being witches. Now in theory this is a good, even a necessary rule to have. In practice, however, when you have a huge group of people all keeping the same secret, it can get terribly lonely, and very complicated.

There is no council of witches. There’s no governing body or leader we all look to. There isn’t even any kind of law enforcement agency or fixed punishment for rule breaking. You might ask how we’re all kept in line, I suppose, but witchcraft is mostly about common sense when it comes down to it. We don’t talk about being witches to strangers, because it’s dangerous.

I didn’t know this woman, and despite my suspicions, I couldn’t be sure she meant what I believed she did. Really I ought to have taken a message and ended the conversation, but something about Trudy made me trust her.

‘Her spells, you mean?’ I asked before I realised I’d done it. ‘My grandmother was a witch, too?’

Slowing the car, I peered down the empty road ahead of me. The sharp and sudden decline and blanket of thick fog made it seem as though the way had simply ended, so I pulled over. Bumping up the curb, the crackle of stones under tires was loud in my ears, the squeak of the breaks louder, and I felt an odd dread settle over my chest. My radio had been nothing but static for the past twenty minutes, eventually inducing me to turn it off entirely and driving in silence, and my SatNav had been utterly useless since I tried to program my destination into it earlier that morning. I was glad now for the map that had been included in the envelope last week, along with the letter of acceptance for employment.

The letter had been a surprise, but a welcome one. I’d sent out so many applications, been rejected so many times by so many places, I’d almost given up hope of getting out of my home, let alone pursuing my chosen career path. Finding work had been hard, nearly impossible, and it had been pure luck that I’d managed to secure some advertising deals for my blog, enough to keep me going for a little while, along with my savings.

The black envelope had dropped through my letterbox, nothing written on it, no postage stamp, and at first I hadn’t been sure if it even was for me. For a while I’d entertained the idea that it might be some kind of death threat, probably due to the pitch colour of the envelope. I’d certainly had those in the past, and it had sat on my kitchen side for three days before I finally became irritated and tore the thing open.

It was for me, and there was nothing inside it but good news. It was from the editor-in-chief of a small newspaper, a Mrs Marilyn Strange, who had apparently read my blog and wanted to offer me work at their publication on the south coast. The town, Blackcliffe, was small, and while she informed me that the job was not particularly well paid, it came with the benefit of a financially subsidised flat. It was like a dream come true! I had no real experience, no qualifications save for the GCSE’s and A-Levels I had managed to scrape together despite the horrors of senior school and sixth form, and here I was being offered a chance for a fresh start doing a job I had always dreamed of.

It was such a wonderful offer, I briefly believed it to be a hoax. How had they found my address, for one thing? For another, the letter hadn’t been through Royal Mail, and so had been hand delivered. There was a web address at the top of the letter, and a telephone number. I decided to try the website first, suspicion a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach as I fought not to get my hopes up. I was comforted to find the site professional and active. The newspaper itself, The Blackcliffe Echo, had been running for forty-nine years, started by Marilyn Strange herself, who I realised now must be really quite old. It had a lot of external links, a busy forum, and a beautiful collection of black and white photographs of the town itself.

Feeling reassured, I had called the phone number. I spoke to a woman called Samantha Bellows, who had sounded middle aged and friendly, questioned me mildly on my professional history (or lack of it), then assured me that Madam Strange considered the position filled if I was willing. I accepted instantly, and now here I was, parked in a lay-by at the top of an incredibly steep road, all of my worldly possessions crammed into the back of my beat up old car, and feeling as though I was perched on the brink of Hell.

The map clearly showed that Blackcliffe was at the end of this road, and that this road was, in fact, the only road in or out of the seaside town. The fog roiled strangely, like choppy water almost, and I stared at it for a long time. Geographically, the town was surrounded by sheer cliffs on all sides, making it practically a hole in the ground, but that wasn’t so strange for the Purbeck seaside. Even the dense mist was something I knew I would have to become accustomed to if I planned to live here, rolling off the ocean thickly. Still, it made me nervous to drive blind into an unknown place, and carefully folding the map back up, I placed it on the empty passenger seat and gripped the steering wheel.

No, it wasn’t just that. I realised all at once that it wasn’t the weather or the geography that I was afraid of, but the prospect of a new life. Interacting with people, something I hadn’t done for a long time. I had lived in veritable seclusion since my family disowned me two years ago. Here, no one knew me, and while I would be careful about just how much they ever found out, it was a frightening thought. I didn’t want to be guarded, I wanted to make a life for myself. I had a great opportunity laid out before me, but I knew it was going to be hard.

Taking a very deep breath to calm my nerves, I closed my eyes for a moment and forced my body to relax. I could do this. No one knew me here. I could start over and live a normal, happy life. This was going to be the beginning of something wonderful for me.

Smiling slightly, I opened my eyes again, and slowly, cautiously, drove down the steep road into Blackcliffe.

*

‘Hi, I’m Rupesh Dalal,’ I introduced myself to the woman behind the reception desk, digging through my bag for the letter. ‘I’m here about a job offer from Mrs Strange.’

Finding the black envelope at last, I went to hand it to the smiling woman, looking at her properly for the first time. A chill went down my spine. She was smiling back, but there was something… something horrific about her face. Something almost inhuman. Her skin was taut and shiny, pulled back like tough old leather, making her eyes half-mad and unblinking. Her mouth was pulled back too, smiling manically, and showing, I was sure, far too many teeth for a normal person. I could do little more than gape.

‘Oh, Mr Dalal, of course!’ she continued to grin in that crazed way. ‘We spoke on the phone? I’m Samantha Bellows.’

I couldn’t seem to speak, continuing to watch her. Perhaps she had just had a lot of facial surgery, or it had gone badly wrong?

‘We weren’t wholly sure you would come. Madam Strange will be so pleased you decided to join our little enterprise after all,’ she continued, apparently oblivious to my staring, her voice friendly. ‘She was so very impressed by that piece you did on outcasts of society, let me tell you. We all were. Very thoughtful. Very well written.’

I remembered the piece she was talking about, and it immediately brought me out of my stupor. I felt my face heat up in embarrassment as I realised I’d just been doing exactly what I myself had written was so horrific little over six months ago. I was making a spectacle of someone who appeared different, and I knew better. I briefly wondered if she’d referenced that one specifically to remind me of my own words, but quickly pushed it aside, realising that either way it didn’t matter. I wasn’t in any situation to judge people by the way they looked.

‘Madam Strange has been most kind to offer me such an opportunity.’ I smiled a little awkwardly, unsure if I should be using the honorific or not. Samantha’s wide, toothy smile didn’t alter, but something seemed to warm in her unblinking eyes.

‘I’m sure you’re going to fit in beautifully,’ she said. ‘Now, Madam Strange is busy for most of today, but if you give me a moment, I’ll call her granddaughter. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to show you around and take you to your new home.’

The fact that Samantha chose the word home rather than flat made something twist inside me. I wasn’t certain if it was an unpleasant sensation or not, so chose to ignore it. ‘Oh, her granddaughter works here, too?’

‘You’ll like Ida, everyone does,’ she assured me, picking up the old style telephone and dialling in a number. I noticed her long, scarlet painted nails when she used a pencil instead to do the task. ‘She’s the paper’s photographer.’

I remembered the beautiful pictures on the website, and almost said as much, but refrained when I saw Samantha with the receiver pressed to her ear. I didn’t want to come off as even ruder than I probably already had, so took a step back from the desk and looked around curiously.  It was all so old fashioned, the building and the décor, and even though it looked like it could do with a spruce up and a lick of paint, I found myself oddly attracted to the peculiar interior. I’d always had a bit of a soft spot of art deco, truth be told. It was dark, and the lights flickered slightly, but the weather was poor so I assumed that made it seem like the light wasn’t all that bright considering the time of day.

As I’d driven down the road into Blackcliffe, the mist had been like an odd blanket, hovering like some kind of low cloud, but clearing up once you got beneath it. I’d lived inland and I had only read a bit into sea mists, but this had seemed strange to me. The lower I’d driven, the more it felt like Blackcliffe had its own personal sky, the mist hovering like a kind of atmosphere. It was also a peculiar colour for mist or fog, rather than grey or white as I’d expected, it was more of a blue tint. Not really sky blue, or I might have supposed it had simply cleared up, but a dark blue, almost violet in places. Whirling strangely above the buildings, making the town seem even more self-contained than it already did, closed off on all sides save for the open sea, by this odd weather and the high cliffs on all sides.

The cliffs had been something to behold, as well. I remembered how all of the photos I had seen had been in black and white, making it appear perfectly normal. As I’d tried to find the newspaper office, it had struck me that the cliffs literally had been black. Pitch black. I knew that a little further down the coast the earth was a deep red, but this region, the Purbecks, was supposed to be mostly white chalk. The stark black had surprised me, and coupled with the dark, foggy sky, it gave an overall impression of bleakness that had almost made me turn around again. It made me feel stifled and claustrophobic.

‘Hello dear! Could you come to the front desk? Mr Dalal has joined us.’

Samantha’s cheerful voice, so at odds with the manic expression on her tight face, pulled me back to the present again. The rising sense of terror began to recede and I felt silly for letting it bother me so. I was just projecting my own insecurities on the place, and that was no way to go about settling in. I smiled, again awkwardly at Samantha, who beamed back. The expression was clearly permanent, but I found myself feeling less and less bothered by it.

‘He’s lovely. A little nervous though, I think.’

I started at that, realising the person on the other end of the phone had asked about me. It was habitual for me to brace myself, the smile fading from my face almost instantly.

‘Absolutely!’ she exclaimed, looking at me as she said it, her face giving absolutely no indication of what context the word had been used. ‘Oh, you little tease. No dear, that’s fine. Yes, I’ll send him up now. Okay. Yes. Bye dear!’

My palms were sweaty and I could feel how forced my smile had become. I was sure I looked exactly like Samantha right now, stretched to an almost grimace, so I stopped. I tried to appear neutral as she put the old-fashioned dial phone down with a quiet click and ring.

‘Ida says to go on up,’ she told me, indicating to the large, double doors just behind and to the left of the reception desk. ‘She has your keys and contract ready, and she’s so excited to meet you!’

‘Thank you,’ I replied. My voice was strained as I wondered and worried about just what this Ida person knew about me, and what she had been teasing about. Perhaps it was nothing? Perhaps something totally unrelated? I tried to force myself to calm down, feeling ill, and picking up my bag, headed towards the door. I was about to leave, when Samantha placed a hand on my arm to stop me. I started, and turned to the odd woman.

‘Now dear, don’t be nervous,’ she sounded sympathetic and oddly bracing as, completely ignoring personal space, she straightened my tie and smoothed my jacket at the shoulders. ‘Everyone here at the office are all very much in the same boat. We’re like a little family, and Ida will take very good care of you. She takes care of all of us, just like her Grandma always has. It’s hard moving to a new place, I’m sure, but you’ll grow used to us. Just be yourself and you’ll fit right in.’

It seemed a slightly peculiar thing to say somehow, but I felt comforted anyway. When I smiled, it wasn’t forced. ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’

‘You’re more than welcome. If you need anything at all, you can always come to me dear, okay? I’m on the same floor as you, so we’re neighbours as well as colleagues!’

‘The same… floor?’ I repeated stupidly. She laughed and gave me a playful push.

‘The flats, silly! We all live in the same building.’ the tone she used implied that I should somehow have known this already, but I didn’t mind. Despite her unconventional appearance, she had been kind to me. The first person to be so for a very long time. I smiled, and with one last tweak of my shirt collar, she ushered me towards the doors and stairwell. ‘Go on now, Ida is waiting!’

Once upon a time there was a princess locked in a tower.

Because that’s what happens to princesses, isn’t it? They get kidnapped, or sacrificed to dragons or sea monsters, or cursed to sleep for a hundred years by some unsuspecting fruit or piece of sewing equipment. Or they get locked in a tower.

Usually it’s the parents fault in one way or another. These monarchs go about pissing off witches and fairies and goblins and goodness knows what else. As though they expect these clearly self-governing and anti-authoritarian beings to simply respect the crowns on their heads. But it’s rarely the parents who bear the brunt of their own mistakes. It’s almost always the princesses.

In the case of Princess Mandisa, her parents were very directly to blame. They had ordered their daughter to be locked away in this particular tower the day after her twenty-first birthday. It had been constructed specifically for her, in fact.

No one ever discusses the inconveniences a princess in a tower would face with simple daily living requirements. Laundry, for example. Food. Taking a shit. Is she emptying her own chamber pot? Is she washing it? If so, with what? Where is she getting her water? Where is she getting her food? And, of course, no one ever discusses menstruation; tower or otherwise.

Princess Mandisa was lucky, really. Her parents had ordered her tower constructed with all the latest and most sought after enchantments. They had paid a powerful witch very handsomely to make certain that their daughter could live in comfort, as a princess ought. Her closet refilled itself every day, and disposed of her laundry. Her table was always laden with delicious food that never spoiled. Her bed made itself every morning, and warmed itself each night. Her chamber pot was self-cleaning.

But why was she in the tower in the first place? Was she in danger? Was she being hidden away from something terrible?

Quite the opposite. The whole point was that she was meant to be found. Because do you know what else happens to princesses who get locked in towers? They get rescued, and then married.

Mandisa was the heir to the throne of the kingdom of Djeserit. It wasn’t a large country by any means, but it was a fairly wealthy one thanks to their lucrative mining industries and hefty natural deposits of precious metals and gems.

She had always been told that they were a happy and prosperous kingdom, and that it was her responsibility to marry well and provide the country with heirs. She had been given the best education that money and status could buy, prepared from birth to be a queen, wife, and mother. She knew her parents cared for her and wanted the best for her and the realm, despite that she rarely saw them, and had worked hard to please them.

When she had turned eighteen, they had thrown her a large banquet to celebrate. She had been dragged her through seemingly endless introductions with various available noblemen like a worm on a hook in a large lake full of very big and hungry fish.

It hadn’t ended well.

At some point it had become incredibly overwhelming and Mandisa had excused herself to go out into the gardens for some fresh air. When the crown prince of a neighbouring kingdom had followed her and subsequently tried to kiss her, she had punched him in the head and almost caused an international incident.

Her parents had no choice but to send her back to her tutors for further education on conduct befitting a young woman in her position, and begun construction of the tower at once. Mandisa had swallowed her protests and done as she was told.

The plan was to have her “rescued” by some suitable young man, then live happily ever after.

She was required to sing at her window for an hour three times a day –at dawn, midday, and dusk- about love, and romance, and other such tripe. Otherwise her days were her own.

At first it hadn’t been so bad. She had missed her little sister, Urbi, but it had been nice to please herself for the first time in her life. She had spent almost a full week in her underwear, reading and eating and lolloping about on the floor of the tower in a manner she knew her mother would never have tolerated. She had dedicated an entire fortnight to composing a rude song about the prince who had tried to kiss her, accompanied by vulgar doodles in the margins that made her snigger.

As time dragged on, however, she grew increasingly bored. She tried to occupy herself as best she could, but eventually fell back on the rigorous schooling she had received. She would dance, sew, read, and even made a sock puppet to have full conversations in foreign languages with. Her name was Lady Tiddles.

Half a year passed, and Mandisa began to get angry. She hadn’t heard from anyone in the whole time she had been there. No visitors, no letters, nothing. Had they forgotten her? Or worse, had the whole thing been a sham? Was she being kept out of the way? Her disgrace so great that they had actually just locked her away and abandoned her as punishment?

One morning she woke to sing at dawn as she had been instructed, but she just glared out of the open window silently instead. The hour passed without a peep. Then midday came and she did the same. Then dusk. She uttered not one note the whole day through, then went to bed feeling worse than ever.

The next morning she rose for the day, dressed herself in loose pants and a long tunic, and packed a small satchel with food and some jewellery. She tied her bedding together into a long, makeshift rope, and tying it firmly around a wooden beam, lowered it out of the window.

Taking one last look around the tiny prison of a tower, Mandisa swallowed her nerves and climbed down the rope.

I’m 5’2” and I weigh 13.8st. I do not carry my weight well, because I’m short, and my body shape is what fashion magazines refer to as a “pear” because I have a big arse, and my tits don’t quite balance me out in a way that’s deemed acceptable.

Thankfully I live in a society where people very kindly point out my fatness whenever they get a chance. It’s so thoughtful of them, because I would have no idea otherwise. I mean, I certainly never weigh myself, or buy my own clothes, or look at myself in a mirror, so strangers, friends, and family telling me I’m overweight is such a service.

I mean, what fat person is aware of their body? And if we do realise we’re overweight, we can’t possibly feel indifferent about it! After all, outer appearances are far and away the most important thing in a person. Right?

… That was sarcasm right there, folks.

You know, I don’t understand why anyone thinks my body is their business. I live here. This is mine. I own all this, and you know what? If you don’t like it, you can go any time. I don’t need any help with disliking myself, thanks.

Despite that, people seem obsessed by it. My body is treated like public property by complete strangers, who make nasty comments or shout in the street. Society sees me as a “before” photograph, and adverts try to appeal to me by highlighting what parts of my body are problems that they can help me hide. It never occurs to anyone that I might be perfectly content with my appearance.

Then you get the super fun people who try to hide their open revulsion behind the guise of concern for my health. I can say that I eat well and exercise, and they will either smile in that knowing way or bluntly call me a liar. People hide their thinly veiled disgust behind claims of concern, and even medical professionals will not take me seriously. I actually had a therapist tell me my depression would stop if I lost weight, and when I asked if being happy with my body wouldn’t be more helpful, she literally said no.

Along the same vein, the unhealthiest I’ve ever been was at my very lowest adult weight. Between the ages of 18-21, I was anorexic because I was made to believe that being skinny was more important than anything else. It didn’t matter that I was funny, or creative, or caring. It didn’t matter that my hair was falling out, or my skin was basically hanging off my bones, or I stopped menstruating. No, being skinny was the important thing!

And do you know, even years and years on, it’s still so hard not to fall back into that toxic mindset. I didn’t eat or drink all day yesterday because I knew I was being weighed in the evening, and today I’m so angry with myself for thinking that was okay.

I am actively trying to lose weight, but I want to live my life without that being a central concern and preoccupation. Still, it seems like everyone around me is obsessed with my body, and it makes it very difficult to cultivate any kind of self-love or acceptance. When I say that my biggest insecurity about the way I look is my nose, their suppressed urge to point out that I jiggle when I walk looks almost painful.

People act like being fat is the whole sum of me as a person, and it isn’t. Honestly, I think it’s high time society stopped acting like being fat is worse than being cruel or rude or shallow, because it really isn’t.

I don’t care what anyone thinks; it’s time I started caring about myself, because no one is going to do that for me. Maybe if we all did the same thing, the world would be a much better, happier place.