Bloodletting Read Online Free PDF Page B

arrived, I had loved it all. I had been happy. My first year at university was a constant round of parties, pubs and gossip. Lectures rarely featured. For the first time in years I ate cake, ice-cream, chocolate and, well, anything else that was on offer. I slept until ten, often taking an afternoon nap as well. It was wonderful—but did have its downside.
    By second year, I’d already put on weight so I decided that there was no harm in drinking. Besides, I’d probably throw up at the end of the evening anyway and if I didn’t there was always the ‘no calorie’ theory to fall back on. Discovering alcohol changed my social life entirely. I discovered what countless others before me had: that it makes you feel great. Until it doesn’t. Drinking also made me much less shy around men, and I regularly found myself struggling to remember exactly who it was that I’d had a fling with the previous evening. Flings didn’t ever develop into anything else however, and the reason didn’t always involve poor judgment on my part.
    Sober, I didn’t trust men at all and they were partially to blame for this.
    Bands of guys would walk, or drive, around the campus taunting girls like me, girls who weren’t their ideal. I had glasses, I wasn’t thin— but didn’t have big boobs to compensate—and I was shy. Sometimes it would be three in the afternoon and I’d be walking back from a lecture when I’d hear them.They didn’t ever touch me, or even come too close. They didn’t even yell suggestions such as ‘show us your tits’ or ‘suck my cock’.Their obscenities were more basic, less imaginative than this. They just yelled out nouns:‘cunt’,‘bushpig’or ‘fat moll’.
    Unlike some of my friends, I didn’t grow to hate them as, secretly, I agreed with what they said. I believed I was fat and unattractive. And the weekly calls from my mother didn’t help as there were three questions that she never failed to ask, no matter what else was discussed. Have you lost weight? Have you had any results? Have you got a boyfriend?
    The answer to each question was always no.
    Despite this, I did enjoy myself. And passed.
    Things were very different now.The antidepressants still didn’t seem to help, but I forced myself to keep going. I attended seminars, ate a bit, enough to keep going but no more as food just didn’t interest me. And drank a bit. I visited Dr G once a week and started seeing Alex again.Things were still difficult but at least I had stopped caring about my relationship with him, such as it was. I had other things on my mind. Self-harm, and thinking about it, became a form of escape.
    It took about three weeks before I injured myself again. In one way it was something that no longer scared me; in another it was terrifying. I didn’t know what my limits were. Some days, it was enough just to know that I had a packet of blades in the house. They were a cold, very sharp, security blanket. Other days, instead of using them I’d call Peter,who I still relied on,to get rid of them.This interrupted the pattern as Dr G advised, but it didn’t take away the desire. And sometimes, the desire was just too much.
    Felix had been at art school with me, a couple of years ahead.To get himself through financially, he stacked shelves in a supermarket several nights a week. To get through that—and to stay awake in class—he used speed.A lot of it.He was busy,jumpy and with only three months to go before finishing his degree, very stressed. So he asked me to write an essay for him. Or to be more accurate, Alex asked me to write an essay for him: they lived together.
    Obviously I should have said no. It wasn’t only against the rules; I didn’t know the subject. I was also having trouble just doing my own work, and holding my life together. There were two reasons I said yes: one was the money and the other was Alex. He believed I’d do a good job and I was flattered. So I agreed to write 3000 words about a