The Istanbul Diary

This month, for me, started with a new moon and a trip to the crystal shop.  I contemplated starting a new notebook for the new month, the new moon.  Then I thought maybe I'd continue an old one; I have so many notebooks with only a little bit written in them.  It seems a waste, sometimes.  I'm not precious.

So I trawled through some old notebooks.  I found some very ancient, silly things that made me laugh.  Some things that I'd written in different places.

For some reason, to go with this new start, I decided that it would make *perfect* sense to continue writing in the notebook that contained notes from The Very Worst Period of my life.  A time when things were the actual worst and I went a bit mad.  In fact, it was afterwards, when I was starting to process (at the time, I was incapable of writing coherently in any way) - so, it was afterwards; in Istanbul, in fact.

I keep reading these passages, with a sense of slight sadness for the person who wrote them.  Because it's at a remove; I genuinely do not have any recollection, or even really recognise the person who I was then.  It is honestly a bit mystifying.

I keep thinking about it, and that I should get these little scraps of feeling out into the world.  I don't want to feel ashamed.  I don't want to hide from difficult things.

*

I wake up early to bright sunshine, slip out and climb to the hotel's roof terrace.  In the sunshine - in my pyjamas, trainers and cardigan - the Blue Mosque on one side and the sea on the other, I realise: I haven't cried in Istanbul.  That might not sound a big deal; I've only been here three days - but it's the longest time in a long time.  I vow not to cry in Istanbul.

*

In Istanbul, everyone thinks I am Turkish (or French, Italian, Spanish) - anything but English.  A holiday from identity...

*

I spend an entire afternoon sitting in an empty room sobbing, saying out loud 'I hate him, I hate him' over and over again, just to try it out.

I see a shaman, I have a psychiatric assessment, I buy new clothes, I book a trip to Istanbul.  This sort of trauma is expensive, man.

I can't listen to music again for a long time.  Also, I always thought I was a bit of an alcoholic but for ages at first I can't even drink water.

At least two baths/showers a day.  Lying there for hours - baby sips of bourbon and rereading The Bell Jar, surveying my scars old and new.

I live in fear of being discovered.  I am 31 years old now, after all.  And yet the old duality is still there - realise it or not, I am obviously desperate for an external signal.  I'm not only lacerated, but very bony.  I drop 10 pounds without trying, but it becomes addictive and I start trying.  I've taken up smoking again.

I have to pull out of the half marathon I signed up to months ago, because I am just too weak.  Annoying, because any other time I could have done it no problems.

I have a vision of myself and suddenly I don't like it.  Bony, pale, hunched in an old cardigan with a pinched face, smoking furtively in the rain.  It's not in any way a good look.

I don't only start eating again, I start overeating in an attempt to weigh down the speedy feeling I keep getting in my chest.  School tuck shop food, salt and vinegar crisps and Kitkats.

I become weirdly obsessed with fake tan, a product that I have previously felt no more than a mildly scathing disinterest in before.  I slather myself in it, soon graduating from 'light/medium' to 'medium/dark'.  My bony upper half is streaked orange where it collects in my ribs and clavicles.  I develop yellow tidemarks between my fingers.

I tell myself it's because I am sick of looking not only pale and wan but like a fucking dead girl walking.  I keep telling myself that I don't want to look like a cry for help, 'because I don't need help'.

Actually I think I was just trying to get away from myself.  I liked not recognising myself.  This is not my life - hey, it's not even my skin.

This weird dichotomy of health and poison.  I am literally walking around with a healing crystal in one coat pocket (amethyst, for 'cleansing positivity') and a packet of razorblades in the other.  The nearness of both makes me feel better.

It's only now, here in Istanbul, that I actually start to feel better.