The bog resembled a reedy, gorse strewn paddy field. Water had collected in large puddles upon the ground; some of which had joined together to resemble miniature lakes and riverlets. Water dripped from the saturated leaves of the trees, drops of dewy moisture glistening like carelessly scattered diamonds upon the ground. Every step I took left a deep, malformed imprint upon the marshy soil; soil which now resembled liquid tar as sodden black peat was turned to runny mud.
Daisy, however, was as enthusiastic and exuberant as ever. If anything, the recent wet spell had served to raise rather than dampen her enthusiasm for our little morning walk. As soon as we left the road onto the mud track, she began to prance and buck like a horse that has been kept in over winter, her long pink tongue flapping out of her mouth like a banner. I reached down and clipped off her lead, and she was off, ears and tail streaming behind her, shooting across the field like an arrow from a bow.
I watched her for a while as I always do, the corners of my mouth involuntarily curling into a smile. But then my smile faded as I glanced down at my stomach, bloated, as usual, from the enormous breakfast I had just had. Benny, seeing my hands fluttering from my sides to rest upon my belly, looked up at me expectantly, thinking he was going to get a treat. But I was too preoccupied to notice. Despondent and discouraged, I walked on, Benny tagging behind me, his tail now hanging limp.
I walked along in a sort of daze, the Voice increasing in volume in my head: an insistent, relentless, scornful voice of malice. Oh look at you, oh look at you! Recovery really is great, isnt it?
I turned sharply as I heard a splashing noise behind me, before letting rip a yelp of exasperation. It was Daisy, and she was as muddy as if she had decided to taken a mudbath. Flecks of mud flew off her as she shook, showering me and Benny with dirty brown droplets of peaty, dark soil.
"Daisy!" I yelled, so loudly that a thrush took flight from the adjacent hawthorn hedge. Daisy's tail dropped instantly, and she cowered on the ground in a gesture of penitent submission.
My anger melted away like warmed ice, replaced instantly by a burning sense of shame and selfhatred. I mean what do you expect, you bitch? She's just a young dog!!!
Tears sprang into my eyes and coursed down my cheeks. I kneeled in the mud and hugged both of my dogs tightly. Im sorry, I whispered into their soft, sodden fur. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This isn't me, you know it isn't. Please don't think that was the real me.
Its times like that when I realise just how much that Voice has changed me.
It's not only the irritableness; the speed at which I can snap, suddenly and sharply, at the silliest or most insignificant of provocations. It's also the jealousy, the bitterness. The sense of terrible, deeply rooted wretchedness.
This hit me today when I saw mam preparing afternoon snacksfor Daddy and my brother. I had frozen where I was standing to stare, heat rising into my cheeks, turning them to flaming spots of crimson. My own snack was sitting on the counter, awaiting to be toasted and buttered. Prepared in that painful, agonising manner with which I always prepare my own food. Butter and peanut butter would be applied with tediously meticulous carefulness. The numbers of the teaspoons I was taking from the jar or the tub would be resounding through my head, repeating themselves over and over and over.
That's not fair. A lump wedged itself within my throat. That's not fair. Why doesn't she offer to do me anything? Does she not know how easier it would be for me if someone else prepared this for once?
I turned away, not wanting her to see the pain in my eyes. fleeing to the conservatory, I turned my face to the garden, trying to find solace in the dainty, paper thin leaves of the blossom tree.
Jealousy. I...I hate myself, for it, so, so much. And I never, at one time, would have thought that I was capable of feeling like that. But I know, that I am. That incident today was only one drop in the ocean. I know that there's been many, many more.
Surely that jealous, irritable, bitter girl who I have become is not the real me.
The Real Me...is someone else. That's what I want to believe.
The Real Me was a happy girl. The Real Me was a girl who always had a smile upon her face and always greeted the morning with joy and gratefulness in her heart. The Real Me didnt care about how many potatoes she had on her plate, or how many minutes she would walk with her family for their afternoon stroll in the woodlands. The Real Me was not surly and irritable over stupid, trivial things that really aren't worth even getting upset about.
The Real Me would have respected her body.
The Real Me would have done alot of things differently, to that obsessive, short-tempered, depressed girl I have become.
But.
There is still time to find her.
The Real Emmy, the Real Me. A girl who is happy and healthy, inside and out.
The last time I couldn't accept it
But this time I have to fight harder.
This is where the hardest part of battle
is going to begin ...
