I feel a bit better today. Not any happier, but less alone. Reason? I talked to Nathan. I was standing downstairs in the cold at breaktime, being ignored by Ben (Polish) and Steven (They usually pay attention, but I think only because Jo makes them) and so, I thought, "Fuck this" and so I went upstairs and into Nathan's history classroom, where he was getting angry with himself for not understanding the thing he was reading. He seemed content to talk to me so as to distract his attention away from this evil article.

The conversation went something like:

"Hiya"

"Heya. Came to talk to you cause I have nothing better to do"

"But your friends are downstairs."

"Feel like an outsider"

"Yeah. You alright?"

"Yeah"

"Can't work out this stupid article"

"Evil article. Nathan... not that I'm begging attention..." (pause)

"Yes...?"

I take my jacket off and pull up my shirt sleeve, "How long are these gonna take to go?"

He examines them quite closely, "Hm... I dunno... um... hm..."

"Cause I'm going on holiday for New Year to a hot country of some description and ..."

"Hm... maybe... I dunno. It'll be a few weeks before they go completely." (This rather worries me because I probably showed him the least deep out of all of them)

"Oh. Long sleeves it is."

"Fraid so. You shoulda done it higher up."

"I did"

"Oh. This the first time you've done this?"

"I did it once before"

"Don't start. VERY bad habit. What did you use?"

"Knife"

"Clean?"

"Yeah"

"Good. You don't want those to get infected"

"Yeah"

"When are you going on holiday?"

"New year"

"Your parents gonna go round the bend if they see them?"

"Round the bend? I'll be in therapy until I'm 40"

"Least they care"

"I suppose so (pause) It's weird though. I hated myself before, so I did it, and now I hate myself for doing it"

"That's the cycle I'm afraid. Or so say the psychiatrists."

Then we started talking about how great being articulate is.

It wasn't the actual conversation though. I just felt like the moment I showed him, he viewed me differently. He stopped seeing me as some whiney, boring and clingy person who has no actual feelings and saw me as an equal. Not once did he say that his problems were worse than mine, not once did he undermine anything that I was saying. He showed a genuine interest and I felt like at least somebody in the world gave a fuck and was willing to give a minute of their time to help me out and give me some fucking advice.

I was shaking. He was about.. the third person who I directly told about it, and the only person who I'd actually shown and I don't know why, but I just started shaking.

Then there's the story of the caffine pills, which Azgha decided it would be fun to take 12 of at once, but we shall not go into this right now. In fact, we shall probably never go into it again, and so a permanant suspence is created. All I shall say is, you can see why I don't feel particularly secure, or well cared for in the less than responsible hands of my college friends. I'm aware that really, I'm old enough to take care of myself. But I've never been good at that.>