Then there's you.

I try to imagine you but you're different. On facebook there's only six tagged photos of you.

I wouldn't know what to say if someone asked if you were beautiful. I couldn't say you were because I'd know the person's viewpoint and I'd know they'd think I was lying though you are to me, and there's so much to offer someone besides looks, like being intelligent and kind and funny.

I could say: she looks tender and vulnerable and sweet, and she covers it all with a brash exterior.

But you can't say that to anyone and everyone who asks.

I could say: she's lovely.

But that's a cop out.

I could say: we make a good pair.

And that is the best.

Charity is giving to oneself.

I might volunteer at christmas, just to escape the house.

I like volunteering. It makes me feel useful and that I'm doing something I want to do and being the person I want to be.

Lady of the House asked me to be part of a tableau today. I can't anymore. I can't be involved in drama that isn't absolutely what I want to do. It's destroying (melodramatic). It's not that I don't want to help, it's just that I want to be me as well. I can't compromise on this thing.

I want to draw

Centaurs and fairies on a snowy mountain

Child looking at the rain

Victorian suited children having tantrums

Give up sugar

Did you say it because you think I'm getting fat? Do you want to control that? Why do you worry about our weight so much? We can tell. I wasn't that chubby a child and yet I thought I was, and now, I can feel you being anxious about the way I look and the way I dress and...

It's almost worse than B's mother, who tells her outright she's too fat. Though I think she's perfect. It's all subtle, subtle because my Mum doesn't want to hurt, she just wants us to be happy, and so she'd never say I was getting fat. The way she goes about it is far more difficult to shrug off.

Or was it just because of my skin?

I walked five miles today. And overate.

I need to start controlling food again. Going home sends me like this, and it's not good but it's necessary to control something because I am currently expanding. But not to please her.

I am going mad.

I picture you

Lying sickly on a bed, and you just need me to read to you and stroke your hair and hold you. Why do I like that picture so much?

I'm so secretive and dark and unknown that I can't trust anyone who is simply open. I need someone like me, and I'd like to believe that Lady of the House is, because... of low self esteem and her battleaxe complex.

I could be wrong.

I want to know about you.

I saw Lady of the House last night. She can be boring and day to day and a zealot. I knew this.

I only fantasise about people in suboordinate roles, or when they need me and are meeker. Why?

Lady of the House is who I want to be when I'm older and I desperately seek her approval constantly. I want her to think I am worth bothering with.

The world doesn't seem to think I'm worth bothering with, but then why should it? Why should I have a job or people telling me I'm wonderful when there's no reason to do so? I'm such a narcissist.

I want to be Lady of the House, because she's got her own little kingdom and lives her life as she wants to and has lots of people around her. I think she's happy. She's got this amazing way of making people do exactly what she wants. Like casting a spell.

I want to ask her if she always knew what she wanted to do, and what she despises in other people (because there must be something). I want to know so that it reassures me; she wasn't always like that, maybe I can grow into someone driven and passionate not afraid to speak my mind, not afraid of being a real person.

I want to know for the joy of knowing about her. I want to see if I can get deeper in, but there doesn't seem a time to ask. And she hates asking about history, she doesn't like us asking others about their history before they came here because it might be painful, so is her history painful and maybe she doesn't want to talk about it or am I reading too far?

It's the shell again.

I think she dislikes me.

Why is it so important for me to be liked when the people I want to be like aren't necessarily always likeable?

I need to learn to go my own way and screw everyone else.

I'm just not sure that I'm right about myself, and I want someone to tell me I am right. But they can't because I should know I'm the only one that knows what I want.

Even Lady of the House can't tell me.

I haven't told her about my thespian ambitions. I worry she'd cannibalise them. She's so sensitive at times, then at others...

Not being allowed to be me.

I have this feeling a lot around my parents though I shouldn't.

They're supportive and love me and all the rest of it.

But I feel like they're cannabalising me.

If I tell them what I'm doing (going abroad, going to drama school) they assassinate it with questions about fees, contracts, where, what and who. Usually I have the answers, but it sucks all the fun out of it. Then they have their own little ideas on it when I just want it to be me, mine, for me. Not about them, but it always is.

And being angry. When Mum is angry, she wants everyone else to be angry. I'd left a glass of water on the worktop and she came and shouted at me for it, and my bedroom. And yet if I was that angry, I'd be told to cut down the melodrama. When she does it I sit in angry silence because saying something will only make it worse. Me being angry isn't a serious event. Her being angry is. It makes me feel about two years old, that my emotions aren't valid.

And the way they're proud of me for keeping this shit job when I want to jack it in.

And how Mum says I should cut down on sugar for a week to help with my skin. OK, I've got spots, fine, but why does she have to go suggesting? Why can't it be my decision? I feel like I've got no power at all over my life, no control, and they're making it worse than it needs to be by trying to be helpful.

And I'm such an ungrateful bitch, because I know that they are damn good parents but I just feel like crap.