Having good friends, having people who will take the mick out of you, and just laugh at you is fantastic, but laugh at you for the right reasons. There’s a couple that used to live next door but one to us, and they’ve moved up the road, he offered to give me a lift home the other day, and he texted me saying, Are you ready you wobble headed feminist freak But he just calls me a nutter. But I know that if I needed him to be there for me he would, and I know that people I can laugh with will be there for me.

Just laugh at me, call me Hop-alon, but they also know when to stop. Cos if they can tell I’m either in a mood where I can’t deal with it or if I’m getting upset they stop.

They call me Hopalong it’ll be like Come along, run faster one of my anorexic friends from the hospital, when she left we had a bit of a joke, , I’d tell her we were going to MacDonald’s for lunch, and she’d tell me we were only going after we’d played a couple of games of Twister [laughs]. So they just take the mick, but in a nice way, in the way that tells me that they’re there for me. There’s a difference between taking the mick out of someone because you care, and taking the Mick out of them because you want to hurt them. Saying things like Come along Hopalong is quite amusing, whereas saying it after I’ve fallen over or whatever wouldn’t be. But it’s nice being able to laugh at myself and laugh at other people and I think the thing is the people that I’m talking about have always taken the mick out of me. So it’s not like, Oh she’s ill let’s stop taking the mick Its nothing’s changed, they still think it’s hilarious to take the mick out of everything.

Well I’ve got many friends and, so I got English friends, and different countries’ friends and Kurdish friends as well. I’m happy with them, that aspect. I just want, I’m friendly already. I like making new friends as well and I like my friends, it’s goodat times.

Is it easy for you to make friends?

Well it’s not really easy because you have to know someone to have to be friendly and that’s why it’s not so easy so, because I’m chatting on the computer as well and I cannot say it is easy but if you know someone you can use that person to be your friend.

I did have quite a good group of friends, but because I was sort of distancing myself from things so I was deliberately trying to lose and trying to alienate myself and I still see some of those people now, but the relationship wasn’t one it was at all. Because I missed out on that, that time, they have bonding times sort of when people went at the end of the year to their different schools, I didn’t have that relationship to continue on because I hadn’t built up to it until the end and I missed out a main chunk of it so.

I didn’t feel that I deserved their friendship, they were all very nice people, and because of the way that I had a view about myself I thought well I’m bringing the group down, I’m sort of depressing them, so if I take myself away from them then they get to have a friendship they can have without me being of part of it because I’m bringing it down, they don’t, they don’t deserve me to, there, they don’t deserve to have me there making that situation more difficult so, I moved, I moved myself from it sort of. After a while they stopped inviting me to things ‘cos they knew, they knew I’d say no.

I can also realise now like that, that is a bit of this fear that like now I just kind of, you know, like translate the dependency I had in a relationship to my friendships soand really I wish I had in the past as well, where I just like had one person, suddenly like that person would just, but even with like a relationship in the sense that it wasn’t sexual, but it was like a relationship in the sense that it was really intense and like I’d just like hang onto this person and at first like that person would be really supportive and great and it would be like this great intimacy and mutual love. And then I would just be like the out, over, like the other person would feel overburdened by the pressure that I put on and like in the end I would just put my entire happiness on like, as the responsibility of that other person. So it’s like to the point where you know, even if the person’s there, it gets to the point where that still isn’t enough for some weird reason because it’s a never ending want that they could never satisfy it.

it’s still really hard to talk to people about because you don’t know what they’re gonna say or whether they’re just gonna dismiss it and not listen to you. Or if they’re gonna tell other people and laugh and their just, it’s really hard to sort of trust people and you have to tell em, I think that’s the hardest thing about getting over it, you’ve got to find somebody you really, really trust.

it’s getting over that hurdle of trusting them is the hardest thing with the relationship you just break down the trust, there’s no trust, I mean I trust people now but it’s, it’s still difficult to truly believe that they’re not gonna hurt you.

Even though you know that, you know they’re not going to, but something tells, and inside you it’s telling you, Oh they will But you know that they won’t, for a fact you know they wouldn’t hurt you. They wouldn’t want to do that, but something still tells you that they’re gonna, they can do it. But it’s just something, it’s so, it’s such a confusing. It makes it hard to read people as well, like you find it really hard.

With one of my friends we do sort of touch on it, we don’t go too deep because I’m not like, I don’t really open up that much to like people. But we do talk about it, we’ll touch on it, and we’ll sort of then, it’ll have some sort of really long winded conversation about it. And we do touch on it, but not much, it’s not a topic of discussion cos at the end of the conversation we just both feel a bit you know, run down by it.

it’s not something you really, if you’re drunk, and you’re together like you go out and you have a couple of drinks and play pool and then you, it all starts up again, you’ll all, you’ll talk openly, you’ll say anything when you’re drunk cos the truth comes out, doesn’t it? But, well not always but a lot of the time the truth comes out and you just talk about it then and then you wake up in the morning and you think, Oh God what’ve I done, you know. But yeah, we do talk about it, now and again.

Like just touching on the surface, it’s getting to the point we’re getting deeper and deeper about it, but it’s still not really that intimate like, you know. I mean I don’t about like eating or anything like that to them like, that’s a no go subject, but, that’s the same with everybody. I don’t like to get too intimately attached cos then it’s just gonna get broken at some point, so that makes it weird definitely. We do, we try, my mates try and get me to open up more about it but it’s just no, it’s not working for them. They try and help but I told them, when I’m ready one day I’ll probably just sit down and, probably could be out somewhere and just say it, and just let em look at me like what, that was a long time ago, you know.

I have a boyfriend, I’ve been with him for quite a long time, and you know he’s my main, he’s my best friend, you know I just, we, I tell him everything, I’ll be, I’m really rely on him, like I think I rely on him too much for emotional support, you know, aside from my Mum, he’s about the only one that’s really been there, and you know he’s had to cope with me, you know going through all the different emotions, and you know, fit, being okay one day, and you know sad the next, and… But other than that I’ve lost all my friends to be honest with you. Cos yeah, I don’t, have any social network at all really, and you know like that’s something I feel I need to work on, I want to, you know, I want to start having more friends.

And I thought, think it just became, it was a series of events really but it was mostly the, you know the physical illness then the depression where I wasn’t able to go out and then not wanting to go out, and then you know it just became, I just became more and more isolated, isolated as the years went on. And eventually just lost contact with anybody I was at school with, and you know just, it’s just pretty much now it just me and my daughter and my boyfriend, my Mum and my sister. That’s it, other than, you know GPs and counsellors, I don’t really have anyone to talk to. And I feel that’s quite important, with depression as well you need someone outside your circle you know, and it, not, not even someone to bear your, you know your emotional baggage, or not someone to lean on, but just to have friends and just to have someone to talk to, and enjoy you know, social experiences with. And that’s something that I lack in my life.

Because I’m still young but I like to make friendly with like you know what I mean. Try to knows more about the person whore been married to, or you who you’re choosing for your life. Because people will only once going to be married not everyyou know what I mean?

So I’m, and that’s my future to be training to be a hairdresser, to be a hairdresser and make a nicelife in England because I have to stay in England forever, I cannot leave England, my life’s not safe in my country so I can never go back to there. See if I choose in England I just waiting for a while, but I’m young now.

Yes [laughs].

[Laughs] I’m young, I’m not thinking about being married, I’m just thinking how to sort out my life.

My girlfriend at the moment I mean, absolute diamond. She knows exactly. She’s not a diabetic but she, I mean, what was it, about a month ago, she spent a couple of days trawling through the internet trying to learn as much as she could about it. So I’ve sent all of my blood sugars so she’s really supportive, and it’s just, it’s stupid, little things like a text saying, Have you done your insulin You know, text during the day’ What’s your sugar level and it’s saying that somebody is there to support, that loves you and is, is there for you. And she knows, and she just deals with the split personality by just, she tells him to F off so, it’s usually quite funny actually, cos she knows, she knows it’s me when I come back because I’ll burst out laughing.

I’ll, I text, I’ll just text her. And she’s just, she just says, What’s wrong And I’ll go, This or, you know I’ll say, Oh I don’t really know And she goes, Is it a feeling You know, Is it your head? Is it a pain? Is i You know, and she’ll talk me through about twenty million different things, but the end of it I’ll have forgotten what we were talking about and I’ll feel better. And she knows she does it.

Yeah, she, it was quite frustrating actually because it was, How do you do that So she’s just a diamond. She’s put up with so much, you know. Love her to pieces but I don’t know how she’s done it cos I couldn’t have done it without her. Like she’s the, the only person she’s got is me to talk to about it, so

She said that she’s here for me like, and then I’m like how I’ll turn out or what happens, and when she says stuff like that it’s then that I feel like it’s too good to like be said to me. It needs to be said to someone that’s not like me. That hasn’t got all these problems and doesn’t have all these stupid feelings and doesn’t go through like the pain and stuff. But they think it’s alright so far so.

Do you find it hard to believe her?

Like you know I believe, like I trust in her so I believe her.

Recently I’m at this place where I’m finding that honesty is a really good idea. But like I’m very careful to, like I’m seeing someone or something, get to know them, let them get to know me and then reveal these things. So that they see me first and foremost and then you know like, cos obviously I’ve got like scars on my arms and stuff like that. You know it’s like, don’t go in there with, Hi I’m Ruby, I’m nuts. Do you wanna go out with me You know, like, it’s like, you know now I know that well actually I’m not that bad, I am a nice person, well sometimes, a nice person, like so, let them see that and then later on, how can I be expected to be seen as a person without these things, if immediately I introduce myself as a person with these things.

And I’m not saying that they’re insignificant, or in no way important in my life, what’s happened, or what may still happen or whatever, but it doesn’t define me anymore. it’s not like, I’m, hi I’m Ruby, an alcoholic, bulimic, mental health service user. Who are you? What kind of music do you like You know, I’m like, I’m Ruby, I’m really into rock music, really, ah cool yeah. What do you do? Oh I write. Brilliant And then like a few, a couple of weeks down the line it’s like, Ah I’ve been meaning to tell you, I just wanted you to know sordquo; Do you know what I mean like? So that they know you, not your disease.

I have ADHD, it’s like I’m not good at crystal ball kind of stuff, at least not when it comes to myself. I can think about other things, I can think about economics, I can think about sociology, I can think about how networks evolve over time and think about the big picture stuff. When it comes to me it’s just like, I just think about it too much and then and then I start stressing myself.

I wasn’t a very good partner at that point in my life. I was despondent, I was uncommunicative, I was, I couldn’t help her, I was in need and could not provide and suddenly she was starting a new degree having been a fairly reclusive person for most of her undergraduate life, really all of her undergraduate life, she suddenly had new research people that she could actually identify with and she wanted to, and she felt like I was just dragging her down.And she would, she was scared to come home and sort of depressed because I felt depressed.