Sayuri , livre ebook

Sayuri
Stuck in the Void
Lena Sasse
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-02-28
Sayuri About The Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgements Prologue Part I – The ForgottenLittle Girl Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Part II – I’m Depressed, How Are You? Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Part III – Showing Your Teeth Is Not the Same as Smiling Chapter 39 November Chapter 40 December Chapter 41 March Chapter 42 March II Chapter 43 April Chapter 44 June Last Chapter October
About The Author
Lena Sasse is a young author who is a Lancaster University graduate in psychology. She has had her own struggles with mental health issues and therefore has the opportunity of writing about them from a unique perspective of having been through the struggle herself and now striving to obtain a professional career within the field of mental health.
Dedication
For Indra Kumar and Zion Hadarah
Copyright Information ©
Lena Sasse (2020)
The right of Lena Sasse to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528915038 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528961080 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Zion Hadarah and Mrs Susann Güven.
Unit 6D of Schön Klinik Hamburg-Eilbek, Germany.
Outpatient Day Clinic of Zentrum für Integrative Psychiatrie Kiel, Germany.
Lancaster University Psychology Department, England, UK.
Prologue
Mental illness is not something that makes sense to a lot of people. Not to the ones suffering from it, and not to the ones watching others suffer from it. Behaviours seem obsessive, paradoxical, even delusional. Nevertheless, these behaviours and thinking patterns serve a purpose, or they served a purpose in the past. Often, the purpose of the behaviours is, or was, to cope with a difficult, maybe traumatic, situation. Withdrawing and becoming numb can be a mechanism to avoid hurt; refusing to eat can be a way of gaining control and expressing anguish; self-harming might soothe one’s emotional pain. Unfortunately, the behaviours can take over and become the problem itself. Behaviours that were designed to cope with situations in childhood do not serve one well anymore in adulthood. The overwhelming power of the thinking patterns one has developed can make it seem impossible for one to believe that they are in charge of their own life. That is what happened to me. This is not my story, but these were my thoughts and feelings. It has been a long way to get back out, staying in hospitals for months on end, talking to people and getting help. But it has all paid off in the end.

Part I – The Forgotten
Little Girl
Chapter 1
I looked at myself in the mirror again, my long black hair was falling over my shoulders and my skinny legs looked good in the new khaki-coloured shorts. I sighed, Dad was already off to work. It was the first day of school this year and since I wanted to graduate early, it was hopefully also the first day of my last semester of school. I only had four more classes to get through: Chemistry, Japanese, Math and Dance. I used the thirty-minute drive to school to think about my summer. I’d gone to Europe with my dad. I liked travelling, and every place in every country had been special and I’d liked all of them, but since we’d been to so many places and countries in a fairly short period of time, it had also been a lot to take in at once. I’d been especially happy to spend two full months with my dad though, because when we were at home I usually barely ever saw him, because he was a lawyer and therefore always had to work a lot and never had time for anything, including me. But despite that, he was a good father, or at least he tried to be and that had to count for something after all. I parked the SUV in the school’s parking lot and entered the flat grey building. As soon as I saw all the students swarming around, I started shaking. That was what always happened to me when I was surrounded by so many people. I’d hoped it would’ve changed over the summer, but obviously that hadn’t worked. I went to the counsellor’s office to pick up my schedule for this semester. “Good morning, Sayuri,” Mrs Moore welcomed me.
“Morning.”
She handed me the schedule. “I saw your last report card was excellent. I’m positive you’ll be able to graduate early.”
“We’d be very proud of you,” she added.
“Thanks,” I smiled at her and left the office. I was a few minutes early when I entered the math room, so there was barely anyone there yet, except for the teacher. According to my schedule, her name was Ms Lee and I’d also have her in chemistry. Her pitch-black hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked still very young and seemed to be Asian, like me. My mom was Japanese, which was the reason my hair is straight and black, and my eyes are almond-shaped. Other than that, I didn’t know much about my mother. The bell interrupted my thoughts.
By now, there were probably about thirty students sitting in the classroom, waiting for Ms Lee to start the lesson. She quickly introduced herself and then we started doing logarithms. I thought it was easy; math had always been my favourite subject and I’d never understood why everyone else thought it was so hard. At the end of the lesson, Ms Lee told us to finish the worksheet for the next lesson. When most people had already left, I went to her desk and gave her my answers, I’d already completed everything during the lesson. “That was quick,” she smiled, “Do you like math?” I looked at her and nodded. There was something in her look that made me feel safe, almost protected.
I grabbed my things and left the classroom. After that, I went to a quiet spot and sat down on a windowsill. It was weird, even though I’d already been to this school for two years, I hardly knew anyone. I was too shy to talk to people and often wasn’t sure if I’d even want their company. For some reason, it was hard for me to find people that I actually liked. My friend, Phoebe was one of them, we often went riding together. She lived in a rented apartment on a beautiful farm, which was also where she kept her horse and luckily, it was just one road down from the place I lived at. The horse she had was a beautiful, black Arabian mare named Tulsi, that she was riding without anything on her, bareback and bridle less. And just like Phoebe, pretty much everyone I was friends with, was at least five years older than me. I didn’t like to admit it to myself, but I was always scared of people my own age, because I always felt like I was in competition with them and I always felt like I lost. They seemed to be worth more than I was and like they actually had their own personalities and I didn’t. I was jealous of everyone who was self-confident and just seemed to be able to talk to everyone. Plus, it always felt like everyone liked them. I had none of that: I was shy, self-conscious and didn’t really talk to anyone. I shrugged as I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. It was Catherine, my contemporary dance teacher. I shoved my phone in my bag and strode to my Japanese class. Mr Robinson came into the classroom, closing the door loudly behind him so everyone would look up. I already knew him from taking Japanese last year, so I also knew that he wasn’t Japanese at all, not that he looked like it anyway, but he’d gone to Japan for some time, had got to know the culture and the country and improved his Japanese. In the beginning, I’d been excited to learn the Japanese writing and I still liked writing it, especially because usually no one could read what I was writing when I didn’t want other people to know, but even though I usually understood what I read, that was as long as I knew the vocabularies; I was always struggling to build sentences.
After school, I walked to the dance studio, which was only a few blocks down from my school. As I walked up the stairs, I ran into Catherine.
“Hey Sayuri.”
“Hey.”
“I’m going to go grab something to eat, but you can go up,” she said. I got changed and shoved my stuff in a locker. Then I went into the big studio, one wall of it was completely covered with mirrors, from ground to ceiling. I looked at myself. My skin had become even darker over the summer, only my scars were still light. I wore short, tight-fitting pants and a mint-green coloured top. My hair was up in a high ponytail, exposing my bony shoulders and collarbones. When I pulled up my shirt, I could see every single one of my ribs. I was tall and my legs were long and skinny. My hip and backbones stuck out through my skin and were always hurting when I was laying down. But despite all that, I never felt thin enough, either my stomach suddenly seemed chubby or my legs just weren’t thin enough anymore. I turned away from the mirrors and started warming up as Catherine was coming back.
Slowly, other girls started coming in and the lesson began. I liked how I was always a little more flexible and jumped a little higher than the others. It made me feel in contr