A Fleeting Glimpse Of Perfection

I had some of the best days of my life, in the arms of somebody I will probably never see again.

On the beaches of an island of Thailand, under the most beautiful fucking stars you’ll ever see, I fell in love with the romantic impossibility of escaping reality together.

“You see that boat over there?” he asked.

“Where?”

“Right there, just by the edge of the lagoon”

“oh yes, what about it?”

“Let’s untie it, and float away, and see where we end up, then stay there.”

I laughed.

“I have a fiver in my pocket, we’ll be okay, we’ll make it”

Neither of us moved, for a moment taken with the notion of drifting into the unknown, holding each other and escaping everything else.

You’d think I’d be sad, that he lives too far away, that it’s fairly unlikely I’ll meet him again. But I’m not. Regardless, we had those perfect moments, and those moments showed me that I don’t need to settle for anything but what I truly want. So I got home, and I cut the feeble ties between me and a few guys here. No, not because I genuinely believe we can make this work, but because falling for him showed that I CAN feel again. I haven’t truly felt for a guy since J and I broke up last year, until now, and now I know it can happen again.

My faith has been restored, and I am so, so happy.

The Battle

…between your head and your heart.

You know exactly what I mean. When you know what’s the most logical option. The best option when analysed and looked at objectively. In essence, what you SHOULD do; that’s what you’re head is telling you.

Then when it’s your heart talking, you usually will have a totally irrational impulse, governed entirely by feelings and compulsion, and more often than not, by love.

And what do you follow? The safe logical option, or the stupid emotionally entangling option?

Truth is, I always follow my heart. It gets me hurt. I get fucked over and hurled back out of a twisting whirlpool of emotions, bruised and battered and lonely. 

BUT despite all of that, I’d much rather take those opportunities, follow my heart, my gut feeling, who I love… than miss out on life. I’d rather do that than date safe guys and feel nothing and march through life with everything organised down to the last minute detail. Spontaneity? Irrationality? RISKS? They’re part of life, and I intend to live to the absolute full.

The reason I write this is because it hit me just this morning the fundamental difference between somebody in my life who is very important and me. Whereas I always follow my heart, he always follows his head. It is just an interesting subject for me. 

Head or heart?

Self-Actualisation

Clarity

Maybe I’m just in a good mood. Maybe seeing my best friend all day has put a smile on my face. Maybe it was a particularly good Chinese takeaway. All I know is, right now, I feel amazing. I feel empowered.

It’s like I understand why the last few months have been so shit. I feel like it was a test of my strength, of my faith in humanity and of my progress through recovery. And you know what? I feel stronger. I feel better. I feel more secure in myself.

Less than a year ago, the last few months would have floored me. I’d have collapsed into a cycle of starvation, self harm and depression. I wouldn’t eat or sleep or talk. 

And now? Yes, I cut my wrists. Yes, I made myself sick. Yes, I went a few days without eating. But I also know for a fact that I will never cut myself again. The spells of relapse eating-wise were TEMPORARY. Here I am, less than 3 months later, feeling as good as I ever have done.

It hasn’t been sudden. I don’t look in the mirror and feel beautiful or skinny. I don’t see myself as different particularly. I don’t feel happy constantly.

But I have regained my faith in fate; my faith that my life is going somewhere. Suddenly a future I wasn’t sure I wanted has opened up before my eyes, and you know what? I can’t fucking wait. I really can’t. I feel so ready to kick start my life, ups and downs, I don’t care. I now know that I want to live not die, I want to love wholly and truly, and I want to see this world for better or worse.

The ups will outweigh the downs. I know now I’m going somewhere, and wherever it is, the ride will be amazing. 

Love

The Impossibility of Description

Try and describe love.

Imagine an alien came to earth and you had to explain the concept of love to them. What would you say?

Dictionary.com defines love as “

love

   [luhv]  Show IPA noun, verb, loved, lov·ing.

noun 1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. 2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, asfor a parent, child, or friend. 3. sexual passion or desire. 4. a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person;sweetheart.”

I don’t know if that quite, sums it up though.

You could describe a physical reaction? Somebody who makes your stomach feel like it’s doing somersaults and your heart rate speed up and your palms sweat.

You could describe it sexually. Somebody you just feel an intense longing to be WITH.

You could describe it in terms of the lengths you would go for love. Love is when you would do anything, absolutely anything, to keep that person happy.

I mean, maybe love is just that person you want to be with, all the time, every second of every day, and every moment spent apart is like a physical ache. 

Or maybe it’s different for different people.

I think it’s beyond our comprehension.

What is love? Am I in love?

Kaleidoscope

Painting The Picture

An eating disorder involves a plethora of colours.

White skin, pail and stretched tight over protruding bones.

Bruises, purple and blue, shot with green, blossom wherever legs and arms and stomach brush against anyone or anything.

The black darkness of shadows permanently shade the area beneath her eyes.

Red blood vessels snake their way across the eyes as she purges, bloodshot and painful.

A single tear carves a silver track down the pale cheek, containing a million thoughts and emotions.

The pink-purple of her nails, the only sign of how inexpressibly COLD she is; inside and out.

The faded red of dry lips left unkissed is a sad reminder of how alone she is.

White. Purple. Blue. Green. Black. Red. Silver. Pink. Faded Red.

Such beautiful colours, filled with such sorrow.

The Good Times Don't Last

Small Things Have Big Consequences.

Anybody noticed how one thing, one small, seemingly insignificant thing, can change everything?

How one second everything can be perfect and you can feel at peace and relaxed and happy, then the next the world collapses into dust and you’re left, stranded in the ruins of what used to be with a handful of broken promises and words left unsaid.

How something beautiful can crumble into dust in the palm of your hand…over nothing.

I want to turn back time, and I want to make it all okay.

I want to look in his eyes and feel him looking into mine, not into those others’. 

Why does everything good change? Why can’t it last?

Me

Me

I hate myself so fucking much.

Everything is just spiralling;

Everything I say pisses somebody off or fucks something up.

Everything I do is wrong.

Everything I am is worthless.

When will this end?

Cliche, but true

Yes, I knooow cliche has an accent, but my computer is being spacky, nobody correct my grammar for it!!!

So, although I generally detest cliches, I’m going to indulge in one for the purpose of putting my somewhat optimistic message across: Every cloud has a silver lining.

I let the darkness of recent times absorb me, I truly did. I let this darkness that kept weighing up on my chest creep up on me, drag me down, release tears down my face, guide my hand towards the razor blades. I cut myself. There’s my humble admission; I slashed my wrists for the first time in months.

But it didn’t help. JB and S didn’t suddenly realise that they fucked me over and come running to my house crying and begging for me to forgive them. My troubles weren’t gone because of the cuts etched into my wrist. To an extent, it woke me up, but not because the pain made me feel alive… because the pain made me feel nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.

I still feel desperately sad and hopeless. Yet, now I am starting to open my eyes to the fact that harming myself isn’t the way to solve this. Sobbing and crying and hating isn’t the way. My true friends are the ones who were on the phone to me as I was holding the pills, who told the people making me feel worthless to fuck off, who saw the cuts beneath my sleeves, and held my hand knowingly saying nothing at all.

They are the people I want in my life.

I’m not trying to say I’m better, or okay even. I’m saying that I am willing to let myself get better. My trust has been destroyed, and I still feel a kind of nauseating anxiety when I see either of the people who hurt me, but I now know that i will heal.

For now, at least; I choose life over death.

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Heavy Hearted.

Heaviness.

So the very friend I was defending, JB, that caused me to have an argument with S has thrown it all back in my face and said that, without justification, she doesn’t wish to be friends anymore.

I can’t even explain how crushed I feel.

I trusted the both of them above anybody else for around 2 years, JB longer, and for them to leave me after they promised they wouldn’t breaks my heart. I’m not bitter, or angry, or trying to turn people against them. I’m just hurt, miserable, there’s an aching in my chest that feels like somebody’s holding my heart and squeezing the life out of it.

Which in a way, metaphorically, they are.

I just feel miserable at the moment. They betrayed me. After everything I tried to do, everything I tried to help each of them with. They’ve seen me at my worst, helped me achieve my best.

I can’t even write this properly, my hands are shaking too bad.

Everything seems to be grey. They left me. They fucking LEFT ME. 

Promises mean nothing.

Everyone leaves in the end.

Light in Dark

The tears sparkle like diamonds.

The scars tell my story.

The bones reveal my mind.

The pills are such pretty colours.

The blood is like a waterfall.

The loneliness is almost bravery.

I hate this.

Self

And they broke me.

And my soul flutters at my fingertips, before being carried away.

As in a million tiny pieces, I see me, tumbling in the wind’s icy grasp.

And I watch myself, carried into the eye of the storm.

Disgusted.

Disgusted.

So, I have a friend who a few weeks ago began making themselves sick, and continued like this for a further few weeks, before stopping. She lost a lot of weight, to the point where she began to look unhealthy, and she barely eats at school, and she overexcercises.

Naturally, I worry for hours and hours about her, I try and track her eating habits and the amount of excercise she does; even my mum asks for daily updates because she’s seen how ill she looked and is worried sick as well. We have a mutual friend, and I mentioned to him that we needed to keep an eye on her eating and stuff, as I was getting worried about her.

He responded with “to be honest, it sounds like you’re worried she’s overtaking you”

I hung up.

Later he repeated “it just sounds like you’re jealous”

I felt revolted, disgusted, insulted, horrified, sick to my STOMACH that somebody, especially someone I trusted so much, could say such a horrendous thing. Honestly, the idea that I would be jealous of rather than worried about her weightloss is disgusting; it goes against everything I stand for, and I have FOUGHT against for the past 4 years.

Recovery has been fucking difficult, and I was at a point where I felt proud that I’d got this far, grateful to my friends for their support. Now, not only has he made me feel like some kind of selfish bitch, but he’s also proved that he knows nothing about me or how I think/feel. I honestly think what has been a very close friendship is over.

God, it’s really really upset me. All i want to do is slash up my wrists and push my fingers so far down my throat that I cough up blood for the next few days and stop eating and take too many pills… but my parents are proper on my case.

I can’t even just starve myself for a week or so, because I have exams. 

He has reduced everything I've fought for to nothing.

Feel like shit. Hate myself more than ever. Thanks a fucking bunch S.

Irrationality

Irrationality

One of the worst things about an eating disorder, in my opinion, is its ability to break down reality, piece by piece, until your perception of normalcy has shifted so completely, you find yourself confused with what is in your head and what isn’t. 

Anorexia changes what reality is to you. My reality became different, and what had once seemed out of the ordinary, horrific, terrible to even consider… became normal. Purging, for example, started out as something huge. I’d debate and over analyse the pros and cons of chucking up my dinner, I’d write pages in a diary about how horrible it was, how it felt. It was only the other day that I realised I’ve manged to reduce it to a very mundane set of actions which I follow each time. Put the tap on or leave the shower running to cover the noise, purge for 20 minutes, wipe mouth with toilet paper, flush, rinse mouth with water, wait 5 minutes, purge some more if i still feel full, rinse mouth, wati 5 minutes, blow nose, clean teeth, re-apply mascara, put my cold hands on my eyes to cool them down, clean teeth again, drink water. It’s a routine, it’s second nature. I don’t feel the need to mention it anymore, it has just become part of what is normal to me.

This in itself shocked me. How has such a horrendous activity become so natural? How am I now immune to the burning in my throat and the pounding in my head and the taste in my mouth?

What have I become?

Why?

I just spent about an hour throwing up absolutely everything in my stomach.

And then some more.

I just couldn't stop.

Eye make up smeared across my face, groaning in agony as I felt the back of my throat tear slightly, and felt my body convulse as i pushed my hand further and further.

I kept going, until I just dry heaved.

Then I curled into a ball, sobbing, on the bathroom floor, with acid burning in my throat and tears in my eyes.

I hate this. It's hell.

"Society Killed The Teenager" ...um, what?

All over Tumblr there seems to be a craze of “blaming society” for our problems. The reason we have eating disorders is because SOCIETY makes us think skinny is beautiful. The reason we’re shy about our sexuality is because SOCIETY rejects anybody homosexual or bisexual. The reason we’re depressed is because SOCIETY is just FUCKED UP.

Okay, so all these people blaming society… where the fuck do you fit in then? We ARE society; the next generation of society at least! To me blaming this elusive “society” feels like shirking the blame, if I’m honest. You know, we all have a tendency to re-blog the pretty people, or use the term “gay” when we’re annoyed, or use the term “emo”. 

We are all to blame, really, and so making stupid photos with this slogan “society killed the teenager” is a load of bullshit. “Society makes us think drugs are cool”.. um what? WE make EACH OTHER think drugs are cool, and each time we pick up a spliff or a bong it’s not SOCIETY forcing us to, it is 100% our decision. In fact, society is doing its best to educate us now, more than ever, about the concept of acceptance - both of ourselves, and each other.

Now, although this means we are all partly to blame, it also means we have a lot more power. I think it’s time to stop blaming society. It’s time to get off our arses and unite within this society, because we as the next generation have the ability to shape the future, and decide the society in which the next generation will grow up. 

We all feel so impassioned about what is right or wrong, so let’s take a stand. EVERYBODY deserves a voice.

It's Not A Game Anymore

I’m one of those recovery promoters, you know: who DETEST the pro-anorexic movement which seems to treat an eating disorder like a lifestyle choice, as if it’s a game.

But lately, criticizing the “like a game” element has begun to feel somewhat hypocritical, because, to an extent, that’s how it began. One challenge after the next to see how little I could eat, how many times a day I could purge without my parents hearing, the longest I could go without eating. Sick, twisted little games, challenges, with myself.

Me vs. My Body. One big fucking showdown.

The truth is, I think a lot of people labour under that “I could stop whenever I wanted” mentality; they don’t take it seriously. I certainly didn’t. The first time I confided in someone that I was struggling with eating, I managed to convince myself that I was actually LYING, and that my lies made me a bad person, which incurred more self hate and in turn less eating. How WARPED is that? I still do it now, if ever the subject comes up guilt washes over me, like I feel I don’t deserve their angst, their sympathy, their concerns, because all along I was just KIDDING MYSELF that I even had an eating problem.

Then, it hits home that you can’t get out. You’re trapped in a cage you’ve crafted yourself. You get to the bathroom, and you look in the mirror, and you see the fear in your eyes, the pale skin pulled taught over protruding bones, dry lips being bitten in fear. And yet, you force yourself to crouch over that toilet, to force your fingers deep into the back of a throat already aching, and you begin the process all over again.

This control? This power over yourself? This ability to stop, whenever you want? Bullshit, really. And that’s when you realise that you have entered the realms of a full on eating disorder. That moment when you don’t want to purge, when you desperately want to eat, and yet you drag yourself to the bathroom, and push away your salad? That is the moment you realise, you have an eating disorder.

It’s not a game anymore, and it never really was.

Comparisons

You know, there are some days where I look in the mirror and I don't want to die.

I put on an outfit I like, try my hair differently then change it back, bit of make up on. Try out a smile in the mirror, try a pout, and feel... not happy, but I don't completely hate myself.

Yet the second I step out the door, or log onto fucking FACEBOOK, or get talking to somebody on the phone, I feel an overwhelming SHAME at having not hated myself. Does that make sense? Like the instant I see other people, the feelings of ugliness and self hatred and depression all come flooding back.

It just got me thinking, why? WHY does society teach us to care what other people think? It's all perception; in the eye of the beholder as they say. So what one person thinks is completely different to another. It's like ice cream; one flavour, a million different opinions of it. So why do we seem to give a shit what other people think?

The worst part is, half of the time it's not what people think of me, it's what I think they think of me. When I have to stand next to my gorgeous, sexy, beautiful friends I just feel like the ugly duckling, like I don't deserve a place. And yet logically, when I think about it, somewhere somebody does probably think that I am.. I dunno, pretty. 

And, although I say it's society, I blame society... we comprise society. We are the ones who assume we are being compared to everyone else, and so compare everyone else in return, making these ridiculous comparisons somehow acceptable.

There is only one YOU. Fucking cheesie as it sounds, it's true. We are all different, and there will be a million people on this planet who think that WE are beautiful.

Quit fucking comparing everyone, including yourself, and just... relax. Have a cup of tea, try that new hair style, and take a photo. No, don't care about its facebook likes, don't get all competitive with your friends. Just, let it be.

"Why are you anorexic?"

"Why are you anorexic?"

Because it’s easier to control calories than actually taking control of the negativity in my life.

Because an eating disorder instils order among chaos, I have control.

Because this world is spinning too fast for me, and this allows me to keep up.

Because it helps me hold on, I don’t have to grow up anymore.

Because without it, I am nothing.

Because I don't deserve that food, I am worthless.

Because the emptiness of hunger is easier to bare than the emptiness I feel inside.

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All Grown Up

I feel I've lost a lot of time. Do you ever think back to those things you felt when you were younger?

All those dreams, left unrealised? You know, the ones we had as children, that we told our year 1 teacher about; when she nodded, and smiled, and left you with crayons and contentment, allowing those fragile dreams to remain intact for a little while longer.

I wanted to be a trapeze acrobat in a circus. I would swing back and forth in my garden, eyes burning with the images of cheering crowds and ears buzzing with their applause. I read books of girls running away to join the circus, dreamed I'd be beautiful and tall and graceful, that I'd fly through the air and that nothing else would matter.

Yet here I am, left in the tangled ruins of a hangover and regret. Spliffs smoked and guys fucked and shots downed that shouldn't have happened. How did I get like this?

Where is the little girl I once was, soaring through the air on my imaginary trapeze as my pigtails bobbed cheerily in the sunshine? Gone?

Yet sometimes, I feel her still here somewhere. When I'm scared, when I'm alone, I sometimes allow myself to return to that place. To curl up tight on my bedroom floor, squeezing out the world with tear-stained eyelids, and I remember. I feel the sting of grazed knees and kisses of parents, I taste the melting ice-creams and delicious fudge, I hear the singing of happy birthday and my own childish laughter.

Funny, isn't it, how we spend so long wishing we were grown, and yet once we get there, we'd give anything to see the world just once through innocent eyes?

Life is Fragile

Life is precious.

Every day, life could just slip away. It really could.

I don’t know the exact figures, but there’s probably a 0.0001% chance that somebody you love, pick someone, could be in some sort of terrible accident. Would your last words have been enough to do justice to how much you care?

It’s an awful comprehension to realize how truly fragile life is, how breakable. Maybe it’s fate; maybe it is all pre-determined, I don’t know. Either way, every day we teeter on the balance between living and dying, of loving and losing, of succeeding and of failing. 

No goodbyes, no preparation, someone could just disappear from your life. They could just be.. gone. GONE.

You wouldn’t know the last words you’d ever speak to them would be the last words. You wouldn’t know, until it was too late.

I don’t want to be cliche, and prat on about live every day like your last, and life is short, and dole out all those quotes. But beneath the pathetic cheesiness, they actually contain a very poignant message, which I believe needs to be communicated.

Thoughts?

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"Cry For Help"

This phrase is banded about a lot in the world of self harm and eating disorders. I actually think this phrase perfectly sums up a huge part of their very workings, but for some reason, it has become a term of dismission.

"She's just doing it as a cry for help, it's no big deal"

Uh.. what? A cry for help means there is a need for help in the first place, the sheer desperation of people who turn to self harm starvation aren't  just crying for help, they're screaming. Why on earth does this strike somebody as a reason to disregard their struggles? Surely, if anything, they should realise how truly awful somebody must be feeling to search for some kind of deliverance, of salvation even, through such self destructive means?

Honestly, it drives me up the wall. If people hurt themselves as a "cry for help", give them fucking help, they clearly need it!

Now, don't get me wrong, I think "doing it for attention" and "crying out for help" are very different things. Somebody who shouts about how they love cutting themselves, or posts pictures on crazy ass erotic forums, or who broadcasts pro-ana messages of "bones are beautiful", they need a whole different kind of help. They need help to stop being such a dick and get to the bottom of why they're choosing to promote something so blatantly harmful as a good lifestyle choice.

Nobody ever acknowledges they're doing something as a cry for help. I never did, but with the benefit of hindsight, there were times when I just wanted someone to take me aside and say;

"I've noticed. I've seen the scars. I've noticed the weight loss, the disappearance to the bathrooms. And it's okay, I'm here for you, and I'm going to help you get through this"

I once read a very good description of selfharm;

"You scream, in a room full of people, but nobody, not a single person, hears you. So you scream in blood." 

Sometimes, you need to LET STUFF OUT, and you want other people to hear you.

Regardless, in keeping with everything else I used to destroy myself, I never opened up really, not until after a long long time of it anyway. I still wore long sleeves all through the summer, or smeared foundation on my arms. I still laughed off anybody who asked why I hadn't eating, and I still lied about my weight, and how much I ate. But right at the back of my mind, in the deepest, darkest corner of it, lay a desperate me. The rational me. The scared, hopeless, lost me, who wanted somebody to find me. Part of me wonders if that part of me is my inner child, the happy little girl who at times feels miles away, crying out for help.

The other day, I saw a yahoo answers post which broke my heart. A girl had posted this (or something very similar): 

"I am 12 years old, and I have taken 12 paracetemols. I'm 5ft3 and quite a small build, will this be enough to kill me?"

No, there weren't concerned messages urging her to go to hospital. In fact, the highest rated comment was;
"If you really wanted to kill yourself, you would have taken the whole pack sweetie. I think somebody's done this as a little cry for help, so why don't you run along down to A&E to get an ickle stomach pump."

Not sure if I've truly communicated the evident sarcasm of the comment, but it was dripping with it, and many of the other comments followed the same theme.

That little girl could be dead.

She was crying out for help, because she needed it. 

The Incomparability of Anorexia and Bulemia

When people say that they believe one is worse than the other, it pisses me off hugely, particularly if that person has only suffered from one of the two. I've heard bulemia specifically called "the weak person's anorexia", and is generally seen as less dramatic, even though its effects are just as devastating as severe anorexia. My experiences with both have been different, and in their different ways hard to combat. this is in no way a comparison in the two, I'm just going to relay my personal experiences of each, and explain how they are devastating in their own ways.

Bulemia became an issue in my life aged 12, and lasted for just under 2 years, then turned into the occasional purge over 5 or 6 months, before I began starving myself. Bulemia is far easier to hide; there is no sudden weight loss, you still eat with family, you aren't tired and fainting all the time... and although that might sound like "advantages", it actually can be what makes it so dangerous. Bullemics can continue for years without ever being found out or receiving help. During the years I would make myself sick 5 or 6 times a day, I wouldn't necessarily feel like it was affecting my health; I generally felt, fine. Sick, yes. Tired, yes. Sad, definitely. But ill? No, it was just something I did. 

Anorexia was a very different story, and it all began shortly after my 14th birthday. Anorexia is immediate. It's sudden. After just one week of starvation, of the anorexic mindset, my entire life was controlled, thrown into turmoil. I couldn't focus on anything, I felt faint and dizzy and unbearably hungry all the time. It really was horrible. My family noticed after just 4 months of rapid weight loss and a sudden lack of eating, and immediately got me psychiatric help. So it was discovered almost immediately, and my thoughts definitely felt disordered, although to this day I refuse to accept I had an eating disorder, despite having been diagnosed.

So to compare these two experiences is absolutely impossible. Bulemia has been a harder set of habits to break. Even as I type, I can still feel the acid burning in my throat from purging up dinner; the habits are so inviting to fall back into. Anorexia was far harder as I was going through it, starvation is directly proportional to how much you eat: I felt depressed all the time, and I felt very very ill. I think the thing is with habits regarding bulemia is that even if you manage to force yourself through the anorexic heartwrenching before a meal, you still have the guilt there. Bulemia enables you to act on that guilt.

Most people go through these two the other way round for that very reason; in fact, it is very rare to go through these illnesses in the order that I did. I am still fighting my demons, and they both pose challenges for me as I move through my recovery. Never belittle either, for they are unbelievably challenging and traumatic experiences, each in their own way.

Healthy Weight Loss

The weight I am right now is just about a healthy weight, but lately I've been eating a bit too much junk food, and have just gone up by a few more pounds than I would like to be. Of course, the second I decide that I'll lose a few pounds, in a healthy way, my old habits begin creeping in, and suddenly I find myself teetering between full on relapse and just about holding it together. THIS is ridiculous isn't it? Lots of people lose weight in a totally healthy way for lots of different reasons, why do I feel like such a failure when I try and just stick to a diet plan?

This isn't really a post, I just really wanted to know if anybody had had a similar thing, and found a way of overcoming it without allowing the ED mindset to return? Diet plans? Calorie limitation? Anything like that?
Thank you!

Control

I don’t even know what this word means anymore.

Once, it meant less than 200calories a day. 

Once, it meant losing 5llbs in a week.

Once, it meant illness and pain and hatred.

Then, it meant realisation.

Then, it meant anorexia had taken it.

Then, it meant being lost in a spiral into this illness, becoming sicker and sicker.

Now, I don’t know how to gain control.

I’m so lost.

Rescue me?

Escape

***TRIGGER WARNING***
It's weird.
My hope, my interminable faith in humanity and in the people in my life, is fading.
I feel so trapped, but at the same time lost in the wilderness of my mind. It seems so impossible to explain; how every move I make feels constricted, and yet at the same time to feel as if I'm floating with no particular direction or path to follow.

I want to run away.
I want someone to recognise that the "I'm fine" "I'm just tired" "I'm not hungry" "I was just coughing, not being sick" bollocks that I dole out every fucking day is just that; a pile of bullshit. I don't think I am okay. I can't admit that, but I really am scared that this time everything won't be okay.
I want to escape, even if it's just for a while.
I want one of the people who claim to love me, who say they'll always be there, to scoop me up in their arms, and hold me tight, and tell me they love me.
I need someone to recognise how much I'm hurting because it's killing me, it really is.

This Friday was the date I'd planned to kill myself, after deciding if I was going to, I wanted to be level headed, to have thought it through, to make sure there was no chance of not dying. I won't go into details about method, but tomorrow was the date.
I realised this was a stupid idea, made plans to have my friend over. She ditched me. I asked my other mate to go to the movies with me. He can't because of "transport".

I need someone to want me enough to take me away for a few hours, to make me smile, to make me laugh.

This pain is too much and not enough.

I don't even know who I am anymore.
Truth is, if I don't find a way of escaping this awfulness in my mind, suicide will be my only escape.
I mustn't let that happen.

The Wake Up Call

When did you guys all SEE yourself for the first time?
I think it's so easy to allow anorexia to cloud your vision when you see yourself. I would look in the mirror and think I looked like a fatass, that my face looked chubby, that you could barely even see my bones. The inspiration from this post came from reading another blog, about a girl whose wake up call was unbelievable. Some of you may have seen the pro-Ana slogan "I want to be so light, I don't leave footprints in the snow"? This girl was walking in the snow when she suddenly realised she was barely leaving a mark.
This resonated with me in two ways.

Firstly, it shows that with anorexia, you think you really want something, but actually when the time comes, you realise it wasn't worth the sorrow and the heartache to get.
The second is the symbolism within this realisation. You're no longer leaving a mark on the world, you're becoming less of a person; you're becoming invisible. This image reflects the way in which anorexia takes away who you are, you don't have as much impact. You are barely even there anymore.

I saw another story of a girl who just looked in the mirror one day, and actually SAW herself. She suddenly saw the ribs, the bones sticking out horrendously, how ugly her skeletal body looked in the harsh light of reality. She realised she looked nothing more than a corpse; no femenine curves; gaunt pale face; bow legged;... unattractive. Anorexia is not beautiful.

My realisation could have come at a  lot of times:
I was in the shower, and as i put conditioner in, I took my hand away from my head, and a huge clump of hair was left in my hands. I sobbed; my hair is the one thing I have ever liked myself. THis was very symbolic too, in that it highlighted anorexia was taking away everything that mattered to me.
The second time I could have had my wake up call was giving my friend a hug at school. "Holy shit, K, I can feel your ribs through your blazer, that's disgusting". My thought process? How stupid, she obviously can't, she's lying.
The third time could have been a picture taken of me, smiling. I thought I would look pretty in it; I'd got dolled up to go out, I felt reasonably okayish. I looked at the photo and I look drained, exhausted, gaunt, sunken eyes.. the lot.
The fourth time? Sat in my psychiatrist's office, he had just weighed me. "K, if you lose any more weight, you WILL be put in inpatient treatment. You now are severely underweight." ... He's lying?

The real realisation came when I was lying next to the guy I was with at the time. He had his hand resting on my stomach as we lay half asleep, and I suddenly became aware of how much my ribs and hips stuck out. I felt... embarassed. What I usually saw as achievements looked so ugly. I suddenly became aware of how much pain I was in, with my bony spine resting awkwardly on the floor. My bones protruding suddenly made me feel ashamed. I had no stomach there really. I tried pushing out my tummy to make myself look bigger, but I physically didn't have the energy.

This sudden feeling of embarassment threw my world into turmoil. What? Bones are how I judge if I'm doing okay?? Why do I suddenly wish I just had a regular non-concave stomach?

I hope you all receive a wake up call sometime soon.

There Are No Words

Fate

*TRIGGER WARNING*

I attempted suicide on the 7th of September 2011.
If I had succeeded, I wouldn't even be here. I'd have been dead for over four months.
That's a fucking weird thought. The idea that my parents might have forgotten the sound of my voice by now has really shaken me up.

My best friend might have gotten over the fact that I'd be dead.
My sister might just think of me late at night when she has nothing else to think about.
My school would have moved on, the teachers already forgetting the name of "the girl who killed herself".

Have I left anything of value behind? I don't know.
But maybe I'm here because of fate. Maybe I wasn't meant to die on the 7th September. Maybe I am destined to be sat here right now, writing all about it.

Partly, it gives me hope that there is a reason I'm here. Partly it makes me sad to think how easily I could have  been forgotten. And then another part of me wonders whether I really am meant to be here, or if I should have stayed in that bath, let myself bleed to death, let my parents find me...

Mind is fucked right now, I don't know anything at the moment.

Early Beginnings

Now, I know it isn't the same with everyone, but I have for a long age had problems with food, and body image. I think these began very young, around 3 or 4, because I was a classic chubby child while my sister was a skinny waif-like 2 year old. This feeling of being bigger, the need to compare myself to everyone, was made worse when I started school. There, I became very close with a girl who was again, super skinny. We would play dress up, and she could always wear the nicest fairy costume or look the cutest.

However, I did not starve myself or blame food for a while after that. I hated how I looked, believed with all my heart and soul I was ugly, and often would eat too much and feel guilty afterwards. Aged 5 I switched to skimmed milk from semi-skimmed, aged 6 I started eating Special K after hearing it would magically help me lose weight. I would steal diet books from my mum, I would hide while my mum did excercise videos, doing the excercises behind the sofa or in another room. My body issues consumed me.

Aged 7, I tried to make myself sick. I had never heard of bulemia, I didn't realise it was a problem or a medical disorder. All I knew was that I wanted that food out of me. Luckily, I didn't succeed, although I tried right the way through my first year of secondary school. I began cutting out of frustration around the age of 11, because it was at this point I began taking on a lot of my friends' problems, including drug addiction, self harm and depression, which naturally had an adverse effect on me. Aged just 12, I succeeded, and through the next two years I made myself sick on a regular basis until June of the year I turned 14. This was triggered by unrest at home; Dad's job was in jeopardy and everything seemed to spiral out of control. Throwing myself fully into an eating disorder (although I did not acknowledge I had a problem until years later) helped me establish some control, or so I thought.

At this point, I finally faced up to the fact that I had a real problem. I gained about 6llbs, but didn't care because I was happy. That all fell apart the summer of that year - I won't go into it - which caused a very quick decline into anorexia. My weight plunged, everything began to spiral out of control. I quickly lost 9llbs in just 2 weeks, I barely ate, I passed out regularly, my parents and friends and even teachers were very worried. I began seeing a psych every month, a therapist weekly, and going for weekly weigh ins. I was threatened with inpatient treatment, which triggered a desire to break free.

So, having problems with food from such a young age must mean something?

Increasingly, we see stories of 9 year old anorexics on life support, or 8 year old bullemics being sent to clinics to recover; isn't it horrific? That our society has reached the point where children this young feel such a self-destructive impulse?

One argument might be that those who struggle with mental health issues have different neurological patterns in their brains. This scientific theory is highly disputed and countless studies disprove and prove it. Another might be exposure to the media brainwashed me, even at a young age, which is potentially true, although I always felt something a little deeper. I haven't suffered terrible losses, or been abused. My parents told me I was beautiful, Mum didn't obsessively diet, my Dad is a little overweight but never dangerously so; nurture seems to be out. That leaves nature..

I don't know exactly what it means, but it is proving to make recovery even harder to manage; overcoming habits and mindsets which have been deeply embedded all my life. Maybe self-destruction and self-hatred are part of the make-up of my mind. These thoughts get inside every second of my life, constricting it, suffocating it, leaving me feeling worthless. I'm tired of it.

Fuck nature vs nurture, I'm fighting back.

Ups And Downs

Sorry I haven't written for a while, I've had a pretty rough week. The roughness of the week is actually what's inspired me to write on here, because it's only struck me this week that people think once you start eating again, your problem is solved.

Friends think now that I'm not passing out in lessons, throwing up every day after lunch, losing weight at an alarming weight, now I'm not skeletal and I actually eat that I'm okay. And you know what? I'm not. I'm better, much better than I was, maybe even ever happen. But the truth is, even in this stage of recovery, there are days, sometimes weeks, where you just genuinely will feel shit. It's hard though, when something is so much less noticeable or obviously problematic to alert people to the fact that it's still not okay to talk about weight or ask me for diet tips. Not yet. I'm not ready. I just want to shout "guys, I'm not quite healed yet, please just give me a hug". As awful as this sounds, it's almost made me want to cut, to make me see some physical embodiment of this not-being-okay feeling I keep having. The ED thoughts still exist, and a part of me worries they always will.

I don't even think it's just friends and family who think recovery means eating and then, suddenly, you're fine. I think a lot of sufferers will embark on what truly is a long journey to recovery, thinking that they'll wake up tomorrow no longer having these thoughts. That they'll be fine.

I'm not going to bullshit you: Recovery is fucking hard. It really is. You'll have your ED days, you'll probably purge up your dinner, or go 2 days without eating. That's part of the battle, you see. It's how you overcome the bumps in the road that really matters, because recovery requires an inner strength to keep going and keep pushing forward. The first few weeks are instrumental. I read my diaries from around May last year, when I decided to try and recover, and every other day I decide I can't do it. And you'll feel like that! You WILL feel nothing matters anymore, you will feel alone, and scared.

Truth is though, your worst days in recovery will be better than your best days in relapse.

The rest of the world may not understand that because you don't look emaciated you no longer have an eating disorder; or because you no longer are covered in cuts that you're no longer depressed. Almost all of the strength to make it to recovery is needed from within you.

And so I leave you with the ever wise words of my drunken school friend.
I once had somebody tell me "You know, you look so frail and fragile on the outside, and yet on the inside you're one of the strongest people I know. You got some fucking balls, you know that?"

Never Felt So Alone?

I think for me, the absolute worst part of anorexia was the total feeling of being alone. The sense of isolation; of watching life pass you by from within your own little bubble, where nobody sees you or cares. How you can be surrounded by crowds of people, friends and family and teachers and strangers, yet still feel horrifically lonely.

Maybe it's the effect of starvation on the brain, God knows lack of food will cause you to feel depressed and like shit. Or maybe you're so focussed, so totally absorbed in your own personal hell that is anorexia, that you can't connect to anything around you? I would be in his arms and still feel alone. I would be with my family and feel like there should only have ever been three people there. I would literally start to wonder if my existance mattered to anybody at all.

Of course, now I know and see that it does, and always has done. I managed to convince myself that the looks of terror in my parents' eyes were about something else, not the fact that I was becoming more skeletal by the second. I managed to drown out the sound of my sister crying because she thought I was going to starve to death. My friends' desperate pleas for me to eat were them trying to make me feel better, or because they were jealous I was getting thinner, not because they cared. I just returned to my little world where all that mattered was the fact that you could see my ribs through my t-shirts and my hipbones were so sharp my tummy wouldn't touch the floor when I lay on my front. Nobody there but me, and my personified eating disorder.

You see, when anorexia is present, there isn't room for anyone else. Not only does nothing else really matter, but if you don't throw yourself into weight loss one hundred percent, the voice will scream in your ears again.

"Don't be stupid, Kelly, of course you can't go to that party, you'll have to eat food and then you'll get even fatter"
"But, I want to see my friends, I feel so lonely"
"Pathetic, they don't want to see you anyway, they just invited you because otherwise you'd probably cry"
"No, they want me there, I think?"
"You're too fat, they're all prettier than you, why would they be friends with a fat little slut like you?"
"True... *turns down invite*"

On and on this conversation would rage in my head until finally I took the stand.
I broke the little bubble.
I picked up the fork.
I accepted the invite.
I launched back into life again.

"Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone"