Suing under Trade’s Descriptions

Suing under Trade’s Descriptions

I often have times of self reflection. Unfortunately these occasions are predominantly towards the negative. I always defend the accusations that this self critical view of myself is simply me ‘beating myself up’. This is how I see it…

To me it isn’t beating myself up, no; to me it is simply a part of the ‘self improvement’ process. I view myself much the same as a designer views existing products or a scientist evaluates his experiments; practical, dispassionate and unemotional. There is a brief acknowledgement on any of the good, any successes that may have occurred, but this has rather less of a role in the evaluation than the stage of ‘what went wrong?’, ‘what failed?’, ‘what needs to be done better?’. What will make it even better?

Problem is; I don’t think I am ever going to be good enough. I’ll live improving and I’ll die improving. In a morbid way, I wouldn’t be surprised if the very process of improving will be the cause of my death.

I remember how I used to be, in the earlier years of anorexia. I believed was going to turn me into the person I wanted to be. Wonder drug, the fast track pass to perfection. Not only was it going to make me skinny and beautiful, it was also going to make me more popular, more funny, more of a ‘social butterfly’, more talented, more noticed, more respected, more loved…more able to love.

The realisation that this is not reality did not come all at once. It was less of the glass-shattering and more of slow drug come down experience. The mists of fantasy and illusion had thinned until only wispy fragments floated around me. Now I could see clearly and what I saw was the wasteland I had created whilst blinded by my mists of marvels.

Fast forward- sit that alien girl from all those years ago down, and show her the film of her future.

I shall be honest with what I know she will feel when she first sees herself. She will very likely be ecstatic, for I believe I am uncommon in the fact that even in the embryonic stages of my disorder, my mind was kinda screwed. Oh there was certainly a part of me that strove to be the ‘normal’ sort of skinny. The kind of skinny magazines show and everyone desires but seldom experiences. But what’s more important is the other part that already had darker ideals, the part that wanted to ‘shock’. This part is not interested in beauty, instead it strives to the physical extremes of existence, it craves bones, the look of illness and fragility. But back to the film; so far to her it looks pretty damn good. But she’s hardly seen anything yet…

She’s with friends. Sometimes. Yes, she has lots more friends. Only, this girl can’t handle it and she is constantly terrified of losing the friends. To her, having friends is such a god damn exhausting and boring chore. She’s too weak to enjoy them, to dulled down to engage with them, too tired to make the efforts she so wishes to make for them for being such precious people to her. She certainly looks funny; she can make people laugh; crack enormously offensive jokes and sour lemons with her sarcasm, but she rarely experiences whatever feeling makes these people smile, giggle and gasp. Her ‘talents’ are like a rapidly diminishing memory. She’s too tired to have hobbies, to hungry to care and to depressed to have such things as‘skills’. She knows and she feels appalling because to her; all she really sees is the lack of talents or skills, to her the ‘reasons’ are not valid. To her; she is just being lazy, weak; her feelings of rubbishness and lack of skills, hobbies and talents is all a result of her ‘not bothering to put in effort’. So there; she knows she deserves to feel crap. She wouldn’t really know if she was respected now because she’s too busy worrying about what she will eat and when and how, worrying whether the milk in her coffee, the tomato on her salad will make her gain weight…

I think the alien girl spectator would have left by now, don’t you? Would you stay and watch such a depressing, bleak film; especially if it was about you.

The film’s not finished, but for today’s purposes it can be switched off. The point is made. By the time you become what you thought you could be you will want your film to end. 

The Bad is Coming to Get Me

I’m feeling bad. Again. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe it’s just one of those days (it is Tuesday after all).

The last one certainly isn’t the reason. You don’t have more than 40 days of ‘those days’ consecutively and remain ‘just’ having anything.

Some people don’t understand a person feeling so extremely BAD but not crying, not moving, not making a fuss, not doing…anything normal ‘feeling bad’ people do.

I want to see the Doc again. I want a shrink. I want some new pills. I want better ones. I want the Bad to go away. I want to be skinnier. I want to run away on holiday. I want more money. I want a pet monkey…I want the new…the better…I want….I want to just be god damn happy .

There’s been something behind me. Or maybe it’s above me. Maybe it’s both. I don’t know. But something, I can feel something getting closer, gaining on me. It has been for ages. It is ‘the Bad’. It hasn’t seen me yet. But it will soon. Because there’s only me and there’s only it and I’m the only one it wants. So it’s coming.

I’m feeling scared. Not screamy scared, no. But flinchy scared. Sleep with one eye open scared. I hope it doesn’t come at night because you’re not allowed to have ‘one of those days’ in the night. People are sleeping. The world is sleeping and you must be good and quiet and pretend to be asleep also. You must stay in your bed and not disturb. But what if it comes? What if it comes?

I’ve got pills for night time. Doctor’s orders. Keep them close. Under the bed. In the drawer. Take one. Or two. Two means you’ll knock things over, even in the morning. But at least two makes it safer. Better hidden. I’ve got pills for the day, but they don’t hide me; they just stop me crying so much.

I want to see the Doc and I want to see a shrink. I want the Doc to make me feel like smiles from the bottle and I want to shrink to come and get the thing coming for me and kill it.

I want to be normal. I just want to be normal.

This is why you shall not hear me slagging off those ‘silly girls’ of society that so many people mouth off about. The girls that stride around in groups smelling like a terrorist attack just happened in Boots perfume depo. Those girls in crowds in the toilets, applying ever more layers of makeup to their masks. Those girls who ‘annoy’ with their coarse laughter, jostle with their huge patent bags. Yet their crises are so black and white. So rational. Boys. Bags. Work. Beauty. Money. Sex. Work. Parties. Money. Uni. Sex. Beauty. Lack of money. Travel. Clothes. Sex. Boys. LIFE!

Secretly, I’d kill to be them. Simple. Simple means safe. Simple.

It turns my stomach to hear the high and mighty haughtily ‘validating’ their own struggles and traumas against those of such girls. In my opinion; if you are in such a comfortable position as to be able to sit back and compare your troubles to those of others, well then they are just as invalid as theirs.

When you have real mental suffering it is all you can do to not bloody kill yourself let alone take a break to have a quick shifty about to make sure you’re still better than other people at ‘doing’ suffering. 

A quick one about a surprising event.....

This is a very hastily put together post because I'm knackered and been in a dark mood lately which means I find writing  not so easy at the moment.....But I've been wanting to share this with you ever since it happened...You excuse the non existent prose- it will be back soon!

Now, I'd already sworn myself into going out on New Yrs.

I had made a decision; 'Katie- you have NEVER 'had' a proper new yrs. You've NEVER gone out, and why? Ana that's why. THIS year, though, I dont care how sick you feel, how 'not up to it' you are- even if your bmi was in the minus- YOU ARE GOING OUT and getting into exactly the same horifically trollied state as everyone else your age.'

Then another friend asked me 'fancy going to london for new yrs?' about 3 days before the 31st. My response was to dimiss it as another one of her feather-brain plots, I instantly shot it down with my black and white logical reasons about just why it was a completely unrealistic expectation, quoting price/extortion, travel, planning time blah blah blah....

BUT

To cut a long boring story short.....

EMILY AND KATIE WENT TO LONDON FOR NEW YRS!!!!!!!!!!

I am still rather bloody proud and smug with this HUGE achievement for me. 

She drove down, we managed to get a premier inn for £39 each in Heathrow for the night...

Bought copious amounts of alcohol from Sainsburys on the way (looking slightly suspect as we checked in with sagging, clonking bags'. 

Drank a goodly amount in the evening in the room, then got the hotel shuttle bus to Terminal 5 where we rode the underground (free on new yrs after 11.45pm!) taking directions for the best hotspots for the night from other commuters.

In the end we adopted the tac of 'follow the pissed happy people'. It worked!

We wandered about for a while, soaking up the atmosphere but then went and found a pub to stay warm in until the fireworks.....it was the BUSIEST pub i have ever been in- like- busier than any nightclub.

Somehow I managed to get to the bar enough times to leave that pub in a happily disgraceful state.

Bit of a blur from then. Flashes of chatting to police officers...briefly losing my companion....singing...falling over...more alcohol from somewhere or other......

then

FIREWORKSSSSSSSSS 2014!!!!!!!!!!!

from then on it is seriously BLANK. 

I woke up feeling as though the end had finally come.....

Never, ever been so so ill. I thought I was dying. 

I can no longer say 'I have never made myself sick'. It's a sorry state of affairs when you are knelt before a grotty disabled loo as your friend checks you out and you attempt to drag as much alcohol out of your system the same way it came in......sorry for the details.

Still, ACHIEVEMENT! Can't believe I did it really. It broke all my 'rules'.

Here are some pictures...

 

Nobody Said It Was Going To Be Easy

No, nobody said it was going to be easy. But nobody said it would be this god damn hard either.

The irony of it is, they were talking about recovery when they told me it wouldn’t be easy, and I’m not pretending anymore; I’m not recovering. I realised that recently, or rather admitted it to myself as reality. There’s no point lying to other people and absolutely no point in lying to myself.

Then I began to think, have I ever actually even been ‘in recovery’? I’ve got years of this illness behind me, god too many years, and they’ve been years of ‘cycles’ of what I have previously called relapses and recovery, but now I am starting to think about it differently. Perhaps, really it has just been a straight line with me at different weights quoting different lines, half believing some of them, appeasing different people, eating more and then less again.

It has been a depressingly long time since all this started. My status and condition has been scrutinised by many people, I’ve been in different hospitals, I’ve been tested and observed by many ‘professionals’, hopped obediently on and off many sets of scales, been suckered by numerous needles, popped an array of pretty pills, munched my way through many a meal plan. My arse has sat on so many different therapists’ chairs its gone numb.

Still, I am not fixed. I am not recovered.

I have realised one thing though....

Seeing other people smile, receiving praise for your struggles, eating more, gaining weight, becoming ‘safe’ or ‘stable’ in the eyes of the medics- this is not recovery.

You know why? Because that is all about other people. So, theoretically I was not entirely wrong when I assumed I was ‘recovering’ before; I was recovering- but only in the eyes and for the benefit of other people.

I have never really recovered for myself. I don’t think I have ever truly believed that to recover and leave anorexia behind would provide me with a better life. I have never believed I could ‘cope’ with life without it. That is what needs to happen before I can honestly begin recovery. Otherwise it will just be another fake veneer, another pretty picture for someone else. Another appeasement which won’t last, can’t last because it’s all just play acting, and the curtains always have to close and the actors will wipe of their makeup and go home at some point.

So here is the lesson I have finally learnt... 

Recovery is what is in your own head. It has NOTHING to do with other people. Recovery is selfish; and that is the way it should be. It should be all about you. Because at the end of the day it is only you who is going to live in the body you are in, in the mind you have for the rest of your life. Other people can help you on your journey, but you have to be so careful that the help, aid and support you accept from them is to further your quest; not theirs.

Recovery is not the time to indulge your inner people pleaser. 

sunday evening again

So it's Sunday evening yet again...

I had a really good Saturday, I went to the Nottingham Vintage fair with my friend which was amazing as I knew it would be.

 I A-D-O-R-E vintage...adoration to the point where I am 99% sure my birth was the result of a malfunctioning time wormhole- I reckon I popped out a good 60 or so years too late. I am suited to Babydoll dresses and lace gloves and fur and corsets and generally all things old and beautiful!

The friend I went with is one of my favourite people too, and her mum ended up coming and she is also fabulous. I am completely chilled with them, I hide nothing and they accept everything. We popped to a cool little restaurant around the corner after we had finished at the fair and spent a good hour or so just chatting and debating and laughing. Just lovely.

I met another girl that evening who I suspect isn't maybe in the best of places at the moment....I say that because she was being pretty...hmm, not particularly nice... I don't know if you have encountered that sort of person before- when they are in a bad place themselves, they turn quite nasty. Most people when feeling low become sad, quieter, more introvert. Then some people go the opposite way. This girl is one prime example of the latter. Snappy, cold, snide and generally not a great presence. Pisses me off. We all go through shit- so I think it's not unreasonable to expect adults to keep their private evils in cheque and not become so overtly .....mean. It's just like the good old saying; 'If you haven't got anything nice to say then don't say anything at all'.

Hey Ho. Hope she feels better for being a sourpuss.             I'm not the most sympathetic creature as you can see.

Today I took my eldest niece out to town and the cinema. It was her birthday recently and instead of buying her yet more silly meaningless toys or games or generally materialistic shite I had promised her a day out. I took her into town (which was seasonably rammed). A new food place has opened in Westfield- a place called Ed's easy diner. It's a chain I think. I've been wanting an excuse to go in as the menu isn't exactly anorexic friendly....hotdogs, sliders, fried everything and cheese- all things amazing in other words but not exactly feasible for me right now. So I took Emily in for a massive oreo milkshake. When I say massive ....well it came in a small bucket with a glass .....hats off to her she finished it O_o

After that we went shopping, saw the new disney film; Frozen and then I took her to Nandos for tea.

Unfortunately today was a BAD body day. I felt so bad- it was meant to be a day all about Emily and yet I was desperately preoccupied with my thighs. Every mirror they seemed to be even larger. I kept zoning out because I was trying to remember all of this weeks intake and analysing it for why I have quite obviously got bigger. I spent most of the film on my phone tracking calories and other stupid, futile, unreassuring.... but infinitely necessary things.

It's probably pretty unsurprising then that I popped some lax pills during the film, had an evening of cramps and shit (no-literally-I mean shit) and that I will be setting of for college early so I can go weigh myself at the Pharmacy before class.

They better have fucking fixed the scales. Last week I was all psyched up..prepared..empty...and the motherfuckers were out of order.

Because of course- it is entirely normal to nearly have a break down at 8 30 am in public in the middle of a Boots store because the scales are out of order....

Oh yeah and I get two history assignments back tomorrow which I am dreading. They will both have been referred as they is not a chance in hell they've passed first time. My tutor is so fucking inefficient- we should NEVER get two assignments back at once- she gives us no constructive feedback. And oh yeah...she's generally a bitch....it's late- constructive criticisms have deserted me- so yes- I'll make so with the statement that she is a bitch

tootles

A little Day in Brum

I don't usually do 'normal' posts. I.e.:posts where my life is not appearing to end or I am not on the brink of suicide or complete euphoria.

So breaking the mould with this one and just going to share a little one...

I went to Brum today to meet my lovely friend who is at Uni in Coventry. I was meant to be staying the weekend with her...but...not surprisingly 'anxiety-anorexic-stuckinthemud-routine head' ruled over the heart and I wimped out. I am fortunate that she is a very understanding (and long suffering) friend and was not at all perturbed when I begged a compromise of a day in Birmingham instead.

If any of you lovely readers are au fait with the UK, then you will know of the wonderful Bullring; the massive shopping centre (mall) in Birmingham. Man, I love it. One thing I DO know I enjoy is shopping. The world of Fashion, the superficial, aesthetic, skinny-modelled world of fashion is my haven. Vintage, retro and that sort of edgy sect is my forte. I long to be dirty stinking rich so that even if my life doesn't ever get better, I can live out depression and anorexia in beautiful clothes surrounded by beautiful things, with beautiful hair, with a beautiful home and smelling of beautiful perfumes. However I believe the notion of anorexia allowing any such financial success in life is rather skewed.

Anyway.

Had a great day. Birmingham also has its annual German Christmas market on and we happened to be lucky enough to be there on the weekend it is set up. The market extends for several streets, each stall is in a faux log cabin, adorned with loops of bright fairy lights. The allies either side of the stalls are absolutely rammed, and you hold your bag close and shelve any notion of politeness if you have any brains. It is a case of who barges the most forcefully will get to their destination the quickest, and timid 'excuse mes' have no place in such surroundings. Sharp elbows and stampy feet in sturdy boots are required.

All around you German 'wursts' (sausage) are strung up from the gables of the stalls, looking in my opinion like rows and rows of amputated, shrivelled penises, but no doubt still very tasty ones at that. The sound of sizzling rises above the human hubbub. I was tortured by the wafts of so many fried delights and festive German bakes. Sausages, cured meats, pretzels, pastries, sugared nuts, Lebekuchen and huge decorated gingerbreads. And how could I forget the honeyed alcoholic beverages being served everywhere in traditional German flagons (said beverage accounted for much of the in-car entertainment provided by pissed-out-of-their-brains boys on the train journey home).

Everything was so pretty. Personally, I hate Christmas but this was an exception. Everything seemed very happy and cheery and twinkly. Maybe this, too, was down to the rather prolific and generous provision of alcohol and rib sticking foods; the two things that are eminently appealing to Brits.

If only I had not been bone numbingly cold we could have stayed out longer. The meaning 'I am frozen' doesn't really mean much to someone who hasn't been anorexic. I could fill a whole post with the experience of an anorexic's winter. I will, one day whether you like it or not. Suffice to say it is truly horrific.

Anyway here are some snaps...

By now you should know which one I am- in case not- I'm the one with short one least hair and gold around my neck ;)

A long Break and a Bad Day

I've been so incredibly busy that blogging fell by the way side. College is manic. Manic in a good way. When you live in a world of private, irrational eating disordered manicness; normal crazy, academic stress is like the cool-pool-dip after a spell in the sauna- a sharp, breath taking, painful flash- but absolute bliss. Even this has it's limits though, and I have been stretched. Finally I have been forced to face the mental toll anorexia has had. This is not fun. Feeling like a retard, scared your quest for thinness has actually done some real damage, having to entertain the possibility that your skinny quest may turning a perfectly good brain into something more and more resembling a dried out walnut is hard to accept.

So I don't. I'll carry on pretending.

Today I write because today, finally, the assignment bombardment is taking stock, saving itself for the next wave of assault.

So how am I rewarded from this prolonged spell of hard work, relentless study and mind numbing essaying? Peace? Satisfaction?

No.

Today has been a bad day. Hellish. Once again I allowed myself to run short on my medication, all too often I find myself having timed it wrong, or not timed it at all- the pills are all gone and its friday evening- and in the UK you're not allowed to have an urgent problem (and you can just FORGET having a MH condition ok??) outside of the hours of 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Got that? Crazies have to take a weekend off being crazy, depressed, suicidal, anorexic on state holidays, it is simply not convenient. How very British.

Mum reckons that she can tell instantly when the meds have drained low in my system. She says the change in my mood is nothing short of alarming. She says it only takes a day or two. Maybe she's right. Who cares. At the end of the day, a day like today the 'why' doesn't matter. The world is black and shit, so who cares why.

Got my script first thing, before college. Took my pill straight away. But by now I'm used to the pattern, the timings; it wont change anything for a day or two. So today was a bad day.

Today I start the day stripping down to the bear, socially acceptable minimum in the Boots pharmacy near college. 50p down and a ticket out of the weight machine later, the tone for the day is set. Shit. Not good enough. Regret. Stupid girl. You knew you'd not had a decent crap yesterday or this morning, you knew you felt bloated, so why the fuck did you just pay 50p to get a print out testimony of the damage? You've just ruined the whole fucking day.

I eat nothing at college, yet as the day progresses I feel myself getting larger. The stomach rumbles more, yet simultaneously is less and less deserving of food. Lips tighten and communication with friends becomes less frequent and more and more stilted, yet the arguments and noise in my brain gets louder.

Today, all day I was miserable. It just got worse. Every comment I relate back to myself. The girls could talk about anything, the promiscuous mating habits of barn owls even- and I would find myself convinced it was somehow linked to my lack of thinness. Everyone was out to judge what passed my lips so I made sure nothing did. At lunch, as usual, I stare and salivate over the hot food counter as I linger by my peers in the queue. The usual wistful, hungry words about the deliciousness of the crumble or the pasties slip over my lips like they always do, but today as soon as I have spoken I wonder why no one tells me that I should eat it, that I need to eat it. A few seconds is all it takes to convince myself that their lack of reply to my dinnertime commentary is a kind way of them hinting I don't need that food- clearly I could do without that slice of pie. Obviously I do not look thin enough any more. Too fat for pie. Too fat. Just too fat. You hear that, Katie?? YOU'RE TOO FAT.

This was today, and it got NO better. Imagine  that.

All day starving. All day FREEZING. (I mean it- I literally was so incredibly numb with cold from beginning to end). All day the force within me draws me to every mirror (every fucking reflective surface actually)just to show me just HOW much excess there is, just HOW many cm's of thigh too many are hiding in those jeans.

I plan to get the 4 20 bus back after college is finally done. But I miss it because by now I'm sat in the toilet cubicle crying. Staring straight up at the ceiling, trying to keep my eyes wide because my mascara and eye liner is not waterproof. I think I have stopped, but then I remember the image of myself in the last mirror I looked in and the number of the Weight print out, and the BMI, and the tears well back up and spill over. I miss the next bus too.

Eventually I get back to Derby.Tired, almost deafened from the voices. They're tired by now because perhaps the pills have broken down on the empty (but still far too big stomach). Who cares. They've done their damage. Once you're in this state it doesn't matter if the voices shut up because you're beaten into the ground. You're spent. They don't need to shout at you any more because they know they've won. They know they've got their way. They can rest now, sleep now, because they know you're all defeated, knocked out good and proper. Metaphorically lain in the gutter, torn up, battered and bruised. You aint gonna get up for a good while yet....and when you do they'll be ready for you, strectching themselves, yawning as they step out of the shadows for an easy round 2.

Days like today I wish I were dead. Days like this keep happening.