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.

“Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.”

Good evening (a very late evening, soon to be morning actually).

It's been a long day, but a good long day- if that makes sense. A normal persons long day. It was long because I got up very early, travelled across town and into Burton to get college like a normal girl. Long because I have lots of college work to do, like normal students. Long because of having to commute home in rush hour on the joys of public transport like a normal person. In a nutshell a long day for all the rational reasons, not long because it's got fucking unbearable being inside your mind all that day that you just want the oblivion of sleep to blot it all out.

It takes years of having a Mental Health problem that makes these days of normal, perfectly logical feelings, even if they are 'unpleasant' seem so refreshing. It is scary too. Scary to realise that the abnormal is that close to becoming the 'new' norm for you. Terrifying to have to consider you may become that person cited in MH studies who 'get's used to just being depressed'Because the minute that transition happens will be the minute you stop realising any transformation has taken place; forget there was every any other way of feeling than blank or tortured. Forget there was a past you, and more crucially; that there could be a future you- a you who feels normal...or even happy...

Anyway I've rambled as usual and what I wanted to post about really was something that I have always felt but only recently started to think about. One of those 'so obvious it's invisible' things. And that thing is- why I am scared of recovering. Or put another way; what do I envision happening/not happening when I 'recover'.

I'm guessing if you have anorexia or any other ED you will have been asked at some point (if not many, many points) 'but don't you just wish it had never happened?'/'but don't you just want to be like you were before you became anorexic??'

For some reason I'd never really answered, if I had it was not a real answer because I never really acknowledged the question. Not until recently. And then I did start to think back- force myself to do something very uncomfortable- and recall the girl before Ana. She's at least 6 yrs away, left abandoned on the brink of adolescence. It was damned hard work to get myself to look at her. Like forcing yourself to stare at the sun with tired eyes that have become accustomed to shade.

I finally see her. 

I hate what I see. I recoil like the rich man does from the dirty beggar. The dirty beggar is most repulsive to the rich man who's deepest secret is that he came from the same rags as the vagrant before him. He recoils with some extra zeal just to make sure he hides his dark secret to anyone observing him. Himself included.

She was so...so....wrong. The girl I see was overgrown, unmeasured, messy. She was like a pint glass left beneath the pump, now filling up and overflowing, brimming with froth and turbulence. The new contents flows in without measure and it pours over the brim in an uncontrolled overflow.

I am sure I remember being called quiet before now, when I would have been that pint glass of a girl, and yet I remember someone far too loud. It is not vocality or loudness per say that bothers me- it this girl seems to just be noisy without consideration. She is like a ill-tuned radio- indistinct most of the time, a quiet, indistinct hum, only to erupt at random intervals with offensive noise. The random, over the top vocality I see her as displaying were stabs at making herself seen in a world that largely she was not.

She was not seen because there was nothing really to see. Here we get a possible clue as to why Anorexia came along instead of some other coping mechanism. I was ugly. I was just that bit too fat. Not 'overweight' just too....heavy..too..lumpy...shapeless. 

I'm not exaggerating when I say I have always been body concious and most of the time since wanted to be smaller. I remember my first body related memory- that young I was sat in the car seat, it was summer; I was wearing shorts. I remember staring at my thighs, pressed down on the edge of the car seat. I remember watching the wobble, seeing the expansion as they pressed down on the surface. It displeased me. It was not right. Ever since then I have been in a body that was 'just not right'. Then Ana came along and promised something wonderful. Would it be right to say 'I never looked back'? Pretty much; yes.

I have always been very aware that there are many contributing and maintaining factors to my anorexia, but until now I didn't really recognise this particular, definite hate of the girl as she was just before she hooked up with Ana.

As in every case, Anorexia was going to provide something to help me improve something with myself. In this case I only realised what she did from this viewpoint- in the aftermath. When I was that disgusting, unmeasured, uncontrolled 13 year old I didn't see that was what I was. I didn't know Ana could change that either. But now I know what she did. 

She toned that girl down. Made her exert some self discipline, taught her self-control in the most extreme of ways. Made her work at something, made her understand dedication and sacrifice. She forced her to look inside herself to see the defects that needed to be trimmed, ousted and exorcised. It made her see how good suffering could feel by showing her changes in her body that she had always wanted. 

Marya Hornbacher in her book 'Wasted' described the difference between Bulima and Anorexia Nervosa in a way I suddenly related to with astonishing clarity- like they were my thoughts but had never been given words. Marya began as a Bulimic but Anorexia emerged and overtook. Marya described Bulima as a 'loud', 'chaotic' and 'angry' condition, whereas Anorexia was far more 'quiet' and introspective. Think about the characteristics and emotions which fuel the behaviours of each disorder and it really does make sense. Well I think so anyway. 

I remember when I read this, and thinking how fitting it was and it made me consider something else I've always felt. So often there is the general idea spouted about that Anorexia makes a person lose their cognitive abilities due to fatigue and malnutrition. I wont pass judgement on the malnutrition but I remember (and still experience now)the sensation of perfect calm that the numbing fatigue brings. After a certain point the fatigue transforms into a serene, trance like state. My concentration and imagination rather than being stunted was dramatically improved. I felt calm, grounded, silent. I'm not advocating starvation as a means of sedation or whatever I'm just presenting my experiences.

Anyway, back on topic....

I've come to realise one of the biggest maintaining factors of my Anorexia is the fear that now I have realised what I escaped in that girl I hated so much, that if I 'recover' I will return to being her. Return to the ugly, fat, flailingly chaotic character I left behind. 

I have no doubt this whole post seems unlikely, irrational and silly but it is just the feelings I have, and here I do not censor them but present them as they occur. 

We all have irrational fears but them being irrational makes them no less real to the people who experience them.

So what about you?

Do you see yourself as significantly different before your ED came along? Maybe you don't even have an ED but something else has 'changed' you, drawn a line between one you, and the you that you are now? 

Hope You Missed Me!

Christ on a bike! How long did I leave you this time!? I have really neglected blogging and I paid for it! I've been beating myself up (quite rightly too) because although I have been very busy there have definitely been empty moments, empty hours that I've filled with nothing and I should have come here. Why do we do that? Sit doing literally nothing while the list of things to do ticks through our brains?

Anyway I need to fill you in. To get it all down I'll do it in a rather concise format (not that I've got a good track record of 'concisesness')

The most important thing is I started college! I am on the access course and I am so happy that I achieved that. ME. Something I got for myself and I am pretty smug about it too. I have met so many lovely people and I thrive of the opportunity to make new friends. My brain is being fed again and it's wonderful. I am about to start applying for Universities, it is both surreal, daunting and exciting.

I bought ANOTHER set of scales. I didn't flinch handing over the inordinate amount because they were top of the range-super accurate-calculate everything-to the mg-scales.

I continued to pull off false weigh ins with the ED service. I add more weights. My true BMI is my secret, locked away, precious, dangerous.

I go and stay at my friend's house and take nothing anorexic with me. I let my friend decide our meal. I don't just cope- I fucking enjoy it. I relax. I feel warm. Normal. Happy...I come home and hate it more than ever.

I lie to mum about my intake because I cannot bear to allow her to see how weak her daughter is. How easily she hands over to Ana. This makes me feel dirty. Lying to mother.

My moods become increasingly unstable. Sudden plummeting drops. Many coffees and shops are abandoned because the tears will not hold back. I hate Ana but I hate my body. I bleed the frustration in tears.

September comes and people leave. I am suddenly struck by oh fuck what have I done syndrome. 

I realise all the years I spent thinking I was pursuing the right goal- the true happiness I thought I was working for was idiotically inaccurate. I realise that the years I spent pursuing thinness and staring inward, my friends and peers were spending them looking outward, living life, making mistakes, learning, loving, laughing, crying, working, applying, moving, achieving and then leaving...growing up.

I have not grown up. I have grown in. I feel like a child in a 20 yr old's body. I have fucked things up.

I decide I need to repair those damaged years. I need to make this year the year that counts. It is time to grow up.

I hand over all three sets of scales to mum. I begin to add back in the fortisip.

I feel hope. 

Dangerous.

Short lived. I crash. I'm back again. Thinness becomes essential. Yet so is growing up. I cannot make the break. 

I am losing hope that I will ever recover. I am scared of becoming one of those old anorexics I've met and pitied-scorned in units.  

I spent 6 years chasing Anorexia. Now she is chasing me.

So there's where I'm at. I REALLY will blog more frequently. I know I need to. It's good for me. I have somewhere I am forced face myself.

F**K OFF YOU SAD, SELFISH BITCH AND GET OUTA MY HEAD

In the past week or so I think I must have been mistaken (ahem 'mistaken') for a crazy lady by a fair few people. Long may it continue! It isn't exactly very common to see people walking along when suddenly they shake their head and spout 'Out of my head you nasty little bitch' (and other variations on that theme) in a spectrum of voices, ranging from sing song to gritted teeth and hissing.

Well that's exactly what I have found myself doing. I'll be a mad bag lady chasing pigeons next. But if I am a mad bag lady chasing pigeons whilst eating a big fat shortbread cookie (and enjoying it rather than it making me suicidal) then I don't give a fuck!

All of these years that I have been anorexic I have been a willing, compliant, 'all for the greater good' anorexic. The sacrifices I made for anorexia's Utopia, her zenith, her promised heaven seemed tiny. What she promised me was so unsurpassable that anything I suffered was barely even considered. I metaphorically wandered over white hot coals, barely feeling the pain because my glazed eyes were fixed on the light ahead.

I have always maintained that anorexia doesn't have complete control over me. examples of my arguments for this have been:
*But I kept my friends- I forced myself to. Katie would have died without her friends
*How can I be completely controlled when I can have an icecream from mcdonalds, drink a syrupy cocktail?

But something inside me has changed

I feel trapped. More importantly I am not trying to persuade myself of any other truth or reason for this feeling other than: I feel trapped because of anorexia. 

Why did I never feel this before? Well anorexia did seem to give me so much that I needed besides thinness. These are things she gave me that I couldn't seem to find any other way:

*holding onto my childhood

*Making people pity me and want to care and look after me

*I felt 'loved' and when I didn't it didn't hurt half as much because I had anorexia- she seemed so valuable.

*Finally, family stopped taking me for granted- they realised I was more than just a girl, among other things I was hurting and in revenge for the past I was going to fucking well hurt them and they could never stop me.

*Making me feel in control

*making me invincible to all other problems 

*giving me a reason to live- I constantly had Ana's goals to fulfil.

*she promised me a body I had always wanted-she was the only one who could give it to me, she gave me tasters every time I lost weight of how wonderful that day was going to be when we reached 'thin'.

Now what do I feel she gives me that is not source-able in any other way?

* a body I had always wanted-she was the only one who could give it to me, she gave me tasters every time I lost weight of how wonderful that day was going to be when we reached 'thin'.

Now I see that those afore mentioned arguments for why 'I am not completely controlled' are like tissue paper, like wisps of smoke. Here is the truth:

Yes, I am going out to meet my friends. But is it normal, is it 'ok' to have to rake yourself to do so? Is it normal to only really be able to do it so long as it is pre-planned? Is it normal to not even entertain a spontaneous meeting? Is it 'fine' to have to have an excuse at the ready for why you will have to zip off at such and such a time when in reality all you are doing is going home to....to what? Is it normal to never eat anything other than salads with your friends when other people my age are loving the fact that 'Heavenly Desserts' just opened in town and they only sell delicious puddings and treats?

Yep, I do occasionally have an icecream. But only if it's whippy, only if I know the calories, only if it is an acceptable size or there is the means to scrape some off into a bin....that's fine right? WRONG. I'll have that icecream alright but only if I have fasted all day before it. How many girls will fast all day to share half of the lowest calorie sundae on the menu with their mate and still be thinking about it two days later? Not the happy girls.

Oh and alcohol. Yes, you recognise that as a 'normal' 20 yr old you should be going clubbing. If you want to get some action that is pretty much the only way to get it. So is it standard to arrange said night out two weeks in advance, to dread it more and more as it approaches because you will suffer starving yourself all day before, suffer the constant worrying about the calories you are going to end up consuming? Is it normal to be fearing the piercing cold you will have to endure before you get so hammered you can't feel the pain anymore? Is it normal that your worrying about calories, thinness and anorexia only abates when you are nearing the paralytic stage? When the only time anorexia's veil slips is with the help of copious amounts of intoxicating material? Sadly not.

I could go on, and on and on. But I'll just summarise the rest:

*anorexia means you'll only be warm in a heatwave. In the winter you will suffer a bone wrenching cold that no one should endure and only anorexics will understand. You will feel shit because to everyone else you are just constantly moaning about the cold but you ARE JUST SO FUCKING COLD. 

*Anorexia will sap so much energy from you that no matter if you lose 100 more lbs you will still feel like lead. You will still have to do your day to day tasks because you cannot survive otherwise but they will all become 100x harder and more and more of an effort each day.

*You cannot stand to be without your friends because YOU (not ana) loves them but you are severely endangering your social life and even the most valuable friendships by your limitations and the effort it takes to maintain them.

*You may eat things you enjoy but you will be made to feel horrendously guilty and suffer restriction afterwards.

*You want children and a family more than life itself but you are infertile. You know you can change this but ana doesn't really think it is worth it.

*You do not stand on high bridges or hold blades against your wrists but you stop caring about living. If you happened to be killed it would be a relief. If you were put in a situation where you had to fight for your life you probably wouldn't bother.

There are thousands more.

After writing all this I guess you think I am ready to recover, ready to fight the bitch off. I am ashamed to say there is one thing I cannot face giving up. Yet.

I cannot face getting bigger. I am still enjoying the sensation when I see the number go down. 

How can that one thing override everything? How can being thin be so powerful? 

There are two options for me now.

1.) Curl up and cry because I see in the cold light of day the evilness of anorexia but the one thing only she can give me (the thin body) keeps me tethered to her

2.) Or hold my head up and hope that since I have had such a massive revelation, since after all these years I have finally realised what an evil bitch she is and said 'no' to her in other ways, that it is only a matter of time before I decide I can live without her thin body.

In What Way Was That Supposed to Help?

I was going to start this post by stating how much at the moment I am struggling with my body image. Then I stopped and thought about it; and of course the truth is there hasn't really been a time in the past years that I have had anything other than a bad body image. Never have I wished to not be smaller. Never have I felt good enough.

But that aside yes, at the moment I seem to be shining an excruciatingly bright spot light on myself. my flesh in particular.

In April/May time, after years of the Derbyshire community ED team whose care I am in pressing me and urging me to do so, I began attending DBT therapy. DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioural Therapy. It is a lot like CBT except it is a group therapy. Originally formulated to treat Borderline Personality Disorder it has also been found to be helpful in the treatment of eating disorders. I think mainly anorexia but I'm not positive.

There are a few reasons why I took so much cajoling to attend. Firstly, I see any sort of therapy (with the exception of my one revelationonary Brief Solution therapist about a year ago in hospital 1) as 'namby pamby wont work for me only suggestible people'. I know this is grossly naive. Secondly, I hate mindfulness. Thirdly, I am notoriously bad at therapy which involves written homework. It just will not ever get done. Fourthly, I have no desire when I already feel fat to sit for two hours straight with nothing else to look at besides fucking thin anorexics.

Whatever- I agreed to start. It hasn't really helped me in the sense that I use the therapy itself. I blagged the homework sheets and always scribbled them in starbucks 20 minutes before sessions. And I managed to cope with the anorexics bit because there weren't any extremely thin bodies there. I continued to go because it filled up Wednesday afternoons and I liked to have a chat with the members who were actually pretty nice. Basically at that time I had nothing better to do. Once you sign up anyway it is quite hard to execrate yourself until the module ends.

I completed my first module and we just had a 'summer break' of a month or two. Yesterday was the first session of the new module. We had already been informed that as well as the existing members (bar one girl who's gone to uni) there would likely be new members. Surprisingly I naively gave this little thought.

So yesterday off I bobbed to DBT. I entered in a pretty ok mood. I left nearly crying and wanting to murder someone. This is why:

I was sat in the waiting room, first to arrive. Old group members polled up and we had a friendly catchup until one of the two 'therapists' (I use that word with one eyebrow raised) came and introduced the first new member.

Oh hello skeleton number one! Great. Did it matter that she was fairly old, not attractive, obviously physically compromised as she was using a crutch-no- because all I saw was bones. Bones, bones, bones. The first nasty twinges of jealousy and hate rippled through me. Not a great start.

So imagine my horror when the door opens and this grass hopper like person lollops over to us on her sticks, sticks riddled with tendons bulging around her protruding balls of knees. She was a tall woman, full of spiky angles and hollows. She immediately engages in conversation with the old group members- clearly they already know each other. I sit in my own bile of hate and disgust. Anorexia tearing me apart with insults and mocking at my comparative hugeness. If my actions were physically personified. I would be sat there tearing at my flesh and flogging myself whilst yelling hate filled insults.

I don't know how to describe the twisted nature of my body envy- it is exclusive to anorexia in its absolute freak absurdness. I am going to have a hard job explaining it. I hope I can. While I attempt to you are for-warned- in order to be honest and truthful I am going to sound an absolute evil bitch when I am talking about these women who are probably lovely, kind people. But anorexia does not care about personalities.

These women were not attractive. They were more than not attractive. They were both old. They posed no other advantage besides their emaciation. In anorexia's eyes this is the only thing that matters. The first woman was physically disabled, probably in pain. I doubt she had a job. She was not pretty or well dressed. But I was staring at the calves emerging from her three quarter jeans- they were sticks. The second woman had severe kyphosis, pretty much guaranteed to be the result of years of malnutrition fuelled osteoporosis due to anorexia. The deformation of her back caused a contortion of the torso resulting in the appearance of a protruding lower abdomen. But all I focused on was how this thrust forward displayed her parallel ridges of hips. Her face was the worst. Some people, no matter what weight they are, will have an unfortunate physiognomy due to the bone structure and this itself gives the impression of tight, gauntness. Add severe weight loss to this and you have the most extreme facial features imaginable. The horse-facedness was further hampered by her thin, wispy hair, as short as mine and unstylable. Her whole appearance was vulture like. Had I had the strength the look up I would have undoubtedly seen all other people gawking at her. That sort of body turns even the most unturnable heads.

So you see, these woman were (I hate to let this ugly word come from me) ugly. To society they are poor, ugly, ill, freaks. To a girl driven by anorexia they are purely markers of achievement. To anorexia their bodies become the sticks with which you beat yourself up over your inferior body, your hideous excess flesh.

I had to sit in that room for two hours and endure every imaginable mental torture anorexia could put me through.

Perhaps the worst feeling was the horror that my mind was so rotten. Insults and evil were racing through my mind. If I had tourettes then JESUS could you imagine??? I wanted to spit out venom at them. I sunk in my chair, slowly being torn apart by anorexia's self hate at my body and my own self hate that I was generating these evil, vile thoughts about two innocent people.

I was mute and rebellious the whole session. I must have looked to everyone like the most moody, ignorant teenager.

I was the first one out of the door.

My over riding feelings are hate at the 'therapists' (one of whom sees me on a regular basis and knows my body image struggles) for putting me through that.

I am seeing said therapist today and I plan to tell her I wont be attending and my reasons why at the very beginning of our session to give me no chance to become timid and not do so. I am NOT putting myself through that again.

What stings more than anything is the fact that the people who are monitoring me and telling me any small loss now will result in compulsory admission are the same people who put me in that room with those skeletons. The whole situation was like dangling a carrot before a rabbit on the very verge of starvation and putting it behind glass. What I mean in explicit terms is- the same people who are telling ME . cannot lose any more are also monitoring these women who are so obviously lower weights than me.

HEADFUCK

High Hopes and Expectations

Hopefully this will be a brief-ish post because it is late and I'm tired but I felt I really needed to update this, especially because I'm going away for a couple of days.

First things first; today I had my interview for the Access Course I hope to get on which, if I do well on, could, fingers crossed, get me into uni so I can study Journalism.

I've been shitting it all week. I kept revisiting the course specifics and requirements and each time I seemed to see more areas and stipulations that I was sure I wouldn't fulfil. By this time last night I was panicking a fair bit that I would arrive and be completely stumped and have a mind-blank. I was sure that my usual 'bullshit my confidence until I believe it as well as them' approach would flop on its face. Plus it didn't help that when I was gathering all my certificates together yesterday I discovered I haven't got my AS certificates. I have never needed them before now. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if a reckless 18 yr old me didn't chuck them out in an act of self mortification and shame. I'm clinging onto a hope that I just never picked up the officials although I can't honestly remember ever being contacted to do so. Anyway I'll sort it...I hope.

To cut a long story short the interview went a lot better than expected. What I thought would stand in my way actually worked in my favour. I left with an offer of a place on the proviso that my maths and english screening tests are good, but the interviewer assured me that from what she could see of my academic history I shouldn't have too much to worry about there. Rest assured I will still worry!  I have to wait for a letter to tell me when to go for the tests and enrolment is on the 29th. Finger, toes and other extremities crossed for me please!

Also, tomorrow I'm off to London to stay with my sister and her boyfriend. I'm going with mum because Claire is taking her to the Proms for her birthday present on Thursday night. I am to be left with her boyfriend the whole frikkin evening!? I like him a lot, I think he is lovely and all that jazz but we don't really...well...gel. There is nothing bad between us- the problem is there is nothing between us! I never have the foggiest about what to talk to him about and he (in the classic style of the male race) feels no obligation to create conversation. But I HATE awkwardness. My solution is usually alcohol and night clubs...somehow I don't think that tactic will be appropriate on this occasion. God knows what I'm going to do with him.

Anyway, awkward men aside, I have taken rather a big decision for me. I am going to London for two nights and I am going 'naked'. I.e: No special foods (except my evening meals), no portable kitchen scales, I won't weigh myself there, I'm not taking any special crockery, I'm not taking any 'safe' foods like a bag full of sugar free jellies, lettuce, cucumber, fat free this and that.

I would normally arrive for even the shortest visit with an inventory of all my 'essentials'. The last holiday I had taught me this is a mistake. No one else has a problem with it, everyone accepts it as 'me'. This no longer helps, in fact I realised it bothers me that anorexia has been accepted as part of me. Over recent months I have been more aware and consequently more frustrated and upset by the hold my strict rules around food and routine has on my behaviour and life. When I went away to Wales I saw it as a time where I would escape routine and my life for a few days. I didn't consider that by taking ALL my 'comfort' things and foods with me I was obviously planning to try and instil that very routine I wanted to get away from in this new and fresh environment. Thus I contaminated it as soon as I arrived with all my paraphernalia.

When I got home I was full of frustration and anger that I had wasted that opportunity to show myself I could cope without all the things I revolve my day and nights around. I could have had a little taste of what independence could be like. Don't misunderstand me- I know I wouldn't magically be a normal, happy person and for those days not be an anorexic. I wouldn't suddenly sit down and join in with the BBQ sausages and creamy puddings. But I would have had my own little victory and that in itself would be a massive step.

So tomorrow I am doing what I should have done then. Yes, I am very apprehensive. Yes, the jellies will be calling me from their cupboard as we leave. But god damn it they're all staying there!! I want two days that I can say I managed without things I have fallen into the trap of relying so heavily on.

Wish me luck!! Night Night Pumpkins!