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I'm back in the suburbs of South London, sitting in a bright office, overlooking a sublime view of lime green grass bathed in glorious sunshine. A glorious English summer...and I'm in a long-sleeved shirt and knee length skirt...because nothing else fits me.
No. I admit, I'm being overly-harsh.
I refuse to wear anything else.
Because nothing else fits me well enough.
Nothing else hides me well enough.

I hate my body.
I want it to disappear.

I finished uni on Tuesday. By some miracle I got my final assessment finished on time and handed in.

I sat through lunch today at work in turmoil. My belly aches from eating. I had a salad with seafood. And a generous helping of calorific cous cous. And a yoghurt. Fat free, but still, a goddam yoghurt. Idiot, idiot, idiot. I could have just taken a place of green leaves and swished it around my plate. Why do I have to put on this stupid show of eating. The second I put down my knife and fork my head was screaming PURGE! I can't eat a proper meal without wanting to make myself sick. What.
But the worst thing was sitting there surrounded by people who eat meals.
I'd forgotten.
I guess I had convinced myself that it was a myth...that 3 meals a day thing...I mean...everyone sat there with one plate of food, one drink and one dessert. Like...a normal meal. I know it sounds mental...but...people really do it. One meal three times a day.

I can't remember the last time I sat down to do that. I restrict on tiny snacks of fruit/veg or I binge like a whale and throw up. Those are the two ways that I eat. After living and eating on my own at uni, I'd forgotten the way humans eat. I thought it was just a myth... 3 meals a day...on a plate...set like those pie charts my nurse had given me. Vegetables, meat, carbohydrates, dessert, fruit.

And these was I, sitting like an alien in another world admiring another culture, another way of life. Imagine if they knew how incredible I found it. It was the first time that I was able to look at myself and appreciate that, yeah, I have an eating disorder. If this is normal, if this is what everyone else does, then yeah... but honestly... I never imagined it were possible until I saw it with my own eyes.

I'm busting out of my shirt here, I'm so uncomfortable.

Comments

  1. It is funny to join their world of 'normal' eating. I did it for a few years and the whole time, even sill, meals makes me feel like an anthropologist studying an unfamiliar ritual - people laughing, happy, eating slowly until they are full and then leaving the table the same happy person they were before they ate....bizarre if you ask me ;)

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  2. 3 meals proper meals a day how far away that seems to me now. rather funny

    xx

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  3. I find it so annoying when ppl want to eat breakfast right away! its so bad when I have friends staying over and dey want breakfast as soon as we wake up! I feel so weird not eating it with them tho! and I know I make them uncomfortable. Why is eating such a big deal?!

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  4. I have the same realisation. This is what an eating disorder is. I don't actually know how to EAT. Basic human survival. A simple source of sustenance and pleasure. I don't know how. It's crrrrrazy

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  5. It's why you should live in E1.

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  6. Ah it's so true. I either eat nothing or everything. No between, and I'm never happy unless I'm empty.

    Sigh. 3 meals a day seems a bit overrated ;)

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  7. overrated indeed! - sorry about all the typos, guess I need to proofread my comments :)

    E1? what's that?

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  8. I wish i could have been sitting next to you and enjoy the view~ and just have a glass of water or tea and a chat ^o^

    sometimes when i go to restaurants and look at what people have for 1meal! and noting to myself..they have it 3 times a day?! seriously, i was damn surprised....if i have had that much and finish them in that speed i can imagine myself going straight to the bathroom~

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  9. Admit?

    E1, Spitalfields.

    Posted more.

    FIN.

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  10. It means so much to me that you like my blog, because I adore yours and value your judgement exceedingly highly!

    Today I ate a banana for breakfast. No lunch. A normal dinner which I promptly threw up then a normal dessert which followed suit. It is so routine now. This bizarre ritual of eating a meal so seemingly normally, in front of the TV, occasionally licking my fingers. Sipping my drink. Flicking through a magazine. Enjoying my food. Then casually throwing it up.

    I have absolutely no comprehension of what it would be like to be normal. To eat normal food and be content to have it sit there, slowly being absorbed by my body and becoming part of me. How can people do that?

    ReplyDelete

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