A Head Full of Beauty

I taught myself to hate food when I was 15. No - that's not entirely true. I didn't teach myself anything, I just learnt it... somehow, I learnt to hate food. I was asked in an interview last week: What makes you angry? I made up some "excellent interview answer" bullshit with a fake smile on my face. But the truth is, food makes me angry. I have to move seats on the train when someone in my view is eating a McDonalds out of a brown paper bag. I have to put on my earphones to block out the greasy crunching of crisps from the person sat behind me. The rustling of foil packets or the stench of fried foods makes ME feel gross. I feel so angry and disgusted it makes me want to scream. But do you know what is really the grossest thing ever? This is the highest figure on the scales I have ever seen in my entire life. I'm a lump. I'm a thing. When I lost Alex I let go of everything I had been fighting for. I let all my demons take over. I became everything...

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, last Friday, I went back to my university city for the big reunion dinner that evening. As is protocol now, fasting, laxatives, exercise preceded. This could not shift the scales from the undeniable fact that I was 5 kg fatter than when I went to this reunion dinner this time last year. Yes. Fucking Yes. I had my appointment with my psychologist in the morning before I got on the train. She helped me get through it. She is amazing. It's good to write down and map out all my irrationalities. I didn't crumble that evening - I went, I held my head up high, and I still looked nice. I did it. The immeasurable waste. It's always a waste isn't it, this stupid quest of mine. It's never made me happy. All the money and the hours of aching muscles and the nights of hunger and vomit... I do it for something grand, something wonderful, something I deserve... something I can't put my finger on, perhaps because it's not reall...

I do not burden myself on other people. I do not pick up my phone when I am crying my eyes out. I do not seek comfort. I do not ask for kindness. I cry on my own. I have done for years. Even when I was in a relationship, I never bothered him with it. And yet I lean on you. I come here to cry. I come here to find a shoulder. Because here, I can . I'm a wreck. I'm so petrified. I remember once, I must have been about 14, I was at school sitting, chatting to a friend during lunch, and she raised her arm suddenly and I flinched. I instinctively jerked away from her and raised my arm to cover my face. "Woah. Ophelia. Why did you flinch?" I laughed nervously. "I, er, I don't know, I, er, thought you were going to hit me." I don't flinch now. Strange, I still censor. I've blocked out pretty much all of my past. I've blocked out my childhood because it was so happy, and I've blocked out my teenage years because they were so dreadful. ...

I was reading a random article about bulimia online. It was the comments on the article that struck me. There are so many of us - so many people addicted to dying. I'm supposed to be keeping a food diary for my therapy. I can't list how much I've eaten and thrown up, four, five times a day in the last week. Huge piles of food in and out, over and over. I'm doing it because I want to die, it's becoming quite conscious now. Below are the comments on the article I read. The article is not important, it's the list of nameless people living this hell, saying words I understand too well. So many. Nameless. We are all nameless. The nameless stories of people living through hell, knowing the damage, knowing the danger, and hopelessly praying that it will all get better. We're like broken records all droning the same nameless story... so many, so, so many... too many. How can this be stopped. How the hell can this be fixed? No one deserves this. I can't eve...

http://www.axisoffat.com/ Some really powerful posts. I think it's good to broaden our vision of the world and our understanding. I have got to get out of my head and into other peoples, because this head is suffocating me - and I want to write and feel and understand more than what is contained within it's distorted and confining walls.

On Thursday I gave the keys back to the house in London I was supposed to be living in with my two friends. That door is shut now. It killed me to do it. It was great to go there on Thursday, and be with friends, to laugh, to forget about the pain. To be the girl I used to be. To laugh. And it killed me because I had to walk away from it and come back to this room in this house I hate . That door is shut. I got the job offer from the Investment Bank. But I can't take it - sorry - I won't take it - because I won't live this nightmare anymore. Living in this house, trapped, and working a job, trapped. dead. trapped. It's as I said in my last post - It was two choices - live or die - take the new job and move out or stay here and rot. And when I came back home my Mum saw that I wasn't kidding. I'd shut the last door that led out of here and back to life. And I resigned myself to suicide. I told her so, frankly, as I had warned her the day before she made me...

I have been asked nicely via email to post this on my blog. Hoping that maybe some understanding of eating disorders will be bought to the 'outside' world as a result of this survey, I have obliged to post this request. I must reiterate this has nothing to do with me I am just doing it because, well, because I'm bloody nice and I hope it helps I suppose. She has asked for your responses to be given in the comment box as normal... Hello. My name is Sheila and I am a college student working on a research project. My study focuses on girls and women who consider themselves to be pro-anorexic. I hope to better understand the users of online, pro-anorexia websites. If you are willing to participate, I would like to ask some questions about what this website means to you. I am not here to judge or make assumptions, but to simply gather information on a group that many know little about. All participation will be anonymous. Please use screen names that do not identify you in an...