A Head Full of Beauty

. Made in Chelsea '...the scandalous lives of London's elite' Well, I was certainly not made in Chelsea. My friend Harriet however, is a purebred 'Sloaney'. Her mission in life (and she won't mind me saying this because she admits it herself) is to find her perfect Sloaney husband - signet ring compulsory. (A signet ring, I had to learn, is a ring with the family crest, and according to Harriet a true Chelsea Boy hallmark.) I wrote a few posts back that I was going to become more like the girl I had made friends with at law school a year ago who had dug her claws into all the right people to drag herself to the top. Socially, I have already been a climber. I've cut almost all my ties to my working class South London roots - everything from my accent, to my clothes, to the friends I have made, has been changed to reflect my move up the social ladder - albeit superficially. If I were to 'class' myself today then I'd put myself quite com...

When I was 15, I used to wear a laminated tag around my neck, tucked inside my school blouse to remind me of how fat and worthless I was. I must still have it somewhere, hidden away in my cupboard, even though a few years ago I made an effort to throw out all my old notebooks and memories of self-hatred. I made the tag myself, put a picture of the beautiful Scarlett O'Hara on it, wrote about how I could be like her if I tried hard enough, laminated it, ran a long piece of string through to make a necklace. I wore it every day for months. When I was 13 I had to get dressed in the dark, never exposing my body while I changed. I had to lie face down in the bath - I couldn't stand and shower. I had to wear jumpers everywhere to swamp the curve of my growing breasts. When I was 8 I cried alone and in agony because I wasn't pretty. I decided I was the fattest in my class and I never let go of that. However high I hold my head, the truth is that this eating disorder has destr...

Let me start this post by saying this is not the thinnest I have ever been.  But I'm not too far off. As I get thinner, the rate at which I'm losing is slowing down dreadfully. It's hard not to beat myself up when I step on the scales in the morning and see the same number as the day before. It's hard not to feel disappointed because I know that I'm working so hard and doing the maths so well. I sat with a child at breakfast this morning. "Could you have eaten as much as I did?" she asked me when she had finished. "Oh yes", I said, "Of course!" "But how can you be so skinny?!" "I'm not skinny!" "Yes you are!" I tried to contain my joy. "Oh, well, I eat loads, I promise. I eat loads." At night I run my hands along my body with glee, feeling my rib cage grow closer and closer to the surface all the time. There was a fabulous quote which Harlow posted from Crystal Renn's book '...