A Head Full of Beauty

The main point I need to make from my behaviour in my last post is a very strong and clear one: I am not a role model. I am not a role model in any physical way, shape or form. This is physically the most ill I have ever been. And there's no denying that. Even though I feel on top of the world, even though mentally I've never felt better, that's all kind of irrelevant. It's irrelevant because my body won't last - and what's the point of being happy and being so alive inside when you know the physical medium that's holding it all together won't last for too long. I am either starving and over-exercising; bingeing and purgeing multiple times a day; or abusing laxatives, or several of these at once. The weekend after I slept with Theo I started to get scared. I pumped my body full of junk food after ripping my digestive system to shreds. I began to be afraid for the first time that what I'd been doing was going to see me end up in hospital - and...

Something amazing has been happening. In three weeks I've lost 4kg. I even had a small binge last night on rice cakes and peanut butter only to find that the numbers were still down on the scales this morning. How I have missed this feeling. I feel sick. Hunched up as my stomach churns with acidity. I'm not walking, I'm shuffling. Another 10k run in the sun has re-blistered the weeping wounds on my feet. Pain . I feel so sick... but, if i threw up what the hell would come out? Some chicken breast, coffee, acid... But I can't stop, because I'm falling, at last, I'm falling, falling, rising back up to my best. God help me, I couldn't eat even if I wanted to. I've finally dragged my sorry, fat corpse right out of the mud at the bottom of the river and now I can be rational again. Last year I let myself be consumed by bulimia, by a stupid little boy, by social conventions which choked and smothered me. Well, here I am, it took me a fucking long t...

I think that sometimes, my drunken posts (which have been few) are some of the best. So here is my two pence drunken thoughts for this evening (morning). I have just completed three days of the Dukan Diet (my three days of the attack phase of pure protein only.) Day one, admittedly was a struggle. I smelt like protein - fish scent and poultry odour pouring from my very pores. It was hard. But I did it. Day two was easier, but still smelt like a piece of rotton protein. Day three and I'm thinking I could go on like this forever were it apart from the fact that I would kill for an apple. At lunch, I swished the food around my plate to make it look like I was eating and maintained the most wonderful air of superiority and self control - just like the good old days. Originially, several years ago, the bulimia spread from this girl who couldn't handle nightclubs and men and mirrors all in one go. I used to do it over and over and over again to myself, the torture, boys and mus...

I've been dreaming about Alex again. This makes me angry. My dreams keep on suggesting I want him back. I do not. I wish I could turn off my dreams and not have to experience them. I want to start today with a comment from Anonymous (gotta love them) which said "You say the same things over again." Yes. Of course I do. It's called having an eating disorder. What better way to express the hell of this cycle in which it is impossible to escape than with prose that is itself on a cycle. RESTRICT - BINGE - PURGE - CRY - PROMISE TO GET BETTER - RESTRICT - BINGE - PURGE - CRY - PROMISE TO GET BETTER etc etc. I have a message written on my cupboard wall which is still visible if you look closely. It says: This is THE LAST TIME signed by me and dated 11th August 2008. It refers to the last time I will throw up. I've said it everyday since. "I hate that I can't get better," I told my therapist last week. "It's so frustrating. I've wanted ...

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...

I love having an eating disorder. I must do. Else why would I do it. You don't do something you don't want to. I didn't want to do my job. I quit. It's easy... If I take the job at the Investment Bank, I'm moving out, I'm going 'back on the crazy, fit men and alcohol' . If I turn the job down, I'm staying here with my Mum, and reading books. I choose to live. Or I choose to stop living. I told my Mum my choices. So after shouting at me for wasting money on rent she has stopped speaking to me and pretends I don't exist. (Yes. This is what I deal with.) If it wasn't for my Mum I'd have jumped. I live so that she doesn't have to bear anymore loss or suffering in her life. But she kills me in another way. Yeah. I never write much about her. I won't now. I want to live, you know. I want it back. I opened up my cupboard and ran my hands through my vast collection of beautiful dresses and clothes. Stacks of shoes, dai...

I never imagined how I'd feel if that moment came, but I think, it didn't matter as much as I thought it would - because all this is the truth. But would I change it if I could? Of course. I feel like I'm nearing the time that all these blogs inevitably seem to face - permanent deletion - as if Ophelia had never written. It's going to come, I think, with my 'growing up'. One day, I will look back on my life, and be able to point to this week as the week that I grew up. I grew up the week I went back to school again. As most readers will know, I hate my job and I despise The City. That's simple. The more complicated issue is how I survive from hereon... I began to consider becoming a high school English teacher a few months back, and am now moving forwards with my application, potentially to start my training in September 2011. (Teaching being one of three courses of action I am currently pursuing - but I will not bore you with details). To be succes...

. This is the hardest post I have ever had to write. I apologise if it's sporadic and raw. This is everything from the last two months. When I went away with Alex for a weekend on the 16th July and when we went away for the second time on the 13th August. How things became incredible. How things fell apart. The writing in red is what I have written today - my input now - the writing in black is what I wrote on the date stated. Written on 19th July 2010 The dream is not a dream. It exists. I tasted it. I lived it. The happiness of my childhood is not dead. It lives around me – in other children, in other families. I walked hand-in-hand with Alex through the gardens of Chatsworth House, listening to the laughter of children, watching old couples sitting on the wall eating huge cones of soft white ice cream. Seeing families all around me. Joy, happiness, laughter, innocence, contentment, fulfilment. I was right all along. I knew it. I knew it! I had known all along what...

Let me fill in some gaps. Everything has been so strained and emotional lately that I haven't had time to talk about my life - not my head - my life. It's just been depressing, emotional, despondent post after post without a word on what has been actually going on around me - outside my swirling mind. So I need to tell you what has been happening. I didn't do my exams. In fact, I didn't do a day of revision. So, nearly two weeks ago, at 9am, as everyone else in my class opened up their first exam paper, I was sitting waiting for my first interview.  I'd had enough. I couldn't do it. Weak. Yes. I was weak - I had no intention of fighting or trying. I was too exhausted by everything. I had stopped caring about myself and my life. Alex had been doing his exams for the two weeks before this, I was on 'revision leave', and I was sitting at home, dying. No really, really, just dying. I let it be. Yes, I let it be. Sit and rot. Do nothing except watch your...

This is the bare bones: I want to recover. But I want to be thin first. It's been a bad week. Uncontrolled crying. In public. I can't I can't Why can't I get better. Alex. I cried myself sick, over and over again. I couldn't stop it. Crying hysterically in front of everyone and anyone... because of him. Not because he upset me - no. Quite the opposite. He's perfect. And his perfection, his beauty, his innocence, it hurts me so much. I don't know why. Or maybe, it's because I know: I have to end it. I have to. He's killing me. It's all killing me. Starving. Eating. Throwing Up. Binging. Laxatives. Restricting. Exercising. Sick. Sick. Sick I'm supposed to be going to a posh dinner as his guest tomorrow evening. And I can't. I can't. I can't put on a pretty dress that exposes the fat on my back, my huge arms and a tummy that sticks out 5 inches. I can't do my hair nice when it frames such a podgy and puffy...

My head never shuts down. If I could only find the switch, turn myself off, I could start living in the real world again, I'm convinced of it... but maybe there isn't a switch. Something I saw on jd's blog struck a real chord with me, I thought it was perfect: For a head so full of words and emotion, so much of my life is consumed by numbers. the numbers game Calories. I can't remember the last time I forgot about numbers in my head. I must have been so young. I wonder sometimes, about the whole genetics argument - that some people are more predisposed to eating disorders than others - we have the genes for it so to speak. Was I born this way? No... I'm sure I can't have been, but at the same time I'm acutely aware that I've always had the symptoms and the character and personality for it. I was never like other little girls. I tortured myself mentally for not looking perfect. I tortured myself for being 'fat' when I was a skinny littl...

Why, oh why has Ophelia been posting so much? I drifted so far away recently, posting once a week, once a fortnight.... Well, truth be told, Alex has locked me out of my facebook account in an attempt to get me to concentrate on revision. Oh yes - exams! Exams... seven to be precise - three hours each - the day after each other. excellent... So instead of sitting at my laptop pressing the 'refresh' button on my facebook homepage and seeing what uninteresting things my 480 'friends' have been doing, I have been sitting on blogger, reading old blogs, reading new blogs, commenting here and there, and of course, posting my usual rubbish! I used to be a good blogger - good to read, good at replying - an attentive blogger, a caring blogger. I think it's the slide from Ana to Mia. Ana makes for a good blogger, and Mia makes for a very bad one. Lets face it, what is inspirational about a wobbly white girl stuffing her face and spewing? This is the most messed up my li...

I have a new training program in place - a 10k training programme to be precise. It's hard to have an eating disorder whilst trying to train intensively at the same time - the two things really do conflict... But the fact is, I'm going to be running some races with Alex and some other super fit guys in the Autumn - after a Summer away on the LDAC that is. Yes, for any American readers, I am coming over to the US for a month to take part in the ROTC Leader Development Assessment Course. I have very little idea as to what it all entails exactly... other than it is something similar to the Territorial Army Commissioning Course we have here in the UK at Sandhurst...? If any of you out there have any info or experience of it I'd love to hear! So, my fitness is pretty good - in fact I can meet the male entry standards for Sandhurst (well on the run and situps anyway - my pressups are sill rather feeble!!) so I know physically I'm in pretty good shape... however it's...

Does it get better? Does it ever go away? That emptiness in your head; that chill seeping through your blood; the coldness... I can't get rid of it. I sit myself on the edge of the sofa and draw my knees up to my chest. My huge legs, huge pink soft marshmallow legs, scrunching up the rolls on my tummy, big rolls. For all I have done, all week, all day, all night, is binge. Food is the narcotic. Eating is the addiction. I want to call him and hear his voice. I want to send him links to videos, to some of your blogs, to articles, to words, to pictures, to voices, to help him listen to mine. I want him to help me. But I don't want him to understand. I can't do it to him. Not only do I fear losing him (for what 19 year old boy wants to deal with a crying 22 year old falling to pieces on their shoulder?) But I fear I will destroy him as much as I have destroyed myself. "You don't see the world like I do." "What do you mean?" "You don'...