A Head Full of Beauty

Thank you 'ss' for sending me a message to prompt me to get back on here. Please also forgive my absence from your own blogs. I never seem to have the time to write these days let alone respond to all of your wonderful, kind and sincere comments which honestly are the inspiration and encouragement which keep me going through the toughest times. So, forgive my tardiness in expressing my thanks and I will eventually do my best to write back personally. To all those who have taken the time to write a few words here over the last few months: ss, Lissie, what if summer, miss margaret, Zoie, Mich, zen, désespérée de mairgrir, Wings to Set me Free, Gracie, a, Domino, Alice, *daisy*, Beth, Harlow B, Victoria, skinnybusiness, LouLou, Karolina, Shauna, stillimagining, Miranda, Posie, Felicia, v, Clear Girl, lottie x, clytie, Silly Girl, Willa, Seraina, any one I have missed and all the many, many anonymous commenters out there who I cannot identify uniquely, thank you. So what ha...

So it didn't really matter that Harry wasn't there in the end. All it meant was that it was a pretty uneventful night in which I drank far more than I needed and... well, nothing happened. My friends have always expressed concern about my lack of fear in walking the streets at night, but I've been doing it for years. Sure, I've had to run off from a few shady characters, I've been jumped on by a licenced London Black Cab driver, I've searched desperately for a friendly taxi on dark streets I didn't recognise, but it says a lot about me really - and as I said in my first post: 'I'm not afraid of any conventional fears.' We ended up in club called Fabric up in North London. It was gone 4am and I was done for the night. I vanished before anyone could start lecturing me. Naturally I hadn't eaten all day to ensure that my body was empty and at its thinnest, so my first stop was to buy food. Alcohol impairs judgement : half a pizza, half a subway s...

Thank you to all the old followers of my previous blog for joining me in this new chapter, and welcome to all those who are starting this new journey with me. My age is creeping up on me. I will 24 in a few weeks. "I'm too old to do shit like this," I told Harry when I woke up in his bed a week ago. It's true, I am, it's not the life I want to lead anymore - it never was. The problem with me is that in all my 24 years of life, I don't think I've ever learnt any lessons from my multitude of mistakes. I am disappointed in myself, because I know that Harry will become one in a long line of men who wanted a piece of me, but didn't want all of me - and like all the men before him, I will blindly continue in my teenage fantasy that he will put a ring on my finger. - Ok I don't want to marry the guy after having spent one night with him - but it doesn't mean to say that I haven't thought about him every day and obsessed about when I will see him n...

I am the biggest gameplayer in the world. I treat my whole fucking life as a game. Like every game I have a goal and a strategy and I play to win. When I feel the rush of success coursing through my veins it simply sends me spinning. Work is a game with two prizes - men and career success. I know that if I play my cards right in this job and work hard over the next two years, the City will be my oyster. I also know that with all the attractive men in my office I'll never get bored. The City is my stage. Like every actress I love an audience, I love performing, I love having a strong presence. The roaring streets, the shiny office, the City winebar - all such wonderful stages, danced on by my high heels. I live for every new morning so I can sit cross legged in front of my full length mirror and preen my long hair and paint my face carefully, a cup of coffee and a bowl of porridge at my side. I open the wardrobe of lovely dresses and shoes which I had once feared I'd nev...

I am a City Girl. I work in the City of London, in the hub of the financial district, out-striding traders and stockbrokers in my patent heels. I don’t work for a bank so maybe some would say I’m stretching the definition of City Girl slightly here, but I’m a money-maker in a business that sits like an octopus in the centre of the financial and business worlds. I’ve been on a long and dramatic road to get here. I’ve lived my life to the full, I’m not afraid of any conventional fears and beneath my smart office suit and neat office hair I’m as wild as they come. I started my new job on Monday. Monday 11th July 2011. I'd been counting down to that day for the past month. The initial delirium when I received the job offer quickly turned to dread once I received the employment contract in the post. You see, I’d done the daily walk across London Bridge before and it had sucked all the life and happiness out of me. I was afraid of going back and feeling that depression again. ...

. 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 '...

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'm not one for following trends, I've always had a very particular style which has been built up around my eating disorder/body distortions. I like what I like and what I like works on me... well so I think.... A standard day sees me wearing a floral pattern or plain dress, mid-thigh, usually with short sleeves and a long cardigan. Variations from this are rare and stressful. However, I am aware that - well - that I can't go on like this forever. I went into Levis' thinking that their new 'Curve' fitting would find me a pair of jeans that could make me look wonderful. I tried on pair after pair. Impossible. 'My bum... I can't... I can't...' 'There's nothing wrong with your bum', the staff kept saying I kept turning and turning, this angle and that, taking chunks of my thighs in my hands. 'Don't you know some women would kill for curves like yours? Men don't like skinny girls, seriously!' I privately rolled ...

They warned me before I went - but warnings are just words. I wasn't prepared in any way for what I witnessed last weekend. My Mum and I went to see my Grandad. My Grandad lives in another part of the country close to my Aunt and Uncle - from my Dad's side of the family - and went into hospital in December having deteriorated drastically. We monitored the situation over the phone as the snow at the time made it impossible to travel the long distance to see him. They didn't think he would make it. Since being in hospital, his condition has improved but he had to move into a home where he could get full 24-hour care. We had lunch with my Aunt and Uncle before we visited him together. "It's incredible," said my Aunt, "the ability of the human spirit to cling on - even when the body is at then end, that spirit still clings on." I nodded, not really understanding. "It's awful where your Grandad is now", she continued, "Just old pe...

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 ...

As to the man whose heart obeys his belly, he causes disgust in place of love. His heart is wretched, his body is gross, he is insolent toward those endowed of the God. He that obeys his belly has an enemy. Instruction of Ptahhotep, c. 2350 BC I arrived back from Egypt a week ago - feeling better than I have since... since I can remember. It's a breath of fresh anonymity, travelling on a boat with strangers you will never see again. The sunshine agreed with me - the food less so, but never mind. I have always wanted to go to Egypt since I was a little girl for the culture and history, and while that side of the trip was nonetheless amazing, it was getting away that made all the difference. I physically felt all the tension and hate draining away from my body - whenever a terrible thought or anxiety about my life came into my head, it blew away again - because my life was so far away in a distant land. The beauty of landscape, the stillness of the mystical Nile, the hot sun car...

I haven't logged on since I wrote my last post three weeks ago. I think I thought it was my last post. It would have been a nice note to end on wouldn't it. I want to thank you for all your kind and positive comments. I will find the time to comment back I promise. The first thing I noticed when I logged back in was the number of followers I have. 456. Four hundred and fifty-six people thought my words were worth following. I'd never really thought about what an extensive number that is. Of course I can't leave. And I can't leave for many reasons - this blog is like blood letting. Take that to mean everything that blood letting can do and for every reason that it is done. But more than that, this blog gives me a connection to people who understand me, people with the same wires crossed in their brain, the same creatures crawling underneath their skin, the same heart beating the same desires to the same rhythm... I'm part of a community and a family whe...