A Head Full of Beauty

“Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.” The Journals of Sylvia Plath This blog is called 'A Head Full of Beauty' for a reason. When I started this blog I was already writing voraciously, spilling my emotions out in the strongest form of expression I had mastered. Literature and poetry had always been able to move me and help me feel the beauty in the world and in the human race. For me, beauty is not about aesthetics, it is not about what we see with our eyes but what we feel with our hearts. We feel beauty, it is an emotion, it is a movement in our soul, it is something transcendental. Beauty can be sad, it can be happy, it can be tortured, it can be innocent, it can be fresh, it can be ancient... While I hated everything about my physical self, I thanked God everyday for the beauty h...

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...

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 ...

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...

I don't know what I'd do without you all. How on earth could I possibly get by without this blog? Without the love and support I receive through this medium? I just don't know. My physical 'friends' hate me whenever they see a glimpse of my true tortured soul. I am so sick of this aching, brave facade, but it's not a choice, it's a necessity. I went away this weekend with 'the club' - one of our weekend camps if you like. Of course D was there. He spoke to me once or twice in passing, but that was it. It wasn't as if he ignored me exactly, but there was none of the sweet friendliness and enthusiasm that he had shown towards me before. It seems he hadn't told anyone about me visiting him last week, or in fact acknowledged to anyone that we had become anything closer than mere acquaintances. Perhaps on the weekend he felt that he couldn't let the others see him being overly friendly with me? Perhaps he felt awkward? Perhaps he just wanted n...

Apologies for the long, long absence. Well...it's been two weeks - but it feels like months! I have some SERIOUS catching up to do with you all, I hope you are all staying strong and I promise to read all your blogs in the next few days. I know I say it time and time again, but I couldn't do this without you all, you're all so kind and supportive to me and you've never even met me! It really means a lot. So, what has happened in these last two weeks then? Well, I guess I'd better start with that party I was preparing for when I wrote my last entry. All the weight I lost for that has gone straight back on. I don't even want to talk about it. I came home and binged constantly for three days straight. All that hard work. Thrown away. I dunno what I can write about that party anymore. Did I look thin? Did I look pretty? Did 'C' want me? I don't know. I can only tell you that in my head I looked fat, my belly stuck out, my cheeks were chubby, my calves we...

I started this blog in January - just over six months ago - as a tool to vent my emotions, explore my motivations, reveal my weaknesses... to find a place in a community where I could let my social mask of normality fall and be truthful, above all else. But my weight in this six months has pretty much maintained. Fasts being replaced by binges. Vomiting being followed by more eating. In the grip of bulimia, flirting with starvation, getting drunk until I fuck up. I am not classed as 'overweight''. I never have been. Is it purely Body Dysmorphic Disorder that made me hate my body? What made my face, my arms, my legs, my torso, my tummy, my bottom, my whole entire white, fleshy, exterior shell become my nemesis? As far as I can recall, I was 'normal' until the age of nine. That's when I decided I was fat. I wasn't. I can tell you that now, looking back at photos, I was absolutely tiny. But facts don't matter - I hated my body because I was fat. And that ...

To my regular readers, apologies for being away for so long. My laptop died last Monday and took 5 days to repair! And I suppose in that time I also became slightly disillusioned and confused. To Holly in particular, sorry for not replying. I was sick and alone. After the initial ecstasy of starving, it began to feel like I was rotting away in my room...for nothing and no-one. I went to the ball on Saturday and since then all I have done is eat and I have been too ashamed to post, knowing that my body was so filled with shit, knowing that I was a traitor to this head full of beauty and to all of you. To quickly update you on my ball on Saturday: It was brilliant and a really good laugh. Fitted into my dress like a dream - so worth the fast! Got hit on by several guys (bless them, not a chance!), pulled a guy called Pete I had liked in second year making Oli jealous and receiving drunken calls and texts from him hahaha . Although I sort of regret pulling Pete now cos he's FAR too...

It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It doesn't matter how pretty your friends think you are. It doesn't matter how many guys praise your figure. YOU ARE FAT. What's keeping you from being happy? What's stopping you from living the life you want? What is the cause of all your misery? Like I even need to reply... The answer is sitting on your thighs...The problem is hanging on your hips... Most people go through their lives being "average", " mediocre ", " ok ". Is that what you want? To be a "normal-sized" girl at a "healthy-weight" with "natural curves"? Or a STUNNING girl, the HEAD-TURNER, the PERFECT one? Most people accept themselves as God made them. Most people are happy with being average and ok . And do you know why? Because they are too weak, too lazy and too happy to sit on their over-sized arses to try to change. NOT US. You, me, us. We look upon them with pity, because they will never be a...