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...

So I've been at school for nearly two weeks now. I eat three meals a day. Like a heroine addict gone cold turkey I sit there after dinner tense and twitching... food in my stomach, a full stomach, totalling up the calories in my head over and over, add on an extra 100 just in case... overestimating everything, still too much... it would have been so easy not to eat those potatoes, so easy to have eaten less, shit, shit, shit... ...it's ok, it's ok, normal people eat this, IT'S OK, don't you dare throw up, I must not throw up, I have not over-eaten, I have not even had 2000 calories yet, people eat 2000 calories!, I need this food, I am allowed this food, don't you dare throw up... And most times I manage it. And it's ok. Last Wednesday I bought a packet of dried fruit and a packet of fruit and nuts for my room. And after dinner I came back, ate the lot and threw everything up. And I felt calm and in control again. So now I'm not allowed any f...

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 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...