A Head Full of Beauty

It nearly didn't happen. Millie and Rhianna spent all of Tuesday trying to convince me that Theo didn't really like me. I was devastated and broken, but mostly I was angry. How dare they tell me who I should or shouldn't date, telling me that I'm nothing to him, just another girl he can fuck, that he should be behaving in a way that they deem more appropriate, chasing me like a lovesick puppy. I was furious and my self-esteem was in shatters again. Sure, he was rubbish at replying to my messages and never gushed his feelings towards me, but I'd only really known the guy a few weeks! They sat me down and told me that taking him out on Friday would be a terrible mistake because he didn't like me and would only hurt me. But I am a rebel. I rebel against anyone who tells me what to do, and my God, thank goodness that I do! I remembered the way we had talked for hours, I remembered the way we had laughed, I remembered he had made me feel something I hadn't fel...

I studied a book at University called ‘Spasm’ in which the author suggests that someone might create an illness because she ‘knows no other way of telling her life’s tale...the illness a conduit to convey real pain.’ Is that what my eating disorder is to me? The desire to stuff my face and throw up, the need to run until my feet are blistered raw, the buzz from fasting and curling up in a ball locked in the toilet cubical - are these desires created or born from the inner pain I had for so many years and had no way of expressing or feeling physically? Cassio is in the dangerous position of making me remember who I am. I am the girl who devoured books and poetry, wandered around the galleries alone, writing, dreaming, opening up her bare, raw soul to the harsh elements of Art. He is a culture snob. Fine dining, classical music, expensive clothes, European languages, European cities. He could never love London like I do, even as an Italian, his heart will ...

Thursday 27th October It has become a rule to binge - to eat myself to death - after a night out. Why. Why not. I am the queen of throwing up. I'd had an intense few days at work - travelling abroad and then pushing myself to the limit in the office overtime. It was nearing the end of a long Thursday afternoon and I needed to smile, laugh, feel good, feel power, feel - feel something. I knew where to get it. Cassio. I sent him an email. Dinner? He said no. Already had dinner plans. But drinks was a yes. I pranced over to his desk when I finished. Tony saw us, smiling knowingly at me. The good looking young kids always found each other. It was lovely. I loved friendliness, I loved chatting, discussing, questioning. When the time came for him to go to dinner with his friend he asked me to join him and I beamed. Of course. We had dinner with two of his friends and one of their other colleagues - all Europeans. He told me I was the first English girl he'd made friends...

It was early on Tuesday morning and the grey rain had begun to pour down on London. I walked into the office kitchen. He was standing by the window, tucking his soaking shirt into his trousers. I tiptoed behind him, trying to avert my eyes, and reached for the paper bag with my days worth of juice on the table beside him. It's not the first time we'd met in the kitchen, but every time we met we just blanked each other. Mark is hot - I mean, he's not just my office cutie, he is fantastically hot - but he works in a different department - a department which is not considered to be as sexy as mine - and departments don't mix in our corporate hierarchy.  But this time I dropped the cool act and mustered up the courage to speak. The silence was too awkward to ignore. 'So, er, you got a bit wet then...' He laughed, 'Yeah, it caught me unexpected', I smiled and held my breath. He was standing at the other end of the kitchen, sopping wet. I couldn't take ...

I'm on the train home and the woman opposite me is eating a homemade sandwich from white bread. My face is scrunched up in disgust and I keep giving her snide glances as if she were a filthy person dirtying a spotless carriage. I can't help it. I'm a nasty person. I think she's disgusting and I don't mind letting her know that. I'm so tense and angry that I want to stand up and smash my blackberry on the floor. I hate her because I can't eat a sandwich from white bread but I can still taste it and smell it so potently... oh so potently... I'm a bitch at work too, I ignore people, I wish I could be the kind of person that smiles and is cheerful and lovely to everyone. I'm not. I'm so wrapped up in my own little world, so self-conscious, so tense, so focused on the fabulous act I have to put on for the next 'person who matters'. If you don't matter, I don't care what you think of me, so you don't exist to me. I haven't got 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...

Anonymous said... stop binge eating stop throwing up stop taking laxatives and you'll be fine. eat a bit and starve the rest of the time. if you can't starve eat a little bit of fruit or veg. if you carry on like this, if you lose alex, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. get it together. 14 June 2010 13:18 I never forgot this comment - so I went back to search for it. I never forgot it because even at the time, I knew it was so true, and I wasn't strong enough - am not strong enough - to end the binge and purge cycle. Sometimes I get these pro-ana comments which are harsh but true. I like them. I noticed how many comments I have that I've never been able to respond to properly - and I apologise, because I haven't had the time to show how every single one has been read and taken into my heart. I'm going to catch up and write back this next week.   When I was at my most disciplined I was wonderfully thin. In the beginning of my second year o...

I was reading a random article about bulimia online. It was the comments on the article that struck me. There are so many of us - so many people addicted to dying. I'm supposed to be keeping a food diary for my therapy. I can't list how much I've eaten and thrown up, four, five times a day in the last week. Huge piles of food in and out, over and over. I'm doing it because I want to die, it's becoming quite conscious now. Below are the comments on the article I read. The article is not important, it's the list of nameless people living this hell, saying words I understand too well. So many. Nameless. We are all nameless. The nameless stories of people living through hell, knowing the damage, knowing the danger, and hopelessly praying that it will all get better. We're like broken records all droning the same nameless story... so many, so, so many... too many. How can this be stopped. How the hell can this be fixed? No one deserves this. I can't eve...

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...

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'...

I got an extension for a piece of coursework I was doing for law school and I had to get my doctor to sign the medical reasons on my ‘concessions form’. You want to know what I think of the fucking health care in this country? Well this should say it all: He wrote my first name wrong and mis-spelt my surname. Under medical problems, he wrote ‘Anorexia and Depression’. I' ve been diagnosed with Bulimia for fucks sake. The rest of the questions he barely answered or ignored. And I paid £19 for this proof of apathy. My exams start at the beginning of June. If I do them, I will fail. I have the option... to not turn up to exams and then give in a concession form like the one I did for my coursework. If they accept the bulimia as a reason for not doing exams then I will get the chance to retake them in August. Do I do it? My life is eating, throwing up, exercising, restricting, thinking about food, crying over my body, worrying... I can't do anything else, and I’m never g...

I know my posts are starting to become really sporadic. I apologise. I'm trying to live... trying to be busy... perhaps I'm trying to run Anyway. "I regret to inform you that the Medical Board has decided, having reviewed your medical history ....you do not meet the medical entry standards." I got turned away from two careers this week. The first I had to have an interview with a doctor. The second I had to have an interview with a psychiatrist. I couldn't lie my way out. I tried. I have to thank Mia. I have to thank my body. No one wants to employ someone with a 'history' of mental illness. Even though I lied and told them I was cured now. It's still there. It will always be a black mark by my name, no matter how I try to put a gloss on it. It's still a blip on my character. It says I'm unstable. It says I'm weak. It says unemployable . Anorexics are turned down because: "It is impossible to predict the 20% of sufferers who m...

Apologies for being absent for so long. The past week has been... crazy, emotional, sleepless... exciting . I've been writing everything in my notebook - It's been necessary for me to still write about everything even though I have been unable to sit down at a computer and update this blog. So, what follows are my entries and self-analysis from the past week, dated when they were originally written... Sunday 21st March - Analysing the Past You know, all of this would be so much easier if I had someone... If I had someone who loved me, I think I could cope. I think it would all be alright... If I had someone... someone who truly loved me. I wish I had a rock; someone I could turn to when I was in need, someone to hold me tight, shield me, dote on me... But I am too fussy - too much of a disaster - but most of all, I'm scared of the pain. If he were to leave me or betray me, it would kill me. I know I could never take that pain of heartbreak. What really push...