A Head Full of Beauty

I'm putting myself back on anti-depressants (Fluoxetine). I watched The Iron Lady last night and there were about two 10 minute intervals in which I did not cry. Throughout the rest of the film I just sobbed manically, tears dripping off my cheeks. I'm raw these days. It's like there's no flesh on me, just touch me and you go straight to the nerve. Everything hurts and everything makes me cry. I sobbed all the way through The Iron Lady because it reminded me of my own mother - or how she will be in a few years. The film perfectly depicted the heartbreak of losing a husband - God knows I have no idea what it feels like, and yet I cry my eyes out for my Mum - am sitting here crying my eyes out for her now. And that was it really. The old, deep-seated inability to deal with death and loss and grief. My mother who lost a husband and has only known pain and heartache since, who is getting more and more fragile and frail by the day. And what can I do except give her a ...

Sorry for making the blog private for a few weeks. I wanted to be isolated from the piercing eye of the internet for a while... It's been a long time since I've sat down and written a proper update - and for those of you who read regularly, I apologise, sometimes it's very easy to forget that people will miss you when you disappear. Thank you to those who have emailed and reminded me to come back, those words have been key in helping me. Thank you to anonymous for the beautiful dance clip on youtube, to NC for the kind words of support regarding the CFA, I will definitely need kind words as crunch time approaches! Thank you to Alice, Loulou, and everyone who commented on the last post with your support. Sometimes I think I should keep your wise words with me all night. I suppose I should continue the story where I left off - with Theo. Wow, so much has happened since then. Here's the condensed version: Theo had lost his phone, genuinely, hence why he hadn't co...

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...

Again, too much has happened that I don't know where to begin. Sometimes I wish my life would just slow right down again. I will just have to write it in bits, a full monologue is too much for me right now. Last Friday I nearly ended it with Theo. As I said, he was taking me out for my Christmas present. I took the afternoon off to get a massage, sit in the sauna, get my hair done and make sure I looked my best. It was the leaving drinks of someone at work so we both went along to that. Theo told me we would leave at 8:30pm. The time came and went, he did not make a move. He was drinking with his mates, I was standing with my friends, sipping my one glass of wine so I stayed sober to enjoy our dinner. I sent him a text - when are we going? He didn't check his phone. I went to sit upstairs trying to fight back the tears. I read back my last post on my blackberry... I must not take his cluelessness for lack of care, I must not act like a child and ruin this, I must not thro...

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...

. 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...

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...

The head never shuts up. And everyday I think a little something and write it down, add a bit, think a bit. I hate Christmas. No, I don't hate it, I dread it. I find it the most depressing time of year. Empty and terribly depressing. Me and my Mum, pretending to be happy. A depressing meal. Disgusting 'treats'. Food at the centre of everything. Stuck in this sad house choking back the tears. Every year since I was 11 years old, it's been empty and unbearable. And this year, I'm running away. I'm leaving for Egypt tomorrow morning for a week. I'm sick of the cold and the emptiness. The most wonderful thing about travel is that you can become so far removed from your life back home that it's almost as if it doesn't exist. It's the most liberating feeling. I don't have to do Christmas. I don't have to do it! I don't have to curl up alone, stuffing my fat bulimic face, wishing there was something stimulating on the TV to distract me. ...

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, last Friday, I went back to my university city for the big reunion dinner that evening. As is protocol now, fasting, laxatives, exercise preceded. This could not shift the scales from the undeniable fact that I was 5 kg fatter than when I went to this reunion dinner this time last year. Yes. Fucking Yes. I had my appointment with my psychologist in the morning before I got on the train. She helped me get through it. She is amazing. It's good to write down and map out all my irrationalities. I didn't crumble that evening - I went, I held my head up high, and I still looked nice. I did it. The immeasurable waste. It's always a waste isn't it, this stupid quest of mine. It's never made me happy. All the money and the hours of aching muscles and the nights of hunger and vomit... I do it for something grand, something wonderful, something I deserve... something I can't put my finger on, perhaps because it's not reall...