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 ...

I woke up to the sound of my blackberry alarm in pitch darkness. What... Why was it so dark? Fuck. Welcome to winter. I dragged out my coat from the cupboard and pulled it on as I shut the front door behind me. Memories came flooding back. As a teenager, I pulled on my frumpy school fleece or jacket as I went to the bus stop. A huge cloak of ugliness and foul shapelessness - years ago I felt the disgusting poison of my blood seeping out the pores of my face, ugliness, fatness. Why couldn't I be fresh and pure and lovely, why did I have to be an unclean lump? I pulled on my jacket on the morning of the new season to feel these same emotions flooding back - covering up the pretty pencil skirt and fitted blouse with a woollen jacket and woollen discomfort. I felt the cold daylight burning my skin as it had been for years, harshly highlighting the foulness of my skin, my attempts to patch over my natural ugliness - but nature is harsh, is cruel is TRUE - the natural daylight show...

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 ...

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...

I mentioned a few posts back that I was off to have an assessment for psychotherapy on the NHS . So I feel I should update you on how it all went. Diagnosis: Bulimia Nervosa (How enlightening!) Ok , let me stop myself there. I need to say at this point that anything sarcastic/rude/mean that I say about my therapist or my session is just my frustration talking. She actually turned out to be one of the nicest people I've ever had to talk to (out of several doctors, nurses, councillors and other random do- gooders ). She was the first person that I have ever spoken to who I did not feel was judging me. I would even go so far as to say that she understood. My words made sense to another human being - it was incredible - in an odd way, for the first time, I felt sane. So, it was quite revealing - all the stuff I had to talk about. My non-existent, fucked-up relationship with my Mum. My alcoholic Dad drinking himself to the grave when I was a child. As a teenager, the hated ...

‘Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?’ I have no right to write this. This is a silent cry. The memory is a blur. But I remember his few sickening words. I can’t write them. The buzz that night set me alight and I was loving it. I set the part. I looked the part. I played my part – to perfection. I recall just two brief snapshots of it - but I can’t write them. I can’t put those two moments into words. They are just two images, engraved in the forefront of my mind, and every waking moment they haunt me. There I was, there’s my picture, there I am. Somebody help her, somebody get her out, somebody, please, anybody! Why didn’t you tuck me into bed and kiss me goodnight. Like a father would. Don’t you know that’s all I want. Perhaps I hope that if I don’t write it, it won’t be true. Perhaps I’ll forget. The spaces of blackness make me terrified. Sick. Horrified. Find me th...

My father died when I was 11 years old. I suppose you could say that that’s where it all started to go wrong. Somehow, between then and now – a period of ten years – I have managed to leave behind one life for another and grow into a woman that I deny is truly me. When my Dad died, I was left with no-one but a mother who oppressed and domineered over every part of my life. I had no other family to turn to when in need. A few months later, I left the only friends I had ever known behind at Primary School and went to a new High School. This is when I also left behind the bright-eyed and confident child I had always been. It’s a difficult time for most children, but when I came home in tears, I found there was no one there to help dry them. Making new friends was hard, simply because I had never felt so lost in my life. The death of my best friend, my father, had hit me harder than I had ever realised. If I could go back, I would have taken the support and counselling that was offered to ...