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...

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...

On Thursday I gave the keys back to the house in London I was supposed to be living in with my two friends. That door is shut now. It killed me to do it. It was great to go there on Thursday, and be with friends, to laugh, to forget about the pain. To be the girl I used to be. To laugh. And it killed me because I had to walk away from it and come back to this room in this house I hate . That door is shut. I got the job offer from the Investment Bank. But I can't take it - sorry - I won't take it - because I won't live this nightmare anymore. Living in this house, trapped, and working a job, trapped. dead. trapped. It's as I said in my last post - It was two choices - live or die - take the new job and move out or stay here and rot. And when I came back home my Mum saw that I wasn't kidding. I'd shut the last door that led out of here and back to life. And I resigned myself to suicide. I told her so, frankly, as I had warned her the day before she made me...

I don't make any apologies for what I write on this blog. This is my head - Uncensored - All the uglyness of my thoughts in beautiful, bleeding words. Fundamentally, I set up this blog as an interactive diary. I've always written. I've always had to put down everything on paper because I could never tell anyone or trust anyone or burden anyone with what I was feeling and what I needed to express. Everything I write on this blog is what has happened to me, what I am thinking and what I am experiencing. I do not apologise for it. I do not apologise for sounding selfish or self-obsessed. I do not apologise for seeming shallow or weak. I do not apologise if you dislike me. Because this is me. I will never exclude or edit events to make you like me more. Because I have to do that in my real life everyday. I could never and would never tell anyone in my real life the depth of my insecurities or the confusion of emotions I feel - because they would judge me and hate me and think I...

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...

I'm trying to work out exactly where my life went from bulimic, dull, law-student to starving, vivacious, teenager... (again).... ...Oh that was it, meeting D and deciding to stay at ''the Club'' and socialise with them... I am back to being the crazy, drunk, fun-loving girl I was at University (as a result of being a member of "the Club'' at university.) Ohh I managed to resist the temptations of a lustful life for so long! I came to London and law school with such good intentions! I even came to "the Club'' in London with good intentions - to be boring, and do my job and go home! I avoided all men and all alcohol. (If you read all my old posts back, you'll see, if it hadn't been for me sleeping with Hugh last week, I'd be about to hit a one year dry spell in the sex department!) But now, men and lust and alcohol are back in my life with a vengeance - reminding me just how much I missed them. And my flirty, hedonistic persona...

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 ...

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...

I think this has been the longest I have been away. Or it feels like the longest... A combination of event planning, essays, job - and an overwhelming sediment of stagnant weight - are my excuses for abandoning you all - and I am aware that they should not be excuses. I haven't posted, I haven't read, I haven't commented and I haven't replied - but I will do better, so please forgive me. In my last post I told you that I was being interviewed for a waitressing job - and I did indeed get the job - much to my joy and relief. I've done a couple of shifts so far and apart from my first night when I broke about 20 glasses and dropped cream cheese down a guest's jacket, it's been ok . The only downside is the food... every night the waiting staff get to eat all the leftovers - and there's a lot of leftovers, and it's all ridiculously incredible. I have never found it so hard to resist food. I'm not talking the urge you get for a midnight bread binge....

I found out that 15 years before he died from cirrhosis of the liver, my dad was prescribed Antabuse - in other words, he was being treated for alcoholism. So he knew he was an alcoholic long before it killed him. I had always thought it was a secret. I questioned her about it. "If he knew, then why didn't he stop? Why didn't he get help?" She defended him, "It was an addiction. He tried, I know he did try, he really did try... but he couldn't stop." So she knew too. "But he knew! He should have got help!" I stopped myself from telling her she should have made him get help as well. "No, Ophelia, you don't understand. It's an addiction... like a drug addict... they know what they are doing is harmful, but they can't stop. I know he did try." So when I opened cupboard doors and found secret stashes of vodka, inconspicuous coke bottles filled with white liquid, cups of 'washing up water'...that was him trying was it?...

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 ...

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...