A Head Full of Beauty

I came home on Wednesday night realising that I had fallen hard. It was the leaving drinks of one of the management team and much of the office was out for the party - Theo included. I nervously watched the door of the venue until he came, the girls I worked with laughing at me for my childishness. When he finally arrived it was a while before we spoke to each other, and when we did it was just casual and normal as it would be between any work colleagues. As the evening began to wear on we became more flirty and more separate from the rest of the crowd. He looked gorgeous as ever, his big brown eyes burning into mine and making me so hungry for him. I wanted to hold his hand, wanted to cuddle up close to him, I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to be open about our relationship, but I couldn't because people that we worked with were around. It killed me. It made me anxious. At one point I turned wild with jealousy when I saw him talking to another girl from my depa...

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...

I haven't logged on since I wrote my last post three weeks ago. I think I thought it was my last post. It would have been a nice note to end on wouldn't it. I want to thank you for all your kind and positive comments. I will find the time to comment back I promise. The first thing I noticed when I logged back in was the number of followers I have. 456. Four hundred and fifty-six people thought my words were worth following. I'd never really thought about what an extensive number that is. Of course I can't leave. And I can't leave for many reasons - this blog is like blood letting. Take that to mean everything that blood letting can do and for every reason that it is done. But more than that, this blog gives me a connection to people who understand me, people with the same wires crossed in their brain, the same creatures crawling underneath their skin, the same heart beating the same desires to the same rhythm... I'm part of a community and a family whe...

I wanted to try and get away. Everything has been hard. The two people in my life who know about my eating disorder, who know I see a lady once a week, are the two people feeding it. If I wrote about the things my mother says to me... well I can’t . I can't leave. I have to write. If I don’t write... if I don’t write, it’s because I’m cured and my mind is empty and emotionless. I watched a fictional TV programme this evening where the characters travelled back in time to meet Vincent Van Gogh. The exploration of Van Gogh wasn’t deep by any means, but it touched the nerve of his genius quite simply: The Doctor to Van Gogh: “I’ve seen wonderful things, my friend, but you’re right, nothing quite as wonderful as the things you see.” His madness was so beautiful. What a mind, what an exceptional mind. Of course I would never compare myself with Van Gogh’s artistic genius, but it brought me back to the name of this blog: A Head Full of Beauty . I may have an eating disorder, I m...

How far back does my pain go? I forget sometimes, how long I have lived with this... and no, my pain didn't always manifest itself in the shape of an eating disorder - or at least as ferocious an eating disorder as I have now. I was trying to remember a poem I used to love... and it led me to search back into my old computer files to look through the poems and writing that I produced when I was 17 and 18. It struck a chord with me. The pain was the same back then. I just hadn't learnt to channel it through my relationship with food. I never got better, I never got happier, I never found what I was looking for... I just got worse; I just got older; I just wasted more of my life. 19th May 2006 I am so scared. I am so lost, and so confused. So many times I have been falling, and sometimes I have even been soaring, but right now, I’m on the outskirts of a whirlpool, spinning rapidly, awaiting to be sucked into oblivion. I’m just swirling round and round, feeling sick, ...

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've been out of control for too long. I am on the waiting list. Waiting for someone to save me It has been months since I took that first step into the GP's office and said, quite plainly, 'I am bulimic. I binge and throw up everyday, often several times a day.' They assessed me and agreed: I'm fucked. So they wrote the name Ophelia on the end of a line of other names. And have left me to get on with it. I know there's nothing more they can do. THEY. Them... the ones I want to save me. because I can't do it on my own I wish that you could save me, I wish that more than anything, because I'm so afraid. It's not going to be Alex; he's never met the girl that writes this blog. He never will. I've put on the act far too successfully. I found the winning formula and I crafted a porcelain mask from it - a mask that sits far too comfortably and fits far too well. Alex would never love Ophelia. And I would never burden myself upon him, because I kno...

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...

This blog is my crazy space. It is the only place in the world, where I can be crazy. - Or rather, it is the one place in the world where I can talk, uncensored, about my crazy behaviour in the real world. Sometimes - as with the story I am about to tell - some people see my crazy behaviour - but you guys get the full picture. I suppose, what I'm saying is that this blog is not just about my eating disorder. It's about the terrible insecurities in my head, the reckless behaviour and the irrationality that comes from my mental instability - All the things that have created my eating disorder and which are also borne from my eating disorder - Body dysmorphic disorder, need for male attention, shopping addiction, obsessions, reckless drunkeness ... the list of abnormalities goes on. Now, 'The Club'. I've mentioned it in posts before, but feel I should explain it better for the purpose of this story. I was a member of 'The Club' at my university in another par...

Presenting Problem: Ophelia presented with symptoms of severe depression and severe levels of anxiety (as indicated by scores of 22 on the PHQ 9 and 17 on the GAD7 respectively). Ophelia told me that she is obsessed with her weight and how she looks. Ophelia explained that she will restrict her food for a few days, and then will eat a lot and vomit afterwards. Ophelia said that this is having an impact on her studies, and she won't go out to lectures if she is feeling particularly bad about her appearance. Risk Issues: Ophelia said that she often has thoughts of suicide, but said that she would never act on those thoughts. Ophelia also explained that she does self-harm about once a fortnight. She told me that these cuts are fairly superficial, and she has never needed medical treatment for them. Treatment Plan: Ophelia and I agreed that I would refer her for a further assessment with one of our high intensity therapists. In the meantime, I have sent Ophelia some self-help materials...

This blog is now one year old! I can't believe it. Over 300 followers and still writing. So I am going to take you back to where it all began... In the Autumn term of my final year at University I chose a module in Literary Theory and Trauma. One of our projects was to analyse some blogs - so naturally I decided upon an eating disorder one. My google search at the time came up with one: Dying to be Thin - Anaregzig - The queen of all pro- ana bloggers . I read it from beginning to end. And that's when I found that a sanctuary for me did exist - here. I didn't start up my own blog until the end of term, after Christmas. I never intended it to be 'pro- ana ' and still don't, really. I just wanted to write freely. I wanted to be able to express exactly what was going on inside my head, exactly what I wanted and believed and exactly who I was, without the fear of social prejudice. My desires then are the same as they are now: - I want to recover and be normal. -...

What was it that made me this way? I was talking to my ex boyfriend and he asked me if I still drew. I'd forgotten that I used to draw. I was talented at it. Like I was at all the arts I suppose.... drawing, poetry, music.... at least I still write. And only when he brought it up again did it strike me - how dead I am now - how mechanical - how sober - how cold... like so much around me. My creativity has been so slowly smothered by this heartless world that I didn't even notice it dying. And now I'm left standing in the middle of a choking expanse of city - just a plain face to be networked by soulless bellies full of money. If I ever make it as a lawyer I will be dead. I won't be Ophelia anymore. Do you understand? I'd be one of them. The Unfeeling. Superficial Unfeeling. PLASTIC. A corporate mould of perfected plainness. I don't WANT to be like that for the sake of being normal. This is me: emotional, passionate, wild, untamed, full of pain and heart and insa...