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...

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...

Let me start this post by saying this is not the thinnest I have ever been.  But I'm not too far off. As I get thinner, the rate at which I'm losing is slowing down dreadfully. It's hard not to beat myself up when I step on the scales in the morning and see the same number as the day before. It's hard not to feel disappointed because I know that I'm working so hard and doing the maths so well. I sat with a child at breakfast this morning. "Could you have eaten as much as I did?" she asked me when she had finished. "Oh yes", I said, "Of course!" "But how can you be so skinny?!" "I'm not skinny!" "Yes you are!" I tried to contain my joy. "Oh, well, I eat loads, I promise. I eat loads." At night I run my hands along my body with glee, feeling my rib cage grow closer and closer to the surface all the time. There was a fabulous quote which Harlow posted from Crystal Renn's book '...

Something amazing has been happening. In three weeks I've lost 4kg. I even had a small binge last night on rice cakes and peanut butter only to find that the numbers were still down on the scales this morning. How I have missed this feeling. I feel sick. Hunched up as my stomach churns with acidity. I'm not walking, I'm shuffling. Another 10k run in the sun has re-blistered the weeping wounds on my feet. Pain . I feel so sick... but, if i threw up what the hell would come out? Some chicken breast, coffee, acid... But I can't stop, because I'm falling, at last, I'm falling, falling, rising back up to my best. God help me, I couldn't eat even if I wanted to. I've finally dragged my sorry, fat corpse right out of the mud at the bottom of the river and now I can be rational again. Last year I let myself be consumed by bulimia, by a stupid little boy, by social conventions which choked and smothered me. Well, here I am, it took me a fucking long t...