A Head Full of Beauty

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. ...

Let me fill in some gaps. Everything has been so strained and emotional lately that I haven't had time to talk about my life - not my head - my life. It's just been depressing, emotional, despondent post after post without a word on what has been actually going on around me - outside my swirling mind. So I need to tell you what has been happening. I didn't do my exams. In fact, I didn't do a day of revision. So, nearly two weeks ago, at 9am, as everyone else in my class opened up their first exam paper, I was sitting waiting for my first interview.  I'd had enough. I couldn't do it. Weak. Yes. I was weak - I had no intention of fighting or trying. I was too exhausted by everything. I had stopped caring about myself and my life. Alex had been doing his exams for the two weeks before this, I was on 'revision leave', and I was sitting at home, dying. No really, really, just dying. I let it be. Yes, I let it be. Sit and rot. Do nothing except watch your...

It feels like I've been away forever. In reality it's been what, 3 weeks? I don't want to talk about my mother. I don't want to talk about what happened. She hasn't forgotten, but she doesn't want to admit it. I found myself in the darkest most chilling place... and I really, simply wanted to die. But I didn't. It takes more than that to kill me. I'm a fighter, remember . But I had to come back here. It's odd, it's almost as if it was a resistance... I had to resist the urge to come back and write. But I need this blog too much. I need it to keep me as grounded as it is possible for me to be. I want to thank everyone who gave me support on the last post, and on all my posts throughout the 14 months I've been blogging. I know I'm terrible at replying, but I intend to catch up very soon. There is so much to update you all on since I've been gone. All the events in the past three weeks seemed dramatic at the time, and yet, now seem so ir...

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...

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...

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...

I've been drifting in and out of consciousness for the past two or three weeks - Consciousness between this world and that, between London and heaven, between then and now... My name is Ophelia ... sometimes Sometimes I'm drowning, sometimes I'm soaring, sometimes I'm so alive I can't feel anything except the pulse rushing through my head, sometimes I'm so dead I need a knife to make me bleed. . . On Thursday I was 'happy' and 'normal'. I was SO happy and normal. I went to law school, made it in for the 9am lecture start, sat between two of my girlfriends, giggled though the whole day with them, went out with my tutor group for drinks and a meal at the end of the day, laughed, chatted incessantly and finally took the first footprints in the thick, fresh snow as I wandered home in the early hours with a sweet smile on my face. And then I shut the door, and I'm drowning again, until the next time... * * * His name is "D". Yes - anoth...

I've been wanting to write for days now. But it's all been quite depressing. And everything I wanted to write about... has somehow disappeared from my head... All I know is that I feel quite dead. This week is going to be hell. Quite simply, full on, full throttle, burning hell. Ok. I've got to submit my first assessment next Monday - one week away. Ok. That's ok, you know, it's ok. A week is ages. I used to knock out essays in a day at uni. I know my topic, I know what I have to do, I just have to do it. And I will. Fuck the rest of the shit in my life. I WANT TO BE TOP OF MY CLASS IN EVERY SINGLE ASSESSMENT. Perhaps more than anything I want to prove a point. Ask any member of my class who the least intelligent person is and I guarantee every single one would say me (yes I know I have an inferiority complex/paranoia anyway but I still think they genuinely believe this.) And I know it's my fault that they and my tutors all probably think this - because of the w...

A narrative of the last few days… So Friday was the big day. I went back to my university town for the Annual Dinner Night of my old society. All present members and all alumni – all my best friends, all my old lovers, and the place that made and broke my reputation. Thursday: all I ate all day were two sweets. And I only ate them because M offered them to me on two separate occasions in the library. (M – the law school guy I can’t stop myself from being besotted with.) I was convinced that I looked terrible that day so I hid in the library at law school during our break. I hadn’t seen M all week, but that day, I left my desk for two minutes and returned to find he had sat himself two seats away. I was mortified and pretended not to see him… although from that point on I found it impossible to concentrate on my books… He spoke to me first, and obviously when he offered me a sweet I couldn’t say no for fear of looking weird / seeming rude. Anyway, straight after my day at college was ov...

It has, generally, been a very good week. I averaged at about 600 calories every day. Well, until last night and today – where I hit about 2000 in some relief binging – or whatever. Yes I am pissed off at myself. But no, I am not going to binge and moan and binge some more. I had a good week. Overall. I had a week off from law school so I was on a work experience placement at a law firm in my favourite part of the City. Oh I had forgotten how wonderful it is to feel hungry!! Constantly fighting away that constant twist inside with a smile of delight. Oh my God I’m shrinking! Visibly - I can see it! I went right back to the glorious days when I was 15 - exactly the same diet - Half a sandwich at lunch, half a sandwich at dinner, and a piece of chicken/fish with vegetables/fruit. Gloriiiiiious! I can't believe it, I'm finally getting back to the way I once was. So yes, today I ate – two whole actual meals – and biscuits – and then threw up twice. Now I was NOT bulimic when I was ...

I’ ve fallen for the most beautiful guy. And nothing hurts more. I’ ve still got the scars from the last time I fell… all the times I have fallen. My heart is aching - more than the tearing muscles in my over-exercised legs. I hate it when I have feelings for a guy. There is simply nothing worse. Whenever I like a guy – every time I like a guy – it means heartache, insecurity, tears, binging, self-harm, anxiety, despair. In other words, for me, men are synonymous with pain. All the worst periods of my life – those darkest, bleakest times where I prayed I wouldn ’t wake up in the morning – came off the back of heartbreak. I keep trying to put him out of my head. It’s ridiculous that I like him. It’s ridiculous that I have NO control over my emotions. How can my heart govern my senses so completely? He’s half Japanese, half English - Eurasian like me, but with more tan and unbelievably incredible green eyes. He’s a petite guy – so not most girls cup of tea – but to me… well… how can I ...

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?...

Sigh. I didn ’t step on the scales this morning. I know the figures would have gone up from eating so much yesterday and I couldn ’t bear seeing higher numbers. I’ ve been a bit of an emotional train wreck these last few days. Some sorta full on bipolar, manic depressive roller coaster . Screeching round tight corners between break-neck hyper joy and the slamming breaks of reflections in the mirror and screaming inner pain. My mum has been eating away at the remainder of my self-esteem with devastating effect, constantly finding fault with every single part of me. I received my degree results in the post when I got home from work on Tuesday night. I got a fucking 2:1. I was sooo relieved and thankful. My mum leaned over the staircase banister and looked blankly at me. ‘So you’re happy are you?’ she said bitterly. ‘Yes.’ ‘I expected a first. Honestly I expected a first. You always used to get the top grades.’ And that was it. Not a smile even. It didn ’t really affect me. I knew I was...