A Head Full of Beauty

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...

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...

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 ...

Home. I am finally home. My unhappy sanctuary. I have come home for the last time. I used to pack my bags on Thursday afternoons when I was at university and get the cheap train home for a long weekend. It was worth the hassle and the long journey just to have a house to shut myself up in alone – a house where things were ordered and sober – where there were no men; no threats, no temptations. Home was the only place where I could cover up my body beneath a thick duvet and forget that it existed. It was a difficult two weeks at camp as you can no doubt tell from my last post. I got away at most mealtimes with just eating vegetables and fruit. There were many arguments as usual, but I give up now… I have yet to meet anyone (in the flesh) who understands and supports my desire to better myself. Perfection, to everyone I know, seems to be a mere fiction in a world that proudly accepts its disgusting self. If it weren’t for this blog, my followers, commenters, I would never be able to beli...

I'm on Camp. Somewhere in some bleak, uninhabited part of rural Northern England. Just under two weeks to go... I meant to post before I left but didn't have the time. God I hate being away from home and internet! I'm currently paying £1 for this 30 minute connection in the bar so I can write. I thought this camp would be a great opportunity for me to get away from all the temptations of the kitchen at home. I have to eat three meals a day with the rest of the people that I work with. So no snacks and no opportunities to buy or binge on food when I get weak. I get here and am given the itinery. Massive piss ups almost every night with my team, led by guys with beer guts three times the size of the rest of them. Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol - the most calorific thing on the planet... that makes my belly swell and makes me crave food and makes me lose control of my willpower to restrict. Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol... that is all these people do! Oh and when they're not drinki...

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...

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 ...

This is going to be a quick post. Laxatives. Never used them before. Am off to buy some tomorrow. Needless to say, my digestive system shuts down when I successfully fast/restrict and my belly sticks out a mile with all the backlog of food that won't move! I tried the natural way with 'Aloe Vera Colon Cleanse' from Holland & Barrett. Recommeded dose: 1 pill before bed. After a few weeks my desperate dose: 6 pills before bed. And no bowel movements. My period? Absent without leave. Last time I had it my stomach swelled up like a balloon, face broke out in spots and I felt like a massive piece of shit. I'd say I was fitting all those symptoms right now. I want to retch when I look in the mirror. Bad skin... seriously... that is up there with the weight issues when it comes to my paranoia and BDD. And no, no, I don't have acne, I know, just like I'm not overweight, I know, I know. But if it's not a clear, flawless complexion it's disguisting to me. Just...

I'm back in the suburbs of South London, sitting in a bright office, overlooking a sublime view of lime green grass bathed in glorious sunshine. A glorious English summer...and I'm in a long-sleeved shirt and knee length skirt...because nothing else fits me. No. I admit, I'm being overly-harsh. I refuse to wear anything else. Because nothing else fits me well enough. Nothing else hides me well enough. I hate my body. I want it to disappear. I finished uni on Tuesday. By some miracle I got my final assessment finished on time and handed in. I sat through lunch today at work in turmoil. My belly aches from eating. I had a salad with seafood. And a generous helping of calorific cous cous. And a yoghurt. Fat free, but still, a goddam yoghurt. Idiot, idiot, idiot. I could have just taken a place of green leaves and swished it around my plate. Why do I have to put on this stupid show of eating. The second I put down my knife and fork my head was screaming PURGE! I can't eat a...

That would be the exam I took today. And then my whole ABC plan. Honestly, English Literature exams...why...just why! Today my exam was on Modern Literature (Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot etc) and well, yeah it was even shitter than I had anticipated. Honestly, I went into an exam once without having read any of the books, did terribly, but even that exam felt better than the one I did today! I have one final assignment due on Tuesday...and then I'm finished with University, thank God. Except I have a real fear now of ending up with a 2:2 after that exam went so badly...and I can't get a 2:2, I just can't, I won't be able to go into any of the careers I want... So I came home, feeling like I'd thrown away everything, and that sick, empty, worthless, there's-no-point, feeling crept over my heart...and I went out, bought two big cookies, a double chocolate muffin and a pack of indian nan bread (hey - I don't choose what my binge voice tells me I crave!) Then made...

To my regular readers, apologies for being away for so long. My laptop died last Monday and took 5 days to repair! And I suppose in that time I also became slightly disillusioned and confused. To Holly in particular, sorry for not replying. I was sick and alone. After the initial ecstasy of starving, it began to feel like I was rotting away in my room...for nothing and no-one. I went to the ball on Saturday and since then all I have done is eat and I have been too ashamed to post, knowing that my body was so filled with shit, knowing that I was a traitor to this head full of beauty and to all of you. To quickly update you on my ball on Saturday: It was brilliant and a really good laugh. Fitted into my dress like a dream - so worth the fast! Got hit on by several guys (bless them, not a chance!), pulled a guy called Pete I had liked in second year making Oli jealous and receiving drunken calls and texts from him hahaha . Although I sort of regret pulling Pete now cos he's FAR too...

I seem to have been pretty on track recently. But what a blatant, disgusting lie to write that now. I have been on track and I would still be if it weren't for men alcohol and my stupid need for attention. I showed them what they were missing. A perfect slim dress with ruffles, red ribbon, red shoes, dark hair over my shoulders, sultry makeup. I surrounded myself with boys who couldn't have me. I was out of their league. I thrive on that adrenaline beat of the dancefloor . My life revolves around what I become in that space and who other people perceive me to be. I am the one they want. But I'm not, not at all, not really, not in the harsh reality of sober daylight. But I know for that space of time, I am something. I am vibrant and alive, you can touch me and I can respond. In the club, under the artificial lights, I am not beauty or fragility, I am desire... a sensual but sordid desire. It's now 7am. I was supposed to be on a coach back home to London for the weekend ...

I have an assignment due in 7 hours. I have no intention of getting it done on time. I will hand it in late, like I always do, and be penalised for it. I am in my final year of university now - the most important year or some shit like that. Who knows...who cares. I'm under some sort of perverse illusion that in order to write an essay I need to eat shit loads. So I have eaten shit loads. I do not need to eat for fucks sake! Every day I am making the daily trip to the supermarket. I have no food whatsoever in my flat. I can't have any food around without binging on it - it doesn't matter what it is - I'll cook it, eat it raw, eat it all, not stop. So, every day, ravenously hungry, I go to the supermarket, walking up and down the isles, checking the back of every packet, choosing something, putting it back, wringing my hands in angst. "That nutter girl is back again." Yeah, I just walk up and down your supermarket looking at food because I'm bored and lone...

Firstly, big thanks to all of you that have been reading or commenting. Really, you guys are what make this blog work for me, and this blog working is what keeps me strong! Last night was a the big St Patricks Day celebration at the club I'm a part of at uni. Originally I had intended to stay at home and get some work done on my assignment due next week (shit, still not started it... will start it after I've finished this post!) I figured that if I went, I'd only see Oli , feel fat and ugly, get upset and go on a massive binge. But in the afternoon I hit the gym big time and was absolutely buzzing off the adrenaline for the rest of the day - literally bouncing off the walls at such a good workout. So I decided that I'd go and pull out all the stops. As it was a St Patricks celebration the fancy dress theme was Irish. Well I wasn't going to go dressed in shitty green clothes so I decided to go as an Irish Fairy/Pixie/Nymph. I wore a brand new, beautiful, floaty whi...

Ok , so this is a little bit gross, but I just had the best purge ever. I find that the best purges are always the planned ones, where you just eat and eat knowing that you are going to be sick straight afterwards. The best purge foods are white bread, cereal and noodles. They just come straight back out in great thick, massive lumps and it is so, so satisfying to feel it. That shit that could have been in your body coming out triumphantly. Foods that do not purge well: Yogurt ( ewww ), eggs, ice cream and gross dairy stuff like that - just really not worth the trauma. Not that I'm championing the binge and purge cycle here, but if you are about to have a massive binge with the mind to purge afterwards just consider what you're eating and how easy it will come back up. I went for a massive gym session yesterday and my arms and stomach are aching - the best feeling in the world!! My legs are still feeling fine because I actually stretched them out properly for once, so I took a...

Another week of being locked in my room. Another week of missing uni. I cannot bear to be seen right now. I don't just feel hideous, I know I am. I am, fuck it, underneath the carefully applied makeup and nice clothes I'm fucking hideous. My clothes are horrifically tight after all the amount of weight I've put on this week. I know it's been loads, and I don't have the guts to stand on the scales and see what I've done to myself. I went on the most mental binge I've ever known on Wednesday after my friend's birthday. Two packets of crisps (the massive sharing bags!), a packet of biscuits, a tub of ice cream , 4 sandwiches and not to mention bottles and bottles of alcohol. Of course the next day because I was hungover and felt like crap I had to go on another binge and so on. My mate had a massive go at Oliver on my behalf. I made a massive fool of myself in general going around telling everyone how much I liked him. I humiliated myself on a massive scale...

I’ve just eaten a plate of rice with soy sauce because I was craving the saltiness. There is now nothing in my shared fridge at university which belongs to me :) I binged on a packet of cookies and a tub of Ben and Jerry’s this morning, but didn’t even enjoy a single mouthful. It was just compulsion I think. Last night, at about 5am, wringing my hands in madness at not having any junk food to binge on, I walked a mile up to my local 24 hour supermarket and ate a Sneakers Bar and a whole loaf of bread (yes, a whole loaf) on the walk back home again. To tell the truth, I had gone to try and buy some sea salt as well in order to do my first salt water cleanse. I could only find yucky table salt and didn’t fancy torturing my body with that. So, tomorrow morning I intend to search all the health food shops and supermarkets that I can in order to find some real sea salt! I’ve put on over half a stone over the Christmas period, which is, for want of a better word, disgusting. This is the fatt...

‘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...