A Head Full of Beauty

They warned me before I went - but warnings are just words. I wasn't prepared in any way for what I witnessed last weekend. My Mum and I went to see my Grandad. My Grandad lives in another part of the country close to my Aunt and Uncle - from my Dad's side of the family - and went into hospital in December having deteriorated drastically. We monitored the situation over the phone as the snow at the time made it impossible to travel the long distance to see him. They didn't think he would make it. Since being in hospital, his condition has improved but he had to move into a home where he could get full 24-hour care. We had lunch with my Aunt and Uncle before we visited him together. "It's incredible," said my Aunt, "the ability of the human spirit to cling on - even when the body is at then end, that spirit still clings on." I nodded, not really understanding. "It's awful where your Grandad is now", she continued, "Just old pe...

"I have experienced love, sorrow, madness and if I cannot make these experiences meaningful, no new experience will help me." Sylvia Plath. I wrote about her before - several times. The first time I wrote when I was 19 I think - after reading 'The Bell Jar' - after realising that I didn't want to wear it anymore, like her... I didn't want a life like hers... not for all her genius. Maybe she could have stepped away; maybe she couldn't. Maybe it was her destiny to feel and write and suffer, all so intensely. Maybe I can step away; maybe I can't. Do I believe in destiny or do I believe in choice? There is no author whose work I have ever identified with more closely - except maybe Tennessee Williams. And this makes me sad. Sad, because I don't want to be like Sylvia Plath. I don't. I'm sure I don't... So why don't I just step away? Please, come on, step away... I must have a choice, because I swear, I never chose sadnes...

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, ...

"You never come back, not all the way. Always there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier thin as the glass of a mirror, you never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and no one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad." I don't want to go to my psychiatrist and put on a brave face anymore. I don't want to tell Alex how much I want to get better. I don't want to look into the future and see a happy, glowing, successful mother of two. Because I don't want to be a failure. I wrote a letter to Alex: ...There are several reasons why I made the decision to ask my Mum to use the private healthcare cover to see a private psychiatrist... ...you; because you made me realise that I can be happy, I can be hopeful, there is more to life; it is worth fighting my demons for, and because you definitely, definitely deserve be...

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...

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...

Wow. Firstly, thank you. Caiten , whoever and wherever you are, that one comment meant so much to me. It was a shock and a truly great comfort. At the same time, I was also very shaken. I have come out: This other identity, this dark side of me, this unspoken monster that I really am. Now I know she exists, alive and free from her chains, and it's a scary prospect, for in revealing this monster, I am also acknowledging her. My illness is not a secret anymore - it is real and I cannot deny it, for this page is living proof of its existence and its power over me. My heart desires to give so much more to this blog, to post photos of myself, my mum, my friends, my university town, my hometown, my room, the boys I liked, the places I have been... I want to share my memories, and these huge images of who I am. But this page must remain just words for now. I fear even telling you what University I am at... This leads me to question why I am so afraid of being discovered... I am ashamed of...