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. ...

Anonymous said... stop binge eating stop throwing up stop taking laxatives and you'll be fine. eat a bit and starve the rest of the time. if you can't starve eat a little bit of fruit or veg. if you carry on like this, if you lose alex, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. get it together. 14 June 2010 13:18 I never forgot this comment - so I went back to search for it. I never forgot it because even at the time, I knew it was so true, and I wasn't strong enough - am not strong enough - to end the binge and purge cycle. Sometimes I get these pro-ana comments which are harsh but true. I like them. I noticed how many comments I have that I've never been able to respond to properly - and I apologise, because I haven't had the time to show how every single one has been read and taken into my heart. I'm going to catch up and write back this next week.   When I was at my most disciplined I was wonderfully thin. In the beginning of my second year o...

I taught myself to hate food when I was 15. No - that's not entirely true. I didn't teach myself anything, I just learnt it... somehow, I learnt to hate food. I was asked in an interview last week: What makes you angry? I made up some "excellent interview answer" bullshit with a fake smile on my face. But the truth is, food makes me angry. I have to move seats on the train when someone in my view is eating a McDonalds out of a brown paper bag. I have to put on my earphones to block out the greasy crunching of crisps from the person sat behind me. The rustling of foil packets or the stench of fried foods makes ME feel gross. I feel so angry and disgusted it makes me want to scream. But do you know what is really the grossest thing ever? This is the highest figure on the scales I have ever seen in my entire life. I'm a lump. I'm a thing. When I lost Alex I let go of everything I had been fighting for. I let all my demons take over. I became everything...

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 do not burden myself on other people. I do not pick up my phone when I am crying my eyes out. I do not seek comfort. I do not ask for kindness. I cry on my own. I have done for years. Even when I was in a relationship, I never bothered him with it. And yet I lean on you. I come here to cry. I come here to find a shoulder. Because here, I can . I'm a wreck. I'm so petrified. I remember once, I must have been about 14, I was at school sitting, chatting to a friend during lunch, and she raised her arm suddenly and I flinched. I instinctively jerked away from her and raised my arm to cover my face. "Woah. Ophelia. Why did you flinch?" I laughed nervously. "I, er, I don't know, I, er, thought you were going to hit me." I don't flinch now. Strange, I still censor. I've blocked out pretty much all of my past. I've blocked out my childhood because it was so happy, and I've blocked out my teenage years because they were so dreadful. ...

I was reading a random article about bulimia online. It was the comments on the article that struck me. There are so many of us - so many people addicted to dying. I'm supposed to be keeping a food diary for my therapy. I can't list how much I've eaten and thrown up, four, five times a day in the last week. Huge piles of food in and out, over and over. I'm doing it because I want to die, it's becoming quite conscious now. Below are the comments on the article I read. The article is not important, it's the list of nameless people living this hell, saying words I understand too well. So many. Nameless. We are all nameless. The nameless stories of people living through hell, knowing the damage, knowing the danger, and hopelessly praying that it will all get better. We're like broken records all droning the same nameless story... so many, so, so many... too many. How can this be stopped. How the hell can this be fixed? No one deserves this. I can't eve...

http://www.axisoffat.com/ Some really powerful posts. I think it's good to broaden our vision of the world and our understanding. I have got to get out of my head and into other peoples, because this head is suffocating me - and I want to write and feel and understand more than what is contained within it's distorted and confining walls.