before

having one of those days when i’m thinking about what life was like before the ed. i remember funny things like sitting in my apartment eating peanut butter with a spoon because i’d forgotten to do a proper shop and secretly what could be better? or the time i decided i would make all the types of cake i’d wanted to make but never gotten round to and creating a mess in the kitchen. when i didn’t wake up everyday wondering where the nearest fucking weighing scales were. when food and eating and weight and guilt wasn’t on my mind 23 fucking hours a day.

today i made a good decision. my mind has been bugging me for days to weigh myself. it’s been at least a week and last time i weighed i’d gained. today was the perfect opportunity and i said no. because i remember life before the ed which means the ed hasn’t always controlled me. so it’s not going to today either.

on and off

as with always things have been on and off. end of exams meant a big weight off my mind and i calmed down a lot. also got my first period in 16 months which was a mixture of emotions – happy my body’s getting back to normal but also the anorexia angry at me because this means i’ve gained a lot. at the moment seeing the positives so doing well. attempt to delete stupid app off iphone that lets me count calories in practically everything lasted about 2 days before i had to re download it. but then i realise it keeps me calm and gives me some sense of control so maybe it’s not that bad a thing. i can’t decide.

had first un-painful supermarket trip in about two years yesterday. felt super super good and i actually made healthy decisions for myself. managed to put things in trolley without analysing calorie content and picked on basis of taste not calories. it really felt amazing, my boyfriend was there and he just is so good to me.

hence the cause of tears before bedtime so far every night this week. my boyfriend is from the other side of the world (literally, the furthest he could possibly be) and this stupid country’s rules means he has to leave the country on 20 march. i don’t think i can express how much i’m going to miss him. every time i try it sounds so pathetic. but he’s my everything. i see him everyday, we kiss everyday, cuddle everyday, hang out everyday. he’s my boyfriend and my best friend. i miss him if we have to spend a night apart.

i’m trying not to make him feel bad about it because it’s not his fault and i know he’ll miss me as much as i’ll miss him. i feel guilty for crying because it makes him feel guilty. but i know we’ll be fine. as i’ve said to him it’s not that i’m worrying about our relationship or whether we’ll last because i love him and i know we will. it’s just i feel sad that i won’t get to see him everyday. that we won’t be able to meet up for lunch, go to the cinema, lie in bed on sundays. it hurts that it’s all going to change and it is going to be really hard. ultimately we’ll be together and it’ll be fine.

Trying

I have not had a good weekend. The day of the post – Saturday – was a pretty shit day in that I spent most of it alone, in my bedroom, working. My bedroom, as much as i love my bed, is not a good place for me to be. There’s a full length mirror, weighing scales, and clothes from 12 months ago. This combination is a pretty damn good toolbox when it comes to torturing myself. So Saturday, instead of revising for my exams, I spent on the weighing scales waiting for my weight to drop just one pound, trying old clothes on and crying because they are too small and inspecting my body for ‘new fat’. Even in my upset state I could see this was a rubbish waste of my weekend, so I started this blog and went to my boyfriend’s. Immediately he could see a) I was in a state and b) I hadn’t ate all day. So we filled up on dinner and alcohol and had some pretty damn good sex. Then of course, morning came. Sunday. Oh, Sunday. Sunday things managed to get worse. I had breakfast and then resigned myself to my boyfriend’s bedroom where I promised myself I would get some work done. The problem was, however, early that morning my boyfriend had asked me what I felt like for dinner. Something inside me screamed ‘lasagne’ and so I said it. The subsequent hours were, again, torture. Think of the cheese, Think of the meat, Think of the pasta. You stupid fat ugly girl, why did you pick that? So of course, by the time dinner was ready I was feeling like shit. I was also starving, cue the daily battle of which way to go. I ate the serving my boyfriend gave to me but I’d had no lunch and it was a small serving. So he asked me if I wanted some more. I nodded and we went into the kitchen. Then I saw him cut up the extra piece to give to me and my brain had what can only be described as a meltdown. I kissed my boyfriend, ran upstairs and started crying. I have no fucking idea why. 20 minutes later, after I’d cooled off, my boyfriend came upstairs and hugged me as I nestled into his soft chest. We decided to go for a walk to get a drink and to calm me down. 2 pints of cider later we came home and I was still hungry. I managed to get the words out – ‘I’m hungry’ – always a struggle – and I ate the extra bit ( and a bit more) of the lasagne from earlier. Cue meltdown number…what number is it now? I went upstairs and cried myself to sleep.

Now it’s Monday and I’m facing more of the same. My boyfriend wants me to go to see a counsellor, but that has never worked well for me in the past. But i’ll save that for another post. Whatever I choose though, Whatever I decide to do, for now it’s still Monday and I’m feeling like shit. Totally calories so far today – 400. But Monday night is going home to see parents night and that always means a big dinner and desert. So god knows how many it’ll be by this evening.

I am also losing my waist. It is being consumed by the fat I am putting on and I can’t see it anymore. Don’t even ask about my ribs. And my hips. Gone. Gone. Gone.

I do not know what the fuck to do.

The Lowdown

So here it is:

In my 20 – 30 year old state, here I am, recovering from anorexia. And guess what: I’m struggling. Initially it wasn’t too bad; my weight was scarily low, I was living far away in a foreign land and my chest was aching, so I came home.  The parents took control of me, my life, my eating, and everything felt good. Felt good in a I am getting by, I don’t have to do anything (well not really) and at least I’m not dying anymore ,way. Time passed and gradually I started to smile again, my hair grew thicker and I socialised more. And I fell in love. Do not misunderstand me – this is amazing. I am very much in love and it is the one result of all this shit that I actually like. However, with getting better meant becoming an adult (or rather re-becoming) and it was time for me to re-flee the nest. Cue – meltdown. Not of the grandeur of last time – I am still a healthy weight and I eat. But the truth is – I feel like shit. Most of the time. I wake up and first thought – what the fuck do I weigh today? Have I gained weight? Can I still see my collar bones? So my patient, loving boyfriend gets a kiss before I go to the bathroom and examine. Wait, was that fat their yesterday? When I squeeze my thighs do they normally touch? Are they overlapping? And so it goes on, until I really have to leave the bathroom because, hey, it’s not my house. So I go downstairs and eat my porridge with water whilst my boyfriend devours milky cornflakes and toast with marmite. My mouth waters but I tell myself, no. Do not eat what you want to eat. Eat what you must eat. So I head off to my studies, still hungry and feeling rotten. I spend the day trying my best to get on with people, missing my boyfriend, deciding not to have lunch and ignoring the painful ache in my stomach. A result of starvation is with hunger comes depression. These days, my body goes into shut down until it gets food. As soon as I can, I rush home. My boyfriend sees me and asks me if I’ve ate, I say no and he calls me a silly girl and then, there I am eating. There is something about nighttime that lowers my defences, I am sure of it. We eat a huge meal to make up for no lunch and then out comes the chocolate, the ice cream, the crisps and I lap it all down, keeping going till I really am full, but who cares, I starved myself, I deserve it. And then, as the last crisp is ate and I’ve licked the bottom of the ice cream tub, look out, here it comes with it’s familiar taste – guilt.  The fucking guilt. Why the fuck did I just do that? What the fuck was the point of all that time starving myself if I have become so fucking weak? Why don’t I just say no? So I cry. Boy, do I cry. My boyfriend hugs me and says he just doesn’t know what to say anymore. I sit at the computer, looking through years of photographs and then stand in front of the mirror thinking, what the fuck happened? And eventually the guilt subsides, I make love to my boyfriend and bask in its euphoria. I realise things are good and fall asleep, dreaming sweet dreams of marriage and babies and cuddling him forever.

And then I wake up, and the shit starts again.

So – here it is. My attempt to vent, heal, share, possibly help anyone who comes by, and ultimately make myself better.

This cannot be the life I was destined to live. This is not going to beat me. I am going to leave this shit behind. Things ARE good. I just need to make my mind realise that.