I thought the image to be pretty relevant in consideration of the last few months.
I'm back.
I've been the ever elusive type for a month or so now. And in all honesty I needed a break from everything that was me and related to me. I'm still not there, and I'm not totally back, but I am getting there.
It is with hope that I am not judged that I will try and inarticulately explain what has been happening... because this isn't easy. I don't know why I am sharing this; if I am trying to understand myself, or find some closure, or a start of an ending of this, or if it is just sheerly the fact I am anonymously typing to be people who I do not know... but here goes.
From the ages of eighteen to twenty-two my life was plagued by this thing people called an eating disorder. I was anorexic. Clinically, I was classed as anorexic as my body weight fell into a specific category. Those very terms make me feel completely uncomfortable, they make me shudder and cringe in equal measure, so for the most part of this it will be referred to as this, and it. Because that is just how I deal with this. Anyway, I got better, I got myself better. I took the shit that was weighing me down out of my life and I became free, and over time, although how I initially dealt with 'getting better' wasn't always the best method... I got there, and I got healthy and I was content. Until someone called me fat. I cannot blame this girl completely, she made a throw away comment indirectly over social media, and I was dealing with new aspects of my life that felt a little out of control. But it sent me spiralling, and that was almost a year ago now. This time last year I was almost a stone and a half heavier and yet I didn't feel half as big as I do now. I ate meals, and I wore tight clothes. Now the very thought of eating generates a battle in my head that has become so tiresome. She struck a nerve when other things were out of control, and instigated this anxiety back into me. She helped it to come back.
This is probably one of the saddest (in every sense of the word) sentences I have ever written: but, being thin is one of the most important things to me right now. I am fully aware just how superficial, selfish and self-absorbed that sounds, and some people reading this will think to themselves 'stupid girl'. But, it is how I feel and I cannot help that. And, I do not say it lightly. I have known loss, I have known wanting and I have known 'please stay' to be one of the saddest phrases I've ever said. But, just for now, being thin has become important. Maybe someone will be sat there analysing this as some desire to regain control, or some cry for help or whatever, but it's not. It's not just a pathetic phase I'm going through. For me, now, it's everything. Everything I do is clouded by it.
I cannot begin to explain to you how all-consuming this is. It's a constant thought pattern, of I am fat, I am big, I am heavy. It fills my head every single day. It can fill every space, every second and even those intervals between those seconds. There is this unrelenting battle in my mind - to eat or not to eat. And, the guilt when I succumb, it's draining and persistent, and it makes me sad. It is tiring, just circles of guilt over eating and exercise. It is exhausting, and as much as I want this to go away, I want this to stay in equal measure. Because, this is me. It was me five years ago and it is me again now. It is mine. And, I guess when things get a little crazy and out of control in life, when things get shit - I've got this, and I'm the one in control and in some warped way it makes life a little more tolerable when it all gets a bit too heavy. I'm aware of how silly this probably all sounds. I am making myself sound utterly self-obsessed, but I'm really not. I have so much time for other people. I care about other people. For the most part this is probably a control thing, but I hate how weight feels on me, I hate how weight looks on me. And, I love being able to feel my bones, but I have never been able to see them in my reflection, no matter how much they feel like they protrude. My eyes are always glazed by my mind when I look in the mirror and my body is always covered in these layers of fat that apparently only I can see. Mirrors and me aren't good. I can sit forever and analyse my shape and size, I could send myself crazy if I tried. I can't see myself. On my bad days I have this overwhelming anxiety about my weight. I'm fat, and on my bad days I want to stay under my duvet and just hide from all the world. On my bad days I do not want anyone to look at me, or touch me, or even be near me. On my bad days I have no clarity of thought, just these irrational things rushing and racing around my mind. To me, this, makes things better for me, but ultimately I understand, it is making things darker, and harder.
The only thing encouraging me to change is the threat that nursing could be taken away from me. I've sat in front of endless people and told them how much it means to me, but it seem's I have to start to get my mind better if I want to continue. I've sat various times with occupational health and doctors, and people who I trust most, and this is the only reason I will consider letting go of this, but I am scared and I'm not sure if it will be ok. But, I want to be a nurse more than anything. It is with openness and sincerity that I have written this. And it takes a lot for me to confess. I hate my body. I want to stretch it out and be tiny and willowy, I don't want to feel like a monster anymore. But, I want to be a nurse, and I think I want to be a nurse more.
I must sound like an angsty-teenager. I'm not. I'm in my mid-late twenties and yet I body-check and starve myself and over exercise like I am eighteen again. And, like I am eighteen again, I cover it up with excuses and non-truths (as a person who has been the subject to lies that have destroyed my world at times I hate the word lies, these aren't lies, they are just a means of protecting something from someone else). I possibly was a bit of an angst teenager in the height of all this previously, with a weight plummeted below seven stone and this passion for a disorder, an energy and a drive to be thinner, thinner, thinner. I thought I was fat then. I really am fat now. I know, and I understand that I need help, but a big part of me will reluctantly say I will accept it and then slowly I will start to back off from it. I have seen endless counsellors this past year and each and everyone I have gone in armed with my barriers up and on the defensive. I had to remain untouchable to them. Always sat there with my coat on looking out the window with my arms wrapped around myself. I remember I started to cry in one session then realised I was letting her in and sucked it back up. I'm a firm believer of Kelly Cutrone's saying ' if you need to cry, go outside'. I don't like people seeing me vulnerable. It takes a lot for me to open up to people, to tell them things. I don't like my family seeing me when I'm weak, or my friends. It broke my heart crying to my mum over my broken heart a few years ago, because I could see her heart breaking that she couldn't fix things for me. I never want to see, or experience that again. There have been minimal and select people I've trusted with this, I've been honest with. And, I'm sure when I am out of this I will be eternally grateful to them. I know I'm lost at the moment, it is circles after circles, again and again and it's the same conversations repeated before I retreat back into myself and continue as before ignoring everything I said I would do. I know it can get better, and I'm sure there will be one day when I change and there will be a mirror that doesn't matter anymore. But, I need to be ready to face that. I need to move out of this limbo, shut my eyes tight and hope it'll be okay on the other side of this...
-Loola.
I'm back.
I've been the ever elusive type for a month or so now. And in all honesty I needed a break from everything that was me and related to me. I'm still not there, and I'm not totally back, but I am getting there.
It is with hope that I am not judged that I will try and inarticulately explain what has been happening... because this isn't easy. I don't know why I am sharing this; if I am trying to understand myself, or find some closure, or a start of an ending of this, or if it is just sheerly the fact I am anonymously typing to be people who I do not know... but here goes.
From the ages of eighteen to twenty-two my life was plagued by this thing people called an eating disorder. I was anorexic. Clinically, I was classed as anorexic as my body weight fell into a specific category. Those very terms make me feel completely uncomfortable, they make me shudder and cringe in equal measure, so for the most part of this it will be referred to as this, and it. Because that is just how I deal with this. Anyway, I got better, I got myself better. I took the shit that was weighing me down out of my life and I became free, and over time, although how I initially dealt with 'getting better' wasn't always the best method... I got there, and I got healthy and I was content. Until someone called me fat. I cannot blame this girl completely, she made a throw away comment indirectly over social media, and I was dealing with new aspects of my life that felt a little out of control. But it sent me spiralling, and that was almost a year ago now. This time last year I was almost a stone and a half heavier and yet I didn't feel half as big as I do now. I ate meals, and I wore tight clothes. Now the very thought of eating generates a battle in my head that has become so tiresome. She struck a nerve when other things were out of control, and instigated this anxiety back into me. She helped it to come back.
This is probably one of the saddest (in every sense of the word) sentences I have ever written: but, being thin is one of the most important things to me right now. I am fully aware just how superficial, selfish and self-absorbed that sounds, and some people reading this will think to themselves 'stupid girl'. But, it is how I feel and I cannot help that. And, I do not say it lightly. I have known loss, I have known wanting and I have known 'please stay' to be one of the saddest phrases I've ever said. But, just for now, being thin has become important. Maybe someone will be sat there analysing this as some desire to regain control, or some cry for help or whatever, but it's not. It's not just a pathetic phase I'm going through. For me, now, it's everything. Everything I do is clouded by it.
I cannot begin to explain to you how all-consuming this is. It's a constant thought pattern, of I am fat, I am big, I am heavy. It fills my head every single day. It can fill every space, every second and even those intervals between those seconds. There is this unrelenting battle in my mind - to eat or not to eat. And, the guilt when I succumb, it's draining and persistent, and it makes me sad. It is tiring, just circles of guilt over eating and exercise. It is exhausting, and as much as I want this to go away, I want this to stay in equal measure. Because, this is me. It was me five years ago and it is me again now. It is mine. And, I guess when things get a little crazy and out of control in life, when things get shit - I've got this, and I'm the one in control and in some warped way it makes life a little more tolerable when it all gets a bit too heavy. I'm aware of how silly this probably all sounds. I am making myself sound utterly self-obsessed, but I'm really not. I have so much time for other people. I care about other people. For the most part this is probably a control thing, but I hate how weight feels on me, I hate how weight looks on me. And, I love being able to feel my bones, but I have never been able to see them in my reflection, no matter how much they feel like they protrude. My eyes are always glazed by my mind when I look in the mirror and my body is always covered in these layers of fat that apparently only I can see. Mirrors and me aren't good. I can sit forever and analyse my shape and size, I could send myself crazy if I tried. I can't see myself. On my bad days I have this overwhelming anxiety about my weight. I'm fat, and on my bad days I want to stay under my duvet and just hide from all the world. On my bad days I do not want anyone to look at me, or touch me, or even be near me. On my bad days I have no clarity of thought, just these irrational things rushing and racing around my mind. To me, this, makes things better for me, but ultimately I understand, it is making things darker, and harder.
The only thing encouraging me to change is the threat that nursing could be taken away from me. I've sat in front of endless people and told them how much it means to me, but it seem's I have to start to get my mind better if I want to continue. I've sat various times with occupational health and doctors, and people who I trust most, and this is the only reason I will consider letting go of this, but I am scared and I'm not sure if it will be ok. But, I want to be a nurse more than anything. It is with openness and sincerity that I have written this. And it takes a lot for me to confess. I hate my body. I want to stretch it out and be tiny and willowy, I don't want to feel like a monster anymore. But, I want to be a nurse, and I think I want to be a nurse more.
I must sound like an angsty-teenager. I'm not. I'm in my mid-late twenties and yet I body-check and starve myself and over exercise like I am eighteen again. And, like I am eighteen again, I cover it up with excuses and non-truths (as a person who has been the subject to lies that have destroyed my world at times I hate the word lies, these aren't lies, they are just a means of protecting something from someone else). I possibly was a bit of an angst teenager in the height of all this previously, with a weight plummeted below seven stone and this passion for a disorder, an energy and a drive to be thinner, thinner, thinner. I thought I was fat then. I really am fat now. I know, and I understand that I need help, but a big part of me will reluctantly say I will accept it and then slowly I will start to back off from it. I have seen endless counsellors this past year and each and everyone I have gone in armed with my barriers up and on the defensive. I had to remain untouchable to them. Always sat there with my coat on looking out the window with my arms wrapped around myself. I remember I started to cry in one session then realised I was letting her in and sucked it back up. I'm a firm believer of Kelly Cutrone's saying ' if you need to cry, go outside'. I don't like people seeing me vulnerable. It takes a lot for me to open up to people, to tell them things. I don't like my family seeing me when I'm weak, or my friends. It broke my heart crying to my mum over my broken heart a few years ago, because I could see her heart breaking that she couldn't fix things for me. I never want to see, or experience that again. There have been minimal and select people I've trusted with this, I've been honest with. And, I'm sure when I am out of this I will be eternally grateful to them. I know I'm lost at the moment, it is circles after circles, again and again and it's the same conversations repeated before I retreat back into myself and continue as before ignoring everything I said I would do. I know it can get better, and I'm sure there will be one day when I change and there will be a mirror that doesn't matter anymore. But, I need to be ready to face that. I need to move out of this limbo, shut my eyes tight and hope it'll be okay on the other side of this...
-Loola.