The Eye of the Storm...

10 past 5, sunday evening, and I'm sitting at the table here at home. The wind howls eerily around the walls of the house, rattling the weighed-down lids of the wheelie bins outside the garage and causing the limbs of the eucalyptus to shudder and sway as if shaken by some great giant's hand, tough-skinned branches still adorned with the leathery grey leaves despite the onset of winter's chill as November tightens her icy fingers over the landscape. Some of the leaves are lost, however, prised off by those cruel, pitiless fingers to be cast away into the depthless darkness of the night.

And I realise now, if I had let - if I let ED have its way - then I could have been could be lost, too. Cast away into the darkness, having lost my grip onto the branches...the branches which make up the tree, the tree which made up of all the many, inter-twined little branches of my life.

Looking out my bedroom window, over the garden where my heart is at home. <3 

The past few months, it's true...I let recovery fall by the wayside. Those long, idyllic, sun-soaked days of summer were over. I was back at college, and the reality of that was slowly beginning creep up on me, as sharp and as stinging as a slap to the face. I was desperate to prove to myself that I could do this, that I could be a Trinity student, that I could make Mam and Dad proud of me and succeed in a course which I possessed no love or passion for.

And of course, just as I had initially feared, everything was beginning to crumble up again, before my very eyes.

But I was stubborn, in my own little way, turning my face away from that second, but no less harsh, other reality: as painful as the wound which has been ripped open before it has properly healed, as bitter as burning acid upon a parched tongue. The reality being, of course, that I was falling, and falling, hard. That reality was as harsh and as painful, as that which I first encountered in September, when the fairytale of that beautiful summer finally drew to its inevitable close. The two of them crowded amongst themselves within my head, bludgeoning and pulsating through my blood with a terrible, insistent, deadly beat. In a way, they had both merged into one: two realities, two voices... You are a failure, Em. There is nothing left for you but to become the skinny girl. Noone will care if you live or die. I am useless. What the hell are you doing in Trinity? How did I get here? Why...why do I exist?

I just want it all to...to end.

But over the weekend...sitting at my kitchen table, listening to the wind outside. Surrounded by those who I love, and who I know will never give up on me...made me think, made me realise...realise what really, really matters.

And I know...I know that I am never going to be an achiever. That Emmy has long gone. The girl who got the best grades, who had such high aspirations for something...something more. No. That's not me anymore...and it breaks my heart every day, to think of how much I have changed; of how I have lost, that ability to study, to dedicate myself to my study, to be the girl who succeeded.

But I realise...I realise now that I was wrong, so wrong, to put my recovery aside, to put Trinity before my recovery. The way my ED works, I suppose, is that through restriction, my brain was enabled to assume a sort of "calm" of sorts I suppose: a calm brought about by the assurance that I had not eaten enough, that it's ok, Em (ED), you are not going to gain any weight today. You can be at your ease. That Voice. That horrible, malicious, cruel, cruel voice. And when I would make any weak, desperate attempts to resist that voice and nourish myself...thn the voice would...explode. that's the best way I can describe it. Like a storm in my head. Again, I know this might not make much sense to people...it doesn't really make much sense to me. All I know is, I was desperate, so, so desperate, to calm that storm and get back my focus. I have to. I have to restrict! What other chance do I have? I have to get back to that studious Emmy! This is the only way!

But no. I was..I was wrong, so wrong.

I know I have to face the storm...

But I know that I can overcome it, and battle my way through the rain.

And this time, I will not let those winds carry me away.

I will be like my eucalyptus trees...the winter may come and the storms will rage around me. But they will not knock me down or take any more of me away. I will stand tall, and brave, and find my inner strength. Like those beautiful, endurant, brave grey trees, I know that I can be strong. <3 xxx

Remember.
There will always be another chance, to go back to work, to take up that course, to go back to college.
But there will only ever be one chance at life.
Each and every one of us, will only ever have, one body.
So let's stand strong together against the storm. <3 xxx