The Girl who Can, and Will, Recover...xxx

Recovery...is like a tunnel winding up and up and up a steep mountainside, a yawning chasm of murky inky darkness. Because you dont really know where its going to take you, and how long you are going to be stumbling forwards for. I think that's what makes it so hard, so painful, in a way; there is such enormous fear in uncertainty.

And then in that tunnel there are so many hazardous pits and falls and foottraps...and despite the very best of your intentions, it's only a matter of time before your foot gets entrapped in just one of them, and you fall. But you have two choices here; to lie down and acknowledge yourself as weak, and inept, and defeated...or to get back up, to acknowledge that, yes, I did fall down. But that does NOT make me a failure...and to take one slow, long, deep breath, and pick yourself up once again, reaching out with both hands, and despite the pain of the fall and the shame at having let yourself be tripped, you keep on going forwards once again, with your head held high...it's not the fall that defines you; it's how you reacted to that fall...

And yes, I fell...but this time, it was different. It was more than a simple stumble: it was a fall, and the hole was deep, and I became...trapped. And this time, I know that the effects of it weren't all just, upon me emotionally and mentally...it had taken its toll upon my body too. The past few weeks, my little back has been aching away, as if my body was trying to convey to me a silent, but crucially urgent, message.

And I felt so...so lifeless, so empty and torn up inside. Dark shadows under my eyes. The skin on my hands became cracked and dry; the sore, red fingers taking on the appearance of hands which looked alot older than their twenty one years. And as for college, I might as well not have been there at all, really. For all I was doing was going to sit in a lecture hall or seminar room, but I might as well not have been there at all: I could hear the sound of the lecturer speaking, I could see the words upon the page in front of me...but I wasn't learning, I wasn't taking in anything. All I could hear was this...noise, in my head. I know it might be hard for you to understand this. You might think...why? Why can you not just block out that noise and focus your thoughts on what you are doing? How could just a silly little voice in your head, impact on your studies so profoundly? Surely, it can't be that hard to block it out...?

It's...hard, to explain. But this is something, which I wouldn't want to wish, on my very worst enemy. Because...there is no escape; there is no peace; everything that you do, everywhere you go; then it is there, with you, clinging to your shoulder like a demon, whispering in your ear without cease.

I don't think I could properly begin to describe, the feeling of wretchedness, the self-hate, the self-convictions of stupidity, worthlessness, for being a good for nothing, waste of time, a failure as a daughter, a sister, a friend: an identity, forged through my own branding of myself, as the girl who failed. Because...well, you have, haven't you? That voice snarled in my head. You've failed...at everything.

You are the girl who failed...
You are the girl who cannot, and will not, ever recover...

And what makes it even more so awful, so horrible, is the fact I know I have been in this place, many, many times before. This feeling of ineptitude, of exhaustion, of complete and utter despair - they aren't new, or strange, or unfamiliar to me. I know I have been in this place, so many, many times before. This is what being at college with an eating disorder is really like.

Everything that I loved, everything that I held dear, slowly but surely drifting away from me. I had no joy, no pleasure in anything. For the Voice had taken over, wholly and completely...

And I know that I now have to sum up all my courage, all my strength, every shard of determination and bravery and willpower that I have, to climb up out of that dark, slippery hole, and continue in, along that long and winding tunnel. Otherwise, this monster which has already taken away so much of me, will emerge the victor in this long, hard, bloody, bitter fight. And there will be nothing of Emmy left.

And it was today, the eighth of november, 2015...it was today when Emmy realised exactly what I now need to do. 

I know my posts have been really scattered and all over the place of late - I do apologise for this. It's taking me awhile to just accumulate all the thoughts and ideas in my head and to formulate them into words. I promise to make my blogging more coherent and structured asap. Tomorrow I would like to share with you my little plan of action for fully overcoming my relapse: my mission, to beat this thing, once and for all.

I am not the Girl who Failed.

I am not the Girl who lived, and died, with an ED.

I am Emmy: the Ganache Elf, the hot choc gal, the baking fanatic, the nature lover. I am Emmy and I do not need an ED to define me. I am Emmy, the girl who had an ED...

But who can, and will, recover. :) 

Me... not long after being discharged from inpatient care earlier this year. I want to get back to that happy, smiling Emmy..:)

Thank you so so much for staying with me. You don't know how much this means to me. You have motivated me so so much to take this crucial step forwards and to get myself back on track. I couldnt do this without you...my heart goes out to you all. 

Thank you <3 xxxx