Breaking the Law

The Gospel according to ED.

You shalt not have more than you normally do.
You shalt not say thank you for your food, or that you are hungry or that a food looks delicious.
You shalt not do any less exercise than xx amount.

etc. etc. etc.

signed, by Emmy, and also signed and authorised; by ED.



For as long as I can remember, I have lived by certain laws, certain rules. Certain codes of behaviour that I went out of my way to obey, at all times. And God forbid if I ever dared to disobey them. The repercussions of even contemplating doing so were always positively hideous.

Ed would do more than kick up a little fuss. Oh no, it was always alot worse than that. He would scream and shout and tear at me with cruel sharp talons. The channels of my brain would suddenly be overflowing with garbled, tormenting comments. You are fat. Eating that will make you fatter. Oh my God Em!! What are you doing??!! You are going to blow up! Don't you dare even consider it, girl!! 

It was sort of like the equivalent of being imprisoned in a high walled jail. Every failed attempt at escape would be met with torture, and threats of further barbarity if resistance did not cease. For a very long time I simply stopped trying to object. ED would nod, suitably satisfied, as his captive became weaker and more submissive with every passing year. She became too weak and too withdrawn to even think about escaping, again. The walls of the prison stretched higher and ever higher.

So that's why I suppose, upon that day three years ago, when I first made that first crucial, tentative step, onto the road up the mountain which we all know as recovery. That the anxiety, that horrible, screeching Voice, as loud and as piercing as a siren that can not be terminated, was enough to cause me to crumple to my knees with agony, if I had let it. But. There was something there that was just as strong as the anxiety. That being the pain of the guilt I had felt, when I had looked into Mam's eyes and told her I had been lying to her, for so long, about everything.

And that guilt and pain then were enough to drive me forward. Along with the love that I felt for my Mam, and the knowledge that if for nothing else, I could do this, for her.

Years later and I'm a different girl to the one I was those three years ago. A different girl, but in some ways, unchanged. And one of those ways in which I have remained the same is that I still abide by ED's many rules.

To fling wide the gates

and escape from Ed's prison,

once represented, for me, an impossible dream...

And as I walked tentatively forwards in recovery - choosing to gain weight, being admitted to hospital; allowing myself to tell those I loved that I had an eating disorder - I in time began to recognise and question ED's rules; and then - slowly but surely - I began to disobey them. It was not easy. By God, it was hard. But I knew that I had to do it. Whenever I found myself faltering and afraid, I closed my eyes and thought back to that day, the feel of Mam's warm hand on my shoulder. And I used that to drive me on. Because I knew that Mam would forever blame herself, if I died.



But now back to the half-recovered ED girl. Yes, she has broken many, many of ED's rules. She is no longer in medical danger. Some might think that she is recovered.

But she isn't.

Rather, this girl has a good long way to go, yet. And still many of ED's rules are still in place, and fully intact. She's escaped Ed's gaol but the oppressor is following her trial, coming after her. He steals in front of her and throws bricks directly across her footpath, blocks that collaborate to form obstructive grey walls and block the winding road up the steep sided mountain.

She knows that if she is to have any chance of ascending that mountain, she is going to have to break and destroy every single one of those walls.

But how?

Well I have some tools. These are my weapons of choice for chipping away at the cracks in ED's wall. I will use my own hammer and chisel to prise away the building blocks of ED's walls.

If I could leap straight over them, I would. But this time instead of wringing my hands and hanging my head in defeat, telling myself that I can't get over them...

Instead I approach them with my tools at the ready. Ready to start working on these walls. It's going to require time and patience and effort, and strength. And bravery. Yes, because the gaoler that initially constructed these walls is a fucking scary thing.



But.

I've figured that I have all these things.

I've figured that I've got what it takes. I've figured that I am capable of breaking the Law, and making my escape from custody.

ED's custody.

And I've got something now that I did not have before. Something that has given me extra strength. I'm doing this for me, as well as for mam and all those I love. That crucial, crucial recognition; the actual acknowledgement of which  I have been unable to make for so, so long.

For now I have began to realise that the real Emmy wants to escape from custody, too.

She's now willing and ready to break ED's Law.

What it would be to be flying free,
like those bubbles..💙

ED's rules...

• You can only have the amount set by me of any particular food. 
• At breakfast: no more than 100 ml of milk, less than 30 g of cheese, etc. And minimise everything as much as possible.
• Always take the smallest/thinnest part of everything. The thinnest slice of bread off the sliced pan. The smallest potatoes in the serving bowl. The smallest crumpet in the packet. etc. etc.
• At dinner if I think you have too much on your plate then put some back in the serving dish when noone is looking.
• You must always pick bits or crusts of bread, potatoes, etc.

The rules extend to how I act around food and how I speak about food too. For example.

• You're not allowed to say that looks lovely I'm hungry thanks Mam that was really nice, I enjoyed that etc.
• When you eat you always have to appear as if it's a chore. Show total lack of interest in what you're eating and push the food around the plate. 
• You also have to eat as slowly as possible and cut food into tiny pieces.
• You're forbidden to clean your plate, your bowl, your mug. You have to always leave something behind.

And to top it all off...some more general rules..

• I have to do at least xx amount of exercise a day, and the more the better.
• At all costs you must not gain anymore weight.

I could go on. And on. And on. Because Ed's rules are endless so long as I remain with him.

What Ed says...
I have to do the opposite.

It's time to break His Law.

The Step

A few things prompted me to write my last post; compelled me to speak out about the pain and frustration and the agony of what is the longing to completely let go, but yet, simultaneously, being so intensely, paralysingly afraid to do so. It's a fear which is as numbing and as real as that when you're about to leap out a plane; stepping right out into thin air with nothing but the parachute upon your back. The very thought of that single step is enough to freeze your very blood out of fear.

But it's the mind that's the worst, here. It skips ahead of you and paints such pretty pictures, of you falling through the endless nothingness of the sky's infinity, the scream being ripped from your lungs and the cold air hissing violently through your ears. Imagined catastrophes wrap themselves around your mind's eye, so that you're unable to see anything else. Images of you falling through space and breaking your body upon the awaiting rocks below; of you, just falling and falling forever, with nothing to hold on to save the memory of what it once was like to be upon solid, firm ground.

And so, with these images having anchored themselves like heavy rocks upon the seabed, you suddenly declare to yourself you can't do it. After all your plans, all your preparations, all your courage mustering; all your best intentions. Now all of those just lie in a useless heap upon the floor, reminding you of what you see as your failure.

But I cannot do it. 

I can't overcome the fear.

But, I ask you now, is it the thoughts of the fall or the actual step which bites into you the most?

I'm telling you now, it's the actual step.

There's enough strength in each and every one of us to achieve anything in this life that we set our hearts to.

Including recovery.

It's just the fear that stands in our way. The fear and the doubt.

But doubt and fear killed more dreams than failure ever did.

Thoughts and doubts can kill. My story is living proof of that. I look back now to when it all began. It wasn't any external factors that caused me to move onto that distorted, polluted road which was Ed's; a road full of poison and damp soaking holes, a road which slowly caused my body to break up just that one bit more with every single hateful, yet irresistible step. No. It wasn't any living person, any physical thing that caused me to become ill with anorexia. Rather it was the Fear, and the Doubt, and the Thoughts. The Thoughts that ED implanted within me, and forced me to nurture. Thoughts that I wasn't good enough, wasn't pretty enough, wasn't cool enough, wasn't skinny enough. The thoughts that in order for me to have the slightest chance of making friends and losing some of my inherent ugliness, I needed to lose weight.

Later, the thoughts were of similar lines, and equally just as deadly. Thoughts that I deserved to die and that starving was the best course of action to achieve it. Thoughts that to gain weight, I would be repulsive; and the world would reject me. And many of these still linger with me now. Deeply ingrained beliefs, as obstinate and unmoving as the most deepset, heaviest boulders of sheer granite rock.

But.
I cannot, this time, let the doubt and the fear take any more of my life away from me, for any longer.
I've already lost alot of years to my eating disorder, through the fears and doubts Ed created within my fragile, vulnerable mind.

But.
Now is the time for me to fight back.

Now it's about recognising that those deeply ingrained beliefs which I mentioned above are not so deeply ingrained that I do not have the strength to budge them. To push them away and set myself free. To take that step out of the plane into the Unknown. The Unknown which is true recovery.

Yesterday morning I took one such single, tiny step, one which to many might seem trivial and irrelevant, but for me resembled something more of a triumph. For a good while now I have reverted to being fixated on having 100 ml max of milk with cereals in the morning. But today, on approaching the fridge to take out the bottle. I wondered. I wondered if I could make it more. Whether I dared to push aside the fear and pour that bit extra in the jug.

No, screamed the Voice. No! It'll fill you up too much! Because if you have more milk you'll have more cereals, and you'll blow up like a balloon! You won't be able to have as much later on! Don't you dare, girl! Don't you dare! 90 mls in that jug, that's ALL! Don't you dare!

I won't, I answered, timidly, but then stopped, pausing, thinking of the last post I had wrote.

And that's when I realised..
It's only a fear. A stupid, irrational fear.
What need I fear of just a bit extra milk???

Milk is good for me, right? I have osteoporosis. Osteoporosis = my bones need all the calcium I can get. Ditto.

And before I could ponder it for any longer I had seized the bottle and poured it out and added the cereal and then....

then I ate.

A tiny victory, but at the same time, it felt good. It felt good to be a victor for a change. Becuase for a while now it seems ED has been smirking an awful, awful lot, at my apparent inability to increase my meal plan that wee bit more.

But I know I can't just stop here, now. I need to do a bit more than that. The "milk victory" felt good but that's not where this thing is going to end. There's alot more I know I need to do here.

If I really want to gain this weight...no, let's pause and rephrase that.

If I really want to be healthy. To get my periods back. To silence the Voice once and for all. To give my bones the best possible chance to be as healthy as osteoporotic bones have the capacity to be.

I dug deep inside myself, searching for answers, the iron hard truths, the impermeable facts that neither time or force can change. Why? Why am I really afraid of being a higher bmi? It's not a case of physically not being able for it, after all. I've put myself through the gaining weight process a number of times. True, not with a target of this higher bmi(s) in mind, but it was still very much an intensely difficult, grueling process which takes an exhausting toll on both the body and mind.

I'm afraid to gain and reach this bmi because...

• I'm afraid of what my body will be like. I am afraid that I will hate it. I feel ugly now at this current weight and I am convinced that, at an even higher one, I will feel completely repulsive and vile.
• I'm afraid that then, people will see me as completely "recovered" (if they do not do already) and assume I no longer need any help and support to beat Ed.
• I'm afraid that, if I increase my meal plan again, I won't be able to stop eating 4000 + calories on having reached the target weight, and will just keep on gaining and gaining.
• I'm afraid, yes, of facing the physical and mental unpleasantries of gaining weight good and proper again. The screaming anxiety, the horrendous bloating, the constant declarations of "you are fat, Em" resounding through my head.

There are more, I know; but those are the main ones.

So now I have to gather my own weapons; prepare myself for ferocious war, once again. War with Ed. I'll retaliate his list of no you can'ts with a list of my own. Oh yes I f***ing can, Ed.

I'm currently reading Life without Ed by Jenni Schaefer. One of the most crucial aspects to recovery from anorexia that Jenni identifies is distinguishing and constructing your own voice, separate from Ed's.

So here is my own voice. Speaking loud and clear, now.

I need to gain this final bit of weight....because...

• Wake up, Em, and face the reality here. You have serious osteoporosis. And you know all too well that your period ain't gonna come at this weight. No good drifting on and pretending it's all ok, because it's not. You may not have taken your consultant's advice back then. But take it, now. And stop closing your eyes to the truth.
• By gaining this final bit of weight I will be able to fully restore my health. All those other parts of the body damaged from over a decade of anorexia. My nails and skin and internal organs; my concentration, my memory. You might not be able to see the internal damage, Em, but you know all too well that it's there. 
• I won't feel so tired and listless and lifeless all the time. Gaining these final few kilos will give me the energy to laugh and smile again, to live.
• And last but not least. It will be in my best interests to get my weight up for my new job in February. It's by no means an office job or anything like that, by the way - it's quite a physical job in which I will be on my feet alot of the time. I'm not saying I'm an unfit person, but I'm not exactly what you would describe strong and vigorous, either. But, to get my weight up beforehand, will mean I can work at my very best, physically and mentally.

So now I have some new goals, new priorities. Which I am going to fix right in my head, now. Time to step up to the plane door, take one deep long breath, and step out.

That terrifying step...
But one I need to take to save myself.
Because one day this plane I'm riding will crash, and burn; with me, along with it.

Time to go, Ed.

Time to go.

I'm gonna take this jump and you're not coming with me. This time, you stay behind, old friend.

This is my own step, which I alone can take; for myself.

For me and for my life, and for all that recovery stands for.💗

Yesterday I finally plucked up the courage to approach Mam and ask her for help. I told her everything: my current struggles with Ed, my aspirations to try and gain a little more weight and my fears around having to do so, and my difficulty in dealing with people's comments as regards my current shape and weight.

Mam listened as I knew deep down she would. And it felt, right then, that the enormity of taking that huge, overwhelming step had lessened.

I know Mam can't take this big step for me. But to know she is there - ready to give me that gentle, yet firm push forwards whenever I can feel myself faltering - has given me so much comfort and has made me feel both safer and braver. Now I'm ready to jump without once looking back. My courage roars defiance in my breast like a lion facing the retreating hunter with his net. Oh yes, ED. I'm ready, now. I'll be your captive for no longer. 

Thank you, Mam. I dedicate this post to you. 💖💕💗 

Thank you also - SO much - for everyone who has commented and wished me well over the past few weeks. Your words mean so so much. I am honoured and humbled by your sincerity and thoughtfulness. Thank you 💗

Letting Go...

So here are some facts.

Some facts about Emmy Snelgrove that the world does not know, or see.

But these are the cold hard truths that press down upon my shoulders each day, as heavy and as grey as the severe, ice-capped mountain, and equally just as bleak. If not more. There is beauty in that mountain, but every inch of these facts are ugly.

I am 23 years old, though looking at me, some might think I'm alot younger.

Yet despite having the outer semblance of a girl, I have the skeleton of an old woman.

I have osteoporosis.

I don't get periods and I never have done. Sometimes,when I lie awake in the darkness of the night, watching the twilight patterns upon the creamy ceiling of my room, I wonder if I ever will. Whether my ovaries have simply given up, or have been permanently damaged through years of restriction.

And of course. I've had anorexia for 11 years. For eight of those years I was significantly underweight; for the most part of that eight, severely so. And then, for the other three. Consisted mainly of my weight bobbing up and down like a slung yo-yo upon a tight string.

So those are some facts about Emmy Snelgrove.
The facts that she doesnt want the world to see, but yet, at times, feels like screaming out loud. Especially to, well, you know. The oh you look well or healthy comments.

I'm currently maintaining between 41.8 - 42.5 kg.
Meaning that my bmi is around 17.7 to 18.

I suppose, for some people, this bmi's ok.
But I know deep down for me, it is unlikely that it is. As I type, I remember my consultant's parting words to me. On my last meeting with her, within the mental hospital's stifling grey walls.

I would advise you, young lady - given the severity of your osteoporosis and total absence of periods - that you get your bmi to above 19, preferably 20 or above.

I had smiled meekly and nodded my head. I was listening, but not to her voice. A different one inside my own head.One which, as soon as those numbers had left my doctor's mouth, had aroused itself, a restless wraith awakening from a fitful sleep.

19.
19!!
Who the f*** does she think she is, Em??
Don't you worry, Em. You won't listen to her. She clearly doesn't have a clue what she's talking about. 

There's no way on this earth you are going to let yourself gain until you get a bmi of 19...
And 20?? You'd rather die, right.

And I had listened, and agreed.
With Ed, that is. Not with my consultant, with her many, many years of experience and knowledge, working with and treating those with eating disorders.

A couple of years later, and here I am.
Wishing, once again, that I had chosen to listen to someone else; and not the ever-spouting wisdom of ED.

But. At least now I have the strength to say I can get beyond the minimum healthy bmi, if I choose to.

I know I can do it. If I just let myself do so. It's just the letting - the letting go - part. It's just - so bloody - hard.

For me, the fear of letting go now is akin to that I would feel if I were hanging off the edge of a cliff face overlooking the sea: under which, raging waters churn and roar, more fearsome than a wild beast.

My fingers are latched in a white knucked grip to this cliff edge to which I've  been attached to for as long as I can remember. And yet despite the fact that this hostile crag has torn me and broken me countless times, I still have this fear of letting go. The sea below is so dark and terrifying, as unknown and as frightening as the blackest abyss at the furthermost corner of space.

But somehow -

sometime -

I need to realise that it's long past time, to let go.



And so this is the meal plan that I've been studiously following, ever since I got back from Spain in late July.

Your thoughts. What do you think about it? It's true to say I like this particular eating schedule very much - the variety of foods, the frequency of the times that I eat, the inclusion of all the foods which I love and the exclusion of those that I don't. But it is enough to gain the final bit of weight that I need?

Given my current lifestyle, I don't think so.
I walk twice a day with my doggies and go for the odd cycle sometimes down to the local village. I don't sit around. I'm a busy girly. So I guess this is why I am maintaining on this instead of gaining.

Breakfast

1. 100 ml milk + cereal (usually Weetabix or ready-brek)
2. 1 slice spelt/wholemeal toast + spread
3. 30 g cheddar cheese
4. 2 tbsp peanut butter

Morning snacks

1. Half a multigrain/wholemeal bagel + spread
2. 1 egg, boiled or poached
3. Handfuls of sunflower seeds (I dont really measure them)
4. 30 g mixed nuts
5. Milky hot chocolate.

Lunch

1. Chicken/tuna mayo salad with spinach, vegetables, tomatoes, roasted peppers and dressing.
2. Banana/apple/melon

Afternoon snacks

1. Cereal + 50-75 ml hot milk
2. toasted crumpet + spread + 1 tbsp peanut butter.

Dinner

1. Main course: varies depending on what we cook but it's usually the basic protein + carb + veggies
2. My all-time favourite dessert: chopped banana, lots of hot custard, and a bar's worth of chocolate on top with the odd cadbury's chocolate finger or whatever's going begging.

Bedtime

1. Milky hot chocolate.

I have a few ideas of what I could do to make it better; if you have any, please do feel free to share them here. Hearing the advice of my readers really has helped me so, so much in the past and continues to do so, every day.💗

But for now, I'm going to sign off, and focus on what I have to do. The thing I want more than anything else in the world, but yet of which the mere thought of strikes real fear into my heart like a knife blade been thrust through flesh.

Letting go. One of the hardest, most painful parts of recovery. But let go, I will and must.

I have to face the pain and the fear now, or spend a lifetime having to cope with a different pain; the pain of regret.

The regret of knowing that I could have changed things, but chose once again to hold on, and put off.

But now it's time to let go.

Let go I can, and must.

A battle that I fought and WON..xxxx

Barcelona. I knew the word and I guess I thought I knew the city - or did I? What defines to know a place? I had heard of it, of course; had claim to a somewhat scanty knowledge about where it was and what it was like there.

But never did I once consider that upon a day in June, approximately three years since I embarked upon the journey which is recovery from an eating disorder, I would be setting off on one of the biggest adventures of my life, to exactly that place - the golden glowing jewel which is Barcelona. And I've been here for over four weeks now, and this beautiful place has already stolen a piece of my heart.

I say Barcelona but perhaps it would be more correct to say Catalonia. As I'm not based in the actual city itself; but rather, in the countryside some little way inland. I'm just outside a little town called Centelles. It's small and quaint and full of that quintessential Spanish charm, with its narrow streets and ornate, high-towered church, the many bakeries whose windows are adorned with shelf upon shelf of tantalising delights, and its scattering of ice cream parlours which the Ganache Elf has frequented quite often of late. ;)

Making the decision to come here was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life. I had so many fears and so many insecurities. What it would be like, would the other people like and accept me, would I cope being away from home. And then of course there was Ed, hovering in the back of my mind like a malignant wasp which refuses to be swatted away.

But I took that leap and threw myself off the cliff into the deep. A deep so unknown and so terrifying in its immensity. But then I discovered that instead of being drowned by that fear, of being borne away by that rushing tide, I could learn to master it, to ride those waves. And the waves would touch my face and skin, soaking me to the bone, but that cold fear need not touch my heart and soul. I could be like the graceful silver dolphin, cutting through those waves; I could be like the shooting white star, slicing through an infinite, ink-black sky.

This trip for me has been about so many things. Pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, and learning to learn that I could cope with being away from my beloved home. It's been a learning experience and an adventure. I've done things which I've never done before, met people who I know I will remember for the rest of my life. I've taught my way through four classes of bright eyed children, each one with their own story to tell, each one with their own different personality and different smile. Faces and names which have been inscribed on my heart. I know as time passes, the concrete images now fixed in my head will begin to fade. But I know that the memory of them will be with me forever, as will the joy that I found came hand in hand with their identifying of me as their teacher.

I have discovered that it is with children I want to work with, for my future. The sense of fulfilment I have derived from this job - the way the children's faces light up when I praise them for all their hard work; that sense of pride and fondness I feel tugging at my heart when I look through their homework and marvel at the progress they have made - is something like which I have never quite felt before, and want to feel again, once I return home. I only have one week left now - I've been four weeks here since yesterday, a fact that amazes me in itself - and my time in Catalonia has almost come to an end.

It has been hard. So hard , in many ways. But one thing that I know is that I do not regret anything about my decision to come here. It has changed me in ways which I know I needed to be changed. And now my life's path will bring me back home, home to that rugged little island perched on the edge of immense Atlantic Ocean, to that cream-walled Dorma Bungalow at the island's very heart. Mid summer in that bungalow's emerald-bright garden, where the eucalyptus tree rustles its aromatic, papery skinned branches and the sweet peas flowers stir in a soft summer breeze. And it is here where my recovery journey continues on. And I know exactly what I am going to do, and how I am going to achieve it. ❤

I'm so sorry for my blogging absence over the past few weeks - it's literally been so so hectic I haven't had a chance to write at all! Over the next few days I will hopefully get to fill you in on the stuff I've been doing while I've been here, and normal blogging will resume once I'm back in Ireland. Thank you so, so much for sticking with me and thinking of me, for all the comments and words of encouragement, the advice and support. It means SO much, it really really does! 💗

She learned to conquer the Fear...

It was the Tuesday after my birthday that I got the Skype call that changed everything.

I was sitting in the lounge - or the "sun room", as I like to call it. My writing room. The frontermost room of the house which the sun's first light spills into every morning. As that golden orb ascends into the sky, it casts golden shafts of sunlight through the brooms' enormous east-facing window, illuminating the faces of my loved ones' pictures upon the walls, causing the polished oakwood of the little oval table to shine and gleam with an almost fairytale-like quality. It's one of my favourite rooms in the house. It's here where I retreat to every morning to immerse myself in my own little world; that being, of course, Morokia.

But on that morning I was not sitting there with such a purpose in mind.

Besides me were bundles of Morokia notes I had brought with me to look at while I waited for the Skype app to ping. Pages upon pages of dog-eared A4 sheets, covered from top to bottom in my messy, scrawly handwriting that noone can ever decipher apart from me. Truth was I was unable to really read them, of course. The words would float like thin, wispy clouds in front of my eyes, drifting away whenever I tried to grasp them tightly to my quivering, pulsating consciousness. Yet at that very moment I wanted to be like on of those clouds, in the sky. Graceful, airy, suspended in that blue infinity forever, without any duty or obligation, any pain or regret.

A few months ago I had done something which I had never, ever done before.

I had applied for a job. Not just a local parttime job in a cafe or local store, all of which I've tried to get into before. It was a summer camp job, based in the renowned city of Barcelona on the South Spanish coast. It still makes me smile at the randomness of the way in which I found out about this job. I was walking out of Trinity through Front Arch, wrapped up, as usual, in the comforting folds of my daydreams, when a sudden chilly gust of wind reminded me that I hadn't got my gloves on, so I paused, slipping out of the way of passerbys to stand directly by the Arch's Wall. As I scrabbled in my bag for the gloves that I hoped I hadn't left in some random place as I am often wont to do, I suddenly realised I was standing by a billard plastered in dozens of small, typed notices and adverts. And I don't honestly know how and why, but one particular slip of paper called out to me. Spanish summer camp seeking young English teachers for July. Apply with cv. There were other details, all of which I read and committed to memory.

The old Emmy would have just smiled, and walked on. The Old Emily would have thought to herself how wonderful that would be, but that she would never be able to do it.

But this Emmy applied for that job. And a few weeks later, she had her first Skype interview.

I remember the feelings which coursed through me while I waited for my interviewer to call. Self-doubt, and disbelief, and scorn. You honestly think that you, of all people, are going to get this? As if they'd pick you. You'd be absolutely hopeless!! And alongside that there was the slimmest glimmer of hope. Please, may it go ok. Please may I get this job.

But alongside that hope throbbed a beating vein of fear. That fear wrapped itself like a snake around that thin thread of hope, crushing it in its heavy, suffocating coils. No no. Please don't pick me. I don't want to go to Spain, on my own. I would be useless at that job. Please God may she not pick me.

And then the Skype pinged and my trembling hand went to press accept. Then I remembered. There was another time, when I accepted a phone call. One that I knew would change things, forever. The one of the day they told me my bed was ready at the hospital.

And hadn't I felt fear and trepidation that day? Hadn't I felt surrounded by vast currents of terror; currents which tore at me with the ferocity of hunting lions, ready to bore me away and tear me apart?

And yet I faced that fear and thrust myself into that current, felt it ripple and surge around me, its power. And I realised that I was stronger and more powerful than that fear, if I chose to be. I need not be anymore the girl who drowned in her fears. Rather, I could be the one who fought those tides of self-destruction.

And this time neednt be so much different.

I could learn to conquer the fear.

And yes, I was offered that job, much to my shock and disbelief. And yes, I did accept it. The months passed like young damselflies skimming on the surface of the water, and before I knew it, it was time for me to go. To leave my beautiful home, so beloved, so familiar, so precious to me.

If I had felt fear at that day of the interview, the terror I experienced that Thursday when I left for Dublin Airpot, was that multiplied tenfold. What it would be like, would the people there like me or not, how would I cope in an actual proper working environment for the first real time of my life. And then of course there were the ED fears, forcing themselves insistently to the forefront of the others to blare out at me like high-pitched, wailing sirens.

But yet this time I refused to submit to them.

2017 has been the year of the change for me. This year I have overcome more thn I could ever have thought possible, or imagined. I gained weight by myself for the second time, nd this time found a level of acceptance for my new body which I never could put claim to before. I put my recovery first even though I was at college, and struggling to get through the finl last curucial term of that degree which had caused me so much heartbreak.

And then there was this. Barcelona. Another thing I could never have thought of as being possible.

I am learning to conquer my fears, not give in to them. And I know that I can use this strength to beat every single last one of my demons and let my light rise like a diamond bright star into a ebony black sky. And one day the clouds of depression which remain wrapped around me will part and fall away, and the final few chains of ED. They will weaken and I will take them in my hands, snap them like brittle kindlewood between my now strong and capable fingers. No longer a prisoner. No longer a girl with an ED. ED will become a thing of my past, a thing that was fought against and overcome, just like those fears which I faced.

This is our Recovery...We can Take this Leap Together... xxx

Hi everyone!! :)

I know I have been blogging in a somewhat haphazard, fragmented sort of way the past few weeks, and I am sorry about that. The reason for this being, is that I have been struggling immensely wit my college work, and I guess I felt obligated to set aside the time I usually designate for blogging in order to get a much of the reading as possible done. Which I absolutely hate having to do: I hate being separated so to speak from my bblog, especially now that I truly feel as if I have made some real and concrete progress in my recovery. No, more than that...I have taken some huge, gigantic, and abbsolutely terrifying steps over the course of the past few days. But I know, without one shadow of a doubt, that it was absolutely crucial for me, to take those few tentative steps: which, in themselves, constitute the ultimate leap of faith.

As I mentioned in my last post, last weekend marked a critical turning point in the ongoing and ferocious battle between me and my eating disorder. As I have openly and honestly reflected and spoken of here on my blog, the past few months have been far, far from easy for me, as I fought tooth and nail to overcome my relapse and find my way back onto the steep and rocky road towards true recovery.

It was a difficult and painful time for me. I was barely keeping my head above the water at college: slipping quietly into lectures with my head down and my eyes fixed to the ground in the hope tht noone would notice me. Sitting there at the very back of the room, trying futilely to focus on the lecturer's voice as she outlines the influences Burke's Philosophical Enquiry was to have to future Gothic writers, inviting us to share our own thoughts with the class. I instinctively twine a couple of strands of my hair around my dry, chapped fingers as soon as she mentions the words share your thoughts. trying to swallow the hard lump of anixety that has already entered my throat. my own thoughts run wild like antelope upon a a plain; A voice, screaming triumphantly from a distance with a sort of terrible malice, you are dumb, you are stupid, you should't even be here. Why are you here? A Trinity student, yeah right!!

And this has been, once again, my third year college experience.

I was torn, torn with the fear and the pain and the guilt.  It was like trying to pul yourself up a steep, vertical rockface, a rockface lined with thorns and jagged outcrops which tear your feet and hands at every opportunity.

And I knew, that what I was trying so desperately to achieve - that being, to recover from my eating disorder, an eating disorder which had been with me for almost half of my life and which had come so, so close to totally and utterly destroying me - while being at college, without the proper support, treatment, or therapy clearly, should have been indispensable to me at this time, was, after all, proving to be a virtually impossible feat. There were days when I felt so alone, so trapped, so helpless. As if I was the last person left on earth; as if I was the one girl left behind in the devastated shipwreck, wave after icy wave washing over me as I slowly began to lose my grip on the slippery piece of driftwood which seemed to provide the one slim, fleeting chance I had of staying afloat in that terrible, unfeeling ocean.

Ever since September - the month when I suppose, the relapse really did begin in earnest - I had purposely concealed from my loved ones the reality of what was happening to me, covering up the tracks that I left along the bloodstrewn path of my own self-destruction with layer upon layer of pure, impermeable deceit, letting lie after lie escape my faltering lips while deep inside me, I felt as if my heart were breaking, out of the pure pain and the guilt and the shame. It was a state of bbeing which was all too familiar to me; and a path  which, while being so horrible and alien, I knew I had trodden so many, many times before.

But then last weekend changed everything.

Now, everything has been laid out in the open. The rockface in front of me is still there, of course..ut now, this time, I have kind and gentle hands reaching out to me, tenderly enveloping my palms in their own warm ones. Picking me up whenever I cry out that I can't do it. And in those hands I can feel a warmth thatI know that those hands cannot make this climb for me...I know, that the real hard work has to come from me. But they are there for me, they are with me every second of every minute, every hour of every day.

never, ever be afraid to ask for help.

there may be anger and there may be tears. But they can and will forgive. <3 xxx

I love this picture..it always reminds me of how much my mam loves me and wants me to be happy and healthy. It was taken at one of the dinners out in Mallorca last year. My anixety levels were shooting sky high at first and I felt really nervous on edge..but mam was there for me, and calmed me down and told me everything would be ok. And I actually enjoyed myself, after she talked to me. She is always, always there for me.. 

There is just so much I want to say, so many things I want to blog about; at times I feel so happy, I want to leap through the air for that pure joy, like the young deer leaping through the thickets of the forest; but then, alongside that, at times I feel so, so scared, so overwhelmed, so completely and utterly helpless: like riding upon a nail-bitingly high rollercoaster, a rollercoaster with no seatbelts or safety bars. All we can do is hold eachother's hands now as we go over the edge together. And it's true, what they say, Recovery is one of the scariest, most challenging, most difficult thing we might ever have to do in this life. But. We must take this massive leap together; we can, and will, ride that terrifying rollercoaster.

Because this is our life...
This is our Recovery...

And we can't just let ED take anymore away from us. ED will take and take and take until there is nothing of you left. ED will take everything from you and never give anythingback.And it will take and take and take somemore, until.
there

is

nothing

left

for it to take.

And so here is a rough idea of what my current intake looks like now. Depending on how the weight goes over the next few weeks, I might need to increase it again soon.

Breakfast: 7.30 am: Slice of multigrain toast, buttered, with 1 tsp peanut butter with good bowl of cereal (2 weetabix or a cupful of maltwheats/shreddies etc usually..I have a wee cup for measuring it and all ;) ) with at least100 ml milk (usually hot...mmmmm ;)

Morning snack: Any time between 10.00 - 12.45 am.  Hot choc number 1 of the day (heehee more to follow!! ;) ) made with full fat milk and lots of heavenly tesco drinking chocolate powder. with 1 medium snack: usually, big handful nuts (about 30-40g ;) ), or 1 piece toasted spelt bread with peanut butter, or scone + spread, a muesli bar, half a multiseed bagel and peanut butter...etc etc.

Lunch About 14.00 Brown submarine roll/soft crusty roll/baked potato, buttered with protein filling(egg mayo/cheese/tuna mayo/ham etc) with vegetables/salad (tomatoes, spinach, sweetcorn, beetroot etc). with portion of fruit (apple/banana usually).

Afternoon snack Any time between 16.30-17.45 Hot choc with medium snack: usually crumpet + 1 tbsp pb , scone + spread, hot cross bun + spread, etc etc etc

Dinner 19.45 varies from day to day..usually its the basic protein + carbs + vegetables
Banana pud <3 21.00

Nighttime Hot choc 22.00

Honestly...a few weeks ago, I truly believed that I would never, ever be able to follow my meal plan and eat like this every day without fail. I had so many probblem areas and weak points...it virtually seemed like an impossible task. but, well...here I am now, and since last weekend I have not strayed from it, not once. And I know you can do it too...

This is OUR Recovery...

Let's take this leap together. <3 xxx

The Breaking of the Chain...

It's so strange to think...that this is essentially my twenty second Christmas...and that, in a few days time, we will be bidding 2015 a final farewell, and welcoming in another new year.

 and, on a sadder note. this will be, in the twenty first year of my life...my tenth Christmas, with ED.

Because I know, after all, that for me, Christmas has always been different in many ways, then it might be for a happy, healthy person. Then it might have been if I was Emmy, not Emmy with an eating disorder.

But I am absolutely determined, this year...to give me all into making this the Christmas as special and as precious, as I have always wanted it to be. <3

I wish with all my heart that I knew, that I wasn't going to struggle with anything and that I would experience, during this magical and infinitely precious time of the year, that pure and untarnished happiness which I remember feeling deep within my heart, all those years ago when I was little more than a child.
But I am not a child, anymore...though there is a sharp, aching longing deep inside me, wishing that I could go back to that time. Wishing that I had never left those happy, blissful days of my childhood, and that everything had just stayed, the same.

But I know, that this is not a fairy tale, and that I am not a princess, and that the deepest and most longed for wish of my heart will never, of course, be granted.

But I know that by wishing and regretting, I will achieve nothing. All I can do now is to face this fear, this storm, head on. But it is just...so hard. I do not, in any way, feel any way more mature then I did all that time ago, when ED first came into my life. I still feel as small, as afraid, as lost.  and unsure of where to go. So...confused. It as if I am walking around in a fog.

I want to recover...but not for myself.
I know that I should gain weight...but the thought of that terrifies me..
I want to let go of ED, for ever...I want to be free, so badly...
but I don't know, if I can...because every single attempt I have made, every single time that I tried, it remained with me, dragging me down. ED and I, me and ED...tied together by strings of iron; a bond so deeply enmeshed, so , it would seem that they were never, or will never, be broken...

But I just want this all to be over. I sometimes catch tiny, fleeting glimpses...of what it was like, when I was free. What it could be like, to not have this storm inside my head...to not have these chains across my heart, pulling me down. Nothing could ever possibly be as heavy, as the weight of that sorrow, that pain, that despair that ED brought to me, with its snares.

I want 2016 to be the year...the year that I make that change.

But even as I write these words, my eyes become prickly with unshed tears, because I know, that this time last year...I promised myself the exact same thing. I thought 2015 would be, my year...the year when I freed myself, from ED. I truly believed that the...hospitalisation was going to end everything. that i would go in, and it would be hard, and horrible, and painful  But...but it would be worth it, in the end: because, it was going to heal me. I would come out...recovered. A new Emmy. But months later and here I am, and, though its pains me more than anything to say so, I know I am not recovered...that that all those months I spent there, did nothing, really, to heal me. That I am still Emmy with an eating disorder, and that, as I gaze upon the road of recovery which is now stretched out in front of me...I know that I still have a long, long way to go.

But I can't afford to lose hope...

Because even if life isnt a fairytale...that does not mean, that dreams can't ever come true.

And I know that I have everything I need to make this change and make 2016 my year..the year when I can prove to my eating disorder...that our time together is well and truly over. I know I have everything that I need, to do this. I have identified and recognised the branches of my recovery. And now I know, I need to put everything which I have learned, all of my insight and my strength and every shard of my determination...into beating, into defeating, once and for all, this monster which has long since stolen away so many individual parts and segments of my life: which has taken away, without remorse, so many years and so much happiness so many and has gave me nothing in return, but a broken heart, a broken body, and a broken soul.

But now it's time for me, to be the one who does the breaking.

For now has come the time for me to break those chains and cast them away forever...

And I know that with the destruction of those chains..those snares which have held me down for so, so long...I will be able to realise my dreams, become the person I want to be. And even though right now the dreams that I have, seem so tiny, so impossible, so far away..I know, that there are within my reach...but my hands have always been held back, by these chains...

But I know that we can, and will, break them...

We are stronger then we might think...

It is time to break the chain...

Another of my favourite memories from the year which was 2015...
me and Benny, free together in the daisies. <3 xxx

fate loves the fearless...xxx

A fight to the death...a battle in which there can only ever be, one loser...

I battled my way through the storm, endured the pain and the agony of hospitalisation...I fought my way this far....

But I know that my battle can't just end, here. I know that in this fight for my life, I need to be fearless...

This picture is, for me, symbolical of one of my most special and treasured moments, of the year which was 2015...

It was some time not long before I was discharged from inpatient care at the hospital, probably my nineth or tenth weekend home with my family. I had received the osteoporosis diagnosis several months before, back in February...but, on having been referred to a rheumatologist by my consultant, I had a new sense of hope shining in my heart and filling my body with its glow. For his view on my condition was crucially different to that of my consultant's, in that he had been assertive in his conviction that I had not, by any means, reason to despair on account of the current state of my bones. Rather, he had maintained that there was much I could do to improve things: that I still had time, being only in my early twenties, to improve the delicate structure of my skeleton, and prevent the osteoporosis from getting significantly worse. As long as you maintained your recovery, he had told me. I had smiled eagerly and had promised that I certainly would.

And as we climbed those beautiful mountains, surrounded on all sides by rolling dale and lush green valley, with the majestic forms of spruce and cypress and pine tipping their needle laden branches gently in a breeze which carried with it the warm caress of early spring, I had felt, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, so, so free...like a kestrel on the wing which has finally learned how to stretch its beautiful wings, to soar above the clopuds and embrace the infinite sublimity of an endless, cornflower blue sky.

And just like that kestrel, I felt, at that moment...almost, weightless. my weight meant nothing to me. It didnt matter what my weight was...that number, or the knowledge of that number, did not hinder me in any way, from ascending higher and higher into that beautiful endless sky...did not stop me, from spreading my wings...

But then the winds changed and the spring merged into the summer; summer's light and golden warmth finally being replaced, by the darkening horizon of autumn. and as the days became colder and the flowers and buds began to shrivel and die, so too did that short, transitory sense of happiness that I had found; that fleeting sense of true and pure freedom. And, like the leaves being carried away by the autumn gusts, so too did my willingless to recover, slipping through my fingers to be borne away by that cruel, harsh, pitiless wind, to be cast down mercilessly to the cold, hard earth.

It's so true to say, that recovery is something which we have to choose...not once, not twice, but again and again and again, every single minute of every single hour, of every single day...

It's a fight which we cannot afford to falter in; a for it is, I now recognise now, a battle in which there can only ever be one loser. Us, or ED. A fight which is, as some of us know all too well, ultimately a fight to the death.

because, even if I (I use myself here, as representative of anyone suffering from an eating disorder.) were to "survive" living with an ED (if you could call a life with an ED actually living. There's a big difference, after all, between the two terms...surviving does not necessarily have the same meaning as living in this context.). But what I say to you now is this. Surviving, with my eating disorder...is more or less equatable to a living death. Because even though you are alive, it is as if you are dying inside...the person who people knew and loved you as, has been cruelly and maliciously taken away, murdered by the bloodstained hands of the eating disorder. And all that is left is the ghost of the person who used to be.

I often ask myself... how much of me, is there actually left? And, if I do not choose make that concscious, difficult, terrifying, but absolutely crucial decision to recover, every minute of every hour of every day...will there be any of the real emmy left, at all? Or will there just be left a hollow, empty, inanimate shell, a shell wholly in the possession of the demonic thing which is my eating disorder...

Looking back now, I know that I didn't truly realise...

that I had become little more than a shadow, of the girl that I used to be...

A healthy body which I loved and respected, and treated with the care that it deserved...
Strong and healthy bones..
A smile which was genuine, not feigned...
my happy, carefree, bubbly personality...
a love of life and of everything it contained...
hope in my future and belief in myself...

all of this, ED either twisted, corrupted with its taint, or simply destroyed and broke it completely..or took it all away from me...

in exchange for nothing, but this...

self hatred and loathing, self disgust...the deepest and strongest hatred, for the most precious posssion I will ever have..my body...
which drove me to abuse and neglect my body to the brink of its existence.
weak, brittle, fragile bones which could snap with one single fal or stumble...
a smile which hid behind it a hundred tears, untellable pain, and a silent, unspoken, soundless longing, that if only they knew, if only they knew, what really lies deep inside me. If only I could just reach out to them, but it was as if separated from them by the vastest and most deepest of abysses; a massive and unbridgeable divide which I would never be able to cross... 
Despair, isolation, depression and loneliness... shutting myself away from the world...
I lost all my passions for the things which I loved, that fervent enthusiasm for life which I once had, evaporated like thin wisps of smoke. 
A desire to end my life...because in my darkest hour you made me believe that I did not deserve to live.

I have wasted, so many, many years...
There has been so many tears, so much agony, so much heartache and suffering and pain...
I know that it is time to stop...being afraid, and letting the fear of the voice hold me back.

Because I have proven that I can be strong, and brave, and fearless... I wouldn't have got this far, if I had simply spent all that time since recognising that I had an eating disorder, cowering in a corner, allowing the fear to pin me down. There is something we all need to realise now...each and every one of us, including myself.

That we all have the strength and the courage and the determination, deep inside us, to overcome any obstacle, surpass any barrier, achieve anything that we set our heart and minds to.

That is why it is so important, to have belief that there is a recovery. That you, and not your eating disorder, will be the one who wins that fight in the end.

Yesterday I came up with some more Christnmassy sort of goals too, as there are a few things which I really hope to achieve over the Christmas period...more details on this tomorrow!! <3

Thank you so, so much, for always being there for me...
I wish you all a truly special and beautiful Christmas...

Remember...fate loves the fearless...
be brave and stand against your ED!! <3 xxx

To stand and face the storm...

Sitting on the sun-soaked grass in my garden, an all too familiar sensation bludgeons in my skull; one which I have felt so many times before, and am likely to experience countless more times in the months, the years that lie ahead of me: this is the nature of my mindset, and the way I think and react to things and situations has enabled this feeling to become almost second nature to me. Emotions roar through my head, smashing furiously against one another with all the ferocity and vicious vigour of  two armies locking together in the heat of battle. Chaffing and cutting and tearing down with every stroke. I feel like the lone soldier who has fallen on the wayside, and is now in danger of being trampled, without remorse or pity, by the flaying hooves of the enemy soldiers. For despite my best intentions, I feel at the mercy of these emotions; I am helpless to their power, their authority, their force which threatens to sweep me clean off my feet and ball me over to the ground, to be broken and snapped like a girl made of twigs.

I just feel so...lost, unsure, afraid. Afraid that, whichever path I choose to tread, I will trip and fall down the abyss that opens up before me, to be engulfed in a yawning chasm of darkness of which there can be no escape. Unsure of what paths are actually there in front of me, of where each individual path will lead, of whether I will actually be able to tread that very path, of the danger, the pitfalls, the traps which lurk around the corners of each one. And lost, so very, very lost. Because, I mean...nine months. Nine months, of worry and self-debate and painful contemplation, and this is all that I have to say for it. I still do not know which path to tread.

Do I return to Trinity this year...
Do I apply for another year off-books and defer my course for another year...
Do I withdraw from Trinity altogether?
Should I try harder than ever to find employment, or should I pursue repeating my Irish Leaving Cert in view of seeking to return to college as a mature student in 5 years time, to take up a primary school teaching degree? Is that really what I see myself to become? Do I have what it takes to become a teacher?

Big, big questions...and next to them, I feel like a small, helpless little beetle whose path has become blocked by a hulking, ugly grey stone, a stone which casts its dark shadow across the ground and prevents the little creature from moving forward upon its journey, from essentially progressing onwards with its life.

If only...if only I could somehow see into the future, to see what fate has been chosen for me. Or, even better, if only I could just go back in time and change it, change it all. I got myself into this mess, but, for the past nine years, I have wedged myself ever deeper in this pit that was dug by my very own hands. Hands that scrabble frantically at the edge, desperately seeking to find a way out, but which always, after a long struggle, lose their grip to tip me back in my little hole. I just wish, I could find that strength. That strength which sometimes I do catch glimpses of, deep within myself. But I always let that strength be diminished and overcome, by all of those inner demons which threaten to pull me down. That sense of immaturity, the perfectionism, the depression, the anxiety, the self-hatred, the lack of confidence and self-esteem. And Ed, of course, the largest and most malevolent shadow of them all, looming over me like a great black storm cloud, flanked by smaller - but no less malign - .murky grey counterparts. And those clouds gather in together, now, into one furious, terrible knot, palpable enough to destroy and crush and blow to pieces, every little thing which falls within their path. Not a single one of them can be thought of as the same, yet, they are all inexorably linked to one another. And they will join together and knock me down, unless I find the courage to stand up against them, to look deep inside myself and find that inner strength.

I know, that I can do it...

I know that I have the strength, to stand against the storm...

I know that I just have to believe in myself. To not run from the roar of the thunder, to not cower and hide from the rain.

To know that I do have the strength, to pull myself out of that hole, to feel the rain upon my skin and hear the thunder crash around me. To hear, to feel, to see...but to not be afraid.

And to walk against that storm with my head held high and to dance across the lightning bolts and the puddles which splash at my feet. And I know that with that strength, I will find my rainbow...