From Darkness into Light..

My hands trembled as I held out the blue answer booklet. The invigilator, having not noticed my shaking fingers, took it from me with a smile, and moved on.

I sat there dazed, not quite able to comprehend the feelings that surged in my breast, crashing against one another like the white tipped waves of the ocean.

I had done it.

I was here.

My time at Trinity was finally, finally over.

And so I stepped out of the stuffy, artificially lit exam hall, stepped out from that crowded space in which the dozens upon dozens of  excited human voices intermingled and wove into one another to make one confused, violent cacophony of sound. Stepped right out of there, towards the square of yellow light which led into the outside world. 

Another world, to me. I felt as if I was making both a literal and figurative transition, from one place to another.

Into a world of sweet and beautiful freedom; a world in which my sorrows would melt away like chips of sharp ice being thawed by the delicate kiss of the spring sun. 

I was free. I had done it. I had finished my college degree.

And it did not matter that my exam hadn't gone brilliantly, and that I had ran out of time on the question involving a discussion of two of the course texts' lack of human empathy. It did not matter that, when I had entered that very same exam hall two days before to sit my first exam, it had suddenly hit me, like a stinging blow to the face, that I knew not a soul in that place. I had felt like Robert Neville at the end of the I am Legend novel, looking out at the face of the brave new world and feeling totally, utterly isolated. That was what I had felt like. I don't belong here.

But now it did not matter.

Now, I no longer cared.

For I was free. Free to be me, to forge a new and beautiful future for myself, far separated from the pain and struggles of the past. I was stepping out from the darkness of my loneliness, stepping from that crowded world - a world in which I had been surrounded by people, but had always, no matter how many faces I could see, felt so, so alone, like a lonely, plain-feathered songbird struggling to fly amongst a flock of beautiful swans.

I was leaving behind the loneliness, the sadness, the pain of unbelonging. The constant feelings of not being good enough, that my existence was worthless to everyone and everything.

I was leaving behind that world, that day.

And so I stepped into the light.

And so I ran through the streets of Dublin towards my train, my hair streaming behind like wild uncurling banner, the late afternoon sunshine casting dapples of light upon my face as I passed beneath trees laden with the sweet green foliage of May. People turned to stare at me in surprise as I ran past, their curious gazes following me as I dodged between them like a minnow between reeds.  I suppose what they saw was sort-of  young looking girl, with a full, glowing face, purple runners on her feet, a black skirt with tiny roses, a white top which left her arms and shoulders bare and exposed to the sun. 

But over the past few months, that girl became wiser.

She learned quite a few new things. Things that weren't just related to the degree she was trying so desperately to achieve.

She learned things about herself, her world. Things about life. And ultimately things about her recovery.

She learned that she did have the strength to do this.

She learned to care less about what others think, and to just be herself.

She learned that she was strong and capable. That she has what it takes to achieve her dreams and goals.

She learned to take care of herself.

She learned that she didn't have to be the thin, skinny girl, whose potential to be loved by other is wholly dependent on the severity of her illness.

She learned to be the Real, True Emmy.

She learned that she could leave the thin, scared little girl behind.

And I think it was these vital lessons which got that girl through her exams, to the light beyond. It was these lessons which filled her heart with joy as soon as she stepped into that light and felt the warmth upon her face, felt the heavy, dragging weights being  lifted from her shoulders. It was these lessons that lightened her steps, that day she ran through the streets of Dublin, towards Heuston, and home. It was these lessons which taught her that she could be free. Free to break free from the crippling fetters of loneliness, pain, self-doubt. And to render ED ever weaker.

And though she still has some way to go, she learned that she will see this battle out to the very, very end.

There can only be two possible outcomes to this fight.

I can choose to let ED destroy me...or I can choose to destroy ED, and win the pure sweet freedom that true recovery inevitably brings.

And I've learnt now that I can make the right choice.

For it is time for me to be free, in heart, body and soul.💕

The hardest path...

6.11 am Tuesday morning. My alarm shrieked out in the silence, like the eerie cry of a barn owl breaking through the dawn's calm stillness.

My eyes snapped open as I lay motionless in the darkness. I had wrapped myself up into a cocoon like mass of blankets, my feet - prone to chill banes - snugly encased in my woolen penguin slipper socks. I felt decidedly, delectably cosy; completely and wholly safe. As safe as a cygnet snuggled between its mother's snow white wings; protected from both the cold of its surrounding environment and the harsh, ever watchful eyes of the world.

But as I lay there my brain started to tick and whir, pricked inevitably into awakefulness. No longer lost in the infinite oblivion of sleep, my consciousness became open to the thoughts that whirred around in my head like rotating windmills. Loud and quiet, soft and demanding.

And no possible way to protect myself from them.

Need to get up, need to get up. All that reading that needs to be done...

The essay on the Talented Mr Ripley and then that article on the Female Gothic. Then later translate Beowulf and finish off Sharp Objects...

And then...that essay...
the last one..for Hilary Term...yes, it has to be written...very soon... 

And you are going to fail it, because...

You aren't spending enough time studying...
you're too busy thinking about food and calories and your recovery...

Selfish little b....!

And then, the voice of reason, trying weakly to break through.

Hey, Em?

You know you said that...

if you were really serious about gaining weight...

You would cut back on your morning walk, a good bit? As in, perhaps knock off a good twenty minutes; and see where we go from there? 

Oh no, I groaned, shoving the thought away. Not today, please, Not today...

But dont you think you'll be sabotaging recovery if you don't do that Em?? Come on, think about it logically...!

Oh, doesn't it just make such perfect, rational sense? It, being to reduce or eliminate exercise for now, just until I reach and go beyond the minimally acceptable weight: and then, to reintroduce it slowly but surely, as something which I, as the recovering anorexic, worked hard to get back into her life. Something to be worked towards; that state of being in which I would be able to do as much as I wanted and felt like; with that sense of liberation in the knowledge that I have worked hard to get to this place at which I am now at; and, now that I am here, I can enjoy again that something which I had to temporarily reduce, or cut out. For the benefit of...my recovery, my future health.  

But. this is the one thing that I am finding so, so incredibly hard to do. And why? Why, exactly, is it proving so goddamn...excruciatingly difficult to do so?

I made - in my usual haphazard attempt at rationalising these ed complications -  a list of the reasons why.

1.) It's true that I am still so scared about the impact to do so would have on my college work...yes, there's no point in denying it; this insistent voice remains with me day by day, forever chiding for choosing to not prioritise my academic efforts and attempting to put myself first. 
Since making my decision last week about college and recovery, I set aside some time to write out a list of goals, one for each day of the week. But the final goal...the final goal which I wrote upon my list was to reduce my morning walk, bit by little bit. But as of yet, I have not done it. The thought of it - of sitting there, trying to write my essay, while my eating disorder screamed and bellowed in my head with the ferocity of a roiling thundercloud - was enough to make my skin cold with fear. I could not see myself doing it.

2.) And then, of course, there's this...fear I suppose of losing the modest level of fitness that I have.
I say modest - well, I can climb hills with only a slight increase in my breathing rate. I can powerwalk, run for short bursts, stuff like that. Nothing outstanding, exactly; I've never been a runner or a jogger; never been a frequent user of gyms or swimming pools. But the whole while I have been ill I don't think there has ever been a time when I haven't done what I do every day; meaning that, I suppose, I have acquired a certain level of fitness which I am "scared" of losing.

3.) And then of course there is the simple fact that I don't want to cut down or eliminate, because to do so would equate to cutting out something which gives me so, so much joy.




I have to face the facts. Logically, I don't think I am ready yet for cutting it out.

I am not a believer in the theory that an anorexic exercises purely for her anorexia. For me - as I am sure is the case with many others - this is not the case. I walk and cycle for so many other reasons that that: to exercise my two furry friends, for starters. To get to college from the station. My walks give me some space to clear my head; to lose myself, for a time at least, in the treasure trove of natural delights extended to me by nature's beautiful, graceful hands.

But, of course, there is a compulsion side to it. I have tried. Numerous times. Tried to go for a day without doing something. The last time was sometime in..November, I think it was. Mam and Dad had gone out; I had resolved to stay at home, and read over my essay. I won't go out, I told myself firmly. So resolute and brave and determined. Until the Voice kicked in with a vengeance. The anxiety began to vehemently swell within me, a balloon being inflated to bursting point. I became intensely and uncontrollably afraid.

 I tried to calm myself by telling myself that I was doing the right thing, the best thing for my body. It didn't work, of course. And so out I went into the soft autumn evening air.

Oh the joy that surged within my heart as I stepped out onto the pebble-strewn pathway. The tender kiss of the sun upon my face; the caress of the gentle afternoon breeze teasing the strands of hair escaping loose from my hat.

But yet behind my delight throbbed a steady, insistent beat. As tangible as that joy which pulsed through my blood, it spoke of my remorse and bitterness and shame.
The shame of knowing that I was not strong enough. Bitterness at the knowledge that one of the things that I loved to do most of all - walks through the countryside in the golden light of the sun; loping across dewy green fields with Benny trotting by my side - was being twisted and tainted by that demon in my head.

I'm not strong enough for this.

A few months later, I find myself still stumbling over the same mucky, slippy ground.

But I wanted this to be the year when things were different; when I made a real, concrete change. And so I know that I need to change, too. In a sense that this time...I need to do things very, very differently.



It's only Me who can make this change, noone else.

We have to draw upon our own strength.




1. To make a new rule for myself. That being, If I choose to exercise, I MUST make sure I eat something extra, on top of my meal plan, to provide the extra energy for it. No excuses. It's a rule.

2. And to try to reduce it..as much as I can without making the anxiety too unbearable.
To start off my just deducting 5 minutes from my morning walk...and then to take it from there. I'm not sure if it's going to be successful, but I know that I have to try.

3.) To try and encourage myself to reduce by writing down and rereading the advantages of doing so..

- It'll give me something to work towards...once I am healthy again, I can exercise when and for how long I want, in a healthy, non-obsessive way.
- An underweight body is a delicate body. Yes, and I am still underweight - 2 kg of so off the "minimum", true; but still, underweight. so that applies to me, too. despite everything which ED tries to tell me.
And so, if I were to fall or place a foot wrong, literally.. I could seriously hurt myself.
- And Ed is also very good at making me forget all the times in the past when I acquired injuries - especially in my foot - just by walking when I was underweight. Ed likes me to think that my body is Healthy" and strong, but it is not.
- I need to give my body a 110 % chance to heal itself...and right now, I know, deep down. That exercise at the moment isn't going to help that.

But it's hard, so hard. And I find myself once again in a state of frenzied, desperate panic; convinced that what I am doing is wrong, and selfish, and that it will negatively effect my college work; will inhibit me from obtaining that precious degree.

Only 2 more months!

Surely you'll be grand till then...!

No, ED, just..NO. I have to do what I can, NOW. It won't be pretty and it won't be perfect. But recovery never truly is. And I know what I wrote in my last post is so, so true. If I wait I will just find another excuse. And if I have to endure this inner mental debate in my head, every day till then...well, so be it. I just know that I have to try.

Try to walk the hardest path that I have ever trodden in my whole entire life.

And then, the petals opened...

It didn't come to me as I had first thought it would: that day, all those years ago, when I took my first tentative step along the road leading up the steep, steep mountain.

It came slowly, gradually, softly. As gentle as a soft summer breeze; one which drifts its way across the heathery slopes of the mountains; rustling tender green shoots and saplings, delicately touching flower and leaf and stem.

It didn't come to me with the speed of a lightning bolt, hurtling down out of a cloudless sky to charge me with the fiery strength of the sun.

It didn't crash into me like a wave, hurtling against the stony outcrops of the windswept cliff face; showering me with foamy droplets of resilience; cleansing me, wholly and completely, of my fears of the unknown deep.

But it came.



It came to me like the tentative first few rays of the early morning sun of the dawn, rays which run their probing fingers gently over the contours of the land.

It came to me like the delicate first touch of spring: a touch which loosens the frozen soil of the ground, gently touching and caressing, calling to the buried seeds to awaken and grow.

That something being a true willingness to recover: a tangible, perceptible, vibrant burning to break free from the illness that became such an innate and seemingly inseparable part of me. It's more than just a feeling. It is a pulse that I can feel deep within me, right to the very depths of the innermost part of my soul. It bludgeons like a beautiful heartbeat, thrumming and pulsating like the rhythmic hoofbeats of a galloping wild horse.

It's more than just a flimsy little wish; floating, like a wispy strip of fine, filmy cloth; across the landscape of my dreams and whimsical fantasies: perceived only in my mind's eye, never to be seen, or felt, and impossible to realise.

But no, I want to recover. Right here, right now: regardless of the fear, regardless of the anxiety; regardless of the discomfort and uncertainty which I know will inevitably be involved. Because the previous times I know that I was never quite strong enough. The flower did grow, but it did not grow enough; for its roots became entangled in the tough, rope-like stems of the choking weeds which have so long pinned it down to the earth. Weeds that wrap their thick tendrils around that flower's tender, newly forming stalks; encircling the buds and pressing them closed, forcing that flower to bend backwards into the ground.

An ED is like that weed.

Stifling and twisting and suffocating, depriving of life and light. Enmeshing us in its vines; its vice like grip; a grip of pain and despair and wretchedness, a grip equatable to that of the predator's jaws upon the throat of its helpless, bleeding victim,

A grasp of death.

And for so long I remained locked within the cold, hard grasp of ED, entrapped and unable to grow.

Because the petals are opening and the newly formed buds are reaching towards the glorious sun. And like that sun casts its rays upon the land, illuminating it in the dusky glow of early morning, so too did the realization dawn upon me; gradually and gently, softly and slowly.

That now my own sun is rising...
That now, my petals are opening, and blossoming.
Now it is time for me to grow,
and to become the person that I truly want to be. 💜

And I know that this renewed sense of motivation does not mean that there will be no more tough times ahead. But. It is a feeling I have not felt for such a long, long time: and I can tell you now that that feeling is so, so incredible.

I realise now that there is no limit to my strength. That I can be as brave as a lioness, streaking after her prey: or as strong and as powerful as an eagle taking flight; beating her snowy wings together to soar and glide across the endless stretches of the soaring, white-tipped mountains of her home.

I feel like that eagle now. An eagle who has so long been a captive with a fetter upon her leg, tying her down.

Each time she tried to raise her wings and fly, that chain would drag at her, pulling her back down to the familiar, hated perch to which she had remained for so so long.

And so all escape seemed so impossible....

until the day she realised that she did have the power to break free from her chains.

It is time for me to soar to new heights. It is time for me to spread my wings and fly away from the clutches of Ed, forever. It is time for me to reach out my petals and grow. Now, not later. Right here, right now, right today. I will not put recovery off till college is over. I have made my decision, now. I can feel the palpability of my new strength coursing through my wings.

I write this post with tears of gratitude in my eyes. Gratitude for the amazing people in my life - they might or night not know who they are! - and to you, my readers..all of you, who have helped me so, so much in my battle against the illness which very nearly destroyed me and all that I loved, that I hold dear. You helped me to see the light and reach out to it with renewed strength in my soul; you helped me to find the path which I have sought and fallen away from so many, many times over the four years.You helped me to step onto that path with the knowledge in my heart that it is the right thing to do: that no, recovery is not something to be casually parceled and put away to one side, to a time when I am ready for it...because no, that time will never come. None of us will ever be truly ready to recover. There is no such thing as that perfect time. As a dear friend told me today, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives. 

Now is the time to recover. Now is the time to give this battle our 100% of every minute of every day. Nothing is more important or as valuable than a healthy, functioning body. Getting a college degree should never be prioritised over health; for health, ultimately, is a precious and infinitely fragile thing.

 And you all helped me to see that, and realise it: and here, I just want to thank you; thank you with every part of my heart and my soul.💙

Where the sea meets the rockface....

There's not much to be said for my experience at university. From the very beginning, Trinity became a place in which I felt like a tiny, non-descript, little white pebble; a pebble lying upon a beach of shining, glistening gemstones. Those gemstones never lose their sparkle: they are remarkable, flawless, perfect in every way. And then there is me, the dull, insignificant, pale little rock; not wanting to be noticed while simultaneously yearning for someone to see its pain.When the sea rolls in, the gemstones keep their ground; the pebble, on the other hand, is torn away and dashed haplessly against the rocks.

Tossing and turning, I try to make sense of my situation. Well, I am alive. I know that much. Though it's true to say tht life with an eating disorder is really just like...living beneath a cold, oh, so ice-cold sea. Because noone can see your pain; in here. Hidden beneath those swirling waters, its easy for people to forget that you are still there.

Deep in the water, your emotions become numbed. Hard to see, hard to feel, hard to breathe.

Four more months. That's how long I have left at Trinity. Every day I pray my silent little prayer. Dear God, please, just let me pass. To me these final few months will be like traversing a cliff face of black rocks; black rocks with cruel, tooth like, razor sharp edges. So much rests, it seems, on me getting through them successfully; of reaching that shining, golden prize lying in wait at the other side. That being? A degree. A piece of paper that will certify that I am a Trinity graduate. But what if I don't make it through? What happens if this - the final, final term of the four year degree which has caused me such endless heartbreak and unhappiness - is destined to be the one in which I will trip, and fall?

A failure to me, as I see it, wil destroy me. It will tear my heart and rip me into pieces; break me, as a body is broken when it falls upon those sharp, pitiless rocks.

And then there is this sea. So cold, so deep, so desolate. And those gemstones twinkle all around me, so near, but yet, so impossible distant from me. They are proper Trinity students, a Voice in my head mocks. and you will never be one of them.

You are going to fail and then that will be the end..of everything.



I have to try..try to get out of here.

But what...what is the more important thing..?

To get out of this sea? The sea of my eating disorder?
Or to sacrifice everything in order to traverse those rocks..?

Because that what I have been doing essentially, for the past four, five years I have been in Trinity. Letting recovery fall by the wayside; prioritising college, college work, over everything - including gaining or maintaining an acceptable weight; and all the various other aspects of my recovery effort. The reasons for me doing so are both manifold and complex. But the primary one is that which I know all to well that to dedicate myself 100% to recovery would mean that my college work would inevitably suffer.

This being, of course, because of my fear of the effects of a true recovery effort upon my work ability, my concentration. I will give you an example. Today I awoke and thought that as part of my morning intake I would make myself a cheese and mushroom omelette. The image swelled in front of my eyes, tantalising, tempting. But then, I shook my head, pushing it away. Because I knew what would happen if I did dare to do such a thing: my anxiety would shoot through the roof; I would dwell upon it for the whole entire morning, the Voice would explode through my head, labelling me with no end of obscenities.

And thus rendering any atempt of concentration literally impossible.

But can I afford to really..well, postpone a true recovery effort, now...?

Can I afford to wait for another few months ?

But I am scared and so afraid. The chasms between the rocks loom below me, dark and threatening, insidiously menacing. If I were to fall into them, so much would be lost, it seems. The degree. Thousands upon thousands of wasted college fees. The pride and delight of my parents and family. That security of being the girl who passed. No. If I fall onto the rocks now, I will be forever branded as the girl who tried, and failed.

But...

I only have one body, right?

Can I afford...can I afford to put it at risk? Sure, four months is four months, but I mean...

How do I know how damaged it is right now?



And so the battle rages on between the rocks and the sea.

Put college first Emmy. It's only for a few months, like. And then you can recover, if you want. But I know you don't really want to. I know you want to remain with me. 

No. I want to...I want to recover. Right here, right now. I can't go on like this. I need to regain the weight; yes, the final few kilo, and beyond...! 

No, you selfish b****! How dare you? How COULD you?! You're willing to sacrifice all the money your family threw at your degree, all because you just want to leave the skinny girl behind? That's what you want, is it? You REALLY want to stop being the just-a-bit-too-thin girl? You want to end this, right here? I will not let you, Em. We're in this together, you and me. Emmy and ED, hidden beneath the sea, stuck together forever, like a limpet attached to a pebble wedged in the sand.

If only I - that pebble - had the courage to wrench that limpet from my back. But I am desperate, so, so desperate, to cross those rearing rocks. And as the days flicker past me, that burning question rages across every passage of my mind. What do I do here. Please, someone tell me what to do.

To emerge from the ice cold sea..
Or to dedicate, for that time that is left...
everything I have into scaling those terrible, terrible rocks which I know, if I fall upon them now,
will tear me apart like thorns ripping through paper.

It was time to bite the bullet..

7 am Saturday morning.

I finally emerge from the kitchen, my hands full of an assortment of different edible items.

A large jar of Tesco chunky peanut butter and a hunk of extra mature cheese wrapped tightly in crinkled kitchen foil. A bruised banana and a tub of buttermilk spread which had seen better days given all the times that I have managed to drop it. A bowl containing 2 weetabix and a jug with precisely 125 ml of warm milk. I dump these on the table and then I remembered that I hadn't got the cookery so I went right back in and got myself a couple of knives. Then I went back again for the one with the serrated edge for the cheese and then finally a measuring spoon and a teaspoon for the peanut butter. And then, finally, I sat down, and waited for my toast to pop. 

I glance at my watch. A pang of anxiety shoots through me. Oh. God. five minutes passed already, and I hadn't even started my breakfast. Five minutes less of writing being done. Five minutes more that I did not spend staring at the abysmal thing that is my attempt at a Children's Lit essay...

My morning routine is, you see, to get up, sort the doggies out (give them their food and let them outside to do their "business"), sort my own stuff out, then sit down and have my breakfast while looking at the blog or emails or whatnot. And then. After that. The part of the day which I dread and detest the most.

It's not what you would call an exactly joyous scene. I sit and I stare for a few minutes at the scraps of sentences upon the laptop screen in front of me and try to conjure up something else that I could write. Sometimes something comes. More usually, something does not. As the minutes tick by I start to feel more and more agitated. My heartbeat quickens and the room suddenly becomes unbearably hot; even claustrophobic. My very skin seems to itch and prickle unpleasantly. The blood pounds wildly in my ears, as loud and as sonorous as drumbeat.

My mind drifts helplessly like a piece of driftwood upon the dipping, swelling waters of the ocean. God I am going to fail this module. God how did I ever get this far with this degree? I am stupid, I can't do it, I...I...

The predominant thoughts which repeat themselves over and over again. But there is also..something else. Food. Yes, food. I have just eaten a massive breakfast but yet I cannot stop thinking about food. Interspersed with these assertions that you are useless and you are pathetic and stupid and worthless piece of sh** there are these thoughts, vivid images of food. I try to put them out of my head; but I might as well have tried to break a pebble in half with my fingers.

"I'm not hungry," I groan to myself, but yet, even while I say it, I know that isn't entirely true. Physically, I feel stuffed; my stomach feels tight and uncomfortably bloated. But yet...there is still this sort of, craving , I suppose, for more. I look up from the laptop and stare unhappily at the jar of peanut butter sitting some inches across the table from me. I don't want any more. I want to get up now and pick it up and put it right back in the cupboard where it belongs. But at the same time..by God, do I want some peanut butter right now. I want to reach across and stick my big teaspoon into the jar's gooey depths and devour spoonful after spoonful.

Now, you can imagine the sort of feelings these thoughts inevitably evoke for me.Feelings of self-disgust and repulsion - Oh my god!! you have become SO greedy!! - mixed thoroughly with an unpleasant, sour-tasting blend of intense and bitter frustration. Because this, of course, all adds up to making writing that essay that one bit harder: or maybe more than a bit, shall we say. Ah, my lovely English essays. Writing them...writing them is like crawling up a hill with your eyes closed. You don't have a clue where you're going or how you're going to get there; and with every knock and every stone that you collide with you're sent tumbling back down to where you started.

Every morning we go through this process. I sit, Istare, I write nothing. I am literally consumed by these thoughts of food and how stupid I have become.

I suppose, this thing or whatever you want to call it which I experience at breakfast time - the intense hunger for more, while at the same time, not being really hungry at all - is perhaps some kind or form of that phenomenon entitled "extreme hunger", which, I've heard, is a most common occurrence for anyone who takes that terrifying plunge into the effort of recovery. But I mean..what can I do?? How on earth will I be able to complete three 5000 word English essays when I suddenly can't even focus properly on stringing a sentence together in my head?

Bite the bullet. An expression which I suppose is highly relevant for this stage of recovery. Because I guess that's what I really need to be doing. Screw the essays. I've read that it's important that..if you get these weird "cravings", despite tangible physical sensations of fullness, than you should just bite the bullet and give into them. To literally bite into that food and eat as much as you want. Because that is what your body needs. Does it feel unnatural? By hell, it does. But is it unnatural?? Well, rationally, I don't suppose it actually is. Because, if you think about it...if you have deprived yourself of proper nourishment for any given length of time, it's only natural that your body now is using every faculty of its powers to try and make you want to eat more and more, right? It's starving. It's deprived of vital nutrients. And so if physical fullness (due to the smallness of the shrunken stomach?) is getting in the way of its attempts at signalling you to eat more...well, I guess it's just going to try and use another method at getting you to eat more than you might actually want.

This is all going by what I have read myself online. My knowledge is a bit scattered and scanty but I know that much AND I know, deep down, that yep, I could eat more; more than even my meal plan which I have, for a few weeks now, been sticking to religiously every day. The physical fullness isn't so bad that I feel I am going to be sick and unable to move if I do give into these cravings or mental hunger. Nope. I could eat more. My biggest concern of all is the fact that these cravings seem particularly geared towards what some people might term as not being "proper" foods - I would never get them for things like fish and meat and stuff like that, essentially, but for things like toast and chocolate and peanut butter and cereal drowned in hot milk - and just to clarify, I am currently eating alot of these foods and have not restricted them for some time. But yet despite that, I would find it really difficult to eat a good portion of chicken, say, or a generously filled sandwich at lunch. But at breakfast I feel as if I could just eat and eat and eat and this also applies to snack times when I eat these sort of foods; and then of course after dinner, when I want nothing more than my banana and lashings of hot fresh custard with heaps of my favourite chocolate.

Ok. Onto the meal plan. I'll talk more about that one tomorrow. But for now I just will continue on. Biting the bullet and biting into the food which I know is my medicine. I need every single scrap and calorie I can get. And the essays are the essays. Are they going to determine my future health and well-being? Are they going to be the ultimate decider between life and death; the thing that determines whether I will be able to attain a functioning, healthy body; or whether I will remain underweight, infertile, severely brittle-boned for the rest of my life; unable to work or socialise or even think clearly without any difficulty? Well, Em? Are you going to screw up everything because of an essay? Or are you going to bite the bullet and take the plunge and...save yourself?

It's me and only me...

who has the power to save myself.

Back to Basics...

The swallows flit across an lilac-peach sky.

The sunlight slants through a canopy of leaves the colour of candlelight.

Flowers fall and blossoms wilt. The branches of the slender-limbed hazel shudder gently in a chill breeze which cuts into the flesh like a knife.

The rowan and the hawthorn hold aloft their garlands of deep scarlet berries. Some of the berries lie crushed upon the face of the earth, shining wetly like droplets of fresh blood.

And though the whole world changed around me,
I still...
remained ...
the same.

It's been a while since I last wrote. Not out of choice, of course; I would never willingly just abandon my blog and cease my weekly writings. But that week two months ago, there was a sense of change in the air; hanging heavy like winter fog in front of my eyes.

And ahead of me, the new college term loomed ominously over my head like a threatening storm cloud upon a grey winter's day.

And so my Morokia notes were tenderly gathered up and put away in the depths of my wardrobe; whereas my various favourite "reading spots" - which ranged in location from the front seat of Mam's Nissan to the petal-strewn table at the rear end of the conservatory - became frequented, not with my dog-eared copies of the Wheel of Time, but with college books and endless piles of refill pad paper covered front to back in my messy, spidery handwriting. The beautiful, golden summer finally had come to an end.

And on a breezy morning in late September, I found myself standing before that familiar arch in Dublin City Centre, the wind tugging sharply at my long unadorned hair as I gazed upon the structure's stony regalness.

Back again. But I don't feel any different.

I'm still that little lost girl at the gates of Brigidine, watching all the people hurry past me, feeling; so hopelessly inadequate, stupid, inferior.

And as I walk these bustling halls and corridors, I have never felt quite so alone.

I sit in the classroom and listen to the chatter of the other students around me. But it feels to me as if I am perched upon the pinnacle of the most desolate, lonely mountain. A mountain from which I can clearly see the signs of human life below me. So close, but yet; so far.

The one companion that I know is here with me - who is waiting for me, at every corner which I turn - is Ed.

Ed was here the first day that I stepped through the Front Arch of Trinity. Ed's been here with me ever since. Sitting in a lecture hall, trying to study in the library; walking through the bustling arts block and trying to avoid every stranger's eyes. Ed is there with me, breathing down my neck. I can feel its hand upon my shoulder, turning me to where it wants me to go.

And this year, I know, is no different.



There are times when I want to be like those falling leaves...

To be blown away with the chill autumn wind, to float gently across windswept moor, to be swept into the surging river, to be carried away, forever...

But no. I know that that is my depression talking; that somewhere deep inside there is a little seed waiting for the light to shine upon it so it can grow. I need to realise that I am not a helpless case. I need to realise that I can nourish that seed, let it push itself upwards, and let it...blossom...

But how?
How do I do it??

Well. I guess it's back to basics...

To nourish myself. And to hell with getting upset about college work I cannot do. Normal reaction: I cry, I weep, I berate myself and label myself as an imbecile. And then? I don't eat properly. My head becomes clogged up with thoughts like I cannot eat that because I know I will just think and think about it excessively afterward and well you will be sitting in that lecture room for a good two hours..you must eat less to provide for that, Emmy. Cymbals, crashing in my head. What I would not give, for them to be silenced.

Ed. Yes. It's time I talked to you. I starved myself for the whole duration of my teenage years and beyond. Because of you, Ed. And now what do you do? You tell me that I need to keep on eating less. That your body no longer needs this food, because you reached a healthy weight, and -

I know it's me and only me who can fight this fight; who can defy and resist these endless, endless lies.

I know that I have to keep on fighting.

Stumbling blindly along this long and lonely road.

So I know that now I need to be open and honest and reach out for support to my loved ones and my readers. To stop avoiding the scales and face up to reality.

And to remind myself, once again...

of why I chose recovery; and why, I chose to fight.

And so this is exactly what I am going to do...

• Get back onto my meal plan, properly, with no little missed bits or exceptions.
• Check my weight once a week, no more, no less.
• Make goals and weekly challenges in my notebook as I know I still have many fears to conquer and disordered behaviours to overcome.
• Get involved with something not to do with college which I think I might enjoy..and which will enable me to meet and interact with other people..hard and scary but I know I need to get out of my comfort zone and I think too that it will help distract me from the anorexic thoughts.
• Be open and honest and seek help and support. 
• Help myself by weekly journalling and self-checks, and try to use some of the tools which I learnt in hospital, but since then have long since completely forgotten about. But it's past time to dig out those tattered sheets and put them to good use.

I know I have said this so many, many times, but...it is the ultimate truth.

Each one of us will only be given one body.

This is the one and only body we will ever ever have.

It's not like an object which you use once and then dispose of. It's not an item of clothing which can be crudely fixed if it has been broken or badly damaged. The body is resilient and will do all it can to keep you alive. But there's only so much that it can take. There's only so much restriction and deprivement of vital energy and nutrition. There's only so much overexercise and starvation and lack of essential vitamins and nutrients. Sostop putting off what you need to start doing today. Today we choose recovery. Because there might well be no tomorrow for us. Tomorrow might just be that bit too late. <3 xxx

The long and lonely mountain...

9 am, Thursday morning. My eyes skim over the two paragraphs of Morokia that I have just written; an excerpt which describes the feelings of my heroine Rachel as she watches her brother depart from Yuarentan Castle for one of his many sea voyages. At first, the feeling that tingles across my consciousness is one of real, pure pleasure. It is Morokia, my story, and bit by little bit it is getting written.

But then gradually, this feeling subsides, to be replaced by something quite different. My smile fades as I reread the paragraph again, my enthusiasm draining away like water leaking from a cracked glass. It reminds me of something; something, which is hurting. Twisting deep inside me like a dagger within my heart, embedding itself deeper and deeper.

For this paragraph reminds me...reminds me, of how alone, I really feel. And that transitory feeling of pleasure - stemming for my passion for Morokia, the story of that world and its characters which I myself created - also serves to remind me of how detached and separated I am from the real, human world. I am not a princess in a fairy tale. I am not in the same place as Rachel and Narcissus and Begonia, with their beautiful dresses and spirits of fire. They are brave and beautiful and noble; fighting for their freedom; their homes; for those that they love. I am not, and never will be, part of that world. A massive part of me wishes that I am, because this world, the world of the 21st century, feels like one in which I will never truly belong. And it is such a lonely, painful world. So painful it feels like I am lying on a bed of thorns. So lonely and so isolating, I might as well be standing upon the most desolate and barren mountain, a million miles away from any kind of human civilisation.

The hardest thing for me though is...I know, I have brought this on myself. Years and years of being sick with anorexia meant that I detached and distanced myself from my peers, particularly in my years at Trinity,when my eating disorder was as its worst. The old friends who I love are now moving on, moving away from me. And there is nothing I can do as I watch them spread their wings and fly; because I love them , love them with all my heart, and I want them to achieve their dreams, and be free. I cannot want them to think of me now; for why should they? They have their own lives, their own friends; jobs, boyfriends, a social life. They are free and they are happy. My heart feels like it could burst with happiness for them; while at the same time it feels like it could bbreak. For the pain of losing them; of watching them slowly and gradually begin to slip away from me.

If only I could reclaim everything which i have lost; ever since Ed entered my life, and began its never-ending game of all take and no give. Lost, and will never be able to retrieve. For I know, I will never be able to relive those years at trinity..years in which I should have spent socializing and trying out new things; meeting new people, making new friends, and, essentially, finding myself. Because that's how I feel, even though, having achieved so, so much with my recovery, I still feel defined by my eating disorder, because it laid its mark upon my life in ways which I feel will never truly be eradicated. Will I always be the lonely one? The one who is always on her own, cut off from all the others by those vast, fathomless gulfs of isolation? The shy, quiet girl, who can barely speak out of nervousness or anxiety when in the company of strangers; who feels so shy and awkward around boys, that she would purposely look away so they could not look at her in the eye? who spends so much of her time scanning her phone or her Facebook messages, hoping against hope that someone, anyone, has messaged her? Who spends so much of her time alone, burning the little candle of solitude?

I can only hope that things will change, for me. Change, in a way that means my life will change too, and that the sun will break through this suffocating fog of isolation; in which i seem so helplessly, futilely lost. But it seems like I have been waiting for this change for an eternity; waiting, and hoping, for such a long, long time. My road of recovery winds on and on, up and along that steep-sloped, towering mountain. A mountain which I know I must, and will, continue to climb. but upon which, no matter how high I ascend, I have never felt quite so alone.

and this is where I stand... xxx

Now believe it or not, THIS post was what I originally intended to write on Thursday - but then, as I was sitting there contemplating what to write, it occurred to me just how tricky beginning a piece of writing can really be, and that in turn led me to the reflection of how often, in human life, beginnings can be very, very hard. Especially in regard to recovery. So needless to say I ended up blogging about something completely different from what I initially I planned...but I guess that's all part of being a dreamy writer like myself ;)

So...before I go off on a complete tangent AGAIN. I wanted to tell you a little about where I am at, now. Five months have passed since I initially set out on a new journey, my battle against the relapse.

Firstly, in regard to weight gain. as i mentioned before, I am more or less weight restored now. Mam and I are both very much determined that I don't get too caught up in, or bogged down by, an exact number or particular "ideal" weight. What is an ideal weight, anyway? Why should I live my life in fear of that certain number, the "threshold" which I cannot cross? That voice in my head is telling me now that I cannot go beyond this certain weight. But I know..I need to find a place where I am at peace with my body, but at which my body is at its healthiest, the best it can be. And this number could be higher than that which Ed has set for me. I know, in my head, what this number, this limit, is. Its what I am at now: Ed screams at me that I cannot go any further.

Does a flower have a target height at which she ceases to grow? Will she stop at a certain limit; even though she has not gained her full strength? 

Physically, I am healthy. People might look at me now and see a girl who has recovered.

But I know my journey is far from over. I know, I still have many miles left to climb.

But just how am I going to do this? Well, I suppose now I need to take my own advice. To stay strong and positive, and believe that I can and will get there. And actively work on accepting my body and treating it right. I have made progress in this area already. I just need to keep this up now and work on every single one of my weak areas.

As regards to college...well, I got the results of the exams about two weeks ago. I looked at them, expecting , and prepared, to see a fail. A fail, because my second attempt at third year English in Trinity inevitably turned out to be as hard, as painful, and as exhausting as all the years which preceded it. I struggled. I relapsed. I faltered and didnt think I'd be able to go on. I was in as bad a state as I was, before I went into hospital last year. But then, something clicked deep inside me; and despite the terror and the pain, there was that little light. A little light which fed me strength, and courage, and hope. And suddenly little Emmy found that she did have the strength to stumble on.

I thought the recovery road had disintegrated into nothingness; that I had fallen from the wayside into a deep and bottomless pit from which there was no hope of  escape. But it was my strength which allowed me to pull myself out of that abyss. The hands of my loved ones were stretched out towards me, and this time I reached out to them, rather than let them slip away from me. I tore down the walls that I had built around myself: walls of isolation and loneliness and pain.

I realised that I had to make recovery my new priority. Doing so was extremely difficult: it went entirely against my nature, for this time to put myself first. Branding myself as lazy and selfish and greedy...that was my first, initial reaction, and I very nearly fell right back down again. I was so, so torn; and indeed, heartbroken. I just wanted to get through this course, and make my loved ones proud of me. But I knew, if I dedicated myself to recovery, and exposed myself to the pain and discomfort and anxiety that recovery inevitably involves - my studies would take a massive hit. I was already struggling as it was; but to face the distress and pain of weight gain, while attempting to study at university, was something which I knew This might sound strange to a non-ED person, or someone who does not know alot about anorexia. Weight gain? Sure thats easy, some might say. The reality, of course, is the entire opposite. My new mission to gain weight following my relapse was every bit as painful and every bit as difficult as all of the times in the past. But I knew, that this time, I could not let college get in the way of my attempt to free myself from the thing that was destroying me.

Always , always remember...

There will always be another chance:

Another chance to sit that exam.

another chance to get that university degree.

Another chance to get that new job, or that promotion.

But there will never ever be, for each and every one of us, 

another body; another heart,

another chance...at life.

So don't wait until tomorrow,

To make that change.

Act now, before it is too late.

The one, and only one, that I will ever, ever have...

This morning after breakfast saw me sitting at the table in front of my laptop screen once again, gloomily pushing my memory stick into the side of the computer with not the slightest degree of enthusiasm. The reason for that being, this particular memory stick was the one upon which I have saved my two 1500-2000 word essays due in roughly a week's time. Writing essays like this, or anything really to do with my college course, is something which, for me, more likeable to being tortured with hot pincers than having to compile a supposedly engaging and stimulating piece of writing; something which my fellow students in English would probably have no major difficulty in producing, at all. But that's not the case for me, of course. Because I am the girl who is different. I am the girl who is different from everybody else.

I scanned the various sentences and paragraphs upon the pages before me, and felt tears of frustration prickle my eyes. It's...crap...it doesn't make any sense. There is absolutely no chance that it is ever going to get past the pass mark. 

I had been sitting there for almost fifteen minutes now, and I had not written a single thing. My hands slowly began to tighten into fists; and a steady bludgeoning began to reverberate through my skull, resonating along every artery and every vein. My whole body became taut with tension, a tightly wrapped coil which has been stretched to its absolute limit. And then...then, there was the Voice.

I desperately tried to calm myself, forcing myself to breathe deeply and slowly through my nose, straightening my spine in my chair; pushing back my hair from my face in an attempt to cool down my flushed, hot cheeks. It was a mammoth effort. Like trying to push an elephant up a mountain; like scrabbling, in futile desperation, for the coin that has slipped from your fingers to tinkle away down the dark, greasy plughole. That's how it feels like for me, sitting there, trying to write my third year English essays. The words, the sentences, the arguments that I want to make, come floating towards me like wispy, paper-thin clouds, so close I could almost reach out and grasp them; but then, they always, always slip away. Leaving me fumbling around in the emptiness, groping desperately from the words that are there, so close to me, but always, always just out of my reach. 

And this is what I know is proving to be such a massive, enormous, soul-destroying struggle for me. Trying, struggling so desperately to get through my college degree, pushing and pushing relentlessly until my head feels like it is going to split open and my whole body cries out with the fatigue and the pain of knowing that it is not, and never will be, ever enough. This is my second attempt at third year English Studies at Trinity, and I know all too well, that this course was not and never will be made for me. And it is a struggle. Every single day. There is no escape from the shame, the razor-sharp pain of regret which cuts into you like a knife, embedding itself into your very soul, like a thorn which has wedged itself into your foot. knowing that I chose to take the wrong path, the wrong course. It presses down on me every day, making me feel stupid and useless and selfish, naive and pathetic and deplorable.  with the workload I receive every week, and never, ever get done. And then there are the essays...

Unfortunately for me, the return to college last September was one of the most significant factors in triggering my relapse. I have spoken before about how, in going back, it suddenly hit me hard just how far I really was from real recovery; and how deeply and hopelessly entrenched I still was, in my eating disorder. I had tried to kid myself into thinking that I was ready to go back to studying at a third level institution again; that things would be better, this time. And the fear of the hospitalisation would keep me safe from Ed. But I was wrong. so very, very wrong.

It wasn;t long before I found myself in an all too familiar situation. Crying my eyes over a blank laptop screen, as I fumbled desperately through the empty recesses of my brain; clawing for the right words, the right sentences, hating myself with all of my heart and soul, branding myself as useless, an ineptitude, the dumbest and most stupid person on earth, for not being able to compose what my fellow English students, no doubt, would have produced as effortlessly and as easily as water passes under a bridge. but I was wholly incapable of that. The Voice in my head seemed to have taken over me: it had became so loud, so persistent, so deafening. There was no escape from its cruel dictations; no hiding from the malignity of its penetrating gaze. It knew all my weak spots and vulnerabilities; and took great pleasure in exploiting them. And before I knew it, the restriction had began in earnest again. A skipped lunch or a conveniently forgotten breakfast; a polite shake of the head on being offered a free biscuit by my lecturer who always had them in her classroom. Ed, as it had once before, had become my coping mechanism.

What choice do I have? I would silently weep into my pillow at night when everyone else was asleep; when there was no chance that the stifled sounds of my sobbing could be heard by any living soul. I clutched the lifeless forms of Ducky and Peter Penguin to my shuddering body, sprinkling their soft fur with the moisture of my tears. There's...there's no way out of this. If I choose not to eat the Voice is satisfied; the storm in my head is silenced. But deep inside it's like my heart is breaking; the guilt is tearing me apart; and then, there is the hunger...just...so...empty. But then, if I choose to eat. My head...exploding. The storm raging...I can't focus, I can't do anything. There's no way on this earth I could write a 5000 word essay, like this...can't...escape...the storm in my head...

But that all changed that day two weeks ago now, when I promised Mam that I would never let her down again; that, from that day onwards, there would be no more lies, no more deceit, no more secrecy. That I would give everything to my recovery; and that, no matter how . But before I made that promise, I had grasped her strong brown hand and had whispered to her that I couldn't do it. Im going to fail college, Mam. I cant recover and study at the same time. I cant let you down mam..But I cant waste anymore of your money.

I felt so torn then, at that moment. so lost, so broken, so afraid.

but, like she had done so many, many times before, ever since I was a little girl, Mam was there for me to hold my hand in her strong, warm one. And to gently and firmly turn me onto the right path. So I knew, exactly then, what it was I had to do, and where I had to go.

The road to recovery...

One day, we will make it there, together. <3 xxx

But I guess, since that day, I now realise what is truly important, in this life.
recovery should be, for each and every single one of us, something which should be made our top priority. For, think about it this way...

There will always be another chance in life, to go back to college or take up that degree.
There will always be another job. Another degree, another place at university.

But we only have one body.

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

Looking around me now...I guess I've been in this place before.

Regrets. Ok, I guess everyone has them. Some, more than others.

for me though, it feels as if, at times, that my regrets number more than my mermories, my joys, my thoughts themselves. So many ifs and buts and whys. So many tears, so much pain, and agony, and sorrow. And that aching, hollow emptiness clawing deep within my heart, it refuses to go away, and is with me, every day, as I look back on my life so far, and think about all the mistakes I have made.

If only I didn't go back to Trinity...
If only I had taken my loved ones advice...
If only I could be that high achiever that I used to be. But now, I'm just a nobody. Now, I have absolutely nothing.

If only I had nourished my body properly, over the past 9 years...9 years of starving and hurting my body...and now I have the skeleton of an old woman...

                                          And that was the year...the year when it all began...

If only I had got help sooner.
If only I had not surrendered to ED's embrace, that day when it first ame into my life, all those years ago. :'(

It's true. I realise now, that this September, I did make a massive mistake, again. I chose to go back to Trinity. The option of taking another year off-books was there for me: so too, of course, was the option of never going back altogether. Once again, however, I let the Voice get the better of me...my inner critical voice. You should go back. You are a failure if you do not. It would be lazy and wrong to take another year out. Go back to coll. What else is there for you? I have to be a Trinity graduate. I have to. I won't go back on myself. I must. I should I have to - 

College comes before recovery.

because deep down, I knew I was not ready, I knew that I was far, far from recovered. I knew that ED was still part of me; I knew that I was not, after all my struggling, free from the Voice in my Head.

Conversation between me and Ed yesterday.

I need to do this reading now...but first, I must eat my snack...
Don't you dare eat your snack. You dont need it. I mean, look at your stomach, its bloated and full. You only had breakfast two hours ago...you don't need to eat now, at all.
No..I must stick to my meal plan. Leave me alone...
No...you can't eat it...give it an hour and then see...you have to feel hungry to eat...
No...no...no...I need to eat this...I need to do my reading, Please, for Gods sake, just leave me alone.
I won't ever leave you Em. I am part of you and you are part of me.

The result of this dialogue?

Once again, I just sat there for an hour, book open before me, the words as meaningless and as incomprehensible to me as they would be in they be if they were inscribed in Arabic numerals.

And sitting in that library, surrounded by the silent forms of the other students engrossed in their , I felt that horrible, queasy sense of deja vú settle in my stomach. Because looking around me now, I know, I've been in this place before.

Feeling like the dumb, stupid, useless girl.

A little girl lost in a huge, massive, uncaring world.

It's true. Once again, it seems as if I have made a complete and utter mess of college.

But if I can't do college, if I can't pass my degree, if it turns out that I am destined to be the girl who failed.

At least I can say that I tried.
And that if I can't do college, if I can't pass my degree...
 At least I can succeed in my recovery, find the real Emmy.Become the person I want to be, and destroy those feelings of failure, of self-doubt and self-hatred, destroy the Voice which is trying to pull me down, and destroy me.

Only one of us can win this battle.
It's either going to be me, or the Voice.

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

The Girl who was Left Behind.

In my previous post from two days ago (The Child of my ED), I talked alot about my ED type immaturity, and mentioned that there was something else on Saturday, a so-called inner demon of mine, I guess; which caused me so much sadness and pain that night. It is at times like that night when I realise just how real these "demons" of mine are, how palpable an influence they hold over me. The other one is something which has probably been with me for the same duration of time as the immaturity, and has had the same kind of negative effect on me. This thing being, my own sense of inferiority.

For as long as I can remember, I have compared myself to other people around me and believed that next to them, I am more or less a nobody. I created an imaginary gap between myself and my peers, a gap over which I would never be able to cross; or even, reach over.

Like the majority of my problems, so it seems, this all seemed to evolve from my early days at secondary school. On that fatal first day when I first put on the cream-coloured blouse and green skirt of the convent school where it all began, I was a changed girl, in many respects. The difference between me and the girls around me was painfully obvious in my eyes. I was desperate, so desperate to make myself fit in, become one of them, to reduce this awful crippling sense of inferiority; a feeling that up to that point in my life had been alien to me; for in my primary school years, I was the confident, bubbly, smiling girl with limitless amounts of energy and rosy glowing cheeks, who did not, at any point, stop and contemplate about just how much better every one else was than herself. I felt equal, respected, and so, so perfectly content. But of course, this idyllic sense of tranquility was never going to last, and last it did not.

I didn't want to leave the happy, innocent little world of my childhood. But growing up is a cruel, cruel thing.

I did everything, everything I could possibly think of, to integrate myself into the new, unfamiliar, and undeniably frightening new world in which I now found myself, lost and alone and afraid, trying desperately not to drown. It was all I could do, to merely keep my head abbove the water, to stay afloat.

I rolled up my skirt at the waist so that it hung above the knee, even though I wasn't even really that sure why I was exactly doing this, at first: but all the other girls did it, so it didn't really matter if the meaning behind such an action was not clear at the present time: all I had to do was mimic them without question, and then, I believed, I would be that one tiny bit less inferior. I abandoned my childhood stories of animals and adventures which I had been working diligently on throughout the summer; projects which at one time had given me so much joy and pleasure. But, once that golden, glorious summer ended and my time at secondary school began, I forsook them entirely, terrified that such a hobby was plain babyish. I resolved to study as hard as I possibly could, anxious to achieve high grades and not become a class clown; desperate to make myself become more than the boring, ugly, stupid girl which I saw myself as being. Who I thought, that surely everyone esle was going to see me as, too, if I did not make some sort of radical change. And then...another thought, a seemingly so innocent, wonderfully simple, uncomplicated little thought came to me. How about if...if I made myself thinner? Then, perhaps, I would feel less inferior? If I replaced what I regarded as being my dumpy, unattractive, plump figure with one which was slim and toned and slender. Which was beautiful.

My eating disorder beckoned with a hand which was as inviting and as shiny as silver. Just as shiny, and just as cold. But I took that hand, and hence allowed anorexia to lead me along a path which appeared, at first, so smooth and shiny and oh, so perfect. But in reality, of course, that golden path soon became strewn with thorns which tore at my skin and left me bleeding. The world moved on, the friends and acquaintances I knew in school matured and grew and shone like stars. But I was the girl who got left behind, trapped on a road strewn with thorns and pain and tears.

When I left school and started my new life at Trinity, things did not improve, of course. If anything it got worse.

And now, I am haunted by this sense of worthlessness, inadequacy, inferiority. For example, on the very brief night out I had at the weekend, I was too deeply immersed in the depths of my own self-criticism to even begin to enjoy myself. And there was a boundary there, an invisible boundary which noone else could or would ever be able to perceive. In a way it feels as if I am in an entirely different world; trapped, isolated and alone, in a desolate, hostile universe of my own making.

It is so hard, so hard to even try to put my finger on it; to describe the way I feel. I suppose...it is as if the girl who is me, the girl who is Emmy, it is almost as if she should have been born in a different world, in a different time, in a different place. I probably should have come into being in an age when women and girls did not have the independence and the equality that they have now: as I am simply useless at taking advantage of those two things, for one thing. I am unable to make my own decisions - the Trinity one still hangs above my head, undecided and unresolved - and as for independence, well, its virtually non-existent; all because of myself. There is such an enormous difference, between me and other young women of my own age. My personality, my mindset, the way I think and feel about myself, the way I look, the way I live my life...it probably would have been more suited to a world like that protrayed in my beloved Morokia, or maybe even, that of Arthur Ransom's Swallows and Amazons, with the children playing innocently on boats and builidng fires and tents in the woods. A simple, tranquil, innocent world.

If only I could bridge that gap, that gap I have made for myself, from all those around me. But I - nno one else, just I, by myself -  have widened and deepened that gap so severely over the years. And I fear that I am too afraid to make that leap.