Finding my own Way

And as the night creeped in like a stalking leopard, so too did the familiar feelings of uncertainty. The claws of doubt raking through my mind, the sharp-toothed fear biting deep into my spine. The jagged self-disgust opening wounds that everyone else thought long since healed; the burning anxiety, roaring like a savage beast, terrible and formidable, in the shadowed recesses of the night.

That anxiety throbs perceptibly, a beating pulse of its own. Every feeling, every thought in my head gradually leads straught back to it, as if they are all connected by a complex channel of veins.

And this is how I feel every day and every night: the constant anxiety, sweeping in like a wave; advancing grimly like the hingry predator, ready to take and kill and destroy. And then all I've ever achieved seems as insignificant and intagible as dust motes blown across the barren desert.

I feel like I have hit a brick wall, a brick wall across the recovery path. It does not appear crossable, while at the same time there are minute cracks. Minute cracks that permit me the barest glimpse of the shimmering idyll lying beyond.

And I can't help but feel that there should be a way across this wall. But I can't help but feel immobolised by my society's definition of what is beautiful in a woman. Slender, tall, and usually done up with layers of makeup which completely change the natural look of a woman's face.  Being less than 5ft 1 and never having as much skill as far as make up applying is concerned, I never felt as if I stood that much of a chance. But I used to be thin. Used to be. But now I am not. And now I feel as if that small, barely significant claim I once had to being even a little bit pretty has been taken away.

But now, as I stand staring wistfully at this wall, I realise that there is something that I could do, right now, which could well enable me to traverse its steep side.

That being, to just start following my own heart, my gut instinct, about what is right for me. After all, no one knows myself as well as one single person: that being, I.

It's time for me to stop trying to fit in to other people's model of recovery.
Those who just see recovery as a simple restoration of weight. This hit me hard when I was talking to Mam the other day. Having refrained from telling her my true feelings for a while, I endeavoured to explain to her the swinging ambivalence upon which I find myself precariously balancing: one minute, feeling ok about my body, and the next minute, full of disgust and self-loathing, adamantly affirming to myself that I am fat and longing with an incensed passion for the "good old days" when I was thin and emaciated.

She had shook her head and told me that she thought I had long since "gotten over that".
I wanted to cry. But I didn't because this merely confirmed what I had already expected. In the eyes of many, I am the "recovered girl". Noone sees or knows the struggle that continues to ensue between I and anorexia.

But there are those in which I have found understanding.

And through that understanding I have began to mold my own vision of what is a recovered Emmy. And that is what I am aiming for now. The perceptions of the others who do not understand, I must learn to pass me by.

For whereas I used to see such judgments as having the strength of those rearing, monstrous waves that have the power and the ferocity to drag me into the sea, I now realise that I was wrong. I now realize that they are more like gentle, curling breakers. Breakers that swirl and rush about my feet, but which do not possess the power to knock me straight over. They do not have the power to drown me.

I just need to stand and hold my ground, in these shifting sands.

My recovery should be about...

What is right and healthy for me.

Me. And this might not necessarily fit in with the perceptions of other people. How could it possibly do so; when those perceptions are in themselves flawed - they are uninformed, inaccurate; shaped by common societal ideals instead of  proven research about real recovery - in both its physical and mental aspects. Rather then perceptions, they are misconceptions - misconceptions about what recovery from anorexia really looks like.

And it shouldn't all just be about how it looks.
Rather, it should be how it feels. How it feels, deep down, inside.

The Fairytale

Beautiful. Oh, so beautiful. That is what the life Ihave led for the past eight months, has been like.

Ever since I left university, really. Ever since that day when I sat that last exam. It was upon that day when I felt the yoke of stress and pressure being lifted from my shoulders - a pressure born entirely out of my fears of failure, and not being good enough - to be replaced by a freedom like nothing I had ever felt before. A freedom so sweet, I wanted to draw and draw on it, like the bee sipping on the lily's delectable nectar. It flowed along every channel of my veins, filling me with a new vitality, a new energy that I had never felt ever before. And this marked for me the beginning of a what could only be described as a sort of fairytale.

Because what happened since that day allowed my life path to take on a sort of fairytale like quality. First off there was this freedom. I was enabled to do the things that I had been unable to do for what felt like a lifetime. I was able to relax again, to do the things I loved again, to laugh and know that my eyes were shining with true and unfeigned joy, unlike before. And then there were the things that happened; the experiences I had. There was Barcelona and the adventures that unfolded for me there. There was the summer at home afterwards, in which I indulged in the sweetness of that freedom and the knowledge that I had overcome my greatest fears in leaving to work abroad. There was going away with my best friend and knowing what it felt like to have a proper girly holiday, no strings attached. I can still feel the buzz of our excitement that first day, still hear the sound of our laughter floating gaily into the slate-grey skies above Scotland.



There was that unforgettable, surreal day when I received my exam results, and realised that I had achieved the degree which I had lost blood and sweat and tears over, for five long and grueling years. And then there was October, upon a damp and seemingly non-descript Thursday, when the rain filled the gaps between the cobbles of Trinity and the cherry blossoms seemed to droop with the weight of the water pressing down upon their leaves. It was upon that day that something happened to me. It was upon that day that a girl fell in love.

From then on the fairytale continued, unfolding and unraveling itself to uncover moments so infinitely beautiful and sublime, that they, truly truly, did not seem real; rather, they seemed totally surreal, even magical. It was just like I had stepped right into the world of my own creation - Morokia; a place where goodness and beauty still prevailed; and in which persistence and bravery, in the face of relentless struggles and suffering, would in the end be rewarded in the most unexpected and beautiful of ways. But most of all, in Morokia existed something I believed for me did not exist in my own world. That being love; for ever since I became ill all those years ago, every part of me believed that there would never come a day when I would meet the one.

Because that one did not exist, I believed. How cpuld anyone ever fall in love with a girl like me - with my history, my past, and my current and ongoing relationship with my clinging, deadly nemesis?

But that's where I was wrong.



However, following a heated discussion yesterday at home, the joy I experienced in such intensity only a few days ago has now rapidly disintegrated into tight, icy fear. Its fingers claw into my brain, scratching and writhing, alongside the words that were exchanged yesterday.

 You need to get a job, Emmy. Not just a short term thing like Lapland, or Barcelona. A real job. You know you can't stay here forever, don't you..?

It feels like...it feels like the fairytale is reaching its end. But that's the thing, of course; life was never meant to be a fairytale in the first place. I just stupidly, so stupidly allowed myself to unconsciously fall into the illusion that it could be like one. And now I feel more afraid than ever before. As afraid as I felt when I stared down the page at those dreaded essay titles. As scared as I felt when I sat in the exam hall and waited for the superintendent to give the signal to open the booklet lying before me on the desk.

I don't want to leave. I dont want this life to end. I dont want to leave behind those I love and care for. No, I don't want the fairytale to end.

But now it seems so fragile, so delicate. That any minute now it will fall and shatter spectacularly into a hundred million jagged, broken fragments.

And it shames me to write these words but to deny it would cause me more shame as I know full well that this is true.

That no, I don't want the fairytale to end. But I know that it has to. I know that somehow I need to learn to survive in a place much scarier than that of the darkened woods or the perilous mountains of the fairytale. Monsters may loom there but they're tangible and can be beaten back with a sword. But the monster in one's head is a different thing. The monster in the head is a more difficult thing to kill.

I am doing well. I am doing more well than I ever have before. But will I be able to keep up the fight when the fairytale ends?

But it is not that fact which upsets me the most; which makes me want to cry into my pillow, which makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide myself away from the world's judging, critical eyes. It is the fact that, unless I find something here, I might have to leave, properly leave, for good, this time. And, in doing so, leave behind all those who I love.💔

And suddenly the road ahead appeard so bleak and frightening...😢

No More Tears

And once again I drifted off topic, a tendency which I always seem to succumb to when blogging, I do apologise for that. 💗

What I really wanted to reflect upon in my last post (and ermm...well, that post before that originally, too, actually) was the factors which played a role in my transition from relapse to recovery once again. Because it's true to say that I was trapped, that I felt like I was drowning. That the world was moving on, without me, hurrying along in its usual bustling, breathless pace, one which I could not keep up with if I tried.

Better to stay where I was, enmeshed within that enormous hole that ED had dug for me. He then coaxed me into it and left me there for dead. Just like he always does, and has done in the past. Countless times of tripping and falling, tripping and falling. And I remember thinking last year, When I was back at Trinity and sitting in a lecture. The words cast upon the board glowed luminously in the sickly fluorescent light, but I could only stare at them, seeing nothing and understanding even less. What was she talking about...? American Noir Fiction, of course. Focus, Emmy, focus. But no sooner had I weakly attempted to fix my brain on a certain point, that very point seemed to collapse, to disintegrate into nothingness. Leaving me suspended again, forever floating in an endless, deathly void.

Is this really it?
Is this really all life has to offer me?

I was so exhausted of it all.

The endless sways of failed recovery, and then relapse. The rows with mam over how I'd lost weight; over how I never changed anything, despite all my claims that Iwas trying so hard to get better. All those bitter words and accusations which cut me right to to the bone. The feelings of worthlessness, utter uselessness, and above all, the guilt. Guilt over being the failure daughter, guilt over being the cause of so much discord and unhappiness.

And there was a point when I very almost gave up; gave up this long and lonely fight which I had been engaged in for so long, I could not remember what it really felt like; to be able to lay down my weapons.

But something changed that month that enabled me to turn things around. To pick up my weapons once again and grasp their handles with renewed vigour and strength. To ignite the few sparks of defieance shooting upwards in my breast, causing them to amplify into palpable, red-hot flames.

Ed, this is war..

Fly free, Emmy.

It's time for you to fly free.

Janauary/February, 2017.

It wasn't just by chance that the tiny spark was initially kindled. A few things happened, looking back at it now, which caused that flame to take light. It's fairly possible that I'm forgetting something here, but these are the reasons that stick out in my mind. And the first is the one which is very much still of relevance to me now: the fact that, at that time of the year when goals are made and potential changes are recognised, it was long, long past time for me to change and change for good. Or to let this year be the same once again, spent in ED's arms. Arms which cling and fondle and grope in all the wrong places. Arms which pinch and won't let go when you struggle to break away.

It's a deadly embrace; more so more because it is so seductive. You're seduced as well as repulsed and horrified, but because of that seduction it's so hard to pull yourself away from it. Like a reluctant lover trying weakly to withdraw from the bed. So much of you is screaming in defiance, telling you to remain where you are, to not move. It's easy and more pleasurable if you stay right here with me, Emmy.

But we all know that courting ED is a act that might bring one benefits, for a certain time, anyway. But then the marks of abuse begin to show.

For too long had I subjected myself to that abuse without fight. Right until that day in May almost four years ago. And since then I had fought back, but looking back now I know it was not with every fibre of my heart and soul and mind. I want that to be my new goal for 2018. To give my recovery every single thing I have got. 

I want to be a changed girl in 2018...

The closest I ever got to being "healthy".

And another moment of  beauty came to me, drifted timidly into my line of vision as if it were nothing of consequence. But yet despite its modesty I was transfixed, in both the eyes and the heart. Last night, following a spell of heavy rain, the temperature had dropped below freezing, meaning that the bog was like something of a frozen sponge, still soft and swampy but yet with thin sheets of ice lining the ground. And, on every quivering branch and twig of the dew-laden trees, suspended droplets of frozen rainwater; hanging like glassy tears poised on the rim of an eyelid. It was as if the trees had donned their own jewellery in order to honour the beauty of this crystal clear morning.

And, as I have been inclined to do of late, it seems, I found myself pausing to gaze upon the delicate beauty of this scene; and, in doing so, reflect upon the ways in which an indiscernible similarity could be made with my own life path. And it came to me almost instantly: No more tears, Em. It was time to let my sadness, my melancholy go. Not to force it out; or to hold back the tears if, for whatever treason, they come - as for all we know, that never works - but to actively work on it, to make a conscious effort to drive those clouds away, and work on being positive, more confident. To foster belief in myself that I am able to do this, and to let go of all the fears and anxieties that, for so long, have held me back, kept me hanging in the same place, much like the frozen raindrops on the branches.

So here's what I'm going to let go in moving forward, in this brand new year, of hope and promise and change.

Let go of the fear of eating too much, because I know, all to well, I still need to gain a bit more weight.
Let go of the fear of the stomach distension. It's normal and expected in recovery and will only get better if I don't restrict and keep on eating well.
Let go of the belief that it's "okay" that I'm still technically a bit underweight. A bit underweight is not good enough for someone who has had anorexia for as long as I have. My body is too fragile to be eternally locked in a state of even slight malnutrition. No. It's time to say goodbye to that part of me that says I have to be "skinny Emmy" for eternity. I know now what is best for my body and I am going to take active measures in order to achieve it.💕

Beautiful horizons... xxx

So long since I last wrote, here on my beloved blog. The blog which has always been more than a blog; more like something of a place of refuge and sanctuary, a place in which I could open the concealed door to my heart and lay bare all my heavy and crippling secrets.

 But the past couple of months passed me by in a swift, streaking blur, seeming to move through the sphere of my existence like a meteorite hurtling at lightning speed through a frozen winter sky. And what a meteorite it was.  It blazed  bright before my eyes like a fragment of molten rock chipped off from the surface of the sun, a rock which had been to be cast by some giant hand towards the earth, and which, on having reached its final destination, had lost not a fraction of its sublimity.

It was vibrant and it was beautiful. But it was also frightening in its intensity.

For me, that was what the latter part of 2017 has been really like. There have been some incredible, unforgettable moments. Moments of such beauty that to look back at them brings happy tears of gratitude to my eyes. There was fear there too and there was uncertainty, but these were intricately balanced by a sense of renewal and change.

For a changed girl I have become. And not only just changed, but changing.

I am writing to you from my shared accomodation in the heart of Finnish Lapland. Yes, I actually got here; and I'm not going to lie by saying that it has been easy.

For by god it has been hard.

The first week I spent here was one of the toughest of my life. It's been a totally and wholly different experience to Barcelona; and one which I would like to talk about in detail very shortly. But today I actaually can hold my head up and say I feel proud. Proud for being brave enough to come out here and once again face the most malignant of all my demons. Because ED wanted to come for the ride, of course. As he always does. I got on that plane and ED was right beside me in the next passenger seat. He was furious. What the hell do you think you are doing? So you think you are strong enough for this, do you? You pathetic girl. I am going to make your life a misery. Of course, the main reason why ED had such a bee in his bonnet, was because he knew that here I would be removed from all familiarity. And one thing ED doesn't like is a change in routine. He likes to know exactly what he is going to do and how he is going to do it.

And I had no clue as to what was going to by lying in wait for us in this frozen, snow-shrouded landscape. No idea as to what the food would be like, what sort of lifestyle I was going to lead there, for the four weeks of my contract with a winter holiday tour specialist here in Finland.

No idea as to whether Id be able to do any sort of exercise, whether I would be able to eat the foods that I usually did eat - or the controlled amounts that I would usually choose to have, back at home - and ED hadnt a clue either. And so you can imagine as to why he was kicking up such a fuss.

But here I am now and one thing I can say is that I am beating back ED. I am coping - more than coping. Im doing well.

There's so much more I want to write on here, but I'll try to all space it out over the course of the next few days so my posts dont get too long.

But one thing I want to say is..I am so happy to be alive. I realise now that it really was worth all the struggles. All the tears I cried and the pain that was so strong, it almost seemed like my heart had been cracked in two. All the anxiety that I put myself through, all the hardship, and all the times that my spirit was nearly broken. So many times were my hopes reduced to nothing more than pieces of chipped, shattered glass; but with each and every time I picked the m up again and doggedly pieced them back together. I suppose that is what got me this far, all along. No matter how many times the little candle flickered and nearly went out, I did not let it die. Instead I nursed it tenderly, no matter how hard the cruel raw wind tore at the  little flame.

And I can sense that change in the air around me now, like the delicate scents of the budding garden in mid spring, when new life springs forth and soft blossoms adorn the swaying branches of the rustling trees.

And with my heart overflowing with hope like sweet water splashing out from a crystal fountain, I look toward the horizon now and think about how beautiful it is. And realise that mine can be just like that too. 💛

A beautiful future could well await me, and I think now I have everything I need to make it so. 💚

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.

The Final Autumn.

How I have always loved this time of year.

Walking in the forest through carpets of leaves; carpets which are richer and more breathtakingly beautiful than anything ever devised by the human hand. A treasure trove of natural, unspoiled beauty; ripened and matured like a perfect mellow peach fruit in high summer.  Coppery leaves interspersed with gold. Blood red berries and primrose yellow needles upon every sprig of the larch tree. Autumn swirls around like a twirling dancer, bringing vibrance and colour to everywhere she touches.

But she's a different dancer to Spring. Spring lingers to gently nourish her craft, to tend the delicate buds and make them open, to caress the dew-soaked ground in order to make the sweet new flowers grow. Autumn, though, does not pause for a breath. She breezes through those woods to the tune of the winds that she makes blow, winds which are no longer warm and raise a goosebump upon unprotected skin, or which make the scraggly flowers that remain upon the ground shiver and curl further in on themselves, as if striving to protect those petals that remain. Delicate. Oh so delicate, like me. Like the flowers I watch and wait for the inevitable. The transition which is long awaited and dreaded at the same time.

By and by the last leaf will drop; branches, once so bountifully adorned, will be bare and skeletal, clawing a clay-coloured sky with their bony, outstretched fingers. The rich copper carpet will become brown and dull, littered with tiny, broken flower petals and stems. The Change had to come. It was already here. And now Winter has solidified that change, meaning that what was once so beautiful and sweet, is now gone.

And now that is how I feel now as I prepare for the Inevitable Change.

For what was beautiful and sweet to me will now soon be gone. The life at home which I loved; the life at home, which I knew one day must end.

But maybe this is for the best.
I knew that, one day, I would have to leave my beautiful, sweet home.
The home where the conifers grow closely together, their branches forming a tunnel of jade-green branches.
The home where the ebony blackbirds call their sweet songs.
The home where the leaves of the maple tree fall and grow. Grow and fall, in an endless cycle of change.

And for so long, this was me.

I'd grow a little, but every time I'd always fall down.
Over and over and over again I'd repeat this endless cycle.


Home. The home that I loved. But it was here where I did something wrong.

For home is exactly where, for years,
Instead of noursihing my body and allowing myself to grow,

I nourished and sustained a monster.

I've made my decision, for now.

I'm going to go to Shropshire in February. I'm going to go there with an open heart and an open mind because I know - deep down- that there's a good chance that this is going to be a job I love. And if I get there and find I'm really struggling, then I can always come back home. At this point in my recovery, I know myself well enough by now to be able to tell when I'm relapsing.

I've also decided that I'm going to seek therapy once I've started earning. Last night I googled therapists in the nearest big town where I will be based (Shrewsbury). I was pleasantly surprised at the availability of counselors in the area there. And I felt an unfamiliar sense of power and control. To know that once I was there I would be taking steps to tackle ED right where he stands. To know that this time, I would not be alone, and would be given further tools to help me win this fight.

But, even until then, I know that it is imperative that I give this battle every single thing that I have.

I've got a few ideas about how I'm going to do this...

• Talk to Mam about how I'm trying to gain a bit more weight, because I know then she will help me and give me a boost of support when I need it.
• As of yesterday I started my beautiful new recovery journal, which I am going to set aside a designated time each day to write in. Opening up the brand new hardback yesterday to examine page upon page of unblemished, unmarked whiteness gave me a refreshing sense of renewal. It seemed to signal the beginning of something new; the rekindling of renewed motivation. With a few things. Motivation to gain weight and motivation to recover. To get myself fully and completely back on track. And to have courage and be more positive, and fight the depression as hard as I am going to tackle ED.
• And of course..I am going to blog a bit more regularly and write out all my thoughts, goals and endeavours on here (regardless of whether they're successful or not.) Hearing from my readers has always been a source of enormous help and comfort to me. I can't even begin to thank you enough for all the comments over the past few weeks. You might not think that they were of any great significance, but I can honestly say that your comments and support mean the whole world and have got me where Im standing today. <3 
• I also am going to try out some other forms of self-help, namely meditation, which I have never properly done before and really want to try out for myself, and also reading recovery-focused self-help books. I've a list of a few which I really want to try out. I'll make sure to post my thoughts about them on here about each one.

So now I have to look forwards, beyond the winter, beyond the cold and icy pain.

Because beyond the pain and sorrow at having to leave my home behind, I know that there is a new chance, of a new and beautiful beginning. A chance to find myself in a new place. A chance to grow. Like the tiny flowers laid down by the winter's cold, I know that I can grow upwards. I just need to seek out the sunlight, let it pour over me, allow myself to be strong and whole.

And like the darting swallows that return every Spring, I know that I will come back here. The good bye need not be forever.

But I have to give this new seed a chance. A chance to grow, and blossom.

The Hunger for More...

And so, it's back, again. Back again like a fluttering moth, one that refuses to go away, no matter how many times you flap your hands in a vain attempt to ward it off. Ignoring it doesn't help, either. But you don't want to hurt it because it's not there to harm you, exactly. It's not like a wasp with its malicious sting, or a blood-sucking fly which wishes to prey upon your blood. Both of those insects make me think of Ed: remorseless, predatory, parasitical. But this moth is slightly different. My old friend, the "extreme hunger". I groan and sigh and bemoan its presence in my life, once again. But yet I cannot condemn it. Because I know that it's there for a reason.

Since coming back from Mas Banyeres, the extreme hunger also returned, and in force. It was with some gloom that I duly acknowledged its presence, having naively assumed that Barcelona had seen the end of it: that niggling, yearning desire for more and more, even when I'd eaten enough to be physically stuffed. It's something I only really get in the mornings, but this is a fact that I have quickly started to hate, and deplore as much as its actual existence. Because the mornings are the one time when I like to write Morokia. Since coming home, I've barely written anything. And one of the main reasons for that is the fact that in the mornings the EH is proving slightly more than a bit of a distraction.

Take this morning for example.I woke up and then about half an hour later I had sat down to breakfast. The bowl of weetabix was quickly consumed, followed by a slice of toast and a load of peanut butter. After a portion of cheese I decided that it was time to stop and try to write for a while. Give me the next item, please, the hungry voice screamed in desperation, already eyeing the next food on the list which hangs in my mind every day, the all-too-familiar meal plan. Half a toasted bagel with seeds and spread, and then a soft boiled egg or some baked beans. No, I shouted back at it, in frustration. Just wait a couple of hours, darn you!! I want to write, I don't want to spend all of my wriitng time just eating....!!

About half an hour later - and with one sole measly paragraph done - I finally gave in, and ate. And was very quickly not just full, with food, but with self-disgust and and self-hatred, as perusual.

At the fact that I couldn't hold out and wait until everyone else ate, as a normal person would, insert quotation marks here, as that's what the voice in my head says in my brain. Not to mention at the bloating of my stomach afterward.



In Spain, the EH was still there, though, of course. Just not as sharply prominent; or rather, I was more effectively able to ignore, even defy, it. In the mornings I gladly thrust myself into jobs and tasks which would divert me from it. I did not eat as much there as I do at home at breakfast. And weirdly, by doing so, it was almost as if the EH was suppressed. Whatever the case, I was not eating as much, and didn't experience any cravings to do so, either. But now I am back home, on my meal plan again, and now this. What's going on?? How do I respond to these cravings and mental hunger?

No point trying to deny it, there's a hunger...for more.

But also there is a different sort of hunger. A hunger, a desperate need, to defeat ED once and for all.

So does that mean giving into the extreme hunger...and actually, really doing it, this time. Not just eating that wee bit extra, but actually making a conscious, concrete effort to increase amounts throughout the day.

But there's so many challenges and obstacles preventing me from doing this. People's comments spin in orbit around my head. You look well, Emmy. You look the picture of health. You look so much better now. And then, last year, one evening in my library, the stranger there. What chubby cheeks you have. That one still lingers in my memory, slowly twirling on a sharply pointed axle.

My heart's telling me I should try to gain a little more weight, to go beyond this...minimum. But doing that is so, so hard, when the world tells me that I look "healthy" as I currently do.

But can they see what's happeneing on the inside? Can they see my weakened bones and nutrient-deprived ovaries??

Having a hunger for true recovery might well mean....ignoring everyone's else's interpretations of me, the way I look, and behave. It's not about them, after all. It's about, well, myself. And my body, which I alone know more than anyone else.

But the path ahead is dark and covered in shards of ice. I step upon them, and a shiver runs through my body, at this pitiless, icy coolness. And I am afraid that that ice is going to crack, and that I will crack, along with it.

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.

Let the Flame become a Fire...

Every day, in both our natural and human worlds, change unfolds itself in striking, dazzling colours.

Trees don their lush green summer foliage as the detritus from the previous year decays beneath their roots, absorbing into the forest floor to nourish the new generation of the most minute forms of animal life. Young fledglings spread their wings and take that crucial leap from nest into air, finally stretching those tender wings, feeling the wind against their feathers and learning what it is to be able to fly. And then there are the human changes; changes in the lives of human kind. A baby is born and is cradled in its mother's protective arms. The young girl grows up to be a woman and feels sensations beginning to awaken inside her; sensations which are strange and overwhelming and yet irresistible in their potency.

But for years I felt as if all these changes were set apart from me; that I occupied a world in which everything remained still and static. Yet this world in which I remained entrapped in, like a limpet in its shell, rested tantalisingly close to that other world of change and progress and maturing. Every day I would peek out of my shell and look upon it, watching, seeing, witnessing, this universe from which I had been inevitably excluded. All those changes flickered past my eyes like moonshadows upon the surface of a rippling sea: beautiful, aesthetic, almost fantastical in their exquisiteness.

I watched my friends and loved ones grow, grow like the fragile new shoot growing upwards to sprout leaves and tender buds, buds which open to reveal the most breathtaking flowers which shine and glow like scattered diamonds against black silk. And seeing these changes would always strike me to the very heart. Because everyone, everything, was changing; yet I remained the same. The only change that had happened to me seemed to be that one, long over a decade ago, when what had been a young, innocent, blissfully happy little girl left behind the untainted landscape of her childhood, entering a realm in which innocence was corrupted and which all sense of self-worth which she possessed was smashed into tiny fragments, like a delicate fluted glass being shattered upon a hard stone floor.

And in that realm a darkness awaited, to which she duly advanced, submitted, and was lost.

And for years that's how things remained. No flickering candle burning in that darkness; no glimmer of rosy pink light, paling the permanently shadowed horizon.

But then upon one day a tiny spark was alighted. A spark which tentatively, weakly, gradually became a flame.

That single flame burned steadily, diminishing and strengthening alternatively by turns.

But never once did the flame surpass a certain attained level of brightness. It was a flame, not a fire.

But then something changed.


For me, 2017 has been different. 2017 has seen, for me, some concrete, palpable, tangible changes.

But yet despite the progress that I have made, I know there are still so many things that remain unchanged, and which I want to change. And even though I yearn for this change like the flower longs for the sun's warm kiss upon its outstretched petals, I fear it, greatly, too. I am afraid of being scorched by those rays which have to power to let me grow. The cold and the damp have been all I've ever known and I'm terrified to break free from it.

I'm afraid of letting go of the compulsion to exercise the set amount.
I'm afraid to totally let go of ED.
I'm afraid to leave my home, to be an adult. Afraid to be out in the real working world and to feel the judging eyes of others upon me.
I'm afraid to eat just that little bit more, and get my bmi up to the place where I know it needs to be.
I'm afraid of the change. It looks so beautiful, like a prancing golden lion, shaking his long, flowing mane.

But that lion roars and I flee from him, shaking out of fear and terror.

How do I embrace the change, if I am so afraid of it?

In a week and a half, it is Barcelona. And already I can feel the nervousness building up inside me. Layer upon layer, like a many-ringed onion, ready to burst out at the slightest tentative prick.

Words cannot describe the elation that soared through me when I realised I had been accepted for this job. Needless to say, however, that unsurpassed feeling of pure, raw joy didn't last very long. It was soon replaced by nervousness; and fear. Real, palpable fear that rages inside me like violent ocean currents, threatening to drown me, consume me if I were to let it.

There's so many fears revolving around my fast-approaching placement. A fear of being judged; a fear of being left out, of being unaccepted. A fear of being the loner again who treads the path of solitude. A fear of the challenges which will be posed by this total change of place and routine.

Most of all I guess it's the unfamiliarity; what is will be like, what they will be like, how I will cope with ED and whether he will win out in this strange new environment.

Change.
Over the first part of this year I have overcome so, so much. But now I have reached that certain point; the point at which the flame has never burned any brighter. Can I overcome my fear of this change? Will I be able to go out there and shine in the sun; or will ED creep in again, dragging me down into his shadows?

I have to be strong.
I have to realise and acknowledge the changes that I have faced in the past, and overcome. I never once believed I'd cope with hospital, or would conquer my fears to gain weight at home all by myself. Or that I would possibly get through college while maintaining a progressive and evolving recovery.

But I did it.

In each and every one of us there is the strength of the rising sun and the courage of the golden-maned lion.We can burn as bright as any crimson flame.

And I hope that come next Thursday I will take my own words of strength to heart. I hope that I will be able to walk towards a beautiful new horizon with an open and courageous heart, instead of wrapping myself in the protective, yet suffocating covers of my own fear.

For it is time for me to change.

Early February this year. And now I look at that picture and think, jeez, I'm surprised that the sea winds didn't blow me away in one puff!! 😖

Over the past few months, I have changed so much and travelled so far. And I know I just can't let the fear and doubt stop me now. 💚xxx