The Final Leap

What frightens you the most, Em?

The thought of taking that final, terrifying leap into the depths of the unknown?

Or is it the thought of remaining stuck...in this insipid place they call half recovery..forever?

What frightens you more?

The leap; or the prison?

Just over a year ago I composed a short little post entitled the Beginning After the Halfway. Within it, I spoke of how in recovery one may encounter two beginnings : the first, most obvious one being the beginning of the recovery journey itself: the action "phase", so I have heard it called. Initially I thought that was the only "beginning":After that it would be straight upwards: upwards, until one reaches he end: the beautiful summit of the towering mountain.

But now, having trodden the recovery road for many years, I see recovery as having two fundamental beginnings. The actual beginning of recovery; at the very start; when one acknowledges, accepts, and takes the first few crucial steps. The beginning of the recovery journey. But then, within that journey itself, there is a second beginning: one which some travellers upon this road will never know of , because this is where their journey ultimately reaches it end.

That second beginning lies just beyond a critical point: a point where some turn, turn and go right back; whereas others remain forever, unsure as to how to go on. That point is the place of half recovery, and what lies beyond is the beginning of the final battle against anorexia.

At that place, many an anorexic's journey finds its end. They remain there, unable to commence the second beginning; shackled down by the fetters of doubt and mistrust and fear. 

But half recovery is very much like a limbo land. You're far above the hellish domain that was being immersed wholly and completely within the depths of anorexia. And yet, you are equally so far removed from that idyllic place of being fully recovered. And you see, and know it deep down; that there is something more to this. That the life you are living is a far cry from what you imagined being recovered to be. no matter how much ED might convince you otherwise. And knowing that is enough to torment you daily; like an apple being held out to a tethered horse. Close enough to see and smell; Close enough to almost taste its sweet juices. But not close enough to take from that extended hand. The knowledge, the acknowledgement made deep down, is enough to tempt and torture, but yet not enough to spur you into taking that massive, frightening leap.

I said..back in that post just over a year ago now...I said that I would make some sort of beginning , after the halfway. But did I? Did I really throw myself into the deep? A difficult question to which I struggled to properly answer. Because I think...I think it's more complex than a simple yes, or no. I think that I both did, and did not. I took the leap but instead of kicking hard when my body entered the water, propelling myself further into the deep - instead I lingered, hesitant and reluctant to swim away from the jutting rock upon which I had so long been stuck, the rock that served as that crucial milestone which marks having reached a place of half recovery. For that rock had replaced the grim cave of being entrenched within anorexia, as the much hated, yet irresistible familiarity which I found myself unable and too frightened to leave.

It's a struggle. It's a messy, agonising struggle. And every day the same question spins a slow orbit in my head. Are you going to swim yet, Em? Or are you just going to flounder aimlessly around this rock, forever?

At first I saw that rock as a milestone: one which, having reached, I would commend myself for reaching, and then move on. On with recovery. But it feels instead that I paused by this rock to take a breath, and then decided that, well this rock ain't so bad at all. I think I'll take a rest here, now. Just a little rest. I wont let myself become stuck here, though. I will take the next leap and swim on.

One year later, and still, here I am. Still waiting, upon that lonely little rock.

Waiting. For what?

To right time, the right place, to take the dive into the deep waters? To have the courage fight the hardest and most gruelling battle of all: to win back complete freedom, rather than some sort of half freedom which doesn't really feel like  true freedom, at all? To finally feel ready to break every string attached to me - including the subtle, implicit ones which noone else can see?

But if I wait; won't I simply sit and wait here, forever?
Isn't it time to simply stop waiting; and take that final leap?

A Blank Slate

Beautiful October, so radiant in her gold and copper finery; so richly adorned with the bright treasures of autumn's exquisite bounty. But yet she can also reveal a slightly more malignant side in her summoning of the first dark winter storms.

And Friday was just one of those such days when this side to her became more manifest. Walking upon the bog with Daisy it was as if a giant hand had taken a crayon to the canvas of a formerly blank virgin sky. To the north; the horizon was so clear and radiantly blue; whereas, to the south, an angry shade of steely grey, that spoke of volatility, unpredictability, and anger. And that grey was advancing with all the fury of some dark and dangerous beast.

Gazing upon it, I felt strangely unperturbed. Too engrossed, perhaps, was I in my world of anorexic-type thoughts; those ones which swell up, like some ugly bulging plant, to occupy so much space in my head that there was hardly any room for anything else. Sometimes I fail to even perceive the reality around me, so entrenched I often find myself being in this abyss of worry and anxiety, of fear and self-revulsion.

But then the wind called - called to me; so it seemed - and a flurry of yellow and crimson leaves were flung into my face before spiraling, drawn by invisible strings, in slow figures of eight before alighting to the ground like a dancer who has finally come to rest. And it seemed like the wind had called my name.

Wake up, Emmy! Wake up!

And suddenly I became startlingly, beautifully aware of the striking beauty of the world around me. The dark fingers of the birch trees holding aloft their final offerings of gold and brown. The rippling grass and the purple blue forms of the watching mountains. And, that troubled sky, with all its foretelling of a gathering storm and those furious clouds which would all too soon block out the sun.

But then I remembered that the storm would not last; and that, having blown its full course, the sky would once again take on the guise of a blank, fresh slate.

Though the storm would come it wouldn't last forever; and, once it was gone, the clear sky would reassert itself; as if making a fresh new beginning.

And even though I've been in recovery for a while, I realise that there is ever the potential for starting on a fresh new slate. For the past few weeks have been increasingly messy, with a lot of scribbles and spilt paint; alot of waste. And though I know recovery is never going to be perfect, I still felt like that I could do more. More to get myself away from this fuzzy grey zone, more to allow myself to push myself more firmly away from the Voice.

And one important thing that I want to do, is to teach myself how to pull myself away and out of that deep dark pit of sickly, cloying thoughts. The wind that morning was a blessing; for it enabled me to pull myself temporarily free, and fill my senses with the beauty all around me.

So time to lay out my blank slate, now, and look with fresh eyes upon its untarnished surface. And then to begin again. Not to begin, at the beginning of the very beginning; but, rather, at the beginning, of a renewed effort to break away; to break away from ED once and forever.

The Weeping Fissure

So they said, on reaching weight restored, one should start eating intuitively.

Eating intuitively. It's easy, right? Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Eat what you feel like eating, what your body and mind are telling you you want. Simple.

Easy for them to say. For me, it's quite a different story, indeed.

If I were to do as they say and eat intuitively, I would stop eating my dinner after a couple of mouthfuls as that's when I feel physically full. I wouldn't eat half of what I am currently eating now, because it's rare that I feel physically hungry and therefore, at times, I have to force myself to eat. And then there is the other side of the coin - the constant mental hunger. That's the other extreme. I never really stop thinking about food - about what and how I am going to have it, how much, and at what time. I have cravings and I do not dare follow them. Because to me they do not make any sense. How could I possible crave more peanut butter when I've already had three tablespoons of the stuff that morning? What possibly could be the cause of my desperate longing to have another serving of cereal, when I have just polished off a whole one for my supper, not to mention the even larger one I had consumed earlier that day?

It makes no sense, no sense at all. No matter how hard I try to focus my mind, to pull it desperately away from these intrusive, screaming thoughts, they latch on again, clinging like a limpet to a rock, reasserting themselves with renewed and malicious vigor.

Even though I've gained weight, I can't seem to stop eating.
What happened to that self-control?
You're useless..it's no wonder you're looking so fat and dumpy..

Last night I stood and opened my bedroom window, gazed out upon the rustling, whispering garden: a garden that whispered of secrets untold, a garden in which every tiny plant had parktaken of life's sweet cup; had permitted itself to grow, and flourish. And now that autumn was here, their brightness was fading; but to me they shone as brightly as they had in their summer finery.

Because to look upon them reminded me of the thing that for me cannot be done.
To grow and allow oneself to grow. Without putting a hundred restrictions in place and trying to change, or alter, what was meant to be; what is natural.

Because even after all this time I feel like I am still fighting against my body. Because I've reached that certain point: the glittering milestone with its diamond cut top and polished surface of cold shiny marble. The magic number!! The magic number which is bmi of 19. Once you're here, so they say, you've done the hardest part. You're healthy!! Well done!!

And having reached that number and placed my hand on its unforgivably cold surface, all I felt was panic, not relief. Right. So I've reached the golden number...so God forbid I gain a grams worth more weight.

Something had to give, so I cut a little back. And that's how it remains.

It's like following a precise mathematical formula. As long as the formula is followed, everything falls into place. I feel calmer, more secure, knowing that my weight is not going up, and the volcano under which lies the swelling magma of my anxiety is blissfully, idyllically dormant. The fissure remains sealed and uncannily silent;  provided I stick precisely to the formula.

The formula of how to maintain my weight.

But if I once make the slightest step out of line, the crater is ripped open and the lava surges forward. With the heat  it feels like it has enough power to destroy everything in its path.

That shiny stone may have looked beautiful from a distance, but now, having reached it, all I can taste is the metallic taste of betrayal. Better..?? I dont feel better. Is this really what the land of recovery truly looks like?

It is different, that much is true. For There are trees where once there was nothing but dead leaves and arid earth. But though the trees bear some sweet new foliage, their boughs are still deprived of blossom or fruit.

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 Beginning after the Halfway

They said that the beginning would be the hardest part.


But why didn't they warn me about halfway? The halfway slope, which rises to an almost vertical climb: steepening and steepening, rising before me like a grim and inaccessible tower. And in the exposed space in my head, the comments wheel and shriek like vultures circling their prey.They bide their time, awaiting the opportune moment, before closing in with talons outstretched, cruel beaks poised to slice flesh and draw blood.

You look healthy now.

Your body looks better than it has done in years.

She has finally recovered from her eating disorder.

She doesn't have anorexia anymore.


And if I could, I would raise my arms and protect myself; but how can I possibly fight something which I know is inevitably, inexplicably, part of this recovery journey in itself? People will look and people will judge; it's part of life; and I would be a fool if I were to go through life expecting people to keep their thoughts to themselves. If you go into the desert, you expect to find vultures. If you make it as far as the land of half recovered, than you have to expect to encounter such comments. That's part of the harsh reality. The harsh reality, of being a supposedly "recovered" anorexic in a harsh, diet-obsessed, thin-loving world.

Its been so long since I last wrote in my blog. But the last time I went to write I found that the words would not come. What to say? What to describe? How to possibly express the feelings and emotions running rampant like racing stormclouds in my head?


They said the beginning was the hardest part. And in this case, perhaps, it was.

But just like the beginning of my first initial recovery journey, four years ago, now, when I realised I had to make some sort of start.

A beginning I will make here, too, on this small and little known blog.

And now is the time to return to my journey, and begin where I left off. The beginning of the hardest part of the journey. The beginning of what is recovery after the halfway mark.

Straight lines

Several months have passed since I passed through the gates of Trinity, for what was the final, final time.

Several months have passed since I sat my last exam and signed off on the final chapter, the chapter of what had been, for me, an exhausting and painful journey through university.

And even since then my lifepath has been far from a dreamy stroll through a garden of summer flowers. I faced the frightening unknown of what awaited me in Spain, along with the fundamental but overwhelming decision of what path I would follow now, now that my time at Trinity was over.

Because it's true to say that I was fighting my college battle, with no particular destination or purpose in mind. I just knew I had to get through it, no matter what. I wasn't entirely sure what the light at the end of the tunnel actually would mean for me; or if, there even was, a light.



At times it felt as if there was no way out of this mess that I had created for myself. For it was me, after all, who chosen to come to Trinity. It was me who had eagerly sought out, and accepted, this course. And it was me who was now paying for my mistake, and for my rash, hasty decision.

But this year - 2017 - was one in which the path up the mountain touched upon some crucial, fundamental milestones; milestones which I never before even dreamt that I would lay eyes upon, let alone reach out to with disbelieving, trembling fingers. I got my degree at Trinity. I left the comforting surroundings of my home to work in Catalonia for five weeks, thrusting myself into the unknown with both fear and enormous bravery merging themselves within my heart. And, once again, I committed myself to that gruelling, relentlessly difficult climb: the climb up the mountain, of recovery. It was January after Christmas when I took full control over my relapse again, and since then I donned the attire of the recovery warrior, bravely approaching food and eating every day with bravery and determination and persistence.

But now it seems like I am on auto-pilot; that my progress, having reached a certain point, is just continuing on, without the slightest incline or decrease. I eat every day but my eating has become very rigid. I eat the same good amounts every day but I never once even contemplate increasing them. I do the same exercise, eat the same foods, at the same exact times. I feel like a computer programmed to do the exact same thing without the slightest alteration or adjustment.

The reason I don't change my current course of actions is, of course, the uncertainty. I don't know whether I should really try to put on a bit more weight. I don't know what my natural body realy looks like, what other people will say and think, and, of course, how I will deal with it. I don't know what I want to do with my life, what course, what job, what career, what future. And most of all I don't know if I will cope. Cope with that body, that life, that work schedule. Cope with anything.

But now I realise it's time to stop, and take a deep breath.

Auto-pilot mode has been beneficial to me, up to this very point, when all was required of me was to keep on eating the set amounts which I knew were enabling me to gain weight and restore my health. But now, it's time to readdress and rethink. To reflect on now exactly where I stand. And to put into practice all the plans and goals which I set for myself, but did not manage to achieve.

But it is, as with many things in life, the beginning of doing just that, which is the hardest part.

Take breakfast this morning for example. As I sat there at the table I thought to myself, well, Em. Are you going to do it? Eat even MORE than you usually would? And so filled with resolve I went to the bread packet and took out the very top slice, the crust - thicker than any other piece of that loaf - and put it into the toaster, pressing it firmly down with determination propelling my fingers. But then as I waited, the Voice began to murmur, again. It whispered about the profile picture that I had just uploaded to Facebook, exactly a week ago this day. You looked ok in that. your stomach was not so bloated as it is now. And you know Em what will happen if you were to eat that extra bit of bread. You know how fat and ugly it will look, and you know just as well how I'm going to give you a hard time over it.

I thought about the resultant disgust, the resultant anxiety, which I would inevitably come up against if I were to do the thing that minutes ago I had felt so resolute about. How I would spend the entire morning being preooccupied with my tummy, convinced - regardless of whether it was actually true or not - that my tummy had suddenly ballooned up more than ever, all because I ate just that one bit more of toast. (Out of all the foods I eat it's true to say that bread products make me the most bloated.) I shook my head, angrily trying to push away the doubt which was clutching to me tight. But Ed had forced open a crack in my resolve, a crack which was now widening to form a chasm, a chasm which I knew I was going to fall into. And once down there, he would have won. And won he did.

I found myself cutting up that lovely thick crust into about eight different pieces, three or two of which I put miserably to one side. I did not want to do it, but ED forced my hand.And wedged so tightly in that stifling chasm I didn't have the means to resist him.

So auto pilot Emily walks on with a heavy heart. Walks on in a steady straight line which is as flat and as featureless as the dullest, most unbroken landscape. The landscape of half recovery, I guess. I could wander and wander and wander forever here, always going along that same old line.

 Or I could choose...to go up, to go forwards. Starting right here, right now. Today. And I suppose a start would be for me to press publish on this post, now, and go and do the thing I've been avoiding now for a couple of months at least. That being to go and check the weight on my scales, and face up to the reality of whether or not I am still underweight.

The hardest fight..

This morning, walking my two furry friends upon the peaty stretches of the bog, epitomised what many might refer to a typical Irish summer. To the east, an unblemished sky of cobalt blue, in which the sun was rising like a drifting golden ball floating slowly to the surface of a tropical sea. And then to the west a completely different picture: advancing storm clouds, grey and majestic in their arching sublimity, stretching hungry arms towards that glowing sun. Two completely different scenes, captured in the same hour of one particular morning. As the doggies and I passed along the rippling expanses of mauve-tinted heather, those clouds reached that invisible divide, causing a spectacular battle to take place.

The weather this August seems to reflect my turbulent, ever-changing emotions; my tumultuous states of mind which so often drift upwards only to be tumbled about like strewn leaves in an autumn gale.

One minute, I would be as high as the soaring kite, soaring carefree across an endless summer sky, my wings outstretched to catch the winds racing behind me. I felt free. I felt like I was riding that wind. I felt higher than I ever had done so before; high enough to traverse the tallest trees, and the highest, most towering of the mountains. And there was immense joy and delight at finding this new found strength, a strength that I wanted to nourish and sustain; along with that strange new voice which had enplanted itself in my head. I'm going to do it, that voice cried in delight. I'm going to reach the mountain!!

But then the skies would darken and the wind would turn against me, forcing me down towards the awaiting ground, the darkness below me. And then that new voice would dwindle and fall away, to be replaced with the one which I've come to know so very, very well.

Fat...
Useless...
Weak, pathetic, good for nothing piece of sh**.



Time for me to stop just...stopping, in my tracks, every time I try to move that bit further forward.

Time for me to just stop just talking, and writing, about what I want to do, and achieve. Time for me to actually make those crucial changes. Draw my own rainbow across this raging battleground.

One of the hardest things about being in this place is that noone except me knows the ferocity of this battle inside my head. People look and me and see weight-restored. People look at me and think healthy, and recovered.

I've already mentioned the comments I've had, the ones which grate harshly upon my ears and try to make me swerve off this narrow and somewhat treacherous path. But there's also something else; the fact that others no longer think I have an eating disorder and I do not, and should not, seek help for it. At the moment, all my family's emphasis is on me making a hasty decision about what I want to do as career, and then to pursue it, at once. My original plans to have a year out, working part-time and doing therapy alongside, have been once or twice tentatively mentioned, only to be brushed hurriedly aside. Clearly, the girl who had an eating disorder doesn't really need that sort of thing, anymore.

But they can't see the inner battle ground. They don't know that this illness isn't just embedded in flesh and bone and blood. It's in the head. That's where the main battle always rages. Inside.

I've given up trying to convince them. I've recently spent most of my days inside the clouded part of the sky, wretchedly watching the blue slip away from me. Sometimes I do manage to catch it, grasp at it with desperate, yearning fingers, feeling the warmth of hope. But then the clouds gather behind me and pull me into their embrace. Clouds with ragged edges, like my fraught and jagged emotions. Clouds which envelope my heart and block out every last trace of the sun. Hope can be such a slippery, evasive thing. One minute you have it there in your hands and then it's torn away from you, borne away by the rushing tide.

My thoughts charge like running horses, crashing across a storm-ridden plane.

Their hoofbeats resonate like this Voice, deafening, refusing to be silenced. Unheard by anyone else, but me.

Thoughts as dark and as bleak as the greyest of stormclouds. And yet, somehow, I still keep my thread-thin sliver of hope, alive.

I'm at the rainbow, now. There's darkness as well as the faintest glimmer of light. It is raining but through that rain comes the sun.

I just have to keep going now, put my thoughts and plans into action. Sometimes I think I lack the bravery, the strength to do this. But yet I am still here, somehow, in this place. The torturous state of half-recovery. Where noone else sees and knows. But the inner battle is the hardest and most excruciating of all.

I have to deal with these comments and judgements. I have to ignore the fact that everyone thinks Im happy, and healthy, and capable, on my own. I have to brush aside my own doubts, my own huge, towering anxieties. I have to somehow change how I think about myself and my body.

I have to accomplish the hardest task of all. Fighting the hardest fight, alone.

Catching dreams...

This morning I feel as if I am floating beneath fluffy, dove-white clouds. Clouds which may be thin and transparent; others, thick, solid, almost tangible. I drift between them like a pollen grain, suspended in the summer wind's soft breath.

All these clouds represent different things to me. Some seem fully formed and others, not so much. They represent to me my dreams and hopes. And how I long to alight upon each one of them.

But landing upon a cloud is a very difficult thing. Some may look solid but I know that they are not. If I were to reach out with my hands to catch one of them, I am afraid it will break apart in my hands. Disperse into a million tiny pieces, leaving me with a heavy heart and the remnants of a broken dream.

Is it really worth it to chase your dreams? Will they not escape you, evade you every time?

But that's not what I am willing to allow myself to believe.

My dreams. True recovery. To free myself, wholly and completely, from the Voice inside my head.  To conquer every single one of the demons which are still holding me down.

There are other dreams, dreams which I have held for a long time, but which I have never been able to catch hold of, since they are directly linked to the first one. To complete Morokia and to share my story with millions of readers worldwide. To find a job that I love and that I am good at, and to be at the healthiest that I could ever hope to be. Perhaps even to write my own story, one of recovery and strength and hope. And then there are dreams of being in a relationship and newfound love. Of places  I want to go to, sights and wonders that I want to see.

But I know that to achieve these other dreams I need to seek out the first one. Because without true recovery, I know I will only ever be able to brush the mere lining of those other clouds with my fingers.

But how will I ever be able to catch that beautiful dream? It seems to always just escape me , to hang just that little bit out of reach. Sometimes, it seems so close I can almost touch it, to taste its sweet delicateness upon my tongue, to feel its soft touch against my burning, yearning skin. Other times, it seems as cold and as distant as the snow-adorned mountain, a mountain so harsh and icily hostile that I recoil from ever attempting to reach its summit.

But I know that it has been long since I started to climb that very same mountain. I may only be halfway, but I am there, instead of being at the bottom. At one time I could only stare in wretched wonder, wishing that I had the courage to begin that long ascent.

And then I did.

But now I am halfway again at the point which I as never before able to cross. Just where does the path lead from here? The clouds are still far above me, shrouding the mountain peak with their billowy, feather light forms. But it's such a long road, to keep going along. And at times it seems so relentlessly, bone-wearily hard.

Both mountain peak and dreamy white clouds are still so far away, from me.
How can I ever hope to reach them? Catching them in itself now seems like such a beautiful yet impossible dream.

But I have something now which I did not have before. A new determination to give this fight all that I have got. To go into this battle with courage and hope aflame in my heart like a flaring torch. I am going to beat you, Ed. I am going to beat you, or go down still fighting.

Recovery is my new priority, my mission. And, if I fail, then at least noone can say that I did not try.

My Barcelona experience has helped me pinpoint my course of action in a number of ways. It's helped me to realise several things: about myself, my recovery, and what steps I need to take as I strive to move forward. It's reminded me that I still have so much work to do, yet. There were countless challenges and obstacles lying in wait for the girl with anorexia there, all of which reared their ugly heads on my wary, hesitant approach. Some of these challenges I managed to beat back down, overcoming them with the strength of my own purpose, my determination. Yet there were others which I fought against and lost. There were times when my attempts at fighting back were simply just not good enough, leaving me weakened, with only enough strength to vainly bang my fist against the unyielding surface, before being knocked to the ground and cast aside. Recovery was harder, there, away from the comforting, familiar surroundings of my home. I had to constantly keep my guard up high, and there was certainly more than one time when I let it slip and fall.

But. Aside from that. There was another thing that Barcelona reminded me. A fact that somewhere sometime I had realised, before, but did not nourish enough to fully acknowledge. above all Barcelona  reminded me that I truly have the power to do anything. Anything, if I set my heart and mind and soul to it.

Did I not climb the Via Ferreda, having not done anything remotely like proper rock climbing before? Did I not get thrown in at the deep end on my first day of teaching, having not been given any proper training or induction, only to walk into that classroom regardless to greet my pupils with a smile as if I had been doing this for all of my life? And did I not take the greatest leap of my life, by stepping onto that plane in the very first place? That step was so much more than a literal step, for me. It symbolised strength and resolution and enormous courage. It meant that I was facing my greatest ever fears, but yet despite my trepidation and terror, I was still going ahead and doing it, anyway.

And it is in this light I should see my recovery. My recovery, and the seizing of my dreams in trembling, exuberant hands.

I know deep down I have the power to do anything...

Anything, including this battle, and this long, long climb to reach the clouds. 💗xxx

Not to run from this fear, but to fight it...

Last week, while Mam and Dad were away, I was an intensely busy girly. With both the house and the two doggies left under my charge, I had my week's work cut out. Not that this displeased me in the slightest. I wanted to keep myself busy; knowing that to dwell upon the house's silent emptiness in the absence of my loved ones would be enough to drive me insane, if I let it.

The day that they left, I thrust myself into my new schedule with desperate gusto. It was a carefully-planned timetable of sorts. Writing in the morning. Walk the doggies at 9.30 am. Mid-morning would be spent pegging out washing and other jobs. After lunch was designated for going into town, when I would hop on my bike and pedal into Mountmellick or Portlaoise, buying a few groceries and necessaries as required, going into my local library for a chat with the librarians and to pick out a book or two.

Then, having got home, I'd hurry out with the doggies again. On returning I'd have my snack and then sit for a bit reading over what I had written earlier that morning. Then the rest of the day would be spent doing more chores and cooking my dinner, before some knitting and then finally, bed.

It was a hard week from the point of view that I felt even lonelier than I usually would - hence my writing of my post about loneliness - but it was the being busy which essentially got me through it. And I didn't fail to notice, at the end of each of those days, the curious ecstatic buzz that I got as I sprawled on the sofa sipping a steaming mug of hot chocolate, and could feel a slight stiffness in my muscles. A feeling which I only ever recall getting, on having done a substantial quantity of exercise. It was akin to that I felt when I hiked the Wicklow Mountains in transition year. I knew it meant that I had done alot.

That buzz. There was no denying that I felt better, even uplifted by it. And I guess that's what's making defeating one of my oldest demons so very, very hard and challenging. Whereas I am fully willing to eat as well as I can - the thought of eating less actually repels me, now - I know I do not want to stop doing my set amount of exercise. The willingness is not there. I'm trying, but each day I find myself unable to do it.

Why did ED have to taint,

the one thing that gives me so much joy? 

And I know why I can't do it. It's because of that feeling - that feeling I get when the Voice in my head comprehends that I haven't done what he regards as "enough". I get as fidgety as I would if I were sitting on a cushion full of needles. I get as anxious as I would have if someone had just shoved an enormous 1 kg steak in front of me, tied me down and told me to eat it. I get as miserable as the dullest December day, grey clouds fogging up every piece of rational sense within my head. Oh my God, Em, you haven't done enough today. You have to do more! Now! When we get in from this walk, you have to go into your room and jog on the spot for ten minutes to make up  for what you haven't done.

But I feel so agonisingly confused. What's right and what's wrong? Whats normal and what's abnormal?? It's just so hard for me, because what I learned about how I should exercise as a recovered anorexic in hospital is essentially contradicted by the world around me, from what I hear and see every day.

One thing that I know is that the secrecy feels wrong. Nothing makes me more afraid then the thought of Mam becoming angry with me, on learning that her daughter does, on that rare occasion, do bouts of jogging in her room for very short periods, all because she can't just let pass a mere ten minutes not completed on a walk. Or the fact that I cycled 30 km last week all in one single day. Having done it, I felt ecstatic, overjoyed, formidable, powerful. But simultaneously there was a tiny, tiny part of me, knowing in my heart that it was wrong. What would Mam and Dad have said if they had known? Would they have smiled at my enthusiasm; or would they have just shaken their heads in concern?

I have to ask myself. Is my body truly ready for this? Am I healthy? No, I've come to the conclusion that it is not so, just yet. I have no idea what my ideal bmi really is, but I'm inclined to wonder as it really is this "magic" number of 19 at which I currently stand.

This is one of the few last demons that remain. But this one has a hold of me and it has a hold of me fast.

I look over the comments of my readers on my last post on compulsion, and they give me a sense of some comfort and direction in this directionless, comfortless mess.

If only I could calm the raging torrents of anxiety in my head. Because God knows I don't want to live like this. I want to exercise. I want to run, I want to walk, I want to climb hills and hurtle along the country lanes on my bike with my hair streaming behind me.

But what I don't want is this constant, niggling anxiety. This Voice which plagues me like a screaming banshee, every time that - because of the weather, because life got busy, or whatever reason crops up during the day -  I don't do what it grudgingly accepts as being enough. 

So.

What can I do?

Should I just go for the easier option of giving into it? Remain at this place; this place of half recovery, that little outcrop upon this huge mountain, an outcrop from which I have never been able to ascend any higher?

But this isn't the way I want things to be.

I want change and I want it now. And change is coming now. In less than two weeks I depart for Barcelona.

More than anything, I need to fight this compulsion right NOW. Otherwise my Barcelona experience might well too be marred.

Certain images often pass through my head; imagined scenarios, so jewel-vivid in my mind's eye. as if they actually happened, or are real. Of finishing work, at 5 pm on one particular day, and being asked by a co-worker to join her for a drink, perhaps.

The girl who is me, in the image, smiles and shakes her head. Her mouth forms the syllables of words which in turn formulate into some sort of excuse. She would love to, but she's ever so tired. She's going to go and have a lie down for a bit. The other worker nods and walks away, leaving the girl standing there. She watches the other go anxiously, beads of perspiration upon her forehead, her heart throbbing like a drum as the lie resonates through her blood.

And then she goes off for a...powerwalk. Because that's what the ED is telling her to do. To forget about being social and to go and do some exercise.

That's not what I want to happen. That's not what I am going to permit to happen, either.

Rather, I have to do something which at one time I never once thought I was fully capable of being.

I have to be strong.
I have to believe in myself and realise that I can do it.
I can beat the compulsion. I have all the tools that I need.

I have the bravery and I have the perseverance. I have the strength. What's stopping me? Didn't I do the unthinkable? Didn't I conquer some of my greatest fears about food and weight gain; fears which at one time, for me, seemed so powerful, so undefeatable, so infinite?

As one of my readers reminded me, I have come too far now to just stop, right here.

The road ahead is as frightening - as terrifying unknown - as the darkest corner of space. But I know I have to do it. So I lift my head up, take and deep breath and carry on.

I don't know exactly how I am going to do this. But I know I have to follow my heart; to shout louder than the demon inside my head.



They say old habits die hard.
I guess that means one has to fight harder than ever to make them die.

So today I created some new rules for myself. Rules which will defy ED's. Rules which I hope will allow me to weaken the final few clutches of his fingers across my throat.

1. Until I am certain that I am at my healthiest bmi (I am going to take my old consultant's advice, and aim for 20.) , I will not allow myself to run - a form of exercise I have always longed to do, but have never been able to because of my weight - or engage in any other kinds high intensity exercises.
2. I am still going to adhere to the old rule of the more I do, the more I must eat to compensate. This one actually shouldn't be too hard, as I find that the more mobile I am, the more hungrier I am anyway. 😉
3. On rainy days, or when I am simply just busy. I know I need to be extra strong and ignore the voice telling me to go out and do my usual walk and get soaked, to still go and exercise despite being exhausted etc. And I know that this is going to be the hardest one. The thought of not doing my usual amount now terrifies me, but I know I am just going to have to try.
4. As mentioned before I fully intend to try out therapy when I return from Barcelona. I really hope this will help me overcome exercise compulsion for good and set me well on the way to full recovery. 
5. To start focusing on what I really want to get from exercise and walking. To cease seeing it just as how ED sees it - a way to burn calories - and to value it for what it really, really means to me. That being a chance to be outside in the fresh air, surrounded by all the treasures of nature's rich bounty. To spend time with those I love, doing something which I love. To feel the rush of air against my bare skin and relish that feeling. That feeling of being strong and healthy again. That feeling of freedom.

I used to be the prey, the victim. And ED was the remorseless, parasitic predator.

But now the tables have been turned.

Now it's me who is the predator..

And I know that I must seek out and hunt down every last trace of ED..

I will never let him prey on me or those I love ever again.💪

The Last and Final Stretch...

...one which I know is the toughest of them all.

So this was it. I had done it. I weight restored by myself, despite the fact I was at college; despite the fact that the past few months was one of the most stressful and most difficult times of my life.

And here I am now at the last and final stretch of this journey. The stretch at which I need to be stronger than I ever have been before.

Because this is the place at which I always fell back down.

This is the place where the real battle is fought; the battle in which there can only ever be one winner.

Me, or ED.

Which one of us is going to lose?

Which one of us will be destroyed?

Me - two years ago and then, two weeks ago. And I'm both the same girl that I was, but, at the same time,  different..


This is a place at which I've stood, a good many times before.

I stood here in the April of 2015, the year in which I was admitted to hospital. I remember the feelings of disgust and revulsion that flickered through me back then, the day I realised I was weight restored.

Weight restored. To me, those two words were synonymous with fear and dread and hatred. Weight restored. I didn't look in the mirror and see "healthy," or "better". I only saw what my eating disorder saw. which was, of course,  "fat".

Fat. Repulsive. Oh how much better you looked when you were skinny, when you could feel those slender bones.

It wasn't long - a few months later, at the most - I started to restrict, again.

The months passed, flickering by me like moths across candlelight,  as I sank ever deeper into the illness which had stolen my youth. Then one day, a hand reached towards me and pulled me up, up towards the surface once again. But she could not pull me the full way. I had to learn to swim again, to fight against the dark, swirling waters in which I had nearly drowned.

I fought against that ingrained belief that there was no light, that true recovery was just not possible, for me.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I inched my way up the long and lonely mountain.

But not enough had changed; not enough to keep me climbing upwards; not enough to send me toppling back down once more, as soon as I returned to college again for my final year at Trinity.

My falls were mainly caused by two common phenomena.

Those being, actually being at college - where I felt lonely, intensely stressed, and unaccepted - and my resentment of my new, healthier body. And each time I became weight restored I always did the same thing. I self-examined, I fostered hatred in my breast. I nurtured self-loathing as fiercely as a mother bird guards her nest. And every time I thought the very same thing. I hate myself. I hate my body. I am fat and repulsive and I am going to now eat less.

But this time I am determined for things to be radically, fundamentally different.

I know I cannot restrict.

But it's hard, so hard, in this diet-obsessed world in which we live.

But at least I can now say that I have two things in my favour which, at one time, I did not possess.

Those being, that I no longer despise my stronger, healthier body. Rather, I am actively working each day to accept it, to nourish it, to value it as my most treasured and most precious possession.


But there's still many so many obstacles standing in my way; obstacles which, I know, I have to overcome to be free.


My relationship with exercise probably constitutes one of the biggest of those obstacles.

My exercise compulsion-obsession is something which didn't develop as early as my eating disorder initially did. In the early days, food was the sole problem. But then, ED turned its attention to the handful of physical activities I enjoyed back then, too. These were namely walking and cycling. And it was then that what was once a beloved hobby and a pastime rapidly evolved into a compulsive addiction.

In my latest relapse-recovery, however, I conquered it  to some degree when I was regaining weight. But now, I know, that feeling of having to do a certain amount has crept slyly back in again, urging me to do more when I have already done enough. And I would be only kidding myself if I said that I don't go along with it, because that's exactly what I do do, more often than not.          

 Again, I think what makes this so, so tough, is the fact that we live in a world in which we are all encouraged and urged to do exercise, that one should exercise more and eat less, etc, etc, etc. And this makes the road all the more rocky for someone recovering from an eating disorder, whose relationship with exercise has always been far from perfect.                                                                                      

It was with some dismay that I realised that this old fear had come back, this time last week to be exact, when I was travelling home from my Granny's house in Leicester. On that particular morning I had gone for my usual wander at Gorse Hill, one which I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of. But later on, while I was travelling home, the anxiety began to kick in. It's not even exactly what you would call a particularly long journey - an hour in the car to Birmingham, an hour in the air, and then 2 and a half hours home on the air bus. But ED, needless to say, didn't warm too much to the idea of sitting down for four hours in one afternoon, with only "a few slots" of walking in between.       

The anxiety I experienced on the journey home was persistent, relentless, and excruciating. Oh, yes. That old fear is back and it's back with a bloodthirsty vengeance.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I know that this is going to be one of the toughest legs of my journey. I know that this is probably going to be the hardest obstacle for me to overcome. Because it's so hard to ignore the exercise and diet programs which are plastered all over the internet, the telly, the magazines. It's so hard to ignore other people, to focus on myself. It's so hard to not feel I should be doing as much as possible of the one thing which I have always loved, but which has simultaneously become an obsession from which I am powerless to disentangle myself .        

                                                                                           

It is in this one single instance that being at home has not in fact helped me, as far as exercise is concerned. My mam completes a grueling exercise program every day of every week except Sunday. When my friend came around to visit me this gone Friday, she and Mam were both discussing cardio and programs enthusiastically (my friend only just joined a gym a few weeks ago). I had hovered nearby, trying not to listen but unable to help myself. Oh God. Should  I not be doing this too? Guilt throbbed its own insistent beat in my chest. The enthusiasm in Mam's eyes made me want to cry.  I felt like running out of the room, away from those beloved voices which spoke of the thing which I longed to do, but which I knew ED wanted me to do, too. I felt confused, afraid, uncertain; pathetically and wholly vulnerable. And intensely and painfully aware of just how far I am from being completely free. 

Leaving behind the scared little girl...

Mam was cleaning in the kitchen, her strong, brown hands scrubbing vigorously at the stains upon the smooth paneled cupboards. I approached tentatively, my hands curling awkwardly at my sides, feet dragging reluctantly upon the tiles. my hope, flickering like a weak candle flame in a draughty, cold church. 

Seeing me, she stopped, glancing at me enquiringly. "What's the matter, Em?" she said.

My heart leaped into my throat; like a lithe young rabbit jumping towards the stars. The longed for, yet intensely dreaded words. I wanted to pour out everything then - but the moment flitted away from me, flecks of dust being blown away by the wind, passing through my groping fingers. And besides. I had - a question, not a full blown account of how much I yearned for her help, her support in what I was doing.

"I wanted to ask you a favour, Mam," I said. She smiled, straightened, flicked the dishcloth she was holding into the sink.I suppressed the urge to fling my arms around her; to release all of the aching troubles of my heart.

No, Em.

Get to the point.

"I was wondering mam," i began, my voice barely above a whisper. "I wrote myself a new meal plan amounting to about 3500-4000 cals. I was wondering if...if you could look at it for me..?"  My voice trailed off at the end; I had lowered my gaze to the floor as I spoke. But at the final few words I snapped my head up again. I had to see  and witness the expression on her face.

Something flickered across her eyes like the shadow of a bat flitting across the bright surface of the moon. I searched those beloved, dark green eyes desperately, with the fitful, desperate hope of the last survivor clinging to the wave-washed rocks.

"Ok, Em," she said, reluctantly, wearily. My heart felt like it had been cleft in two by a butcher's cleaver. I quickly turned away from her, my own eyes filling with a rush of salty tears. Pathetic, I know: but I had so badly, so intensely longer to hear, to see, that ready willingness to help me, which she had so readily exhibited in a former time, a former place. That being, of course, in the days of my hospital admission; when everything had been so centred on little Emmy's recovery.

But things, this time, are very, very different.

As I turned and went back up the stairs, painful, fleeting images began to dance across my mind's eye. Images of that bitter, bitter time: but embedded in the thick soil of that bitterness there lay a sweetness which now I longed for more than anything in the whole wide world.

That being the open support, and encouragement, of my parents, who at the time  had constantly and consistently advocated every single aspect of my recovery. Mam had sat with me through my most difficult meals and had held my hand everytime I would break down in tears over my bloated, distended stomach. Daddy would often ask me as to how I was coping with the meal plan, and offer gentle words of encouragement whenever we sat together and ate our spreaded scones together at half past 4. They were constantly checking in on me, asking me how I was doing. Every little goal I met, every single step of progress I took: each and every one of them, they would acknowledge with a hug or a smile,

But now all of that is gone.

Now...things are different. Mam and Dad aren't involved anymore. Now it is just me. Me, and a flimsy piece of paper upon which is inscirbed the meal plan that I wrote up for myself. Me and my broken spirit and my cracked heart.

And I know - I know, with every piece of soul - that I am the one who is to blame.

Because I know that they are beginning to give up. All those countless tears and countless promises, that this time, it will be different, Mam. I wont slip up again, I promise. All those countless ruined meals and failed attemots at "true" recovery. Is it any wonder that they have given up on this? Is it any wonder that - whenever I ask for thier direct support - they appear detached, disinterested, distant? Is it any wonder that they think, here we go, again. Emmy says she's going to recover.

I know that Mam and Dad think that this place at which I am now at - this semi-recovered state at which the sufferer is not "severely", dangerously sick, but yet, still sick -is the furthest I am ever going to reach in my recovery. I know this. I see it in their eyes and in their faces. I read it in Mam's face when I asked her that question after breakfast today. I hear it in Daddy's voice when he tells me, in the weary, resigned voice of the defeated soldier, to stop picking at my food and start eating like a "normal person". I sense it in that uncomfortable, loud silence that fills the space between us every time I try to express how much I am trying, or to make them aware of the battle I am continuing to fight, every hour of every day.

Mam and Dad have laid down their weapons.

They think the battle is over; won, by ED.

But this is where I have to prove them wrong.

This is where I have to show them that the Emmy they knew and loved was not destroyed, forever.

I have to prove to them that their little girl is not lost. Well no; let me rephrase that sentence. That their daughter is not lost. Because the truth is I am no longer a little girl. I am a young woman with an eating disorder, who still has, in some ways, the body of a girl. A young woman who has decided to take this fight into her own hands. Because she realises that she no longer can depend on her parents to manage her recovery for her. It's her who has to do the doing. It's her who has to be the strong one, now. For all the love that I bear for them, and always, always will. For all that they ever did for me, and continue to, every day.

Because no girl has known as much love as I have had, growing up here in the sweet leafy surroundings of my beautiful childhood home. And I know that my parents care about me. And that nothing in the world will make them happier..if I choose to recover.

And so I fight on. I look at my meal plan and feel a tiny surge of pride as I think to myself, well done, Emmy. Because I am sticking to it. I am doing it. I am getting stronger by the day. This second relapse has proven to me I am my own source of my greatest ever strength. I am doing it alone but I know that I am not alone. I know there are people in this world rooting for me. Willing me to move on; and leave that sick, frightened, thin little girl behind.

Above, and beyond, that halfway mark...

The half-way line. A point , upon the road leading up the mountain: a certain little milestone on the path of recovery, at which I have come to know more than just a little well.

Because basically this is as far as I have ever managed to go. It's not recovery. True, getting here in itself was a hard and gruelling battle. One in which stinging wounds were inflicted and blood and tears were shed.

True, also, that this place is a far outcry from that which I initially started this journey.That being the cold, dark abyss in which I remained wholly immersed in the depths of my anorexia.

But this place is not recovery.
And I am not recovered.

How I long to go further, now: to keep on striding forwards, with the heart of a lion and the spirit of a prancing gazelle.

But the thing is...

I can.

It took enormous strength to get this far up the road.
Yet I remember the time when I stood at the very bottom of the mountain, staring upwards with fear and despair in my eyes. And I remember believing that I would never make it. Even taking that very first step, and then the second. I believed, with all my heart, that I would not be able to do it.

But yet, I did.

And so my journey began.

Me and Benny 💜

After a difficult week - one which was filled with the usual bloating, anxiety over exercise, and persistent feelings of depression and loneliness, yesterday felt that one bit different.


There was..
travelling home from university and watching the sunlight dance upon the glistening rivers and streams of the sweet, dew-soaked countryside.

Sitting and drinking hot chocolate with Mam, running my fingers through Daisy's soft, jet-black coat, and laughing till my sides ached at Mam's raucous Cap'n Poldark impersonations.

And then talking to my sister on Facebook; sharing with her my current, newfound feelings of motivation; as well as my fears that it will ultimately not last. My beloved sister's furiously typed reply brought a spontaneous smile to my face and a warm tears of gratitude and love to my eyes.

When you feel your motivation going, Em, tell that f***er ED that Lizzy is going to kick its ass if it even tries to creep back in. 

Me and Lizzy 💜

  It was over Christmas when the loneliness really hit me hard; like a sharp, jagged stone being thrust into my body. Despite the twinkling lights and the happy scenes all around me, I had never felt quite so alone. And then, looking up at that lonely, solitary path which seemed to stretch on endlessly in front of me, there was many a time when I felt a desolate sense of utter despair and desperation.

I'll never get there..
Why does this has to be so...so lonely? 

But today reminded me that I am not alone. There are people who I know, no matter what, are here for me. Even if I cannot see them, or feel their hands physically touching my own. Even if I cannot literally hear their voices. I know what they are saying to me. Don't give up, Em. Carry on.

Carry on. Past the halfway mark. Up the mountain, scrambling over sharp-tipped rocks and pebbly slopes. Over yawning abysses and coal-black caverns. Towards the valley. The valley where beautiful flowers grow wild and free; reaching towards the sunlight above: sunlight which spills upon every leaf and every vein and makes their petals shimmer with dancing, sublime beauty.

As that is how I envisage true recovery...
A place in which I feel totally alive, and free, like a budding, blossoming flower.

A place in which I feel totally at peace with myself: a feeling, which I have never felt for so, so long, not since I was that small girl with the long blonde hair who danced and laughed and lived a life that she loved.

And this is how I am going to do it...
By taking small little steps which are also known as goals.

Goal 1.
Follow my meal plan and get to a healthy weight. 
And by a healthy weight, I do not mean simply just the minimum healthy bmi.

Goal 2.
Write down all the eating disorder habits and behaviours and work on picking them out.
It's quite an enlightening activity to do this - to actually sit down and have a really, hard look at just what it is your eating disorder makes you do day in, day out. I can literally think of dozens, and so this is going to take up a whole blog post in itself so I won't blah on about it too much here.

Goal 3.
Compose my reasons to recover list and read over it constantly, reminding myself of just what it is I am fighting for.

Goal 4.
Go to a few counselling sessions at Trinity, while I try to finish off the last semester of my degree. Then, when all this is over, I will hopefully have the time to dedicate myself to proper eating disorder therapy, probably at Marino in Dublin or somewhere more local.
I proved to myself in the past that I can manage to get myself physically well, witht the help and support of my family, friends and readers. But deep down I know that, in order to make the full and complete recovery from an mental illness that has already claimed half of my life and the entirety of my teenage years, that I will need to seek some extra support in the form of cognitive behaviour therapy. When I am finished at Trinity (Hopefully :/) I am going to do some proper research and take stock of all the options which are available to me.

Goal 5.
Facing fears and anxieties.
These include specific foods, meals, and also - yes, the exercise thing, which I still regard as one of the hardest things that I am yet to achieve in recovery.

Goal 6.
Start making plans - both short and long term - so that I have something to work towards and keep my mind focused on why it is so important now that I do not waste any more of my life drowning in an eating disorder's depths.

Searching for that safe harbour...

Up and down, up and down I go; like a bobbing little sailing boat in the middle of a cold, raging sea. One minute, it feels as if I have crested a wave: next minute, i come crashing down again.

Stormy is a perfect way to describe how I feel right now. My emotions roar through me with enough strength and power, it seems, to knock me clean off my feet into the raging waters which course to either side of me.

When I feel joy, it feels so palpable  that I could almost reach the stars with my outstretched fingers if I wanted to. But when...when I feel pain...I feel as if I am being ripped apart like a piece of delicate paper. But this, I suppose, is what you call recovery. I reach a little high point; then, suddenly and horribly, am flung right back down to the earth again, landing hard upon the cold, unyielding ground. I know the drill. I have to get right back up again; wipe away the tears, dust myself off. And carry on.

I must not...
I must not lose sight...of that beautiful little light...

Yesterday, when I felt the depression-type thoughts begin to kick in - it was late at night; I had had no contact from anyone I knew; the perfect combination, in my case, for the feelings of bleakness and despair which are more or less familiar to me now - I picked up my polka dot notebook, sat down uin my little chair and had a good, long think. About...about numerous things. About the shape my recovery has taken the past few months; and what, essentially, I have to do to brighten that beautiful little light.

Many weeks have passed now, since the day when I weighed myself and realized that I was "weight restored". Nearly two months, roughly; or maybe just one and a half. How long it has been is really of little consequence. That is not going to be the subject of this blog post; but rather, what has happened, since that day.

And also before we proceed any further, just to say that it is fully intentional that I inserted the quotation marks on the final two words of my first sentence. The reason being that I felt that I needed to remind myself - andj, of course, my readers too - of the actual importance of understanding what that word means. Weight restored. Taken to refer to that state of when an individual has reached an apparently acceptable healthy body weight. But does it indicate actual healthiness? Should it be regarded as the ultimate goal of the recovering anorexic; the final milestone upon the road, upon which having arrived at they would be ale to call themselves healthy?

I answer my own question with conviction, as I am all too aware of what the truth of this subject really is. The answer uis No, it does not. Weight restored does not at all necessarily mean that youi are healthy, in either body OR mind. And I - as well as so many others, I am sure - have allowed themselves to be lured into a false sense of security, that the minimum healthy bmi range is what we should FORCE ourselves to stay at.

So yes, I know it is true that there are some individuals who do have naturally low bmis. Buit it's a rare thing, so I have read. For the vast majority of people, the low bmi range is still much too low.

Do not make the mistake and think that I, in writing this post, have successfully managed to take on this scientifically proven theory in relation to my own weight and bmi. Truth is, I have not. Rather, I know it is true - as I do many things in regard to anorexia - but one thing that my Voice most certainly excels in is convincing me that what is right and true for "most" people uis by no means applicable to me. A size 10 looks nice on any other woman, Emmy, but most certainly not on you. Its ok for everyone else to eat like that, Em, but if you do you will most certainly get fat. Most people have a healthy weight range higher than bmi of 19, Emmy, but you are an exception to that. 19 is just that bit too high for you, I think.

And so the lies go on and on. Problem is, of course, that I allow myself to believe them. And today I thought that it was about time that I sat and reflected about the extent to which my progress since reaching weight restoration stage has been controlled and affected by these lies.

Meal Plan

When I reached the target weight mam had set for me, I immediately expressed to her how worried I was about "How I should eat now." Having dedicatedly followed my meal plan for the past five months and not having ever had to worry abouit what and how to eat - all I had to do was stick to the plan; after all; there was no uncertainty; no indecision - this sudden actuality of NOT having to follow a plan anymore was, to me, more than just a little frightening. My mam calmed me down and advised me to keep on eating as I had been. "We need to make sure you maintain first," she had said. "And anyway, it is not going to do you any harm at all to gain just a bit more, Em. Your body might not have reached it's healthy set point yet." Initially, I had felt soothed by her words. Determined. Yes. Who could say, i had thought, that I was at a healthy weight yet? Whatever happened, I would not let mam down. I would continue to eat as I had been before, and we would thus see what happened.

The first two weeks afterward were easy enough. I felt motivated and my appetite was still as good as ever; I stuck to my plan just as I had bbeen since than day in February. But then, slowly but surely, my motivation began to creep away from me. Niggling doubts began to creep into my brain; doubts which were really, of course, the Voices of ED in disguise. I began to question my diet and my food intake again. Was it really right that I ate so much bread? Toast at breakfast; half a bagel with my nuts and mid morning hot chocolate; a roll at lunchtime followed by a toasted crumpet inthe afternoon. Wait, Em, the sly voice whispered. There must be a reason why the media are always slamming bread? Why do you think your mum does not eat bread anymore? I think it best that you cut down, just in case.

That was the fuirst thing that I really changed, that week. A few other little alterations happily established themselves; changes so tiny and minute that I and only I could have noticed them. The contented dipping into the peanut butter jar became more controlled and more regimented; the amount of cereal I ate uin the morning; my servings of carbs at dinner. Tiny, minute changes. But my question - to all of you now - is that should I be concerned about them? Or are these dietary changes all good and acceptable;completely normal for a weight-restored twenty two year old girl?

Weight

Me and mam both agreed that we we were going to try and move away from the scales and the weekly weigh ins on reaching my target; so the Sunday checkups were accordingly dispensed with. A massive part of me was delighted, of course. I hated those weigh ins and the feelings of anxiety and self-disgust that always accompanied them, whether I had maintained or gained that particular week. But to my surprise, when I heard mam say the long -awaited words - no more Sunday weigh ins, Em! - the sense of relief I felt was small, barely noticeable. It was mainly overruled by the strong feeling of fear that coursed through me, right then. If there are to be no more weigh ins..then how will you know if you gain more weight? What if you go over the target??

But..the thing is... I told myself that I would allow myself to get to my healthy set point, and if this meant gaining more weight, I would do it. But of course, as with so many parts of recovery, this is easier said then done. And I am afraid, so so afraid, to let go of this rigid self-control which my eating disorder imposed on me so long ago, and which, of course, still lingers with me now.

At present I am still unaware of what my weight is, still. There is one voice which is screaming at me that I must go and check it - I bet you have gained more weight!! I bet you have gone over your target, you..!  - whereas another part of me is too afraid to go and look. But I will need to know, eventually. Truth is I don't know what to expect when I step on the hated thing again.

Feelings and emotions

I would love to say that I have felt better in myself since reaching the target weight, but the reality is of course that things were never going to be that simple. And, unfortunately, having worked so hard to get to this place, my Voice is now as loud as ever before, hurling insults at me every day about how "awful" I look now that I am weight restored. And worse.

I suppose it is a measure of my own strength that I have managed, so far anyway, to not let the Voice effect me drastically and induce me to turn back to anorexic behaviors. 

But I feel...trapped, and, at times, completely devoid of hope. I want to go on, but I do not know how to. I sat and thought, and I did cry, a little, too, because I just want this to be over. I want there to be a magic button there beside me which I an reach out and press, and then I would fall asleep and wake up...and I would be...I would be recovered...

But is this an impossible dream..?

All I can do is..try to keep going..and use all that I have to try and get through the next few days, weeks, months. Years. How long am I going to feel like this? Is there no end to this pain?

How do I reach the safe harbour?