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

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.

They are Poles Apart from Me..

The smiling, curly-haired librarian, having taken my library card and scanned it, peered at her computer screen with a thoughtful expression, her free hand tapping the smooth, polished wood of the desk in front of her. "It arrived this morning, Emily!" she told me. I"I'll just run upstairs and fetch it for you." Having said so, she vanished, returning barely minutes later with a massive, bible-like book under her arm.

I stared at the hefty volume in some sort of amused bewilderment, before stepping forwards to relieve her of her burden. "Thanks a million!" I exclaimed, looking down at the monstrous text that i now held in my hands. Iris Murdoch's the Green Knight. And I was supposed to have this read for Friday.

On initially seeing the book, and glancing over the short description the lecturer had inserted at the top of the week's tasks sheet, I was pretty much expecting the text to be laboriously complex, unengaging, and difficult to read. However, a few pages into my humongous doorstopper of a novel,  I discovered, much to my surprise, that I was actually enjoying it. In a strange, oblique sort of way: the story is complicated, full of abstract language and sensuous naturalistic imagery; and as I read I could not help but ponder as to whether or not I was actually picking up on everything that professor Murdoch actually intended an active reader of her text to do.

But yet, despite all that, this text spoke to me, touching my heart and speaking to my soul in ways which I hadn't in the least anticipated. And I could relate, if not palpably identify with, a number of the novel's various and strikingly diverse different characters. One of these was the girl Moy. Naive, innocent, childlike, little Moy's special relationship with the external world is explicit from the beginning of the novel; as is the extent to which she is something of an outsider in her own closely-knit family circle. Because Moy is an oddity, in a way: she is patently, fundamentally different from her bookish, elegant sisters; indeed from all of the other members of the small circle of friends known collectively in the book as the family.

And Moy can be seen to embrace this difference, while at the same time, it can be seen to be tearing her apart...

Reading Moy's story, was enough to bring tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat. Because I could really...feel, her pain; that sense of fragmentation deep within your own sense of self. Because, likeMoy, I know that I am so very, very different. That I am an oddity, that I am set apart from the other girls at my age. It feels as if we occupy two entirely different worlds.

There is that part of me..that part of me which does not care, that I am different. I am a dryad; a nymph, a spirit of the woodlands. I am a flowergirl with wild rosebuds in her hair and daisy chains around her neck. I am an explorer, a tree climber, an elf, a keeper of the forest's hidden and secrets. I can run through daisy strewn fields with Benny at my side, my hair wild and loose and streaming behind me like a banner; my leggings, torn and snagged from branches and brambles, Here, there are no judgmental eyes to gaze critically at me with scorn or disapproval. I can be the wild girl of the woods...I am free.

But then...then, there is that other part of me; where lies a pain so sharp it seems like it might slice my heart in two; a thick, interpentrable root of despair, stemming directly from that knowledge that yes, I am different, I should not be like this; I am so fundamentally and critically different from the other girls my age. That this is not the way it should be, for a bordering on 22 english girlin the modern world of the twenty-first century. No social life, no relationships, no job, no dependence.

How...how do i negotiate my way through this? I want things to change; I want to wear a pretty dress and pencil eyelincer onto my eyes, to go out there into town in a group of giggling girls, and dance my heart out on the dancefloors of those sparkling, glittering nightclubs, feel the beat of the music pulsate with my heart and fill my body with its irresistable rhythm. But yet, simultaneously, there is that massive part of me which is desperate, so painfully, agonizingly desperate - for things to remain the same. To never leave home; the home that I love and where I feel safe, the sanctuary where I can take refuge from the cruel eyes of the world.

The maze and the mountain.

For me, one of the most difficult obstacles in my struggles against the Voice of my Eating Disorder has always been my lack of motivation to recover, on account that, aside from the love I bear for those in my life who are closest to me, that I always felt as if I had nothing to recover for.

This type of thinking got significantly worse when I started at Trinity. When I was at school, my eating disorder was kept in a state of semi-containment: i had a goal, a specific aim, in my head the whole time, which kept me off, to some extent, that bloodstained path of self-destruction upon which I suddenly found myself stumbling upon, that day when I left my home in September 2012. the day when I was all set to embark upon a new chapter in my life, away from the insular, warm, safe world of my home.

I have to eat as little as possible, now. Because being skinny is the only one thing, that I have left.
I am not smart, intelligent, beautiful, funny, athletic, studious, talented in any kind of way...

And now, you have lost that one thing that you did have...
you're no longer the grade a student...everyone here is a hundred times better than you. 

being thin, being the skinny one...that's all that I have left.

This was the kind of thing...that I told myself every day. And which I fully believed, heart and soul...which I recognised and acknowledged as the ultimate truth.

And so the two years dragged on, two difficult and painful years full of panic, anxiety, tears and relentless restriction. Because by this time it came so naturally to me; and not once did I stop to consider just what the consequences of my actions could be; stop, to contemplate for one instant, just how much damage I was wrecking upon my own body. And I no longer had that goal, that drive to propel me onwards. I looked no further than the present day, and perhaps, the day following that. And for one single, abominable purpose. my mind was wholly bent, on how, each day, I was would go about eating as little as possible; and how I would conceal my actions from the eyes of the world, and my loved ones. It fills me with shame to write this, but I know that it is the truth; that, for me, was my reality, every hour of every day. Whereas other girls my age in Trinity spent their time planning their future career prospects, perhaps, or where they would choose to go for their getogether on Saturday night... every thought, every priority, every motivation that ever really occured to me...it wasn't my own, it was Ed's. I didn't think about my future; as far as I was concerned, there was nothing really there, anyway. I didn't see where I was going. I didn't realise where this path of self-destruction really led.

Now, things are different. But yet, in a way, some things remain the same.

It's true to say that the realisation of just how much damage I actually caused my body...

What remains unchanged, though, is the fact that I still don't really know where I am going; I still dont really know what I am recovering for...

Because I still see myself, as a lost cause. I feel like a little scrubby dandelion weed, growing precariously upon the steep, barren slope of  some beautiful yet cruelly hostile mountain. The dandelion struggles desperately to grow; but the elements are too harsh, the ground too hard, for it to grow. Further away from the slope grow the other beautiful mountain flowers: tall red poppies and glorious purple foxgloves, regal and exquisite, dainty bluebells. They are strong and successful and flourishing. But I am not, and never will be, one of them.

                                          At times, it feels like as if my life has become as lonely and as heavy as a mountain...

Perhaps, in another time and another place, I would have blossomed; but this is the modern world, and it breaks my heart to say it, but...I will never be like the others. I'm 21 now, and have been for several months, but to be honest, you would not know, if you were to attach a camera to me, and monitor what I do and how I conduct myself on a daily basis.

I still need mam, to look out for me. If it was not for her, i don't even think I would really be here, right now. She was, and still is, to a great extent, the backbone to my recovery... without her, I know it would have crumbled long ago.
I still need mam to sit with me at dinner, because I know that without her I wouldn't have enough and that i would stop eating before I was full. And though I don't really think she is aware of it,in that I haven't really told her...but it is for her and through her that I manage to beat off the Voice and win my little victories with my meal plan. When I had my scone last Sunday, for example...I don't think I would have managed it, if it wasn't for Mam being there. And at that moment I was so, so torn...I wanted to have that scone, but even more than that, I wanted her to get it for me - I didn't want to have to be the one to perform that one simple thing...that simple thing, as small and as insignificant as a speck of dust on a windswept plateau...but yet, at the same time, as huge and as vast and as overwhelming, as the massive gulf that surrounds it on all sides.

Why am I so dependent on others...
Why am I so immature...
What am I really recovering for? Will I ever be able to find my way, in life? or will I just get lost along the way?

Because that's how I feel, at the moment. Just so lost...lost in a never-ending, disorientating maze. A maze which I see others passing through, from time to time. But they, unlike me, manage to find their way out. Some might struggle and some might falter, but in the end, they succeed. But I just stumble on, and on, and on, trying desperately to follow them out...not wanting to be, the little girl who got left behind.

All I know is...I have to keep searching, trying, and struggling up this long and lonely mountain. For my recovery journey is proving very long, and lonely, and hard. But I know I have to keep going. I know that I have to try.

The child of my ED... :'(

After another rough day yesterday - what with my parents being upset with me again, a night out which went badly wrong, and a very upset, tearful, and depressed Emmy at the end of it all - looking over my previous blog posts and reading all the little comments and reflections all helped to comfort and soothe me in the face of what could have been another powerful surge of depression-type melancholy; which would more than likely have reduced me to ineptitude, if I hadchosen to give in to it. I reminded myself that everything is going to be ok, the storm will pass, and I will not feel the way that I feel right now, forever and ever and ever. And so, today, I am just going to try to move on and continue on with all the little things that I had originally planned, before the rain came lashing down once more. Finish off the buns I made yesterday; write in my blog and perhaps, a bit of Morokia; sort out the dinner for tomorrow; commence with the tidying of my room after the Lego excavation. Go for a walk with Benny and write an email to the Senior Lecturer of Trinity, having received a bill on my tcd portal which at this point I'm not even sure I am going to be paying, or not. Just ordinary, simple things which will keep my hands busy and my mind off the tears and anger of yesterday, and the darkness which constantly threatens to engulf me at any moment.

I just feel so, so disappointed, again, because, as of Friday, I was feeling alot more positive and upbeat about things. But my head and mind seem to work differently from most people's, it seems. I resolve to be happy, and then something happens - something which might seem so small and insignificant to ordinary, normal people, but subsequently causes a massive issue for me - and I was once more reduced to despondency once again, because my demons - the demons of my very own making, the products of my very own mind - were just staring at me right in the face: and there were two branches, this time, two branches of the wrongness about the girl who is Emmy, snagging and catching at her body, threatening to trip her up and throw her to the ground.

I will tell you about these two demons in this post and the next, and then, I will leave it, here. I feel as if I need to talk about them, as there is part of me which wants to deny that it is ture, that they even exist. But I know all too well, that they do.

A few weeks back, you might have remembered me talking a little about my immaturity. And by that I don't mean anything to do with physical appearance. Though around this time last year, I know, I had the body of a girl. Stick-like arms and legs, tiny waist and hips, small, barely discernible breasts. That has changed, now, but unfortunately, my mindset certainly has not. And I still very much feel like that little girl who I used to be, when ED first came into my life, when my happiness wilted like a flower touched by frost. Small, afraid, frightened and dependent on others to keep me afloat. And unfortunately, that part of me hasn't changed.

It was this which caused some of the upset yesterday, and I completely understand why, it did. And I do not blame my loved ones for this, because I know how frustrating it must be for them, how hard it must be, to understand, why I act the way that I do. But of course, I still wish that they do understand; that they aren't as hard on me. As I don't know what to do to solve this; to make myself suddenly snap out of this self-imposed sense of immaturity. To make myself just grow up , like they tell me I should.

My ED makes me immature in a number of ways. Ways which writing them now fills me with shame and self-loathing, but the sad fact is, that I know that they are true.

Firstly, unlike most girls of my age - an age which is pretty much associated here in ireland as being the time for party-going, clubbing, being out on the town till the wee small hours of the morning, and so forth - do not have much of a social life, at all, and going out is something which fills me with fear and anxiety rather than excitement and delight. That people will look at me and see; and judge, and think, and speculate. I am painfully, excruciatingly self-conscious about my body and the way I look. I don't really drink , so this of course immediately makes me feel something of an oddity in a pub or a nightclub, surrounded by people who are doing just that; and me being one of the very few who are sober. I have been like this for the past three years, and I could count the nights out during this time on my fingers, as there have just been so few of them.

And then, of course, there is the food side of things. For in this sense, I am so, so pathetically immature: there are a number of things here which testify this, for me. For one thing, when I am on my own, it is almost as if I cannot physically make things for myself. Whether that be hot chocolate, or dessert, or to do myself a buttered scone, or toast a teacake under the grill. It is almost as if, by doing these things, my ED gets extremely agitated, screaming, No! You can't do that! You need someone to do this for you. It won't taste as good if you do it yourself. You need them to "see" that you are actually eating something. If you do it yourself noone is going to notice! No, don't you dare make it yourself! You can get away without eating that! You don't need that! You don't! You don't!...

And it is here where I always fall down in terms of the meal plan, for, if mam or dad or someone isnt there to give me that prompt, or make whatever up for me, or to check up on me to make sure I am actually going to eat it...then oftentimes, I can't do it. And this is all very well now, what with me living at home with Mam and Dad to look after me. But I am 21. 21! You wouldnt know it, would you? 21, and I have never worked, never had any money of my own, never been able to look after myself properly, never able to do anything really, by myself. And Mam and Dad can't look out for me, forever. There will come a time when I will have to leave home; I know that there is no denying that fact. But I am my ED's child as well as theirs, it seems. I would obey its wishes and comply meekly with its demands, just like a frightened child who is afraid of being punished, would. ED has made a child of me...if only I could pull away from its grasp, wholly and truly. If only I had the courage to break free.

                               2007

                                               2015

Though my body has changed, my head and my mind really haven't...

I don't want to be the child of my ED... :'(

Picking up the pieces..:'(

this was a hard and painful thing for me to write, and I did hesistate in sharing this post with you today, but as I have said before, I dont want my blog to become yet another facade under which I can hide behind like a beetle under a rock; I dont want to have to wear yet another mask of my own making on My Cocoa Stained Apron...that's not what my blog is about. Rather, it is a place where I write from my heart and am open and honest about my feelings, where I can reach out to others and implore them to do the exact same. For I think we all know that wearing all those masks and creating all those facades burdens the soul and bears down upon the heart.

I write this with tears in my eyes, because I feel as if I was so, so close to achieving what I had been yearning for: a perfect holiday, with no upset, fights, tears  or disagreements. But yesterday destroyed all my hopes of that. To be brutally honest yesterday was an awful day. And I suppose the pain is even worse, because I feel as if it was completely out of my control, what happened yesterday. And it wasn;t because I messed up, it wasnt because I refused to eat or paniced at a restaurant or went off cycling for three hours plus and got caught in the act: no. But I think ED was in there, somewhere: subtly entwined into the things I said and the things I did yesterday. And overhanging it all is the knowledge that I could have avoided this..I could have prevented it. But those three demons of my own making - those being, my depression, my immaturity, and of course my eating disorder - were either too strong for me to fight against, or I too weak to oppose them.

Yesterday got off to a bad start: I woke up feeling really down. Not really for any apparent, or logical, reason: but as I looked up the weather forecast online to read that it was going to be yet another hot, sticky, sweltering day, with temperatures ranging from 35 to 38 degrees celsius in blistering heat, I couldnt help but groan inwardly. The heat has been really getting to me on this trip much more so than it has done in the past, and as I sat and contemplated another scorching hot day at the villa, doing the same old things that I have done for the past week and a half - for noone except me seemed interested in going sightseeing or actually leaving the villa, and I of course was too embarrassed to speak up - I began to feel more and more down, thinking of home, of the soft cool breezes of the Irish summer, thinking of Benny and Maisy and Felix, and just yearning to be back at home with them. I have enjoyed my time here, but it has been too long, for me.

And the day just got worse and worse from that point onwards: a number of things happened then, which further augmented the building sense of depression welling up inside me, threatening to overwhelm and submerge every other feeling in suffocating, engulfing waves. It was a scorching day, and I felt sick and wishy-washy and had to sit inside after lunch with the AC on. At snack time noone offered to support me again:it was as if they had completely forgotten about me and what I should be having. We had had a somewhat tense discussion the other night about my future and  treatment once we return home, and the conversation had sat heavily on my mind all day, filling me with doubt, melancholy, and immense apprehension. And then, to top it all off, we were eating out that evening. I did not want to go, but I wanted to put on a brave face. However when it came to washing and brushing my hair, I discovered that it had become very matted and tangled during the course of the day, and now ressembled a blonde streaked brown bush of sorts when I went to go and brush it out. After about 40 minutes - no word of a lie, for that is exactly how long it took - of brushing and futile detangling, I was hot with frustration and angry tears burned my eyes, threatening to fall. You are such a BABY!! a voice screamed at the back of my head. Crying about knotted hair!!

The evening was ruined for me, basically: I sat in the restaurant that night and said not a word, having come under hevy critcism from Mam for looking and acting so miserable. I think she mistakedly assumes that the main cause of my distress  was having to eat out, but there, this time, she was wrong. That was only just one of the coals tossed into the fire,  a fire which simmers and burns with sickly, heavy, oppressing heat.

Now it is morning and I am wide awake, despite the fact I slept for about 5 hours last night, despairing and miserable about the one day that destroyed everything: my positive approach to the holiday, the peace and tranquillity I had managed to uphold so far, and, of course, the possibility that this holiday could almost have been a really, really lovely one. One free of any discord, rows, fights or heated arguments. But the words exchanged last night testify to me that this is not the case. My little bubble of positivity has been ruthlessly burst: my happiness, once again, broken and shattered into fragments before my very eyes. And now I am left to pick up the pieces and try to move forward. The thing is, I don't know what moving forward actually is.

To get a job? To try and go back to college, with the little money or funding that I have? To keep on going to the hospital in the knowledge that they have done all that they can possibly do for me, in terms of my recovery? I thought initially before writing this post today, that I had only one demon: one terrible, hideous, crippling demon. But it turns out I have three: I know I do, and they are ruining me. Yesterday was merely a snapshot of just how much control and influence they have over my life. Just how exactly do I move forward and pick up the pieces, and patch together my torn, broken heart?

I didnt want this to change..

I dont really consider myself as that much of a reflective or philosophical sort of person, but today, as I arose with the ascending sun and pottered outside to my usual designated spot beneath the blooming bower at the back of the villa, the rocky coastal highlands to the north dominating my field of vision as I gazed towards the horizon, my mood became sombre and my thoughts began to race faster than a hawk in flight.

As I gazed out at the distant mountains, silvery grey peaks soaring majestically upwards, reaching for the blue, fathomless heavens above them, a wave of reflective sadness washed over me, leaving me feeling drained and despondent. Because I know, it is wrong, it is not right for a 21 year old girl to feel the way the way I do, about living at home, not being at college or in the realm of employment: or quite simply about life, in general.

Because the truth is, I dont want my life at home to end. My home is my safe haven, my sanctuary, my comfort zone; the nest in which my siblings and I - in that sweet, glorious summer of our lives termed as childhood - were raised and nurtured and gently allowed to grow.

Everything about my home to me is comforting, lovingly familiar, safe, warm, and unchanging.
Sitting around the fire on a cold winter's night, flames hungrily licking the logs and kindling placed in the hearth, while others leap upwards against the sooty blackness of the chimney, twirling and flickering like lithe dancers garbed in silks of dazzling red and and orange and gold. Cooking in the familiar, sparkly-clean, blue-tiled kitchen as evening shadows lengthen and the sun begins to gradually sink beneath the Slieve Blooms to the west; the delicate smells of herbs and fresh bread in my nostrils as I stir pots and lift hot trays out of the oven with my checked black and white oven gloves. Taking Benny out onto the bog on a sunny spring morning,the dew seeping through my shoes and the sharp nip of the dawn tickling my cheeks, while Benny's ears flap joyously like the wings of a young bird as he prances across the heathery expanses.

And I know that I wil have to leave it...but I don't want to, and am so, so deeply afraid of doing so.

For when I get back from mallorca, I will need to make a decision about whether or not I am going to return to Trinity, and, if I am not, I will then subsequently need to decide where the next twist in my road is going to take me.

I suppose I am just sad, and frustrated. As when I went into hospital I expected to come out and, as well as being fully recovered from my eating disorder (which I know, deep down, of course, that I am not), that I will also being more mature, more assertive, more confident, and ready to take on the world. But the truth is, I still feel very much like that scared little girl going into secondary school all those years ago, when ED first caught hold of my hand and beckoned me to follow him along the path which would lead to my very own ruin. I just hope that this month, I will be able to make the right choices - choices which will enable me to make some positive and generative changes in my life, and enable me to become independent. I want to be able to have my own income and start earning money, as the fact that financially I am completely dependent on Daddy only serves to fuel my sense of self-hatred and guilt. I want to pay them back for everything they have done for me, for giving me all the love a parent could ever bestow upon their child, and more - I want to make them proud. But at the same time I am so, so afraid of leaving the world of my home, of leaving the life that I love. And of course, I suppose it is made worse y the fact that I dont even know where I am going to go, what exactly am I going to do. Change can be as scary as the deepest and most darkest of winter nights, and certainly just as full of uncertainty.

I didn't want my life here to change...