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.

The girl who would not bleed

They won't hurt me again. I won't ever, ever let them break down my walls. I'll be guarded and careful and keep my heart wrapped up tight in swaths of stifling cloth. I typed the words furiously, fingers rapping against the keyboard, tears streaking down my face to land in messy plops upon the surface of my laptop.

I will not bleed. I won't let them. From now on it's me and noone else.

No sooner had I written the words though I knew that I did not mean them. Because truth is I'm a girl who is naturally open and honest and warm. A girl who loves intensely and deeply and craves to be loved in return. A girl who realises that she needs to let others in, needs those others to help her carry her forwards, to reassure her that she can bare that heavy, heavy cross.

And it's not them who make me bleed, anyway. Rather, it's me. I'm the one who is making myself so hurt and torn inside. It's me after all who controls my response to events; who chooses how to react to that comment, who makes a decision to take those words right to the heart.

It's me who has the power to say I will not bleed. I won't let myself, not them. And Ed. Always Ed.

For he's the one who scored gashes across my heart, broke it so deftly with his cruel, nimble fingers. And so many times. So many times that I have lost count.

But now I say. No more, Ed.

I am the girl who will not bleed.

Yet even as I write those words again I cannot help but grimace at the irony set deep within them. Of course, that's just what I am too, literally speaking. Yes. The same girl who has been told on numerous occasions that she looks "healthy" and well, and yet, the same girl who has still not had one single period. She literally will not bleed. Is it wrong of me to wish that the world would just keep its comments to itself?

But no good saying all this and writing it. No good just saying that oh, yes, I will be strong and no longer let ED cut me open. I now need to take concrete actions in my life; actions which will bring about the physical and psychological changes that together constitute what I see as true recovery.

And even as my heart lies in bloody, shattered pieces, pulsing upon the floor, I still hung on to my tattered shreds of hope.

That's what'll keep me going and which will drive me on. On and on as the thunderclouds broil thick and heavy, and the rain slashes down upon my face.

I will get through this. I'm stronger now than I ever was before.



And so, I am going to conclude this post with some real, concrete actions, to move forwards.

Because action is power. And hope, and that refusal to give up, could well be my greatest ever strength.

• Get into the habit of checking my weight once a week again. No more, no less.
• Learn how to deal with the much dreaded,  you look well.                                                        Ah, the agony of  that so simple little comment; three short words in a single sentence, a sentence which has the same devastating power as a massive avalanche would crashing down upon my head. It was something, those days when I was very underweight, that I wasn't of course at any point faced with, at all. Back then it was you need to gain weight, Emmy. Something that deep down I wish people would say to me now. Because I know in my heart I should be trying to gain weight. It's no good trying to convince myself I am "healthy" and well at this current weight at which I am at. People may not know it, but I know that it is the truth. The fact that I will not bleed is enough evidence for me, for that.                                                    But to learn how to deal with this comment is something of a crucial matter for me, given that my inability too in the past has nearly caused me to go completely off track, even, relapse. Late last summer I could not sit and eat a meal without hearing that lady in the library's voice reverberating through my head. Telling me that I had a chubby face. That's only one of several instances in the past in which I have been sent tottering on the edge as a result of that simple little comment. 
• Write a list of the Cold Truths. I think this is something that we all should try to do in recovery, as it can serve as a bit of a wakeup call if you find yourself drifting. I'll share my own in my next post.
• And I would like more than ever now to commit to some kind of therapy. Though the problem is, though - no point trying to deny it - to even endeavour to do so is in itself something which I find myself reluctant, even scared, to do.                                                                             Why?? There's a few reasons, really; some of which are totally illogical; others, maybe not so. I'll talk about this very shortly.
• And now more than ever I need to conquer my remaining fears. I need to feel the fear and do it anyway. I'm currently reading the book by Susan Jeffers, the title of which holds a lot of resonance for me. As soon as I started to read that book the sparks began to fly off the pages. I realised everything Susan was saying was so directly relevant for me, or for anyone in recovery. Feel the fear and do it anyway. It's ok and normal to have that fear. Everyone does. But the difference is between people who succeed and don't succeed in conquering their fears is that the successful people say to themselves that they can handle it. And so. Now I repeat that same sentence over and over in my head. I can handle this. I'm the one in control. I have the power to overcome ED. 

And the girl whose heart was bleeding and torn in two will stand up, now, and despite her wounds and scars will keep on going, on and on, with the sunrise directly in front of her.

The Hunger for More...

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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