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.

The Child

Recovery represents a new life, a new beginning. I knew this all along, but now, this concept takes on a new and profoundly beautiful relevance.

For not only does recovery mean a new life for me, free from the shackles of the eating disorder. It also means that, from my body, new life may be brought into the world.

Me this Summer

I've been with my boyfriend for almost a year now. Something I haven't really talked about on my blog; for at first I didn't discern a connection between my relationship and my recovery.

For through this extraordinary and beautiful boy I have found both life, and beauty, in a place where there once was only barrenness. Being in love has taught me alot about recovery. It has showed me what recovery should be like, and could be like. For when I am with him it is like I almost feel normal. Normal and more alive than I have ever felt, in the whole twelves years of my illness.

He has made me realise just how badly I want to be free.

Free, to make our own life together: and, perhaps in time, to create new life through children.

There was once a time I was repelled by the thought of having kids. I love children and always have done; but yet, when it came to the thought of having children myself, my whole being would recoil with fear and abhorrence. Because being a mother meant being a woman. And being a woman meant gaining weight and leaving my thin, stick-limbed child's body far behind.

For me, once; a distant possibility.

For me, now, a close and fundamentally life-changing new reality.

For now I no longer have a child's body: my body is that of a young woman. Just yesterday, I bought my first  D bra. Having been wearing B bras since March this year, it did not escape my notice that my breasts, over the summer, had continued to grow.

Hard to believe that once even my tiny little A bras were much too small for me.



I now have the body of a woman; the body that the person that I am was meant to have, long before now. Now all I need to do is accept it; and perhaps, in time, I will learn to embrace it.

And it is through love - the love of my boyfriend, my Mam, my best friend, and my readers - that I have come to realise that I need not fear being healthy. For being healthy will enable me to fulfill all my dreams and aspirations; for being healthy, I know, will enable me to live my life to the full. A life free from restriction, irrational fears, and obsession about my weight and my size.

It's began, now. And I am near the end of the road. Not there yet; for there is still much to do; still a hill up ahead, for me to climb. But the light is shining, strong and true, through that little chink in the wall; like a beam of golden sunlight pouring forth from the cloud-shrouded heavens.

Now all I need to do is dismantle the bricks that encompass that hole, and step through, into the light.

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.

I sit down on the grass and look down at the landscape stretched below me. A landscape alight with the luscious shades and hues of high summer: golden wheatfields bowing in homage to the sun, shady wooded glades of emerald green; clusters of heather, mauvy pink and paling peach, and then the wafting poppy fields, as red and as freely flowing oin that brisk wind as fresly drawn blood spurting from an open wound. The scarlet induces within me a shudder, inevitbly turing my thoughts to the pain deep inside.

I turn my euyes away from this external beauty to examine something alot more closer and known, that being the contours and inclines of my own body. I stare for a long time at the thighs and the arms. 

Freedom. Its a word which I once didnt comprehend the true meaning of. but with the passig of years in recovery came a maturiry, a growth, an increased awareness and understanfding. 

The Task

The writer in me is frustrated and irritable. And has been the past few weeks, ever since I got that little urge, that sudden and unexpected desire to write Morokia again. Come on, Em, let's get back into it. Or the story will never be told.

But it's not good enough, another voice answered it, sadly, to be followed swiftly by another. And we need to focus on the job search.

That's your priority right now, Em. Get a job!! Earn some money!! Too long have you been here relying on mam and dad to provide for you!! Lazy, hopeless girl...

Like a blaring siren the sentences repeated themselves, over and over, in the cramped confinements of the chamber of my brain.

And it was only a matter of time before the siren became too unbearably, painfully loud.



Since I came back from Lapland, trying to find a job has proven to be a source of purpose and direction to me, in the sense that I, as a writer, have always liked to have had a little writing project to focus on - a project which satisfied that occasional need to dabble in the artistry of the written word. And the more I felt that "project" was of some sort of practical use - was going to be of benefit to someone, was going to contribute towards some significant cause - the better. And to that guilty, niggling part of my brain which was squirming in guilt and indignation at the fact that I was still unemployed, the task of finding a job was certainly the most significant task I could possibly commit myself to at this point in my life.

So I turned away from Morokia's unexplored landscapes; the epic battles raging between good and evil, the characters who I had come to know so well that they seemed real, breathing people, with minds and hearts and stories of their own. I turned away from that fantastical landscape, and concentrated all my energies on something which I knew was much more imperative: finding a job. I say "concentrated all my energies"  because doing job applications to someone like me is no straightforward task. The perfectionist streak of me demanded everything to be immaculate and without flaw. Any mistake on my part would result in a fury-filled inner berating which would then in turn leave me edgy and disconcerted for days. But I continued with my teeth set firmly together, as if I was making myself walk through a storm of drenching icy rain.

And so it comes as no surprise that equally my self-set job of finding a job has been a cause of misery, frustration, and more often than not, despair. A procedure so torturous and painful, it seems almost equatable to having the skin torn, shred by little shred, by a toothed bramble enmeshed around the legs, impeding movement, disabling you from moving on: yet biting into you, too, if you remain still and cease to move. At each little tear I would bleed that little bit more. Yet another unanswered email; yet another application which has been ignored, rejected, dismissed straight out of hand? Oh, you're useless, Em. Clearly no one wants to employ you. Save the place in Shrewsbury which you no longer want, and were to weak to take on. Now you've let it go and you're doomed, Em!! No one else will employ you. Ever. You're a complete and utter worthless piece of sh**!!

The other day I could not take it anymore. I shut the laptop with a snap and just cried. Was there really nothing out there? It certainly seemed so. I felt so afraid that it seemed every scrap of my courage had been stretched and wrung out to dry in a harsh, baking sun. That they had been stretched to the point of being snapped apart, leaving me with nothing but untraceable, indistinct fibres.

And that's when mam came and reminded me ofsomething which I, in the chilling depeths of my despairing, had inevitably lost sight of in my mind. Wave upon wave of heavy black misery had washed over me, but when mam reached out and took my hand to pull me from the water again, I could just perceive fthrough the mist and the fog that path through the choppy seas which I know I cannot afford to fall away from.

And mam reminded me of the most important truth of all. That yes, it is important that I try to find a job. But as important as my recovery? As important as beating ED? Not so.

Just don't get so stressed that you fall back into bad habits, Emmy. And right then her words filled me with strength. And even more so that I can attest to the fact that it is not "falling backwards" is not the danger here. No. For despite how stressed and desperate I have felt, I am still eating. Eating well and good. Eating the same amounts every day. But that's where the problem lies. The same amounts. My stress and anxiety hasn't impacted me in a way which has made me go backwards; no. I am strong enough to inhibit that from happening, now.

Rather, it has taken a toll in so far as I haven't quitepossessed the motivation to increase my meal plan that wee bit more, as I know I need to do, to gain the final bit of weight.

And, on reflecting on it all later, I realised that no, I was not quite right in asserting that finding a job as quickly as possible is the most important and critical task for me to accomplish right now. It's important, yes; but I just need to pause now and ask myself a crucial question. Is successfully fulfilling this task going to play any major part in contributing towards my health, my physical and mental recovery? Is bending over backwards to obtain employment going to help me save the most important and valuable asset that I will ever, ever own?

My body?

The answer is to all these questions of course, is no. No, finding a job as urgently as possible isn't going to heal all the damage done inside, or make my periods come. No, getting that job isn't going to help improve my osteoporosis, or increase my chances of recovery.

And this is what I have to remind myself now. My principal task is recovery. I'll carry out all the other tasks alongside that one, job-hunting included. But this one takes priority.

Breaking the Mould

Hopped off the bus, pulled up my hood; scurried along at a somewhat breathless trot along the rain soaked streets of Portlaoise. Across the railway bridge I pattered along, my little black rucksack bouncing upon my back, my hair, having long escaped my hood, fluffing up around my face in messy wet ringlets that held on to the tiny beads of drizzle in the air.

My little red bike with the pink basket on the front was patiently awaiting me at the bike racks. I slung the handles of my bag across the handlebars, wheeled it out, whipped one leg over the saddle, and away I go. And as soon as the rush of the wind roared in my ears and my legs began to turn the pedals, an enormous smile came to my face. It was a sensation of which I would never tire of; a thrill that no matter how many times I had felt soar through my veins before, I wanted to relive, over and over. Faster and faster we go through the streets, past fogged-up windows within which soft lights glowed, past spluttering chimneys and enclosed little gardens.

I soon left the town far behind me to enter the realm of which is more beloved to me than any other. That being of course the countryside, shining and bright despite the drab drizzle and the thickening rain clouds. Everything seemed to glow and glisten like a multitude of scattered diamonds. And in the hedgerows, newly budding primroses; golden and glorious, their paler outer petals framing centres fringed with a slightly darker shade of yellow. The fields, too, were bejeweled with early spring's offerings: tiny daisies, dainty and delicate, peppering the rich green grass with the plentiful abundance of a mellowing fruit tree; alongside fluffy-headed clover and eye-bright golden celandii; and then, flanking the edges of the fields like a guard of honour, stood the blue-green shoots of the germinating daffodils; their trumpet like flowers yet encased within the protective layers of papery buds.

To see all these things caused my spirit to soar till it felt like my very soul was flying above the stars. To see this, and feel it. To be alive today. And to feel the strength in my mind and body which was not there before.

Because I am stronger now; physically and mentally, to the way I was before. I recall the days that I would feel so weak and drained it was almost as if my knees were going to give way beneath me. When I felt so light-headed I could not focus on the glaring words upon the white sheet in front of me. When I felt so lifeless, that all I wanted to do was to crawl feebly into my mam's arms and just lie there and just...die. Yes. There were times when that impulse was there; that longing to put an end to it all, to escape the limitless suffering. But how glad I am that I did not succumb to that impulse. Now, I look back and shake my head in incredulity: not only at that, but just how deeply enmeshed in ED's web I was. And along with that incredulity there is the bitter, poignant recognition that so many others out there are trapped in the same shackles that I once wore.

Ambitions. Do I have them? As regards a career, no, not really. But I have other ambitions; other goals which, in the world of business and profits, might not be worth very much. Not that that matters to me, of course. No. What matters is the fact that my ambition is something which I would willingly put my whole heart and soul into achieving. It's to help others break free from these chains. But to be able to fulfill my ambition I need to first break free myself.

And now I can clearly perceive, feel the changes in my mind and my body; changes which, at one time, would have served to appall or frighten me; but which now I embrace with the exuberant joy of a girl who has just reached a goal which she never thought she'd even be able to brush with her fingertips; who has discovered a beautiful place which she did not know existed, but which delights her, nonetheless, with its newfound delights of wonder and mystery.

The other day, about two weeks ago, now, I got my first B bra.
No, I'm no longer an A.

Now I know all too well what sorts of thoughts, feelings this alteration in my bra cup size would have once evoked. Disgust. shame. self-loathing. and most of all , smarting, pulsing fear. My head would have played host to a massive battle drum; a timpani upon which anxiety thrummed its heavy iron drumsticks. And how that timpani would have rolled. Rolled until I could not take it anymore. Rolled until it was all I could do but to turn abruptly backwards; to sprint, in a wild panic, back into the darkness from which I had only just tentatively, warily emerged. Currents of anxiety, submerging me in fear. Back then I was not strong enough. Back then the enlargement of my breasts would have inevitably led to relapse.

But not now.

When I was in M&S and the lady who measured me told me I was a B I nearly could have hugged her then and there. The soaring joy I suddenly felt right then stemmed primarily from two sources: one, the fact that they had grown in itself; and secondly, the simple fact that those feelings that I described above were so conspicuously, blissfully absent. And if felt like I was running through a summer meadow. Soft moss cushioning my feet and my hair flying free like a horse's floating mane. Because at that moment when I put my new bra across my breasts, I realized just how tangible this was; the feeling that is that when you are really, really breaking free. I'm getting there. Slowly, slowly I am breaking free from the mould. ED's mould. I no longer want to be the skinny girl with the beanpole frame, the gaunt, tired face, the stick thin arms and legs. That was who I used to be; that was how ED moulded and shaped me. But no, not anymore. Now I am breaking free and loving the feeling. Now I know how it feels to be able to make strides, and to be able to relish the freedom which comes in doing so.

So now I'll keep on running through the meadow: a meadow which, at the time, is like that of the early spring; so discernibly similar to the field I passed while cycling home from Portlaoise yesterday. Not everything is in full bloom, yet. Summer has not yet come.  But up through the ground push the tender new shoots which, despite their seemingly fragile appearance, conceal a tactile inner strength.
And now I know that I am at the germinating stage of my recovery journey. All I need to do now is keep pushing, to let myself grow ever upwards. To finally let myself bloom and blossom, and shine in the sparkling sun.