tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72370763467023270082024-03-13T20:46:02.582+00:00Tears Behind The Smile - A Journey Through Therapy... in a space where I am unknown.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger226125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-54706276997819674082014-10-22T16:01:00.000+01:002014-10-22T16:01:16.420+01:00Closed For BusinessJust a note to close this blog and redirect to the site I am now using.<br />
<br />
I think I have felt (for a long time now) that some of the stuff in this blog is just so far behind me that it is time to kick up the dust and move to a slightly different landscape.<br />
<br />
But I miss some of the visitors I had here, and so I leave a trail behind me!<br />
<br />
If you are at all interested, my newer blog is called LastThingOutTheBox<br />
and it can be located<a href="http://beautyfromthefire.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"> here</a><br />
<br />
Thank you for sharing some of the aspects of my journey.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-14623085799535804912014-08-03T18:31:00.000+01:002014-08-03T18:31:45.519+01:00Anorexia KillsFor whatever reason, I feel the need to preface this post with a declaration that I do not buy the Daily Mail. Finding it, all too often, a thinly veiled excuse to propound nationalistic views, I frequently have to remind readers that the world is not really that bad a place unless they believe all they read in this trussed up tabloid.<br />
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I was, however, drawn to the<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2713000/Anorexia-occupied-entire-Mother-teenager-killed-eating-disorder-releases-19-year-olds-private-diaries-urging-look-Lorrys-eyes-devastating-illness.html" target="_blank"> full page article</a> about a long suffering mother, who, five years after her daughter’s tragic death, has made the decision to release the girl’s diaries. Diaries that record the tortured journey of Loredana Verta, a bright, talented sixteen year old, who was dead within three years. Heart attack.<br />
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Rightly or wrongly, some of this young sufferer’s innermost thoughts and feelings are laid bare in newsprint for all to see.<br />
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The workings of this girl’s mind are utterly consumed by the illness. Her writing is littered with scribbled self loathing, capitalised screams of “I HATE ME… I HATE MY BODY”. Most teenagers feels like this at some point. Hormones, skin, peer pressure, perfection culture, fashion… It’s all there to taunt the aspiring, spot laden, hormone raging teen.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO72xNW6IupWo_n7rLMLuA_06LmJFiZrZHmAEWrAFqxEJNmxvZ3bcHligcFmaS5Ko7UVgN-831VraBMnVHjZtxUOdGP87_KPa9SNj9yIEyjPcyBypiTrLitpnjFX4f1RfqR2IhxGaCNCVC/s1600/article-2713000-202CA0CA00000578-585_634x910.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO72xNW6IupWo_n7rLMLuA_06LmJFiZrZHmAEWrAFqxEJNmxvZ3bcHligcFmaS5Ko7UVgN-831VraBMnVHjZtxUOdGP87_KPa9SNj9yIEyjPcyBypiTrLitpnjFX4f1RfqR2IhxGaCNCVC/s1600/article-2713000-202CA0CA00000578-585_634x910.jpg" height="320" width="222" /></a><br />
Except Loredana’s thoughts are all centred on weight loss and weight gain and wrongly perceived fat.<br />
To my mind, what is more haunting than the poisonous self hatred, the desperation, the pleas to God and the cries for help, are the words of a grieving mother, who says,<br />
<br />
“Lorry thought she could live with the condition – that as long as she was thin, she would be OK. She didn’t realise that anorexia is a deadly disease. It is a killer”.*<br />
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For long term sufferers, ‘old hands’, <br />
Anorexia can be so ingrained, so deeply habitual, that we forget that it is something UNnatural… an invasion. It becomes like Stockholm Syndrome… It’s is our natural fall back position.<br />
<br />
It KILLS.<br />
Let’s get real.<br />
It is deadly.<br />
<br />
We think it won’t ever happen to us, and yet, why wouldn’t it? It killed Loredana in just THREE years.<br />
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Of all psychiatric disorders, Anorexia is the biggest killer. TWENTY PERCENT of sufferers die prematurely.^<br />
<br />
I hear my wake up call.<br />
<br />
Can you hear yours?<br />
<br />
* Emphasis is mine<br />
^ Statistics according to B-EATUnknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-77816168246908894892014-04-13T13:50:00.001+01:002014-04-13T13:50:09.734+01:00Downhill <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilbz3Dtu9cixC12kbAnZcbmPcnomkUza13etPYRAxXXN7C1VCBKMamyio_cJ_nPDJjTz0T7mHnYpe9uQJ8cCLP9hoYTebDdweH3bptfNUC1BUiAbyAUaU5VUzJ99OXoxAdLNw0Dj2-aY-c/s1600/IMAG0947_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilbz3Dtu9cixC12kbAnZcbmPcnomkUza13etPYRAxXXN7C1VCBKMamyio_cJ_nPDJjTz0T7mHnYpe9uQJ8cCLP9hoYTebDdweH3bptfNUC1BUiAbyAUaU5VUzJ99OXoxAdLNw0Dj2-aY-c/s640/IMAG0947_1.jpg"> </a> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-72431765966737688232014-03-24T16:06:00.001+00:002014-03-24T16:06:55.051+00:00Hole In The Wall God<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although I rarely mention it in my writing here, my faith is one aspect of my life which I think would fundamentally change the very essence of my being were it to completely disappear. In truth, my spiritual journey, much like my therapy journey, has been a challenging mixture of blindness and revelations; of soaring and stumbling; and of denials and acceptances.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpsDlYotHMD5Q_tMxbETSMdPmijjWmsZGLnPkY55iY7OrloUAZk5kqDbWV-6IdYsR-DQXOAzwD6C400L4W9PUm3H7PaiDkg9e8QkJX7KRPZam8iyBLwJqmbUy2pOn3UCHor6DxFv1q53B3/s1600/IMAG0289+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpsDlYotHMD5Q_tMxbETSMdPmijjWmsZGLnPkY55iY7OrloUAZk5kqDbWV-6IdYsR-DQXOAzwD6C400L4W9PUm3H7PaiDkg9e8QkJX7KRPZam8iyBLwJqmbUy2pOn3UCHor6DxFv1q53B3/s1600/IMAG0289+(1).jpg" height="191" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Proud of this shot! </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've been in places of unshakeable certainty, unable to understand how anyone could ever question such a tangible God. In later life, there have been times when I've swallowed bitterly as depression and the weary despair and fatigue that accompanies it, flecked inky pools of indifference and doubt across any conviction that I once had.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At this point on the journey, I stand on a different mountain, overlooking a very different landscape.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A part of me draws some strength from the inner sense that God stands with me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This acknowledgement of 'a higher power' seems to play a crucial role in recovery. AA refer to the 'higher power', as do a range of other successful addiction recovery programs; the theory being that as human beings, we are often weak willed and for all our good intentions, cannot free ourselves from the power of ingrained behaviours and habits. We need to draw on a strength that is not 'from' us, but is outside of us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A part of me worries as I consider how God is referred to in the 12 step programs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Does it not all sound a little bit 'God-as-hole-in-the-wall' ish?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm not sure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I do know is that right now, I find myself knocking on heaven's door morning, noon and night, asking for supernatural strength with which to fight the Anorexic howling which coarses through my mind interminably. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I pray as I sit down to eat my snacks, my meals and as I battle the urges to spit my food out after chewing it.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-88183808171377314062014-03-14T09:18:00.003+00:002014-03-14T09:19:39.393+00:00Groundhog: Eat My Heart Out <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ38q6FgwYYZ5Yp01P_Ya-dA0p-YODzR79DmKaRHpclhgRHAkXac9JuPs-_oDJEC6C2rk5WLE5Yz6Bsar8ShcBzcYpf4H_vWF3j7EWfh2_xVjAKQb1D_gX-SVdMGfof9O1Mfa4AU6v8Gyq/s1600/IMAG0852.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ38q6FgwYYZ5Yp01P_Ya-dA0p-YODzR79DmKaRHpclhgRHAkXac9JuPs-_oDJEC6C2rk5WLE5Yz6Bsar8ShcBzcYpf4H_vWF3j7EWfh2_xVjAKQb1D_gX-SVdMGfof9O1Mfa4AU6v8Gyq/s640/IMAG0852.jpg" /> </a> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The cycle of change seems perpetual and impossible to break out of.. The whispering of the Anorexia is so much louder than the voice of reason and recovery. The stupidest thing is that I fall for it time and time again. After years of the same tiresome thoughts and feelings; years of the illness telling me that I am piling on the pounds; that I am 'out of control' and that I look 'normal', I am STILL shocked when the scales disprove it. I am STILL more surprised by the hard facts, figures that plainly contradict the lies. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-75812333540576104612014-02-27T16:55:00.000+00:002014-02-27T16:55:08.342+00:00Anorexia: Disease or Lifestyle?<div style="border: 0px; padding: 0.6em 0px 0.2em; text-shadow: rgb(68, 68, 68) 0px 0px 4px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/img/revistas/pins/n38/a03fig01.gif" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: transparent; clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://www.scielo.org.za/img/revistas/pins/n38/a03fig01.gif" height="80" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Monday’s Telegraph newspaper marked the beginning of Eating Disorders Awareness week with an article about ED websites: More specifically, ‘Pro Ana’ sites. (For the uninitiated, these sites are sites set up to encourage those who want to starve themselves. They share tips and tricks about hiding food, fighting hunger, effective purging, dealing with interfering parents / loved ones and often sporting photographs of skeletal bodies to give ‘thinspiration’ to followers).</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">I skimmed Sarah Rainey’s article , too tired of the topic to want to engage with the politics and the emotion held between the lines of the pro ana blogger, the parent of a (nother) very bright, talented ‘whole life ahead of her’ dead Anorexic and ED organisations. One thing however, leapt out at me.</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">This:</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">“Anorexia is a lifestyle, not a disease”.</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">It’s something I’ve heard many times in various forms and generally from sources who, clearly, have no understanding of the pathological nature of Anorexia. Without wishing to state the obvious, I find the implications of the statement upsetting because it embodies the attitude that somehow, Anorexia is a choice one makes. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">For me, this is an absurd idea. However, as I have previously tried to explain (here), I think there are different types of Anorexia and it is possible that, for some people, devoting their time and energy to becoming extraordinarily thin, is a lifestyle choice, in much the same way that a total devotion to anything may lead to radical lifestyle choices. All well and good (excuse the irony), and perhaps in this instance, starvation is a choice… just another way of living. But, can a disease be a lifestyle? </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Unfortunately, what the article I read didn’t point out, was that if this is a choice, it can’t be Anorexia or Bulimia or EDNOS. A disease, by its very definition and nature, isn’t a choice… Nobody CHOOSES to suffer with a disease. True, it can appear that way with some mental illness’, but nobody makes a choice to become sick. People don’t choose to die from malnutrition any more than they don’t choose to develop leukaemia. And this is where it all becomes very complex… because CHOICE plays a large part in the distortions that characterise this illness so vividly. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">A person suffering with Anorexia, believes that they have CONTROL of their weight and their body. They believe in the choice element. They believe that they are IN CONTROL. In fact, the extreme opposite is true. It is the disease that controls them and the disease which distorts their thinking. The disease ROBS the Anorexic of choice. It STEALS their capacity for logical thought about their weight. It DILUTES the ability to rationalise their fear of weight gain and to recognise that they are no longer in control of their mind. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">I understand the Pro-Ana blogger’s statement in the light of those who wish to diet, but “choosing an Anorexic lifestyle” is an oxymoron. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">One last point, and perhaps the most important: Luckily, there IS some element of choice.</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">It is reserved for those who are in the grip of an Eating Disorder (or addiction, I think) and it is this: The sufferer may choose to remain in the half life that it forces on them. They may CHOOSE to give up the fight for wellness. Just as somebody who is diseased with cancer may choose to stop treatment, an Anorexic or Bulimic can CHOOSE not to fight the illness. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">RECOVERY or NOT is the choice. A lifestyle of recovery is agony, but a lifestyle led by the choice NOT TO recover, is to submit to the power wielded by this dreadful disease. </span></span></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-76229493482379976752013-11-18T21:22:00.000+00:002013-11-18T21:22:45.803+00:00On The Way To Recovery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLkV0naQrOXNsgjBqjauRnKTjQfYW7tcC5hCxqkpl-4NwSdnyqTb_-6O8u066NTjJsSjfkVYnivF6ajT2kNipwXVbB1Qnn6_eypqhwHxAzfrH7hW_PjEFIytPiz3bZgF2qPKnhc2dWyiH/s1600/2013-11-15+08.22.33-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijLkV0naQrOXNsgjBqjauRnKTjQfYW7tcC5hCxqkpl-4NwSdnyqTb_-6O8u066NTjJsSjfkVYnivF6ajT2kNipwXVbB1Qnn6_eypqhwHxAzfrH7hW_PjEFIytPiz3bZgF2qPKnhc2dWyiH/s400/2013-11-15+08.22.33-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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As I drive to my place of cold</div>
Morning sun streams<br />Over frosted fields<br /><br /><div>
Recovery is a wing<br />Pierced by blades<div>
Of winter grass.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-65977352395563798312013-10-06T19:00:00.000+01:002013-10-06T19:00:04.560+01:00The Needle Returns to the Start of the Song...<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">... And we'll all sing along like before...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Goes the song.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Irritating when your internal MP3 is stuck on the same track and no matter how hard you shake it, it won't stop. Trying to get away from it is just about as effective as trying to go on holiday without your head. And don't we all wish we could do that at certain times in our life. Take enough hallucinogens and it's possible, but they're not exactly cost effective and the insurance you'd take out is ridiculous.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No way around it but to play enough music to flush this one out of the system.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This particular musical ghosting is a song by... (I pause, not for literary impact, but because my memory function is compromised by malnutrition, although, it could just be that my powers of recollection are as shite as they ever were)... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Where was I? Okay. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Breathe)</span> The music... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's a song by Del Amitri (who for some unknown reason, I always confuse with Dire Straits). An especially depressing number, aptly named, 'Nothing Ever Happens'. For those who like to listen, go ahead.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Indulge.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/yeVOzaDBEmc" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I guess it's the theme of repetition that lends the song to my worn out inner ears; and for good reason.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Monday, I retrace my tracks to the unit where it all began. Back to the beginning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">March 2011, the agonies of which, I captured on <a href="http://unattractivenavalgazing.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/day-in-life-at-unit-part-1.html" target="_blank">this very blog</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yep.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That's right.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Monday will see me standing outside the gates of hell itself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And to be clear, it's not that nothing will have changed, because I have. My illness has. My way of thinking has. Three years of various treatments, including seven months as an inpatient, and rather a lot of medication, have put me on a markedly different rung of the ladder.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is hard, is that it's the same hole. The same darkness. And, pretty much the same distance to the light.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hence, 'we all sing along like before'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I want this to work... which means that<span style="font-size: large;"> I</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span>will have to work. <b>Very hard</b>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It will be bearable, though it won't feel it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It won't kill me, though the process of recovery will involve the slow death of the illness, so it will feel like it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In all the darkness, I must somehow manage to fix my eyes on a light I will not always see. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In order for recovery to take place, you have to believe that, just as there is <b>always</b> a sun and a moon, there <b>is</b> a new life beyond, and there <b>is</b> a different person behind, the illness / addiction. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The courage it takes to make this leap of faith is immense and for me personally, I don't know if I can sustain it. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-22802019941521403872013-09-28T15:42:00.000+01:002013-09-28T15:42:10.420+01:00Mill Hill EastSat<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwvtkMe7OA0vKAc0hO7lj9sle18HZ6GrWRogAqYvug6HnJMkzYCrjAejN0L7JnI44aFS07JZTar5Rw0xvf7BRdsVl9ONf8htYmi0Vd1qyVQyvhEEXgJZEBE069TodoE93m__U3ZYQcEEqo/s1600/Mill_Hill_East_roundel.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwvtkMe7OA0vKAc0hO7lj9sle18HZ6GrWRogAqYvug6HnJMkzYCrjAejN0L7JnI44aFS07JZTar5Rw0xvf7BRdsVl9ONf8htYmi0Vd1qyVQyvhEEXgJZEBE069TodoE93m__U3ZYQcEEqo/s200/Mill_Hill_East_roundel.JPG" width="150" /></a>In the back<br />
I shook<br />
As you took<br />
the road home<br />
and She, alone<br />
left screaming.<br />
<br />
We drove<br />
unspeaking,<br />
tight eyes weeping<br />
and weaving<br />
through grey smudged streets<br />
of Mill Hill East.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-32123484355243682012013-09-21T10:57:00.000+01:002013-09-21T10:57:04.496+01:00Benefits - As IF. <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 6 years ago I was a valued colleague. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had a good career, bright prospects and a good wage. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had a pension. Good holidays. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was contributing to society. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was teaching English and social skills to young, disaffected teenagers who were so often in need of firm boundaries; steady, fair reliable adults who could help to rebuild some of the trust and respect that they lacked. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was passionate, respected, consulted. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> How is it then, that 6 years on, this same young woman sits with her support worker, filling in a form for Disability Living Allowance?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How did she go from the shiny, high gloss teacher to the redundant, matt -finish patient?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The change was staged, steady. I was stripped, planed, sanded and my identity fell away... disintegrated, replaced by the illness... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Suddenly, I'm not '<i>a Teacher'</i> anymore. (<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Hi! I'm a teacher too! What do you teach? Me? Oh I do Key Stage 3 and 4 English"). </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not anymore. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now I'm: '<b>an Anorexic'</b>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I don't have an income. I've lost my career. I don't have holidays.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Days slip past me. I am overwhelmed by small things. Most days end without ceremony. I have achieved nothing. Thousands of hours and nothing to show. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAXYtSaAe32-4kcBaosWN8-hsY1EZQUJtz9QOI6XVerSIjbG6FQ3Z4LFC7KAFDVZp77AE2Atd1X6RUf-vicidZq-RDSi2HeFx1uKEH8TYRNbfL0cTj69IkpCbNoXErNPTuomkE82GFxdN8/s1600/2013-09-16+15.32.01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAXYtSaAe32-4kcBaosWN8-hsY1EZQUJtz9QOI6XVerSIjbG6FQ3Z4LFC7KAFDVZp77AE2Atd1X6RUf-vicidZq-RDSi2HeFx1uKEH8TYRNbfL0cTj69IkpCbNoXErNPTuomkE82GFxdN8/s320/2013-09-16+15.32.01.jpg" width="180" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what this section of the form seemed to demand, I left it blank.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so my Support Worker wrote a few clinical / medical comments.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My claim for benefit will be submitted today. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But really...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...benefits..? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm trying <i>so hard</i> to see <i>anything</i> that would justify the use that word.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-2573024529163657492013-09-14T11:20:00.000+01:002013-09-14T11:20:09.309+01:00Pillars of Salt. Square One.<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: #999999; color: #660000;"><span style="font-family: palatino, times, 'new times roman', bookman, 'new century schoolbook', serif; font-size: medium;">But Lot was so afraid he couldn’t move. So the angels grabbed him by the hand, and they grabbed the hands of his wife and of his two daughters, and they led them out of the city. As soon as they were safely out of the city, one of the angels said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”</span> </span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: #999999; color: #660000;"><span style="font-family: palatino, times, 'new times roman', bookman, 'new century schoolbook', serif; font-size: medium;">And then God rained fire onto the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. </span><span style="font-family: palatino, times, 'new times roman', bookman, 'new century schoolbook', serif; font-size: medium;">Thick, black smoke filled the air like smoke from a fiery furnace.</span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #e06666;">(Paraphrased Old Testament story - Taken from Genesis 19:25 ff )</span><br />
<br /></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes in life, you have to grit your teeth, set your face like flint and let the hot tears run cold.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq0P8tXrw9VcHPMDt8xX9xYnEwkLjPOQJRBCI6XNdDAw1Jl8PwrSgjUzDwjpP2Ny37MMYMQxXG9UV9qs0JRvnEzm8w9F9Re3DO4TBxuYlNoUYYhRJ5F-tC-172TQRFO38e1gl6gzNXxh8G/s1600/blue-running-shoes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq0P8tXrw9VcHPMDt8xX9xYnEwkLjPOQJRBCI6XNdDAw1Jl8PwrSgjUzDwjpP2Ny37MMYMQxXG9UV9qs0JRvnEzm8w9F9Re3DO4TBxuYlNoUYYhRJ5F-tC-172TQRFO38e1gl6gzNXxh8G/s200/blue-running-shoes.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You have to put blinkers on and RUN. Ignore every twinge of agony and crash through every hurdle of despair.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Scream if you have to, but whatever you do, DON'T LOOK BACK. Don't look at what you were, where you've come from, how you felt. Just keep running like nobody has ever run before. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's a point in recovery, be it recovery from an addiction or recovery from an Eating Disorder, when to look back is fatal. Just like Lot's wife, to look at what you've left behind is going to destroy you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the case of Anorexia, to stop pushing through the pain barriers, to allow yourself a backward glance is to begin to slow down. Casting that quick over-the-shoulder peek, may not feel like it, but it's going to make your feet like lead, your path like treacle. And all of a sudden, it's got you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You were going through hell, you should have kept on going. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why go through halfway through hell and turn back?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That's what looking behind you will do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Suddenly, you're so much bigger. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can't feel your bones. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can't see the ribs, the dip in the sternum, the ridge of the clavicle, the tailbone, the prominent metacarpals, the pits alongside your knees... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And you turn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">into a pillar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">standing in the tunnel</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">you never saw through.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And there, you stay</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">disintegrating</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">grain by grain</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">bone by bone</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">until </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">you </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPgqhj0DUW3f202wtkCTOcTxwdnPv1QHp-jALIcQC9Aub8StwPOyDGsq_46MbGqHEJSmPDU6ik_j1lPsxbqG2hKj7lkMzEtLzOMLl8ZF3SD7zH-VpbRgkl46UrVd-M7CsJgY0iaUiJKveq/s1600/wife_of_lut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPgqhj0DUW3f202wtkCTOcTxwdnPv1QHp-jALIcQC9Aub8StwPOyDGsq_46MbGqHEJSmPDU6ik_j1lPsxbqG2hKj7lkMzEtLzOMLl8ZF3SD7zH-VpbRgkl46UrVd-M7CsJgY0iaUiJKveq/s320/wife_of_lut.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Lot's Wife'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">are back</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">to the place you glanced at</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yet,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">when you get there,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">it's </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">only </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">different</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">shade</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">of </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">hell.</span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-46893099735342835692013-09-02T09:31:00.002+01:002013-09-02T09:33:49.852+01:00Counting Calories<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can spot them in a supermarket if you know what you're looking for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most obvious, are the tiny ones, well wrapped but with tell tale stork legs rooting them to the floor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They stand close to the shelf, elbows tucked in, head down, clutching a tin.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFSAUsOxkyPlGoi-xJDx9vqrwDnR-mcM2hITb6pUQK3g3jU353ecnZSZVgeml9lUz7l60rl4iOh0k_VNgjf21fT9c6ez_bqlPJXuOsIA-z1t3cvtgMqyBG7WqBnqI3rdIMc5rLIqo31pEW/s1600/2013-09-01+18.18.46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFSAUsOxkyPlGoi-xJDx9vqrwDnR-mcM2hITb6pUQK3g3jU353ecnZSZVgeml9lUz7l60rl4iOh0k_VNgjf21fT9c6ez_bqlPJXuOsIA-z1t3cvtgMqyBG7WqBnqI3rdIMc5rLIqo31pEW/s320/2013-09-01+18.18.46.jpg" width="170" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They are looking at the nutritional information, specifically at how many kcals per 100g. They pick another tin and do the same. If there was a way of x-raying their mind, you'd see vast amounts of data being computed. Complex comparison tables charting an array of brands, computing calories, converting kilojoules, weight for weight, fat content, fibre.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If they weren't already, most anorexics get good at maths at some point in the descent into hell.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Less recognisable, are the less skinny ones, but don't be fooled... They may have just come out of a treatment facility (goodness, that sounds American!). They may have an Eating Disorder which falls into the mysterious EDNOS category. Not all ED patients are obvious, but an informed eye can spot them a mile off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of the</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> very difficult things about trying to recover from an Eating Disorder, be it Anorexia, Bulimia or something less definable, is that once you know the calorific content of a foodstuff, you can't just 'unknow' it. It's an unfortunate byproduct of many people's illness that they have a head filled with numbers which will, presumably, stay with them forever. After all, knowing the amount of calories in a slice of Warburtons Wholemeal Bread, being able to add up a total when including a medium sized egg, and knowing the amount you're ingesting when you scrape out half a pot of Ski Strawberry Yoghurt, is just as essential as knowing your pin number.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You are not going to forget.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Which, in fairness, just adds to the agony of attempting recovery. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This morning, deciding on a mid morning snack, was ridiculous. Almost laughable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Imagine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm hungry. My weight has dropped a lot. I know I must try to up my game.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Snack. Hmm...</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8icU1ThBh3a0jYv9O7vkTnfUNGvsAVi3EFl_L02Fuk4WC4KGYkEP1uxsCDOiWxlpQscs6fn-w6d3TpY_wPS7ksxzVKHke6UmJtH0zJHBgnQ16bACynBkNKVEt12l53_2JiYjcUS6JHnW8/s1600/2013-09-01+18.18.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8icU1ThBh3a0jYv9O7vkTnfUNGvsAVi3EFl_L02Fuk4WC4KGYkEP1uxsCDOiWxlpQscs6fn-w6d3TpY_wPS7ksxzVKHke6UmJtH0zJHBgnQ16bACynBkNKVEt12l53_2JiYjcUS6JHnW8/s320/2013-09-01+18.18.03.jpg" width="180" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I want chocolate with my coffee, but I know the yoghurt coated fruit snack has 70 less calories than the packet of chocolate... <b>and</b>, it's healthier..!(probably not , but hey... everyone falls for the gimmicky health advertising, right?)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At this stage, the inside workings of my mind look a little like a fantastical fight from a Harry Potter film. Numbers are darting about; </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">variously sized and coloured digits </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">streaking through darkness, pressing their shapes into the soft blackness of your retina. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"What if I halved that, added that..? Had 2 of those for the 1 of those? This is the equivalent to that... Hmmm... It's s</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">till over a 100 calories.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Great".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What do I end up with?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A half packet of salted popcorn.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I know I've had 40 calories.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(And before you feel compelled to tell me, I KNOW the info on these things is only approximate and there may be a 70% margin either way... but something is better than nothing.) </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Which is a mantra I need to double up on... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Irony noted)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-14637901451451493702013-08-24T16:15:00.000+01:002013-08-24T16:15:03.349+01:00Going... Down?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlZeT21lvVHEk0_-EEPmLb9GQ60bWtEPEuR_NYGSdSVsnapGqu_Ht1Gb4lo3OQuRQJSsPKB0s7TIlfMPCMCM8M2t0Ebl0KBJ0l2W82QYNfSEiA5vRhsCcXWVUyJ24ADMMNs7fLuUD_KvX_/s1600/aerosmith-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlZeT21lvVHEk0_-EEPmLb9GQ60bWtEPEuR_NYGSdSVsnapGqu_Ht1Gb4lo3OQuRQJSsPKB0s7TIlfMPCMCM8M2t0Ebl0KBJ0l2W82QYNfSEiA5vRhsCcXWVUyJ24ADMMNs7fLuUD_KvX_/s200/aerosmith-logo.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Okay...Title only meaningful to those who are familiar with the old Aerosmith track, 'Love in An Elevator', a good but vastly overplayed track (at one time). My frustration with my one time favourite band has increased as the teenage, rock-chick-love has lessened; all because they sold out to the soft rock market with dribbly anthems like 'Don't Wanna Miss A Thing'.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apologies. My intentions to write about 'recovery' have been twisted into a rant about my old musical idols.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Aside) It occurs to me as I apologise, that actually, Steve Tyler and Joe Perry are a long way from being completely irrelevant links to the subject in hand. Both singers have grappled and battled with serious alcohol and heroin addictions. Both know the agonies that come with fighting to be free from that which has possession of your mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Addiction comes in so many forms and is something so closely related to the topic of Eating Disorders that it is worthy of some careful thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now however, my mind is too tired to begin debating the fine lines and the overlaps. I regularly feel the urge to write some more informative pieces about Anorexia and Mental Health here but every time I sit down to write, the words sort of ebb away from my (cognitively impaired) mind. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That's right. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Cognitively Impaired". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The term, used by the experts, to explain the condition of a mind weakened by the effects of malnutrition. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It makes me wince to accept that this is my current state and yet, all my Anorexic protestations, the frantic scrabbling to deny truth, dwindle in the face of plain, starkly real figures. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The scales don't lie, although, typically, in the mind of someone suffering with an Eating Disorder, they are incorrect. Not day upon day upon day they're not. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm following that bloody line of decline, and I KNOW it... It's as though I am rendered completely helpless by the power of the Anorexia. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My daylight head says, 'C'mon! Get a grip! You have to find the strength, the power, to beat this'; In the lonely darkness of the restless night, the more sinsiter voice, 'You'll be lucky if you wake up to see a new day. Your internal organs are tired. Your heart is weak'. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A young lady who I was an inpatient with for six months, died last week. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Multiple Organ Failure caused by a long term Eating Disorder.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She was strong, lively, witty, intelligent. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Her death rocked the ED community I 'served time' with. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What a TRAGIC WASTE. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the same time, my best friend here in ___________ gave birth to a little girl. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so, the cycle of life and death continues. Everywhere today and tomorrow and for the rest of time, the mortality drum will continue, beating out it's rhythm on the lives it chooses. I get that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I struggle to accept, is the slow suicide that this illness contributes to this pattern. It's so... horribly pointless. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Life is to be lived, to the fullest. Jesus said that. And he is not to be argued with. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why then, am I, and so many beautiful, talented, young lives, subscribed and obligated to serve this hideous monster?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All answers on a postcard...</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-61486261293041051642013-08-17T15:17:00.000+01:002013-08-17T15:17:11.404+01:00A World Beyond Our Imaginations<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">…Maybe there IS. Maybe there isn’t.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Either way, if we don’t allow ourselves to entertain the possibility that there COULD be a different way of living life, and there MIGHT be a different way of thinking about things, we will never know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I’m not the hippy type. I promise.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don’t hug trees, I don’t take herbal hayfever tablets, I ‘m not a vegetarian, I’m not a member of Greenpeace, I don’t do yoga, I don’t wear clothing woven in South America and I’ve never tried Arnica.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1BeBm4ESpekZz6HqIugJKMTp0n-2LYU2FmhruekDn-aVbvwftvR83aY59GuNUt_Z8keaTi25C6gS4fhR4fUFhekCRSZwF_FMZMBdi7hOmDcBsO1ODYVsaz63s8ZJ_LIfkW6H95j8YjTuf/s1600/neural+pathways.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1BeBm4ESpekZz6HqIugJKMTp0n-2LYU2FmhruekDn-aVbvwftvR83aY59GuNUt_Z8keaTi25C6gS4fhR4fUFhekCRSZwF_FMZMBdi7hOmDcBsO1ODYVsaz63s8ZJ_LIfkW6H95j8YjTuf/s200/neural+pathways.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But (there had to be, right?) BUT, I do believe that we get into certain patterns of thinking. Even scientists report that there are certain ‘neural pathways’ in the brain, which is a technical way of saying that our thoughts get used to travelling along particular alleyways, leading to familiar places, default settings, if you like. Humans are creatures of habit, brains follow suit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What are the implications of all this for those of us in recovery?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A friend recently told me that, although they’d like to believe in something bigger, they just COULDN’T and I sympathised because I, of all people, understand doubt, cynicism and unbelief. I battle it everyday in order to keep the faith I DO have, alive. Later, I returned to our conversation in my mind and came to the realisation that the word ‘couldn’t’ would probably act as a barrier in her mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To be truly open to something, like the possibility of recovery, is to allow it to rattle round our minds without any thing as concrete as ‘words’ attached to it. Just as if you are rolling a ball round a clean floor; no mud, no dust, nothing to stick to it…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidZDxIw0-JlZuO0jMKn0kAKJLDrTw9mlUCmiQfXM4wPysWjKntLKWj-t3WpFV5SOWzFzYwBh5aWS98_hyphenhyphen4-PBbN7O9n2l6oedGj73XQ1t0fm13wgkjFLzRRfBZNZNABp2quz6MiMAHdah1/s1600/wardrobe+to+Narnia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidZDxIw0-JlZuO0jMKn0kAKJLDrTw9mlUCmiQfXM4wPysWjKntLKWj-t3WpFV5SOWzFzYwBh5aWS98_hyphenhyphen4-PBbN7O9n2l6oedGj73XQ1t0fm13wgkjFLzRRfBZNZNABp2quz6MiMAHdah1/s200/wardrobe+to+Narnia.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes, I wonder if it’s in this act of ‘allowing’, that hope filters in… unseen… unheard and then… suddenly: there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Opening up old wardrobe doors. No thoughts. No can’ts, cans, couldn’t, wouldn’t, must, should or shouldn’ts. Just opening something up.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It has to be worth a try.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-41766585592137988902013-08-15T09:43:00.003+01:002013-08-15T09:43:51.176+01:00To Blog Anew or Not To Blog Anew...?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJRDpxnjSrOIV2tSN6-2Jgq_P77-nsFcd0JLmwn8UPuW1HdIYsIY3R8XoHmDQB5-W_AHKexgE46OX-78LIKjxUcFacQ0tMs4BpWLYlE4qssP3-g3WVEb7-NNi4MDprtlPqDel-m3DLOws/s1600/Empty_Voice_by_Metallimark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJRDpxnjSrOIV2tSN6-2Jgq_P77-nsFcd0JLmwn8UPuW1HdIYsIY3R8XoHmDQB5-W_AHKexgE46OX-78LIKjxUcFacQ0tMs4BpWLYlE4qssP3-g3WVEb7-NNi4MDprtlPqDel-m3DLOws/s320/Empty_Voice_by_Metallimark.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That is my question.
Well... I've already started a new blog... It's different. Less personal. More hopeful. Not about me... about encouraging others who are recovering...
I don't know where that leaves me here. I feel ashamed of my self-centred ramblings here. And yet... It seems like such a lot to just walk away from. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> My weight is dropping and my mind is hurtling into the no man's land that sits between life and death. It is achingly desperate that my words can fly the banner of freedom, but my mouth won't be filled with the nourishment it needs. I am afraid that in a few months, my voice will be all there is. An empty echo. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Heard but not seen.
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-9192746723411459452013-08-02T10:34:00.000+01:002013-08-02T10:34:27.496+01:00Moments like these<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKgPdzSruBtSs2xcyxkgLQ2Lh1KcMmNJnwoK7QLdiITUNwIUTkEmxDPQCGmHPG7gh6QauS7DNWCCHgt4PPg_FazVJyp8qujdVi9dnf1e_llMYQdO6OEZ1z7N24dtFYI1XjIbgsEpQFMY9f/s1600/2013-08-01+15.52.07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKgPdzSruBtSs2xcyxkgLQ2Lh1KcMmNJnwoK7QLdiITUNwIUTkEmxDPQCGmHPG7gh6QauS7DNWCCHgt4PPg_FazVJyp8qujdVi9dnf1e_llMYQdO6OEZ1z7N24dtFYI1XjIbgsEpQFMY9f/s320/2013-08-01+15.52.07.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yesterday's sky was unfathomably blue and I took this pic of a moment when it was filled with little daubs of pure white floss.</span><div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The practice of Mindfulness teaches that it is moments like these which help us manage difficult emotions. Taking time out of your own head to focus on something different, be it a sensation; a visual; a sound... can help to relieve immediate mental agony. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Long before 'Mindfulness', DBT, CBT, NLP, and possibly another half dozen letter laden therapies, poet W H Davies famously wrote a short verse:</span></div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Leisure<br /><span style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">WHAT is this life if, full of care,</span><span style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">We have no time to stand and stare?—</span>No time to stand beneath the boughs,<br />And stare as long as sheep and cows:<br />No time to see, when woods we pass,<br />Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:<br />No time to see, in broad daylight,<br />Streams full of stars, like skies at night:<br />No time to turn at Beauty's glance,<br />And watch her feet, how they can dance:<br />No time to wait till her mouth can<br />Enrich that smile her eyes began?<br />A poor life this if, full of care,<br />We have no time to stand and stare.</blockquote>
<div style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Whilst my natural tendency towards cynicism means I find all the spin doctor, quack style acronyms difficult, I find wisdom and inspiration in the words of this poem. It makes me reflect that life is just a series of moments and whilst some may feel like the jagged edge of a cold steel blade, others are the softness of sea sleeked stones. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yesterday I took a moment to stand and stare at the stunning polka sky, and in that moment, all was well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Stick with the poets, I say. </span></div>
<div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-6376225959295158502013-07-07T22:59:00.001+01:002013-07-07T22:59:07.759+01:00A Trajectory Towards Death and Why an Anorexic Can't Bake Gingerbread Hearts <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2L8gX70DAoZLN-aRTMjnKSRRINqgvIzu9UIk_vyGLvuzmk0n7kh6uD1CFsmuMnepONWt6Hrsh_oLXKss_cu70FVy0HjeZ1uuxF8seuH2eK3xDVK1EOXYQqkDJbeukJi7-uqsQ-Q7fPeEV/s1600/bmi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2L8gX70DAoZLN-aRTMjnKSRRINqgvIzu9UIk_vyGLvuzmk0n7kh6uD1CFsmuMnepONWt6Hrsh_oLXKss_cu70FVy0HjeZ1uuxF8seuH2eK3xDVK1EOXYQqkDJbeukJi7-uqsQ-Q7fPeEV/s200/bmi.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The guy who manages my care here is philosophical as he draws a continuous line through my weight chart. He looks grim faced as he states it is a trajectory towards death. He coins a new phrase, 'the line of decline' and jokes that he will be using that one in the next staff meeting. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite his laughter, I know that he longs for my recovery almost as much as a member of my own family. He has known my parents, my sister (and latterly, me) for seventeen years now. He is as dedicated to wiping out eating disorders as any serious contract killer and although he is has vast acres of experience, his seemingly endless ability to maintain some small glimmer of hope (comments about trajectories not withstanding) never ceases to amaze me. Perhaps it's just that he's missed his vocation as an actor, but he always seems to take me seriously. I just can't count the times when I swear blind that I'll beat it this week; that I'll allow myself to eat a little more; that next weigh in will be different... I mean it, by the way. My words, when I speak them, are never hollow promises. And yet, week in, week out, I stare disbelievingly at the scales thinking that they can't be right. Not possibly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Even I would stop believing me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He has talked to me about going into the day unit. Or back into inpatient for a spell.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I refuse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He bides his time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have the very best of intentions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Which brings me to Gingerbread Hearts, which I think I will make for a family friend who is going through a hell I can't imagine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Simple gesture, right?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or it is until I think I'll make a batch and have a couple as my allocated snack.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'll just make them a teensy bit more healthy... No harm in that. 'NORMAL' people do that all the time... It's NORMAL to cut down on the sugar. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so I substitute sugar for stewed apple.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm sure that it's NORMAL to reduce the fat. I can think of friends who aren't anorexic and THEY would cut down on the butter. Right?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course they would. It's NORMAL nowadays. In this health conscious, nutritionally aware age, people ALWAYS use lower fat options.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so I substitute some of the fat for stewed apple.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9-lno_EcWH2c6Bv_1UbLJ5BcnLpd4NgMJs-QyO2wPeM-_u9EaCuuvVJ6IqQbJuRAQgTaM-KEmdnUi79UEIcC7EJR9LhanLauU_njoKl65G42ZAk8bWP2fpBw_8kxo-rv2Hp2H5PLKPlt/s1600/IMAG0236+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9-lno_EcWH2c6Bv_1UbLJ5BcnLpd4NgMJs-QyO2wPeM-_u9EaCuuvVJ6IqQbJuRAQgTaM-KEmdnUi79UEIcC7EJR9LhanLauU_njoKl65G42ZAk8bWP2fpBw_8kxo-rv2Hp2H5PLKPlt/s320/IMAG0236+(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't try this at home. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Compromise is the name of the game. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trouble is, an anorexic ends up compromising on everything. Trimming off edges until there's nothing left. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An analogy so apt that it aches.</span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-3767288756526808732013-06-25T23:31:00.000+01:002013-06-25T23:31:54.443+01:00Where Were You? A Cry for Those Who Feel Forgotten.<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the months following my 'release' from inpatient treatment, I've joined a writing group. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I joined on the premise that it seemed to be a very relaxed, sociable, light hearted group which, whilst keeping 'writing' at its core, didn't take it all too seriously.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As it happens, my impressions of it were correct. We meet on Tuesday evenings in a pub. A good situation (although, for those of us with Anorexia, the calories in alcohol are enough to send us running for the Diet Coke).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The group is made up of characters who are intriguing, inspiring and... talent wise, fairly intimidating! Although I can only recall one person who is remotely self important, most of the regulars (around fifteen or so) are published; some are even fairly prolific writers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tonight there was a 'showcase' evening. where folk were invited to read something they'd written in the past.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It would have been too revealing, too personal, but a poem I wrote (and posted here years ago) has been in my mind, (called forth in a very roundabout sort of way) by a poem I read on someone else's blog. An honest poem about desperation and despair.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This poem was written in the aftermath of my own depression, and is not without its own, very potent, sense of anger. I apologise in advance if readers find it offensive. I post it here as a kind of offering to those who have suffered in silence, or have been unheard.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's for those untouched by comfort, not necessarily because it wasn't there, but because the pain was in a hidden place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's a bitter cry, best cried alone, but until it's been cried, it can't fall away.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Where were you when I
needed you?<br />
When darkness cast death into me?<br />
I bled black for years<br />
Tears turned to stone and I screamed<br />
each time I passed a tear through ducts<br />
too small for stones.<br />
<br />
Where were you when I had words,<br />
to spill and spout and squander?<br />
And my arms ached and ached<br />
from holding the binding skeins apart.<br />
And I retched unseen as they tangled<br />
and strangled deep in my gut.<br />
<br />
Where were you when I was fighting?<br />
Punching holes into a silent wall,<br />
Spitting truth bullets into denial’s flesh,<br />
Kicking the dust and biting angry hands<br />
that levered my bitten swelling lips apart,<br />
and rammed words back down my throat.<br />
<br />
Where were you when the salt burned like sulphur?<br />
My beaten pillow, wet with censored pain<br />
And twisting, I writhed with the knowing<br />
Of things yet unknown.<br />
And my cheeks smarted with their rage<br />
Truth- shy handprints scorched my skin<br />
<br />
Where were you when nothing was left<br />
When slivers of cold metal comfort<br />
Whispered sweet numbing into flesh<br />
And I bled silent pools of hidden screams<br />
On shiny, hard bathroom floors<br />
<br />
Where were you when sweat and tears<br />
Plastered matted hair to my face?<br />
Smothering silent screams,<br />
I twisted and turned and gasped,<br />
As I aborted myself<br />
and bled secret shame<br />
onto my sheets<br />
<br />
And it’s too late now<br />
For your saving reach<br />
My cold corpse<br />
Can’t feel your comfort<br />
And it’s too late now<br />
To breathe life<br />
Into the bloodless womb<br />
<br />
“I want to understand”<br />
Echoes in the hollow<br />
And I am filled with sickness.<br />
And grief swells like thunder<br />
<br />
In my head<br />
I spit on your floor<br />
And walk away.<br />
You can pay your respects<br />
But don’t fuck with the dead.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-38286008736975141132013-05-27T16:39:00.000+01:002013-05-27T16:39:35.474+01:00Speaking of Normalcy... <div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I couldn't resist taking a cheeky snap of this mug when I saw it in a shop window.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTY4CHfG_HFMsBZgr3CWyO_s4ZeRja3_fabD6w-SwsO89HebgVAd95Gt2Lg9NQ6ziuBxkHVlneRhSonS5xdYEX_WhTZ4x1GouQl1A3cyTW1-kVl5Vl5wxYHZHgWS1tJA-iirpRAtC_xycu/s1600/IMAG0126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTY4CHfG_HFMsBZgr3CWyO_s4ZeRja3_fabD6w-SwsO89HebgVAd95Gt2Lg9NQ6ziuBxkHVlneRhSonS5xdYEX_WhTZ4x1GouQl1A3cyTW1-kVl5Vl5wxYHZHgWS1tJA-iirpRAtC_xycu/s400/IMAG0126.jpg" width="313" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm on holiday in Cornwall; land of smugglers and sea shanties and shipwrecks and ancient tales of hidden pirates' plunder. It's now home to thousands of artists (on account of the beautiful, flat light and the sheer sense of SPACE). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cobbled streets, winding lanes, laid back locals and sun soaked flora. The essence of Cornwall. Pints of real ale, Cornish pasties, and fish and chips fresher than any you'd ever find. The streets here are lined with gift shops galore; the type that you bump around, stroking pretty wooden shapes, painted in low tone shades - willow green, dusky pink, dirt track yellow...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's as far South West as you get in the UK, and the sun sets here last. Days feel long and it's endlessly beautiful. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm on a family holiday. The first for years.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think we're past thinking we're a nice normal family. With two anorexics, an anxiety disordered mother, a control freak dad and another sister who, believe me, has her own scarring, we're hardly 'normal'. I'm glad we can (sort of) admit it (bar my mother). I'm glad we can (sometimes) laugh about it (almost). But, I remember a time when we couldn't. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many years ago, when the values were set differently, when the pride was stronger and the pain - rawer; we were bound and gagged for fear that someone might see we weren't the "nice, normal family" that popped up, smiling and glossy and beautifully 'normal'.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You might ask the question, 'what is normal?'in an attempt to deny that there's any such thing. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In my experience, those who deny 'normal' (mother), are either defending their hidden non-normalcy, or, they're just not weird enough. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If the family is a piece of wood, pain is a plane, relentless at task with which it's charged. And the shape we're in now comes from years of scraping and turning and sanding and smoothing. And we're still very much a rough hewn hunk of wood, but at least we're not still in the denial phase of 'normal'. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To attempt comparison is ridiculous... yet in some strange way, it's more painful to be at that end of the process. I still bear scars from smothering hands that insisted that we were 'normal'.</span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-81537564250946108592013-05-19T11:41:00.002+01:002013-05-19T11:41:23.358+01:00Facts and Figures. It's All or Nothing<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Three Months - One Stone (6.3kg) = Slow Downward Trend</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Based on current rate</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">BMI 16.1</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">- 1 Stone (3 months)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> = BMI 13.6 by end of August</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm trying so hard to keep fighting but I'm doing a really intensive teaching course (English as a foreign language) and I'm finding it very hard to focus on both the input sessions, assignments, lesson planning and teaching, and the battle against Anorexia. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I must write here more. The intention is there but I find the drive towards perfection kills my ability to even begin. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is so typical of somebody who has 'all or nothing' thinking. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-27663337549550174262013-04-14T17:55:00.000+01:002013-04-14T17:55:44.222+01:00Side Effects of AnorexiaI haven't really written about the effects of Anorexia, and to begin doing so is a little bit like looking at a sheer cliff face, wondering how on earth it can be scaled.<br />
<div>
However, partly in an attempt to promote understanding and awareness of the effects of this illness, and partly as an exercise to remind myself of the horrors that lie just a few degrees beneath the point where I now stand, I am going to attempt to climb the scarp.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Let's make a start at the base of this mountain.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When you first start losing weight, your body feels great and your mind may even feel sharper, clearer. You may go so far as to feel on top of the world because you have some sense of control or achievement. </div>
<div>
The problems begin as soon as your BMI drops too low. For those who don't know, your BMI is your Body Mass Index which is a measure of body shape used by the medics. Although it is not an exact science, it provides a guide to a healthy body weight based on the ratio of your weight to height. This is regarded as being anywhere between 18.5 (though some argue 20) and 25. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The effects of being underweight are fairly well documented and a quick Google search will inform you of the main risks. However, I'm going to write about the things I won't miss about being at a stupidly low weight.</div>
<div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>HAIR</b></span></div>
<div>
I'll start with this. (Always a good place to start, if you're lucky enough to have it!) </div>
<div>
It's an odd thing with extreme weight loss; sort of a 'ya win some, ya lose some' scenario.</div>
<div>
Every time I washed my hair, I'd have to be really careful of it's devilish attempts to block the plughole, because it would just come out in big, tangled clumps. I molted like a cat in springtime.<br />
The hair I <i>did</i> have lacked life. It became dull, brittle and dry, resisting the conditioners that I sometimes used.<br />
When I sank to a much lower weight, the reverse happened. I stopped molting and began to develop soft, fine, downy hair on my face, my arms and my legs. This is known as 'lanugo' and is your body's desperate attempt to keep warm.Clever really.<br />
<br />
Which brings me nicely to something else I won't miss. <span style="font-size: large;"><b>COLD.</b></span><br />
Unless you're one for subjecting yourself to ice baths or Arctic wanderings, I think it would be difficult to imagine just how cold an anorexic can be. I recall putting on layers of thermal socks, leg warmers, tights, anything to warm my freezing feet. Nothing worked. My hands were chapped and peeling, my core, constantly numb with cold. And I'm not even talking about winter.<br />
<br />
Speaking of my hands and feet, it almost hurts to remember the <span style="font-size: large;"><b>ELECTRIC SHOCK SENSATIONS</b> </span>I got as I expended energy. I would feel electric pulses throughout my body, culminating in bizarre sensations in my fingers, cheeks and feet.<br />
I know now that this was due to severe electrolyte imbalance, which occurs when you don't have sufficient nutrition. Binging and purging is also one of the causes, as is excessive exercise. All of these of course, also put undue strain on the heart.<br />
<br />
I won't go into the mortality rates.<br />
In fact, I feel emotionally exhausted. I'll continue in another post. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-91412703312261569862013-03-29T23:35:00.001+00:002013-03-29T23:39:51.185+00:00Breaking ...<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Silence, for all it's mystical, whimsical and wise properties, is keeping me prisoner. With the passing of each silent day, another bar goes into the cage and I, half crazy for the want of words, pace endlessly up and down the concrete floor.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Inside me, thoughts, ideas, agonies scratch to be given a voice, nails on a blackboard, wet fingers on cotton wool.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today it has become unbearable and so I sit here, trying to break this silence.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have ideas swilling round inside and yet it almost hurts to entertain them. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have hopes that this post will loosen the odd bar, enough at least for a piece of me to slip through.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<br />
<div class="t" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 5px;">
"Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death."</div>
<div class="a" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px;">
<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">Jean Jacques Rousseau</span><span style="font-size: 0.8em;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 0.8em; font-style: italic;">(1712-1778) Swiss political philosopher and essayist"</span><br /><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic;">.</span></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-56391785389326629732013-03-01T00:13:00.001+00:002013-03-01T00:15:32.076+00:00Redundant - A reflection<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span class="vk_ans vk_dgy" style="font-size: xx-large !important; margin-bottom: 5px;">re·dun·dant</span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<div class="vk_sh" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">/riˈdəndənt/</span><br />
<div id="pronunciation_flash" style="height: 0px; position: absolute; width: 0px;">
</div>
<span style="background-color: black;"><span class="speaker-icon-listen-off" data-s="redundant.mp3" id="speaker_icon" jsaction="dict.l" style="background-image: url(https://ssl.gstatic.com/dictionary/static/images/icons/1/pronunciation.png); background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1px solid transparent; color: white; display: inline-block; float: none; height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 1px 6px; opacity: 0.55; vertical-align: bottom; width: 16px;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 15px;">
<table class="vk_txt ts" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: small !important; margin-top: 20px;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="padding: 0px;"><div class="vk_gy vk_sh" style="color: rgb(135, 135, 135) !important; font-size: medium !important;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Adjective</span></div>
<div>
<table class="ts" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="padding: 0px;"><ol style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 19px;">
<li class="vk_txt" style="border: 0px; font-size: small !important; line-height: 1.2; list-style: decimal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">No longer needed or useful; superfluous.</span></li>
<li class="vk_txt" style="border: 0px; font-size: small !important; line-height: 1.2; list-style: decimal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">(of words or data) Able to be omitted without loss of meaning or function.</span></li>
</ol>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="height: 10px; padding: 0px;"></td></tr>
<tr><td style="padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px; vertical-align: top;"><div class="vk_sh vk_gy" style="color: rgb(135, 135, 135) !important; font-size: medium !important;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Synonyms</span></div>
<div>
<table class="ts" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">superfluous - unnecessary - needless - excessive - spare</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<img alt="woman on phone" height="200" src="http://www.momlogic.com/cdn/images/bad_news_etiquette_pm.jpg" width="200" /><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's Bad News I'm Afraid</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You've been made </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">REdunDANT</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">a haze</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">empty space</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">where words were</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of Course You'll be Paid</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">... sentences fade</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">REdundant</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">RE - DUN-dnt</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">rephrase </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">News</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">new</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">phase</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">new </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ways</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So Sorry</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">she says.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Later I thought</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">outside the daze</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm out of a job</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">but I haven't fought </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">this long</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">this hard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">to be </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">redundant.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'll leave dun</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and duh nt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">take the re</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">thanks</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">re start</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> re view</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> re fresh</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> re new</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thank you.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-91737630627256171032013-02-14T23:10:00.001+00:002013-02-14T23:14:30.020+00:00Eating Disorders Awareness - One Truth About Anorexia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuHP7N1rpqM7y1daRar4G_C7d2QiY8apNp6F0e1g0qe6kUAMwxbfweBh1tqwYbn719GAlxfHvyv8VKMcAiprXiKfGQSFRvRA25sRziE9rC-NuzcMcYTrDm5l6BntE36hTjc-LC-0SZAREe/s1600/sock-it-eating-disorders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuHP7N1rpqM7y1daRar4G_C7d2QiY8apNp6F0e1g0qe6kUAMwxbfweBh1tqwYbn719GAlxfHvyv8VKMcAiprXiKfGQSFRvRA25sRziE9rC-NuzcMcYTrDm5l6BntE36hTjc-LC-0SZAREe/s320/sock-it-eating-disorders.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm conscious that it's National Eating Disorders Week. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm also conscious that much of my writing here has borne witness to my own, very personal, struggle with Anorexia and that, whilst there are many apparent similarities between sufferers, each and every person has their own 'strain' of the illness. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I recently watched a BBC documentary by a now recovered minor celeb who, having suffered from Anorexia in her youth, embarked upon a quest to find out 'The Truth about Anorexia'. I watched with a degree of cynicism, (ty</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">pical of me) </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">because the results of this exploration were pretty obvious from the outset. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Aside) As it happened, I was more intrigued the next day, by the widespread and <i>vicious</i> backlash on various discussion forums, where anorexics ripped the programme, and its celebrity 'investigator', to shreds, claiming that she obviously hadn't been a 'proper' anorexic! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That would be another topic!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One thing that I've learned from the large number of patients in the treatment centres I've been in, is that there IS no single 'cause' of anorexia. There can be no 'getting to the bottom of it' because it's as shape shifting as the virus for the common cold. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You think you can spot an anorexic? </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's the legs that give it away right? The two pins that, by some miracle, are holding them up. And the face. The way their eyes sink into the skull, dark skin sagging at the ridge of bone which runs from the top of their cheek to the deep line around the mouth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The clothes that hang baggy off their shoulders. Tired, tiny arms, narrowed, fleshless at the tops. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yep. Definitely.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As I type, I sit in Cafe Nero. Couples sit sipping valentines coffee. A barrista sweeps conscientiously, moving the easel with the 'Hot Soup' ad, concentrating on each swish across the tiled floor. A young man sits at his laptop, looking over dark glasses at intervals. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm drinking a one shot Americano with skimmed milk, hot. My make up is immaculate (last time I checked anyway). Subtle grey eyeshadow, a touch of mascara, a little blush. I'm about seven stone; that's forty five kilos to the metric crowd. My clothes are an eight. I've just eaten a Kit Kat. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nobody knows I'm anorexic. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nobody can see that beneath the recently acquired flesh, a cold skeleton howls, like a forgotten child. Nobody can hear the whispers, the taunting desire to have one of the brownies that the rosy-glow girl to my right is enjoying. Nobody can see the rapid calculations, the figures flicking up and down as I add, divide, add, multiply; 107 calories = my biscuit, 100ml of skimmed milk = 43Kcals x 2 plus a bite of cereal bar. It's too much. How can I compensate at dinner? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nobody sees the anorexic who knocks around in a body too large.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I may be sitting near another at this very moment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think I've digressed somewhere. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I set out to illustrate the fact that the one truth about Anorexia I know is that everyone's illness is different.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During inpatient treatment people presented with dangerously low BMIs. But how they <i>got </i>to that point varied. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Okay, we all have an issue with food. But some anorexics are calorie obsessed, whilst others are more preoccupied with the fat content in foods. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some are addicted to exercise (myself included) and can hardly sit down for more than ten minutes without having to get up and do press ups or squats; others can happily lie on a sofa for hours and sleep. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some patients have buggered up their system by taking laxatives and/or making themselves sick. Others won't take a tablet, even for a migraine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some quake at the sight of a potato because carbs are sworn enemies, others are too afraid to eat a carrot because it has somehow become a 'fear food'. Still more are terrified of dairy products, not touching milk or cheese for years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I met patients who will 'water load' to throw their weight (water loading is a common but dangerous behaviour practised by eating disordered patients who consume vast quantities of water in order to fake weight gain). Then again, some people are so obsessed with knowing their actual weight that they will wear exactly the same clothes to be weighed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some anorexics are so scared that their body will absorb fat that they won't use cream shower gels or moisturiser on their skin. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've met anorexics who drink copious amounts of alcohol, whilst others won't even sniff it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I was at my worst, I couldn't drink coffee for fear that it contained hidden calories. I couldn't trust the calorie content on certain labels and so I ruled out anything which I deemed to have 'too few calories to be believed'.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some people can't watch food programmes, others read cookbooks obsessively and liked nothing better than to cook a three course meal that they could never eat.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eating Disorders may present similarly, but no one sufferer has the illness in quite the same way, which may be why they are so difficult to treat and why they are still so widely misunderstood.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7237076346702327008.post-54843350143320877582013-01-28T16:13:00.001+00:002013-01-28T16:16:06.140+00:00The writer of this blog...<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">... has been in hell for the past two months...</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">perhaps more.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My silence here has been down to the simple fact that my head is mostly a jumble of sounds which don't seem to translate into anything as neat and orderly as WORDS.</span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It even sounds far fetched to me, but it's one of those 'you just had to be there' things. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unless you've been in my shoes (and stomped round and around the same hospital building three times a day for twenty minutes 'fresh air') my ridiculously dramatic sounding excuse for silence just won't wash. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Cue Persil ad...)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No really. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Prompted by a friend to describe what it's like to be restoring weight, I wrote that it's like...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...having your skin peeled off in long strips, and then your body being rolled around on a grater, with pressure being applied in varying degrees in different places</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and sometimes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">it makes you bleed purple rivers in hidden places</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">or mouth short </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">breathless </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">cat-screams</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and other times</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">anger-fear juices inwardly curdle</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">with an inverted agony</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">that leaves me folded on the floor</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">pressing cold fists into my eyes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">to stem the red pain seeping out of my sockets</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and in me, a mighty snake twists</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">my colon, a strangled tree trunk </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and the more I eat</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the more it turns and thrashes </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">against the raw muscle tubing </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> ***</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Okay. So every word is wringing with pubescent angst and perhaps the silence, if not golden, is at least preferable to the torture - jargon. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But this is the truth of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is how it feels for my anorexic head to be growing a body.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And no amount of Seroquel or Pregabalin or Duloxetine is going to make it okay. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's not supposed to be a joyride, this recovery lark... but six months in... it hasn't got easier... just...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">... different. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5