I cant escape.

I thought eating was meant to be making me feel better? not worse...
My mind is filled, bursting, with destructive thoughts. I need to get out, I need to escape. I may seem like I'm okay because I am starting to eat again, but I feel worse inside than I ever have before and I honestly dont know what to do. I am hurting so much all I want to do is curl up into a ball and disappear..

BLEH.

BLEH. That's how I feel right now. Just bleh, and urgh, and UHSOOUDHIFVIDSK! :( yeah that good. You'd think that with the amount I've cried over these last couple days I had a bloomin river inside me or something. It starts and it just doesnt stop. Not good enough. Not pretty enough. getting fatter by the day, squidgy squidge, and failing at life. woohoo, everything is fucking brilliant. Maybe I cant do this, its all too much, depression wise I'm like a frigging zombie right now I feel as though I've fallen off the cliff and I'm right at the bottom. again. Trying so hard not to self harm, must keep eating, just want to close my eyes and make it all stop, fatty fatty lalalalala SHUT UP HEAD, wait you're right I am DISGUSTING AND VILE. well thats how I feel. this makes no sense does it? but hey my head is jumbled like a broken jigsaw so yeah. Para para paranoiddddd, they're laughing at me, they want to hurt me, everyone thinks im fat, wait thats because I am, or is it all a trick? they are definitely staring, I want to hide and never leave the house. Crying on the bus oh yeah thats a fucking great look, were did this come from? I had a good day with my friends, now all I see darkness. Maybe I cant do this.

Trying to be strong

People say to me that this gets easier in time, but what I want to know is how long do I have to suffer before I start to get the benefits of recovery? Because right now it just seems to be getting harder and harder the more I fight against the beast inside me. She is screaming and shouting and kicking her feet, grabbing me tight as I try to wrigge free, trying everything in her power to drag me back into her pitt of hell, and I am using all the strength I can find to fight it, but I feel like complete and utter poop right now. I'm still not sleeping very well, my anxiety is through the roof - I feel like when I go out everyone is laughing at me, it feels like everything is closing in around me and they're pointing and laughing, even when strangers look at me I panick that they are thinking how fat and ugly I am, it scares me that other people think about me the same way I think about me. Also my mood has been really low and to be honest I cant even explain it I just feel so unhappy and I'm crying a lot more. I'm sick fed up of feeling this bad. I dont want to hurt anymore. I just want to be okay...

Negativity is clouding over.

I'm really not feeling good in myself at the moment, I feel as though I've all of a sudden balloned and the ED voice in my head is yelling so so loud telling me how fat I am and that I should give in to it but I'm trying as hard as I can not to. It just feels like the more I fight then louder it gets! Im doing things with my friends again though which is nice, one of my bestestest friends stayed at my house last night and we had such a good time, laughing and chatting and just being normal teenagers, she reminded me of why I want to get better, she showed me a good time and made me feel happy for the first time in ages - so thank you beautiful. To be honest I need some encouragement just now and I hate to say it because I dont want people to think I'm weak, I'm just finding this harder and harder as it goes on and I'd usually give in to ED by now so this is like aaahhh so hard not to when its yelling so loud! Fear not though, I am not giving in, I'm struggling a bit - but NOT giving in.

Yet the poison still fills my mind

This is harder than I'd ever imagined it could be. Now that I'm fully commiting myself to recovering I'm doing things I never thought I'd do. I've surrendered all the control around my meals and food, which is a massive thing for me because eating (or lack of it) was something I could always be in control of regardless of what was going on around me, and I liked that. I liked to have a sense of control because everything else in my life was totally out of my control and there was nothing I could do.
Trust is another thing, it's always been something I've struggled with, I guess after everything that happened its not surprising though. But now I'm having to trust the people who love me that they know what is best for me, they're not making me eat too much, they're not trying to make me fat, they just want me to be healthy and happy, and until I can do that for myself I'm trusting them to be in charge of my meal plan etc.
I'm not going to lie though and say its all rosy and great, because its not, this thing, this poison in my mind that is my eating disorder is like a raging fire just now. Screaming, taunting, constantly; they're just trying to make you fat ; you've gained too much weight already. Honestly I'm struggling to fight it off, it's loud and aggressive and I wish it would just let go, I wish it would take the hint ; I dont want you anymore, I want a life, recovery, happiness. But no, it feels as though its only getting louder and louder with each mouthful, every meal/snack I manage is one too many, it's like pushing a button  and setting off fireworks. I wish I had a button to turn it off though, I dont know what to do sometimes I feel so trapped, trapped in my own mind, but I will keep fighting with all I've got, because I know what I want and I can see it clearly - I want a life. I was only killing myself, anorexia was killing me, but it was all I was living for... why? Why should I live for something that is only going to kill me?
I'm finding this sooo tough I cant even put into words, but I will keep fighting on, I may need a hand - but that's okay right?

lightbulb?

People often talk about a 'lightbulb moment' in recovery, and for 7 years I have waited and waited for this lightbulb moment to come for me. It never came. I attempted recovery maybe twice throughout my illness and didn't ever get anywhere. It was like I reached a certain point and it was like I just didn't have it in me to continue, but now as I look back I realise that I wasn't fully commited to it, I was fooling myself thinking I could get better on anorexia's terms.

"I'll do it but only eat healthy,and as soon as I get to a healthy weight I'll join the gym so I can lose the weight again"

Where as in reality I cant get better on her terms, because that's not truly getting better. Before now I never completely wanted recovery if I'm honest, there was always a part of me hanging on to my illness regardless of what I was telling myself and everyone around me. I wasn't ready to let go. I hadn't seen my anorexia for the evil it really is. I was still clinging on to the hope of perfection, for ultimate satisfaction. I'd given up on the thought of ever recovering, and so I sat back and let anorexia destroy me once more. For the last time.

Something within me clicked, I'm not sure whether it was a 'lightbulb' moment or not, but something clicked. It was when I overdosed about a month ago and ended up in hospital having damaged my stomach and being told that was the closest I'd ever been to actually succeeding in killing myself that I realised, it was almost like a voice, something outwith my control, saying to me 'I don't want to die' I was confused, bewildered in fact, why would I realise that I didn't want to die now? Why had it taken something so serious to shake me? I thought I'd wanted to die.

Spending a few weeks on bed rest proved to be the kick up the backside I needed. I can truly honestly say now that after 7 years of this hell, I am 100% commited to recovery. Now I look at my illness and all I see is hatred, and anger - it's done nothing but cause me pain and stolen away most of my teenage years - why the hell should I continue to let it ruin MY life? I should be out there with my friends having fun, experimenting, enjoying life, but instead I was cooped up in bed too weak to leave the house. And it's now been over 2 weeks I've been following my meal plan, which may not seem like much to some people, but this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, I cant even explain how hard I am finding this, every day is such a battle - but for the first time ever, I'm actually fighting it. No one else can do it for me, I know now that it has to come from ME, I have to fight this and I will.

I want to recover for good, hear that ana? I'm going to kick the shit out of you.

time to say goodbye to the old me..

Sometimes it takes someone else to point something out to us for us to realise that perhaps what we are doing isn't the right thing, or isn't helpful to us or them in any way, an outsider looking in can sometimes be all we need to give us the kick start to changing the little things.

And this is what I am doing now, starting with twitter. As some of you might know I've been on twitter for some time, used it as an outlet, a place to talk to other people who were going through the same thing, it was like another little world I lived in. But I realise now that it wasn't always a helpful thing for me, it was feeding into my eating disorder, focusing on the negatives and being around so many people who also were battling the same illness. They were lovely people dont get me wrong, but I need to leave that part of me behind if I am to say goodbye to my eating disorder for good, I need to free myself of all unhelpful 'anorexic' things and habbits one by one, and so I deleted my twitter account this morning.

I know it's only one little thing, but I know deep down that it is what's best for me in my recovery, I need to surround myself with the people who love me and know me for being ME, not the anorexic girl, I don't want that tag anymore. I want to be known as ME, the real me, the one my true friends know is in there somewhere, and she's dying to come out. Bit by bit, day by day, she will start to shine again...

Love,
Hope xx