I miss you

There are times when I sit and look at old photos, knowing the torture I am putting myself through.

I sit and I cry, missing my eating disorder. Missing it for what it 'gave me'.

I miss hospital, inpatient treatment for the security and the care that I feel has always been absent in my life. There I was always supported, always listened to, always seen as important. Seen. Heard.

People sometimes do not understand institutionalisation, and I never thought it would happen to me. Missing a world of white doors, long corridors, the hardest times of my life, tears, self-harm, purging, confrontation. A world of pills, restrictions, rules, regulations and seeing the sun through a small window or through a puff of smoke. 

How could someone understand that sometimes I miss an illness which tore my life apart, tried to murder me and take me from my family and friends, and from myself.

Who could understand that?

But I don't think we always need to understand.

We just need to be able to grab reality and say, no. 

The reality is an eating disorder kills. It kills you. It kills family. It kills friends. It kills a little part of everyone who knows you.

Nothing good came from this illness, nothing good came from starving myself or attacking myself.

And its here I realise its not me that misses all of this. Its my eating disorder.

So I turn around.

I smile.

And I say out loud, "I don't fucking miss you.".

I should be so lucky

Firstly, I have a new blog which is more educational and about tackling the stigma of mental illness:

http://soundofsilence.blog.co.uk

I thought I should update on my progress.
I am not sleeping at all, falling asleep at 10 then waking up at 2am and not getting back to sleep.
Apart from that, my mood has begun to shift again which makes me relieved that the episode I just had is over.

The blooms upon my desk open slightly. Painted yellow with rouge tickling their edges. The scent of roses fills my room and moves me with a sense of purpose, that these few roses are beauty captured in a time frame which will soon end. You must adore and admire their beauty before they inevitably fall.
Just like life, we must admire it. Seize it. And that is something we all must start opening up to, like the blooms upon my desk.
What keeps me going in life is the possibility of true love capturing my heart and taking me captive in its cave of wonders. But to be taken captive, there is usually an element of surprise. You cannot hunt love, it hunts you. But it never kills its prey, its a different kind of killer. It kills all the sorrow and pain that surrounds that person and holds in close in a tight embrace, kisses planted on lips which open waiting, just like an early bloom.

I am such an old romantic, and I know I have had one real lover. My eating disorder.
It was always there in relationships, stopping me from giving myself to that other person.
It was my mistress, my master, my everything, and it never let me breath. It choked me and smothered me so I couldn't escape. This killer is cunning and sly, with a smirk which fills my heart with sheer fear.
It twisted me till I was on my knees, weak and feeble. My body emaciated and my heart too.
I begged for death, for what I thought was my inevitable end. Death by anorexia.
I sometimes imagined my obituary, my gravestone, the faces at my funeral. And I knew still there the ghost and killer anorexia would be standing at the back knowing he got away with murder.
Well he didn't. This time he lost. And I see the fear in his face as I push him away.
Every bite, every meal, every smile in the mirror I see him get scared and try to take me back.
Its over.
Over.
You will never have me again.

Now there is no third person when I enter a new relationship. This is scary and exciting, that I finally can open my heart and let it bloom.

xxx

I get by with a little help from my friends

The Beatles song rings true, how would I get by without a little help from my friends?
A friend to just unwrap you from the covers and get you up.
It makes a difference. Massively.
From the depths of my suicidal depression, which I am being honest about, they saved me.
I was willing, and this is no exaggeration, to end my life. To stop it there.
But my friends took me away from my bed, fed me, loved me, nursed me.
They saved me.
They reminded me that I have love all around me, and that love can be in the form of friends.
That I have a purpose.

God, the little things I can analyse and internalise into something thats awful about me.
A meer comment can trigger a spiral of depression and once it starts its unstoppable.
But friends, friends can remind you of the truth and the reality. That YOU are not the things you think you are.
I adore them for that.

I have learnt that the word suicide isn't to be used lightly, so when I say it I mean it.
From my attempt last year I fear my inability to control my mind and actions in such a state.
But it can just take a friend to break that state of mind.
Yet what I have learnt most from this is that when a friend offers help, take it.
I have often sad no, I am too much bother, too bloody depressing. Do not think of me.
But if friends offer help, they want to help. And it takes great courage to say 'ok, help me. Please.'
Its scary to ask for help.
It completely undermines our sense of control, that we need an intervention.
Interventions can be so important, and they don't have to be in the form of a hospital admission or a professional.
They can be through friends.

I am sitting here now of sound mind, after a night of love from my friends.
Allowing them in, to enter my internal world and see me at my worst, well, they have saved my life.
Thats not being dramatic. Its the truth.

They do not help me just 'get by', they help me live.
I live with a little help from my friends.
You know who you are, I love you so much.

Prozac Nation

As I cry into my cup of tea, stirring the sugar to dissolve like a whirlwind of snow, I wonder how many other people in the city are currently doing the same.
There are not that many people out there who truly understand the word depression as it gets thrown around by everyone, to do with any situation which could be remotely upsetting.
That program was 'depressing', this song 'depresses me', I have so much work its 'depressed me'.
But how many people really understand chronic depression?
The depression where you cup a handful of pills and you shake through your actual inability to make a decision: live or die.
The depression where you will destroy your family, bring your family through never ending pain.
Still, my parents call me and when they hear me crying desperately I can hear their complete lack of surprise combined with their complete and utter heartache.
The pain to watch your child hurt in such a way.
They are used to providing band aids and telling you its going to be alright.
What if they can't do that anymore? What if its not going to be alright?

So I sit, breathing out smoke into the evening air, above a city full of people smiling and laughing, and probably someone out there crying into a cup of tea, deciding whether they should end their lives tonight as well.
I want to take that other person and hold them and say, "You are not alone."

I'd tell them the one thing more isolating than depression, is suicide, and I will not let them give up the fight just yet.
I put down my handful of pills and get into bed.
Not today.
Not tonight.
Not ever.

Depression cannot beat me.

And it turns

As with emotion regulation disorder, one must expect the waves to turn sometimes.
My mood has shifted.
Back from happiness to sheer desperation for life.
I am very suicidal right now.
I just tell myself, it will change. It will move.
I guess, I have moved into halls and it reminds me of the abuse I went through when I was first in halls.
Its triggered memories and flashbacks and its haunting me.
That, and I feel majorly rejected emotionally right now.

I just listen to Jeff Buckley and think, you couldn't see your beauty. Maybe thats like me.
Maybe I have beauty I am not seeing.
I still, however, feel like I want to take a razor blade to my legs and see the blood.
I won't. And as depressing as this blog is, it has a great deal of positivity.
I am not acting on my thoughts. I recognise them and that is all I do.
But I still cannot help but feel all these feelings.
I just want to disappear.

God, please let the wind change tomorrow.
Please.

Living and dying

I haven't blogged on where I am right now or my suicide attempt, and I guess I should.

I am somewhere beautiful right now, in a place I never thought I could reach.
I wake up and I am glad to be alive.
That may not sound like much, but its a miracle.
After years and years of praying that death take me, for it to take my hand and free me from pain.
After years and years of crying to sleep. Begging my mum to let me take my life.
That sounds awful, but I used to get angry, so angry, that others would not let me die. I got mad at them. Shouted. Swore. And it got to the point where my mum saw my pain, and just once she said she would let me seek death if it is what I wanted.
I am glad I didn't.

When I tried to take my life, it was in the middle of a train station.
I was lucky to have someone there to take my hand and tell me no. This is not your time.
And sitting in the hospital bed, I wasn't glad I chanced death and survived. At the time I was angry.
I am on very very strong meds for my mood regulation due to my emotion regulation disorder, but although they were strong they cannot actually kill you. Just make you bloody sick. For days. And days. And make you have a massive comedown.
I was angry at myself for not knowing this.
How could I of?

But its not the fact the meds couldn't kill me, it was the fact I was that desperate death was the only option. And in that moment of time, I did not think about my family or friends. the effect it would have on them.

I find it hard talking about this experience. And I feel as time passes, how I talk about it changes.
Right now, I look at it as a blessing.
It made me realise how bad things were for me and that I needed help. I had lost control over my mental health and it has consumed me and forced me to enter a dark and dangerous place.
 It really truly opened my eyes and now I look at life and cherish it. I cherish that person who sat with me, held my hand when I was crying for death.

An hour before this happened, I was at home. Planning.
I want to thank my good friend Emily, who has done more for me than I can imagine or even thank for.
She took away the evidence of my inevitable efforts to take my life.
That meant the world to me, and I cannot imagine how that was for her.
She has never given up on me. Always believed in me. Always loved me.
It was this experience that made me realise I have friends. I have a life I am not living. Friends like Emily who I love more than anything in the world. She is my soul mate. My soul mate not in a romantic way but platonic. I find it hard to thank her, as sometimes I feel guilty for what I put her through. But now I know she did this because she cares for me. The thought of her not being in my life, well I cannot comprehend it. She makes me laugh, a medicine I cannot live without. I am literally crying as I type, as I do not know how I met such an inspiring person. She inspires me daily, to say fuck off to what anyone else thinks. She inspires me to be myself. To just be. To act. To live.
If anyone is my role model its her. She will laugh at how bloody soft I am being right now, but like you say Emily, fuck it!
Emily, thank you. I love you so much.

I wake up now and I look out the window and smile.
I feel relatively free from my ed and I feel I have control over my mental state.
Things are well mentally, physically I have decided to gain 8kg and get to a bmi of 20.
So my physical health can match my mental health.
The experience of a suicide attempt still lingers. I have the scars to remind me of that time in my life.
But they, as I like to say, are warrior wounds.
I spoke to a darling girl the other day, and we both agreed that we are not survivors. We are warriors.

I am a warrior. I am still here and I am living. Finally, living.
I just want to take life in my hands and treasure it, every single moment.
All the shit I have been through, well, it was worth it to get here.
It may have taken 15 years, but I do not care. I am here NOW. In the now.

Living. Breathing. Smiling.

xxx

RIP

I believe animals are far more than they seem.
They are friends, with levels of compassion and love we cannot always comprehend.
The 'them and us' social conventions, that man rules over animals is something I cannot agree with.
On the contrary, I respect them often more than any human. They do not create war, nor throw hate around till we are bleeding metaphorically inside from pain, from pain that words created.
I had a dear friend called Prudance. A cat that moved me.
I don't know, when you watch death happen in front of you it can have profound effects.
Darling Pru, I took her to the vets and she had to pass. It was her time to leave the earth.
I do not know why, but the fact I watched death come over her... its had a big effect on me.
I have a big sadness that life is short, temporary. That I am not living it to its full.

Some would laugh that this is stupid. A minor event in my life that sweeps past me like the blur of paint on a canvas.
But instead, these brush strokes will last within me.

So, to my Prudence. You had a home with me for not long, but you died with love around you. And there is no better way to go.

My children

When I sit and think back to my years battling my eating disorder I feel so many different things.
To the young girl, the teenager, the young woman, I feel a sense of respect.
I am proud of her, of her battle, of her fight that she never gave up on.
She admitted her problems and took control over her life.
Them hospital admissions, she never failed. Each one brought her closer to life and closer to freedom. She held her head high, she cried, she laughed, she got her metaphorical sword and invited her eating disorder to a challenge. The prize being life. being love. being happiness.
She won.

But then, I look back to the child which got diagnosed with an eating disorder at 8.
I cannot help but cry and feel like I want to go back to her and hold her in my arms and tell her it's alright. But what would I say? That yes, dear child, things will get better. You are a princess who one day will be given a sword and will fight this evil dragon to the death, yours or its. But you will win this fight in 15 years. 15 long, long years.
It makes me so angry that I lost them precious years of my childhood, that I cannot claim them back and never will.
Them countless times being told, 'darling, you cannot go outside at playtime. You are too weak. You cannot do sport. You cannot join sports day'.
And I would sit and watch the other children play and laugh. And I wasn't a part of it.
Being bullied, called a monster, a skeleton girl.
And of course them other children would say such things. I would sit on a bench so often and someone would come and ask why I am crying. I'd scream that the voices are too loud.
For a while, I think the doctors thought I had schizophernia. I would talk about them voices that screamed all day and night.
The smell of rotten food in my bedroom and behind the couch which swiftly sift through the house like a plague, and my mum would shake me and scream 'please eat'. 'No'. would be my answer.
I went into a world of silence. Where the only voices I would respond to were the ones in my head.
I have a distinct memory of looking at myself in the mirror, taking hold of a knife and carving fat in my leg. And when the sun shines, I can still see that word. It reveals itself like a bad memory coming back to haunt me.

I just get angry, why did this poor, innocent child get this? She was too young too fight. Too young to understand.

I just want to say darling, I love you.
I just want to take her hand. Hold it. Squeeze it. And cry with her. For her.
At night, when I used to pray to God to kill me, I want to brush her hair off her face and kiss her brow.

I can sit here and do all I can to help those who have eating disorders as women and men, but for the children... I feel helpless. And when I see children on the news talking about diets, I get a pang in my heart and I cry for them, for their mothers and fathers.

What can I do?
Little. But I must be able to do something?
Yes I can. I am going to make a new channel about children with eating disorders.
I want to make a charity for these children.
I am going to do it.
Sia Jane, I know you will help me. Any others, please get in touch.

xxx

Nothing can beat me

Do not think I cannot see them glances, the up and down look, you had an eating disorder?
No way. You can't possibly. You look normal.
Excuse me. Pardon?
All I can do is laugh at their ignorance and tell them yes, I did, and sorry to disappoint them that I no longer look like a walking corpse.
Thank god I don't. I like my bum. I like my hips. I like the colour in my cheeks. I like my curves. My thighs. My smile. My hair. My green eyes. But you know what I like most? The person inside. The person who now has so much empathy, understanding and compassion. So thank you eating disorder, if I cannot take away the damage you did I can say thank you for giving me this. But nonetheless, you are not welcome back.

When people judge me, I just want to scream out my past and see how they would have coped.
I went through my parents divorce, watched my mum have a mental break down and saw both my parents physically and emotionally fight.
I was sexually abused by a stranger when I was just 12. In the street. And no one helped me when they saw me crying on the train which my blouse open and my jeans undone.
I had a series of bad relationships, followed by what I now understand was torture from my boyfriend at the time. No, I am not talking torture as in he was just a dick, I mean horror film torture.
I then had a series of hospital admissions. Not short ones. Months.
I tried to take my life.
I self harmed.
I starved.
I purged.
I cried.

And you know what? I am still standing. I am a fighter. A warrior. A believer. I beat all this shit and I still have a smile on my face. I am 23 and have had an unfortunate period of my life which made me go back to my pre-8 self and search for comfort and safety.
I may have scars on my arms, legs and thighs but they are my warrior wounds. My battle wounds. And I am still fucking alive.

Do NOT tell me I am not strong.
Do NOT tell me I am weak.

I am a warrior. And I now dedicate my life to helping others fight their battles. Lets build an army and take mental illness head on.

Reincarnation

So I took a step. I am no longer locking myself away, I am not going to make a prison in which I am my own room mate and guard.
No.
Instead I am going to accept that right now, I am sometimes sad.
I am going to allow myself to be human. Give myself permission to feel emotion. Thats the good and the bad.

I am doing much better.
I am now on a recovery weight gain diet, not because I am underweight, just to get myself to a better, even healthier weight. I am positive about this, about finally leaving it behind. As I often think I am recovered, but then little things like not choosing what I always want makes me realise no. Perhaps it still has some control over me. Not dangerously, just slightly.
But I don't want it to have control over me. None. I am going to free myself from this enduring burden on my back and laugh in its face as I walk away.

Goodbye eating disorder. Take this.

Where am I?

I am completely swallowed up by a dark cloud right now.
My pain resides deep within my heart and it chokes me up far too often.
I cry, so much. And it hurts. I spent yesterday hiding underneath my duvet hoping that if I stay there I just won't exist anymore.
Yet no one knows the pain I am currently in right now. And as I sit in my little room, I wonder how someone can feel so alone in a city full of people.
I never felt alone when I had my ed, in fact I prefered it that way. If I had no friends I wouldn't be put in food situations and I wouldn't have to hide my ed. It made life much easier, being just me.
And I longed for that yesterday. Not my ed, but to be able to survive on my own. As life is much simpler that way.

But thats not an enriched life. And I am glad I can feel, as feeling makes me human.
I have no idea where I am or what I am doing, but I definately know that no matter what, I am not doing it with my eating disorder.

Moving On

Sometimes we feel our hearts tender strings have been snapped, that our heart has suddenly broke beyond repair.
But our hearts strings never stop playing music, and we have the hands to create a song where we can twirl and dance to. This can be through love of art, the smile of innocence from a child, through a smell which reminds you of childhood, through realising the world still has so much to love and so much love to offer.
Love is not an exchange, it is a leap of faith. And we will continue making these leaps of faith if we let ourselves.
I haven't given up on love, I know that I will love again as I am open to love.

I have realised that life is a matter of perspective. Moving back into a hall environment which I left 4 years ago, from a 4 bed countryside house to a one bedroom self contained area, one might feel pessimistic. But I don't, I know that this room can be my sanctuary, my haven which I can fill with myself and my ability to be. It won't be a prison as I simply won't let it. And I look forward to lifes next chapter and the words which will unfold on the pages.

Who am I?

Above all, I am a believer. A dreamer. And I am going to dedicate the new few months to engaging in activities and socialising with people who and which allow my true self to unfold. It is true, like my father said to me the other day, I need time to explore who I am. And what can be more exciting than that, alongside the ability to explore the world?

So no, I will wave goodbye to feelings of guilt and shame, acknowledge any feelings of sadness, and welcome all positive feelings into my sanctuary.

The next chapter of the Chronicles of myself will soon be available.

Reality

I submerge myself in a rainforest of illusions. Reality rejected, I take my foot and place it on the cool earth that paints my feet. The sun shines through the trees and projects shadows of ballet dancers which take my hand and guide me into my imagination. Through ignorance or just plain hope, I follow. I spin so my hair flies, my eyes close, my mouth smiles, and my body detaches itself from my soul and spirit. Free. Tears of joy, love and happiness fall on my warming cheeks and I laugh aloud, to no one but myself. I often am told I need my feet firm on the grounds on reality, but what grounds? The grounds of responsibility? Of adulthood? Of growing up? I shake my head and say, 'Why would I want to do a thing like that?'
I choose a place free from war and pain.
And when I fall asleep I am enveloped in this magical world where people love not just one person, but each other and the earth which provides them with nutrients and homes.
Does this reality exist? Maybe I am choosing one fragment of reality, one tiny jigsaw piece that doesn't need others to fit in. I reject the hegemonic forces which isolate me in reality, make me straighten my skirt and open my legs to progress in life. The societal expectations of building a life in a house with a picket fence and bay windows, of day dreaming about chores rather than of the adventures life can take you on.
In many ways, man made reality. It is only through society that the building blocks of reality are a dull red rather than array of colours from the palette of life. Man chose how our lives are to be. To be a child, to be educated, grow up, make money and a family, retire on a pittance and then die.
No, I will not enter this dictatorship. I am my own person.

So yes, I reject you, reality. I guess my eating disorder and other problems stem from this. But maybe my problem isn't food or self harm, but reality. I have a problem with reality. And like all problems, I will confront you with my head held high and flowers in my hair.

Dear Mother.

Dear Mother

I watched you cry, I held you close, we lost everything and it was just us. Just me and you. Fighting the world. Sitting on the sofa watching runways with tea and a box of chocolate cornflakes.
I watched you wilt, from the strong flower you was which I admired to just a ghost of what you was before.
Your petals dropped and floated on our sea of tears, and as the water drenched our feet you lost yourself.
You became someone I didn't recognise, a vulnerable scared woman who was angry with the world.
You chose drink instead of food and soon I couldn't see you anymore.
Who were you, mum? Where did my mother go when I took you to bed, washed you, kissed you goodnight, told you it was going to be ok?
Mum, I was scared.
Flashbacks, driving to her house to write bitch on her car in the middle of the night.
You turning up in class crying.
I was scared.
I was 8. I was 8 and decided that I too wouldn't eat. It began here.
I wanted to go back to being innocent, to having a happy family, to having a mum and dad, so I wanted my body to be younger. Skinnier. Innocent.
You didn't see the children shout skeleton girl in the playground. "Don't let the monster play!".
Playing tag got replaced with playing around with numbers, how little can I eat today?
Then how long can I go without eating? A teaspoon of jam.Thats all your worth. Thats all you can have, stupid little girl. No one likes you.
This, this is where it started.
Whilst children were being innocent on a school trip, playing and laughing in childsh joy, I was crying to my teacher as I couldn't drink the hot chocolate they passed me. I was terrified and alone. I had no energy to play so I sat in the cabin, crying and alone.
Then the day a man, a stranger, stuck his hand up my 12year old cunt in a carpark one evening, I tried to tell you. I asked if such things are normal, and you laughed mum. You laughed.
So I purged to cleanse myself of sin. And thats when my bulimia began.
I want to say I am angry. I am so angry that you didn't see me crumble. That I am still fighting the illness 15 years later. That I can still hear screams.
I am angry. Its never stopped, and you don't even recognise it began with you.
My mum. The woman who is meant to love and nuture me.
I am angry. I am hurt. I am feeling tears splash on the keyboard.
But mum, I forgive you.
I forgive you and love you.
I wish I could show you this letter, one day I might, but for now. Just for now. Its here.

From your little girl,

Kate

Limbo

There are times in life where we are waiting. Waiting almost for certain events to pass, for certain things to happen, so we can be the 'real us'. So we can finally have the power to yield what we want from life.
This may be for us to get a certain career, money, to move.
For me right now I am living with my ex partner far away from my friends and family.
I feel like I know when I move into my own place in June/July I can start putting things in practice, like saving money for travelling, painting, reading, meditating.
But at the moment I feel I am playing the waiting game, watching the clock tick so I can transform like Cinderella into a new-improved me.
This never pans out, the clock strikes 12 and we realise things can't always be rosy forever.
But really does that have to be the case? I want the clock to strike 12 and for me to live forever in my metaphorical ball gown with my princess on my arm to dance under the stars. And for once, I believe in this fantasy. Dreams do come true. But its about not giving up on them.

My mum is a person who has had a had life full of what she calls disappointment. Wrong decisions or following her head instead of her heart means she now is a complete disbeliever. A disbeliever in everything I believe in more than anything: magic, dreams, and most importantly love.
She once told me love doesn't exist, and I couldn't believe that she had given up on love.
I don't care how much she tells me these things, I will not move away from my beliefs as what is a life without believing in love?
Even in this break up I believe in love still.

Anyway, what I am trying to say is sometimes we have to play the waiting game. Sometimes life seems like one way, when really something great is coming along.
I do not mind waiting. I feel alone and isolated and a lot of the time helpless, but I know that great things are coming. Thing is I am my own fairy godmother, I am going to make these things happen. Just lifes rules and regulations are currently holding me back.

I will never, ever stop believing in love.
I will never, ever stop dreaming. 

One person

There are times when all it takes is a smile from one person to change your life.
It is the most beautiful thing, its enchanting and liberating and makes you feel alive.
Its strange how we can sometimes feel like we're not alive, like we are a ghost just walking the routes of life we have lived through repetitively, just in a trance-like state of nothingness. A blank space on a page. Empty.
So how do we define life and death?
My definitions have been challenged greatly in the past few years, and I still feel like I am trying to find out what it means to be 'alive'.
But one person can make you feel alive for a moment, and the world melts away like a chalk painting in the street when it rains. And you can feel your heart pulse. And you are reminded, you are reminded you are alive.
Its these moments which are worth everything.

Thank you to that person for reminding me I am alive.

xxxx

Oh what it would be to be free

I am in a place right now that I can't locate.
It is not on a map, nor is it in this world.
I am flying, drifting, being, whispering, I am somewhere where I am running away through emptiness.
People call, ask about my behaviours, raise an eyebrow then hang up.
How are you coping?
Fine.

I saw my therapist for the first time in ages, and we decided that I do run. I run from feelings, experiences, the past, the present, the future, everything.
And I have no language to express where I am, who I am and who I am there with.
My eating disorder was my language, my language to say 'Look I am not fucking ok. Help me.'
And I am majorly triggered right now by my immense hate for myself and my body.
I am breaking up with my partner, well we have broken up. I don't like this word 'broken', as nothing has broke. We were fine. We make a great, loving couple. But I have no sense of self and identity and I want to find myself.
That sounds so cliche, 'I want to find myself'.
But its so true. I want to find that person I cannot locate and take her in my arms and hug her and tell her we fought the good fight and won. We won.
Only then can I consider having someone else to have and to hold for the rest of my life.

I am finding more and more things out about myself.
Right now, this is who I am:

I am a lesbian, and I am out.
I am a dreamer, a believer, a traveller, a lover, a pagan, a compassionate person.
I believe in energy, in light, in the goddess, in the healing power of the world.
I like to write, to draw, to read, to expand my knowledge.
I like people, to talk and listen.
I want to travel. I want to explore. I want adventure. I want to find my neverland.

I am NOT an ed, a mental illness, a scar, a tear.

The Alchemist

The magnetism between me and the Alchemist was instant.

Sexual deviation towards devilry as I delved into the darkness between her legs

as her erotic enchantment captured my hand and leaned me back;

black blindfold, sight slaughtered.

Burning desire rolled over my bare breasts and left a trail of rouge;

yet her warmth was not tender nor loving, but raw, earthly.

A sensual split as she clawed my back and licked the drips of blood

that seeped into the bed which was our place. 

I felt myself become an astrologer as I left my body and rose in starry bliss;

Magical longing; primal consciousness; 

Our energies combined, our spirits sang as it is in all and all is in us.

Time was alive as my fingers curled, my teeth bit into my open lips,
my back arched and my arms reached out in holy restoration.

Her incantation was irresistible. 

Cosmic forces worked effortlessly as we evaded time and entered a transcendent state.

Fate brought us together, past the phallic stage of our sexual evolution 

as what we felt replaced what Freud saw. 

A climax of witchcraft. 

An orgasm of obsession.

Fertile and free I knew that then she, the Alchemist, smiled

   

Women

She stood there, expectantly with her dress on the floor beside her curling toes. Her eyes were dreaming of this moment, the time chasing her in front of her bare chest. The clock on the wall watched her unravel her hair, ticking quicker in anxious anticipation of the drop of a bra which fell like a feather from the ruffle of a dancing bird in spring. The bite of a lip, blood drawing to the surface and painting her lips. I remembered that lipstick and its stains on my pillow, ruby scarlet. Naked. Rain dripped down window pains the day time stopped. Her shoulders loose, her breasts fair, her pearl hidden beneath smooth skin that blushed pink. Silence rippled down my legs. The day i forgot man, and emptied my pockets of rationality and society and the sound of a mans eager grunt. The chant of a mechanic act that i so often entered with the ease of my hips. Her hips. The curve i could run my fingers down. Women and woman. Legs tangled, lips spread, letters florishing in my mouth to break the silence with words. I love you. Her. Women. She stood there. You. Love. Legs. Left. Right. Round. Gasp. Scream. Split. Nails. Back. Yes. There. There. There.

Wedding cake

Your face is like a marzipan flower,
which opens before me, sweet and sculpted
into a delicate delight
that I cannot help but bite into,
into you.

The lace on the table is stained
as I place you on top to unfold you
and take you in my mouth
in an unorthodox anticipation.

But you are the flower on top of a wedding cake
I cannot reach and cannot touch
and cannot breathe.
I cannot have you, but I can admire you from afar.
I cannot taste you, but I can imagine you each day,
and each night in between sleep and wake,
and each morning before the clock rhymes a chorus,
each moment I can be holding you in my hand
in a dream.

Today.

I have had a major realisation in the past few days, an awakening.
I have realised that for the past 2 years I have been chasing happiness.
Chasing it in people, in places, in houses, in occupations, in friends, in lifestyles...
I have been trying to find external forces to make me happy.
Its always, 'if I had this, if I did this, if I was this person, I will be happy'.

No one, no thing, no place can make me happy without internal happiness.
I have not once stopped and looked within myself for happiness.
No, its always had to be something.
I need to start making steps to make myself happy, before circumstance.

I am suffering from heartbreak at the moment. Badly.
Its like someone has ruined all my dreams of 'love conquers all'.
Turning my back on love, well, its not like me. Its not me.
My heart may not be fixed the way it was before. It will have dents, bruises, scrapes that I cannot fix.
No bandage can hold it together.
But I know, I do know, that love will find me. And I when the time comes, I will be open to it.
I will be ready because I will have found happiness in myself.
I will find love for myself, and then, and only then, can I love once more.

I never knew life could be so difficult.

Heart

They say life flashes in front of your eyes when you die.
I feel that when a relationship ends, the same thing happens.

Good Morning Heartache

I am a whirlwind of intense emotion and I feel like my emotions need a severe weather warning.

A flood of guilt, shame, humiliation and anger.

A gust of regret.

Which can be shortly followed by outbursts of intense love, desire, passion.

And as we all know in England, these never last, and it is followed by a hard cold rain of reality which washes this all away.All this hope.

People tell me I need to not react to these intense feelings. To sit with them, for they will change.

But thats like telling someone in a blizzard not to put on a hat, when there is rain not to put up an umbrella.

I do not understand how they can expect me to sit here like a sitting duck whilst emotions drown me.

I literally feel like my emotions are killing me.

Also, I can never separate my condition, whatever they like to call it, with reality. What if I am damn right to feel these emotions? They aren't dramatised by my inner insecurities, but are real. And that I should react. I should do something. Anything.

What if this is reality?

If my relationship crumbles, I want to focus on myself. I want to explore who I am, what is my being, what is my core, the person I am and the person I want to be. I want to encompass myself and engulf myself in passion, but not with a person, with something I love doing, love being.

With all my past mental issues, I have never been able to do these things.

I have gone from child to anorexic, to bulimic, to manic depressive, to bulimic again, and then to a 'mother' and girlfriend.

There has been no point in this succession of events where I exist.

Is that selfish? Perhaps. But maybe, just maybe, that isn't a bad thing.

Intense emotions, I will wait for you to pass like the tide.

But I will not respond to you.

At least I am strong enough to weather the storm.

His eyes

There are moments when I see his eyes.
Like wolves, blue, cold, round and ever watchful.
Frozen. Empty.
I remember not just the shade or shape, but the emotion which sat beneath them
A hunger for the hunt. A fixation on his prey.
Stillness which brings shudders to my spine, as I knew what came next.
Silence, as his eyes narrowed on me. And I knew.
I knew then I would have to shut my eyes and pretend.
I knew that he was going to fuck me.
I knew that he was going to hurt me, in so many ways.

I remember the opening of a closet door, wrapped in darkness, tied till it cut me raw,
I remember them two, blue eyes appearing and I wished I could stay in there instead.
I remember feeling numb, like in winter when snow hides everything we love.
So numb my tears froze before they had a chance to melt upon my cheek.

These memories haunt me.
I was numb for years. I pretended every single day it never happened.
And now I remember.

I remember.

And I cry, to warm my heart.

Sun

In the 'Valley', the sun has come out.
It brings such a lightness to the world and fills your soul with light.
I feel lifted, enchanted, and in love with nature.
The snow, despite its beauty, it is a fleeting love. It makes the world bleak, cold, and it hides all the wonders of the world underneath a blanket of bright white.
It reminds me of a song in Thumbelina, 'once there was the sun':


Once there was the sunBright and warm and wonderfulJust like the love within my heartNow there's no more sunWinter has killed everythingAlthough it's dark DecemberForever I'll remember sun

Its beautiful. I love the sun and what it brings to me.

I am in the midsts of an episode of depression, and I am fighting the darkness this brings me.

I broke down yesterday, after weeks of not crying or showing emotion, I broke.

Once I break, I can't stop the floods of emotions it brings.

But waking up to the sun, well its just given me hope.

Things are very hard at the moment, and it seems my family do not understand everything that is going on and the responsibility I have on my shoulders. They have lived through so many experiences, and no matter how much they lecture, I have to live them as well. The good and the bad. And learn. I cannot grow if I do not live, make mistakes and learn.

The problem with recovery is once your weight is healthy, people assume you are 'cured'.

That you are now well, with no bad thoughts and no difficulties.

On the contrary, this part of recovery is the hardest as you are now trying to challenge thoughts.

My mind is still sick, its still a painting of dark blues, reds and greens. Its a splatter of darkness. And I am trying to start a new painting of bright colours, and its hard to move away from the paint brush I know and have used so often.

Life is a canvas, and it is hard when you can't control what the paintings is.

But you can, you can take control. Notice everything good in life and paint.

The sun has come. The light is here. And I feel like I can use this light within me, through adoring the world and realising that the world is magical, and it shows you this in the most unexpected ways and at times when you simply can't imagine hope to shine through.

I have hope. And that is all we need sometimes.

xxxx

Dippy Eggs and Trees

Nothing else can epitomize your childhood like dippy eggs.
Someone in front of me orders them and I smile.

Yet my smile today is weak.
I am filled of regret, regret of myself and who I have become.
I used to look within me and see magic.
I used to have hopes and dreams in my purse, ready to be made at any given time.
I have now put them dreams in a drawer, and sometimes I go and admire then. But the drawer, it still remains shut.

I had a dream, a daft dream, that I wanted to travel the world to go across the world and meet all of the wonderful trees, talk to them, be near to them, feel their energy, be amazing, be astounded, be made to cry by the beauty of it all.
Is this daft? No dream, however little, big, weird, its still a dream.
And dreams are the roads to our soul. We need to listen to them and follow them.

I am going to start my dream. I am going to start with Yorkshire and get to know english trees in the local areas.
I was inspired by a certain woman yesterday who reminded me of this dream. And I cannot thank her enough for giving me the key to myself.
I don't need a notebook, or camera, or any footage to document this dream.
I don't need to prove it. I am just going to live it. And love living.

xxxx

Responsibility

In life we are given choices.
These choices thereafter define our existence.
But, I often stop and ask myself whether I did have a choice.
Did I?
Do we have a choice about everything?
There must be some structural forces which shape and mould our lives, pave the path, put up the signs and directions to the way we must go.
I feel I do not have any choices at the moment.
I am feeling trapped without them, yet I feel I never had them in the first place.
Today was the first day in a very long time I purged.
I just freaked out that my life has been fashioned by external forces and I feel cornered.
Responsibility. Responsibility. Responsibility.
Echos in my mind.
Responsibility is something I have a lot of, and I take it very seriously.
And it scares me shitless.
I get scared that because I fear it people will think I'm bad. That I am not mature. That I don't deserve anything. They will hate me. Think little of me. Think I am a messed up freak.
This is mainly because I have the words 'mentally ill' tattooed on my head for all to see.
People think that because of this, I am just going to crumble and will not recover.
So I purged today, as if it cleansed me. It punished me.

But then I got up and looked in the mirror. My hands trembling as I wiped my mouth and the tears on my cheek. I cried, for a minute, then put my responsible face back on.
I don't cry. Ever. I now have a facade that I hide behind each day.
Yet I know, I know they are wrong. I know people do mess up.
People screw up. Its life. You don't have to be mentally ill to slip up now and then.
I shouldn't feel bad for making mistakes.
So, for once, I wipe off my act.
I cry. I shout. I scream.
It may be in the comfort of my living room, alone (apart from Tolkien the cat), but this is a big step.

I am going to stand up to myself.

xxx

Peter Pan Syndrome

For all my life I have suffered from what I call 'peter pan syndrome'.
An immense fear of growing up.
I have tried to cling on to my fleeting childhood through keeping my body in a child-like form.
My eating disorder has been my access to neverland, to stay child-like, to stay safe.
I sometimes wonder whether my eating disorder triggered this, as it entered my life at the age of 8.
It stole my childhood, and ironically it has been my way of holding on to a lost childhood and to regain it.
I do not know why growing up scares me.
In recent years this fear has grown. Recovery has forced my body to evolve, to change, to grow.
I look in the mirror now and see a woman.
I see curves. I see breasts. I see hips.
I used to see a young girl, scared of the world. I now see a young girl trapped in a womans body.
I spend my time trying to embrace my new womanhood and face this fear.

Neverland to me has always been real. In a way that its a place to escape and run away from the world. Thats what Peter did, and if you read the book properly you will notice it is tainted and he is actually trapped there in his youth. The wonderful experiences of growing up are stolen from him. He is trapped in time, and the ticking clock of the crocodile haunts him as well as Hook.

People who know me, know that I love anything magical. Its part of my being. Who I am.
But its sort of a curse.
I am growing up. I have a child. A fiance. A home. A job.
'Will they send me to school?'
'Yes'.
'And then to an office?'
'Yes'
'Someday I will be a man. You can't make me a man and grow up'.

So what is it about growing up?
All these things I have longed for. Now they are here, I am scared.
And I can't run away with my ed anymore. I am no longer a little girl. On the contrary, I have a little boy.
I get angry at my body, as if it is the reason I am now grown up.
But its the inevitability of time.
Time is chasing all of us.

So yes, I suffer from peter pan syndrome.
I am stuck at a cross roads of wanting to grow up and wanting to stay young.
I can't claim back them lost years of childhood. Thats the hard truth.
But I can breath the new experiences that await me. To be excited for them and everything they bring.
I need to grow up.
I need to live my life rather then get myself stuck in a time-warp.
As I always say, to live will be an awfully big adventure.

So let the adventure begin. 
Goodbye to that scared child within me. I can't protect her anymore. 

xxx

And here I sit.

And here I sit.
By the coffee shop window with my world of Phd spread out across the table and the outside world resumes around me in an orderly fashion.
People come and go, chat and laugh, and I smile that I know I am in this world.
Getting out and working provides me with much spirit, as I think seeing and talking to people is an important medicine that should be taken daily.
I used to think people were all bad. They all presented me with such hurt which I internalised, and made visible through cuts and bruises on my body. Wounds that would scar and be forever on me.
Yet it is not forever in me.
Some people did things to me that caused so much pain and anguish, so much hurt.
Men abused me. My body. My soul. And most scarily, my mind.
Abuse is a difficult thing, as it is the sad truth that in this world are abusers.
For me I have been subject to two different events of abuse in my life, one when I was 12 and happened once, and one when I was 18 and went on for months.
This made me think and feel everyone was an abuser. I became scared of people.
I would hide in the house, I couldn't go to lectures or socialise. I'd sit in the lecture theatre and think everyone was writing about me, nasty, awful things that I could not bare. Of course, this isn't true.
But it was real. So real. And I feared going there, so I didn't. I hid.

However, the world has abusers in it, yet it also is full of beautiful, wonderful, inspiring people.
The latter makes it worth being a part of.
A stranger can remind you of this. A smile. A 'hello'.
And this is world has more good than bad, and its important you stop the bad from taking over.

So I sit here and smile. I drink my earl grey with my eyes full of life.

Good morning starshine

There are always triggers to our mood. Experiences and events which have made core beliefs about ourselves, and these effect our mood massively.
But part of it isn't.
Part of it can be due to chemicals and the way we are.
I read the other day, diets don't cause eating disorders but those born with obsessive traits are more like to end up with an eating disorder.
And I think its true for me. I am sort of, just, programmed this way. My mood right now is incredibly low. I have fleeting thoughts of disappearing. Of wanting to run away from my life.
I get so frustrated with myself, as everything in my life is fine. Nothing I can complain of. But still, my mood just takes over me.
I want to hibernate. Hide under the covers and pretend I'm in neverland.
Luckily thats not a choice for me. I have to get up, take Travis to nursery. And most of the time the walk by the countryside helps me be able to deal with the day. Without this structure, I would 100% just stay in bed. Sleep the day away. Void of dreams. Void of nightmares. Void of anything.
I would be nothing.

I am not nothing. I know I am not.
But I can't help but feel helpless.
Travis is at the age when he is challenging everything. And he challenges me, and I have to be strong for him. And that keeps me alive. Knowing that my ed would rip me away from him and hurt him. Knowing that any self harm would also be harming him.
So I wake up. I get up. And I live.
I am alive.
And thats how it should be and how its meant to be.

I am challenging food like never before! I had an indian and tonight I have made a spinach, butternut squash and coconut curry :)
I have chocolate every night, not because I have to but because I want to. I eat it, and I enjoy it.

But right now there are people I miss so much, and I want them back in my life.
Sadly, the truth is eating disorders, mood disorders and self-harm can take people away from you.
It turned me into a person I did not like, and those around me didn't like. It was not Kate. That person was NOT me. It was as if an evil spirit took over me and I was possessed. The days after my suicide attempt, well I was a mess. I could barely articulate myself, I couldn't get up or think. I was empty of any emotion. And it destroyed some really important relationships in my life.

It saved some too though. For example, my dad.
He begun to realise something had happened to me I didn't speak of.
He listened to me, comforted me, loved me. And I can't thank him enough for the support he gave me.
Every time I think a bad thought I say no, as I love my dad and I want him to see me well and happy. Truly well and happy. No ed. No self harm. No destructive moods.
As some of you may no, I have a mood disorder which causes me to get destructive in ways which I hate to say. I get something good, and as I have such hatred towards myself I take it upon myself to destroy it in every way possible.
And it leads me to do awful things.
The scary thing is, I can't use it as an excuse, as it's not. I have to take responsibility for my actions. But I feel like I apologise for someone I don't know. As its not me. Its not who I am. But I still feel immense guilt for my actions.

Mood disorders are difficult and complex things. What mine is yet, I do not know.
I am being diagnosed on an ongoing basis.
Some have said its rapid bi-polar disorder. Others, borderline personality disorder.

I don't care much for the diagnosis. I care about becoming a healthy, better person.
A person who is free.


xxxx