31/12/2010

So I decided to take a break from blogging for a while, but now the pull has become too much and I have returned :)

Lately I have lacked the words to compose anything worthy of posting, so instead of a usual blog post, today I shall post a letter that I have written to my school deputy head teacher as a thankyou for all she has done for me in the past year. Within this letter you will notice lines from my previous blog postings; I have included these as I have no other way to verbalise how I feel, so it may seem a little like you're reading the same thing again, which I apologise for. The name of the person I have written this letter to has been abbreviated to their intials for privacy reasons, and I have also taken out the name of my school and any numbers related to weight.

Dear C.S,

It’s been almost six months now since I left school, but I still feel compelled to write this letter.

Over the past year so much has happened, and it has always been you who has been there to pull me away from the edge when everything else willed me towards it;

On Christmas day 2010 it was one year exactly since mum suspected I was purging and I denied it, so I decided, as a test to myself, I’d attempt to keep Christmas dinner down, because no matter how bad this mentality would make me feel after, ultimately, it would put me one up on last year. And for the first time in three years, I did it, and amid all the shame, I felt an inkling of pride.

I tried so hard to cling onto the remnants of hope I’d always believed had been diminished, but the harder I fought, the stronger the disorder fought back, and yet again- I was back at square one; not knowing whether I wanted recovery or not.  I felt so guilty for letting go of that pride you taught me to strive for, and that was my turning point; I realised that there is so much more beyond this, and that for so long I had been blinded.

For the first time in a long time, I’ve regained my aspirations; I’m going to apply myself to college 100%. I’m determined to make light from this; I intend to go on to study Psychology, and eventually have my own equine-therapy based eating disorder inpatient facility. It all seems so far away right now, but I’ll get there.From now on I’m going to be brutally honest about what happened, who I am, where I want to be and what I need to get there.

There’s still a very strong part of me that wants to get down to ** lbs, and I don’t know if that part of me will ever completely disappear; the part that wants my unworthiness to be worth noticing.I guess in a way, I don’t feel ‘ill’ enough to constitute the word recovery; that until I’m clinically emaciated, I’ve nothing to recover from. But people define recovery in different ways, and I’m not yet sure what mine is. Maybe I’m not ready for recovery, but I’m not going to wait around on the off chance that someday everything will fall into place and I’ll feel completely prepared, because if I waited until I was, it’s highly probable I’d be waiting forever.

Recently I’ve started physiotherapy as my patella bone doesn’t interlink with the other parts of my knee properly, causing the knee cap to dislocate at random intervals. It frustrates me sometimes because I know I can’t exercise as much as I used to if I want it to heal  properly, but in truth, the only reason I’m waiting for it to heal now is so I won’t be put out of action for even longer and therefore be unable to exercise for a longer duration of time. I know that sounds like everything I said previously meant nothing, but maybe this came at the right time, because your body always knows when to stop even if your mind doesn’t- it’s just a case of knowing which one to listen to.

I guess the concept of being ‘well’ scares me; I hate it when people say I look well. I don’t feel well. To me ‘well’ means healthy in terms of physique and mentality, yet people judge how well (or not) you are on the basis of appearance alone. It reminds me that from society’s point of view our worth is judged on an exterior level.

This letter probably seems very muddled. It is. But right now, so am I; it’s not so much a case of wanting to recover at the moment, it’s more beginning to make the choice to do so.

This year I’m going to get the n.e.d.a recovery symbol tattooed on my hip with the words ‘I can’ next to it. I feel it will encourage me to keep going, and in the future it will remind me of the struggle I endured in a positive sense, as I will be able to look back and realise how strong it made me.

I’ve always felt that this defines me-so strong in my weakness, so in control in my lack of control-, and that without it, I’ll have nothing left. But I’m fed up of merely existing; I’m going to start living.

I’m going to get my spark back and finish what you begun for me.