6:20pm

I need to eat. You need to eat. Its not healthy to skip breakfast and lunch.

Why does hunger have to feel so damn good?

A carefully measured cup of tea for lunch. Jamie is going to be here soon and I’m already planning to eat a small bowl of cereal before he comes and tell him I’ve already eaten dinner.

Thats not a lie, so it doesn’t count.

I don’t even know why I’m doing this, every time I go to eat something, a loud voice in my head keeps saying “NO! DON’T!”

This photo kind of reminds me why I need to be healthy; its not even that I look that thin, I had only started losing weight, but I look like shit. It was Lauren’s birthday and I think I’d been restricting under 300 calories for about a week, and I just look gross.

My face looks strangely bloated too.

I really want to eat today. Jamie is coming here tomorrow and I don’t
want to feel weak around him, but today, something inside me is telling
me I shouldn’t. That part of me is the louder, stronger person today.

I was talking to him last night, because I’ve been struggling all weekend, and I just couldn’t bear to pretend that I’m okay with him telling me how much better I look anymore. He was telling me that seeing me before I went into the Priory was scary, the way my spine showed when I turned around, my protruding hips. We hadn’t seen each other for a while until the week we spent together before I went into hospital, he said seeing me made him feel guilty about not being there before because up until seeing he hadn’t realised how bad I really was. I looked gaunt. He says that the weight gain has taken the ‘edge’ off. He said I’m still slim, just not thin. As if that was a good thing. I just fucked snapped

“I don’t WANT to look healthy, I don’t want to be fucking slim, I don’t want to look normal, or average, or better. I want to be skinny and abnormal and I don’t know why”.

He got really scared. He doesn’t know how to handle me when I go into self-destructive mode, and I feel bad that I am constantly worrying him because I don’t know how to look after myself. Sometimes I wonder if I should just break up with him because I can’t bear to consume his life like this, but I love him so much I can’t imagine my life without him. We openly talk about the fact that one day we’re going to marry and have children, and it doesn’t even feel silly or hasty, being with him feels right, when he’s not here I genuinely feel like something is missing, which is odd for me because I’ve always been somewhat isolated.

Its 5pm, I’ve had 1 diet coke, 1 cup of ginger tea and 5 cigarettes. I
know I need to eat, I actually want to because I don’t feel well but I
just can’t.

Haha, I love this photo. I was playing with his hair and making him look like a pageboy…he didn’t appreciate it but he smiled and posed because it was making me laugh so much.

Canada, last Summer. I was 100lbs and surviving on black coffee, cigarettes and vegetable broth. You wouldn’t know it though.

Whats in my hands? 0 cal Iced Tea, of course.

*Edit*

I ate dinner, then I tried not to cry. But this is a good thing, one more meal is one step further in conquering this disease. I had pasta, then mint choc chip ice cream, because if i don’t eat ice cream straight after my meals I find it difficult to hold food down. From one fucked up eating habit to another.

I really, really wanted to liquid fast today. It had got to 7pm and the only calories I had consumed had been in 1 cup of tea. Then my mum noticed and she made me eat dinner-

2 pepper and courgette veggie sausages (116)
Carrot and swede mash (27)
Mint choc chip ice cream stick (94)
1 cup of tea (30)

267 calories.

I’m so pissed off, I feel weighed down.

I ate way too much today, I feel like shit about it, my mum isn’t home so I can’t curl up in her arms and Jamie has turned his fucking phone off.

This is unbearable.

B: skipped
L: 1 slice of toast with hummus (110) strawberry yogurt (75)
S: apple (50)

For dinner I’m having pesto pasta, I’m going to try so hard not to weigh the ingredients or count the calories. I think it would be one of the most significant steps I could take.

I’ll post with my success/lack of later.

*Edit*

I didn’t weigh the pasta but I ended up substituting the pesto sauce for  a much, much lower calorie tomato sauce. I then ate a bowl of vanilla ice cream for dessert and my mum said “Lucille you shouldn’t eat ice cream after dinner EVERY day”

I know what she meant, the rational side of me told me she was just offering a little variation in my diet.

But the irrational, hyper-sensitive, neurotic, paranoid, absolutely fucking ridiculous anorexic inside of me fell to pieces.

I broke down in tears and cried for two hours, admitted how fucking disgusting I feel, how everyone thinks I’m doing ‘so well’ when really I’m struggling more than ever. I had just managed to convince myself that eating dessert was okay, but everything was fucked up again. She hugged me, said sorry, and I felt instantly better.

Sometimes I forget to appreciate just how much my mother loves me.

Intake today –

B: a bowl of special k (150) tea (30)
L: spaghetti hoops (120) and a small apple (50)
D: cherry tomato risotto (380) chocolate ice cream stick (97)

827 calories.

 A snack and glass of milk should bring it up to slightly over 1000.

I was talking to my doctor about how its weird eating ‘normally’ again, and he said ‘well, you’re obviously still not eating normally because you haven’t gained any weight in the last 2 weeks’.

Well, that shut me up.

Gin and MDMA. Yummy.

The entire month of June was spent in a bubble of white pills, white powders, clear spirits and cigarette smoke. A few months on I’m an anti-social, boring, neurotic mess. Its a lot less fun.

Last night was okay. I went over to Sophie’s house under the impression that she was just having a ‘small gathering’ but, Sophie being Sophie, it ended up a full-blown house party with about 70 people drinking, doing copius amounts of coke and generally being teenagers. I was proud of myself for going out and seeing people, but I didn’t have a great time.

100 lbs this morning. I have an appointment with my consultant tomorrow and I agreed with him last time that I’d maintain 105 under the agreement that if I lose any weight he’ll consider making me an inpatient again. Fuck. I haven’t deliberately been trying to lose weight, even though admittedly I ended up consuming about 800 calories yesterday and it felt so good to stay under 1000. I guess I have drastically decreased my intake in the past few days to ‘make up for’ my binge this week, but thats just another thing I need to stop doing. I ate loads when I got home today though so its probably gone up a bit.

I can’t bear having my little sister here and seeing her eat less than me. I know it shouldn’t bother me, but I want to STAY the skinniest one in my family, I love getting hand-me-downs from my 15 year old sister, but as my boyfriend constantly points out to me…that isn’t right.

Looking back on this night makes me so happy…it was one of the funnest nights of my life. It was at Amnesia in Ibiza,we were so fucked we spent almost the whole night on a podium raving, dropping pills and giving each other chinese burns. When we went to go sit down on the big comfy sofas on the terrace we realised it was 7 in the morning, because the whole club had lit up and the sun was shining through the glass roof. It was incredible.

   

*Edit*

Indigestion crept up on me so I had two spoonfuls of Gaviscon and a handful of raisins. The anorexic in me is telling me its going to make me fat, because it wasn’t on the fucking plan.

Intake today:

Breakfast: special k cereal (150)
Lunch: toasted bagel with hummus (250) and an apple (60)
Dinner: sweet potato cake with yogurt mint sauce (320) and an oriental bean salad (125) and a skinny bitch triple choc ice cream stick (97)
Snack: orange flavoured hot chocolate (33) a small orange (30) a handful of grapes (40)

I really really need to stop counting calories.  My mum thinks that I’m trying to subtely cut corners. I’ve stopped drinking the milk altogether and I try to get out of eating snacks whenever possible. I’m really worried about going to London tomorrow because I don’t know how to plan out my meals when I’m there, I’m certainly not ready to prepare food in someone else’s kitchen but I’m scared that if I go out on an empty stomach, I’ll feel ill then have a panic attack. It makes me wonder if I’m just better off staying at home…again.

When I binge, I see this person (About 120):

If I’m not allowed to starve myself until I’ve diminished to nothing, I at least want to stay looking like this, I still hate myself, but I’m capable of leaving my house (about 104ish).

I hadn’t eaten for two days when this photo was taken. I proceeded to drink a bottle of vodka, get incredibly wasted and have sex with a guy called Jake. The next morning I woke up, threw up and stepped on the scales.

Why do I always let weight define who I am? Surely I’m worth more than that. I just want this disease to be gone. But it seems like I have to go to one extreme to another: starving to binging. Yet the anorexic in me always dwells at the back of my mind, ringing through my  head, telling me I’m not good enough.

Me and my boyfriend had an argument about it last night. He wants me to stop weighing food and becomes so exasperated when I say that I feel fat. But he always tells me that he wants me to feel that I can confide in him, but how can I want to when he doesn’t understand? He always just makes me feel petty and stupid. I want him to stop saying that he ‘loves my new shape’ I don’t WANT a new fucking shape.

105 pounds. Maintaining.

This morning I wanted to sneak into my mum’s room and use her scales before I got dressed. She was in the shower and I got so angry. I can’t even choose what to wear without weighing myself first, its so fucked up because I know that weight shouldn’t reflect who I am, but I don’t know how to scrutinize myself in any other way.

I had a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast even though I really didn’t want to. I’ve been secretly weighing out my cereal every morning, and I’ve been using 50ml of milk and filling the rest up with water. Apparently its crucial that I drink like 600ml of milk a day (I have white spots all over my fingernails…not pretty) but I still find it so difficult to drink when it can be so easy to skip.

I just generally feel like a shit person today.

Me and Jamie were messing around last week. I was in my pajamas and he pulled them up like that and called me Alan Partridge. I think I look fat here. I genuinely think I look beastly. But Jamie told me my legs look amazing in it…why can’t I see that? They’re fucking huge.

I reeeaally want to lose all the weight I gained in treatment.

Even showering has become incredibly difficult for me, because I can’t bear to stand there with my fat naked disgusting body. I sicken myself and I just want to curl up in a ball and not think about my fucking weight for one second. I’ve stopped wearing tops that show my collarbones because I think they’re fading, I’ve been covering my arms with black cardigans again and I don’t wear skinny jeans anymore. Basically, I’m almost back where I was two years ago.

I was meant to go to college today, but the rebellious side of me told me to jump on a train to London and meet Lauren for a coffee, which is actually a huge exciting step for me seeing as everytime I have left my comfort zone lately I have had panic attacks.

I had one near-panic attack on my way home. I was stupid and starved myself all day; it was 5:30 pm and I’d eaten half an apple. I was standing at the station waiting for my train home and I was so cold I felt like I was going to be sick. When I got on the train I was sat facing a girl who was stuffing chocolate truffles into her mouth the entire journey. I was just staring, in disgust, and if my stop hadn’t arrived just on time I would have asked her to stop because it made me feel so ill. Then I remembered the breathing relaxation exercises I was taught – breathe in for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 8 seconds, breathe out for 16. Honestly, it didn’t really help. But the diet coke and cigarette I had when I jumped off the train did.

I came home and definitely made up for my lack of calories throughout the day. I remember when fasting used to come so easily to me, now if I skip more than one meal its like my body is saying ‘no you are NOT putting me through this hell again’ and I feel like shit. I suppose its a good thing.

I’m going out for the first time in months on Saturday. I’m excited and nervous. I used to be so much fun, I would go out, drink vodka, make new friends, dance until 4am and do it all over again the next night. My eating disorder turned me into an anxious, weak, dull, child-like person and I just lost my desire for a social life. I think its pretty important that I get it back.

Vodka cranberries used to be my drink of choice. This photo is AWFUL but it makes me smile.

Yet, still…I miss anorexia so much.

I miss the secrets. I miss feeling weightless. I miss my boyfriend hating the fact that he can see all my ribs. I miss my underwear being so big for me that they fall down. I miss drinking miso soup and eating cucumber and calling that dinner. I miss measuring everything that goes into a cup of tea. I’ve come to realise that I’m a pathetic excuse for a human being, I miss having anorexia to hug me and tell me that everythings ok; at least I’m in control, at least I’m thin, at least death will come sooner rather than later.