Recalling my summer

The air is still and lifeless today, and I have that 'sunday feeling' of slight dread for what tomorrow will bring. I am angry that I am going to the Maudsley soon. It has forced me to confront my issues again, which were perfectly happy sitting there at the back of my mind as an unwrapped present.
I have been on a real high recently. The summer was great for me. I went to Turkey for two weeks, and I had the confidence to wear a swimsuit despite weighing a stone more than my holiday I took last year (where I covered up in knee length shorts and a top). I think it helped that there weren't any other English families staying in the same hotel as us. I only tried to make myself sick once, for which I failed miserable at, and  was rewarded with heart palpitations. I did storm off one night at dinner when my family were making me angry, and I locked myself in one of the toilets in the communal bathroom, but I had the decency not to make myself sick because I was conscious that other people would hear and that I had just touched the door handle which would have contained a feast of germs and bacteria, and I wasn't going to be foolish enough to stick my finger down my throat after touching that.
Sometimes I think I would be sick so much more if it didn't actually involve me having to stick my throat down my fingers and go through that length process. And I would certainly do it more if my being sick was soundless.
After Turkey, I went to Reading Festival for three days and four nights. It was stressful to begin with, as the travelling was strenuous and tiring, and my friend was aggravating me. I also got trampled on in the first music act that I went to see (Crystal castles), which left me feeling shaky and wanting to go home. I did enjoy myself overall though, and I definitely recommend that everybody should have the experience of a festival just once in their life, but I don't know if I will do it again. Whilst eating and my weight was not that much of an issue to me on holiday, I certainly did feel that I stuck out like a sore thumb at Reading with everybody in their short shorts, whilst I wore long dresses and leggings with dresses. If I went again I would have to be thin to properly enjoy myself. I did take a gleeful satisfaction from eating the bare minimum at reading, and I kept thinking to myself how nice it would be to eat as little as this in my day to day life, and yet not feel hungry. I brought a huge bag of food along with us, but my friend ended up eating all of it, which annoyed me to no end because I had paid for it, but also pleased me that I had resisted.
Coming back to school this year has been 10x better than last year, so I have been on a high from that as well. For a start, I have a solid group of friends now, whom I love and who love me, where as last year I was starting new and I didn't know a single person. I also feel more confident to talk to random people, and I have managed to portray more of the real me, the loud, funny self that I kept hidden for so long at that school.
The work load has intensified without hesitation, and it's only the first full week back. I'm struggling to do it all, despite forcing myself to stay behind after school to complete it, (although so far this has proved futile, as  I am doing more talking than working!)...But all in all everything has been great. Also, GREAT news...I have started the GYM!!!! I went for a trial induction before my trip to Turkey, but due to the holiday, Reading Festival and then getting ill, I have only been able to start officially last week. I decided to let the woman weigh me, which is a very big ordeal considering that I NEVER let anybody know my weight and have always refused at the doctors and the asthma clinic, although it is vital for them to know. She told me that I was categorically obese, which I knew already from doing my BMI on the internet. I find this slightly ironic that an obese girl is going to an eating disorder hospital. Anyways it has made me determined to get down to my goal weight which is nine stone, and so far I am quite away off from that. I wonder what my family and friends would say if they knew that I was categorically obese? They would probably laugh. I don't think people would know, on observing me, because I do actually have quite a slim waist and I am tall, but its obvious to see that I am definitely overweight.

I do not want to let this Maudsley appointment shatter my happiness, so I will be strong and tough it out. Its only for three hours, and then hopefully I will never have to visit that place again.
Is it strange (and slightly twisted) that I would be happy to go there if I was shockingly thin, and people genuinely thought I was ill, rather than being the larger than life girl that I actually am.

Inspired to write again

My visit to the Maudsley hospital, which will be commencing next week, prompted me to revisit my old blog and my old demons.

Whilst googling the hospital I stumbled across a blog entitled 'Anorexic Mummy', which is a blog that has been written over the course of three years, documenting the life and the ordeal of a mother having to watch her child battle anorexia. 

I found the blog so inspiring that I decided to re visit this blog which I have not seen in years. 

I am kind of afraid to read what the old, slimmer me, use to think and say and write. I decided to just write this new blog on the spur of the moment, and not get caught up in reading my old posts (the very few I have) which might stop myself from writing down what I feel now, in this moment. I feel like I am changing all the time. How can I be sure of who I am? How can I be sure of what is up and down, what is wrong and right, why I have a burning and unrelenting desire to be thin?

The maudsley hospital will not be a pleasant experience. I do not want to wait in the waiting room, with my overweight body next to girls who are on the doorstep of death. I do not want to be recorded and watched on camera. Didn't anyone ever tell them that the camera adds ten pounds? That's hardly going to go down well with eating disordered patients now is it!? I do not want to sit in the room, with top psychologists who have given up there time, and have been paid by the NHS to see me. Silly old me, who forgot what is real and what isn't. I don't feel justified to take this valuable session, that would probably be snatched up by ten other girls in a heartbeat, who are in a far worse condition than I am in. 

When I say in a worse condition, I do not mean to imply that my condition is bad. It is not. I make myself sick occasionally and that is that. I do not personally think it is bad, although I can see the devastating effects it has had on others, and I realise that it is not healthy or in any way good. But it makes me feel better and at the end of it all, isn't that what we all want? To just feel better, when the black hole in your life grows bigger and seems to suck you in further. 

The only problem that I feel needs thoroughly addressing, is not this so called eating disorder that they claim I have, when realistically I don't (making yourself sick on the odd occasion, doesn't count). It is my anxiety and paranoia that is the real issue at hand. 

Today I visited Nottingham university, and it was so so so beautiful. The grade requirements are AAB, and I am hoping that I will be able to go there to study Psychology next year if they let me in and I decide that Nottingham is the right path for me. Today whilst I was there, I started to have a panic attack. I also got one a couple of days ago when I visited Kent university and had to sit in a lecture. The fear comes from having to sit with crowds of people in uncomfortable situations...I just don't like it to the extent that I fear and avoid it. 

I ran out crying at Kent, which was rather embarrassing as I hate showing emotion around others, (which is a pointless thing to hate, seeing as I am the most emotional person on this earth) and I just couldn't stop the feeling of death that embraced me with the panic attack. 

I tried explaining this to my mother when she quizzed me on it later on in the day, but I could tell that the concept of death in what she perceived to be a relaxed situation, was lost on her. 

I can't cry at the Maudsley hospital, I just can't but I know I will. I won't cry when they ask me about the Bulimia side of it, because that is something detached and emotionless to me. But when they ask about my thoughts, how I feel that I have to do certain rituals just so that my day will be good or it will stop something bad from happening, or the fact that I am always afraid to bump into people I know/use to know because I have an intense fear that they will judge me on the way I look and how much weight I have gained since last seeing them, or the scary fact that I always feel that somebody I know is watching me from afar everywhere I go, and the horrible gut-wretched, stomach turmoil feeling I get when I have to leave the house....these discussions are what will set me off into a state of hysterical sobs. 

I'm wondering if I have slight schizophrenia? It is most likely that I am I talking nonsense, its just my thought pattern is a little disturbed. And when I try to explain it to my mother she cannot grasp at the fact that I am not in control of my thoughts. She tells me over and over again that I control them. This makes me think though that our brains work differently, and that maybe she is normal and I am not. I can't stop my thoughts creeping in slowly and flashing there like a neon sign, urging me to listen even when I try not to. My mother can't understand this though. 

I realise that nobody will probably read this post, and that is okay with me. I think it will just be nice for me to be able to look back in a couple of years, and know the kind of person that I am in this present time. 

If somebody is reading this though, please comment. I would be really interested to hear your perspective on things. 

I may write again another day to update my blog on how the Maudsley hospital went. I wouldn't even mind going if I looked thin, but I don't, I look grotesquely overweight which is because I am. Maybe one day my BMI will enter the healthy stage again, rather than maintaining in the depressing overweight category. 

Bye x