Thursday 11 December 2008

Have you noticed...

...that I have stopped calling these entries 'Parts'? I got fed up of having to check back to know what number I was up to and realised the titles were rather dull and needed enlivening!

I haven't taken any laxatives today. It has, so far, been a conscious avoidance of the box of Bisocodyl sitting on my kitchen worktop. I feel a bit panicky, a bit brave, a bit naive and a lot scared. I didn't get a good night's sleep because I was on the toilet so often, having taken far more laxatives than I had initially promised myself. Damn. Just writing this is agitating me now...

Do any of you visitors look at the poll in the top right hand corner of this blog? Ian advised me to taken it down if we ever reached 100. That almost sounds mercenary, doesn't it, in black and white. That wasn't the intimation behind it...Almost every day, that poll depresses me more and more. It now stands at 47% current ED sufferers. 22% have never suffered, and thus the remaining 31% have been touched by an ED in some way, shape or form. So why, if this blog is public, open to any cross-section of demographic, do we have almost half of its viewers as sufferers and we are told by our health services that EDs affect 1 in 10 people. I did my Maths O'level one year early and got a B. I iz not thick. There is a vast difference between almost 50% and 10%...

Ok, ok, you could turn to me and say, Well, only those who are interested in EDs are going to be drawn to your blog. And I will certainly hold up my hands to that statement.

But the hard fact is that it's scary.

What is even more scary - and girls, this is not said with any acrimony, bitterness, condemnation or judgement; I am gratified that you deem this blog worth reading - is that there are some Pro-Ana authors reading. They are very quiet, peaceful people. They don't make waves, and they don't advocate their own beliefs. They are NOT to be condemned, but at the same time, sorry, girls, I don't condone it. 

The next few paragraphs are going to be total juxtapositions; possibly hypocritical; extremely confused...

I see the photos on Thinspo. I see the bones, the tendons, the blank, bland eyes which are lifeless, devoid of emotion, care, feeling, yet filled with utter self-hatred - although that is my opinion. I can quite honestly say that there is nothing about those images which fills me with envy, desire, jealousy or longing. I don't want to look anything like this.

I wrote a comment on a blog today about an email I had received in response to a petition to the British Government demanding more help for ED sufferers. After waiting for about three months, we had a response from our glorious leader, Gordon Brown (who could probably do with staying off the pies for a few months himself) that parliament were proud to inform us that, over the next three years, the issue of eating disorders will be injected with a governmental grant of £135,000. (About US$ 210,000). Divide that by three. How many of you live in a family where the annual income is less than £40,000 p.a.? There aren't that many. So, to feed a family of two adults and 2.4 children costs around £45,000 p.a. And £5000 less than that is being spent on the so-called 10% of nationwide ED sufferers in the UK.

I feel like being sick. And that is without sticking my fingers down my throat.

I don't want to end up looking like that girl in the above picture. Truly, I don't. I don't enjoy any aspect of this 'disorder' but I keep driving myself on - it's like a competition with myself. Over the last couple of days, four extra pounds have come off. I was actually shocked, as I had been trying so hard to eat bits here and there - way more than normal. Our scales also seem to be out of kilter. When at the hotel two weekends ago, having worked out at the gym, I was 9lbs lighter on two different sets of scales than that which read on our own scales, my brow furrowed. So, if they stated I was 8.7 stone then, and my scales stated 9.2 and I have now dropped by 4lbs, things are going awry, aren't they?

I sit here, writing this blog and as I do so, my stomach naturally sucks itself in. It's not due to vanity as I am wearing my husband's big, baggy fleece as it is so bitterly cold. It just happens, and suddenly, I am thinner than I was five minutes ago.

If any of you readers hate this, too, and want to overcome it, we need to unite. We need to fight this bastard with tooth and claw. EDs create indolence, comfort zones, walls and pain. If nobody else can help us, surely together, we are a force to be reckoned with?

Don't let me down. Please. We CAN do it.

A xx

8 comments:

Abi said...

Hey again, I too hate the way ED's are brushed under the carpet... it is sickening :( ...

I yell regularly at the Daily (hate)Mail and they're 'oh she's too thin, next week she'll be too fat'... *shakes head sadly*... it's a national sport, and ED's seem to be something ok to laugh at.

In between my 2nd and 3rd child, I expressed breast milk because Sophia couldn't latch on to me... I lost a stone almost straight away and got sucked into a world of pro-ana sites (no one really knows about that :o ) and madly excessive exercise, if I wasn't in serious muscular pain by the end of the day I refused to go to sleep until I was...... I think the only thing that stopped me in my tracks was miscarrying. I didn't know I was pregnant, and I was doing hundreds of sit ups a day, I was a size 4-6... and not thin enough by far... :(

Luckily my next pregnancy stopped all that and I have been eating for the baby since (still breast feeding) ... I'm terrified of stopping feeding her to be honest, she's nearly one, but I need an excuse for the plumpness.

Are ED's one of those things that never really leave you, do you think? :(

Keep eating, when you can xxxx

Em said...

yea i noticed after three posts ago that you stopped numbering them.

is it possible to not keep laxatives in the house at all? perhaps then no temptation to reach for one.

Anna said...

I can relate totally

i'm trying very hard today not to take any lax...

i also agree, i dont want to look like those pics of women that are all bones... i just want to be slimmer.

stay safe! ♥

I Hate to Weight said...

annie; in response to abi, it sure gets better. i can't remember being this very free. and this is weird -- because i'm not obsessing, i think about food less.
i think every woman has some eating issue, not just 50%. we need help, especially when it interferes with the quality of life. by the way, i liked the Parts. they reminded me of chapters -- like chapters of the book you're writing. hint, hint. but it's fine without them too

Unknown said...

Hi, love your blog by the way. About your poll, I voted "no", that being the option that fits best for me. I don't consider myself to have an eating disorder or ever to have had one and I doubt I would be diagnosed as having one, but I definitely have issues with food, weight and body image. I think I have at times in my life been in danger of developing an eating disorder, but thankfully have never crossed that line. Just wanted to put the idea out there that many of your "no"s may not be untouched by EDs.

Ian T said...

I'm with you.

Always.

x

Karen ^..^ said...

Annie::
I look at that photo and it amazes me that anyone can life like that. No, quite literally, live. It is so scary, and so heartbreaking, and I cannot imagine how it feels from your end.

I love that you are fighting this tooth and nail, you ARE strong, to fight such a thing with all your other jumbled emotions weighing on you constantly.

Know that we all are praying for you, we are fighting right along side you, and will support you through this.

Love you, kiddo.

Agnes Mildew said...

Abi: I, too, despise The Daily Mail - indeed, I now refuse to purchase it as it is so hypocritical. Their Fashion Editor, Liz Jones, has suffered with anorexia for many years, and expounds at length how dreadful the size zero issue is...and then publishes pictures of waifs in this season's clothes. Pathetic.

And I hope that you can come to terms with the feeding issue for yourself.

No. I personally don't think you are 'cured' of an ED. But I think you can come to an 'understanding' around food...

Ginni: Thank you for your comment and kind words. The only comments I won't publish are those which are designed to harm and hurt - yours isn't doing that!

Mars: That would make sense, wouldn't it? You can't swallow what you don't have...but there's no sense to any of it, is there. Apart from maybe a sense of despair...

Anna: Hello and welcome over. That's great to read - I hope you got through the day without taking anything...I must admit, I caved, but I didn't go OTT. So, thank heavens for some small mercies, eh?

Melissa: I feel so uplifted to read your comment. 'Freedom' hits the nail on the head, doesn't it? It is a liberation when that understanding dawns - I know, I've had years of being OK and it feels good. At the moment, though, it's just like a bloody prison sentence for me. But, I have an aim in my sights - to be well on the road to recovery by my 39th birthday in March. It was Christmas this year - but that has been unachievable unfortunately. But March isn't an infeasible time, I don't think.

Beloved: Thank you for dropping in and leaving such an honest and perceptive comment! There is definitely a fine line for some - and thank God you didn't cross it. I think you are right in what you say...sadly, I think there will be more people 'touched' by an ED than we realise.

Ian: I know. Thank you. You go through hell and back with me. And for that, I will always love you. xx

Karen: You're a corker. Thanks for your lovely words. The photo is awful, isn't it? So bloody saddening. I cannot see anything attractive about it. I also hope to God that I never look like that.
Much love to you, my dear xx