My Mother, My Self?

I'm reading a book at the moment called, "When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends" by Victoria Secunda and it is a shocker. Although it focusses mainly on mother-daughter relationships, there is absolutely no reason why 'she' cannot be substituted for 'he'. Although mother-son relationships are different, if the mother fits into any of the categories listed by the author, the same screw-ups can apply the whole world over regardless of race, creed or gender.

It has been an eye-opener for me. Although I remember a lot of events in my childhood which have affected me, I would be inclined to say that those events occurring in my adulthood have left me feeling most bereft, unloveable, useless and groundless. Many of these I have firmly believed have been solely my fault: that I have driven my mother to such frustration that she has lashed out and I have paid my penance. Reading similar stories in black and white suddenly angers me that it was not necessarily my fault and I had every right to want to be ME.

From leaving home, aged 21, my every move was monitored and criticised. My first taste of freedom was in a dingy room in a shared house in Headingley, West Yorkshire. I was studying at the Metropolitan University in Leeds, and taking a BSc in Speech and Language Therapy. This was not my first choice, I must explain. I wanted to study Occupational Therapy; but this was just 'glorified nursing' according to my mother, and suddenly, placements were lined up at speech therapy clinics by 'nice Mrs Cleaver' the Senior SLT for Halton Borough, who was a neighbour. And so I started a course in SLT.

My grades (attaining either first class or 2:1s in the first year) needed to be surpassed each time; I wasn't feeding myself well enough (I lived on vegetarian pastas for some time which I made myself, from scratch); I didn't do my laundry enough; I wasted electricity, gas, water; my housemates were useless and idle; my friends were either 'lovely girls' and 'adore their mothers' or wastes of space...nothing was ever good enough or right.

When my long-standing boyfriend, Mike, and I split up after 5 1/2 years, I was in the dog-house with her. She called him every week to see how he was and reported back to me how heart-broken I had made both him and her. She hated my new boyfriend (who went on to become my first husband and now 'The Ex') and refused to say anything pleasant about him, preferring to compare everything about him to Mike.

I married Anal despite what she said. She had nothing to do with my wedding plans which embittered me: I'd had dreams of going shopping for a dress with her; choosing the bridesmaid's outfit; picking out menus, flowers, favours - all sorts of things. Nothing from her. The most she contributed one day was to tell me about a pink lacey nylon wedding dress she had seen on Albert's Stall in Widnes Market for £25.00 and that would be perfect for me. By this stage, I had saved up enough money to purchase a raw silk, hand-made dress from one of my clients (I was a Personal Tax Senior at the time) and was gutted that she could belittle my wedding so much as to suggest such cheapness. Her later comment, when I informed her that I was actually marrying out of the parish church where Anal and I lived rather than return to her region, was that of supercilious scoffing. She advised me that I may as well get married over the Blacksmith's Anvil in the village and have a fish 'n' chip supper, to save on money.

After our marriage, and as I asserted myself as a wife, woman, housekeeper, worker etc., the bitterness and criticism became more and more apparent. An invitation, during the summer, to spend a week in our cottage and use it as a B & B, to come and go as they please, turned into an exercise in taking over my every authority in the house. When I firmly asked her, after four days of this, to STOP; that it was MY house and I was more than capable of handling things, she lost the plot, screeched to my father that they were leaving and I didn't hear from her for over four months.

The only reason she spoke to me at Christmas was because Anal wrote to her, explained that our first baby was due in four weeks and would she want anything to do with it? She returned her response, dripping with vitriol, emotional blackmail, hatred and venom, but said that it was her duty as a grandparent to get to know the child. We arranged for a peace-keeping mission on Christmas Day 1994. We drove over 100 miles to get there for lunch. My grandmother, who was still alive then, was attending the meal, too. My brother had cleared off from the house at the crack of dawn to spend the day with his girlfriend.

So, around the table sat Nanna, Anal, my father, my mother and me, heavily pregnant, dispepsic, nauseous and very, very nervous. Even as I had walked into the house, the first words spat at me were, not, Happy Christmas, but 'There are three bin bags of your stuff there. Get rid of them.' At present-giving time, I received nothing, but the gifts I passed to my parents were dismissed. I bought my mother diabetic chocolate and a Wedgewood biscuit barrel. 

'Huh. Chocolate'...thrown onto the bookcase...

The corner ripped from the paper on the biscuit barrel; a quick peek at the pattern, no words, and taken into the kitchen.

A classics album for my father...

'Don't like this type of stuff. You can have it back...'

The night I went into labour: February 2nd 1994. I sat on the toilet downstairs, heaving with contractions, excited, scared and full of wonderment. Anal was equally as excited. Who should we tell? Who is going to be the first to hear about Sam's birth? (I was 100% convinced I was having a boy, and his name was Sam...later to be changed to Rosemary April!). Anal suggested ringing my mother. He told her I was in labour and passed the phone to me.

'Do you want me to call you when the baby is born?' I asked.

'Not if it is in the early hours, no. Your father has to get up for work in the morning, to wake him would be selfish. Leave it until a sensible hour.'

I can still remember the sock in the guts as I heard those words. My own mother didn't want to know about her first grandchild.

And so as it stood, the first person to hear of Rosemary was my best friend, Rebecca, at 3.20am, and then, Anal went through his family, shouting his news with joy.

My parents were informed at 11am on 3 February. Mother's first words were, I thought you were having a boy? How would I know? Gender scans were not permissible in the 90s. You ensured the baby was healthy and that was it. Any indications of a penis were not vocalised at all...

'Well, your Dad will be pleased, anyway. He hates boys...'

So I had, at least done one thing right in having a girl...

We moved to Bath when Rosemary was just shy of three months old. I had a fair number of friends in Yorkshire, whom I knew I would miss greatly, but I kept in touch with them by telephone as often as possible. We were moving down to Anal's old stomping ground; to the friends with whom he had visited prostitutes in Bangkok; brothels in Paris; threesomes in a bed with two blondes; 'F*ck 'em and Chuck 'em' girls...his best man had given the speech of a lifetime at our wedding...the video recollection is a real 'Before and After'...as it starts, I am happy, glorious, gay and radiant...at the end, my brow is furrowed, worn; my face is pale and I return from heaving my guts up in the toilet with vomit smeared down my silk wedding dress...It was during that speech that I learned about the whores. Such taste. Thank you, G...

I dreaded that move, but determined to throw myself into everything, which is my leveller whenever a move is anticipated. We found a beautiful 1930s semi-detached, shifted our furniture in and attempted to start anew. We were living in a very small town. I discovered, from my forays into baby groups and health centres, that few people made friends as all their relatives were on their door step. I was an outsider and they weren't interested.

In desperation, I placed an ad into a local paper, asking to meet like-minded people with young children for days out, coffees, chats, walks in the park etc. I got three responses, by letter. The first was utterly bonkers - a chap who thought my words were euphemisms for rampant sex. The second was a young lad who worked at a second hand car sales garage, never married, no children but who wanted to try 'Out of Body Experiences' with me; and the third was a girl with two children, a third on the way, all to different fathers, who wanted to train as a midwife.

We met up in the park. She bore tattoos all over her knuckles; she swore at her children, and she laid a blanket out on the grass, smeared with excrement. Rosemary crawled right through it...I tried my damnedest to talk to her, but she was monosyllabic and when the time came to take Rosemary home for her evening meal, the relief poured from me...When Anal got home from work, having had a 'few sherberts' in Bath with his chums, I was beside myself with perceived failure.

I felt virginal, frigid and childish next to those tales which were regaled amongst the lads and I have to admit, much to my shame now, that I set out to surpass any paid whore. And I know that I undermined myself in some ways: allowed myself a lot of subjugation, humiliation, pain and disrespect.

All along, I used to inform my mother that my married life was marvellous: every aspect of it; particularly between the sheets...she would rejoinder that sex was disgusting, that she had never enjoyed a moment of it and that all it brought was humiliation to the woman. I goaded her, gleefully, with how much fun I had. But I did lie, profusely, because there was never one iota of love in our 'love-making'...to be perfectly frank, I cannot remember one single episode during our sessions where Anal actually kissed me...maybe he did, but it must have been so rarely that it has been long-forgotten.

I can also recall, vividly, two years ago, telling my mother exactly how many men I had slept with. She thought it was three. I was thrilled to spit at her: Nope! Many More Than That...

Why did I feel that this form of cheapening myself was one-upmanship? She lied to me and told me that she had never had sex before marriage, and when I did, after the initial understanding and warnings, I was later told that God would not want me as I was sullied goods: that no other man would ever want me as they demanded virgins on their wedding nights. To be a virgin, to me, was something elusive, ethereal, God-like and sacrosanct - and I had blown it at the age of 15. So, I was dirty...and therefore, I decided to go hell for leather having one-night stands, screwing around whenever I felt like it. At the time, I didn't once feel cheap or dirty: I always felt as though I was getting what I wanted as I enjoyed sex...most of the time it was utter rubbish, admittedly, but so often, I slept with somebody in order to stick two fingers up at my ex and most of all, my mother.

My attitude has changed out of all recognition now. My parents frown and condemn my union with Ian. It makes me balk that rather than get to know this lovely man who shares mine and my daughters' lives, they would rather cock their snooks and befriend the man who beat me, belittled me, drove me towards insanity, cheated on me, and walked out on me. They are sick and, returning to that book, becoming more aware has riven me with the desire for revenge - something I never really considered before.

On Christmas Day, after they had called the girls at the ex's house, Rosemary and Bethan told me how they had said how 'touched' they were to receive a card from them. Ha! The ex had forced them to write one because they had treated him to a pub meal a couple of weekends ago...that blog was in process and then left...maybe I need to finish it so I can tell you how I felt when I saw that bitch for the first time in 18 months, purely by accident?

I do want revenge at the moment. I want to regain 38 years of wasted, angst and guilt-ridden feelings. I want to reclaim my life as I feel as though so much time has been lost. I can only keep on reading, assimilating, accepting and one day, come to terms with it all.

When I recognise things like this, it makes me cold; I lack the desire to eat at all - not even to binge; I withdraw into myself and I introspect. I also become moody, aggressive and bad-tempered. And Ian has borne the brunt of this on many an occasion. I attempt to talk about my feelings, but sometimes, it is hard to vocalise them - I find it far easier to write them out.

I ate well on Christmas Day - I forced myself to be 'normal' and we started off with a home-made spiced mackerel paté on toast with Buck's Fizz. At lunchtime, with us clearing off to collect the girls from their father's house, and having gone for a lovely walk to blow the cobwebs off, we snacked. Our evening meal contained salmon fillets, marinated in sherry, spices, lemon & lime, soy and balsamic together with steamed vegetables. I refused to weigh myself the next day. Nor did I overdo the laxatives.

I got on the scales this morning and found that I had lost 4lbs. Ian says I look thinner than normal. I am full of cold and heading towards a chest infection by the sound of my wheezing. Food is the last thing on my mind; bingeing is even further away. The violence required to throw up a cal-fest is not something I have the energy for, so I would rather nibble peacefully, or go without.

I still want to be a size 8 by the end of January. I no longer wish to entertain size 6s...

Happy Christmas

Thank you to all of you who have left such kind comments on the blog this year; and the constructive commenters, too!

Blogging is off until after Christmas, but events aren't too bad here, all things considered.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, wherever you are.

May 2009 bring happiness, peace and understanding to us all.

Annie x

Self-Harm & Self-Hatred

I found this video on You Tube this morning which you can view below. It's very quiet in the house. The girls are at their father's, and Ian has gone out to the shops for a few hours. I despise Christmas Shopping, and do all my stuff online - he's more of a pioneer than I am and braves the crowds while I cower behind the PC monitor.

I guess I must confess that I have dropped to my nadir. 

Did I implode on Thursday night? I think, possibly, I did. 

And I hope to hell that this is now my turning point.

There may be a few readers who can empathise with me when I write that self-harming seems to come, hand in glove, with an ED. Indeed, the video also shows it. I have self-harmed, on and off, since 2001. My arms, legs and torso are scarred dreadfully, and summer can be a trial as I attempt to hide the marks with loose, long-sleeved blouses, light cardigans or what have you.

But I have never done this before.

I shaved my hair off.

I felt so disgusting; so ugly; so repulsive and despicable inside that I wanted to show it on the outside, too. I was frantic, manic, inconsolable and mad. It happened in three stages, strangely. I have (had) very, very thick hair. I tried to get Ian's clippers through it. All that happened was that my hair thinned out. I screamed, cried, and got the scissors. And hacked clumps out...and then the clippers did the final work.

I now look like a reject from Auschwitz. Skinny, saggy, shaven and sad.

There was hair all over the bedroom floor and I got the vacuum cleaner out to suck it all up today. I also recovered a stack load of empty blister packs from the tablets I had, once again, taken, and passed out with. Two crews of ambulance men were sent by my eldest daughter to the house and I blagged my way through it, laughing away, lying incessantly that I hadn't taken a single pill. This will probably also come as a revelation to Ian as I haven't even had the decency or guts to tell him. I hid the blister packs under the bed for disposal at a later date. This morning was prime time.

And as I approached the bin, I saw my thick, heavy hair, lying, dead in the purple bin. I grasped it in my hand, felt its softness, its luxuriousness and I sobbed my heart out at my stupidity, my selfishness, my desperation and my madness.

I have hardly slept. All through the night, I sweated, agonised, tossed, turned and my head felt as though it was exploding with all the fears, worries and anxieties rushing through it. I even, seriously, considered banging my head against the wall to try to numb it all. But I didn't.

Do you know what I did do?

I went downstairs and ate two slices of toast with Marmite.

I have to make an effort for a change. So I did.

It came out later - not via my mouth, but I shan't go into any further detail (!).

Why do you think Ian has gone shopping without me?

Because I am too scared to set foot out of this house. And he has gone to buy me a wig. I don't care, really, what it looks like as long as it isn't blonde, as I'd look really, really daft with blonde hair what with my dark colouring. In my wildest dreams, I hope it is bright red. Something to stick two fingers up to the world with, in effect. Whatever he gets for me, I know he will have chosen it with love and care. Because he does love me. And all I do is drive him away. 

And it's time for a change.

Bob_J, a regular commenter on this blog, remarks about "emotionally tuned responses" from my mother and asks me if I felt/feel/understand them. I think Bob is a very, very switched on chap and I wish he had a blog we could read (hint, there, Bob!!!). I guess he works in some form of mental health environment. He understands things so well.

No, Bob. I don't have any emotionally tuned responses. At all. I cannot remember the last time I was in tune with my emotions, really. They seem to be all skew-whiff with me nowadays...

I am unsure as to whether I need to take a short break from Annie's Rexia. It seems to deplete me an awful lot. Ian, bless his heart, reads these blogs and sees the sadness which emanates. He wants me to discuss them with him but I am rubbish without a 'feeder' question - I rarely, unless very impassioned, bang on about myself without a prompt. I told him this last night. And so, I think things will work out for the better from that confession.

Wish us luck, please x

Just a quickie

I have a wonderful friend who, for personal reasons, has had to go undercover! She has a great blog at I HATE TO WEIGHT and I think you'll recognise her instantly!

She talks sense and she writes with honesty, compassion, warmth and a rawness which can make you whince at times!

I hope any readers of Annie's Rexia check her out - she makes for some interesting reading...

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

Phone calls...

Trying times.

Too much rattling around in my head.

I am rarely alone in this house as my husband works from home. And so I am always putting on a face. He doesn't demand this from me - I do it because I have to. For me. And so, when left alone, all the walls come crumbling down around me and I behave as I wish I could at any time I choose.

And so, last night, when Ian and the girls went Christmas shopping, I found myself pondering those two missed calls from my parents' mobile phone number, and without thinking anything through clearly, impetuously called their house.

I was very polite at first. My mother became belligerent, aggressive, defensive and told me she hadn't called the house at all. I was able to dispute this, so a stream of lies issued forth. Then she squawked for my father who didn't have a clue what was going on. She made out that I would have picked the phone up, that I never went out...so I told her I had been in hospital that weekend.

'Because you are 'dying' of anorexia?' she sneered.

I declined to answer that question.

At the very end, I said to her: "The girls are f*cked up enough as it is. Stay out of their lives, for God's sake."

She started to screech abuse at me, so I put the phone down.

And then I sobbed my heart out. And later on, I took it out on my best, beloved husband, who adores me unconditionally; who tries to make it all right for me; but cannot ever hope to compete with that demonic woman.

Phone calls. Even more of them...

The ex called last night to speak to the girls. I explained they were out shopping. He paused and then thanked me for encouraging Beth to meet with TOW two weekends ago. I was agog and almost speechless. I just about uttered a 'You're welcome'. And as we hung up, again, I cried at how hard and bitter we have to take things before there is any civility. I honestly considered that a change had taken place after that. So I called him only 20 minutes ago and asked, Please can I have my keyboard back.

I had eight years of organ lessons and became quite a proficient player. If Ian and I visit a church, the first place I hit is the organ, hoping that it is unlocked. It never is. In the summer, I asked Beth, by phone, on our way back from an afternoon out, could I have my keyboard. Nobody but me plays. It has sat in the ex's spare room for four years, untouched, gathering dust. He came out, dismissed Beth, and told me, in front of Ian, that the keyboard was now his. This is despite me saving for it from my own freelancing, and despite me being the player. I turned on my heel and walked away. I will not beg. 

I thought, after his thanks last night, he would be a more benevolent character.

No. After my initial request, he ignored me, started talking to the girls whilst on the phone, then came back to me and said, What? What do you want? 

He had heard me, rightly enough.

So I repeated it, feeling smaller and smaller as I did so. I even told him how much I missed playing. He 'ummed' and 'aahed' and then, eventually said, I guess so...

I feel so ridiculously stupid now...

Another phone call today. To our priest, Father Farrell. I am not a Roman Catholic by choice, really - I converted two years ago out of selfishness to get the girls into a decent local school. Prior to that, I was an extremely poor Wesleyan Methodist (no drink, no fags, no sex, no nothing - yeah, right!). But Fr F has taken me into the bosom of his heart and never, ever given up on me. Every week, I had to attend one-on-one classes with him telling me about the Scriptures, the Popes, the tenets, the Mortal Sins. It went in one ear and out of the other to a certain extent, but I always respected Him, as a human being. He made me laugh out loud when he told me his views of Adam & Eve; Noah; the Old Testament as a whole...he may be in his late 60s or so, but he is one Cool Chap. And I love him so much.

I invited him for lunch on the 19th. He said to me, You sound marvellous, Alison. Really, really good. I walked out of the conservatory, where Ian sat working, and told him the truth.

And now I will tell you the truth. It's taken a while, hasn't it? 'Cause I am not reet good at the truth from time to time.

Why was I in hospital three weeks ago? 

Because I tried to take the overdose to end all overdoses.

I have no recollection of anything after Ian finding the empty blister packs where I had hidden them behind the curtain on our bedroom window ledge. He told me that my breathing almost stopped, that I was in so much rigid spasm he couldn't place me into the recovery position suggested by 999. I have also been informed that while under the influence, I was sent for a CT scan as nothing was functioning. The only time there was any recognition was when my eye flickered as Ian kissed my brow. Does that sound cheesey? He asked me the same question. It didn't sound it to me...

I was supposed to stay in for about five days. They put me onto all sorts of drips to which I had enormous allergic reactions, desperate for breath, crying out for help. It took 15 minutes for a nurse to bring me the oxygen I so badly needed. I had four canulas inserted into me - badly...I developed minor phlebitis and moving my wrists and arms was painful for about a week.

They hammered me. But then, why shouldn't they? A suicide case? Someone who doesn't give a turquoise toss about themselves? Why should those over-worked, under-staffed, filthy hospitals care? I don't blame them. I am just a drain on their resources.

I discharged myself. I fought for it, I'll admit. I had to lie through my back teeth to get out of there, stating that I regretted my actions; that I should never have done it; that I would never, ever think of it again.

Don't get me wrong. It's far from my thoughts at the moment. And to be honest, I have a slight, sneaking suspicion it is never, ever going to return due to a 'switch flick'...

I have digressed.

I told Father Jim about it.  He went silent, and then he told me one of the most plaintive things I have ever heard in the whole of my life: he told me he would be incapable of conducting my funeral because he loved me too much. He said he would be unable to speak for crying. 

He told me that he had few friends, but a certain number had touched his soul since arriving in Weaverham four years ago. And I am one of them. He told me that, from the moment he met me, he liked me; that I am a very good friend to him and that to lose me would hurt him immensely.

I don't tell you this to boast. I tell you this because I have never been told this before. It is alien to me. It chokes me because, instinctively, I think, deep down, I am a rotten, evil bastard. Why does a priest see good in me?? Am I that good an actress? Because I am black to the very core of my being. And only I know that.

I'm not trying, food-wise or laxative-wise at the moment. I haven't binged, but I haven't eaten. My stomach feels so full all of the time with all the liquids I keep swilling into it - I have suddenly become an ardent tea drinker after years of despising the stuff! Coffee is now anathaema! How strange...

OK. Another confession, and one which Ian may berate me for (sorry, darling). He bought me some raunchy stuff last night - nothing overly mucky, honestly: just sexy. I put the dress on tonight after showering and curling my hair. We have a large mirror in our bedroom by which I titivate myself when feeling up to it. I stared at myself in that mirror and realised that I looked like a plank of wood. No breasts; no bum; no belly. Just a piece of 6 x 4...How abhorrent.

What does he see in me?

What does anybody see in me?

As a PS, the ex didn't return the keyboard to me. What a suprise...

Denial is not just an Egyptian River!

Yesterday, I drove out to TK Maxx (this is a sort of designer outlet store in the UK wherein you can get famous brands for about 60% less than in the High Street shops) to buy some jeans for myself. I knew they had a sale on and jeans were available for around £7.00 (about $12.00) from the likes of Diesel, Guess and FCUK. I do like my designer jeans, but NOT at designer prices! As it stood, I had only one pair of jeans which fitted me; all the others were my eldest daughter's cast-offs and cut on the 'skinny leg' which is not a flattering look for a 38-year old woman, I don't think.

I purchased all sorts of wrong sizes for myself. Not wholly intentionally - a bra I thought read at 34A, according to the section it was in, was actually a 36B and dropped off my chest when I put it on! But the jeans were intentionally mis-sized. I have dropped to a size 6 (US 2) and don't like to admit to it, verbally. So, I bought size 8s and they hang from me. 

Why have I done this? I simply couldn't bring myself to acknowledge that I am officially a size 6. I was completely in denial that the weight is not coming on; it's coming off. I refuse to believe the girls and Ian when they say they can see my ribs, that my arms are skinny, that my legs are like sticks and that I have no backside. I fob them off - particularly Beth - and joke about it all. It doesn't cut the mustard. I know.

Ian told me yesterday that I was starting to look 'ill'. I don't know if I am or not. I don't seem to look any different, facially, to how I looked a few months ago, complexion-wise. Certainly less spotty, for some odd reason, though.

I have noticed that if I do any leg exercises, while lying on the floor, the skin which sags downwards from my thighs, pulled by gravity, looks like an old lady's. If I bend over the bath, naked, my breasts hang like two thin pieces of veal. Most unattractive - 'withered' as my doctor described them.

Yesterday, whilst out at the shops, my mind wandered and I lost myself thinking about anorexia and what harm it is doing to me. I wracked my brains, repeatedly as to why I continue with this behaviour, why I cannot simply let go of it, why putting on weight fills me with such dread and why the low self-esteem manifested itself in this particular way.

Self-esteem is a big thing for me at the moment. The terrible blushing has disappeared again, thankfully, but there are too many 'labels' and insults flashing around my brain. I wrote this, as part of a letter, two days ago and the more I return to it, the more it hurts me:

Deep down, I guess I am quite a bitter person. I feel selfishly hard-done-to. Little things make me cross – stuff which shouldn’t. I feel angry that nobody bar Maureen has attempted to communicate with me from work. I feel petty anger that, twice, I have told my friends in Oman about my marriage yet received nary a Kiss-My-Ar*e or nothing. I feel cross that I worked so hard at Rowlands and was called a f*cking tw*t when something screwed up, which was a complete accident on my part and ultimately, perhaps similarly to you, I feel as though I have missed out on a healthy parental relationship. As a teenager, I was so bitterly jealous of my girlfriends who got on with their fathers. And as I got into adulthood, I started to become jealous of those women who rang their mothers on a regular basis, went shopping, had fun and laughter, and were not just related, but were friends. I miss having a Mum. I don’t have a Mum – I have a Biological Mother who despises me for me doing my own thing. She despises me because I haven’t followed her every footstep and dictat. And that is a hard lesson to learn and assimilate because I know very well that this is extremely wrong. One doesn’t have children in order to mould them into something you wish you could have been…I don’t know why I was born to be honest – and that isn’t a ‘suicidal’  or self-pitying thought. I just query, in my own head, why? Eight years difference between me and my brother? Times of severe hardship financially? Being told that labour was horrific and not wanted ever again? Being told that if it wasn’t for me, happiness would abound? I genuinely don’t think I was a wanted child…There are many studies performed of babies in the womb and how they pick up on things from the mother. Do I self-destruct because I have never felt as though I should be here? Maybe that sounds histrionic, but it does run through my head from time to time. Why, when under the influence of NLP/hypnotherapy, did I suddenly get a traumatic image of abortion when my timeline was drawn back to the womb? All conjecture, I know. And I apologise for any hyperbole or melodrama. These are simply my meandering thoughts.

My brother moved out of the parental home, at the age of 44, he didn't even tell our parents. Little by little, he just shunted out his few belongings and that was it: never seen or heard of for a long time. My mother was bereft. My father was disgusted. He is a very accomplished carpenter and had crafted a solid mahogany table for Paul for his own home. Paul walked out and left it. Months of hard work and graft, just left. Each Mother's Day, Mother's Birthday, Christmas and Wedding Anniversary which passed, without a card, left my mother more and more depressed. When she was admitted into hospital for a hip replacement, I called my brother at his place of work and asked him what was going on. He refused to speak to me, and refused to visit. My father then decided to cut him out of the family will. Although this never actually came to fruition. When my mother was taken into hospital with pericarditis, in January 2007, Paul finally came to visit as it was life-threatening. I couldn't bear to look at him and was thus harshly berated for my attitude towards my brother. My mother told me that all she wanted was a happy family. Paul made that choice to detach from his parents without any indication of what had sent him over the edge. I know for a fact that my only misdemeanour is to have married Ian, yet I have been damned for the rest of my life by them, in some ways.

My father has been in touch with the girls again. My mother is making it patently clear that she wants nothing to do with them. They couldn't care less and cannot understand why I ask them questions about the contact. I guess I am like a dog with a bone, gnawing away at something which takes an eternity to wear down and splinter. I am glad that my mother's ostracism of the girls doesn't bother them (or doesn't appear to, fundamentally) and I am so glad that they are sensible enough to realise that she has more problems than the four of us put together. So, if two young girls can do that, why can't I? Why don't I adopt that type of detachment?

Beth once asked me if I would ever punish her for doing something I disagreed with like her Nanna did to me. I roared laughing, and firmly said, No! But it's not actually funny, is it? Why did I laugh? Did I find it so utterly ridiculous that she could think I would behave like my mother, or was I laughing because I didn't know what else to do?

Everything in the garden ought to be rosy at the moment. Financial worries have been utterly lifted; the girls are calm, happy, hilarious and amusing; Christmas (one of my favourite times of the year) is almost upon us; the house is warm, inviting, beautifully decorated and furnished and things, on the whole, despite a few blips from time to time, are much better between Ian and me (touch wood! *pats herself on head*!). 

So why do I feel so much unrest and dis-ease? Is it a chemical thing? After being in hospital a week or so ago, I had to come off the anti-depressants (Citalopram). Ian had given them to the orderlies who proceeded to lose them. I then had to reorder a prescription upon my discharge which took a few days, and thus, I was six days without the drugs. It's almost like my body is learning to get used to them again and so, by mid-afternoon, I feel slow, sluggish, laboured, yet agitated in my limbs and nauseated. When I went to bed last night, and after I heard Ian breathing deeply, my buttocks went into overdrive. I jiggled, shook, rattled, battered and felt like screaming out with frustration, anxiety, anger and pain. I could not stop. And it was driving me bananas. I so wanted those muscles to relax, ease off, be still and quiet - and they would not give me a moment. So, I have woken this morning, feeling, once again, like I have trained for a marathon. Why isn't my backside as taut as Kylie's at this rate??!

Does it sound like I miss my parents? Believe it or not, I don't. But I do struggle with confusion, co-dependency and fears. I still fear my parents terribly. There is a lull for me at the moment, but each day, a quick thought will pass through my head, when the postman has been, is this going to be the delivery which contains that letter? That letter of vitriol, condemnation, hurt and recrimination? 

Only time will tell, I guess...