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...

Part #29

I wasn't going to post for a while, as I am feeling a bit raw at the moment, but there are some things burning inside me which need to be put down on 'paper'.

I have been in hospital for three days. I discharged myself, against medical advice, but to be perfectly frank, I am making better progress away from that filthy hell-hole stuck in a six-bay ward with four men (all wards are mixed, but despite there being space in a more female-dominated ward, they kept me with the men) where you get no sleep;  the bathrooms are shared with the men (and the toilet doors didn't lock properly); the nurses are foul-mouthed, lazy, and 'forget' your drips: I was left for 15 minutes, gasping for breath before they could be bothered bringing me oxygen when I had an enormous reaction to the stuff they were pumping into me. What a place.

The nurses hammered me so hard with canulas that I have suffered bruising across each wrist, so bad, it is wholly purple and yellow. The pharmacist agreed that it may be the start of phlebitis, the veins have been so battered, but it is subsiding now, as is the pain. There were four attempts to insert a canula as veins were not forthcoming due to my low blood pressure. The liquids they filled me with have caused veins to stand out across each arm so I could now easily give Madonna a run for her money...or, slightly less glamorously, some Wicked Stepmother from a fairy tale.

I hate hospital with a vengeance - at least, I hate that hospital which is Beelzebub's Holiday Cottage. Considering I was on a cardiac ward, it was incredible that the patients were fed greasy fish and chips, peas boiled into submission and a thick, clarty rhubarb crumble covered by custard with which you could have rendered the outside of your house. 

No, I didn't eat any of it...

I discharged myself on Saturday and came home to two very subdued young ladies who had attempted to go up to Yorkshire with their father and The Other Woman (who shall hereon in be abbreviated to TOW as I can't be fagged writing it all out all the time). Beth lasted two minutes in the house before bursting into tears, watching TOW walk around the kitchen, helping herself to 'snackettes' and ordering her son to dry his hair, using Beth's drier, in Beth's bedroom where he had slept the night before. TOW couldn't have made Beth feel more like a stranger in her own home. She ran out to Ian who had promised to wait for a few minutes, 'just in case', and Rosemary followed closely on her heel.

I was so proud of the three of them. Beth tried to do something which had filled her with so much insecurity, uncertainty, fear and confusion. But she tried it. Rosemary, despite desperately wanting to go to the pantomime, and spending an eternity on getting herself ready, stood by her sister without any conditions or guilt-trips, and Ian gave them the support, encouragement, listening ear and comfort that they so desperately needed at that time. I hated myself for not being there for them.

On Saturday evening, I noticed a strange answer machine message from a mobile number which I didn't recognise - nor did anyone else in the house. The message, according to our service provider, couldn't be delivered. This, in itself, was odd. So, I called the number and the phone had been turned off. There is only one person I know who uses Tesco mobile services and that is my mother. Sure enough, when I checked through my blocked numbers, hers came up and it was the same as the number on my phone.

She, or my father, called on Thursday night. The night I was taken to hospital, and also the night my father called the ex, crying, purportedly, that he missed his grandchildren. There are only two reasons why they would call here. First, they want to know why I am in hospital OR, the ex has told them to sort out Christmas (which my father is trying to organise) with me. Either way, I am not interested in communicating with them. Beth feels that her grandmother now despises her. My mother refuses to talk to either girl - it is only my father who is making the effort. Beth has told my mother to stop this nonsense and my mother, as I have written before, has taken umbrage at being told off by an 11-year old. That is how petty she is. A child gets 'sent to Coventry' for speaking her mind.

Since then, there have been no further calls.

And also since then, I have done a lot of thinking about my life and my family. Ian and I have talked long and hard about events which led me to the hospital's A & E. There is a shift in my thought patterns. There is resolve about certain aspects of my life - I have no doubt that the resolve will falter from time to time as I am human, but for the moment, it is very strong. To this end, I have ditched the alcohol, am throwing myself into writing and work, laughing more, and accepting that where my parents and my ex are concerned, I simply cannot do anything about them and there is no point worrying myself sick about their actions. The only things I can do, from now on, are to ignore them, talk things through thoroughly with Ian, accept that they cannot and will not change, but also accept that they do not have to spoil my day. With this realisation has come a happier, marginally calmer, more trusting Annie.

I have gained a bit of weight - a few pounds. It doesn't sit well with me, at all and I am not, deep down, happy about it, but I am also not doing anything about it. I haven't restricted myself stupidly, I haven't stepped up the laxative intake, and I haven't gone exercising as though I was training for a marathon. I am just ticking over, trying not to upset the equilibrium. 

The atmosphere in this house has changed perceptibly. Although there have been 'challenges' from the daughters, and external worries which, last week, would have tipped me over the edge, this week, I am attempting to remain calm and take things in my stride. I don't know if it is my imagination, but it seems to have infected Ian, too, who is handling parenting issues with the wisdom of an old hand, which helps me inordinately in many different ways.

I am tired of punishing myself and, by default, punishing my family. Everyone has a right to be happy in this life, so why shouldn't we take our cut of it? There's still a nugget of self-doubt in me...which is akin to self-hatred. From time to time, during the day, a thought will flit across my mind that I am doing everything wrong; I'm rubbish at this life and I yearn to be a different person. 

Each day, since 'escaping' the hospital, I have felt glad I am home and alive. I almost wasn't, from what I can gather.

It's now time for a change and one for the better. The gremlin still talks to me on an hourly basis, but mentally, I am walking away from him, raising my hand to him and saying, Enough - you bore me. Sometimes I am unable to get away from him, particularly late at night when I am tired and at my most fretful/agitated, but I am coping much better during the day than I have for about six months.

I feel fear about the future from the ED point of view, paradoxically. I really, really dread gaining weight. I dread losing what I deem my own control, but I also see that I am controlling other aspects of my life more efficiently than ever before, so perhaps one will substitute for the other? I want to see my ribs still, yet I want my breasts to return. I want to keep my thin thighs, but I don't want the sagging empty skin on my buttocks. I want to keep boney legs but I don't want the concomitant bruises. I don't want to take my bigger clothes down from storage, but I don't want to undermine my daughter's self-esteem by being in a size smaller than her.

I just want it all, don't I?

Part #25

I felt very confused on Sunday evening. Confused by my conflicting emotions and how I was going to cope through the rest of the night.

I tend to get more morose and low, late evening, as the nights draw in earlier. I am not one who is scared of the dark, but that blackness appears to enhance my moods at times and so if any arguments are going to occur within the family, it is generally at this time of the day.

I have been making a concerted effort to eat at least one healthy meal each day and keep it in/down. And I am not referring to one dry crispbread as a meal here! I am attempting to eat a small piece of baked fish with steamed vegetables every day, or a home-made vegetable soup, or a seafood salad (I no longer eat meat other than fish as it screws my digestion up terribly - I am not a tree-hugging, animal liberator...but my colon is!). I am actually, quietly, very proud of myself. For the last 7-10 days, I have managed it. With success. OK...possibly during the day I may have binged or simply starved, but there has been some nutrition going into me. Although I still lose weight daily.

Ian and I hadn't been out together of an evening for a long time and we decided to visit a restaurant which is close to our hearts as it is where we announced our engagement and forthcoming wedding to the girls. It is a small family-run Italian restaurant in a neighbouring village and the staff know us very well as we celebrate every special occasion there. As the weekends around Bonfire Night (November 5th) have people out at firework displays, the restaurant was suprisingly empty - only one other couple occupied a table. And I was able to order off the menu and asked for a seafood salad. It was out of this world. No heavy, 'threatening' dressings - just citrus juice - no carbs, just succulent, beautiful squid, prawns, octopus and mussels with fantastically colourful leaves. Delicious!

I left this house somewhat perturbed. Shortly before we left, I had called the girls at their father's house where they were staying for the weekend, to see how things were for them. Beth advised me that my mother had written them a letter.

The letter stated that they missed them immensely, the girls were always in their thoughts and just because she and I weren't talking any more, it didn't mean that they couldn't still speak.

I listened very hard to Beth and then asked her if she intended to respond, and how she felt. She was very dismissive - blasé, almost. Nope, not replying, she told me. If she can't make friends with you, why should I? 

Rosemary's tone this evening was exactly the same.

Rosemary asked me in a tentative way, if it was wrong of her to feel that her Nanna was playing games with her feelings and emotionally blackmailing her. That was a very difficult question to answer. Thing is, without even seeing that letter, I can almost hear the tone of voice in it. The smell of burning martyr is strong once that envelope is opened. I explained that I couldn't fairly comment as I hadn't read the letter for myself but that her feelings were as valid as anyone's. And that was it, basically.

I was torn between two trains of thought: how awful; how sad, that a grandmother does not feel able to speak to her grand-daughters and imposes that restriction upon them by snail mail. How would I feel? I'd feel empty, saddened, depleted and desperate to sort things out.

The flip-side was, You stupid, ignorant woman. You have been told by four people to sort this out as it is ridiculous and you are cutting off your own nose to spite your face, but still you will not get down from your high pedestal of omniscience and self-righteousness.

I don't want to get involved with her ever again - and Ian supports me 100% on this, having been on the receiving end of her poison himself. But, I don't particularly want to sully a grandparent relationship when it is not necessary. Ian had a totally different take on it all. He explained how he was in the first-hand position of seeing how her control had affected me and the last thing he wanted was for the girls to succumb to it, too. I had to agree. His stance was that if the girls wanted to respond to her letter, they would; if not, he wouldn't push it.

So I have agreed as that is sensible.

If she weren't my mother, I would still feel that pang of pity for her. It's a person destroying themselves for their own arrogant pride and ignorance. What a life?

Part #13

"Therapy for me has always been a double edged sword. There's a part of me that wanted to be the perfect patient, but a bigger part that wanted to prove that I was the best anorexic, therefore making me worse."

I found this a very interesting comment from Lexy. It resonates with me. Making the appointment to see the therapist last night was done out of being sick and tired of being 'sick and tired'. Ian has been encouraging me to do this for months and I have procrastinated, made excuses (the financial ones have been genuine concerns) and 'forgotten'. I'm looking forward to getting better. But I am also very scared for some reason. I guess this hearkens back to Linda's comment about 'validation'. (Is this blog going to end up purely being quotes from other people?!)

It is daunting for me. I guess the first few therapy sessions will be dredging up the past and what has led me down this road. I know writing this blog has sometimes left me in floods of tears as old feelings of insecurity and worthlessness have been illuminated. And when one memory came in to my head, others would flood in alongside it, like a cobweb and the way it spreads out. I didn't realise just how much I have tried to block things out until writing things down. I've noticed that my nightmares have increased dramatically, too. Wednesday night was hell. All I seemed to do was yell, moan and jitter. After each section of disjointed sleep, my legs were on fire as I had been agitating so much in my sleep. Consequently, Ian looks like death warmed up half the time.

After I uploaded 12a last night, the girls returned from their father's. There had been trouble. I find it incredulous that a man who purports to love his daughters can be so cruel, heartless and selfish. He has put the pair of them into a very compromising position and also attempted to manipulate Rosemary into doing his dirty work for him. He knows Beth's feelings about 'the other woman' whom he still sees despite her living many miles away, and he has also been told by the counselling team who have worked with the girls, to stop forcing them to accept/see her. He has been telling me for three years that it is my duty to force the girls to accept 'the other woman' until I totally lost my temper in a 'family therapy' session recently and expostulated that it was not within my remit to condone adultery to the girls. The therapist backed me up 100%.

So, the girls' cousins (all budding actresses) whom they adore, are starring in a pantomime in November. The girls can't wait to see it. And their father has sneakily invited 'the other woman' and her son along. So Beth is caught between a rock and a hard place. We offered to drive them up there, keep out of the way, but at least give them moral support. Neither girl thought this would be a good idea - I guess they thought there would be some form of showdown, but there wouldn't. Not from us, anyway. Beth doesn't know what to do. She is disgusted by her father's underhandedness, full of anger and resentment and cried greatly last night at his betrayal of her. She feels as though he has put 'the son's' feelings before her. She has always felt (and it's hard not to believe her when I have witnessed certain things for myself) that he didn't want a second daughter; he wanted a son.

He has hidden behind Rosemary; said this was purely his sister's idea (who doesn't give a turquoise toss about anybody); says that 'the son' needs Beth's moral support; and asked her to persuade Beth to go.

And he has described me as 'manipulative'!

This is the type of man I married: a coward. A manipulator. A liar, and an adulterer to boot. 

And I know that he has been a big part of my problem and lack of self-esteem. 

So I guess this is as good a time as any to conclude my account of the final months in Oman. Get it over and done with. I have told the therapist about this blog, which she said was an excellent idea, and I am hoping she will read it and get the bigger picture.

After I lost the plot and told the ex the affair had to be finished forthwith, he refused at first. Told me he loved her, that he wouldn't give her up for me and that he was moving out. So I informed him, coldly and with immense anger that I would be clearing off back to the UK with the girls and that he'd be lucky to see any of us ever again. 

He back-tracked immediately. Promised to speak to her that afternoon and end it all. When he returned from work, he confirmed that he had done this. But her husband told me otherwise. She had written Anal an email that afternoon and printed it out. She had accidentally left it in their office and AM had found it. He read it to me. Despite Anal's protestations that there had never been any sex, she stated that she could 'feel [him] within her' and that they would never be parted.

There was little I could do about this. Anal had promised to give this another go and I had promised to let it go. It was hard, I can tell you. I felt so betrayed - more so by 'her' than by the ex, believe it or not. I really did hold her in such high regard and had never enjoyed a friendship as great as with her and her husband.

Anal & I took the girls to South Africa on holiday a few weeks later. It was to be a 'fresh start' for us. There was no intimacy between us. He wouldn't go near me, and I wasn't particularly interested either. But it was a fun time with the girls and we met some nice people in the different hotels we stayed at with whom we socialised.

Upon our return to Oman, life just carried on as 'normal'. My ED was not too bad, but I was drugged up to high heaven: I'd lost my 'best friend' and I was cutting badly. However, I had made some positive steps. I was seeing a psychiatrist and a counsellor, could see some light at the end of the tunnel, and I was freelancing again - quite prolifically, actually - and it took me out of the house on a regular basis when the girls were in school.

But one day, I didn't have an assignment and was pottering around in the villa, alone.

There was a knock at our front door, which surprised me as it was only 8am. The girls started school at 7.30am, so the house had been quiet for a while.

To my utter shock, it was my parents. They had just flown in from the UK. Anal had called them, unbeknownst to me, and told them that I had to get back to the UK for urgent medical treatment. I was given 24 hours to pack my bags, say goodbye to all my friends and my resident's visa was ceremoniously cancelled at the Airport Customs by Anal who didn't want the prospect of his wife's return.

The girls were not allowed to accompany me. I had to leave them there. I begged my father not to go along with this but, at the time, they hero-worshipped Anal and believed everything he told them with every single glib word which slipped from his lying mouth.

There was no treatment available here in the UK. Nothing at all. At least I was getting somewhere in Oman.

So. When the girls came to the UK six weeks later, and then Anal returned to Oman, what do you think he was up to? Why do you think I was kicked out of the country?

If any of you need me to answer this, I will. He was continuing his affair. I received intimations of it from friends. They wouldn't come out with it totally, but there were certainly enough allusions. And that was not my paranoia - they have admitted it since...

So we continued this facade for 12 months. He stayed in Oman, I stayed in the UK and raised the girls alone. 

Upon his return, in May 2004, within two days, I knew he was still with her and missing her. I asked for a divorce. He agreed readily and embarked upon the most God-awful campaign of hatred I have ever endured. His Court Statements still leave me speechless due to his dreadful lies. He claimed Rosemary called Ian 'Mr Safety'...when I asked her who 'Mr Safety' was, months later, she looked at me blankly and said, What the hell are you on about, Mum?

And as my solicitor said, it all sounded so plausible...

Thank God I am away from him. Thank God I have a man with such integrity as Ian. It took him some soul-searching, and he has put up with some demons himself in order to commit. But he's done it. Because he believes me. And believes IN me.

That's someone who loves you...And I love him for it...

Part #11

"It is so important to give a child tools to cope in life, nurture them and value them. It is so hard, as an adult, to have to build a new set of coping skills to get you through just normal day to day stuff." I am plagiarising Linda here, but I feel sure she will forgive me!

I am trying hard to remember coping strategies which I was offered during my formative years: I wasn't taught an awful lot about love - I can't recall ever being told that I was 'loved'; I was taught that if somebody upset you, you didn't talk to them until they caved in; I was taught that forgiveness is difficult to obtain without utter prostration; I was taught that if you were slighted, you got revenge; I was taught that love is conditional and easily withheld. 

I don't recall being taught to love myself; that to err is human, to forgive is Divine; that love can be wholly unconditional and wonderful; that to work hard and achieve is worthy of praise and not a goal-smashing exercise.

I think, in many ways, this lack of positive reinforcements has made me a very 'needy' person. It's not a trait I like in myself and I have many mental arguments with myself, fighting my 'need' versus fighting what is rational and acceptable. More and more, I am being able to step back from the 'needy' Annie and stamp her down. I encourage my daughters to be as independent as possible from me; praise them incessantly; tell them that they should be so proud of every single achievement and that if they haven't done so well this time, well, there's always next time. I tell them that if they feel they are doing their best, that's all they can ever do - nobody can ever condemn someone for trying their best. We tell each other how much we love each other constantly. Nobody leaves the house or puts the phone down without an 'I love you'. They aren't said automatically - they are said with feeling and depth. Always.

I'm so glad and grateful that there is so much love in this house. I joke to Ian that if I ever turned into my mother he should have me 'put down'. 

Did I make a sub-conscious decision at some point to be the total opposite of my mother? She has criticised and condemned my parenting skills without fail over the years. She has left me very uncertain of my ability as a mother and has, at times, broken me and I have succumbed to her style, albeit for very, very short periods. One of my most shameful memories where I did listen to her and succumbed left my two girls and me in hysterical tears.

She was visiting us in Oman. She had been nagging at the girls (who were about 4 and 2 at the time) to eat. I'd made them a nice dinner, but I did have a tendency to give them too much food. Habit from over-filling myself, I guess. I would generally let them leave the table without clearing their plates but this was anathaema to my Mother's soul. She got me to one side and told me she had heard a radio debate on BBC Radio 2 where an eminent nutritionist was discussing picky-eater children. My Mother deemed the girls to be picky. This was because they didn't like her food and preferred mine. Considering neither of them had been raised on Heinz Baby Gloop and only on fresh puréed foods made by me, and that they would eat any fruit or veg on this planet, I thought they were pretty good girls!

This 'nutritionist' had the answer to 'picky-eaters' - you tied them up to the chair and refused to allow them to come down until every last morsel had been finished. Now, in retrospect, and actually seeing this written in black-and-white, I am starting to smell my Mother's 'psychology' behind this rather than some expert's. In fact, it reeks of it now...

I laughed at her, long and hard, but she didn't give up. She was staying with us for three weeks and night after night, she ground me down if the girls weren't finishing their food. Shamefully, I weakened, gave in, and did as she suggested, using two skipping ropes around the girls' waists. Within ten seconds, they were petrified, hysterical and I ripped the ropes off as fast as possible. It was cruelty itself. I gathered the girls up, took them up to my bed, and held them until they calmed down. When the ex returned, he saw us all, tearful and bleary-eyed. I told him what had happened and he was disgusted - both with me for relenting and with my Mother for such a cruel, wicked, Draconian method of forcing someone to eat. This is the type of behaviour which engenders eating disorders - of that I have no doubt and God forgive me for doing it.

Every day is a learning curve for me. Working out in my head how best not to lower the girls' self-esteem. Both of them have said they feel safest here. They feel very loved and contented which gives me the most inordinate amount of pleasure and relief. They struggle at school from time to time - don't many teenagers? And there are many tales of bitching and back-biting which I listen to. It's sad to hear, but I also know that it is a necessary evil. You can't go through life without a few set-backs from others, but as long as you feel, integrally, that You Are OK, you'll succeed. That's my opinion, anyway.

Constant criticism/denegration is soul-destroying. I once wrote a light-hearted piece on the other blog, HexMyEx, about it. I was making light, but at the time, those comments cut me to bits. I constantly felt a failure, even when I had achieved. 

Linda, again, made reference to a thought-provoking point. She stated: "Sadly, it seemed to validate me, as I thought being thin meant I was surely a better person."

Validation. This was a word Ian brought up to me yesterday. He asked if I felt my anorexia validated me. Without thinking too hard, I denied it. But I have thought further. It means to 'substantiate' and I suspect that, yes, I do feel as though it validates me. And that is a pretty pathetic admission. Does anorexia give substance to me (despite it actually depleting my 'substance'? Another oxymoron if ever there was one!)? 

I appear to be pretty good at it - and that is not 'pride'; it's irony. Therefore, am I known as Annie the anorexic because I am good at it, it 'validates' me and thus gives me 'substance'? These are most definitely meandering thoughts and I don't know how to answer them at all. 

Perhaps Lexy, in her thought-provoking comments is trying to get me to recognise one thing - can I 'subsist' without it? Can I give up anorexia? I dread the work I am going to go through in order to do so. I am going to have to face some very nasty issues about myself. And I am quite a peaceful person deep down, always avoiding confrontation as it upsets me so much.

This is a true journey for me - one of realisation, understanding, compromise and hard, hard work. I know this will take time and every day, with thought, my rationale gets just that little bit clearer. 

Part #10. To Be or Not To Be...

I've edited and re-edited this post so many times today in the hope that I can get these jumbled thoughts into some form of coherent message, but I'm not certain that I have succeeded. Parts of this post are dreadful - 'sphincter-winkingly bad' (*cheers* Linda!) - but I hope that sections will not be misconstrued and taken out of context.

There was mention made in one of the comments on yesterday's post that an ED is a choice. It is a choice to take laxatives; a choice to purge and vomit; a choice to starve oneself; and a choice to scale-hop. Logically, of course these are 'choices'. But where is the logic in an ED? The name gives it away immediately - 'disorder', the definition of which is: lack of order or regular arrangement; confusion.

I feel a great amount of confusion with anorexia. I have crumbled over the last six months whilst suffering with this episode, going from an extremely capable woman with a senior management position, running a household and caring for two daughters and a husband, to a woman who simply cannot think straight where food is concerned with a self-destructive streak. My house is still spotless, the girls enjoy an excellent relationship with me and Ian, and we are all, still, able to have many times of laughter, leg-pulling, conversation, and contentment. (I almost feel as though I am having to justify myself here, even though I don't!)...

There are an estimated 1.15 million men and women suffering with an ED in the United Kingdom for which there is very little healthcare funding. I feel fairly sure that if they were told they had the choice to have or not have an ED, most of them would say "I'll choose to go without, please..." I certainly know I would. To insinuate that an ED is a choice is becoming more and more of a laughable statement to me. It is also a condescending statement. An ED is a form of mental health problem - as are schizophrenia, post-natal depression, bi-polar disorder, OCD. Are they life-style choices, too? Can we pick them out of a glossy catalogue and say, "Ooh, Gosh! I think I'll have...hmmm...THAT one!"

I do, however, believe it is a choice to fight it, though. Just admitting it is one of the boldest steps a sufferer takes. Many people are in denial about it - hence the 'estimated' figures - and a spiral of deceit sets in which is harder to work with and support than anyone who has started the fight and held their hands up and said, "Help me. Please." As soon as there is an admission, tactics, loving support, therapy and even medication can be introduced. It can be a long, slow process for some people - an ED has often been described as the sufferer's 'Friend' - it's something they feel they can always rely on where everything/everyone else has let them down. Obviously, it isn't a 'Friend' - it's most definitely 'The Enemy'. But it's been reliably inimical. And that's exactly why it isn't simple enough to just say: it's your choice.

I have no right to say either my ex or my family forced me into my anorexia and bulimia - they didn't force-feed me laxatives or stick my fingers down my throat or even starve me. But their treatment and neglect of me left me feeling so isolated, rejected and lonely, that I often felt physically sick inside. When a person feels sick, they don't want to eat. And sooner or later, weight does start to come off. And often, a person can get compliments. Where they have been feeling rejection, suddenly, somebody has said something which makes them feel nice - they've been noticed and received a remark of positivity rather than condemnation. It is always great to be complimented.

How many times have you said to someone, 'You look great - you've lost a bit of weight, haven't you?' And they'll have been chuffed, no doubt - particularly if they are actually on a diet. Perhaps someone has also told you, 'Gosh, you look well - you've lost weight', and I bet you've felt good for the day...

So, that's going tickety-boo for a while. But it is the 'disorder' (and I believe that word actually applies more to the disordered thinking squatting in the mind of a sufferer) which makes one believe - 'OK, if I lose a bit more, maybe people will notice me more, think more of me, like me more...' And this is where ignorance can kick in and people think - God, that's sooo vain; so an ED is just about vanity? And I really don't want this taking out of context and distorting...

Many ED sufferers have a common theme - they have felt rejection, abandonment, pain, neglect or abuse throughout their lives from some place or person. And that is not a generalisation - that is a hard fact. I would never have dreamed that anorexia and bulimia would befall me. I didn't even know what bulimia really was until it happened to me. I had no idea it had a name. It was my ex who told me later what it was - it transpired that his ex-fiancée had also suffered with it. She broke their wedding off weeks before it was to take place by telling him she could never marry the most selfish man she had ever met...

'Control'. This is another word very often used in connection with an ED. I rarely felt as though I was in control of things. I was rarely allowed to assert myself - if I did, I was punished severely. The one time I stood up to my mother, as a 21-year old, my father grabbed me by the throat and gave me a whallop right across the face. But I was able to control what I ate, when I ate, how much I ate and if to eat at all. And having, for the first time, that opportunity to control something was a power in which I revelled. I had power, for once in my life. I could finally take charge of things. And it was addictive.

But there is a fine-line, I do know that. And it is like throwing a stone into a pond and watching the concentric ripples spreading out from that one sploosh. If your brain isn't being fed, and your organs aren't receiving nutrition, the disordered thinking takes a hold. The subconscious mind starts to feed the conscious mind instead. And all those negative feelings start living rent-free in your head. And because they get louder and louder, with each day that passes, you crave more and more control - those feelings drown out the voice of reason and no matter how much you tell yourself, Just Don't Bloody Do It! you do! You succumb. Because they, at the time, have the control...And as soon as they have won, you can relax. They are quiet for a while. Until the next time...

I have a great many feelings about my ED. I feel self-loathing; disgust; shame; embarrassment; sorrow; pain and weariness. But I have never felt pride or guilt. Pride, because what on earth is there to be proud of? What part of an ED makes you feel proud of what you are doing? And guilt? I didn't 'choose' this. I really didn't. Just like Princess Diana didn't 'choose' her bulimia; just like Lena Zavaroni, Karen Carpenter, and eminent academic Rosemary Pope didn't choose to die from their own EDs. (And please may I suggest any dissenters read the link to Rosemary)

Research is currently under way to attempt to ascertain if malfunctioning DNA plays a part in a person's susceptibility to succumb to an ED. For many years, homosexuality was deemed a 'choice' - it has now been proven, scientifically, that it isn't. And how many gay men and women were ostracised, criticised and 'purged' from the planet for just being how God created them?

I do feel guilty for causing my family pain without wanting to. But I don't feel guilty for having an ED. If I could clear this from my system once and for all, I would do it. Right now. But it's not that easy. Anyone who says recovery from any form of mental health illness is easy is simply ignorant and arrogant.

And to those people who advocate that Ian leaves me forthwith, let me put this question to you. If you had a child who succumbed to an ED in his/her teens, would you abandon them?

Part #8: Rejection and Abandonment

I said I would continue with the Oman story, and I will, but just for the moment, I am going to diversify into a different topic:

Rejection and Abandonment.

It would be interesting to see how many visitors to this blog have felt this in their lives, and how it has caused them to react. Of the 9 people who have voted on our new poll claiming to either have an ED or are in recovery, how many of them have felt some form of severe rejection or concern about abandonment?

They are both very, very real for me.

Rejection was established in me almost from my earliest memories. My father and my brother (eight years older than me) barely looked at me from one month to the next, let alone spoke to me. If I walked into a room, my brother would walk out immediately. If I dared to speak to my father after his evening meal he would initially ignore me until I badgered: Dad. Dad? Dad?? He would then turn to me (and I can picture him so vividly, right now, sitting on the rug in front of the fire, back against the armchair) with a look of such contempt and disdain.

What? Wassup wi' yer? Am watchin' the bloody telly. Shurrup.

I would 'shurrup'. I would say nothing. I would often want some help with my homework as he was very clever with maths and chemistry but sometimes it was easier to call a friend on the phone. And believe me, every time I did so, I had to pay my father £1.00. In the 80s, this was a fair bit of cash for a teenager to part with. It became easier to go back to a mate's house and walk 4-5 miles home after missing the school bus at 3.30pm, as I simply couldn't afford his exorbitant phone charges.

Even when I returned to the UK, aged 33, and sat with him one night, just the two of us in his living room, interrupting his viewing of a programme to talk about some words I had discovered in a dictionary I was flicking through caused him to say: Will you shut up and let me watch the bloody telly.

We never spoke. We never communicated. I was never taken out anywhere by him. One time he had to go to the farm for eggs for my Mother as she wasn't very well and couldn't go herself. He dragged me with him, despite my protestations. I didn't want to go with him - how many times had I asked him to do something with me and been told to 'Bugger off!'? That was the one and only time I ever remember him taking me anywhere with him. We only had two family holidays in the years I grew up - he didn't 'believe' in holidays and expostulated that my brother and I had everything we needed where we lived - fields, woods, streams, ponds...I wouldn't be seen during the school summer holidays. I'd be out of the house from 7am, reluctantly return for meals, and out the minute my plate was cleared. Anything to get out of that house and the common atmosphere of frostiness due to their frequent rows and ensuing silences.

Trying to stay out of the house as much as possible led me to the most inordinate amount of trouble and one occasion has never been forgotten by me.

There was an area in our village called Pex Hill - a local 'beauty spot' which was being looked after by a team of Rangers from the Forestry Commission. My friend, Janet, and I got 'friendly' with two of them. One particular night, 30 August 1985 (I remember the date clearly as it was the eve of Janet's 15th birthday) I was under strict orders to be home by 8.30m. I knew my parents would be out that night to their regular haunt and they left, religiously, at 8.15pm. So I decided to risk staying out. By 8.45pm, Janet and I knew we had chanced our arm, it was getting rather dark, and the Hill was quiet and becoming a little creepy.

So we set off on our walk home, which was only about ten minutes away, but took us down a steep, densely wooded path. As we walked, a tall, slim shadowy man, wearing black biking leathers, came slowly towards us, and in front of his body, he was snapping a heavy bicycle chain ominously. We couldn't see his face properly for the gloaming light, and I clutched at Janet, and she at me in fear. We were petrified. We thought it was a nutter going to rape or kill us.

It was my brother. He had been sent up to the Hill to find me. His first words to me?

You Are Dead.

I knew then that I was going to suffer immensely for the extra 30 minutes I had taken without permission. And, By Christ, I did. As I walked down the path of the house, my father was stood in the doorway. He grabbed me in by my hair, threw me in front of him and beat me with his hands, screaming constantly: You Dirty, Filthy Bitch! You Dirty, Bloody, Filthy Bitch! He pushed me to the stairs where I stumbled and fell, so he kicked me up every single stair. There were 13 stairs to our bedrooms and I received 13 hard kicks to my backside and thighs. He was wearing his 'going-out' shoes if you are wondering...I crawled into my bedroom, as I wasn't allowed to stand up, he kicked me some more and told me again what a Filthy Cow I was. I genuinely thought it was because he had found out that I had been kissing a boy.

The next day, the silence was deafening. I was only allowed out of my room to eat food and receive more vitriolic abuse at what a Dirty Bitch I was. I was grounded for a month. It seemed a somewhat harsh punishment for risking an extra 30 minutes out, particularly as I was 15 years of age, and it was still the school hols.

The first time I tried to kill myself, I injected myself with my mother's insulin. I genuinely wanted to die as I felt so low, rejected, sad and lonely, and it was the only way I could think it might happen. When I was released from hospital days later, my father informed me that I would be visiting relatives that day, although I felt so ill and nauseated due to the terrible 'hypos' I had gone through in the hospital, as I had 'spoilt [his] bloody weekend enough'...

My mother - how many bloody times was I rejected by her for not being a mini-me? I don't think I could even count them.

There is a very British expression for not talking to somebody - Being Sent to Coventry. I was sent to Coventry so many times that I could probably draft an Ordnance Survey map of the place. If I didn't eat her awful cooking; if I didn't have my bedroom spotless; if I didn't act upon her wishes immediately; if I liked somebody she didn't; if I didn't want to go out with her shopping. All these things would mean I was 'Sent to Coventry'. And we're not talking an hour or so here, we're talking weeks. As it stands, my Mother has now beaten her own record and not spoken to me for ten months because I married Ian. Prior to that, she didn't speak to me for six months when I fell pregnant with Rosemary.

I can't list all of these, you know - I can remember utter dread at her regular threats to leave the house and never come back; her threats that she was going to kill herself; her statements that if it hadn't have been for me being born she'd have left my father and taken my brother with her and been happy...It seemed to always be my fault.

One night when I had complained (as children do) about a meal, her reaction was startling. She started hurling the food around, screamed abuse at me, and ran upstairs to my bedroom. After quickly shovelling the disgusting mushy peas down my throat and gagging at each mouthful, I went up to apologise and grovel. She told me she wanted to kill herself. I ran downstairs and found my father sitting on the garden bench, smoking. I told him what she had said. His response was: I feel like killing myself, too.

There was nowhere to go. I sat in the front room, alone, crying and despairing that I was going to lose both my parents because I hadn't wanted to eat my mushy peas.

I see now, as an adult, that they must have had some dreadful row and my rejection of my mother's food had sent her over the edge.

I didn't see that when I was eight years of age...

Memories are strange things, aren't they? They can bring up so many feelings of sadness at times - as well as happiness, though. Some of my most beautiful memories involve the girls, Ian and I having days out. One of my happiest was 5 November 2007 when he proposed to me. Another was 5 November 2006, days before he left me, unable to cope with the ED and my inability to confide in him, when we visited a seaside town in Wales, out of season, and waltzed along the pier, embarrassing the girls profusely!

These bad memories need to be exorcised. Writing them out is helping me to detach and see things more objectively. Gradually, the pain will separate from them. I feel sure of that as I can sense it happening (albeit in a very small way) already...