My disappearing act

Hi again guys!

How come whenever we even contemplate telling a story of our day, we have to let out a massive sigh first. I swear someone 50 miles away probably felt the breeze when i exhaled! It seems the next day you always hope will be a simple story to tell, winds its way into a rather more complex tale. You eating disorder fills the tiniest gaps in your life, determined to permeate right through into your functioning.

Quick facts:

Stayed same weight

ran 4 miles

purged once

brushed teeth 3 times today

One thing can make all the difference, and with an anorexic/bulimic, the scales become God. They dictate your mood for the rest of the day. Today i would feel....wait for the scales to stop spinning....slower....closer....it's flashing!.... AWFUL! I WILL feel awful.

Truth is i actually stayed the same, but this wasn't good enough. You see, i'm trying to push myself down to 140lbs for 1st June. This would mean that in total i would have lost 1st 5lbs (19lbs) in a month. I am cutting it so fine, but i really want to get there. So staying the same for a day made me mad and anxious. I weighed myself again....and again. In total i stepped on and of the scales about 5 times before i left the house.

Today i wore my new trousers. They were looser than i remember. Mum said i looked good, but i chose to simply nod. Many people say anorexia, or bulimarexia is a vying for attention - it's asking people to look at you. But i think i want people to look away. Whenever anyone comments on my weight, i hate it. It's like spoiling the surprise before i have got to the final end, like giving away the secret of the trick before the Act's finale. I do nod and say 'yes...i love running....no, i eat properly', but i wish people would not mention it and not notice. It makes me shudder.

Almost every day this week i have had someone else comment on my weight. It was another work college today. She said had i lost loads of weight because i look good. I did the 'really?' incredulous look before saying that i had been exercising more. Despite the fact this was probably meant to flatter, i flipped the comment over. I kept thinking that if she has to ask me if i;ve lost weight, then i must look similar to when i was +4st. I CAN'T be thin enough if people can't tell and if i look anything like me fat self. The blueberries i carefully packed stay untouched.

I finish early today, but despite that i still continue to lose my concentration. In the class i had, my mind drifted back to thoughts of crusty bread, ice cream and fudge sauce, hot buttered toast, chips, burgers with bubbling cheese and lashings of mayonaise. In the end i had to take a break out of the class in the toilets. I drew all the foods that flew around my head demending attention, and drew a box around them. This seemed to help, if only temporarily.

After i finished at 12, my mind was futiley trying to fight off bulimia's answer to rabies - the pre-purge. In the supermarket, i reined myself in and only chose a few things that i knew i could refuse and would 'last' if i changed my mind. Foods that DON'T fit into this include cake and ice cream, but foods that do include chocolate and frozen items such as chips. I bought blueberries (mostly to make the basket look more righteous), quorn burgers, rolls and fudge sauce. I daren't get anymore because you know the whole shop is looking and judging you!

I also pop into town and sort out a compact bulimic bag which i suggest any chronic bulimic gets. Just get a small vanity bag then pop in a small toothbrush, small toothpaste, travel bottle of mouthwash, toothpicks and wipes. Of course, if you purge, you use mouthwash ONLY - this is not a false fact. Medical ED professionals advise that you only use mouthwash because brushing rubs in the acid. Wipes are to freshen up, also i am going to get into a routine to brush my teeth more often to prevent even more staining.

When at home, i binged / purged as predicted. I cooked both burgers, slapped them between cheese, lettuce, mayo and buns and chomped down. I follwed it up by a massive bowl of ice cream with 1/2 container of fudge sauce. Then i rid myself of it. It took me a while and during this process i am constantly weighing myself. If i get down to the weight i was before i purged then i am ok to go and exercise or do nothing etc. But if i am above that level, i must keep purging, and if desperate, take laxitives. I was over for longer than i wanted and it was a tight call. As soon as i hit the mark, i went for a run. It was exhausting again and my stamina was far less. I think it was the fact i had eaten that meant i did not run 6 miles. Instead, i did 4 miles, and reasoned that i could make a few miles up with all the running and carrying i would be doing at my evening job at 6pm.

Time for the weekend job. Yes! - i'm a waitress, how ironic! As Rachael Oakes-Ash mentioned in her book, 'good girls do swallow', those with eating disorders seem to be drawn to food industries like magnets. What can i say? - There is a fascination and also an inherant danger about being so close to food. It's bizzare. Anyways, i have just been running up and down, round and round, lifting trays, butter dishes, jugs of water, putting down plates, flicking out napkins, tucking in cloths. In other words - it's been busy. More of the same tomorrow - lunch and dinner shifts! I moved on a glass of water - careful to sip it slowly so that i don't put on water weight for the weigh in tomorrow morning. The croissants called - i threw them away; The dinner was served and there was only a meat option - i thanked my stars; The fudge was left in finger-pinching reach - i ignored it, carried some more plates. What can i say? Today was just lucky, tomorrow might be a totally different story.

Right, this is the bit that i've been looking forward to since i started today's blog - saying hi again to bonnie! I was so convinced that no one would comment on yesterday's blog then there was your message when i got back - it really cheered me!

As for living without the 'rents, it's not really feasable at the moment. You see, i'm saving money to take more courses,etc and i want to return to university so i can do the course i want and actually begin towards a career i want to do. However, i could potentially mean living with them for years. Trust me - i am continuously missing my old uni haunt and wish i could be there. It feels like such a free place when i think of it now. But we must remember that the last time i wrote my blog i was away from myfamily, and i was just as disordered as now. I don't know it that answers anything or just confuses more?!

Don't worry about eating crappy food. One day isn't bad - it generally picks your metabolism back off again and works well if you have plateued. I must admit to finding purging a huge comfort - but remember you will have lovely teeth later in life unlike those who do purge. It is a rather foul habit and fiddly to get right. And yeah, the picture i used yesterday wasn't 'pleasant'. I like to question and challenge people with their perceptions. Some of these pictures do it well. I feel like doing that with all my fat though, don't you?

I'm skidaddling off to bed now because i have a relatively early start. Please pray or cross fingers, toes and other extremities for a better outcome tomorrow on the scales.

Poppy xox

bulimia may give you a husky voice, but sore throats are just no fun

Ugh - i really feel like i'm going to have to type this blog out in monosyllabic grunts then come back and translate it later. Keywords of today: tired,sore, grumble, yes, no, fuck off, sleep...
I may have to make this a short blog today as i'm about to fall asleep and wake up 6 hours later with keyboard marks on my face, and the daunting prospect of driving for the first time with my mother in the am.

So let's just crack on now

1/2 lb lost
1 hour spinning
2 times purged

I woke up this morning and stared in the mirror. I was horrified - my teeth were the same colour as humbugs! I suppose i should have seen it coming and have no one else to blame but myself. It should convince me to give up my bad purging and purely restrict, instead i have made plans to get a mouth kit up together for work, so i can compulsively brush my teeth more often. Well - why not add OCD to the list?!

It was a late start today which meant a morning awake, alone in the house, trying to deny my morning munchies. I curbed my crawling hands by rearranging the fridge - bottom section all meats, raw and cooked, dairy; middle section is my section - pasta i don't eat but pretend to, 1/2 a tin of soup, vegetable leftovers, omlette, tomatoes, bluberries and diet fizz; top section condiments.

After debating over a buttered roll for an hour and a half, that i already knew i couldn't have, i quickly shoved on some clothes and ran for the bus. There was a girl from school on there who used to bully me. After my innocent surprise, the eating disorder creeps in and i notice her hips might actually be a bit bigger than mine, her bum more bulbous. Not enough though - i have to seperate myself further from the pack. I want to be a different Poppy.

The classes are a load of nothing and i find my mind almost eating at itself for something to do. God - save me from mundanity of meaningless jobs! Lunch at 2pm soon comes and i am faced with the classic cafe showdown. It is always the same so i don't have to worry - unless mum suggests i have my food with her. Before we leave, she suggests maybe we go into the town, or a different cafe. I freak a bit - i had spent the morning going over various options and tactics and now the game changes! We eventually go to the same place. I buy food that i plan to later throw and keep it in my bag while mum eats through a slice of cake. I sip a coke zero.

On returning, i find i'm not needed for the next 2 hours. I can't take it and sneak out to hide in the toilets, then eat and purge breadsticks, homous and a chocolate bar. I know - not exactly the sort of stuff you imagine binging on but it was my decoy lunch and the rest of my lunch follwed suit as i purged the chocolate bar. Who's complaining? I got it all out right? I get dizzy and sit back down for a second. There is such an amazing drug-like high from purging - i must admit, i LOVE it. For one glorious second, you feel bliss then it blows away as quick as it arrived.

By the end of the day, i felt exhausted for no apparent reason given most of it i'd spent on my arse or over a toilet. The cleaner caught me again in a different set of toilets, luckily i was quick off the mark to get out. I get home and convince my mother that she wants nothing better than i nice fish finger sandwich for dinner - no, that's what I wanted! I just kept talking about it so much that i converted her to the idea too. I drove us to the supermarket and sneaked another chocolate bar into the basket.

Quick change then off to a spinning class for 1 hour. I work hard - making sure my legs are either going like pistons or wading through sand. I sit next to the glass window so i can see my reflection. Everytime i look i see fat - rolls of it lying on my stomach. I need to work harder and feel guilty that i didn't break out into an all-over plum-coloured sweat in the first 10 minutes. That means i must be lazy, i tell myself.

Mum and stepdad have tea, i divert by having a shower but join them for 10 blueberries. And 1 toffee - this is where it went to the crappers again. That one toffee had me swiftly heading back to my room to eat the other chocolate bar and 2 pieces of cake. Purge again, this time it takes longer. damn - i never learn with cake, its like my ultimate nemesis. Either too stodgy or too broken up with water. eat, purge, drink, flush, eat, drink, flush, drink, flush, eat, purge, drink, flush. This process can take over an hour.

Now everything relevant and unconnected with the soft downy warmth of my bed has been lost. I'm afraid i will leave youwith nothing more than a 'good night' and a hopeful promise that tomorrow (apres a late restaurant shift) i will produce a better blog than this!

Poppy xox

burn baby burn - running hard and alcoholic chocolate making a return trip

Good evening to those reading this!

If i were to think about an ideal blog, it would resemble a bowl of fruit - something you want to tuck in to. However i worry that these are reading like crackers - very stale reading indeed. These are as much for you as me so keep me posted if my whining over work is making you want to carve your arm off or something...hopefully not that extreme!

Facts of the day:
- lost 1lb
- purged 3 times
- ran 3 miles

If this were some 'fairytale' ideal of an eating disorder - the sort that vulnerable people believe in before tripping through the Wonderland mirror and realising it isn't like that in a world revolving around food and you are actually The Mad Hatter - i would start something like this: 'I did really well today - i lived on cool, clean air and only drank enough water to fill a teaspoon. My body feels light and i get blown around on a breeze all day. I hardly think about food because i never eat it'.

Haha! That ISN'T a real disorder - it's what we all imagine, and continue to try and achieve, even if somewhere in us we know it isn't true. Today for me has been far from 'clean' and 'tidy'.


As we enter the white rabbit's house, we enter into my eating disordered head. Let me show you round my day...

1. Bedroom: You wake and worry that if you don't immediately weigh yourself you will miraculously put on 7lbs. Weighing every morning feels like touching base in a game of cricket or baseball, if you reach (sometimes streching your fingertips so hard) and touch base on the next lb down then you are safe and cannot go up again. I get dressed, drowning myself in fabric that needs tucking here, and pulling there. My top is a size too big for me, but i don't care.

2. Morning Room: I notice that my legs look particularly huge again today, and avoid the waiting box of milk tray on the staff table. I spend half the morning debating one chocolate as i walk up and down the office. I probably worked it off with all the walking but my mind broke it down like a mechanical drawing, pointing out the dangers with big red arrows. I popped open my box of 15 blueberries and sucked on them instead.

3. Closet: I'm not really ready for my eating disorder to come out of it yet, but someone started to prise open the door. I sat with a collegue who has been very astute, far too astute, in noticing how fast i'm dropping weight. In fact, she noticed i had lost weight when i was still obese! She asked me if i was eating ok, i replied with a cheery 'oh yes' and slapped on a smile. That's when she said, in a non threatening way, that she would be keeping an eye on me....
hmm - thank god we are reaching an 8 week holiday! I can lose weight in peace without others with misconceptions that they know what the hell i'm actually doing, trying to interfere.

4. Swing: 'If i can just get down another 18lbs then it won't matter if they notice', 'please, i'll do anything if they can just stay oblivious until i reach 2 BMI points lower'. The constant mathematics of weight, days and calories that swim around my head are always formulating in semi-religious pleas to thin air. But when something goes right, the air gets thanked. You become obsessive like a star tennis player on a winning streak - if you lose a lb, you continue to down a box of ducolax, bulk buy those blueberries and for gods sake don't forget to wear your socks on backwards! I'm on a blueberry and purge everything streak.

5. Dinning room: I go for lunch, which turns into a quick shop for a smaller pair of trousers and more binge food. The trousers are a squeeze, but it's so close to the holidays that i convince myself i will get into them by the time they are over - only a couple of inches to loose. I get frustrated that another pair of same size bottoms makes my stomach look like its breaking from a dam and cameltoes my arse. Great, i think sarcastically, i'll have to loose another couple of inches before i can SAFELY and OFFICIALLY fit into the next size down.
I nip into a posh chocolate shop - expensive chocolate is so much more interesting to eat. I have a fascination with inventive food, i just don't like the risk of where it goes after. Give me extra fine individually picked cocoa from the belguim borders, but don't ask me to let it go further south than my oesophagus please! I intended to keep the chocolate for my burgeoning collection of binge foods back home.

6. Bathroom: Predictably, the bathroom always follows the dinning room. I hid again, and this time i had tempting treats with me. I denied myself so long, and i can't even remember what broke it eventually. I remember pushing the little cream balls in my mouth and realising they had alcohol in them. Crap! Not only do i think alcohol spoils the chocolate taste, but it can taste foul and sting like buggery on the return journey back up. I quickly shoved both packets of chocolate into my chomping mouth and spewed into the toilet. Problem is, everytime you have a drink to get rid of the bitting taste of acid and alcohol in your mouth, your body wants to purge again. Eventually when the water had turned bright yellow - a signal i need that i'm on the acid layer of my purge cake, i stop.
A group of girls comes in, at the same time as a cleaner. S**t! I wait a bit longer and think the cleaner might have gone. She would definitely have noticed the one long-engaged toilet to the right. It's quiet, the girls have left. I flush again and make my way out, she is still waiting out there. I cannot hide my 'staff' badge and quickly wash my hands, unable to miss the rustle as she picks up something from the floor. Was it evidence of my binge? My wrappers? - i had pushed the chocolate packets in the sanitary dispenser. She'd probably find them soon too. I take one quick look behind before zooming out the door, keen to put a big distance between myself and that cleaner for a while at least.

7. Bell Jar: Finally the end of the day comes...very slowly. On the way home, Mum keeps patting my leg and telling me she loves me. I'm not sure what to do, i want to get out of this emotionally smoked environment. I only touh her back once and try to smile it off. It makes me uncomfortable and my head buzz with questions - how much does she know? what has she seen? what has she read? All i know is, i want to get inside her head and erase any speck of suspicion on her mind. It frightens me, she can't know yet.

8. Garden: Mum debates whether to go straight to the gym or not. I stay impartial until we are almost at the door, when i suggest she goes straight there. She does leaving me in an empty house like my head had anticipated. Binge no. 2 - 4 mini cheese scones with butter, 3 vieneisse truffles. Like i have said before, i don't do big binges because i have become afraid that i won't be able to get it all back up and that i will retain too many calories. I began to eat a millionaire shortbread but stopped myself because it didn't taste that nice and my mind went 'is it worth it given that you would retain some calories and have to purge all those tiny crumbs back up?'. It wasn't - i threw the biscuit away and spat the rest into the bin. I ran upstairs and purged it all away. I hear my stepdad come back, too early - i'm not yet satisfied i got it all out. When i can't get any more out, i go for a run. I am VERY disappointed with my run today - only 3 miles. I usually do 4-5 miles, 6 if i'm feeling good. Today is a poor effort on my part, but all i could feel on the way round was the acid rolling up and down my neck. I pushed hard, working each mile, feeling my legs ache, i wanted the food gone. I beat my fastest mile lap time by 2 minutes and burnt off the calories i might not have completely purged out.

9. Kitchen: Back home and tea is being planned. As all the family is around, it's another one i cannot escape. Quorn chilli is on the menu and i shrug looking indifferent, mentally i tell myself i will purge it as well. We eat rice and chilli, i help myself to some crisps and dip because i now know i am going to get rid of it afterwards. Everyone looks pleased. I follow it up with a lolly. I worry mum is trying to keep me downstairs, but eventually i am allowed to go.

10. Outhouse: Purge no. 3 takes place but i am less than happy with this one. I can still taste the chilli in my breath. I weigh again and it is passable, although not good enough to guarantee being on goal tomorrow. I take 5 ducolax laxitives and settle down to a night of craps and toilet dashes. I know as well as most well-researched bulimics/anorexics/bulimarexics that laxitives only get rid of water weight and 10% of consumed calories. You know what - I DONT CARE. The reason i'm doing it is because i MUST get to my goal for tomorrow, and prevent weight gain. If this means getting there, i'll bloody well take it and more.

So, i'm so tired and i know i'll be awake in about 4 hours stumbling towards the toilet.
I am so close now to the next goal, i cannot fail. Please leave comments and/or thumbs, i look at them when i am in the toilet needing some support usually.

Wish me 4am luck!

Poppy xox

Switching Back to 5th Gear - life back in the fast lane of an eating disorder

Welcome back!


I feel like i'm sitting down on a very familiar worn-down sofa, with the debis of lollisticks, crumpled paper and empty wrappers still in the same place, stuffed down the sides, where i left them.


This all feels incredibly exciting again despite the fact very little has changed in the fundamentals of my eating disorder. In other words - it's still erratic, still fucked up and i'm still ever so unwilling to part with it or accept that i cannot continue like this.


I will climb this mountain even if i have to claw my way up the rest of it with bleeding fingernails. I will not have 12 years on a constant battle of thinness, in and out of the bathroom, round and round in circles end in me 'giving up'. Not yet...


So, now we are comfortably settled back on the blog sofa with big mugs of hot stock, coffee and baggy pyjamas, i can begin to recall what has been happening.



THEN:
I really didn't intend to leave my last blog entry, as i phrased it to someone, like 'a trashy cliffhanger ending to a cheap novel'. I had intended to return, however it got close to the summer ball and i was desperate to squeeze, poke and prod myself into the red dress by any means.

The night before i was still 7lbs off and i sat in my shower room wrapping myself in mud, dehydrating myself, almost fainting again, trying to lose the lbs. I managed to get into the dress although i was still a few lbs off. After the ball i graduated and moved back home. Then came the absolute chaos and upheaval, turning my authority moot in my family home. Back under mum's wing again, or was that foot?

I put on all the weight i had lost and by the time 2010 came around i was back up to 200lbs (14st). After a desperate binging session, crying over the vienesse biscuits, caramel, praline, nuts and chocolate, baked crisps, warm bread wet with butter and ice cream dripping off the spoon, i self harmed deep. It shocked me into action and has, even now, left me with the scars to remind me how upset i was at that weight and the helplessness i felt.



NOW:
Well, since slapping my eating disorder back onto the, by psychologist standards, 'critical' list in February, i have lost 3st 9lbs (51lbs). This is currently the lowest i have been ever in my adult life and, most of, my teenage life too. I am happy with my eating disorder at the moment and will not give it up. That said, i can now crack on to the day's happenings.

I decided to write today's events as they generally filter, like a running commentary, through my own head...
In case you get dizzy or wish to leave the hell hole that you are about to enter, exits are here, here, here, here and here.

1. Get up and weigh myself - careful not to have a drink even if you are incredibly thirsty and/or dizzy. Check pee colour to see whether it will affect your weigh in. If it is very dark water weight won't affect it, but if it's light then it might. Sneak into the bathroom with scales under my arm. You MUST weigh yourself before leaving home otherwise it will haunt you all day. Do it even if it means you speand 20 mintues naked in your room waiting for your mother to go downstairs, leaving only 2 minutes to get ready before leaving.

2. Go to work, NEVER have breakfast. There's definitely no need - overrated. Sit in the car on the way to work breathing in and out, observing how tight then loose the trouser band gets around your stomach. You still need to loose loads of weight - your legs look like trunks.

3. At work you go get your mum's coffee as usual. Stare at the croissants, shortbreads, paninis and muffins behind their cases, sweating their smells onto the glass. You turn your head and, today, feel superior. I don't need them. Secretly you are glad the hunger pains are less than usual otherwise it would be more longing and not pride you would feel. Someone you know from your department orders a ham and cheese croissant. You marvel at the scene: them happily eating it in front of other staff, unaware of the grease and fat lining the pastry, and all the staring eyes. It seems like another world. I try to imagine myself doing it and cannot...at all.

4. I read exams for students, and pray in the quietness that my stomach doesn't decide to start it's own one man band. Apart from a few squeezes luck stays on my side and the Beast stays quiet. I suddenly don't want to be around people and, instead hide in the toilets, reading my book for 15 minutes before scooting off to the next class. The book was on eating disorders and i roll my eyes at the irony.

5. The next two hours of class go well. I sit in the corner - not much to do. The class go over some fact cards, 'which statement is true about yourself'. I find it almost amusing how 2D the questions on 'healthy eating are' and mentally answer them.
a) 'I generally stay away from takeaways because they aren't nutritious and are expensive' - err...i generally stay away from takeaways because they are full of greasy shit and will make me fat, however if i do eat them then i will purge it up, then eat another then purge it up.
b) 'I have my 5 fruit and veg a day' - does it count if it goes in then out? If not, rarely. Do multivitamins count?
c) 'I eat a lot of convinience food' - yes and no. Eat, yes, retain, no.
As you can see, i suspect that it was a good thing i wasn't doing the card quiz. I played this little game in my head until the class broke up and my working day finished at 2pm.

6. Walked to the supermarket. Noted how good the walking was and made sure not to take the shortcut. Picked up a diet magazine and blueberries, bumped into my mum on her lunch break. Thank god she only saw me with blueberries! We divided off, me on the pretext that i was in a rush. I told her i was grabbing a chocolate bar as well, just to cover my own back so she doesn't suspect my restricting too much. I did grab a chocolate bar...and a tub of ice cream. Totally unintentional but i had been meaning to treat myself to b/p ing it as soon as i found that new brand in one of the local stores.
Yes, you heard me right - TREAT myself to a binge / purge. Well, if you want it but don't want to gain weight then why not.

7. Marched to the bus stop, aware of the melting ice cream in my bag. Remembered i was supposed to be buying a new pair of work trousers as i hoiked up the pair straddling my hips. Oh well, i'll just have to pin these grey things in place until tomorrow lunch. Bus was late - my foot tapping against the sun soaked pavement and it's like i can feel every particle of ice thaw from the tub one by one. I notice the garish pink cafe sign to my right and frown, the sign offers 'pininis'. It annoys me, too much, that they spelt paninis wrong. It's only a god damn sandwich poppy, i tell myself, get a grip.

8. The bus ride i spent thinking about being thin while i felt the cold compress of the ice cream pressing against my side. I sit at the back to avoid people - Today a woman comes and sits opposite me. I turn my head and close my eyes, dreaming of silph-like dresses on my goddess-like spindly frame as the wind rushes through my long hair. The music on my ipod is melancholy and joyous. I stare back down at my legs, the shopping bag nudges at my side - not there yet.

9. At home, i thrust my keys into the door, push myself into the lounge and throw my bag onto the table. The ice cream lasts a few minutes, i eat it as i gather up bottles of fizzy from the counter then purge into the empty salad bowl. I realise the houses out back have the potential to witness this spectacle and i imagine a neighbour tentatively knocking on our door later, enquiring to my mother if she knew that her daughter had been throwing up in the kitchen that day. I ran upstairs with the bowl, the fizzy and the health magazine. The bluberries stayed downstairs. I continue to purge until i am positive all the ice cream is back up, until i can feel the sharp bite of stomach acid on my cheeks.

10. I meant this to be such a good day to start this blog again. I thought i was going to be able to go 'see, see! i have been such a good little china doll since i started starving again - i only eat grass and berries'. But it hasn't happened like that - i would probably be classed as Bulimarexic. I starve, i eat a little then purge. If i eat again i purge. Very rarely do i eat and NOT purge. But i don't binge majorly either, not on the scale that DSMV class a 'binge'. So, this is pretty much a typical day.

11. Mum gets home and spots me in a small pair of crops. Particualrly tight fitting, but everything else keeps falling down on me. They are a size smaller again. She comments on how good i look and asks if they are new. I lie - 'no, i've had them for ages'. What size? she asks. I lie again and give a size bigger than they are. I'll cut the labels out later - very few of my clothes have size labels in. Theyare all carefully removed with scissors before going in the wash basket.

Later she expects me to have dinner with her and my stepdad. I think about refusing but then consider that the only thing they saw me eat yesterday was a handful of blueberries. I decide not to raise alarms today - after all i can always purge it later. Note: When you eat always use a certain plate or bowl, this makes it easy. Somehow cleaner and simpler - you don't know why. It makes you uneasy if you cannot have your plate and you bicker with your stepdad, sometime in an almost paddy-like fashion in front of guests just so you can have your brightly coloured plate. You don't know why... you just have to.

12. So, after purging potato soup, a buttered roll and a piece of slightly stale birthday cake (which has taken me a long slow process of 2 hours to get it ALL out), i am here. I have weighed myself again since the last purge. Although i am still nervous about whether i will make tomorrow's goal. I will not have anything to drink now.


Thank you (all 2 of you probably!), for listening to me recap and mumble aimlessly on. Hopefully this is something i will keep up regularly. I am happy to keep up correspondance with other ED sufferers, and enjoy talking to all of you and listening to your comments. They are truly invaluble. If you do want to talk, my email is lifeisafreefallplunge@hotmail.co.uk. Sometimes it might take me a week to reply, but i promise i will.

Shout out to Bonnie and Naomi - thanks for being so encouraging about starting up my activity on mymirrorimage and on this blog again. Hope you are both doing well? Also waves to Lily, Lilly TCStar and Alissa if you guys are still around. Please get in touch with me if you are because you are amazing and i have missed chatting to you.

Hugs, smiles and bumblebees,

Poppy xox

PS. The red dress is now too big on me...