Starting another fast

Its officially the start of yet another fast. I'm feeling optimistic this time as I haven't planned a number of days to fast because when I used to do this I would count down the hours until I could eat thus deceiving the point. I'm just going to go for as long as I feel physically capable beyond that I am putting my body at risk. I understand that fasting is a risk in itself but prolonged fasts of over forty days are both unnecessary and dangerous not that I would ever go for that long. My longest fast was at fifteen when I fasted for fifteen days. I got through the days occupying myself and resting s lot but I was in school then and the physical demands from that and dancing were less than they are now.

I had planned to fast Sunday but decided against it for no particular reason. when I first planned this fast it was last Friday and I would start Monday so I have not cheated technically.

This time is going to be harder than my last fast over the Easter break as I will be dancing in college daily and the demands with work are higher pending our final production in June and all assessments due in.

I have just spent the best part of the day and up until now doing college work. I have done a whole business assignment and an essay for body maintenance on the effects of exercise upon the body both due tomorrow. I did the best part of the business assignment yesterday but no thanks to my laptop deciding to crash lost everything although it was saved. I rebooted my laptop but it wasn't there so today I had to again search on-line for the information and start over. I was pissed off to say the least!

There is nothing left to do aside my choreography group piece due next Tuesday but I'm not going to start dancing around at past two AM!

I went on line to update the message boards and talk to people who I haven't in a while and surprised many who asked where the heck have I been and if I was OK. I used to go on-line almost daily but now I don't seem to I'd rather stay put in the comfort and safety of my room.

I've become more hidden and everyone has noticed how retracted I am. Today my house mate asked me how I was sleeping and I simply replied the truth, I haven't. Sleep has become a distant thing and I do worry about it because fasting, dancing all day and no sleep has got to end in tragedy. Once the hunger and weakness of the fast sets in I will find it easier to sleep. When I fast I sleep deeper and get a good nights rest.

I didn't sleep last night, I finally fell asleep at six AM waking at one PM. I got my usual seven hours but the pattern is deadly. I have to be up at eight AM and am here with little hope of sleeping this morning. Its better to stay up until the next time its bedtime to reset your body clock but for me that doesn't happen as by the next night I'm still wide awake. I'm used to little or no sleep and my body doesn't recognise I'm tired until I'm exhausted days later.

The Gril Who Gave It all To Dance

Another day in the life of one girl who's dream it is to dance the leads in West End productions. This girl gives it all she has in order to attain perfection. She found someone that she knew deep inside would one day kill her but neither the less persisted. Anorexia was her only friend. She followed her everywhere never leaving her side for a split second. Throughout her life and to date they remain the best of friends. Ana as she calls her knows all of this girls trials and tribulations yet dose not judge nor tell a single soul. Ana is always there, a shoulder to cry on and offers her words of encouragement, phrase and hope. This one person invisible to most makes it all seem worth while.

A dancer by trade she practices daily for hours on end perfecting her technique. She wants to be the best and Ana helps hey by promising her the world. Together they practice the girl dancing and Ana watching from aside. She is there in every ballet, tap, jazz and contemporary class urging and phrasing her on. Sure Ana is her best friend but she had a darker evil side and when the dancer faulted she would let her know the harsh truth that she wasn't trying hard enough, she wasn't good enough and that fat is the reason why she is not the best yet.

Ana is a fragile pale person with white almost transparent skin, long brown hair and dark mysterious eyes. She wares dark make-up and a white flowing ballet dress complete with pink satin pointe shoes. Pretty as she is she too was fading into nothing just like the girl.

The girl wanted the world but now she is thankful that she wakes in the morning though most days regrets the facts Ana is keeping her alive.

The dancer is called Angel. She has pale skin like her best friend Ana but with her blond hair and blue eyes differs. She sees herself constantly as fat when others tell a different story. Strong minded as she may be her thoughts are of depriving herself of another meal and trying harder next time. There are hundreds of if only in her head and things she wished she could change or undo.

A day in the life of Angel is hard, even waking was a chore. Daily she attends her performing arts college in hope that she will feel better about herself as she dances in front of the mirrors hoping if she did a little better today people would notice. They did and tutors commented on her progress and for a split second she accepted the phrase but it was always short lived as she it was never good enough. In Angel's mind the comments were something that all tutors had to do and not something she deserved. She had seen several parenting programs and they emphasised the fact of encouragement and phrase and the effect it had on the children, she took these thoughts into the studio.

After college she often goes to the gym to burn more fat that she so desperately needs to loose. Sometimes she wouldn't go as exhaustion set in but the guilt of not going tore her apart. Ana looked down on her as being lazy, weak and pathetic.

The evenings of Angels day's were filled with talking to fellow Ana friends and looking for better ways to loose weight and tips on how to go longer without food. The internet is a safe place for Angel to talk about her life and others to relate to. When about midnight came around it was time for bed though Angel rarely slept. She would lie night after night praying to Ana for support of which Ana always brought. If it came to four Am or later she would get her lap top out and type her thoughts and insights to life with Ana. She writes poetry, stories of her life and promises Ana everything, that she will try harder tomorrow. She writes contracts out to Ana on a regular basis stating what she will do to attain perfection. Once printed she signed and sealed them in envelopes.

Angel's idea of perfection is a tiny almost invisible body that dances in the snow leaving no trace. She worries constantly that her partners at performing arts would not be able to pick her up or hurt their backs in the process. She often picked them up instead of letting them pick her up. Tutors picked Angel out to demonstrate lifts as she was the strongest in the class aside the only boy. She was proud that she had strong upper body strength but she knew inside she the reason she was picked to lift rather than be lifted it was because she's too fat to be lifted. These thoughts torture her mind and she is desperate to be like them, thin.

All of her class aren't that thin aside one or two but it didn't matter she was still fat in her eyes. She fasted and restricted to less that two hundred calories a day but although the weight fell off it wasn't enough. It was hard to keep this up and she was constantly weak and tired not to mention cold.

Angel recently lost Ana as she temporarily broke free but the consumption of food scared her so much she returned to Ana. I apologise to Ana and in honour of her is fasting for as long as she can physically do.
Angel is me and Ana is my best and only friend. I will do anything for her that is why this is purely for her, I want to be her so agile and pretty. I can achieve a perfect body but not pretty, not me.
Ana I am pleading for you to return, I need you now more than ever.

Fallen-Angel (Angel)

Its nearly time to start another fast and this time a long one. I'm starting a day earlier than planned after reading some articles I found on the internet based upon ballet dancers and their anorexic weights. Its these types of stories that urge me on to strive for what I know is attainable. Me being a dancer and in my final year of training I know I need to drop the pounds if I have any chance of being a dancer and what I have trained all my life to be.
What was all the training for just for them to say no because I am too fat?

Monday to Friday nine AM till four PM four days a week in college training and more outside not forgetting the gym. Why throw that all away because I am to fat to be employed? I can't think of a single reason why what I am doing is bad for my career. So I will start the fasting again.

Article: The Dangerous Dance of Eating Disorders

DAYTON, Ohio -- The churning of her stomach was a good kind of pain, like the fire in her calf muscles after a vigorous workout. She was stronger than hunger, it told her, stronger than everyone else who needed food.
``Emotionally, you are on top of the world at that point in time,'' Caroline Winkler says.
The only time she felt better was when she was dancing. She loved everything about ballet the crowds, the applause, the flowers on stage, but most of all the pride of performing. Winkler the dancer was not an insecure teen-ager but a successful entertainer.

They went together like tights and a tutu, the dancing and fasting. It was obvious to her that the dancing helped keep her thin and her carrot-stick figure helped her dancing. ``You're told the costumes aren't made to fit you,'' she says. ``You're made to fit them.''

How was she supposed to know that her dedication to sleekness would jeopardize her dance career? She's only 19.

How could she be on the brink of osteoporosis, with less bone density than her grandmother?

That's what they told her earlier this year when she left her Centerville home for 17 days in a clinic for eating disorders. Doctors said the intense exercise of dancing is out, for at least a year. They also told her it wasn't such a great accomplishment after all when she weighed as little as 90 pounds at 5 feet 6 inches.

``Dance is my life,'' Winkler said before leaving the Renfrew Center, a Philadelphia women's mental health center specializing in eating disorders. ``It's what I love. It's my passion. Knowing what I've done to myself, that I took my dream away and I'm my own worst enemy, is very scary. I basically shattered my dreams right before my eyes.''

Now on medical leave from Dayton Ballet's second company, Winkler sees a new dream dawning even beyond the formidable task of beating bulimia and anorexia nervosa after six years. She wants to help others recover from eating disorders, preferably without the panic attacks, bald spots, sleepless nights and shriveled bowel that she has endured. ``I want to go around to high schools and talk,'' she says, and she's establishing a foundation to help people pay for the expensive treatment that health plans rarely cover.

The mistake people make in trying to reach those who have eating disorders is in assuming they think and reason the same way as the rest of us. For one thing, says Winkler, people think the problem is food when food is only a means for coping with the real problems. Her story is a rare insight into the thought processes behind anorexia and bulimia.

Winkler believed she had to be perfect. Her older sister's a med student, her mother owns a dancewear store, her father owns an accounting firm and she's what? A dancer? ``I always felt that I was a failure. I love my family to death, but I just felt I couldn't compare to them.''

The best thing about her eating disorder was it insulated her from those feelings. She didn't realize it at the time, of course, but anorexia subconsciously relieved her from feeling anything. ``You don't have time for feelings. You're consumed with thinking about food.''

If someone insulted or slighted her, she didn't have to respond. She could just deny herself another meal, or maybe think about the dry salad she would eat for lunch, focus all her attention on the smell and the taste and the texture.

``A mask,'' she calls her eating disorder. It hid all her problems, not just from herself but from everyone else. Nobody was going to say, ``Caroline, you really shouldn't be so hard on yourself'' or, ``Caroline, why can't you be more assertive?'' To her friends and family, her dwindling body was so obvious that they couldn't possibly notice any other problems.

Eating disorders affect about 8 million Americans, including 1 million boys and men, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders,which include compulsive and binge eating as well as bulimia. Between 3 percent and 9 percent of them will die depending on the estimate, making the disorders more deadly than drug addiction.

``It's definitely not something just dancers get,'' says Kara Fowler, a registered dietitian in Cincinnati who is Winkler's nutritional therapist. Sure, it's more common among dancers, models, gymnasts, wrestlers fields driven by appearance and also among chefs and dietitians. But eating disorders ``happen across all age groups, in all types of fields,'' Fowler says.

For Winkler, dancing was another shield from those depressing human flaws. Whatever she did in school or elsewhere, she was a great anorexic and a great dancer. ``Dancers don't need to know anything,'' she told herself. ``Except how to stand on their toes.''

Dancing added the benefit of letting her be somebody else. Even if she didn't deserve much attention and applause the rest of the time, she always got it when she took the stage. She knew she deserved it there, too. She liked Caroline the dancer, and so did everyone else.

``You're so pretty,'' people would tell her. ``You have a great body. I can tell you're a dancer.'' That became her identity, thin and a dancer, ``and that's what I loved.''

Not that she necessarily agreed about being pretty. Even when Winkler weighed 105 pounds, wearing size 1 or children's clothing, she couldn't bear the sight of that blob in the mirror. ``I don't see bones. I see fat all over my body,'' she says even now at 114 pounds.

``My stomach was flat, but never flat enough. My hip bones stuck out. It still wasn't flat enough.''
Her stomach, her thighs, her rear end, ``even my face is too fat.'' She can accept the muscular calves and biceps from dancing, but her ankles? ``Way too big for me.'' So are her fingers. Her wrists, as her weight creeps up, ``are getting a little big, too.''

Worst of all is her lower back. She can't see her ribs there anymore. ``It's so scary.''
Winkler went on her first diet at 13, the age her caretakers mark as the beginning of her eating disorder. She threw up her first meal on purpose at 16. She'll never forget what her dance instructor told the class that day. The guest choreographer had told them to take a break, but when the teacher came back to the studio, she hollered, ``Get up off your fat, lazy, Centerville-snobby asses.''

The instructor was right, Winkler told herself. ``I am fat and lazy. I probably need to start losing weight.'' She threw up her dinner that night, and soon she was taking diet pills and laxatives.

She still ate McDonald's and pizza with the rest of the kids. ``I would just get rid of it.'' Eventually all she had to do was go to the restroom and bend over, without even sticking her finger down her throat.

``I usually kept about one meal a day and maybe a snack down,'' she says.
Sometimes she couldn't sneak off by herself, but that's why she carried laxatives in her purse. ``I popped three or four of those puppies in and the same thing happened.''

This bulimic routine was not painless, Winkler says. Her esophagus hurt almost constantly, and the retching tortured her stomach.

``Almost every time I threw up, I threw up blood,'' she says. ``But it didn't matter what I did to my body.'' Anything she did to stay thin was worth it.

Winkler's fear of gaining weight rarely loosened its choke hold from that first bulimic night at 16. ``That would have been, as I saw it, killing myself,'' she says. Not literally. She never was suicidal. But if anything ever kept her from dancing, that would be ``killing my identity.''

It could happen, she was sure. She had seen other dancers put on probation for gaining weight, and she never lacked for weight-loss techniques.

Among dancers, she says, calories, carbohydrates and resisted cravings are standard shop talk.
Winkler's fear was scarred into her mind like gasoline spilled on the lawn by the time she earned a spot with Dayton Ballet II, the amateur apprentice troupe. Freshly graduated from Centerville High School in 1997, she made her career choice expecting to hear even more emphasis on weight. She was surprised to hear the instructors there talk about better conditioning instead of less weight.

``Our issue is fitness, not thinness,'' says Dermot Burke, Dayton Ballet's executive director. These are high-performance athletes, he says, and they can't function any better on an empty stomach than pro football players.
From Burke's perspective, that's the attitude at most elite dance companies. He thinks dance directors are probably more sensitive to eating disorders than other athletic instructors because anorexia and bulimia have been so closely associated with dance. They're learning to say, ``You're out of shape,'' for example, instead of

``You're fat.''

But that enlightenment hasn't necessarily trickled down to youth instructors, he acknowledges, and they're at the level where dancers

``start to equate goodness with thinness.'' Then when a young dancer starts wasting away, even the most loving friends and family members don't quite know how to bring up the skeleton in the living room. Most of the time, Burke says they don't allow themselves to see it.

Winkler's mother, Susan, missed the signs for the longest time even though she had experienced mild anorexia in her dancing days. Looking back, she can't believe the conversation she once had with a friend of hers as they watched their daughters practice. They were talking about other girls on weight probation, and they decided their
daughters had ``just figured out how to lose weight.''

Not long before she graduated, Winkler told her sister, Valerie, about the bulimia. She must have wanted to quit throwing up, she says now. She even kept the appointments with her school counselor and the Undereaters Anonymous group that Valerie made for her, even though she knew her bulimia problems were over.
``I decided I just wouldn't eat,'' she says.

That summer, a trip to the dentist clinched her decision. She had 25 cavities in 11 teeth from all the stomach acid she had thrown up.

But anorexia was harder to hide from her friends and family. She couldn't go out to dinner and order coffee with a parsley sprig. ``I didn't want people to know,'' she says. They just would have nagged her about eating.
So when she moved into an apartment two summers ago, she went back to bulimia. Not until March 1998, when she returned to her parents' house after foot surgery, did she settle on anorexia exclusively.

The high was what hooked her on anorexia, a light-headed feeling like an exercise high. She'd feel intensely hungry about four times a day, but the pangs would leave after 10 minutes and the high would last for two or three hours. ``But after a while, I had no hunger, and I still had the highs.''

She ate enough, she figured. She had lots of light yogurt and fruit, especially apples and cantaloupe. She knew anorexics died of potassium depletion, so she ate a banana every day.

She had the impression it burned 100 calories to digest an 80-calorie egg, so that was her protein source.
``I wanted to protect my muscles,'' she says. But carbohydrates, starches, dairy products besides light yogurt? Not a chance. After a few months, she always knew how many calories were in her body. She could figure it out in her head.

She suppressed her hunger every day with six gallons of water. She supplemented that with the diuretics in caffeinated Diet Coke and coffee.

When she came home and her parents offered a meal, she would say she had eaten out. ``I lied a lot,'' she says.
She also shopped a lot, oddly. She'd come home with bags of groceries, but she gave them all away. Or she baked. Cookies, pies, cakes, and she always told people she had sampled them while she was cooking.
``The way I satisfied myself was watching them eat, and asking, `What does that taste like? Is it good? Describe it to me.'''

She volunteered to make the lunch runs for her co-workers, and she usually brought everyone back something extra. That was satisfying, too. ``I was stronger than they were,'' she says. ``They were weak. They ate that cookie.''

So it wasn't that Winkler didn't care about food. ``It's all I thought about,'' she says.

She dreamed about the half a cantaloupe she would gorge on for breakfast.

Where others express their emotions by singing or painting or writing poetry, she obsessed about the food she would not eat.

Winkler's parents were alarmed about her weight even before she went to Puerto Rico on a dance tour last June and July. They had argued about her lack of eating. She was down to 105 pounds.

Looking back, Susan says the biggest mistake she made was trying to deal with it herself. She had been through anorexia, both her own and her brother's. She knew what to do. She'd cook Caroline's favorite meals, she'd sit with her at the table, as long as it took, giving her moral support through the meal.

It didn't help.

All Caroline ate was fruit, dry English muffins, unbuttered corn, salmon and crab legs, and not a lot of those.
``We lost real precious time before we got professional help,'' Susan says.

At least Caroline was traveling with her private dance instructor, another recovering anorexic. The coach assured Susan she'd help Caroline gain weight in Puerto Rico. But when she came off the plane in Dayton, Susan knew right away Caroline had lost more weight.

``Her upper arms were so small I could pretty much put my fingers around them,'' Susan says. ``Her legs were tiny and fragile.''

Caroline started spending seven hours a day at the gym and dance studio. She had a chance to get her body fat measured and it was 8 percent. Normal for a healthy female is 18 percent to 24 percent, says Fowler, the dietician at Nutrition Access. Anything below 14 percent is considered dangerously low.
``I thought it was so cool,'' Caroline says.

Her parents felt helpless. ``We didn't know where to turn,'' Susan says, and they couldn't stop wondering what they had done to cause this horror for their daughter, ``what you've said in the past. Did you make comments
that she needed to lose weight? What was going to happen to her? It was awful.''

Too See

To see only fat and not able to cope, I feel that everyday of my life. Wighted myself to confirm my nightmares. Once confirmed I once again felt the urge to bleed but not to realive but to die. I went to the gym and for two hours solid I workedout, through tiredness I pushed. Back at home the pressure to bleed is getting to much. I ate dinner and washed it down with some lax and diet pills. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. I want to eat, yet I see food as the enemy.

So Little Time

I had a lot planned today but didn't awake until after one PM though I went to sleep at midnight the night before. I was really tired yesterday and guess my body needed the rest. I wanted to go on-line and research my essay on the heart and print off the funding application of business, do some laundry and go out. I managed to take the laundry out the machine and put it on the maiden and heater to dry, call a friend who didn't want to go out and call my ma. So all in all didn't achieve much, oh and showered.

I wrote a letter to an old school friend asking if she wanted to meet when I was next in Devon. I have no idea why I would want to meet up with her but curiosity killed the cat so why not me? She can only say yes or no so what's the harm, you don't get answers pondering what she will say.

Another college day tomorrow ballet, jazz and body maintenance theory. I hope to get some of my choreography done as I have about thirty seconds of the group piece done and it has to be completed in two weeks. I'm contemplating changing the routine from The Death Of An Angel to something undecided. I think it will be better to keep it the same as I have plans in my mind and some of the choreography laid out.

I think I am at one of those changing points in my life where things that were unclear have become clear. If I get things prioritised then I can simplify my life and will free up time to concentrate on things else where. I need to e-mail this web site that has information on working abroad, finish my work including the business funding application and proposal, choreography, essay on effects of dance on the heart, presentation on dancers which eating disorders, finding a job, looking for what I am going to do in July, where I'm going to live and a job whilst I am up here. I have a lot to accomplish in a short space of time and most I hope to achieve over this weekend. Not to mention the usual house work, laundry, ironing, hovering and general cleaning but I will be able to do it all in two days, its not that much really. Also somewhere in there go to the gym and talk to a friend!

The plan-Friday: College, work on choreography piece, go to the gym, go to the job centre, put laundry on and iron once dried. Saturday: Work on essay and business proposal by getting information off the interment and completing them both, also whilst on-line e-mail about working abroad and go to the gym. Sunday: Clean my room and sort things out, work on my presentation and gather information on-line, update message boards and e-mail friends, phone my ma, work on my choreography and update my log book for it and do a home workout.
Well that's about it for the weekend which will be a busy yet very productive one. I'm fasting until Tuesday so at least I will have a lot to keep my mind off food and will get a lot of work out of the way and completed.

I don't for once have a lot to say as I've said a lot recently and am all out of thoughts!

Well its one twenty AM so I guess I better go to sleep, have to be up at eight AM.

Poem: I Too Have A Dream

I too want to float across the stage as if I were on ice.
I too want to wear the shoes of fame and to see my feet come alive.
I too want to dance all the lead roles in all the major ballets
and have Coppelia's, Cinderella's and Swan Lake's coming out if my toes.
I too have a dream.

To dance is to have a dream and to work for that dream why we train daily.
The fire in our calves after a rigorous workout is the same fire that rages through out stomachs.
Although the blisters sting and the swelling of our feet make us want to stop
the power over dance compels us to continue.

Hunger and starvation go together like tights and Tu Tu's.
The pressure for us to be the best helps us fight on.
Battles lost and won push us into starvation.

The media portrays thin as beautiful,
delicate as real.

I too want to dance and I too starve.
The power of dance is more than any above.
A supernatural force that gives us the strength when we are tired
and weak to follow our dreams and dance.
I too have the power to fight.
And I too want to win.

Someday I will take centre stage knowing what I have done was worth it,
my fight to the bitter end just to say
I too have a dream.

One Anorexic Amongst Millions

Like one individual among millions am I strviving for my ideal perfection only with me its not just my perfection, as a trained dancer my perfection determines weather I get the audition or not. Don't get me wrong obviously I need technique and style too but to attain a thin almost fragile outlook will get me a long way. As I train and audition I see that my current weight is holding me back from being the best I can possibly be. Standing in class amongst the slim students I can see the truth staring back at me. The mirrors are both my guidance and fall as my physique shows an over weight dancer in leotard and tights repulsive to the watching eye.

In this my final training year and I can see no future until I loose weight. I hide in class at the back of the dance studio in jazz trousers and baggy t-shirts. The only class I am willing to take centre stage for is ballet, my main strength and what I love the most in dance. I had the chance as a child to audition for The Royal Ballet School, London of which I did. To my luck I got in and was offered a place but because of my family's financial status didn't accept, if it wasn't for the money who knows where I would be right now. As for my weight, it wouldn't be an issue as The Royal Ballet have nutritionists who help maintain a low body weight.

For know I struggle almost daily to loose weight as my career as a dance depends on it. I do everything in my power to control the urges and cravings of nutrition that my body so desperately needs. I hear my stomach cry out yet I choose to ignore and perceiver with my aim firmly locked into my mind. Each morning I awake with a cigarette and a glass of water, preparation for the day ahead. Walking out the front door a eight fifteen AM everyday to train. The days pass and the night dawns upon me and so to do the constant cravings for food.
Going home means food, so why do I return? Well it is where I'm currently living and I have to at some point during the day. Its not easy being a dancing anorexic the fatigue, dizzy and blackout spells. At home I occupy myself with my laptop, phone, cleaning, exercising, the usual that every anorexic will know all to well. I take pills to help me loose, pills such as appetite suppressants, diet pills and laxatives. A few of these washed down with a large glass of water and diet soda is my diet and that alone. I don't sleep anymore not that I was ever a good sleeper. I lie night after night thinking about my weight, pondering how to pass the next day without consumption.
Its time for another cigarette, a grate appetite suppressant that will one day probably kill me if I nor anorexia doesn't get there first. I can see another long night ahead of smoking, diet soda and listening to music. I like music especially rock and metal. I know most people think its just a group of people shouting about hating life and wishing death upon themselves but its not, sure they do often sing about death but take the time, listen and you will hear more. They tell of their lives, trials and tribulations nothing lost is nothing gained. Starting back to the point when I was born I have been into music and sure I went through the phases of liking most music aside pop and chart for some reason I've never liked that particular style.

As a child from the moment I could walk I danced and have done since. Dancing is my life and all I have come to know aside eating disorders. If I could go back to the beginning would I be anorexic? Probably, is the answer although I would have tried to hide it better from my loved ones although when anorexia gets to a certain stage and its unmistakable as the signs are obviou you can no longer hide. If I could rewind time, which I can not do I wouldn't have eaten that packet of crisps that started one of many binges. I wouldn't have been so depressed, suicidal tendencies or harmed to the extent that the scars get constant attention. Yesterday I was in a theory class and someone commented on them saying they looked really bad. Its too late to turn the clocks back the damage has already been done and the scars shall forever remain permanent fixtures upon my wrists. The past is there for a reason, a reason for us to learn by. As for the future that's yet for fate or us to decided upon. For me it means striving for attainable perfection and not just in bodily form but dancing to. There are many things that can be changed and for many people that change can come sooner than you think. You only need to make minor adjustments and they soon add up to big ones, I mean that in every aspect weather imaginative or real.

Sitting hear in my room away from preying eyes I can be alone, be myself the over obsessive person I am. I think about everything here, I think of my family and friends both here and back home where I grew up. I think that as a child if only I tried more, put more effort in at dance class or school when I did attend, I didn't hate school I just never went. I thought why do I need good grades I'm a dancer but in this competitive world grades really count for so much. To apply for most jobs today you need certain qualifications to support you application as I found out sixteen. But I have what grades I have through my fault and my fault alone and there is no point dwelling on them wishing that I had tried a little harder because unless I want to resist there is little I can do.

The ever so familiar groans of my body are back and its time for another glass of diet soda with ice. A staple diet for thousands of anorexics. With the moans gone for the time being I can carry on dreaming of food. I could quiet easily put my trainers and a hoddie on and take a five minute walk to the local shop but I won't as what would be buying a packet of gum could turn into a gorging binge of poison. The moment has passed and against my bodies will remain tucked away in the safety of my room, alone with my thoughts for company and they are good company.

Planning tomorrow, another weekend day I contemplate what to do. I know I have to go on-line to gather information on an essay I need to complete and a form I need to re-print. I found it humorous that I am doing a presentation on eating disorders and how they effect dancers as I am one. I know this is going to be easy, the hard part is speaking it as if I was on the opposite side saying anorexia is something that I would never contemplate, though I am one. I find it increasingly easy to lie to everyone around me.

On the subject of deception I called my ma earlier today asking her to answer a questionnaire for my project on the effects of exercise on the heart and we got onto the subject of food like we always seem to do. I think its the fact when I call her its around dinner time and she is usually munching something down the phone to me. She often says that I never eat and when I do its half a carrot and a brussel sprout! She again said that I eat like a horse when I'm down remarking that I must be stocking up for when I come back up her, I only eat down there to stop arousing suspicion. The truth of the matter is I take food, even cook it and dispose of it either in the trash or give it to the dog and my family wonders why he follows me around!

Not surprisingly I always gain when I'm down as I am sure all of you know in my situation I have to eat as my weight dwindles suspicion arouses so to keep that at bay I consume. I recall the last long trip down when I got all those comments of my weight loss came daily. The first to notice was my dad who said "Hello slim" then followed that night my dance tutor and the children's parents at my old dance school. Comment of how slim I am these days and how much more confident I am. Even my little sister of sixteen years commented me that I need to watch how much I am loosing and to be careful that I don't develop anorexic. My little sister being one of my worst enemies was coming all over concerned. A few days passed and I went to my big sisters flat to see them me niece and she noticed. She asked me how I did it and I simply replied off the top of my head that I just stopped eating junk food and that was it and since then I have stuck to that reasoning for the sudden weight loss of over fifteen pounds in just six weeks. She stated on several occasions her jealousy of my new reformed body. My big sister is thin, all my sisters and brother are it was just me the tubby cute one hiding in the corner clutching onto life by a single cotton thread. I wonder what their reaction will be this time? I'm not expecting much as I haven't lost much this term at all, just one comment will do. Its those little comments from loved ones that make it all seem real and worth while.

Tomorrow's plan is finalised in my mind clear as day, although I don't sleep anymore day and night are blurred into one but its just a saying. I plan to sort out my fiancees and pills, go on-line to gather the information for my assignments and probably talk to my friends on there in the process. Take a shower and retreat to my room to finish my work, then continue choreographing my routine for another assignment, I am choreographing a jazz/ballet rock routine to Sweet Things Are Made Of These, a cover of the original sixties so, the reformed version by Marilyn Manson. My inspiration is the song Chop Sui by My favourite band System Of A Down and the theme is dead angels. There is an underlining theme that know one knows of considering anorexia and how everything is snatched away by it and the way we push people aside for it. Its strange how in everything we do the eating disorder we posses incorporates itself into it. Just the other term a starting out anorexic friend performed her solo dance routine on the disorder with harming and depression mixed in for effect. Everywhere we turn its there, it never leaves our sides like an obedient dog.

I no longer hide the fact I have this disorder but on the other hand I don't parade it nor shout it from the roof tops I'm just relaxed in a way I can go out with friends for lunch or a drink instead of denying me the please of company. This dose not mean I sit and eat with them, no, they have their food and good for them but I sit with a bottle of water or a iced diet soda. They don't question and at times I wonder why as I have all these excuses lined up. Sure they have asked once or twice and I simply say as a vegan there is nothing on the menu I would eat. They have asked me where they could go so that I can eat and I say there is nowhere and I will just eat when I get home. Its a different situation with my parents as back where they live and I grew up they know the places I can and have eaten at and on occasion have been known to take me there. I use the same excuses up here about I'm not hungry now, or not hungry yet, you get the general idea and usually it works but at some point I know I have to eat with them and give in to avoid confrontation.

My parents are still once again totally oblivious to my activities although my ma comments often enough over the phone how little I eat or as she puts it what I don't eat but I guess you have to know the signs before you can figure out what's going on and I just guess they don't. The rule doesn't necessarily apply all the time as a friend from there pointed out to me. He told me he figured out that I had anorexia when we first met at sixteen nearly five years ago. He saw the signs and just kept quiet which I appreciate and thank him for understanding what and why I do this to myself. I only in the past six months found this out no thanks to another male friend telling him confirming his thoughts were indeed correct. He told my friend from back home that he was concerned about my weight loss and my apparent suppressed appetite. Once confirmed I asked my friend from back home about it and why he thinks I'm anorexic and he replied, aside the obvious you never eat and when you do a lot of the time you are sick. I once asked you out for a meal and you replied that you were to much of a picky eater and wouldn't like anything on the menu even before a place was decided upon and we ended going out for a pint one of which I say was one of many that summer. One of the many good aspects about him is he said it was up to me what I wanted to do and he wouldn't interfere but to look after myself and he was here if I ever needed to talk about it or anything. Now that is a true person who is aware of things and is yet to pass no judgement to speak of and won't unless its called for. I wish everyone has such a supportive and genuine person like him weather male or female, Ed or non Ed because there is someone out there in this vast world who loves and cares about you its just a matter of finding them.

Life is a fickle strange phenomenon and holds many a unanswered question, what is the meaning of life? I have my interpretation of which is; Life is a journey of which we all go through. There are good times, bad times and the dammed ugly times but we pass through fighting to maintain out place in this life. Everything we do weather negative or positive we have our valid reasoning behind them.

I am a very physiological and deep person, artistic in my words and not ashamed to say. I look deep into the eyes of life looking for something of which I will speak of when I find it. I have a thousand unanswered questions and one day will poses answers to. For now I will continue surviving and living in this life until I or some unknown spirit says its time to leave and I will pass. I am not a religious person in any form but believe in the unknown and superior spirits that show themselves in me giving me the strength to fight the causes of life and thus being alive.
I have nothing to fill the sleepless nights aside listening to music and my laptop but somehow they pass relatively fast and before I know it its day once again. The moon stays out for a while with the sun rising in the east then retires until night falls around again. Another weekend day has passed and another has begun thus the fight against the temptations start up once again.

I blame life for making us with Ed's for making us who we are now not our parents for feeding us as children. My reasoning behind this is simple our parents taught us to eat as a means of surviving live working for a living. Eating is a habit we are brought up to indulge in and one that is hard to control let alone break but with practice and sheer perseverance perfectly attainable. In time our bodies will be able to cope without food it just needs training to survive off the air and water, a carefully thought out plan. I find that an increasing number of people have Ed's not just because they want to be thin but for far deeper and darker reasons and I too have those deep and dark reasons. Yes, the primary reason to us is weight loss but along with that is security, comfort, acceptance from within and from others. We all want to walk outside and feel comfortable that people stare for all the right reasons and not for the reasons of our imperfections. I know this for sure as when I reached my lowest weights I too was able to be free and I too had more confidence that people noticed and complimented me on.
My life at current is a confusing, complex. On of the highs and lows yet even at the lowest point I and held on to every strand of strength I had remaining in me. Taking this brighter outlook on life has had its problems I can assure you but it can and will work and I too like you attain what I want. Life is a waiting game, wait and work hard and you will see the rewards. My current state of mind not surprisingly is a mixed one, at present I feel empowered but I always do after writing but not to put a downer on myself know it will not last and I will be back writing of the darker side. For these precious hours I sit on my bed smoking telling the world of myself.
For the next week I will try keeping a positive outlook on everything, continuing to fight the world and media.

One day if I continue to write like I often do I might turn it all into a book along with all the related poetry I have written on anorexia, suicide, death and self harm, who knows? But for now I will continue to type and see where it leads. If I do publish this as a book I'm not sure that anyone would print it as it contains Ed's and all and people might not want to read it or people looking for an Ed will buy it and what good will that do, bringing people from the outside into our world. Nearly all anorexics and belimics will say don't do it and we write because their is no escape but we all started out the same, asking these very same questions, wanting the same thing, so why not let them be one of us if that's what they really want. They came looking like we did and we like them found what we were looking for. My opinion is this, they took the time out to find us and information to become Ed people too so why not offer them love and support? Why not welcome them in with open hearts? And why not let them discover the problems for themselves and make up their own minds?

Who knows what lies ahead, I might not be here tomorrow though probably will be you never know. For now this is all I have to say; Just be true to yourself regardless to what others may say. Enjoy your days here and be assertive.

Good night or good day depending on how technical you want to be considering its four fifty AM.

We are fighters to the very end and beyond.

Fallen-Angel
x

And The Reason For Life Is......?

I've done many things in my life so far that I am both proud to shout about and proud not to shout about. Take dancing for instance, its my life, all I know and love but its not all who I am. The real true me is only revealed behind closed doors away from this opinionated country I live in. I hide away each night wanting an end to it all, a way out. I want to be successful in life and my career but I don't know how to cope with life and everything it throws as me.

How do you cope in life?

Personally I punish myself for being who I am. I smoke, cut, overdose on medication and have anorexia. There is this whole theory of rewarding yourself but I have yet to find anything to reward. Sure I have my health, though at times it may not seem it, I have this opportunity of attending a dance college, support from friends and family, a home and clothes on my back. Many would give their left arm to be in my shoes, so why am I like this? I guess the saying is true that you don't know what you have until it's gone. when you struggle to achieve in order to better yourself.

Depression.

Something I have come to learn that will be constantly in my life. I've had sever depression for over three years solid and only know thinking about seeking help. Parts of me say go and get help talk to tutors, doctors, anyone but other parts say no your over reacting. Talking to friends helps but they can only say/do so much the rest is up to you. A professional's point of view may differ, I understand that in order to get better I have to want to.

"I wonder what it feels like not to be depressed"

To feel something good, what dose it feel like? The feeling of being remotely happy I have forgotten what thetas like. I'm scared. what if I don't like it? Can I go back to my comfort zone, retract and revert back?

This Life I Lead.

The fear of rejection lies heavy within my heart with the weight almost unbearable. Shadowing the positive with the negative is far easier than relseshing in good thoughts and feelings. Do you think its possible to block the bad our with the good? I know for sue that the other way is possible as I'm living proof of it.

At late I have been feeling dizzy for no apparent reason. My mood swings from OK to depressed and further down until I wait it out for the next; I feel OK mode.

"I'm a machine programmed for life but malfunctioning".

There is something inside me that eats away and there is no stopping it. gnawing away at my soul each day, soon nothing will be left but sheer hatred, self loathing and death.

The Voices In My Head.

For the time being I awake at 6am for work, college and then the gym. Routine and structures rule my every action, immaculately planned. Going in circles, repeating over and over like the voices in my head. Arguing over who is right; over powering/strong, weak/frail. There are many words from many voices discussing everything each arguing a point.

But Which One Is Right?

Dear Life....

This is going to be my final letter of confession as I can no longer cope alone.

I have changed over the past month so much partly for the good and partly for the bad. Over the Easter break I shut myself away from the outside world consumed with what's inside my own head. You weren't there for me and so I failed and its lead onto more sever consequences. After the Easter break and back from Kent (Heidi's parents) I still shut myself away from the world. I hide in the comfort of my room, I know longer sit in the lounge of my house nor talk to anyone. I have missed college and fear that I will fall behind. Its my final term and I need to attain the most I can from it. Tomorrow I will speak out and confide in a someone already knowing their diagnosis, see a doctor, see a phyc. Maybe it will help, maybe I gather the courage to open up and trust in those who have taught me well over the past two years. I know I said that I'd seek medical help for depression but never did, I felt inadequate of their time, effort and undeserving. I'm watching myself fail and I'm honestly scared from my wits that's why I need to talk to someone. I don't want to be in that place again where I couldn't leave the house, trapped inside my parents two years ago for four months only leaving to attend dance classes and when my ma dragged me to the supermarket.

Last year (2003/04) I was alone I had no one and I missed days of college and had sever depression. Everyone at college was oblivious to this aside a few people. One of those people has now become very close to me. My new founded best friend amongst others has been a life line, she understands me in ways that others don't. We talk and spend a lot of time together. I have opened up to her more than I have towards any other best friend. I talk less than I used to as she seems to have priorities lying else where not that I'm dissing her at all. After light of recent events things between us are strange I can't talk to her like I used to. I have discovered that she has disclosed personal and private information that I hold close to my heart to two people, one of which I wouldn't have minded knowing but would rather have told her myself if I wanted to and the other I wouldn't have spoke a word to concerning the matters.

Its Friday tomorrow and another college day that I must attend in order to talk about thing's in facing the outside world. I can't sleep because I don't want to leave my safe haven tomorrow and face the outside. It must get better if I want to succeed in my career. Sure I can step out on stage and perform but just walking in town is too much for me to take. This has got to stop sooner rather than later as I can't afford to miss college with final assessments due and the shows we need to prepare for. I'm scared just contemplating tomorrow. I posted on a message board I often go to and within five minutes I has two replies telling me to talk to people and to seek medical attention for their are medications out there that can help me. I'm not sure that I want to take them as people have been know to become dependant on them and some make you gain weight.

I applied for a job at Co-op today and hopefully I will be successful in my application. I would feel safe there I think as its close to my safe place (my room). I was walking back thinking this could do me good and get me out more.

I am changing my opinion on talking to people as time goes on like the same with my thoughts on my parents and family. I used to think my ma was the biggest bitch going but its not at all true she will do anything for me as loaning me the money to attend this college in little hope of repayment but I want to repay her even if it's only ten pounds a month. I owe my parents so much as they have sacrificed everything for us. When my little sister and I started dancing I was four and she started when she reached five. We took a lot from them aside their money and time, we took years of their lives just because we wanted to be dancers. My sister no longer dances and is currently at college in Devon studying child care and development. When my sister stopped dancing I felt that my ma thought she had wasted her money and dedication in making her the best she could be. I asked ma why she let Maria stop dancing and she replied that there was no point in paying our dance teacher when Maria didn't attend instead she hung out with her friends, that was her priority then and I guess at time its still is. She went off the rails and got into a lot of trouble and put my ma through hell for no reason except to rebel and be who she wants to be but look where it got her. She's only sixteen and after moving houses a several times using everyone along the way she is back living at our parents house. She used and took from close friends and relatives such as Uncle Roger and our big sister, Jennifer, for all they had and once she was done discarded them like a used carton. As for me I went through that stage too but on a far less scale. I wanted to stop dancing at thirteen too but for some reason with the dedication of my ma and Jenny, dance teacher, I continued. I wouldn't go as far as to say I hated it but I disliked dance for a while. I wanted to be a "normal" teenager and do the things they did like hanging out and sleepovers. The truth is you can do that and dance as I am proof . I used to hang out and as Alix my past school best friend knows and has experienced. When I stayed over hers I had to be back in time for my dance classes and on more than one occasion she has had to sit and watch the shows I did. She did that although she was annoyed that I did so much but I later found out it was pure jealousy that made us split up and never to talk again. She wanted to be like me but couldn't. I tired to help her by taking her to my local dance school and she participated in a few classes but when we talked to my dance teacher she stated that Alix would have to go in a lower level because she wasn't trained at all. She didn't like this and that is when I think it all started out. Another occasion was at KEVICC's (King Edward VI Community College), our secondary school, when we entered the talent show she sang and I dance in a duet to Fame together. I got applause from the sixth former's watching and she didn't get any. She was angry at me for stealing her limelight as I was just "her backing dancer". She claimed she did it for my sake as she didn't need me and she could do it alone but being my best friend she was doing me a "favour".

So why did you ask me then?

We watched the next act, it was a girl who did a ballet routine to Walking In The Air from The Snowman. In all honesty she wasn't that good her technique lacked style and performance but she did it alone and got through to the show and we didn't. I remember sitting there and watching her, thinking if I had just said no to Alix and did my own piece of ballet on pointe, I would have got into the show but being a best friend I stuck by her and it got me nowhere. She changed me in so many ways and I came off worse for it. I thought the world of her and the things she did made me think I was so "sad" the truth of the matter is I was sucked into her world and came out a broken person. Another instance was in year nine when I got my brace and she talked me into not wearing it. It took a lot of courage for me to visit the dentist and get the brace that I never wore. I have a huge phobia of them as when I was ten I had fourteen baby teeth removed and four when I was twelve. The second time I got my teeth removed it was at a place called Castle Circus and I was treated like a piece of meat. Within less than an hour of the operation, still asleep from the anaesthetic I was shoved out the door. I couldn't stand let alone walk down the stairs and to the car park. My ma and a porter had to practically carry me out. I blame Alix to this day for my crooked teeth though it was my fault for listening and believing in her.

She lured me into her trap and like a fly I went.

We had many arguments as I tried to break free but she made me feel so worthless and low I felt I needed her and would be nothing without her, I longed to be myself. Eventually after a few years and a lot of arguing I left her. By this time it was half way through my first year of college at sixteen and by then the damage was already done but I'd had enough. She started copying me but told others it was the other way around. She wanted me to teach her to dance and I did for a while but she was uncooperative so I stopped. I refused to as she wanted my help but was trying to correct me. She told me I was doing it all wrong the girl with no training to name of. She wanted to be a ballet dancer like off the videos her ma brought her but didn't understand that to get to their level you need to start at the beginning.

She always came across as she was better than me and I believed she was. Everyone around saw otherwise and although they kept telling me I was blind to her mind games. I ignored and pushed away my friends and family shutting them out when all they wanted to do was to open my eyes to her, show me what she was really like. I wish that I saw it before and believed everyone over her. Everyone that told me to ditch her as she was holding me back even my little sister saw what she was doing to me and yet I hung off her every word. I found it amusing that my family refereed to Alix as "The bitch from Dartmouth". It was her jealousy that broke me down and how gullible I was to believe she knew best.

Who was she to dictate my life?

After a huge fight in college one day involving Amy, Louisa, Alex, her current boyfriend and I, I ditched her. At first everyone was like how can you do that to your best friend but they too soon saw the light and were on my side. They helped me rebuild my life in so many ways. They told me I don't need her, that I am better than her and have so much to give they proved to me I had talent in dancing and acting.

I was finally free from her.

I had very little confidence around her as she made me feel so low and unworthy. She broke me down to almost nothing. I have to say that I think my family were proud that I had shaken her off. I was me again, I able to speak freely and do what I wanted and didn't think of how Alix would see me. Sure she made remarks and comments but with the whole college class backing me up I fought my way through. I had new friends that were proud of my achievements and liked me for who I really was. Friends like Lou and Amy though Amy did the same as Alix and used me to get what she wanted last year.

My freedom from controlling friends who dictated my life was short lived when I moved up to Liverpool a year after Amy did. She claimed and still dose to this day that I copied her, followed her to Liverpool. We used to go on nights out but I was the ugly friend of the pretty girl and she was the one who got all the attention. This really cut me up both mentally and physically. Although guys are not my main priority but they were then. I didn't want to be alone as she had many after her I felt obliged to stick by her, little that did for me.

I kept thinking why me?

I then took to my room and once again started cutting only this time is was worse I cut on a daily basis. I became ana (Anorexic) once again thinking if I was thin I could pretended I was happy and could be loved but this wasn't true, not at all in fact it made me worse. I overdosed constantly and at one point was on a daily basis as soon a I came around from the last dose I took more. A few months went passed and for those few months I have very little recollection. My main memories of that time was in my room lying on the bed severely depressed unable to cry. Motionless I lay day after day not thinking of what I was doing aside taking more pills to pass the days praying that I wouldn't ever wake up. You see that's why I say I am surprised that I am still here today. I guess I should be grateful that their was a guardian angel watching over me something spiritual that brought me round after each time. Those months were filled with suicidal thoughts, attempts, cutting and severe depression.
I've never been a crier, I am unable to shed a tear aside blood stained ones.

My grades at the end of last year shocked me to the point of no return. I only achieved Passes aside one Merit from Seleine the jazz tutor. That cut really deep and I mean that literally. It sounds big headed but I'd never received a pass before and to get passes in something I love so much was really hard to accept. I denied the grades for a long time finally coming to terms that I was a failure at something I thought and was told I was good at. I am so ashamed about them and have told no one of them. I guess they are justified as I missed college for a while and I didn't feel worthy as Amy had broken me down to nothing just like Alix had done in previous years. I didn't perform to the my best ability as I felt there was no point because I didn't deserve this place and there are hundreds of other dancers who are far better than me.

So what makes me different to them?

I have yet to this day tell my parents that I got those grades. I hate to lie to them but if they knew they would be so disappointed and would feel they have wasted their time and money in me, a dancer who scraped a pass. I told them I got all Merits and a Distinction in ballet, my main strength. I can never tell them the truth, ever.
I returned to Devon on July second for a summer that I wasn't looking forward to. During the summer I worked at Woodlands Leisure Park in Totnes. I've always enjoyed working there but that time it was strange I felt cut off and distant from the other Rangers. The last summer (2004) I met up with Rick whom I used to work with at Woodlands in the children's play areas. We hadn't seen each other for nearly two years. We were pretty close and always had this special bond that we hold to this day. He split with his girlfriend of two years for a month of happiness with me.

Why would you sacrifice it all for me?

He told me I have so much to give and although I'm totally different to the bubbly lively person he once knew and loved things will change for the better, he promised. Obviously at that low state I didn't believe him at all but her was right there was more to life than depression, harming and suicide, a lot more.

This year started well. I had gained confidence knowing that one person aside my ma and Rick truly believed in me. I met Heidi who is like me in so many ways, we like the same style, music, share the love for ballet and performing. I started becoming true to myself not caring what people thought of me. I wore what clothes I wanted, listened to what music I liked and people's opinions didn't matter. Heidi like me started off in a new city away from home and she too tried to fit in by being like the majority but found herself not being true to herself, the person that mattered the most. We are different, we don't fit the normal status of dancers. My confidence grew and everyone noticed and commented. I also lost weight and my class who had outcasted me started talking to me like I was one of them and it felt good. Then Anthony whom I had become close to me called me one day saying said he had to leave. I was upset to say the least because although the group had started talking to me I still was the out caste. The person who I worked with on our duet had gone and I was once again left alone. I still have Heidi don't get me wrong but Anthony was in all of my classes and made things seem all right. I started talking to Chloe more and more, I feel that I am helping her in some way. I paired with her for business assignment. She asked me to help her as I find business easy and she didn't so we worked through it together.
The new reformed me didn't last as this recent tern of events shows. I'm afraid to leave the house, how stupid is that? I can't step out into the world I twice feared but got over and now its back and at the most important time of the year. I want to move on and leave all the depression, harming and suicidal thoughts behind. They haunt me daily to the point of giving it all up. Its past Four am and yet I can't sleep as the thought of college tomorrow is making me nauseous.

These past few years of my life in short hand are contained in these five pages. It doesn't seem a lot but it is, its Crystal clear in my mind. But what to do now, my current situation is getting once again out of hand and I don't know what to do. Its still night but technically morning. Its time to attempt sleep though seems doubtful but perseverance might just pay off. Who knows what tomorrow may bring, a new hope, some guidance, a shadow of light?

"The once again Fallen-Angel that kept on falling until she hit the bottom never to return is slipping back".

Again

The nights drag as I find it harder to sleep although I'm tired. I smoke to fight the urges to cut and overdose. Lying here I feel the shame of my fatness.

Today at college I couldn't dance to the best of my ability as I'm weighed down with inch after inch of pure fat. Every lump and bump fully on display for the class to see.

I want to hide in comfort of death.

I'm so tired yet I can't sleep. Am I to engrossed to sleep? I've smoked so much at late I'm beginning to shake. I want another one but only have one and will need it for morning as I have to get up at 5:30am for work.

Each day I get fatter and the words of ana scream out for me to stop.

Stop eating you obese cow.

I've taken six lax though I want to take them all. I hate myself so much words nor actions can no longer portray.

Fuck this world and its beautiful place.

Why was I even born?

A night of passion for my parents ended with the birth of me and my life of hell. I was at one point considering seeking professional help of my depression but I'm not even worthy of that. Any chance of happiness has gone.
I lie here in my bed listening to the Rasmus, Dead letters. On the windowsill a lavender candle burns. Tomorrow is another day and if I wasn't working wouldn't leave the house. I don't want to go to college. Last year I missed college because of my shame. My worthless self, fucked up mind and abused body.

I thought I could be happy, maybe one day I will know what its like to smile or laugh naturally.
I feel physically sick at the thought of myself breathing. Maybe I should stop.

Cross the borderline.

Rip the blade across my wrists please, the blood will soon come. Its purity will show me the way. Releasing the fat by passage of veins.

There is blood where I write.

I'm writing these words as the blood drips down my wrist. Soaked up by a tissue the purest form of escape is realised, running free at last. The poison is leaving.

Not even my blood wants to ramain in me.

The blood is warm against my pale cold skin.

I need to cover as I have to face the world again tomorrow. Bandages and bracelets are once again coming out.

Do I have any regrets?

Yes, that I didn't cut deeper, press harder with the blade.

Feeling the realise it total euphoria. I am desperate to do more but for now the cutting is over. The underside of my right wrist is nothing aside red, covered in blood. I feel no pain, not even burning from the blade, nothing, numb. I'm relaxed now and feel I am able to sleep. I'm living up to my name: Fallen-Angel.

Its time to sleep now and rest my head upon my pillow. Close my eyes just for a while. So until the morning light appears good night.

Fallen-Angel x

Worried?!

Its the first week back from spring break and I have yet to attend college. Well, I say yet in the aspect I went to college Monday in time for contemporary but due to timetable changes the lesson had been moved. As for the other three days I just haven't been able to leave the house or sleep. I'm scared that the once fear of stepping outside may once again return and I will be trapped inside. AS for the sleeping aspect we all know that I've never been a good sleeper but past recent weeks its been really bad.

I spoke to someone from college and she said people at college are worried about me as I haven't been in and Denise (Ballet and jazz tutor) was expressing concern. After all this time when I thought if I died people wouldn't notice that I was gone.

I was to say the least shocked.

They recognized that I was real, alive and not an invisible devil worshiping Goth. Yah, They think that as I'm a Goth that I must worship the devil.

Devil worshiping Goth.

Little do those naive scousers know about cult beliefs. You know I feel like doing black magic on then, teach them a lesson, vodo dolls with pins and needles.

They better watch it.

Although I'm feeling strange that they acknowledge my very exsistance!