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
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