Fallen-Angel

Dancing Injuries

2008-07-09T04:51:00.002+01:00

Last night was the last class of the term which has somewhat depressed me because it means six weeks of no classes aside the odd class over the summer holidays.

Last night was jazz which almost killed me though my flexibility seems to have improved somewhat but could always do with further improvement. After that class was ballet and that's when the problem began, again. During the barre work my knee cracked loudly and extremely painfully but I thought nothing of it and carried on as usual.

No pain, no gain and all.

Then we did pointe (toe) work which in my head was a good idea though my knee really hurt. Sure I managed it but by the end I was in agony. I very sorry fully limped home and crashed out.

Hours and hours on my knee is getting worse. I can't straighten it or completely bend it. It's nicely swollen and puffy looking too.

I'm annoyed at my body-not myself because I have an important dance audition at the end of August and I need to practice like mad for it.

Does my body not know these things?

Couldn't it have waited to break?

Right now I'm really worried I'll end up on crutches again because of it.

It's really not a good time to be injured!

Fallen-Angel

Better The Devil You Know

2008-06-24T00:36:00.005+01:00

Say you won't leave me no more
I'll take you back again
No more excuses no, no
'Cos I've heard them all before
A hundred times or more

Unlike my usual self the lyrics of Better the devil you know are the best format of putting my thoughts into words. I'm not usually one for being short of words but for now they have somewhat avoided me. They are not my thoughts least I don't believe them to be, they are words of the darker voice that reins inside my head. Voices that I thought had vacated the empty space between my ears but have returned with a bigger force.

Something happened late last night, something that has changed me and that change is why I'm sitting her eating boiled vegetables in gravy, hungry. A thought came into my head, it spoke to me in a soft but serious voice. It told me that the fun and games are over and that its time to get serious. It went on about how I was alone (without this voice) for a longtime, how it was a test of my ability, test of my strength and willpower. This voice which I used to call Ana has over taken my rational voice of thinking replacing it with rituals and routines just like it did before.

I'm not fighting this persistent voice because I've always believed it to be right. I have however in the past tried to fight it and prove it wrong but I've never quite managed to, so for now I'll just follow it through and see what happens.

Nothing can go wrong, can it?

Fallen-Angel

When, Why and How?

2008-05-25T04:10:00.004+01:00

When did everything become so complicated, when did it all get too much and when did life decide to kick me in the ass?

When was the point of no return?

Why me, why does this keep happening to me?

How is this possible and how can I change?

When did it all go wrong and why?

I have so many questions just like the ones about that float through my mind 24/7, I can't answer a single one of then but it doesn't stop them asking me.

We are told that smoking, taking drugs, drinking and this, that and the other will kill us or give us cancer but what won't kill us? I, for one will not live my life without the things I enjoy like smoking because when I do die I want to say, well I didn't live my life pure I did smoke, drink and starved myself. I did try to take my life, I did hurt myself and for the most part it didn't feel good but I still did it.

Why prolong the inevitable?

We are all going to die eventually.

Fall

And So It Goes On

2008-04-11T21:00:00.004+01:00

I've been working at the cafe now for two weeks and I'm still enjoying it but the hours just aren't enough so I'm on the hunt for another part time job and I think I've found one. The job is a sleep in support worker two nights a week-Friday and Saturday 8pm-8am at £24 a night. The job involves answering emergency calls and nothing else. Sounds perfect and just what I need to top up my earnings.

I am also setting up my own little business for Ebay. I'm not going to divulge just yet my intentions business wise in case I jeopardise myself before I've even begun. All I'm prepared to say is that it has cost me twenty pounds to set up.

I've finished the book I was reading-The Invisible Girl by Peter Barham the daughter of the late Debora Ann Barham who at the age of 26 died of heart failure from Anorexia. The book is different from what I normally read though I'm not a conventional reader only having interest true stories of Anorexia. Debora Barham or Debs/D.A Barham was a highly intelligent sadistic comic writer. She wrote for every type of media from magazines and newspapers, to television and books, what ever the media she Concord it. What makes this book differ from others I've read is that the story is told by her father Peter Barham rather that the Anorexic themselves. It's more heart wrenching to read a father's story of how his beloved and successful daughter starved herself to just over four stone and died alone in her London flat.

A quote below is D.A Barham's version of the lords prayer via Tesco.

Our cashier
who art at Tesco
Sharon be thy name
Thy customers come
Thy tills be rung
On Sundays and in the week

Give us this day our daily bread
(only 35p for one large loaf down in price for all this month)
And forgive us our pushing past a pensioner to grab the last cream horn
As we forgive who leave a jar of fish paste on the cake shelf just to annoy us

Lead us not into temptation
(Although chocolate Hobnobs have 50% extra free and after all are too good to resist)
But deliver us the six-piece patio set we bought on impulse
within 28 days or our money back
For thine is an open shop, the deli and in-store bakery
For six hours each Sunday

Amen.

D.A Barham.

The book really touched me at how isolating being an anorexic is and that by wanting myself to be isolated is related and not me being retarded.

May she rest in peace at her burial in London.

Fallen-Angel x

Mansion Cafe

2008-04-08T19:46:00.004+01:00

I started last Wednesday, technically should have been Tuesday but I didn't answer my phone or return the call to the agency.

I just didn't feel like talking that day.

The cafe is small with nine tables inside and four outside. The serving area is small but well organised just like the tiny kitchen of which I've seen bigger bathrooms! The walls are yellow and it has the distinct air of a fine eateries.

The food is organic, free range, fair trade and all home made on the premises which means none of this processed junk the type you take from a box and stick in the oven or deep fat fry like many eateries and many people do at home. We don't even have a deep fat fryer.

No chips for you!

The cook and boss is a lovely lady who looks after her staff and customers so well ensuring everyone is happy and pleased something you don't often come across. She prides herself on her work and it's well receive via all giving great positive feedback of her cooking and rightly so.

Other staff are really nice, friendly and helpful though there aren't many of them as the cafe only requires two front of house staff.

A typical day starts with me sorting out the display fridge and preparing the various salads after making myself a cup of tea. Most mornings are very quiet with only a handful of customers most only wanting coffee.

The coffee-well that's a whole new trick for me! There's regular filtered coffee, decaf, espresso, cappucchino, Americana, mocha, frapie-mocha-boca-thingy coffee and more! I'm still in a state of confusion about this coffee thing and how to make any of them! I think I've mastered espresso, cappucchino and obviously filter but the rest might as well be in Greek for all the sense it makes to me.

I'm learning, slowly but I'm getting there.

I serve the customers, take food orders and make some, take money, waitress though not much and help keep the place tidy.

Time flies between twelve thirty and two thirty when all of a sudden everyone comes in and orders meals.

I get quite a lot of perks working in the cafe; free drinks, any drinks, any meal I want for lunch, cigarette breaks when I want and I go half an hour early so I don't have to wait around forty minutes for my bus but I still get paid till the end of my shift.

The job is permanent if I want it which I think I do.

Fallen-Angel

On And On And On........

2008-03-29T02:09:00.002Z

That's how it goes, right?

Nothings really changed-does it ever?

I still don't have a permanent job nor a place to live not that I could afford it right now.

I've been working for Wise Employment doing various jobs but the works dried up and I'm stuck at home day after day which doesn't help my mental state.

Mum and dad came back from their holiday about two weeks ago and things are back to normal or what can be called normal which is quite the opposite of the meaning of the word.
Dad continues to ignore me and mum just moans and groans about everything which I think makes her happy.

A lot of things have been plaguing my mind and on the top of the list is my eating followed closely by my relationship.

My eating is out of control, I'm terrified that I will eat all the weight I lost and be back to my fatter self, that self that made me attempt to take my own life on more than one occasion. After thinking deeply about this I came to the conclusion that it's living here that makes me want to eat because that's what I did before when I lived here. When I moved to Liverpool I lost loads of weight and the same happened when I lived in Kent. Living at my parents drags back all the memories that I'd tried so hard to forget when I moved away but here they are always around me dragging me down.

I keep making plans and writing out diets but it's hard here to stick to them especially when my own parents think I'm Bulimic-which I'm not. I also have to be very careful about planning diets because I don't want to arouse suspicion with what I'm eating.

I can't wait to move out and to be free of the rents.

Moving out means the world to me and I don't even care where I live. I want to have control over my life again, I want to do what I want when I want and eat whatever plan I create without people watching over my every move.

My relationship. I don't even know where to start with this subject as it's been going on for a longtime and I don't know if things will ever return to how they used to be or even if I want that.
We've been getting more and more distant over the months, less of the "I love you", less of the cuddles and romance, and none of anything else including the spark. I know I started this downwards spiral with my mental state being all over the place. I feel low and depressed and when I feel like that/this I don't want to be touched, kissed or cuddled and I push everyone away. Things are strained, she's moody and cold and I'm distant and non responsive.

I've been questioning weather or not I actually want to be in the relationship anymore, questioning my love for her and questioning if old flames buried deep still burn for another person.

I'm lost between how I feel and how I "should" feel.

I hope that once we move things will improve because if they don't then I don't know what I will do.

Maybe it's what I truly want but can't admit to, I'm so lost and confused I can't tell between what is real and what's just in my head.

It's all very confusing.

Fallen-Angel

"I Want You Out!"

2008-03-16T14:04:00.003Z

Roughly three weeks ago mum suddenly announced that she wants me to move out. Yes me, she didn't mention anything about my girlfriend though she probably thought that where I go she'll follow which is true to a certain extent.

Her reason?

We don't get on, there are too many women in the kitchen and unless she means that literally then I have no idea what she means by:

"Too many women in the kitchen"

I have phoned numerous flats and apartments up but the majority fall into two categories: too expensive or already let. We have so far viewed two that we thought we could afford.

Number 10, Torquay.

corridor to the staircase. To the right of the staircase is situated the "laundry facilities"-a washer and dryer not suitable for dead rodents to be buried in let alone do laundry in. Walk through the main entrance door, along a long, dark royal blue decorated and uneven. Climb the endless uneven, dark, royal blue decorated stairs to the top. Right up the last, narrowest, steepest and most spiraled staircase and vola the front door. A sixty something year old man, snuffly dressed in ill fitting trousers and an old grandad jumper with bad teeth, some missing put a key in the door and opened it. There were two reasonably sized bedrooms with enormous closets big enough to almost live in, the worlds most beaju bathroom that was no bigger than a broom closet had a peach toilet with matching plastic towel rail hidden behind the door and the worlds smallest shower cubicle that not even I could turn around in. The kitchen was small and compact. The contents: a dirty hoboed cooker with a dirty sink and matching cupboards and work surfaces, and a junk yard ready fridge freezer big enough for a few says shopping at it's most. The lounge was of reasonable size with a god awful floral three piece suit. All the floors were uneven, the carpets had seen far better days and the whole flat smelt of sweat and old urine-certainly not for us or anyone to inhabit.

And then there was the perfect two bed roomed flat above a tattooist in Torquay.

Through the peeling black painted entrance and up two flights of stars freshly carpeted but in need of a hoover and past the one bed roomed flat. Open the door and enter the freshly painted hallway with facing toilet which was white and clean. The hall lead on to a long kitchen which was modern and clean consisting of: pine cupboards with chrome handles, glass top electric cooker, stainless steel clean sink and clean work spaces. There was optional washing machine and fridge that had seen better days but was decent.The floor was laminated but needed a sweep and the rest of the flat was carpeted. Adjacent to the kitchen was two decent sized bedrooms with period black steel fireplaces. Following to the end of the kitchen was the lounge which again had a period black fireplace. Just off to the right before the lounge was the bathroom which had a white sink and a glass and silver shower cubicle big enough for two, all was cleaned to a high standard. What really caught my eye was all the cute little windows with white painted wooden surroundings, they were everywhere. Everything in the flat fitted together and worked well.

So what's the problem?

The agent who showed us around on behalf of the elderly landlord dropped a bombshell. It would cost around £700 a month to run the flat inclusive of all bills plus £400 deposit, way more than we can afford right now. We both left feeling down about this wonderful flat.

I've come to the conclusion that we can not afford a flat on our own, we need help so I've contacted the housing council and they may be able to help up with their "rent deposit" scheme. I have to phone Monday morning to get an appointment.

Fingers crossed.

Fallen-Angel

How I despise you and your home

2008-03-16T12:24:00.003Z

Time for another update on my pathetic little life.

In this post Burlington House and the boss from hell.

At some point in the summer mum and I were in Pound stretcher in Paignton when mum spotted Amanda (I know I don't normally use names but it's either that or "The bitch"), her ex boss. Mum asked Amanda, who was holding a boxed iron, weather she had any vacancies for me. Amanda and I chatted for a while about my experience in support roles and said she'd be in touch.

I started working at Burlington in September of 2007.

My first week was boring as I sat in the quiet lounge reading care plans for thirteen residents none of whom I'd ever seen let alone met.

My second week and the progressive weeks that followed I was shown how to do the day to day things like bathing, supporting, monies and toileting-yes, changing pads and watching clients use the toilet. I didn't sign up for care work, I was informed that the job was support worker and I know for a fact support workers do not toilet residents, that's the job of a carer.

The weeks and months that followed bored me, made me feel worthless, un-needed and low. Deep depression reared it's ugly head and once again I was plummeted back into the lows of life.

I had no passion, no will or want for this job. I would go as far as to say I hated it and just like Orhcard view dreaded going in each day but did anyway like a robotic, depressed moron.

It was like the long road to the death chamber on the green mile movie.

After a week's annual leave at the end of February I did my final shift. It was a Monday afternoon and I forced myself against all my will to go in. I told myself all the way there on the bus that I just need to keep faking it until something better comes along but there was no faking it anymore. As hard as I tried I just couldn't fake that I was happy there, it was crystal clear to all that I was depressed and on the edge of no return. I spent most of my shift either talking to another member of staff or outside trying to compose myself-trying to stop myself blowing up and walking out.

I texted Amanda that night and told her I wasn't coming back. We spoke the next afternoon and try as she did there was no convincing me to work there anymore. She went on and on about how I'd let her down and that it was in the terms and conditions of my job that I'm obliged to give a weeks notice to which I told her I wouldn't be prepared to do.

I didn't sign a contract to her or the company so what could she do?

Over the following days a huge weight lifted from my shoulders and the dark cloud started to lighten though it still lingered like a bad smell.

Fallen-Angel

A long time coming

2008-03-16T11:25:00.007Z

For a longtime now I've forgotten about this blog, forgotten all these words I used to write of pain and sorrow but now I'm determined to post on a regular basis once again.

I had two teeth out under anaesthetic at Torbay hospital in December 2007.

The night before I hardly slept because I was anxious about the operation. My girlfriend reluctantly came with me though she couldn't stay awake to be with me mentally. You know sometimes just being there in the flesh isn't enough especially at a time like this.

A time when I really needed her to be there for me.

I went in for my assessments and consultations only I had three when others had one which I found very odd but soon came to realise they were concerned about my irregular heartbeat and the episode at McDonald's.

After I adorned the national hospital gown and robe and I walked alone to the preparations room as my girlfriend was fast asleep in the waiting room. I lay on the bed and watched as two women and one man attached a heart monitor, BP clip and band, an ECG machine and put a line of fluid into me. They aimlessly chatted to me pretending they were interested in what I had to say but were really trying to distract me from what they were doing.

Then came the time for the anaesthetic.

They talked some more to me until I pointed out that I knew what they were going to do and reverse physiology on me doesn't work. They stopped and told me straight as they administered the anaesthetic.

My stomach sank so deep into the bed I thought it was going to fall through the bed to the floor, my heart rate increased by almost double, I felt sick and dizzy, and then I was gone, asleep.

Just over an hour later a woman was calling my name over and over telling me to wake up. Apparently they were getting very worried because it had been twenty minutes since they first tried to wake me. The nurse said she was just about to get the doctor to give me the reverse drug for anaesthetic.

I was laying on my right side with the guard rails up. I could hear the monitors beeping and people talking but I couldn't see or hear clearly.

I started to cry: "I want my mum"

The nurse asked if she was in the waiting room, well, that really set me into hysterics as I cried:

"No, she's on holiday".

Strange as it sounds, which is was, the next thing I did was ask for a cup of tea!

Sometime passed and I found myself being forcibly sat up as some nurse pushed the top half of the bed into a up right position and drew the curtains around me. It took me a while to realise that I'd fallen back to sleep and was now in a recovery cubicle and not on the intensive care recovery room.

I'm not sure if I asked for my girlfriend but at some point she appeared through the curtains. She looked sleepy and started talking to me, something about a cash machine and that she'd had a cigarette. I asked her to get my clothes from my designated locker as I wanted to wear something dignified, something more than a gaping gown which kept falling off my shoulders revealing my all to whom ever opened the curtains.

I think I drifted off again shortly after I regained my dignity because I opened my eyes to a nurse placing toast and a plastic cup of water on the table. I had already pre-determined that I wasn't going to eat anything that day but when it came to it I just couldn't face it. The sight of toast when you feel very groggy, sick and have a face swollen like a hamster's filled pouches eating tends to be the last thing on your mind.

My girlfriend at first tried to persuade me but then she tried forcing me to eat the fucking toast saying as soon as I eat it then we'll be able to get out of the hospital. I turned my back on her, curled into a ball and cried my eyes out as flashbacks of being forced fed came flooding back- painful memories.

A doctor came round a while later to check on me and he took my drip out saying nothing about me not eating the toast. He said I could leave once my medication arrived. My girlfriend then tried to dress me/help dress me but I wasn't ready for that either. She said if I got dressed then we could go straight after my medication came because she hated hospitals and with that I got really upset and angry, I said to her that she didn't have to come with me and that she could leave anytime she wanted.

After my medication arrived I eventually got dressed and staggered out of the hospital and walked to some steps where I sat and had a cigarette. I know I shouldn't have but I wanted one, so I did. A taxi arrived and we went home.

I spent the rest of the day in a daze on the sofa in some discomfort and a little pain. I ate nothing and drank through a straw.

Fallen-Angel

The Wedding Of The Year

2007-08-16T23:45:00.006+01:00

The once rebellious and troubled teen reformed into the perfect Christian (almost) and the guy from the youth club said their vowels today in the Rivera Christian Centre, vowels of love, devotion, worship and happily ever after endings.

My little sister who is nineteen years of age is married long term to the love of her life.

How strange it is to say that out loud.

My little sister and I have never really seen eye to eye, we're very different people and the only thing that makes us sisters is the fact we have the same parents.

We were all up early pruning ourselves: mum and dad, my little sister, Auntie and her son-our cousin and my girlfriend and I. The maid of honour was running an hour late so I accompanied my little bride to be sister to the hair salon at the end of our road. The maid of honour arrived, I was no longer needed or wanted so I walked home.

It was raining.

I spent the next few hours straightening my big sister's, her daughter's, my girlfriend's and my hair with my new Treseme straighteners.

At some point mum did her usual thing just like she did at my brother's wedding and went off in a huff because no one was paying her any attention. It's really quite pathetic for a grown a woman, a wife and a mother to act like a child to gain attention, attention she didn't get. Her longtime friend was at our house too but she chose to ignore her too which was very insulting and I felt bad for her.

The flowers arrived and we all set off in various cars to the church, my little sister and parents leaving last.

At the church we all took our seats and watched the service which to my surprise was short and nice, obviously mum didn't approve but she never does.

Will mum ever approve anything her children do?

After the service we stood in the drizzle trying not to get too wet for the photos. I hated that part but put on a brave face and did what I had to do.

The reception was in a function room down Paignton sea front. The room was nicely decorated, there was a buffet, balloons, place settings and a head table. Later on there were speeches and tears, more pictures and then some of us braver ones danced to the quite crap DJ.

We all left around eleven pm and headed our separate ways.

The following day Auntie and cousin went home much to the relief of everyone. Mum was still moaning and complaining about the whole wedding but one by one we tuned her out.

Fallen-Angel

I'm a bitch

2007-08-10T02:21:00.001+01:00

Take a scapulae to my gum?!

2007-08-07T23:03:00.000+01:00

I woke up last Thursday with a pain in my broken tooth, a tooth I broke on my girlfriend's cooking last year. The pain intensified and by Friday night I was crying in agony. Saturday I went to work with my big sister cleaning a holiday park. The pain didn't cease with umpteen amounts of paracetamol. I ended up crying at work and being sick due to the sheer amount of painkillers I took that morning.

Saturday night I was supposed to go out with a friend who was down from Birmingham who I'd meet in Liverpool. Instead I spent the evening in casualty with my big sister and dad who waited in the car.

I was thinking about suicide.

My big sister and I waited and waited to get some pain killers. She sat cooing at the babies whilst I rocked curled in a ball crying histerically. I took several trips to the toilets and banged my head hard on the wall hoping I could bash the pain out of me but to no avail. Eventually I got some pain pills and anti-inflammatory pills. Needless to say I didn't sleep much that night.

Sick as a dog.

The pills make me throw up everything including water. I couldn't eat because it hurt too much and I constantly felt sick.

Sunday my mum managed to get me an appointment at the emergency dentist in Newton Abbot. We went over by bus as mum can't drive because she's hurt her shoulder.

I threw up in Paignton town centre.

At the dentist I was told I have an infected abscess on my gum and he needs to cut my gum to let the infection fluid out. I couldn't have an anaesthetic because of the swelling so with nothing to assist with the pain her took out a scapulae and cut my gum open.

Oh my fucking god did that hurt and bleed!

I threw up again in the in the toilet in the surgery and again outside.

It was a mission to get my prescription of antibiotics because all the pharmacies were closed. We ended up in casualty again. They didn't have the antibiotics I was prescribed but they gave me some other Strong ones.

Monday I got the original prescription.

I start taking my medication at 7am and don't finish till 11pm.

I've never known this much pain, pain to the point I want to kill myself and it's not over yet! Tuesday I have to have the tooth taken out and I'm going to be awake!

My girlfriend is going to be paying for this for a very long time both financially and otherwise.

Fallen-Angel

Mum, we're moving home!

2007-08-07T22:48:00.000+01:00

After my hospital trip I got my girlfriend to phone work telling them that I wouldn't be coming back.

Money as I've mentioned was very tight but things got a lot worse and there was no way I could afford to pay the rent and bills so something had to give, but what?

The flat had to go.

A week was all it took to arrange the move, pack and move.

My brother and his mate came up on Saturday, packed everything into a van and I left with them heading for home, my parents home. My girlfriend has had to stay in Kent to work notice at her job and sign the flat over but she will be joining me here in Devon by the end of August.

The first few days at my parents house were like a trip down from Liverpool but I soon came to realise that I'm here for good, not forever at my parents house but in Devon.

I've been getting out and about more, seeing and doing things that I wouldn't have living in Kent. I've been to the beach, seen friends and family and for a long time not felt alone. It's all still surreal but over time I will get used to being back in a familiar place.

I think I will be happier here.

Fallen-Angel X

Call 999 For me

2007-07-25T22:07:00.000+01:00

My first day at McDonald's was okay as far as first days at new jobs go. I was working the drive thru till with another girl taking orders, money and giving out straws and tissues in bags. Between cars we made up Happy Meal boxes.

The second day I was back on the same till but I was alone and boy did I make a lot of mistakes! You can't change and order without the supervisors card and each time I asked for it I got yelled at! Half the time it wasn't even my fault because customers change their minds too!

Hell, give the new girl a break and stop yelling at me!

From the start I didn't really want to be there but I made the most of the situation. I hated the staff they were stuck up and rude not that they had anything to be stuck up about and the uniform was horrid.

Two and a half weeks later I was late for work and had to get a taxi in. I got changed quickly and clocked in. The air conditioning was broken so it was incredibly hot in the kitchen. I served a customer on the drive thru. All of a sudden I became very dizzy and light headed. I was sweating and couldn't breathe. I sat in the staff room and the world caught up with me. Back in the kitchen I was serving another customer and I messed up an order because I couldn't see anything as everything went black and fuzzy. A supervisor came over and said something angrily at me and served the customer. I told her I didn't feel well and she nastily told me I might as well go home as I was no use. I staggered into the staff room and collapsed on the sofa.

I couldn't breathe, see, hear and my heart was pounding very hard and fast.

I asked a crew member came in to change for his shift and I asked him to call me an ambulance because I couldn't breathe. I don't really remember what happened but my bitch of a supervisor came in and asked me if she could phone my parents to meet me at the hospital. I asked her to phone my girlfriend which she did.

Why phone my parents who live five hours away?

I was taken to Gillingham hospital by ambulance. I had loads of tests done on the way and given gas and air, that stuff it brilliant!

At the hospital my girlfriend met up with me as doctors and nursed prodded and poked me, they stuck monitors on me and passed me around.

The diagnosis?

A panic attack brought on by stress and heat from work. The chest pains were due to my heart skipping beats.

I was sent home later that day and told to take time off work.

I never went back to McDonald's.

Fallen-Angel

I'm Making Cake

2007-07-04T06:06:00.000+01:00

Another silly hour of the morning is dawing and yet I don't sleep.

Sleep dosen't come often to me these days not that it used to come easy before. Now I'm awake all of the time, I don't sleep. It's hard when you are so exhausted you can't move yet your brain it sticking over and over like a never ending clock.

Is my off switch broken?

So, I made cake.

What else do you do at three am?

I won't be personally eating it but my girlfriend will be, lest I hope she likes it and does. She usually loves my cooking, any form of it, so I can't see why she wouldn't.

Money is very tight at the moment and in the case of Tesco's statment that every penny counts in my case it does. I can't afford anything not even a postage stamp.

I start my new job at the ever so lovely McDonalds Friday afternoon. I have mixed feelings about it because on the one hand it pays okay but it's also a place that sells fast food, something which I deteste. I have to say though that at the induction meeting it didn't seem so bad. I thought it would be a horrid place to work but it seems my view of the place has changed.

I'm still keeping my eye out for something better. Something better than minimum wage for a start.

The only good thing about working at Mcdonalds is the fourty-five minute walk uphill there and downhill back.

At least I get some exercise out of it if nothing else.

Fallen-Angel

Insomnia And Mid Night Binge Eating

2007-06-30T03:01:00.000+01:00

Admittedly I've never had good sleep pattens or routines. I've had bouts of Insomnia all of my life. I can remember as a child being wide awake when being tucked up in bed, playing by the light of the street lamps out of the window until the early hours of the morning.

No sleep it nothing new but binge eating at night is.

Since I have been unemployed for almost a month my sleep Paten is well and truly out of the window and down the street partying. I very rarely go to bed and sleep and almost never at the same time as my girlfriend.

What she must think is beyond me.

I know my fault and it all boils down to this; I don't have a reason to get up early so why not stay up late. Late for me mean the next day thus I sleep most of the day and the night sleeping is a thing of the past.

I get the odd times when I stay up thirty hours and manage to sleep at night but it only lasts that night and I'm back to square one.

I went to see the doctor a few weeks ago hoping that they'd give me something but I came out with a leaflet, not what I expected. I've tried everything and more of the 'good sleep hygiene routine' and not a single thing has had an effect let alone worked.

It's really hard being up all night because there isn't that much to do.

So I eat.

I don't eat all day, all evening but then it hits the 'hard hours' of the morning namely between four and six am. At this point my gard is down and I eat. I don't eat a snack I eat everything and in large quantities. I hate that I do it but I can't seem to stop. I'm desperate to sleep at night so I can stop this.

People don't understand what it's like to be a suffer of Insomnia, it's hard. Everything becomes a huge effort and deep depression sets in taking over everything. In the dead of night everything is put under the microscope and studded, and for me it's my being. The fact that I'm jobless, moody, have headaches, a recluse, binge eating and have bad memory to count a few.

I have become more of a recluse than I was now that I don't have a job I barely go out. I go out to job interviews or to the gym, maybe on occasion to the corner shop but that's about it. I don't go out unless I have a point or a reason to.

I feel very lonely most of the time because I have no one to communicate with. I don't talk much because I have nothing to say. I talk to my girlfriend but even she has ran out of things to say because everything she suggests goes out of the window. I really neglect her.

My memory is terrible and I'm in two minds as to the cause. On the one hand it could be a result of years of nutritional neglect though Anorexia and on the other the result of Insomnia.
I have trouble remembering the day before and sometimes a few hours before.

I'm confused a lot of the time.

Fallen-Angel

Open Call

2007-06-30T02:43:00.000+01:00

On Friday June 15th 2007 I went for an open call at Pineapple Studio, London for P&O Cruises.

There were about a thousand people there mainly female but there were quite a few males. It was hard to see the routine they taught us because there were so many in Studio 5. After several rehearsals of the routine we were auditioned in groups of ten. Those chosen were the auditioned in groups of four based on height.

I was in the final one hundred.

The four group I was in were called by name to the studio. We all performed the routine desperately trying to out dance each other like our lives depended on this. We were then asked to go a high kick and other things amongst that to tap and do double turns.

I was out.

I messed up on the double turns which is big weakness of mine.

I spent the rest of the day in London.

First I wondered Covent Garden window shopping and buying new pointe shoes. The I wondered Camden and had lunch.

I came home late afternoon really worn out but undeterred.

Fallen-Angel

In The Hunt

2007-06-30T02:22:00.000+01:00

A few days later I went on 'The Hunt' for a new job. I started with the job centre website and applied for several different jobs. I also walked Rochester and Chatham handing out C.V's and filling in applications.

In Rochester I bumped into a client from Orchard View with his parents. He asked me how I was, told me he missed me and gave me a hug, something that was forbidden in the home.

The first week I enjoyed off. I got around to all those things we never have time for.

By the second week I was starting to get worried that I didn't have a job yet.

The third week I was in panic because funds were low and I knew nothing was going to come in without me working. I did have two job interviews.

McDonald's.
The oh so glamorous fast food restaurant that I detest the food of. I had two interviews and an induction when they gave me the job.

Southlands.
Yes, I applied for my old job back but not as senior but as a support worker. I miss the ladies of the home a lot. The interview was with the old Acting Home Manager and the new manager. At the time I thought I did shit, everything went wrong, everything I said came out muddled. She asked me about transport (one of the reasons I left). I knew it was going to come up and I didn't have any answers for her that were any different from when I previously worked there. She said she'd let me know by the end of next week as they had another person to interview. If I don't get the job I know it's because the other candidate drives. They asked to contact details from my last job. I don't think the manager will say anything bad because we had a good and understanding professional relationship.

It's week four of my unemployment and I'm so worried about money. I have applied for a one thousand pound graduate loan from the bank with a two month break before re-payments. It's my only option and the interest rate is very low as it's a graduate loan, I just hope I get it.

I am waiting for someone to phone me to tell me my hours for McDonald's then I can officially start.

I'm not really looking forward to working at McDonald's because of their food. It's not a fear that I'll gorge on it, quite the opposite. I despise fast food especially fried fast food. I'm not keen either of smelling like a fryer or burger. It's a good and long walk to there which I don't mind because the more the exercise the better it is for me.

Fallen-Angel

Orchard View

2007-06-30T01:59:00.000+01:00

After I left Southlands I was waiting for reference's for a week until I could start at Orchard View as their new Senior Support Worker.

The first day was what I expected. I followed the staff around as they half heart idly attempted to induct me into the home's daily routine. A week passed of me getting paid to be a sheep. I, admit idly half heart idly began to settle in though from the first day I didn't like the place.

What was wrong with Orchard View?

The staff weren't very helpful and the seniors spent a lot of time criticizing me over every stupid little thing. The clients were almost out of control, they had no or little respect and their manners were non existent.

Each day I went out the front door to walk to work more dread built up inside.

Each night I was kept awake with the thought of another shift there.

It was an endless cycle that only spiralled in one direction and that was down.

I phoned in sick more than once because I'd been up all night dreading the next day. I think I had every virus going during my time there. I think there were only three genuine reasons.

The first: I had a chest infection.
The second: I think my girlfriend was sick.
The third: I was just out of casualty from a client behaviour.

Elaborating on the third I was caught up in a client behaviour where chairs were thrown at me. One chair just missed my head and the other I caught with my right hand and the chair smashed into my wrist/lower arm. I was taken to hospital in agony and unable to move my arm. At the hospital I was put in a sling and waited for hours. I had six x-rays in total. When the doctor saw my x-rays, we all saw a white line across my wrist though the doctor didn't know what it was. I think, in all honesty it was one of my scars on my wrist. It turns out that I'd severely bruised my arm and pulled the ligaments.

All that pain and not a single broken bone!

Six hours later I was discharged from Gillingham A&E.

The end of my job came roughly two and a half months after I started. Ironic as it was I woke up that day knowing I was going to have a supervision and a 'talking to'. The supervision wasn't planned it was just a feeling I had.

The supervision

I was called into the office twenty minutes after walking through the door by the manager. He and I talked about how I was doing (this was not the first of these 'talks' we've had). I told him how I felt, openly and honestly which isn't like me who bottles everything up pretending it was okay. We were talking and smoking (ironically) for about three hours. In the end I said I wanted to go home rather than stay a moment longer let alone a shift. I was in tears because he told me that I was very depressed, I've never heard anyone say that to me and it was painful yet true. I walked out of the home red eyed and cried the walk home. I cried some more at home too for a few hours but this time out of relief because I didn't ever have to go back to that place.

Fallen-Angel

Had enough?

2007-06-11T01:21:00.001+01:00

I am getting very annoyed working at Southlands now and it's due to two reasons the first being a certain member of staff I have aptly named and the second the constant hours of travelling eachday.

I've been thinking about leaving a lot these past few months, I've really done all I can here and I need to move on.

Client Holiday One-Haven, Brighton

2007-06-11T01:00:00.000+01:00

Saturday September 2nd 2006

We set off at 10am, stopped for lunch where I had a small vegetarian breakfast though I should have just had toast. We finally arrived at 3:30pm and unpacked into our caravans. Dinner was take out where I had to eat cheese and chips. We went to the evening entertainment and had a few drinks and a dance.

Sunday September 3rd 2006

A relaxing morning before swimming. I felt really fat in my bikini but looking at other people I began not to feel so bad. There were loads of over weight people in barely covering swim suits. I ate loads today because we didn't do anything this afternoon and when I'm not occupied I eat. Tonight we saw Cinderella and all I could do was look at the guy who played the prince because he was so thin, I wish I was. I did some exercises in my room tonight.

Monday September 4th 2006

Went shopping in the local town. I pushed a client around all day in her wheelchair. At first I wanted just to help but when I turned down offers of taking turns I realised that I was burning more calories through pushing her, calories that I would burn and no one else. I didn't have a main meal but I did have a sandwich later. We all dressed up to go out and I just looked so rounded and very bloated it made me feel sick.

Tuesday September 5th 2006

We went for a walk to the beach today. I had toast and an apple for breakfast, a cigarette and 250ml of diet sprite for lunch and a couple of spoons of pasta for dinner.

Wednesday September 6th 2006

We all laid in till 11am and then went bowling. We stayed in tonight as everyone is looking very tired.

Thursday September 7th 2006

I'm feeling really tired and mentally exhausted but I have to push on because of the ladies. I have eaten less today but I can always do better.

Friday September 8th 2006

I don't have an entry for the end of the holiday but I clearly remember feeling very low and tired.

Fallen-Angel

Southlands

2007-06-11T00:28:00.000+01:00

I woke up at six am, left at seven am for the train station where I got the seven twelve train to Paddockwood and got off at Maidstone. I walked the pathway to the other station where I sat on a cold blue painted metal bench. I got one of the many Ashford bound trains where I got off at Harrietsham. Looking up and down the road I didn't know which direction to go. I decided to walk down the hill in hopes of finding a shop where I could ask where Southlands was. I found a little corner shop where I asked for directions and just as I did two people said they were just heading back there. The two people turned out to be a support worker and a client.

I spent the first week calling everyone by the wrong name and reading personal files.

I soon settled in but it wasn't without bumps along the way.

Weeks soon turned into months as I began to find my feet and learn the routines.

I participated and supported clients in activities such as disco's, college, swimming, rambling, rock climbing, shopping, arts and crafts and many more.

I went on several client holidays around the country.

The first was a four day camping trip in August (during the heat wave) with the other homes in the company to Canterbury. We all pitched in a break in the forest. There was nothing there aside a toilet/shower block and a makeshift camp fire. It was really fun though after several ice cold showers a day because there wasn't any hot water we all begun to smell.

The second holiday was with all the ladies from Southlands a Heaven on the coast. We stayed in two caravans for a week. During this holiday I participated in the talent contest and danced to Fame. I didn't win but the ladies enjoyed seeing me in a different light.

The third and final holiday was five days at another Heaven site in Chichester which is near Bognergious. It was cold and rained a few days but it was good fun. I took a client from Southlands and her best friend and support worker from another home came with us. The support worker and I got on extremely well and we even aptly named the caravan our tin can.

Fallen-Angel

Settling in

2007-04-18T07:28:00.000+01:00

The months that followed were hard both settling in and moving on.

Graudlly I felt more like one of the family rather than an outsider but things were still not right.

I didn't have a job so I wasn't working and I had no money, at all.

She would go off to work everyday and I would sit up in her room thinking the day away with ABC1 in the background, terrified of making too much noise. I would only leave my new security of her bedroom for cigarettes and drinks. I dreaded going downstairs because I felt like a scrounging imposter.
In the evenings we would walk to our friends house and return stoned around midnight.

I was feeling my depression deepen more eachday as I stared out of the window into the nothingness that was beyond it.

Days and weeks passed until I decided to see if I could go on job seekers whilst I was looking for a job. I had to sign on every second Monday at 10Am. I applied for well over sixty jobs and got no responce. I wasn't being picky either, I applied for everything from cleaning to factory work and care.

Time went on and I heard nothing.

I despised that I was one of those people of whom I despised so much. I always carried this perception that people on benefits were just too lazy to get a job but now I'm more sympathetic towards those who are trying their best to gain employment.

We moved out in the early spring of 2006 into a one bed roomed apartment a ten minute train ride away from her parents and friends.

We shopped for items we would need with her dad whom helped us move.

It was nice to have our own space; for her it took some time getting used to being able to make noise or play music without headphones but for me it was more like being back in Liverpool where I did what I wanted, when I wanted.

I had a job interview for a supported living home in Harrietsham, Maidstone. I was so happy that someone was interested in giving me a chance. The interview went well though I applied for the waking night position I was given days. I started one month later and learnt a lot considering that all I knew about care work was what ma had told me, otherwise I was clueless.

I remained there for a year and went from support worker to team leader which is an achievement considering I went in with no knowledge of care/support work.

Fallen-Angel

Christmas

2007-04-18T06:54:00.000+01:00

A couple of days later I moved into her room at her parents house anxious and not quite knowing what to say or do like anyone would do if they were in my situation.

Christmas day was a strange affair as I felt out of place but looking back I would have been alone in my room so this was a total new experience for me.

The night of Christmas eve and the morning of Christmas day was spent at our friends house. We didn't sleep that night, we watched television and chatted laying on our makeshift bed and the sofa. Gifts were exchanged and we all sat together opening them in a way that I was not used to.

We spent time with friends and families enjoying this once a year occasion.

My family didn't really do Christmas, we exchanged gifts but there was no togetherness there. An argument would erupt over silly things, we would eat roast dinner together and return to our rooms where we would stay for the remainder of the day.

So you can understand how odd it felt to be included in the celebrations.

Fallen-Angel

A tearful start to a new life.

2007-04-18T06:34:00.000+01:00

I spent hours fighting back the tears alone in the lounge.

I went out front for another cigarette and phoned a friend whom I'd stayed with on my first visit to Kent, the home of the place where we had our first kiss. I didn't mean to cry so much or so hard, I just wanted someone to talk to. It turned out that she was on the phone to the couple upstairs whom had left me alone in their lounge in this strange county. The couple came downstairs wondering why I had phoned her and why I couldn't have just gone into their office and talked to them. I didn't say what I was thinking because they seemed angry at me. If I would've I would have said; I'm scared, lonely, I just want to see her, I need a cuddle and I want to go home where I am familiar with everything, and I don't want to be here anymore.
They took me in their car to where she worked and I was told to wait outside until they had been in and bought her outside. She came out dressed in her work uniform with a face that read 'what the hell is going on?'. I walked up to the shop and she saw that it was me. We hugged each other so tightly and I never wanted to let go.

I was fighting off the tears as hard as I could.

The next thought that crossed my mind was that now I had seen her that I would have to go back to their house feeling awkward and being abandoned again, alone but that wasn't the case. They drove me to our friends house and a familiar setting. I was dropped there and told we would be picked up later.
I was so glad to be in a place that I wasn't abandoned and that bared some resemblance to familiarity.

Minutes ticked by like hours and hours like days.

Then, the door opened stood there was the one, the entire reason for my move and abandonment of familiarity.

That night we stayed at the couples house. We didn't sleep and watched DVDs all night chatting away. I was tired as I hadn't slept for two days and the drama of moving had taken its toll on me and I fell asleep for an hour or so.

The plot to Kidnap Bob, as it was called was now complete.

Fallen-Angel

Moving on?

2007-04-18T05:24:00.000+01:00

During my stay in Kent I became even closer to my friend and something more than a friendship had developed, I was in love with her and she loved me back.

Could it be true, that someone could love me, the mess?

I remember the night I arrived in a strange place called Snodland. It was dark and from the train window I could see the friend who ms house we would be staying at with two small children in a pram. A figure in a coat and hat stood behind her in the shadows, it was her. I felt very nervous yet I couldn't help but smile. I got off the train and this shy woman spoke to me in a soft nervous voice. We all walked to our friends house id ally chatting along the way. Sometime passed and we all found ourselves in the lounge watching television and chatting about my journey up. Our friend was sat in her favourite arm chair with me closest to her on one end of the sofa and the one I love was on the other end of the sofa as far away from me as she could have possibly gotten unless she had sat on the farthest arm chair. The night passed as our friend went to upstairs to bed and we settled down on what was to become a familiar sleeping arrangement on the lounge floor, a makeshift bed of sofa cushions, pillows, a quilt and cats. Our friend had so many cats and a large dog who snored louder than anything I'd ever heard.
We didn't sleep much that night, if at all. We spent our time talking and watching the music channels where they continuously played one song, Photograph by Nickleback, which would become our song.
The second night, with the same sleeping arrangements, and the night we kissed for the first time. We were both quite nervous and shy as we lay cuddled up to each other. The following day she had work and on her way out she kissed kids goodbye but not me, was there something that I had done wrong? All that day and night I wondered what I had done wrong, was this a mistake, had I taken it too far? There were so many questions and thoughts roaming around my head that I had to write them down.
Looking back I wish I'd have kept that black book I was writing in at the time but like I've always done, threw it away.
The following morning when she left for work she did kiss me goodbye, then I knew I hadn't done anything wrong.
The week was soon over and I found myself back in my room in Devon.

A few visits to each other's neck of the woods and things were moving fast, faster than I could have ever dreamt.

Somewhere between October and the beginning of December I'd agreed to move to Kent and to live with her at her parents house though I'm not quite sure how it all came about.

December 17th, about eleven PM. I was talking to friends online in various chat rooms when the phone rang. We spent sometime talking before she had to go. I had something that I so desperately wanted to say but knew it would ruin the surprise.

I was moving in with her tomorrow, the 18th of December 2006-three days earlier than planned.

Before and after she phoned I was talking with my new friends in Kent planning my move. I would be getting the National Express coach to Gatwick airport where I would get the hopper bus to a hotel, then I would be meeting two friends who would drive me to their house to later meet her from work.

I spent the remainder of the night and the early hours packing all my worldly belongings into a single suitcase and a rucksack. I had my trust laptop and a large paper Monsoon bag filled with presents, everything I couldn't carry was left in my room and my parents loft.

I was packed and ready to leave Devon for good.

It was surreal how I packed my life so fast, almost as if I'd fled a bad place and was leaving all the pain behind to start a new life in a place I knew only a handful of people. I didn't have much money nor much of an idea of how I was to support myself.

I left my parents house the morning of the 18th of December 2005 at 5:30AM.

I texted and phoned her making up what I was doing desperately trying not to tell her I was lying and that I was just hours away from her.

I arrived in Kent at a friends house, the couple's home in which I would spend my first night at in my new life. I was shown around, shown my room and left downstairs watching Phantom of the Opera alone and scared. They were working upstairs and I felt the lonelest and lost I'd ever felt.

Fallen-Angel

Update..........

2007-04-18T04:58:00.000+01:00

It has been over a year since I last blogged and I'm not quite sure where to start, so I will continue from;
"Break one guys dreams so another who has my heart will smile",
as that seems a good place to start.

The following morning was the lat time I would ever see this guy I met in Rout 66 the night before as a few weeks later I received a phone call from my mate telling me to sit down as he had some bad news. He told me that Dave, the guy from Route 66, was dead. He said he didn't know how but as soon as he found out would tell me.
I was sat on the stairs looking through the rails in my Liverpool student shared house. I didn't know what to say or do, I remember saying "shit" and having a huge lump in the back of my throat.
A few days later I received a text message saying Dave hand hung himself in his wardrobe and that his mother had found him.
I had a lot of doubts in my head and unanswered questions, was this true, had he just made this up because he liked me too and was jealous? Every ridiculous remark and question floated though my head for weeks to come.
Dave's funeral was held in Bath. I wanted to go but I wasn't invited. Who was I to deserve to go as I'd hand a one night stand with him, I wasn't a friend, girlfriend nor family? I guess I just needed the ultimate proof that he was indeed gone.

I graduated Liverpool, June 2006, with high grades in all Major Fields.
I don't remember much about the last semester because I've tried, and succeeded in blocking it out. From what I can recall things got a little better and my attendance improved. I did notice that my lack of attendance the term before put me at a disadvantage when the final performance came as I was cut from some of the sections of dance routines because I was not there to learn them, for which I can only blame myself.
I am surprised I made it through as I was sure they were going to kick me out.

After that I had made plans to move to London and live with two friends and one of their boyfriends but that fell through as they split up. I had no choice then but to move back to my parents, Devon. I stayed in their caravan as they had short stay students in all the spare rooms, which they did every year since I can remember.
I started working at The Redclif Hotel, Paignton, August of 2005. I worked in the kitchen making the hot drinks and snacks. I worked split shifts which were a killer as I wasn't sleeping yet I was up at six AM everyday. I got really sick, fast. I had glandular fever, the flu, a chest infection and a possibility of Hepatitis B. My mental state was very low and I was self harming almost everyday. I got so ill that I couldn't eat or drink anything yet I was being sick everyday. Two weeks before I quit I blacked out for the hundredth or so time, I was walking to get changed though the kitchen when I blacked out and fell over seriously hurting my back.

After that I was unemployed for a month or so and slowly got better. I joined an employment agency and did all kinds of work-I wasn't fussy as I had no money.

September 2006, I moved into the house as the last of the students were leaving.

That summer I started phoning and writing to a friend I had met in Kent the new year of 2006. We became close fast and it wasn't long before we were talking on the phone every night and texting all day.

October 2006, I went to Kent for a week and stayed at our friends house and that's where the next chapter begins.

Fallen-Angel

Controlling thoughts

2005-12-14T04:03:00.000Z

These thoughts that control my life are pounding away my soul once more.

Ana shouts out to me to come back, not to fail her and for me to let her control me once again. I am so weak to her voice that I bow down and obey her.

Every word she whispers resides in my fragile mind.

Today begins another of many previous fasts of water and cigarettes. I don't care how ill I get, how many times I pass out due to weakness or how many times I throw up.

I will win.

I stand in front of the mirror crying at the shame that is my body. I'm ashamed to call myself ana, I don't deserve my name Fallen-Angel, the angel that fell from grace with a crash.

If I can't see bones I'm not working hard enough.

This time it will work and I will succeed for this time failure is defiantly not an option. I have others to take into consideration.

what will my girlfriend think when all she touches is fat?

Day one, three hours in.

Fallen-Angel

Do You Not Care?

2005-12-13T04:08:00.000Z

Today was my nieces school play and no one thought to tell me until it was too late. I've never seen her perform in any of her school productions because for the past two years I've been at Liverpool Performing Arts.

Are they all for getting that I was the one who looked after her ninety percent of the time for the first year and a half of her life because her mother just didn't care. Are they forgetting that I was only thirteen and a mother to a child that wasn't mine, I was a child at that time, I was only thirteen.

Who was the one who changed her dipper, who was the one who fed and bathed her and who was the only one who answered her cry's day and night? I was the one, I was alone the parent with out a child though I had one.

Everyday before and after school I was there, at weekends I was there. I gave up a lot to look after her. I couldn't just go out, I couldn't hang out with friends because I had this helpless baby to care for.

I know a lot has happened that I dare not to speak of but you think her mother would have some gratitude, wouldn't you?

I found out about her play when my sister came home and I asked her about her day. She told me she's just got back from seeing our niece in her school play. Anger and hurt boiled up inside of me, I could have exploded but I refrained.

I feel my baby has gone.

I remember the days she used to call me ma, when I was the one she would come to for help. Now those days seem distant.

She doesn't call for me no more.

On occasion she calls me ma but not very often.

I'm moving away in a week and I'm going to miss her so much. This pain inside is intense and it burns a hole in my heart knowing that I will be so far from her.

No matter what people say and think she is my baby and will always be. I understand that she is not my child but I was always the one that was there, I still am. She comes to me if there is a problem, she comes to me for support and love, she comes to me for anything;

She's not afraid.

Fallen-Angel

A new start to a new life

2005-12-12T19:17:00.000Z

Things have changed so much over the past six months, partly for the good and partly for the not so good.

I moved back to my parents after graduating from Liverpool College in June. I moved into the caravan, in their front yard which wasn't that bad because I had my own phone and I was secluded from the rest of the family. Whilst living in the caravan I had a few lousy jobs that didn't last. Now living in the house things are looking up. I work for an agency doing all kinds of jobs.

Over the summer I got to know my now girlfriend, Dude.
I'm glad we had the courrage to tell each other how we really felt because I couldn't go through with another Rick fiasco. On the 21st of December I am moving in with her, I can't wait to get out of this house of constant abuse.

Fall

What's the point in Sunday's?

2005-12-12T11:17:00.000Z

I don't know what it is with this day but it always seems like the idea of Sunday's is to bore you. Shops close at four, the television shows the worst of British culture and the radio plays songs that are so bad they want to make you tie that rope around your neck.

What is there to do on a Sunday?

I've managed to sit at the computer desk since I awoke at eleven, I've managed to text and talk to my girlfriend and I've put laundry out to dry. Where as my parents have managed to moan, moan and oh, have a go at me for no apparent reason.

I know what I need to do but weather I'll get around to actually doing it is a different matter.

Fall

Break one guys dreams so another who has my heart will smile

2005-06-07T01:39:00.000+01:00

I was in Devon last week visiting my parents and seeing friends.

I'd waited most of the week to see one guy and on the Thursday night we met up and went out. We met a mate of his and went to a club. All was going fine until I felt really sick, I went to the bathroom and was sick pure blood. I came out and sat with the guys looking and feeling like shite. I told my mate what just happened and explained that I am now mia as well as ana and he was concerned but as he'd previously been cool about the whole situation I didn't worry about it. I was so wrong he went on to tell me that there must be another way and I replied that if there was I'd be doing it all ready and that I'd been doing this since I was nine, I know what I'm doing.

His mate and I got on really well and I ended up staying at his house that night. He's a nice guy but I only met him a few hours previously and that's really not like me.

Before we left the club my mate seemed distant and when me and his mate we dancing he left without saying goodbye or telling us where he was going. I text him and got no reply naturally I was worried but I thought that I'd done something really bad, which I now know I have.

His mate suggested it's be a good idea to tell him instead of him finding out from another source and I agreed. He called him and told him everything. I later got a text saying that his mate had phoned him, told him everything and that he was cool with it all. I don't believe that for a second.

I don't know what to do anymore, I really don't. Do I go with this guy who I met only last Thursday or with my mate the guy I love? The guy I'd do anything for.

The guy I bled for.

Can't Sleep

2005-05-15T20:52:00.000+01:00

Can't sleep but that's nothing unusal with me. I didn't go to college yesterday as I didn't fall asleep until two fourty five PM. Its really starting to get to me and I'm missing too much college. I have yet this term to go a full week in college. In the first week I went only Monday, the second Monday and Friday and last week everday apart from Tuesday. People are questioning why I haven't been on and I just say that I have things to sort out outside college. I have my reasons why I haven't been in depression, harming, lack of sleep, fear of going outside and ana.

Poem: Friendship that became love

2005-05-14T02:00:00.000+01:00

At a time when life couldn't get much worse
you turned around, stared me straight in the eye.
You told me that we shall no longer be.
The shards of broken glass
cut my heart into shreds.

My tears were black and you turned them red.
I took the ring off for the last time
placing it into your hand.
Our blood stained tears fell dripping
upon our clasped hands.
The enclosed ring glistened in the sand.
We kissed for the last time.
A final embrace before we departed.

Our eyes parted the same way they met
almost five years ago across the park.
My best friend now I loved.
For ever we would not be.
Summer after summer we returned to the park.
Your bright eyes glistened in the sunlight.
You tanned complexion radiant.
You stature perfection.

No bad memories exist of our teenage years.
Laugh after laugh,
tear after tear
we climbed the walls fighting
our trials and tribulations.

The love remains,
still there are no complains.
The fire still burns
like my stomach still churns
every time I think of you.
Chris my best friend who I loved to kiss.
For ever in our hearts the love exists.

Poem: The last supper

2005-05-14T01:30:00.000+01:00

The last meal has just been digested
and no more shall I consume.
The fear has been thrust upon me.
'Fat is not an option'.

The nutirents that my body requires
shall now be denieth.
The vitamin diet again takes place.
Food no longer enters the race.
The calories shall burn
and the fat no more return.

The time is now to regain control,
all is not lost.
I can not turn back the hands of time
nor undo my wrongs
but I can stop them.
I have the power to say no.

The temptaions shall come.
The rumbles will be heard.
My plale clammy complextion will return.
Although the urges maybe strong andunbearable
I shall not faulter.

I am more than substance.
The food is more than nutirents.
The enemy is larger than life.

Shame

2005-05-13T23:47:00.000+01:00

Starting with my head I am fat.
My head, face and neck.
My arms, wrists, hands and fingers.
My shoulders, back and ribs.
My stomach, hips and bum.
My thighs, knees and calves.
My ankles, feet and toes.
All are fat and I am fat.

Shame on me for letting myself get this far.
Shame on me for eating at birth.
Shame on me for not saying no the first time.
Shame on me for life.

Now or never

2005-05-12T15:23:00.000+01:00

The time is now to make the final decision weather to dance or not. There is no time to contemplate the future. I have to stop and think hard weather this is for me and id it is what I want to stop messing about and get my life sorted out. I have made a big mess of this opportunity and have taken it lying down because of self pity and the way I think people perceive me. People will stare anyway because of the way I dress but I have to deal with that and move on forgetting their sly remarks. I must think to myself this is what I want and I wear this because I want to and not because others say so.

I have said all along that dance is my life and although its a true fact it doesn't seem it lately as I have been taking a back seat in life hiding from the world, buried in my shame. No longer do I feel I can dance and no longer do I feel life is worth while. I know suicide is no longer an option so for that factor I must go on and make the best of what I have. I can no longer sit in dreams hoping that things will fall into my palm as I learnt a long time that they won't.

'Fighting is the only way up'

For this new life starting this week I must commit myself to dance and the life of an anorexic. I have to try harder and attend more to college and in general. I need to wake up and snap out of my depressed mental inner state for the time is now not when I want to.

'I am lucky to have gotten this far and do I appreciate it?'

The answer in all honesty is no and the reasoning is because I am spoilt. I have always attended professional dance classes, performed, entered competitions and got what I wanted. My family have suffered because of my little sister and I and our dancing but me more than her. I have taken most of my parents money, time and lives away and remain to do so till this day. Its not my fault that I need to loan their money to attend this performing arts college but I will repay them I owe them that much. My parents and family wore all kinds of clothes and ate all kinds of food to put us through dance training. Although my little sister has quit dancing I was never allowed.

At thirteen I questioned weather I wanted to be a dancer, I guess all dancers do at some point. I was a influential teenager and wanted to go out with my friends, sleep over and attend parties but I couldn't because I had to dance, practice and perform. My best friend used to complain that I didn't have time for her as I was too busy dancing. We used to stay over at each others houses but I still had to attend dance and rehearsals. I have lost count of how many times she has watched shows rehearsals and performances, the number of times she has sat in the changing room whilst I am in class and the times I stayed over but had to leave early because of performance commitments.

My little sister gave up in her early teens as her friends were more important to her. I knew for a long time before our parents that she didn't enjoy dancing and would rather 'hang out'. Ma stopped paying for her lesions because she wasn't attending them and she was wasting her money paying out for something she could barely afford.

I know my ma looks up to me as the proud daughter, the dancer in Liverpool performing arts college. Sure my other siblings have accomplished things but me, I the dancer have more.

After skipping college too much this term I have realised that I need to get myself sorted and fast. There
is only two weeks, half term and three weeks after until I graduate and then what?

A time of change is needed and a drastic one at that. I have made a start and attended all this week. My technique has gone down hill rapidly and I worry as when I graduate I will not be attending dance classes all day everyday, what then?

Another day means another start, a new beginning. Starting another pure water fast no matter what I must not fail for I starve for dance, to attain the best possible. Its a common factor known by all that dancers are incredibly thin and if they put weight on they can loose their place in a company. I also have cut down smoking, bucked my ideas and attitude up big time.

'There is no room for error.'

I was watching Fame earlier and that movie always makes me want to dance but tonight it didn't and I can't explain why. All the dancers in Fame are not necessarily pretty but they were so thin and into the piece they were performing and it made me think I need to be more like them and less like me.

I had my business interview for my project and the tutor commented that my assignment was outstanding and he liked the fact it was all typed even the application for funding. I prefer to type everything as my handwriting isn't up to much and on making errors a computer can correct them without the marker knowing they ever existed. The project was easy as I have a lot of previous experience in the management side of business and my first diploma in business graded distinction. Never the less I felt good that he was pleased with my work and recognised my capability in the subject.

Leave me alone to die or kill me

2005-05-07T01:37:00.000+01:00

Well another fucked up day, I honestly don't know why I bother to breathe, to live. I didn't go to college today as I felt like a total fatty whore when I woke up at six AM. For the past few days I have been waking up at six AM.

I don't sleep no more.

I'm going out to The Crazy House tomorrow night and am planning on getting so fucking wasted and hopefully hit by a fuck off truck and die.

I'm to pissed to tell anymore but just to say life sucks.

please someone kill me now.

Lost It All

2005-05-03T15:13:00.000+01:00

OK, So I had another day off college because I didn't sleep again. This whiole non sleeping thing is getting beyond rediculous. I had my chorepgarpahy group piece due in for videoing today but I didn't go in. Its not finished but I did have something to show.

I'm totaly confused, scared and worried about where my life is or rather is not going. I'm still afraid to go outside and when I do I go where I have to and straight back home, to my room. I hide all day in my room unless I go online.

I have no money and I mean not a penny, no cigerettes, food but I don't care about food and the electricity is on emergency. I would kill for a ciggerette right now, I'm sat here coughing up my lungs because I have so much shit in me.

Tutors at college are still on my back about my attendance and lack of it. Andrea is still on about my weight. I wish they would just leave me alone, I understand that all they want to do is help and that I'm being ungrateful and rejecting it. I can't tell them that I don't eat, that I slice my body up weekly, that I have sever depression and have tried several times to take my own life nor that I abuse perscription and weightloss pills. I can't exsactly say;

"Oh, Today I woke up to find my wrists stuck to the bed sheets covered in blood as is the bed. That I haven't eaten in a week that's why I almost passed out in your class today. That I've took 20 diet pills and laxatives becasue I felt fat this morning.

If I say that I'll be sectioned under the mental health act.

I don't know what to do anymore not that I knew what to do in the first place.

There is a thunder and lightening storm outside. I love the pounding of the rain its the same pounding in my head. The rain throws itself down just like I want to, free, willing and able.

I want to run for ever just to escape.

Its twenty five days until I'll be seeing my parents and old friends back in Devon. I'm meeting a girl from Cornmwall and one of my friends from Kent might be coming down.

I need my friends around me at this hard time. I'm lost yet found. I'm confused and don't know what to do or how to interprit life.

For the time being I'm off to relwave this pressure and bleed for all of you out there who need to let go.

Fallen-Angel bleeding once again.

The pressures to be thin in order to surrvive, the secrets and the lies

2005-05-01T21:30:00.000+01:00

With the pressures of today and the competition its no wonder why millions have eating disorders or eating related issues. The average weight is on the rise so why are there an increasing number of people who have eating issues? A question that no body has yet been able to give an answer or explanation to. As the nations become "fatter" more people are being diagnosed with Ed's. We live in a world that is in pursuit of perfection and will do anything to attain it. If you have a part of your body you dislike then you can change it more easily than ever before. You don't like you nose, have cosmetic surgery, if you don't like your body, don't eat, it really is as simple as that.

Being a dancer myself I can fully understand the modern world we live in that is caught up in looking "perfect." Everyone has their own idea of what perfection is and how they should look.

I am no acceptation this especially in the dancing world. I've grown up knowing that you have to be thin to be a dancer and its not only about technique. I read a story about a girl that lost her place in a ballet company because she was too fat. One of Blanchine's famous sayings is

"don't eat and lets see the bones".

His ideal dancer's body was a tall, skeletal frame with prominent hip bones and lack of breasts. This frame today still stands with most if not all dancers being of anorexic weights averaging ten percent under the recommended weight for height. These dancers eat five hundred to seven hundreds calories a day to maintain this low weight.
I am in my final year of a dance course at a performing arts college and wonder how I will fair in this world of anorexic dancers. I am one of those dancing anorexics and I don't dislike what I am doing to my body because I know if I want to be the best and to attain this need not only to train but to loose weight. I have had my share of auditions and I too, like many, stand there looking at the thin girls thinking that I don't stand a chance over them.

This is my story of how I grew into anorexia.

At four I started classes at my local dancing school in ballet, tap and modern jazz. I used to train several times a week there for my examinations and competitions. Twice a year I took exams and three times a year entered the dance festivals. From an early age I decided that this is what I wanted to do with my life.

My life seemed simple until I found out the real world of dancing, the dark side. This world of blisters, exhaustion and eating disorders. I was nine when I first discovered anorexia and at the time had no idea that what I was doing was developing an eating disorder that would rule my life. I understood that you had to be thin to be a dancer and decided I needed to loose a few pounds. I stopped eating junk food and it lead on from there. I would daily exclude a food until there was nothing left that I could eat aside fruit and drank only water. I lost a lot of weight very quickly and became ill. I liked the emptiness and the cry's of my body so desperate for nourishment I ignored. I started gaining weight as food was pushed upon me by concerned friends and relatives.
Still clear in my mind was anorexia and at eleven again I restricted and counted calories. Back then not all food labels contained the calorie content and this frustrated me so I avoided them or estimated their values.

Anorexia has never left my side and offers things that people just can't. It gave me a reason to carry on, a reason to live for and a reason to follow my dream.

I have had anorexia on and off since nine and to this day do not regret starting out although in the beginning it was just a temporary diet. Its true that it starts out with a diet that evolves into a full blown Ed. You don't just wake up one day and say "right I'm going to be anorexic" it takes time and patience.

Recently in the past two years I have found the interment and this dark underworld of love and support. I always thought I was alone in my quest for perfection. Having people who I will more than likely never meet lend me a shoulder to cry on, they offer support that no one had ever given me. They too have eating disorders or eating related issues and understand where I'm coming form and what I'm going through. You see you are not alone in your quests there are people just like you its just a matter of looking for them.

I am still looking for my idea of perfection, although I have my ideal weight firmly locked in my mind I need to achieve it. In the past I have and its just a matter of doing it again this time making sure I maintain it. My weight has gone up and down more times than a roller coaster but has yet to remain the same for longer than a month.
Its time for a fresh start, to start over and attain what I so desperately want. I need to be thin, I must be thin and there is nothing more in the world that I want. Money can't buy you happiness but thinness can, its all you need. A positive look to the future I can see happiness but its far, far in the distance almost out of sight but it is there. Everyone can see it, its just a case of running to reach it before it gets further away.

Tomorrow's bring new days and new days bring new starts. For me its only going in one direction and that is up. I have come to accept what the next twelve months hold but its not to late to decide after that. I am only young, so times of change are possible, its just a case of wanting them enough to reach them. Its all well just wanting them but you have to physically work for them, they will not fall into your lap.

In the past five years I have done so much to damage my body and my chances that they may never be attainable but that doesn't discourage me, that just makes me fight for what's left. I have damaged my liver, stomach and heart beyond repair. I have taken and abused many drugs including prescription medication, cut myself so I am left with scars all over my arms and starved myself of what my body lacks, nutrition. I am lucky to still be alive after several near misses, its time to change. I'm not saying I'm going to recover from anorexia as I don't believe that is possible and I don't want to but I can stop abusing prescription drugs and cutting myself. I need my Ed as much as I need dance.

I have to move back in with my parents in the summer as I have not the funds to support myself until I go to America. I am not looking forward to this and detest the idea but I have no other option. I am going to make the best of what is available to me down there and do my time as so to speak. I'm taking my Ed with my like my possessions. Its just the idea of hiding it from my parents again that I don't like, going back to what I did as a child and lying to them. Its easy to lie over the phone and easy to hide how I look but knowing that they will be in the same town, the same house as me makes it hard. I will once again have to plan meticulously my actions and eating habits as not to arouse suspicion.

Starting another fast

2005-04-25T02:05:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-24T01:30:00.000+01:00

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)

2005-04-23T23:50:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-22T23:34:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-21T03:36:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-21T01:20:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-20T05:49:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-18T16:19:00.000+01:00

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......?

2005-04-15T06:30:00.000+01:00

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....

2005-04-15T02:40:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-14T23:43:00.000+01:00

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?!

2005-04-07T19:52:00.000+01:00

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!

2005-03-24T02:38:00.000Z

Today is a new day and new days mean new starts. From to day I'm looking to the future and concentrating on the positive things in life.

Today got off to a grate start, I text my boss from work to tell her that I wouldn't be coming into work today as I'm not feeling well and she text back saying "OK, don't bother coming back!" All I have to say to her is "Fuck you!" I'm not actually that bothered the only worry is money but I'm sure I will get another job where I am welcome and I don't have a bitch like that for a manager!

Aside that two mates came over for a while and all wasn't well. I wanted to talk to someone about shit and because of the other mate she didn't want a confrontation. I don't want to confront her about this but I feel I have to as I'm scared. Although she says my secrets are safe with her I want to sort this out. I don't want to loose her, we don't have much time together as I finish college in July and am moving away.

I'm going to miss her so much.

I hate leaving situations up like this that's why I want to sort it. I can't loose her.

On a totally different note I'm worried about the scars on my arms, hands and wrists and how they will effect my chances of getting a dancing job. You can vividly see them and I fear it will hold me back. I hope to fuck they fade more than they have. The last time I cut was only 9 days ago but no more.

I want to stop cutting, I must.

Its the Easter holidays and as I don't have a job am considering going to Devon for a week or so but am undecided. I have some possible jobs to phone tomorrow so hopefully that will work out. I don't know why but I feel strange that I'm not going down for the holiday. My parents are away but I'm welcome to stay at my big sisters. I could stay at my parents house but would end up killing my little sister or harming.

On the parental note I managed to talk my mum into bringing me back some cigarettes form Portugal! I have no idea how but I have.

I'm painting a brighter color on the world and looking to the future. There's no point looking at the negative in everything or deliberating the past.

what's the point?

For now at least things are tight money wise but I'm not worried something will come along and I will be able to sort it out.

Choices

2005-03-20T18:05:00.000Z

To be the best you can you need to sacrifice things and at many times others. In what ever career choices make you need to push yourself to the top it won't just happen. Talent is nothing without perseverance and pain. The amount of times you have sat and cried until the tears are no more. Red eyed you sit debating your future and the point in it at all.

Why go through all this for something you say is never going to happen?

To be the very best you can be is hard, harder than you ever imagined. Day after day working so hard that your brain becomes mush, your body is begging you to stop but you can't, you won't. Pain is only superficial, least that's what they tell you. Get to the point of pain and push from there. You won't break, you are not made of glass. Just that little bit further and a bit more.

Having a dream is not enough.

Take me, a dancer, trained for over 16 years. Struggling with more than sweaty tights, blisters and exhaustion. From the naive persons perspective of dancers we have it easy. Easy! They have no insight into our world, what we have to go through to get even this far. Training daily, struggling to put ourselves through training school and then only to get thrown aside my many companies.

So why do we do it?

For the love of dance and the performing arts, the buzz we get from performing, that's why.

So you want to be the best?

Blood, sweat and tears all the way and nightly nine percent of it will be yours. Enter upon this trade at your own parel. Nobody's going to care in this profession if you are ill or having an off day as there are thousands to fill your place and they waiting right behind you. You falter and that's it, one wrong step and your out. Think about it carefully total dedication and more is
what's required everyday without fail.

Sacfrifice.

In this world, the world of the performing arts you must be prepared to sacrifice a lot. Friends and family become second or even third in order of protestation.

Behind closed doors.

In the under world of performing arts lies a deeper sacrifice one that is hidden well behind closed doors. Eating disorders become a way of life and not disorders. Your mind is distorted and paranoia sets in. Inside you know to be the best aside from training and dedication the body image is everything.

Who wants a fat dancer?

Starvation become key factors in this harsh world.

Why lie to them to lie to me to admit?

2005-03-20T17:48:00.000Z

Why lie to them then lie to me only to later admit to me you lied to me and say you are sorry.

why did you feel you had to lie to me?

Trust is a frail thing in my world and for me to give you trust to have it ripped away cuts deeper than you could ever imagine. The trust has been thrown away and no longer do I trust you and doubt if I ever will. I don't give second chances, not even to you. I told you everything I could let my mouth say and I fear that it will no longer be our secret. They are my secrets and then were ours and now are my problems.

You know who you are.

Just rip my heart out and feed it to me, might as well.

For the damage has bin done, words have been said. All is left is the confrontation and explanation from you even then,

How do I know you are telling the truth?

I let you into my frail and secret world. I exposed you to what you wanted to know. Answered your questions.

I would have done anything for you but no more. Form now on you are alone. Don't get me wrong I'm not disowning you I just don't trust you and never will.

You took it all away.

AGAIN

2005-03-14T23:43:00.000Z

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 5:3am 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 released, running free at last. The poison is leaving.

Not even my blood wants to remain 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

Dear ana

2005-03-10T19:43:00.000Z

Dear ana,

This is for you and you alone. You know the world belongs to you, you determine my every action, every breath. People say you are only an illness, a diseasae but you are more, a lot more. My day starts and ends with you.

This lack of passion for life is becasue of you.

I hate everything I stand for, everything I belive in. I hate me. Going through life is sheer hell and all I've ever wanted is out.

You know in the HIM lyrics for Burried alive by love?I feel burried alive by tourture only daily.

I thought you loved me and I did/do anything for you, anything to please you and yet its never good enough. I restrict, fast, cut, get sick, dizzy spells, pass out. You are like my ma never satisifed until I'm gone to far beyond the point of recognision.

Don't worry I'm not leaving you, I can't, I'm trapped for life, with you inside me. I thought I was in control but am I? Really? NO. Thats the answer your looking for.

I've lost out on oppertunities in love, life and future oppertunities. I was ashamed to step outisde at times last year and as a result of my failure, fatness and patheticness my grades showed me how dumb I really am. I'm unworthy of breathing clean air so I poloute my body with smoke. Punish myself with a blade. I've passed the days quicker by taking overdoses as to pass out and maybe awaken the next or the day after.

I've gone beyond oall reasoning to be healthy or normal. Fuck it all. Its too late the damage has been done.The love for you from me still shines strong abouve anyother. You will always be here inside me for eternity.

A pain that will never seace. Blood that will never stop. Always the worthless one never worthy.

Fallen-angel x

Sick

2005-03-07T22:45:00.000Z

I've been sick for about a week or more. Constantly dizzy and not knowing weather I'm going to pass out or not.

The other day I was at Fairy Dusts place and she was cutting and dying my hair. I was sat on a chair and went really dizzy and so close to passing out. I aid down on her bed and passed out. She gave me a cup of tea with three sugars to wake me up. And yes it tasted disgusting! Today I've been dizzy and sick a lot. I can just about manage to keep water down. My chest is really painful and my stomach kills from throwing up and constantly urging. I can just about recollect the past few days with a blurred memory of past events.

What is the matter with me?

I hate being ill, I guess no one likes it but I feel so yuck. I feel so lazy although I can't stand let alone exercise.

All I have to say is what's the point?

Fuck them all!

2005-03-06T22:00:00.000Z

You try everything to be the best you can be.

You work and train hard only to get knocked back down for being fat. I was reading the auditions in The Stage (performers news paper) and found one that looked really intoresting until I came to the bottom of the article ans it said you had to be a UK 8-10. It makes me so fuckin mad. I try my best and work my arse off only to have it snatched away.

Professionals wounder why 45% of dancers have eating dissorders!

Humm let me think? Its becasue of you fuckin people, the producers, directors, choreographers and you the general public.

In the past two hours I have consumed seven cans of Fosters and a quater of a pint of Rum.

This is a short post as I don't want to say anything I'll regret.

I love you all including those who don't know you mean more than the world to me. I appologise for my line of thinking but fuck I don't care if you want to outcast and reject me go ahead, be shallow.

I'm not drunk but tipsey.

I'm pissed off at this world and all that it contains.

fall

A new plan of life

2005-02-24T19:19:00.000Z

Its eairly evening and I've been online for a few hours now on the messagevboards posting. I'm catching up as I've been away visiting the parentals. I crave so many things like chocolate and pizza although I've been diagnosed lactose intolerant again and so can not eat event the littlest of dairy products although its all I crave right now. I don't consume much in the way of dairy theses days but no more. Its strange I don't usually crave dairy but its like smoking once you stop you really crave.

Another stepping stone in my life begins when I awake a with new regime. A plan of the forthcoming month of which failure is not an option. To strive for results and the ability to strive for what I want. Although I'm not sure these days what I want aside death, like people are going to let me do that!

My days start at 5:30am with work, then college from 9am until 3-6pm (depending on what day), gym for 2 hours, swim and home about 7-9pm and bed! Ok when its written like that it looks a bit manic but hey I don't sleep so shouldn't be a problem.

Have things changed?

2005-02-24T16:35:00.000Z

So I went to Devon last week and to be honest it wasn't merely as bad as previous times.

Did I self harm?

Yeah I did, that's going to shock others that I lied to about it but I had to I'm so ashamed that I couldn't stop. I was at work and started scratching at my right wrist and once I started I couldn't stop. I needed to feel the burn and release that only selfharming can bring. I was left with this bloody, itchy scab that looks like a friction burn so that's where the story came from. I told everyone that's what it was and made up a story to match.
To those two people I sincerely apologise but I didn't want to show you another failed attempt.

For the most part it was ok although I have started smoking again. I know, I know but hey it was either that or the blade and I know which you all prefer. I would have loved to grab the blade and slit into eternity but I resisted.

Back up in Liverpool things are a little better especially on the job front. I have a job cleaning in a shop called Open, I work 7-9am 6 days a week. Aside that I'm back taking the pills again, I stopped trying to be "pure ana" but I started to gain so that idea went out the window!
I've also been seriously thinking about going to the doctors about my depression as I can't be dealing with it not at this important time of year (college and carrer). I'm scared in case they ask if I self harm or have suicidal tendencies as the scars will prove one and the medical records the other. I could lie as I don't wish to tell of it but I don't think they will believe me.

Do I risk it all for an easy ride?

Do I spill and risk it all or do I suffer in silence? I've asked a few people for their opinions and am still debating weather to take the plunge.

What dose it feel like to be happy?

I've lost all sense for what it feels like to be happy, sure I may come across as happy but I can act. Gees I've been to drama school since could walk so am a pro at it now! I always hang on the negatives of every posisitve just so I know what the downside is like if I were to experience it. I guess you could say I'm setting myself up for failure but I usually end up on the darker side.

So have things changed?

Yes they have and maybe for the better. I'm considering help!

What the fuck am I thinking no one can help me! Gees I'm in an imaginary world where people actual give a shit for me. I can safely say two people care what happens to me, out of all the people I know only two know of my life behind closed doors. Thought you don't know the half of my struggle to wake everyday, put on a brave face and leave the house. I have gotten to the stage often of not being able to leave the house, the world is to scary all those judging faces. I have missed college because of it, I say I am/was ill but the truth is I couldn't face leaving the sanctuary of my house. I don't feel safe here but I can hide and that's all that matters.

Life goes on with or without me so its ok that I at times hide away, its not like I'm missed.

Poem: Join me in death

2005-02-03T02:36:00.000Z

Why don't you join me in death?
You state that living ain't that grate.
Just swallow the pills,
cradle in my arms and sleep.
Together we can sleep for eternity.

No prince with a kiss shall awaken us.
No touch of a warm heart
or surviving off one's last breath.
Nothing shall awaken us.

Why don't you join me in death?
Take your last breath.
Pass from this world and look
into the eyes if death.
We both shall reap in rewards of love.

To say for sure what lies after death.
To see if there is a haven or hell.
Come back as a ghost.
To be as light as air.

Its what we both want.
So why not in death?
Come join me.
Don't put it off
as for me it maybe to late.

In death I am free,
willing and able.
I love to be you angel.
guidance I give you,
pathways that run clear
Your prayer's I answer.

You waited to long for death.
I am dead.
Your angel that watches over you
that's me.

Why don't you join me in death?
We promised to go together,
only I made it through.
You stayed behind.

We are separated by a one way mirror.
I can see you,
hear you breathe.
Can you see me?

Writing: Safe in life

2005-01-28T01:40:00.000Z

Sanctuary within the house. The feeling that you are safe. Knowledge of the space. That's my definition of a home. Notice the lack of material objects, although at first we think life is nothing without them. Sentimental values placed within them is still in the mind although the object no longer survives. The ablility to let go yet not forget is remarkable.

The people of friends, family and loved ones may come and go but we have the inner ability to survive and continue.

Life goes on, we travel through watching the set backs as they happen. We are strong and cope remarkably well against times of joy and sorrow, loss and gain.
The gift of life and the will to try is all that we ask and give.

Emotions are strong; pain is real.

Time to question; Safe in life?

We are safe to breathe alone in darkness but not to breathe and be in constant light?
No. We would break and snap.

The human: A fragile being tamed yet wild. Caged yet free.

Fallen-angel

Poem: Best friends with an angel

2005-01-28T01:15:00.000Z

They talk to you,
understand and believe in you.
dissolving your problems they try.

To succeed in making a smile,
creating a picture.
Showing a light.
A glimmer of hope.
they fight.

Kind words of a gentle heart.
A voice of velvet,
soft and knowledgeable.

A secret support.
The floor beneath us.
A warm touch of soft skin.

Throw me a life line I'm reaching out.
An angel in human form.
guidance for life.

Tread with care,
few to spare.
The true are rare,
please take care.

For love and life
best friends are there.
In angels we pair.

Poem: Breathe

2005-01-28T01:00:00.000Z

What it means to breathe
is to know that you are alive.
To walk the streets in search of life.

To breathe is to accept life and
the imperfections created.
Through this world we travel the universe.

Don't forget to breathe.

To stop will not undo or vanquish negativity.
Inhale purity and exhale the dirt.

To breathe is to know you are alive.
Awaken from your dreams
the daylight has returned.
Another day is upon us.

The blood and the blade

2005-01-23T03:20:00.000Z

To the time when I thought to bleed wouldn't be enough, now all I want to do is bleed. These cravings for the red are getting worse and I fear the day will soon come where I will not be able to fend them off.

To cave in an cut.

To re-open the still healing scars just once more. The day is drawing nearer and the red is clearer in my mind. The visions of blood pouring down my arms onto my body.

Lie in the relief of letting go.

I am in a downward spiral and fear again that I will not have the strength to fight. The feeling is all to familiar. The happiness found in recent times has gone and am left with the doubt and uncertainty of what tomorrow may bring. Hoping not to awake or see the break of morning light is my idea of heaven.

How easy it would be just to swallow those pills again and sleep for eternity.

To fight? What for?

I want to succeed in life but as time goes on it looks more and more doubtful. I see others laugh and perform and wishing I could be like them. I dance, I love it, not to dance would kill me but I'm like many in feeling that I'm not good enough. I was watching Fame the other night on DVD. It came to the part when the teacher told Lisa that she was out as she will never be good enough. I await that daily at college. I'm waiting for the day they say I will never be good enough to perform. Gee, I think it often enough they might as well tell me I'm wasting my time.

Its past 3am and I think what the heck have I done with my life? I know I've accomplished much in the way of performing arts and showbusiness. I guess fighting ana and SI but am still lingering in there with them and I quit smoking.

Am I proud of my acheivemnts?
-At times I am and other times am not.

Would I change anything in my life?
-No. As I cannot change the past but if I could for sue I'd change so much.

To give it all for one last breath.

Why do I always think of me? Am I really that self centered?

2005-01-21T18:50:00.000Z

I read into situations and comments to far. I preempted feelings I may feel and things I may do . To breathe and let go just for a while sounds an easy enough task but for the obsessed person it's too much of a challenge. Take a look at the world around, its in disarray, yet I think of me and wallow in my self pity.

Honestly, am I that self obsessed? Do I really only think of myself?

My whole life is ana and staying faithful to her. Till death do us part, no matter what.

Fairydust is an angel mentioned before and a savior to me. A light at the end of the tunnel. She commends me and asks the angels to help me succeed. Fairy deserves the world and the world deserves her.
A dear friend at home that means more than he will ever know has troubles and I wish I could help. The distance sometimes, well most is hard although the feelings go untold.
To say I'm a emotional person is true but strictly behind closed doors, alone.

Another year has passed and what can I say I achieved? Nothing. I still can't open and talk to my closest friends. Yeah I talk to Fairydust but not all things have words to express.
The few things I can say I have achieved is to quit smoking and not cutting. I have opened up to fairydust as although she has a less knowledge of ana and the rituals involved, she understands and accepts.

This is to thank the few people that help or try to. Thank you all and apologies to them for holding back. I can't talk or open up but I try.

Give it all

2005-01-16T23:06:00.000Z

To give it all, my life to be thin.
Look at the reflection staring back.
Deal with the guilt of temptation
Hide in the recreation of the blade.
Fight for life, what for?
To live repenting your every action?
Pointless.
My mere existence is for other people to poke fun at.
Blood.
The red stuff craved for by many and many a day bleed to escape.
My whole life right now seems to be ana and SI.
Nothing else.
Pointless the reason to stop.
relief to carry on.

Sitting in the corner

2005-01-16T23:01:00.000Z

Sitting in the corner amogest the voices.
Darkness creeps all around.
A spot of light from a window floods the floor. You huddle and cry.
Scared from your wits you sit mentally preparing for what happens next.
Take one last look at life.
Is this what you really want?
"Yes"
Dead

6.4 stone

2005-01-14T22:00:00.000Z

I've been back in Liverpool less than a week and already back on the anavirgo site. I missed it so much talking to people who understand you and don't push recovery upon you. I was online the other day looking up ballerina's diets and their weights. I was shocked at how thin they actually are, I know they are thin but to read some of the stories about how they eat a maximum of 800 calories a day. They weigh 90-105 pounds (6.4-7.5 stone. I want to weight 90 pounds (6.4 stone)-I didn't think that 90 pounds was under 7 stone but hey is my goal. I've got a long way to go but am determined nether the less.

Andrea is back at college (tutor who was on maternity leave). I'm worried that she will be keeping an eye on me as every time I see her she comments that I've lost weight. I last saw her in October when I performed in tribute to Gregory Hines (famous black American tap dancer) and she said I looked slim and grate. Then she watched the college dance show in December and came backstage and hugged me and asked me if I was eating properly, I blagged that I'd been ill and luckily she believed that. Now she's back full time I don't know what she will do as I'm continuing to loose weight no matter what.

The reasoning behind it all

2005-01-01T22:41:00.000Z

Dizzy and confused I wonder the streets.
Comtemplation of my bleak furture is what I think.
To strive for perfection.
Starve for imcaulation.
To do whatever it takes
I'm prepaired.

The warnings and words of others
I can hear them.
I just chose to ignore them.
Shocking images I befriend and admire
for bones are all I want to see.

Pain, blood, sweat and tears.
I can cope with as to reap in the rewards.
My vision of heaven.

The pain of hunger, muscle aches and blackouts.
The blood from my wrists and arms.
The sweat form constant workouts and exercise regimes.
The tears of weakness.

To feel empowered and able must be amazing.
As I think back to before when bleeding, not eating and exercsing wasn't enough
I recal how to count the ribs and feel the colar bone.
Amazing.

To be imaculate and live to show it.

I know I will never be thin enough and when I am I will be dead becasue of the love for ana

Another year?

2005-01-01T05:48:00.000Z

Another new year another day in the life of me. To start the new year I cut my wrists and my hand. I couldn't help it ma made me do it. I was in her bedroom and she was poking the fat on my hips and telling me the chocolate I consumed yesterday will make me fatter. I almost made it through a week in Devon without cutting but no she had to make me feel even lower than I already feel. Along side the cuts that are more scars and scabs on my left wrist, I also have two cuts on the top of my wrist and one on my hand. On the other have a few scratches that drew blood on the wrist. At least they are only on the surface now instead of deeper although I wanted to cut deeper. I'm just hoping that the scars disappear on my left wrist as they look digusting and are now purple.

Dose she not think I can see the fat for myself and that I need it pointed out daily?
I'm fasting tomorrow on the way up to Kent. I've got some mints in case my stomach makes loads of noise!

I really can't believe I ate so much over Christmas, I know everyone says that but I really have. I didn't eat breakfast and only had lunch a few times but I ate dinner and snacked. Dinner consisted of vegetable stew or veg and Quorn chicken. Snacks were of chocolate and junk. I have been making food disappear again.

Like I said a few days ago I'm fasting once I get back to Liverpool and whilst in Kent only eating vegan foods.

I'm in my room hidden from the world typing up my ana folder so I can post it on my website: www.fallenanangelana.blogspot.com I want to share the information I have gathered with others who love ana/mia and SI, although I don't have that much information on self harming yet.

No Plan

2004-12-30T11:36:00.000Z

Woke up today with no plan on how I will make it through another day of sheer boredom. I made my escape as I went on the internet to book my coach ticket and check my mail. I went on the anavirgo site that I miss so much. I was reading a post that I put up about Ipecac syrup and how I couldn't get any shipped and thought about laxatives.

After I logged off I went to Boots to investigate and I found like ten different brands and bought some. It was easier than first anticipated they were next to the diet pills and slim fast products.
I took two then had dinner, well I say had dinner more poked it about a bit and left most of it. Later I took two more but have felt no effects accept the fact I've been to the bathroom a bit more but that could just be the fact I've drunk more today to curb the temptations of eating junk!

I've decided that when I get back to Liverpool I'm fasting no matter what it takes and for as long as I can.

For the past few days I have had constant craving to cut and its constantly on my mind. I'm thinking about cutting the bottom of my legs or the tops of my feet. I can cover that better than my wrists by wearing footless tights under my trousers at college and my normal trousers generally. When I do go out in a skirt I wear tights anyway.

I fear the temptation will be too much and I will cut.
I crave the red, the sight of blood.

The whole making food disappear so people think I'm eating it is working a treat! I've got a bag of it ready for the trash. Ma said what I don't eat I will just have to take with me, so I will loose that on the way to Kent!

I feel huge and the very thought of stepping on the scales scares me to the point if I did and gained I would not be responsible for what I do next. I will take the plunge after a week back in
Liverpool after some serious fasting.

The week in Devon is nearing an end and for once I'm doing OK. If I were to have stayed here for two weeks the story would be very different.

I've been thinking about putting pictures of thinsperation on my door in Liverpool. I have pictures on the walls and one or two thinsperation pictures that I have passed off as mates but I want a dedication section to ana. I want pictures, poetry, sayings and things to inspire me to peruse this for ever.

Remember the trick to life is to keep breathing.

Fallen-angel

xxx

Pretending I ate

2004-12-28T18:41:00.000Z

Sat in my room alone. I pretended to eat earlier. I bought some fruit into my room on a plate and left the skins and cores on the plate throwing the rest away. I also have two bananas in a bag that I took out of the fruit bowl to make it look as if I'm eating it. The plan today is to fast and only drink water and fruit juice. I'm going to cook some vegetables in a bit and when ma goes to work throw them in the bag in my room. I will but them in the bottom of the wheelie bin so she doesn't find them or in the neighbour bin. I'm taking twice the dose of diet pills and about four times a day, when ever I eat even if its a piece of fruit or veg.

I'm scared that when I get back to Liverpool I will have gained weight. Going to Kent will help me loose weight as I hate eating in front of people and I' eating only fruit and vegetables. Maybe if I have managed to gain will loose it.

I was up my big sister's flat the other night and she commented that I do not need to loose anymore weight as I'm thin enough! Um can she not see the fat, my stomach bulging over my trousers? Obviously not. Another time I was talking to my little sister and she commented on how I should be careful I don't get anorexic, um a bit late for that now! On the subject on peoples comments a couple of people at college including teachers have said I've lost a lot of weight and quickly and how I must be careful I don't get anorexic! If only they knew.

We went to Exeter yesterday and as we were walking around I saw loads of Goths and skaters and a strange feeling came over me that I was safe and not alone knowing they are there. I can't explain it but ma was moaning about how I should wear pink as I am a girl instead of black, purple and brown. Its my style for fuck sakes. I don't complain about her and her fucked up dress sense so what gives her the right to have a moan at me?

Surviving

2004-12-26T13:37:00.000Z

In Devon and I guess its not as bad as I thought, although nearly.

I went to the dentist on Christmas day! I need a filling! I'm so petrified and I think that my ma finally found out how bad it was as I walked out of the dentist room crying and dizzy she seemed quite shocked. I kept urging but as I had no food in me I couldn't be sick.

I was OK and coping until today when my ma commented to Jo (Bother, Wayne's wife) about me eating chocolate. She moaned that she bought me fruit, veg, low fat bread, Soya milk, ect and here is me eating junk. I was OK thinking its Christmas I will I allow myself a little treat. But no, her mouth has made me worse and I feel if I eat I'm a fat cow and if I don't they will suspect.

I really can't win with her, can I?

I know I'm fat but it is Christmas and I haven't eaten any type of junk for like a month two. I didn't eat pudding last night even though she asked me several times. I only ate vegetables for Christmas dinner, she said "oh you look like you are on a diet"! What the heck is she doing to me, she knows full well am on a diet. She has a go at me for contradicting her and she dose it to me all the time.

I want to go now, I've had enough of her abuse. I want to fast but then she will be like;
"oh starving ourself are we? It won't last. she can't stick to a diet even if she tried!"
As soon as I get back to Liverpool I'm fasting for as long as I can. I was kidding myself that I was loosing weight but all I see is fat and it repulses me.

Going to Kent will be OK as she told her parents I'm a vegan so hopefully I don't have to explain things to them.

I took three times the recommended dose of diet pills and hope that helps get rid of some of this fat. I have yet to do any workouts, I feel constantly tired for some reason and just want to sleep. I'm kinda sleeping at night but also for three or four hours in the afternoon! Its random as I don't sleep much!

It passes the day a bit faster.

Ma is off work tonight so will be able to workout in my room alone. Just me, the laptop, CD player and my thoughts! Thoughts that urge me on and not to eat, take more pills, get laxatives anything to help.

Updated

2004-12-21T09:28:00.000Z

Constantly tied up with college, the dance show and my ma visiting I haven't had any time to myself.

Ma came up and performed her "usual" routine of singing my phrases in full view of the public and behind closed doors telling another story.

I have changed my opinion of my ma but at times she seems she has changed but other times she seems the same. She tells the truth about how I must not be a fat dancer and to try harder in order to be the best. Some people say she is too harsh and ask why she is like it and I simply reply she speaks the truth. To most people the whole truth is too much to handle but as I'm used to it can take it. I do thank my ma at times in my mind for being so honest and not shielding me form the world.

Although I've been so busy recently I still have found the time to contemplate what the future holds for me. I've come to the conclusion you are either born happy and stay happy or born sad and stay that way. There is no changing the events of birth. People may try and change your perspective on the world but it doesn't change a thing. Sure you can lie and pretend.

But for how long?

I've become professional at lying and covering up. To me each day I wake, wash, dress, put on make-up and then just before I leave I put on my front, an act for the public.

What you wear defines you and in many ways.

I'm gothic.

And I like it but to be noticed or "found out" about me real personality, the true me would just push me over the edge.

Thinking back to the college show and how my class rejects me.

She with all the blame.

I'm the one who just doesn't fit the mould.

During one of the breaks between shows the girls in my class were talking about how certain people in our group have defined styles. I have a defined individual style but obviously I don't count, least not them.

what about me? Am I no longer defined? Individual?

They talk in front of me about their hatred for Goths and "devil worshipers" knowing full well that I'm gothic but never the less they continue.

I won't follow the crowed and fit in, I don't understand why I should.
Another time in the corridor Katie (bitch!) counted how many of our class was lined up for the finally. She totally missed me out even though I was standing in full view between Amy and Gemma. I was thinking:

Do I not even exist to you or something?

I know I've never been one to fit in but to be acknowledged I exist would be enough. I still stick to my claim that because I'm not local (no where near!), speak differently, have my own words that they don't understand, dress and believe in different things they reject me. Ah well its their loss and if I'm not good enough for their clam.

Who cares?

Me at times. As sad and pathetic as it may seem I want to fit in and be noticed although I will not change anything I stand for in order to fit.

Reverting Back

My ma went back to Devon (Thursday 16th), I was glad in many ways.
All I ever want is to be alone but at the same time not to be alone.
I phoned ma Friday between the shows from my house to say I wouldn't be home Saturday night as Heidi and were going out and she started. She called me a liar, untrustworthy and selfish.

It was too much as after she hung up on me I looked down to the floor and found a piece of broken glass.

The previous night Catherine had dropped a glass down the stairs and whilst cleaning it up obviously had missed that piece.

I picked it up and ripped it across my wrist but it didn't cut deep enough so I broke the glass up. I found a sharp edge and cut my wrist several times with the sharp edge and the blood poured.
It was a huge release and the pressure was let out. The blood ran down my arm and I headed for the bathroom for tissue to soak it up, as I got to the top of the stairs I went dizzy.
I sat on the top stairs and cried for the blood kept coming.

I was scared for once in my life.

I wrapped my wrist up in kitchen roll and crate bandage. I wanted to rest on my bed but couldn't as I had to get back for the show. I walked to Asda bought a first aid kit as my previous ones had run out.

I caught the bus to college and was still feeling dizzy and sleepy. I fought nausea eventually and did perform in the show.

Covering up the cuts was just to easy, one black sweat band.
This gave me hope that I can continue cutting and cover.

An Angel

I have finally found someone who I can turn to, someone who will always be there understanding, a person who dose not judge. I don't know where she's been hiding or where she fell from but am glad she is here. She is my sanctuary, savior and a person who gives me some reasoning to my mere existence.

I stand more of a chance to see 2005.

We talk about ana, mia , diet pills and all secretive things. She helped me at college to change my bandage on my wrist. She is the only one who I have ever turned to in a point of need and desperation.

I wasn't afraid to show the cuts to her.

I'm going to her parents for New Years to get me away from my parents. She threw me a life line. She is prepared to keep my secrets.

I want to help her in return. I can do this through ana, showing her the ways of this underground population whom hide from view. I feel she so desperately wants to get to know and explore.

I will strive to help others who protect me.

something I Just Don't Believe In

Christmas. A joyous occasion, to bring people together, good tidings, sharing food, gifts and laughter.

Its all crap!

Religion?-what the heck is that all about, I'm not a believer in any religion. Although I contradict myself as I'm a believer in the religion of ana and the rules it brings. Ana, Mia and SI all have a book of rules and regulations.

Is ana, mia and SI a religion or an illness?

Take away the commercialism and religion of Christmas and you are left with a bunch of people who argue and relatives you have to make polite conversation with.

What's the point in it all?

The Next Trip Down South

The Christmas treck to Devon is getting nearer. I dread the whole going to see the family. I just want it to be like year when I spent it in Liverpool, alone. Even though I was severely depressed, harming, suicidal and ana I was "okay".

I don't want things to change, saying that I don't want to be depressed so much but the SI and ana I like. It may sound strange but I like SI as its helps me to cope in the world of today and as for ana she protects me at an the same time speaks only of the truth.

Every time I'm in Devon I end up the same; depressed, harming, not eating and when I finally fall asleep hoping I never wake up, the world stops for ever. It never happens.

I take the blade and rip it across my wrists until all I can see is red, I feel no more. To me red is all I live to see. Cut deeper, I say to myself its not enough.

What happens when to bleed isn't enough?

What then?

Visions of ana

2004-12-11T19:41:00.000Z

I see ana in the mirrors at college when I dance. She stands elegantly.

She is 5"8, pale skin, dark eyes, black hair, she wears a white floaty dress and her nails are painted black. She wears no shoes.

I saw her in a lesson a week or so ago when I wasn't feeling to well, was dizzy and weak. I looked into the mirror and she was crying black tears and she was bleeding the reddest blood from her wrists. Her arms were relaxed by her side. Ana didn't seem to notice all the blood dripping onto the floor. I sat out for the rest of the lesson saying I felt dizzy. I haven't seen her since then.

Just now when I was upstairs brushing my teeth I heard a female voice say my name. It was like she was calling me back to my laptop to read more on her and about her lifestyle. It couldn't be anyone else as I'm home alone until my ma comes up tomorrow, I know joy to the world. I've never heard her voice but its calming and I don't feel alone. I'm glad she has come into my house in human form and not just in my mind.

When I really have to food shop she's there with me in Asda looking with me at the low fat, calorie, sugar, vegetarian and vegan foods that make me feel sick at the site of. It used to take me about half an hour to get around the store and out the door but now I'm in there for ages. I read all the labels of anything I want and deliberate weather or not to buy it. I won't buy anything over 100 calories, junk food or items in the freezer like vegetarian burgers, sausages or potato wedges. I won't but bread, rolls and no cake will pass my lips. I bought some bread the other day Nimble, low carbohydrate and felt so guilty as I read to calorie content, yet I bought it, a small loaf.

But no more, I can't, must not. I need to see her face, feel her presence. Where has she gone? Did I do bad, so bad that she left?

Ana please return.

I have bled for you, overdosed and almost died. I know I've not bled for two weeks as the risk is to high of people finding out but I still do the rest. What will it take for you to come back? I will do anything. Tell me in my sleep tonight. You might have trouble fighting through the nightmares that plague my dreams but I need you.

Love for always worthless one.

Writing: No More

2004-12-08T22:43:00.000Z

Through desperation and no recreation I'm reaching out.
Lost and confused, in a daze I wonder.
I want to die but no one will kill me.
Please take the blame, reach for the flame and plunge it into my heart.
I want to live no more.
Feeling dizzy and constrained, I can't sleep.
Will I awake in the morning light? Take preparation for another day? I don't know.
To step out of this life, even for a breath, but I fear I will not return.
I need to bleed. I can't as I still see the marks of yesterdays.
The nightmares that plague my dreams will soon return.
I sleep no more for they are becoming reality.
People know, have seen and questiond.
The lies confuse me as I dig for more.
I love my secrets for they are me, the real person inside. I'm sick of putting on a front, from first thing in the morning till last thing at night.
I used to escape in my dreams but no more can I hide.
Take me out. I feel no more of life, no smile or laugh, I want to apart. Give me a relise date, a time and a place, anything to indicated the end is near.

Poem: The Journey

2004-12-08T21:55:00.000Z

I'm scared and under prepared
sat on the train
still feeling the pain.
What will they gain from seeing me?
She with all the blame.

Questions I cannot answer
emotions I no longer tame.

I think to when you first came.
How you instantly took away my aim
set me apart from this game.
You pulled me away fast as a speedway train.

When I arrive
you'll be by my side
standing with pride
for I went for the ride.
Am I still strong and able to hide?

Poem: The Blade

2004-12-08T21:06:00.000Z

Together with the blade
and my blood stained tears
I knowingly punish those
who hurt me.

Sitting in candle light
pretending threes no pain.
But what do I gain?

No one will awake
with my silent screams.
I watch the blood
run from a vein.

Tomorrow I will wake
but I'm only a fake.
I'll wear a smile
though only for a while.
I need to compile the
thoughts in my head
though al I see is red.

My body is drained.
I have nothing aside
from these blood stained tears.
I hide my fears, the blame
and hatred for this game.

I have no pride
I want to ride
please let my body
commit suicide.

The temptation is unbelievable.
No preparation to die.
Sit and hide unto you I confide.

"I'm off to die, yet I won't cry."

Questions

2004-12-07T01:04:00.000Z

All I have is questions, questions I feel I can no longer answer. Confusion rules my head and heart.

I've went to Devon for a few days and parts of me say its done me good but others say its made me worse.

I've lost my self control and have started to eat "normally" again. What I class as "normal" others would say is not enough.

My stomach bloats, I feel huge.

I'm disgusted. I'm dirty.

I have committed a terrible crime for which I must be punished for. The reflection I see before me sickness me to the point I never want to eat again, but the total loss of my self control dose not all me to stop. I'm searching for the discipline I worked so hard to get.

Where has it gone?

I'm fasting starting tomorrow until my ma comes up (Sunday 12th).
I feel the urge to exercise more, burn more, rid myself of this fat of which controls my daily actions.

I tried making myself purge tonight but to no avail. I tried ordering Ipecac syrup on-line but it can't be shipped over. I'm desperate and need something to help me. I can't eat, the guilt is to much.

I'm sick of trying, when is it my turn for success?

I was shopping in Torquay earlier with my niece, Orlento. She pushed me over the edge driving me to a nervous breakdown. She was throwing the biggest tantrum and I mean the full blown tantrum.

i.e. Crying, Screaming, Shouting, Biting, Sitting and lying on the pavement.
I'm not in a strong, stable place right now and to have her throwing a tantrum for over two and a half hours just pushed me too far. It all got too much for me to handle so I had no choice but to call ma out and come pick us up.

The next few days were strange as I felt the breakdown made sense some of the thoughts plaguing my mind. It felt abstract, it was like nothing mattered for a time. I ate food without guilt and felt relaxed.

It didn't last.

I'm back in Liverpool now and scared of my own actions. I don't trust myself to be alone but have no choice.

Its all very well me handing out advice on the anavirgo message board but I should learn to take my own advise. I only hear the negative thoughts in my head, they control me and is all I know and understand.

I must not cut myself again, the cuts from weeks ago are still visible. I hate the scars from past times on my arms and wrists. I need to find another way to let out my anger, pain and hurt. I'm smoking again but trying to stop again as its making me ill. I'm trying alternative distractions.
I've been thinking about ana at Christmas and how I will cope. To avoid eating junk that's placed in front of my face, tempting fat.

Its going to be easier than first thought. I'm taking my folder and laptop down so I can type my thoughts, when weak I will look into my folder for inspiration. I will write an exercise plan for the holiday-It won't look suspicious as I need to keep fit and supple for college. The whole eating thing could be tricky but will take that each day and blagg my way through it. If I eat only in front of my family then that will curb suspicions. If I take food into my room, say I'm doing college work and throw it away.

Its a good job we have a dog as he will be eating my food instead of me!
My obsession with ana has once again taken over my life. It controls me even in my sleep. Every move I make, every step I take she (ana) is watching and guiding me.

Letter for ana

2004-12-05T09:40:00.000Z

Dear Ana,
Once again I have failed you and for that I will punish myself. I gave in under pressure when I went to Devon. I have developed a new stricter regime.

1) More fasting and for longer periods of time.

2) More exercise; Walking, gymnastics, running and home workouts, daily.

3) Keep myself busy during meal times, especially around 6pm.

4) Drink more ice water.

5) Continue to add information and pictures to my ana folder.

With these guidelines and my new discipline that I will force myself to give everything to you.
I swear I will obey and loose my horrific fat that embezzles my body.

I will hide my shame and guilt.

I will keep our secret for eternity.

Ana, I'm sorry for disobeying you and betraying your undying love for me. I know I am weak and pathetic. Unworthy but desperately in need of you to return, take me under your wing once again, protect me from this world. I put my trust in you to speak the truth and nothing but the truth.

I'm begging for forgiveness, although I don't deserve, but please. You still have my undying love.

Love always

Worthless one

Fallen-angel

xxx

Poem: Allowed

2004-11-30T01:03:00.000Z

Its my body so why do you cry?
You took the blade,
all I ask is why?
Its my body,
just let go my hand
and leave me here to land.

You don't know the pain,
when I walk in the rain.
Its all the same
but you feel the blame.
Its me,
I feel the strain.

Stop sitting and staring
can't you see I'm preparing.
I'm raring to cut,
now I'm more in a rut.
I crave the blood,
need the red
to feel the pounding of my head.
Put me to bed,
I don't want you to find me dead.

Walk out before its to late
I don't want you to feel this hate
its my body any rate.
I do as I will
but thanks your grate.

I'm allowed to hurt,
its my blade.
Give me my knife.
Come on if you don't I'll go on a raid
to the kitchen ,
I'll find another blade.

There's no denying
its probably me you can crying
for I am dying.
I've had enough lying.
Its the consequences of the blade.

Poem: Blood

2004-11-28T01:26:00.000Z

Blood.
It like fire to the human eye.
No one can see me screaming
but obviously still see me bleeding.
The blade loves me
Do you?

The razor blade in bodily form
its as real as the midnight storm.
Blood trailing down.
Its al around.
I relax and then relapse.
I'm unstable yet able.

Dried on blood.
I'm looking at the pain.
I can't stop
I'm addicted to the blame.
there's nothing you can do
I'm just to dependent on this game.

The blades cold
yet my wrists burn.
I sit on my own,
turn my back to this world.
I've paid my debt.

Regaining consciousness
I realize something not right.
I can see the morning light.
Have I been out all night?

I have to get to the bathroom,
need to beat the rush,
have to wash the blood
though my sight is blurred
and all I can see is red.
I want to go back to bed
like I did before I bled.

Happy Thanksgiving

2004-11-25T21:29:00.000Z

Its thanksgiving today and for many a joyous occasion, but not for people like me. Although I'm not American many of my friends are who live both in the states and England. Its meant to be a cause for celebration, bringing people together and feasting. Not for those addicted to the ana lifestyle. Its a difficult time and may give the secret away.

The moment comes that you've been dreading all week, you sit at the dining table. The display of food makes your mouth water, you look, stare and smell. Do you dare? Surely one bit won't hurt. It will, and giving in under pressure is weak.

For after you stuffed your face you run to the bathroom to purge it all back up. You are on your knees begging ana for forgiveness. You hope she takes you back. You try to cover and blag your way out of eating but your friends and family start to question you, your behaviour. What then? You need to posses the power to deceive the ones you love.

Its your secret.

Poem: Dying to dance

2004-11-25T12:15:00.000Z

You stand in class
debating weather you'll pass.
Look into the mirrors,
what do you see?
Eyes of deception looking your way,
poking fun at your imperfections.
There is no pride.
You want to ride the train
down the path of pain
in pursuit of satisfaction.

You're dreams at night are haunted
and you are taunted with fright.
You are sick in fustration
with the pain of desporation.
You know you're not good enough.
Its not fair
but who cares?

You've paid the dabt
of wanting me instead of a pet.
There are somethings you'll always regret.
You are dying to dance
please lets not forget.

You get compliments of distraction.
You stand with tears of missdirection.

You reach for a star
but your body is drained
and you are no more
dancing in the darkness to hide the shame.
You dance no more for fear of blame.

Poem:You are crowned

2004-11-25T09:39:00.000Z

Your hungry?
So turn to your wrists.
Go to you r room this is anything but bliss.
Turn the CD player on, get in the mood.
Your home alone,
is this the last kiss?

You chose not to fight.
Your addicted to the night.
You pull out the knife.
You want to end this life.

Drag the blade across your wrists,
its not enough, you clench your fists.
Up to the throat without a flinch,
Can you end what you can't comprehend?

You stopped at first
but you've done the worst.
Your body falls leaving a curse.

No gun just a knife.
You've found how to end this life.
Blood trails down.
You've finally found
as your head begins to pound.
You are crowned.
Dead.

Walking

2004-11-24T17:48:00.000Z

I feel I am becoming weaker, the room spins more and more, but faster now. I still see the fat.

During composition with Anthony I found myself unable to complete the routine we created, for half way through I couldn't breath, I had no more. I pushed myself on, telling of how I need to do this, to fight the signs of pain my body screams at me. I find at times I have certain energy bursts and am invincible, they never seem to last more than a hour though.

Went for a walk through Sefton Park (one of the few green spots in Liverpool), it gave me time to think. For hours I walked pondering over my life. I thought a lot but not about not a lot, if that makes any sense. I feel I need to get away, find an escape from this life, just for a while. I don't know who I am or what I do, everything's so confusing.

Can I survive a little longer? I do not know.

I need to rest but not alone. I need help but no ones their to reach. I'm reaching out again, pleading, begging for relief.

Just one more day.

In the mirror

2004-11-23T13:16:00.000Z

I stood today looking in the mirror and all I saw was this desperate sad girl looking back. Everything seems bleak, a blur we call reality.

Discussing our futures today and what will become of us. There is doubt in my mind of what life holds for me if I must go on, I'm surviving instead of living. I know we all have to go on at times when all you want to do is just throw the towel in and die. Sitting in the tutor room listening to all the people tell of their lives laid out. How much of its realty and how much is just a dream?
My future seems to be disappearing, as I do by the day. All I do is question my ability and stare at my imperfections.

Will I ever be good enough?

I am dedicated to dance, I just feel I shouldn't go on. I've always had a little doubt in my mind weather I will ever be good enough, I guess every dancer dose. I know "I'm good" but is it enough? The teachers and students comment daily on how beautiful my feet and lags are, they ask how I do it. Its natural I guess but with fifteen years of hard work and training behind you, you would think it natural to point that way and to hold your leg so high.

I just want to be the best, is that asking to much?

Questions I cannot answer

2004-11-21T10:30:00.000Z

Its not like I'm not happy starving, I'm just not happy eating.
I can't deal with the guilt anymore.

Today I ate again and the pain was unbelievable then I was sick. Its true I ate and then ten minutes later I threw up, my body doesn't understand what food is anymore. Though don't get me wrong I'm not complaing about it, I only ate because my housemate was in the lounge with me and my stomach was making such a noise! I wasn't hungry.

I've been weak these past two days giving in to the complaints of my body. Its only my body, it can complain and moan all it likes as long as the mind is strong that's all that counts.
Well in my world that's all that matters.

I was lying in bed last night on my side and couldn't get comfy as my hip bone was digging into the mattress, bearing in mind I've always had prominent hip bones, but this time it really hurt. I guess this is a sign that what I'm doing is the rite thing. Strange as it may seem the more weight I loose the more confident I'm becoming, I'm more in control. I don't feel so ashamed in ballet when I stand in a loetard, my stomach doesn't stick out so much. It's still there though but slowly disappearing.

I'm constantly plagued with the images of thin pretty chicks. Everywhere I go its all I see and it reminds me of what I have to do in order to achieve that. I'm desperate to be wanted, accepted and hopefully one day loved. Although the love thing I'm seriously starting to doubt. I question my ability to love. Is it possible for a self obsessed person to love? The answer I do not know, the feelings I posses would say it was obvious.

I feel I'm not loosing weight fast enough, will I ever? I don't know how far I need to go until I feel acceptable to the world. I want to hide in a dark room with a candle and a knife.

I found out something very interesting on the internet tonight, this drug called Ipecac Syrup. It makes you throw up within twenty minutes of taking it. Its used for people who OD or take/eat poison. I couldn't find it in this country but in the states you can buy 30ml of it over the counter without prescription. I found a mail order site where you can purchase it and get it shipped over here. Its only $14.09 and shipping $7.75 and that's for five bottles of 30ml. It doesn't say how much you need to take for effect. I'm contemplating getting some for when I eat too much.

Something

2004-11-19T23:05:00.000Z

It's funny how after a while, I don't actually need food, I can cope with out. My stomach is empty, hollow and yet the smell of food dose nothing, I smell but do not crave. I do not need the taste as I have the memories. I only eat when I am near blackout, dizzy, weak and on the brink, but with constant guilt.

To eat is a waste of what little time we have. I see no real reason to consume, its a chore.

The teachings of the mind: Food is pain. It leads to a life of eternal of repent. Self control is vital in order to survive. If you really want this, you need to believe. Are you a believer? To win you must believe in your self control and the control of ana.

Preparation: The key. Prepare yourself to deceive, blag and in other words lie to the ones who mean the most to you. It may not be pleasurable but vital.

Remember its yours and ana's secret.

Anorexia is an art. As an artistic form like dance it takes pure dedication and passion. There is something beautiful and yet morbid about this so-called 'disorder'. However to many including myself, anorexia is far more than that, for its a state of mind, lifestyle, an expression, freedom and a choice.

Inside our bodies we have a little place for ana, its a perfect drug, both harmless and legal, no prescription needed. Ana is the only thing that adds colour and meaning to an otherwise bland existence. For many including myself ana will always be a part of our lives, like a best friend.

Pathetic

2004-11-19T21:35:00.000Z

The day was going good until I ate. I know people say you need to eat in order to survive but its nonsense because man/woman can survive on water. Its true, David Blaine went in to a box above the themes for forty days and forty nights surviving solely on water, he's still alive, isn't he? The human body cannot survive without fluid but can without food.

Now I've eaten I feel I should punish myself for being weak and giving in to the rumbles of my stomach. My stomach hurts and I feel I'm going to explode! I ate so much, others would say so little but thats their opinion and I respect that but its me who has to live with the guilt.

Why am I so weak and feeble?

I need to get my priorities straight, I want to be thin and will do anything for a little piece of happiness.

Anything.

I think people are suspecting things and I don't know how I would cope if they found out the truth. I don't want them to say I'll help you get through this, we can do it together, I understand, when they really have no idea. Its imposible to understand unless you've been there, felt the guilt, the fat and pain.

I'm not sick.

Ana is a life style and not an illness, you cannot be cured of a life style choice.
You can over come it but ana will never leave you, ever, once you are scared by it its always there.

My dreams are plagued with fear of what people might say if they knew. I wake up at all hours in a panic, I'm scared. Its true for once in my life I have fear.

I don't need help.
Wounded? Yes.
Sick? No.

For the first time

2004-11-19T04:20:00.000Z

Still tired and sleepy. I've lost 6 pounds this week (its a start).

I've got a long way to go for perfection.

By the college Christmas show I want to loose another stone. I'm going on a fast until Monday maybe longer depending on how I feel, if I'm strong enough. I feel stronger now that I've got a result, I just need rest over the weekend. I've got a show tomorrow for charity and I have the strength to wake up in the morning.

Things are finally looking up.

I've pulled myself through and I'm not sure why because I just want to be accepted, loved and wanted. I feel love but am unsure that its returnable for the person tells of love for another.

In this life things are never simple or rewarding. People say you need to love and be loved in order to survive but I'm still here, much to my disappointment, yet I am not loved.

Went to physiotherapy and was told the problems in my knees will never be properly heeled and I may never dance without pain. I'm not shocked or hurt by the news as I had a good idea that it would be this way. I'm still perusing my career as they say 'no pain no gain'. I only know and love dance and I'm still going. The pain isn't bad all the time.

You know the only thing that loves me back is dancing.

Obviously ana loves me as I wouldn't be living without food and the loss of pounds each day.
I wake wishing and hoping I'd awake thin and beautiful. Its pathetic really because as much as I hate to admit it, it will never happen.

I will never be at one with myself, will always hate me and feel ashamed.

Ashamed

Starving for perfection?

2004-11-18T04:45:00.000Z

Its true, may girls and an increasing number of boys are starving themselves for perfection.

So why am I punishing my body?

Truth: I want to be noticed as the thin dancer instead of the fat one in the corner. If I was thin then I would be more confident and be proud of who I am. People say the key to happiness is acceptance from within, and I don't have that. I'm sick of being me, always hating myself and hoping I don't wake up.

Its hard being ana because I'm constantly weak and tired, I must not give up. Giving up is a sign of weakness and I'm not weak, least not anymore.

I don't understand this pain thrust upon me, must I constantly go on just surviving instead of living?

Fasting is not starvation

2004-11-17T10:11:00.000Z

Fasting refers to the complete absence of food, surviving solely on water.
People have this misconception that fasting is the same as starvation, when in actual fact starvation can only occur after prolong fasting.

In general, fasts should last no longer than twenty eight days. Fasts that last longer than forty two days are both unnecessary and dangerous. A prolonged fast of two-three months is a slow form of starvation.
During a fast the body enters ketosis. This is caused when the body uses up readily available energy sources (food). Once that energy source has gone it starts converting nonessential tissue (fat), though conserving essential tissue. After the nonessential tissue have been used up the body then starts converting essential tissue thus causing starvation.

During a fast the ketone levels in the blood rise from 2.0mm to 3.0mm after a few days and continues steadily rising there after.

To reach starvation takes some forty two days or more thus proving fasting is not a form of starvation. Starvation is the latter stage of fasting and totally unnecessary.

Fasting burns only nonessential tissue where as starvation goes beyond the point until there is nothing left to burn causing serious illness and in most cases prolonged health problems, or even death.

Dizzy

2004-11-14T15:35:00.000Z

I woke up today feeling weak and frail, it took a while before I could sit up. My body is weak but I managed to stand. I walked to the bathroom, but I'm dizzy and found I'm having to stop. Strange as it may sound when I stood up I had to wait for the world to catch up with me. I made dinner this afternoon but I couldn't eat, not even half. I thought if I could eat I would feel stronger since I've been on the ana plan for a week, but Couldn't do it. I tried eating slow, chewing more but nothing worked, so I gave up. I wasn't hungry at all just thought it might give me some strenth.

The room still spins as I wonder if I will make it through college tomorrow. I dance all day, is all I know and cannot fail. I have ballet, contemporary and tap, four and a half hours dancing.

Will I cope? I do not know, but I must go on and try my best.

My body is still cold from not eating and I feel I can't do anything to warm it up. I wear layers of clothes, gloves, slippers and yet I shiver. I sit infront of the fire and nothing. I go to sleep shivering clutching my hot water bottle, I wake up just as cold.
This has never happened to be before on the ana program, so why now?

A cry for help

2004-11-14T05:40:00.000Z

The beginning of a new chapter

Starting today: The day I start to try and rebuild my life and self esteem.

Things are complicated like always, text someone close telling about my problems and asking for help, help he couldn't give.
I'm stuck in a rut with nowhere to run, no one to turn to. I'm lost in this world, I don't fit it. I don't fit the mould that others do.
I'm sitting in my lounge alone with the music and my thoughts. My thoughts control me, every move I make I feel am judging. Am I good enough? Do I deserve to live? To be here?

Questions I can not answer, feelings I cannot stop.

My mind wonders as I log on-line, before I know it I'm typing in that addresses to those pro-ana sites and looking for answers, inspiration and most of all pictures of who I want to be; thin, pretty and perfect. Happy?
I spend hours looking at these sites that are kept hidden from view to protect us. I have loads of information on how, when, where and why. The why I know. The one thing I can say for sure I do know, everything else is a blur.

Its cold. Sitting here wrapped up, but its cold. I don't feel like going on. It this the end? Can anyone ever help me in my quest for eternal happiness? If not eternal I'd settle for a day, a minute, even a second, anything, please. I'm reaching out. Its so hard to admit you have a problem but when I get the courage to tell, nothing. Its like no one whants to know you. You reach, but how far can you reach before its to late, gone.

I can't reach forever.

Poem: Could we ever be?

2004-11-14T02:28:00.000Z

The truth my love I see,
for I have read the thoughts
you hide inside your head.

The truth of which I did not know,
I will keep inside my heart.
For I have seen the path
of which love leads.
For you babe
of what you do not know
the paths we go are but one.

I know the love for me you have,
I posses the same for you,
and yet you are unaware
as I am weak and do not tell
for fear of loosing you so dear.

The truth of now of which I feel
I have to put out and deal.
For I know you love another
and we would never be.

You yearn for someone close
and yet I yearn for you.
Oh I wish we could be
but I'm here in reality.

I was jealous of the first time
of your other and yet I fear another.
must I constantly fear for others?
For I love you and want no other.

Please say you'll come with me.
I will protect, love and keep you warm.
I will give you eternal happiness
and in return I will have peace of mind
for knowing forever you are mine.

For ever to love?
I always will.

Poem for ana

2004-11-14T00:00:00.000Z

If I eat I die.
If I starve I live.
To be as light as air,
to you I give.

Am I asking to much,
to be as thin as a match?
The body a vessel, it carries me.

Catch me!
I made of glass.
If you drop me I'm gonna smash.

The vessel,
it carries as you float on down,
you want to fit in, to wear the gown and
to bear the crown.

I'm drunk on water.
Feeding off the air.
Do I dare?

My body maybe weak,
but my mind is strong.
each day I speak,
but my life is bleak.

I'm fading away,
a little each day.
How much more.
will I make another day?
Who knows?
slowly slippinn away.