Left In The Dust

Dear ellie,

It's time to get a grip. Everyone around you is changing and moving on, and you are still acting the same way you did when you were 13. Then you wonder why you don't have a real job or friends or can't live in New York. You've had chances time after time after time to turn things around and your half-hearted attempts have been nothing short of pathetic. Everyone you lived with for all those years in hospital have either 1) recovered, 2) died, or 3) still spend their lives drifting aimlessly from one institution to the next. Why are you you SO torn between the 3 options? Why can you not just grow the hell up and move on from this? You SAY you want a LIFE- that you want to live in New York, have friends/a social life, go back to dancing, write a book, have a career. You say all this stuff about all these cool things you WANT to do with your life, but at the end of the day, you choose a number on a scale over and above everything else. It's gotten old. It doesn't MATTER what you weigh or precisely how many grams of protein you eat. NOBODY CARES. It's not important in the grand scheme of things if you eat X calories or X + 5 calories. You are the only one who is counting. People have given up and turned their backs. The ones that HAVE stuck around feel obligated to do so because of parental obligations or moral duties of care. Friends? Relatives? Colleagues? They don't want to watch you play this childlike game anymore. It's boring, it's self-centred and it's not getting you anywhere you want to be going.

If you want change, MAKE IT HAPPEN. Let go of the stupid irrational fears and anxieties. Stop obsessing over numbers. Stop comparing yourself to everyone else around you- accept what you ARE because you just ARE WHAT YOU ARE. Whether you like it or not, you are always going to be YOU. Deal with it. Yeah, the economy sucks, a job might suck, people might still hate you/be angry with you. The world, on the whole, can be a crappy, lonely and stressful place. Everyone else just sucks it up and deals with it, taking the good with the bad- what is so different about YOU that if it's not 100% perfect, you don't want any part of it? It's such an immature way of viewing situations. You act like a spoilt brat- things don't go your way? "Oh yeah...let's see how much weight I can lose then I'll somehow become a valuable person again." Seriously. Buck up.

Whatever point you were originally trying to prove has been proven a LONG time ago- do you even remember what it was? Didn't think so. Likely that there never was a real 'point' to be made and somehow things happened and you fell into a habit of self-destructing anytime things get rough and never actually bothered to try handling things differently.

Starving isn't the answer. Exercising isn't the answer. Diet pills aren't the answer. Hospital isn't the answer. The answer doesn't lie in behaviours or interventions from doctors- you don't even know what the damn question is anymore so how will you know when you HAVE the answer? Maybe you had it all along.

Stop complaining that everyone has moved on with their lives and that you feel left behind. Did you expect them to wait forever? People grow up and move on. It's time you did the same. Pull your thoughts away from obsessing over what weight you are/want to be and see the truth: none of that is important. Friends, family, job, travelling, LIFE- that is what's important. Not how much/how little you eat. Life shrinks and expands in proportion to courage- you say that all the time. yet you complain how 'small' your world is, how you never do the things you dream of... It's up to YOU to make the dreams a reality rather than wallowing in misery and obsessions and never actually taking action.

Get over yourself. You are sick of this and you know it. And everyone around you is sick of it too.
the real ellie x

*******

Some pictures?..

Breakfast this morning was more pumpkin...

Banana oats (oats, milk, vanilla, pinch of salt, cinnamon, mashed banana) with pumpkin, topped with white chocolate wonder peanut butter.

Lunch was a repeat of yesterday:


"Turkey and stuffing" flavoured quorn, laughing cow cheese, cranberry sauce, pumpkin and spinach on a wholewheat roll. I am so in love with quorn products right now- I like the "ham" slices better than these though. Much less 'fake' tasting. (And yes, the weather is still inspiring fall/winter foods. Someone send me some sunshine!)

Snack today was dictated by my sore throat and cold...


Mini chocolate and raisin oatibix with milk, soaked for a while to go mushy! This cereal is great- it's not sweet at all aside from the chocolate chips and raisins (though it is lacking in the raisin department- next time I'll add my own!)

Usual disclaimer: everything pictured has been eaten, not everything eaten has been pictured.

I'm really upset that all the stores in Edinburgh seem to have stopped selling Amy's burritos. I can still get a few of the meals, but I LOVE the burritos and they are nowhere to be found. So sad. I ended up rather impulsively buying a bunch of ready-made entrees today. I don't know quite what the appeal was at the time and shoved them in the freezer as soon as I got home. I guess it will force me to branch out from my usual foods and have some new stuff, but seriously... I need to stop buying food. I have plenty to use up! So pictures over the next couple of weeks will hopefully be repetitive (boring for you guys- good for my wallet :P)

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Dear Anorexia

Dear Anorexia,

It has been fourteen years, almost to the day, that we first met. I’d seen you around before then- on TV, on the streets, at school: did you see me too? I remember the very first day we were properly introduced. It was a school day and in my rush, I had no time for my usual breakfast. When break-time rolled around, you appeared: “you don’t need a snack”, you said, “see how long you can go”.

From that moment on, we were inseparable. You were with me wherever I went, and at the time, I was thankful. You told me that my fears about school, friends, all the normal thing a 12 year old worries about, didn’t matter. You would make things okay again. I, naively, believed you. It wasn’t long before people started interfering- friends, family, teachers, doctors, “Ignore them,” you said. “They don’t understand”. I remember stopping going to my friend’s houses after school. I didn’t have time anymore. I stopped playing hockey because I was too tired. I stopped playing my harp because I was too distracted by your seductive whispering of rules I needed to obey. I remember one night, lying on the kitchen floor at my mom’s feet- crying and begging her to HELP me. I was so hungry, so tired, in so much pain. Suddenly you seemed more threatening than friendly, and I was scared. I remember crawling up the stairs to bed that night with you whispering soothing words to me: “It’s okay… I'm going to things better for you”.

The years that followed are a blur of one hospital to another. I never really went back to school. I vaguely remember people’s faces, seeing their lips moving. I remember just wishing you would GO AWAY. I remember running into your arms when I was locked up in hospital, with you showing me how to trick the nurses, fake my way out.

I gave up everything for you. My friends, my passions, my interests- most people my age are married, working, having fun. I can’t remember the last time I ate my own birthday cake, went a day where your voice wasn’t whispering in my head.

I remember how much louder your voice got when I tried to fight you- how angry you got. How the more I disobeyed you, the more you tormented me. “You are WRONG,” you said. “This isn’t the WAY- you are making things worse”. I remember not being able to see any way out of the walls you had built around me, and walking into the ER begging for help. I remember you and I went for a little walk that evening? Do you remember too? Do you remember telling me that I would NEVER break free from you, that you would NEVER leave me? I will never forget how the thought of a lifetime under your reign was enough for me to hide on a side-street and swallowed enough painkillers to kill a horse.

I listened as you told me I would never be able to go to college, never be able to hold down a job, but that it didn’t matter because at least I would be thin. I listened as you told me that no matter what, you would always be there for me.

Now it’s your turn to listen to me.

For fourteen years, it’s been “You And I” against what felt like, the world. For fourteen years you have cast shadows over every aspect of my existence. Everything from my clothes to my fridge has your signature all over them. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have cut me out of their lives, jobs I’ve had to leave, classes I’ve had to drop, hospitals I’ve been in.

When I felt overwhelmed with work or school- you were there. But don’t you see? You didn’t help. Losing weight wasn’t the magical answer you said it would be: it made everything worse. I’ve spent more of our relationship locked up in psychiatric units than I have being happy like you promised me. Being thin didn’t make me popular, successful, important. Losing weight might have been something I was “good” at, but you know what? It’s not so special. It’s a scientific fact that if you eat less you lose weight: it doesn’t make me a better person.

So why am I writing to you now? Because I’ve listened to you for long enough. Over half of my life has been shared with you and it’s time to cut my losses and move on- you have nothing to offer me anymore except more of the same crisis’, hospitals, therapy, isolation, despair and drama that the last fourteen years have been filled with.

I wanted so badly to be accepted and loved, and when you offered that, I JUMPED at the chance. Believe me, nobody is sorrier than I am that I didn’t find acceptance and love- I’m still looking for that, but I know now that it will never come from you. The time ha.s come for us to part our ways. My answers aren't in your hands

Yours, with regret,

ellie