I want to die.

I can't believe it has got to this point.

I hate everything. I hate existing. I hate everything. Except people. I love them but I hate me. I just want to go away and not have to deal with any of this. I don't know how to be a good person again. I don't know how to feel ok. I don't know how to change.



Ephesians 4:27 "Do not give the Devil a way to defeat you"

Make believe

I was doing so well. I was determined to be back at 126lbs by the end of August. I think I just gave up that dream. I am an idiot. Pure and simple. Why do I let food break me every time. Why? I am so rubbish. I have no discipline. I am an idiot. I am a fake. I pretend to have an eating disorder. I don't - not really. If I did I would either be able to keep throwing up till I bleed, or refuse food even though I am tempted beyond belief. I do neither. I play at both. Its all a game and I am losing. My weight is a barrier I am never going to break. I hate it with as much hate as I have ever felt in my life. I HATE my stomach and my thighs and my bum and my boobs and my arms and my neck and my chin and my cheeks. I hate my body. I hate being fat. I hate life.

Yesterday night I had one of my melancholy moments where I didn't know what to do. I stayed up. I couldn't sleep. I cut my stomach. I had laxitives (which aren't working yet so I am going to have to have more now). I watched a load of TV. I read a book. I got cross with a fly for being in my flat. I eventually went and sat in the gap on my balcony with my hoody on (hood up), cushions, a blanket and a book. It was cosy and I loved it. It is going to become my contemplation place. My place to go when I don't know what else to do.

I sat in my room and I realised that at that moment everything felt like a play. Life felt unreal - like it wasn't real. Nothing was real. Everything was pretend. A mask to hide reality. I didn't want to play anymore. I didn't want to pretend any more. I wanted out. I wanted to escape. I felt like Truman. Life was playing its little game around me and whilst the world was playing, I was standing still, screaming to myself about the purposelessness of it all- nobody hearing me, nobody noticing - everybody content to play their part in the game we call life. The worst of it all - God and my faith - my future plans - officership and my apparent calling - all belong to the play. They aren't even real either. Everything is a game. Everything is meaningless. A chasing after the wind. Its like a dream that I am awake for. Its ridiculous. The game is ridiculous.

Don't patronise me by telling me that its not a game. I know its not really. I know that its real and that my mind is simply going crazy. I know that this is all real. Its all true. Its all happening. I believe in God. I believe in my calling. I just feel trapped. A pawn on a board game. Life is happening around me and it seems stupid to me. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. Its like there are two places. When I think rationally, I am part of the world - but the other place is a place where that world is make believe and I don't want to be in it anymore - like I am looking at it happening all around me and I can't escape it. I want to smash through the paper wall at the other end of the ocean and find reality, even if it isn't as nice or cosy as this world.

And yet, here I am in my flat, its not a dream. I still have to take the rubbish out. My flat is still a mess I need to clean up. Its actually here. Its real. However much I don't want it to be. However fake it feels.

Ephesians 4:27 "Do not give the Devil a way to defeat you"

Help!

Father God

I know I have ignored you recently. I know I have not called on You, not asked for You, not chatted with You, and not cared about doing what You want. I know that I have had conversations with people where I have stood on a soapbox - had an opinion about something and expressed it vehemently. I know that those opinions mean nothing in the light of my dwindling relationship with You. Thankyou for still occupying that place in my heart. Thankyou that when I am doing this, You are genuinely still by my side. Thanks that I can't deny that. Thanks that its so real that I can't pretend its not true. Thanks for not giving up on me.

God I hate myself this morning. I know it is not the thing I am supposed to say, I know I am supposed to be getting better, and I know that in the light of all that's in the above paragrapgh, this is so self-absorbed and shows my 'victim' mindset. I know it shows complete ingrattitude. I hate myself even more because of that. God I can't seem to change how I feel. I hate myself because I am fat. I hate myself for my opinions. I hate my nose. I hate my chin. I hate that I want food all the time. I hate that I have such a lack of self-control right now. I hate that I can't maintain a refusal to eat. I hate that I am so fat. I hate it I hate me.

I know its awful and I would never never do it, but it would be so much easier to give up on life. One of the things I have realised about myself recently is that I want to be perfect, but I want that now. I don't want to have to work for it. I get upset that I can't do something, and don't cope with slow progress. I get lazy about making changes to my life that seem too big for me. I am lazy. I HATE MYSELF.

Lord when am I going to stop this? When am I going to change? When am I going to move on and stop thinking about myself. Why is it that I can know all this and still stuggle so much to make the changes to my life I know I need to make.

Who cares if I am fat. That doesn't make me a bad person. Why can I know that but still be soooooooo desperate to be slim; so jealous of people who have flat stomachs. Why does seeing them make me want to curl up in a ball in the corner of a dark cupboard and just stay there.

Why can I have moments of clarity where I decide to do the 'normal person eating' thing and then freak out later on and I think that I have ruined everything because I had something small to eat, and then go and buy junk and therefore make myself even fatter.

I didn't get into a pair of my trousers today. That made me want to cease to exist. What is with that? I am scared that I am not going to get into the outfit I have planned for my friends wedding and I am so scared about it. Really scared. You would think all this fear of fat would help me in my quest to stop eating. It doesn't make sense to me that I can hate it that much, that I can be that freaked out by it and that desperate to be thinner, and yet still binge. Still eat crap and lots of it. How do the two things fit together? It makes me think that I must be making it up. If my actions don't prove my feelings then I must be making my feelings up. But I am not. I am getting better at learning to believe myself about the way I feel, and I can honestly say that I am not lying. I am not making it up. I am actually getting like a fat person. I looked at myself properly in the mirror today and I shocked myself by the disgustingness of my own body. I am not lying about this - I am getting actually fat - not just mind fat, but physical fat. This NEEDS to stop and needs to stop soon. I am going to end up like Grandma if I don't stop this soon. I am scared and I can't see any way out. Its crashing down on top of me.

I wanted to tell you all this God because I know you know about it anyway, but I haven't been talking to you and you should be my first port of call. I know that you love me in spite of how I look. Part of me is grateful about that, but the other part knows I don't deserve that and so it annoys me a bit. Obviosuly I want your love and I am grateful and thankful. I don't know why I find myself kicking against it. I think its because I can't accept myself. Accepting your love in spite of how fat I am is like accepting myself in spite of how fat I am and I can't do that yet. I can't do that at all.

But honestly, its not actually ok to be fat is it?! We should be trying to be healthy. I am embarassed that I have let myself get like this. I am embarassed that fatness is an obvious way of people seeing that I am failing in my self-discipline. Thats one of the things that has always defined who I am, and for people to see I am failing in it - its shameful and I hate myself for it.

God help me.

Ephesians 4:27 "Do not give the Devil a way to defeat you"

Can't even think of a title

I know it has been ages since I have written. I don't know what to say. I feel pants. I feel so incredibly pants. I hate this. I hate everything about it. I feel like I am reaching the end of myself. I should explain, but I can't even be bothered. I am in a pit and I haven't got the energy to climb out.

I have been doing quite well at star5ving, and I know that the weekeneds are my binge time - I even told myself it was ok to do that as long as I didn't eat the rest of the week, and as long as I make myself sick after the binges.

Yesterday I big time binged because I had a stupid bbq for Dales birthday. WHY DOES EVERYTHING have to involve food? Why? I am so annoyed. Thing was, I couldn't even be bothered to throw it up OR take any lax's. I was that defeated. Its so easy to make plans, so easy to break them. I ate pizza thins morning, and made myself sick but not ebough. I feel crap.

I don't even feel like I deserve the title Bulimia anymore. I don't use lax's or make myself sick enough to deserve it. I am simply a binger. I just binge. I binge. I am a fat bitch. FAT FAT FAT. I so so so wanted to get below 9 stone and I was getting there. I really was, but now I am going to be so far away agin. I hate myself so much I really really do. I HATE myself.

I feel sick. I feel sick with myself. sick to my stomach. I HATE FOOD. Genuinely. I know I eat it and use it far too much. Seriously far too much. But I actually hate it. I don't think there is anything I hate more than food not even myself. I detest its existence. I need to scream and cry but I don't know how - I can't let it out. It seems so pointless. Its not going to help. At this point I am beginning to look forward to going to the group meeting thing because I hope it will be a bit of an outlet for these feelings. I just want to talk to people who understand and don't mind me making such a big deal out of something that to other people is so unimportant.

I really really just need to talk about it and cry about it. I really do. I hate this so much. Sometimes I think there is no point in this illness anymore. I am not going to make it, I am not going to be able to get as thin as I want to because I can't do it. I am not committed enough to losing weight and I am not committed enough to getting better. I can't do either. I am caught in the middle - somewhere between recovery and obsession.

I am obsessed, it is what I think about all the time. I must exercise. Tonight, I will go to the gym. Next week, I will eat nothing, except for Thursday where it is Dales birthday. I must not eat anything during the day on Thursday. Seriously. Kirsty, please don't give up. Come on. Please, just get to 8 stone. Come on, please.
Ephesians 4:27 "Do not give the Devil a way to defeat you"

And its Back

I guess its about time I blog again. I have been terrible since the last post. Eating loads (of bad stuff) and not getting rid of it as often as I previously would. I am back into size 12's. That is the ultimate disaster. It wasn't that long ago I was in size 8's. I don't think it will be too hard to get back to a 10, but beyond that is going to be tricky. Anyway, its depressed me so much, I have actually been managing to fast more regularly recently (of sorts). I have been having a skinny hot choc every morning, but throwing it up most of the time. Other than that I have only been having sultanas and milk in the evening before bed. Its been going ok, I managed it on every weekday last week, until Friday because I went out for a chinese with mum, dad and my aunt. Tht ruined the whole weekend. So it was a bad weekend, but I threw up lots so hopefully wont have done too much damage. I have been good again so far the last two days.

I am going to try to give up my sultanas and replace them with two oatcakes or one cereal bar. Sultanas are far too sugary, they are becomming an evil. It is so easy to eat 100g of them in one go and that is 290 calories! That's terrible.

Been struggling with exercise simply because of a lack of time. I have been walking almost every day, but not really gone to the gym much. I can't go tonight either because its busy busy tuesday. I will try to go tomorrow after meeting Ann.

Tomorrow I am meeting Ann to talk about what to do now my counsellor is leaving me. I am going to the doctor on Thursday morning, and it is so incredibly tempting to tell her not to worry about finding me any more help, that I am doing fine now and should be able to cope. It is soooo tempting, because then I would be free to lose weight, to 'start struggling' again, for a while before anyone notices, and then to be able to say, 'I tried, I really did, but I thought I could do it myself and I couldn't'. I know how to play the game, and playing the game feels like such a good option right now. I like having this much dedication to something. I miss her when whe goes away, (you know who I mean - that voice inside). I really miss her, and right now she is with me again, tentatively, but she is here and its nice. It feels less lonely, it feels good.

I found myself dreading the dirt inside my body again last night - that was something I used to worry about back when I was better at restricting. The thought of food inside feels horrible - all that stuff that often goes down the toilet is inside of me. How gross. I want to keep it clean. The hot chocolates in the morning aren't helping with that, but I am trying to take it slowly. At the moment if I give them up I can see myself going back to the very regular bingeing, so I will keep them in for the time being till I am stronger.

Even as I write all this, I can see the backwardness of it. The fact that I was seemingly getting better, and now have gone back to the making plans stage - to the wanting to have an ED stage - to the holding onto it for dear life stage. In all honesty, I don't know why I am back here, and I know I should be fighting it, not embracing it, and yet everything within me is hugging it with a welcome home.

Hmm, this may require a 'welcome home' poem. Watch this space!

Sorry I am back here again. Sorry I sound so up myself in it. I knwo this isn't clever or big or smart. I know its stupid, I know I am acting like a schoolgirl who thinks she can get so much attention from this, and is so special because she has an ED. I know it, and I'm sorry for it. I just want to tell the truth. This is the truth. Its who I really am. No hiding or pretending to be this all-together Christian who is really trying hard to get over a problem. No more excuses here in this diary. I have an eating disorder and I am struggling to even want to get better. I just want to be thin.

Ephesians 4:27 "Do not give the Devil a way to defeat you"

That Sunday Feeling

PLANS

Today I binged. I had been doing so well. Its typical of me on a Sunday. I am so cross with myself. I have trown up twice tonight. They tell you that you never get rid of more than half of what you put in when you throw up, so I am going to have some laxitives as well. That means ANOTHER Monday at work feeling VERY uncomfortable, and having to run off to the toilet all the time, and being grouchy. I can see it happening, and yet I have to do it. I have to. I can see the illogical-ness of it, and yet I still have to do it. What is this hold over me?

I also plan to starve it out tomorrow. I will not eat at all until the evening. I will try if possible to get away with eating nothing in the evening too, but I am going to Southend with Mum to see her sisters, and my aunty is a nurse and knows whats going on, and I am worried she might corner me at some point and make me eat. We'll see. If that happens, that happens, all I can do is try. So nothing tomorrow unless I am forced.

Tuesday is back to plan day. From tuesday, I will weigh everything, calorie count everything, and try to stick at 700 cals whilst still eating a 'nutritious amount' according to my counsellors rules. The helpful thing is that she doesn't realise how few calories the plan has in it. I will say 'oatcakes' rather than 1 oatcake, so that might give the illusion of more. I will say weetabix and not state the 'with water thing' so she might not question the no milk plan. I am going to get some of those low cal soups too and have those sometimes instead of salad because they will be easier to bring up. I will try to have skinny weight wathers chicken slices without stating that they are weight watchers. I will start occasionally replacing my evening chicken breast with those same chicken slices without saying thats what I mean by chicken. Technically, I am not lying.

I am also going to buy a secret set of bathroom scales that will hide under my wardrobe so my mum doesn't see them. She confiscated my last ones. I will start to graph my weigh again. I do better when I do that.

No more hot chocolates. THey are gone. Simply not an option anymore. AND I WILL go to the gym more regularly. I will walk from Tower Hill or Blackfriars EVERY DAY.

Feelings

Today I have been reminded that I often feel like a bit of a shell of a person; that I no longer know who I am; who I am supposed to be. What is me? What is my potential? My purpose? My Raison d'être? I guess if I could learn to stop looking at me and to start looking at God, I would stop needing to ask this question - but I can't seem to find Him. To be honest - I am not even trying. I don't want to believe in a farce; a dream that ends when you wake up; a hope that just keeps hoping and keeps getting disappointed; a faith that has been man made through generations and generations of Christians changing the meaning and the structure of the faith, however well meaning they were, into something that now hardly even resembles the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ. I don't know that that is what has happened - but I also don't know that it isn't. I naively believe in the authority of the Bible, and hold onto that belief for dear life - without being able to back it up in the face of people’s well reasoned and well researched arguments. I stand up for the church in its genuine desire to 'get the message right' and yet get so frustrated by the 'nicey nicey' style of church teaching we get today. People get so defensive about themselves if a preacher even tries to challenge their comfortable view of life and themselves. They have their nice little families going on, and their nice, ‘I go to Church on a Sunday thing’. Oh, yes, they get passionate about whether the worship style or the dress code or the rules and regulations or the freedom suits their fundamentally important needs and desires; but far be it from a preacher to challenge that comfortable lifestyle, or holler about the injustice of the world and our lack of compassion. Far be it from God's chosen messengers to speak of God's wrath and God's justice. Grace - yes - and rightly so, but grace is not what we preach it to be. It’s not ego stroking, 'you're worth it', 'God thinks you are beautiful', 'let’s make ourselves feel great'. That is really cheapening it. Its 'look at what you have done, and are doing, and are not doing - look at what price Jesus paid'. Let’s start understanding our worthlessness rather than pretending we are fine as we are. We aren't. It’s our worthlessness that makes God's sacrifice so great. God's sacrifice doesn't make me great. I am still a sinner. I am still pathetic, weak, and selfish. God is the great one. If anything EVER comes of my life it will be because he has performed some kind of miracle and used this inadequacy for His glory.So no, I will not start to think I am worth it. Instead I will try to start to think, God is worth it. He is worth me giving up this ridiculous diet-y type thing I've got going on. He is. Now I have to believe it. Lord, please help me to see that you are worth it - Lord, I believe - help my unbelief.

It’s all about You, Jesus,
And all this is for You, for Your glory and your fame.
Its not about me, as if You should do things my way.
You alone are God and I surrender to Your ways.

I wonder when I will actually mean this song; when I will be able to let myself go. Right now, this song is a lie to me. I can’t mean it. I can’t deny that it should be true. I think I want to see a miracle. But then again, 'Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.' John 20:29

Introduction

I do not know who will read this blog. I do not know whether my words and my experience will ever touch anyone, give another some hope, or even at the very least, some sense of understanding. I write them anyway in the hope that God may use my experience for anothers benefit. I do not have some warped sense that I am in the place I am in today because God has designed it that way: I do believe that what I am doing right now is sinful and that it is NOT God's choice - but I also believe that God can use anything - even the wrong doing of someone and turn it into a beautiful thing. I don't know whether He will. I leve that to him - and write these words anyway.

I have been struggling with my weight and my food intake since Easter 2006, although the diet that led up to it started in January 2006. The issues I have with myself started much earlier. I don't think I had one defining moment where I went from self-confident, bubbly, chasing after holiness, filled with passion and potential to the person I am today. I think it happened slowly - peices of me dropping off as I walked through my (still very young) life. I only hope that I can get the strenth and desire to get through this and to become a new version of myself. To become who I can be, the person God made me to be. I am no longer trying to be who I was in the past. I am going to have to put her behind me because too much has happened since then. One can only move forward. I hope I will start going in the right direction sometime soon.

I don't want to give a long history. There is no point and it will get boring. Lets just say that what started as an attempt to lose a bit of weight for a friends wedding (at which I was to be a bridesmaid), ended up in an obsession with calorie counting and regular exercise. I slowly cut out more and more of my fairly specific diet plan. I started by trying to store up calories to use in the evenings and at weekends - but then started to see the potential of simply not using them in order to lose more weight. I started skipping meals. I eventually went to the gym after work every day in order to avoid dinner times at home. I ate a minimal amount each day. My weeks usually consisted of 1 hot meal, ryvita and a lot of sultanas and milk and I usually tried to throw up after eating. I had some days with nothing at all. I lost weight but this phase didn't last long enough. I didn't even get to 8 stone. I pushed it too hard, and ruined it for myself. I started to binge. Very infrequently at first, but it was still happening, and I started to use laxitives quite often, and quite a lot. Eventually my family found out and I had to start eating again. Properly. I was doing ok for a few weeks, but I suddenly found that I couldn't stop eating. I ate far too much and started putting my weight back on. I started throwing up more regularly. Since then it has been a journey of sometimes binging and throwing up and using laxitives. Sometimes overeating and for some reason being unable to throw up. Sonetimes eating nothing. My weight fluctuates between 9 stone and 10 stone constantly, and yet I am still so desperate to be 8 stone. I now see a counsellor and have very recently started talking to the GP about it. Bulimia nervosa is my diagnosis. I want to get better, and yet I don't. Mostly I just want to get thin.

So that's the intro. That's where I am. I hope you will read on.