I HATE ONLINE DATING. SERIOUSLY WTF.

"And I let it all out to find that I'm not the only person with these things in mind."

HAPPY CHRISTMAS LADIES AND GENTS!!!! Hope you are all having a good holiday season, one way or another. 

So a couple of things have been happening. SERIOUSLY, I HATE ONLINE DATING. I have no idea why I did this! It's killing me!!!!! And really, it just shows how paranoid I am as a person. I am definitely losing my grip on life though, I don't know what to do about it. I just wish I had never done it, then I would be in the midst of this self inflicted mental torture. 

So this is what I'm doing (yes, I know how mental it is. I know it's paranoid. I know it's stalker-ish. I know it is just plain wrong): I'm signing into the online dating site, just to see if the guy I'm seeing is still using his account. And what do you know, he is like, permanently on there! His account is so bloody active, which makes me feel great. 

We've been on 3 dates now. And the last date, it was so nice. We had dinner by the beach, we went for a relaxing walk along the beach, holding hands, or with his arm around me. We stopped and kissed. It was honestly probably one of the nicest dates I've ever been on. 

I admit I was a bit smitten afterwards. But now I know for sure that he's been on there since our date and it makes me want to kick my own head in. I don't ever want to check again, but I also can't stop doing it. It's a real problem! And it's all in my head. 

Part me really wants to just flat out ask him, how many other girls are you seeing. Are you interested in me at all, or are you just courting a big group of us and seeing who comes up trumps? Fuck. 

There is only one good side effect in all of this. I can't eat. At all. 

By my home scales, before I met up with him 2 weeks ago, I weighed in at 62.8kg. Now I'm weighing in at 59kg. So you know, that's reasonable. I'm happy with that! I can feel the difference, but it's not enough for anyone to notice, it's not enough to show in the way clothes fit. It's just not enough. 

But given the way my weight has been going, I'm just glad it's finally going in the right direction. Basically, I'll take what I can get. 

Today I ate...chicken noodle soup, half a bowl of that for lunch. 2 flat whites. 3 bites of salad for dinner. That's it. I don't know how many calories that is...maybe...500-600. Maybe a bit less. Every time I think about him, I want to vomit. I hope this feeling lasts forever. 

"Well, you're not a virgin anymore."

"Baby be the class clown, I'll be the beauty queen in tears."

So a lot has happened since I last posted here. An awful lot. And I've learnt a lot about myself. I've been out with my cop many, many times. And the odd thing is, he's not my boyfriend. Definitely not. I have absolutely no idea what is happening between us at all. All I know is that when I'm with him, things seem to be easy. And when I'm with him, I forget about everything. 

Yes, I have my moments filled with self doubt when we're not together but those are largely my issues, as opposed to issues with us. I'm already feeling guilty about things. I don't exactly have time for him. I'm ALWAYS at work, and this is making me realise just how much I work. I work a lot. He works on average 40 hours a week in various shifts. I work on average 65 hours. His longest shift is 9 hours. The longest shift I've ever worked is 16 hours. I'm starting to understand why I'm always tired. 

The other day I had a terrible day at work. Was supposed to meet up with him afterwards but I ended up finishing 3 hours late, crying and in tears. It had been the shittiest day on record ever. I text him, saying that I was gross, had had a shit day, was super late, and he really probably shouldn't see me. I mean, I had changed into scrubs because everything was so shit. People were dying, people were being transferred to ICU, it was just thoroughly shit. After all, by the time I was finished with work, he was due to start his night shift in 2 hours.

He ended up just saying I should come over. And so I did, I was too numb to do anything else really. I sort of stood forlornly on his doorstep for a few seconds and as soon as he opened the door, he just wrapped his arms around me, maneuvered me into his room and we flopped onto his bed. For an hour we just lay there like that, he had wrapped himself around me and was talking about random things and I really did just completely forget about work. 

The night before we had tried to have sex. And I say "tried" because we had to stop because I was so bleedy and paining. I mean, I knew it was going to be like that, I think I freaked him out a bit by being bleedy. I didn't mind the bleeding, but it was so damn painful. He said he didn't want to hurt me, and that we'd take things slow because it was my first time, and that I'd start to enjoy it with time. "Well, you're not a virgin anymore." He tells me as he puts his arm around me and just cuddles me for a while. 

I don't exactly know how I feel about that. But we've gone out a few times since then. And I certainly hope to be in his pants again before I jet away to Melbourne on holiday.

Now ladies, I need some advice - I've never been in a relationship before and I have no idea what the hell I'm doing and how things are going...any comments/advice/heckling is welcome. 

Thank you in advance!

and my heart sunk into my arse.

"She's got ice on her lashes, white in her winter coat."

Well it would seem it's been a while since I was last on this blog. Hard to keep up with you all! I didn't intend on taking a break, but for a while my focus had shifted. For a while now I have been eating what I wanted, not weighing myself, shopping like I'm having a manic episode and looking fucking fabulous. 

Every day I still worried about my weight but fuck it my clothes fit and my clothes are fabulous. It would seem that if I'm wearing fabulous clothes, I feel that's all people see. I've gained so much weight that I can't ignore it anymore. I also have so little money that I can't ignore it anymore. So things haven't exactly been going well, even though this is the first time in at least a decade where I have been so relaxed about my weight. 

I'm in a wee bit of shit over my spending. My mother has just had a tizz at me. Fair enough too. I've spent $40,000 in the past 6 months, and as she says, that's a deposit on a house, or a new car. And I've got fuck all to show for it. Just a wardrobe full of designer clothing. Well, more like piles of designer clothing on my floor. As you can see from the photo, it's a rather large pile, and that's just the pile on the floor,  not including my 3 wardrobes and the spare room we have turned into a wardrobe for me. 

She's right. She's absolutely right. If I had saved, I could have bought myself a new car. Fuck. 

I guess I've got that sort of personality. I have to be obsessed with one thing or another. Once the Joe thing passed, I had nothing. And shopping and fashion overtook my entire life. I have nothing else to think about. Or rather, I fill my head with it so I don't have to think about how shit my life is. Anything for distraction. Anyway, my mother is right. This can't go on. I will have to stop shopping. Just fucking stop. But I need to start something else. And everything else I know is just as destructive. But maybe in a less obvious way. 

Since I last posted here, I've left orthopaedics, back in general medicine now. It fucking broke my heart. I miss my ortho boys every second of the day. Cried like mad the day I left, not proud of that. 

Changed my look a bit. This is the look that got me stopped by 5 random old men in one day who all told me how pretty I was. One even said that I looked like a perfect China doll. I didn't quite know how to take it. Shorter hair, cuter accessories. Sometimes I look like I've watched too many hours of Gossip Girl. 

Not all of Ortho was good. There was this registrar who I did a lot of night shifts with. His name is Richard. Nice guy in all respects, if only he could stop calling me fat and ugly. I know it's a joke, but still. I wonder what made him say it in the first place, I certainly didn't suggest him call me that. Kinda destroyed me a bit inside. 

I don't really know where I am going with this post. I guess I had a lot of random shit to rant about. But I'm back now, will try to catch up with all your blogs...and watch this space. The shopping addiction has to transform itself into something else. And it won't be good. 

graduation perfection

"We barely remember what came before this precious moment, choosing to be here right now, hold on, stay inside..."

I've been traveling on this road for so long and now in a few short hours it will officially come to an end. I will graduate. 6 years for a bachelor degree seems far too long and I seem far too emotional for a ceremony that I didn't even want to go to. 

After the weekend from hell and shedding my first tears at work, I've been feeling too traumatised to be on the wards. But still somehow I've been dragging myself out of bed each morning to go to work. And now I get to graduate. 

I have the dress, I have the shoes, I have the MASSIVE black pearl pendant necklace, I have the eyelashes and the lipstick. And somehow, it feels worth it. Somehow, I am reminded of everything I have gone through. All the mistakes, all the literal blood, sweat and tears that I have shed and all the coffee and red bull that I have flooded my body with in order to get by. 

Somedays it's been shit. Absolute shit. And I spend my time fantasizing about perfection. Lounging around in bed with blankets, dressed in flannel pjs with a good book and a cup of coffee. And walking around in Jimmy Choo shoes, hanging with friends in Michael Kors and Rag and Bone and Alannah Hill and going out in a Temperley gown. Drowning in a world of designer gowns and shoes. On those days I feel like quitting my job and going into a world of fashion. 

Other days it's great. And I feel like a doctor, and that I do make a difference, and that I do help people. Sometimes, 6 years and hanging out at the doors of hell is worth it. 

I have been getting thinner. I don't know what I weigh, but clothes are looser. People are noticing. I've developed a habit where I can't finish a plate. I can't leave an empty plate anymore. I know my team watches me eat, my registrars look at each other when they see me pick at my food but I don't give a shit anymore. I look right back like, what. You got a problem with that? And then they don't say anything. 

Sometimes, everything just fades away. Joe and his fiancee, the professor and that failed paper, the fucking malicious nurses at work. It all just fades away. When I pull and pinch myself in the mirror and see that I'm thinner. That's all there is. I'm loving noticing the change. It just makes me want to step it up, to see a bigger change. 

running away in a fabulous outfit

"The best things in life are free. The second best are very expensive." - Amen to that. 

Recently I've been swapping shifts like mad. Swapping all my shifts so that I'm at clinic, and not at the hospital. My registrar Cam, is on nights, and that means Joe is my registrar for the week. Well fuck that. I've somehow managed to spend the last two days in clinic, and somehow I will manage to avoid him. I feel like whenever I see him, I am overcome with a desire to spit poison at him. And I can be hideously bitter when I want to. 

I've been bitter since coming off night shifts. When I was on nights, the night registrar called me fat. We were talking about junk food and he said to me "yeah, you are a bit fat aren't you". Well. Some part of me knows he was joking and that he was just trying to push my buttons, but those words have reverberated in my head ever since. 

I’ve got a growing fascination with Alannah Hill and Temperley London. To be frank I can’t really afford either of those brands, and as of yet I have not bought anything Temperley (except my qualification gown) but I do have half a wardrobe of Alannah Hill. It’s something that I crave more and more. Styles and ways of dressing that has never really appealed to me before. More and more I am leaving the corporate, powerful, structured styles of Cue. More and more I am leaning towards the super feminine, flowing, soft and expensive. 

I think I am doing what I have always wanted to do. Mold myself into something that all men want, but none can have. With my clothes, and my conversation I am clearly pricing myself out of their league. With the way that I act, I make it clear that I do not think they are good enough for me. I’m not sure if that’s the end result I want, or if I am waiting for one guy to step up and prove that he likes me enough to push past all that. Not that I know any of them well enough to make them like me. 

In a weird way I am cutting off my nose to spite my face. I am pushing away what I want to get what I want. It is incredibly counter intuitive to say the least. And I don’t think it’s working at all. 

Now I’m going to be perfectly honest, since this is the only place where I can be that honest. Part of me doesn’t believe Joe is engaged. I know for certain he is, but since I have not heard him directly talk about Stephanie, or their wedding, or any of that, I am somehow holding out hope. I hope that he leaves her for me. Which would be a horrible mistake for him to make since I will not marry him. 

I wish I knew what it is about Joe that I like so much. I don’t get it. I wish I could just forget about him. God, I hope that I can just forget him and just behave normally around him. 

I just. I don’t know what I want anymore. I want a break. I want a rest. I want to get away from the hospital. And go somewhere by myself and think. 

This not having a boyfriend thing, it’s really getting to my head. People are starting to honestly think that I am a lesbian, which really won’t be helping my boyfriend bid. If nobody mentioned my singledom, I may not be so bothered by it. But as person after person after person expresses surprise at me being single...I always feel compelled to tell them that I have never had a boyfriend...it gets inside my head.  I start to ask the same questions. Why am I still single. Why don’t I have a boyfriend. Why. 

I got my lashes put on. And I am still fucking ugly. Only surgery will fix me now. Only facial reconstruction will make me pretty. And I’m seriously considering it. 

tattoo thinspo and the dream life

"You're living in the past, it's a new generation!"

I'm absolutely inspired to get a new tattoo so I thought I would post some tattoo thinspo. I absolutely adore tattoo thinspo, there is nothing more beautiful than a boney, tattoo covered girl. I'm currently thinking of a design that I want on myself, and I will probably get it done in the next few weeks, if it looks okay, I might post a picture of it on here. 

The first one of the feather is like what I'm going to get on my back, to the left, and the top of the feather will be breaking up into little birds that fly away and curve round my flank. It's hard to explain, but I will definitely get an artist to draw it up first. I'm so excited. I feel like I've made some sort of breakthrough. Birds are always something that I wanted tattooed on me, and I love feathers but didn't want to get so many separate little ones. In a fit of peak, I realised I could just get them both in one tattoo. I can be so dumb sometimes. 

At times like these, I wish I could quit my job and just work in the fashion industry. I'd love to be an editor or you know, a fashion blogger that gets invited to be front row at all the couture shows. Be paid good money to give my opinion, and then I could wear what I wanted, I wouldn't feel so bad for having such an effusive wardrobe and I could tattoo the shit out of myself. Or, I could be a designer, make my own clothes and shoes and bags. Now, THAT'S the dream. 

I'm dying to get a tattoo on my forearm, but in my profession, it can be seen as quite offensive and could stop me getting good jobs in the future. Sometimes I hate having to look professional. That's why I bend the rules slightly when it comes to how I dress. I'm not demure, I'm not practical. I wear tight skirts, low tops, high waisted pants. I'm a walking fashion show. Or a limping fashion show, as is sometimes the case by the end of the day. Why shouldn't I be allowed to dress well. As long as I can do the job and my boobs and ass aren't falling out, it shouldn't be a problem. 

The studded boots, leggings, rock tees are more of a problem. I'd love to look like a rock chick. I hate how people just assume I'm one of those typical, sweet, giggling, passive Asian cuties. And I get guys asking me out because of that assumption. They want a cutie on their arm, to kiss and cuddle with and take out to dinner and be cute and sweet and go to karaoke and sing K-pop and J-pop and whatever other crap exists out there.

But when they meet me, I want to go to rock concerts, I want to listen to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, ACDC, Bon Jovi, Depeche Mode, Black Sabbath, Def Leppard, The Violent Femmes and Guns'n'Roses. I want whiskey and port and I want to drive fast, to anywhere. I don't want to kiss or cuddle, I don't want to hold their hand. I would happily skip all that for a good fuck, but for some reason, the guys don't go for that. They find me pierced and tatted up and get put off. Whatever. Maybe I am a bit bipolar. 

Or maybe they find me fat and ugly and that's what puts them off fucking me. 

Liebster Blog Award

I have been nominated for The Liebster Blog Award by Loveylou and Rachel and let me tell you, after an extremely busy week, and just arriving home from a 14hour shift, it lifted my spirits. I now have 100 followers, and I can't believe it! I've come a long way from the little blog I started for my own sake really. So I am deeply grateful.  

The Rules.

In your next blog post....
1.Thank the person/people who nominated you & Include a link to their blog.
2.Include 11 things about yourself.
3.Answer the 11 questions from the person who nominated you.
4.Choose 11 bloggers to nominate, they must have less than 200 followers.
5.Create 11 questions for them to answer.
6.Let them know you nominated them. 

Hi! My name is Judith Marie. 

1. I am 22 years old, but I have been mistaken for a 14 year old. I sometimes still get let on with child fares.

2. I absolutely adore old Brit shows. 'Allo 'Allo, Dad's Army, Open All Hours, Porridge, Blackadder etc etc.I've seen them all. 

3. I have so many clothes that I had to convert my study into an extra wardrobe. It's a little embarrassing but I still love my clothes!

4. Red heels. I love red shoes. But then again, who doesn't? 

5. I can count the number of people I really call friends on one hand. But that's not something that the general public know and a lot of people I secretly hate consider me a good friend.

6. My German Shepherd is my most treasured possession. I adore him. He's my little baby. 

7. Ever since my parents suggested I get my eyes "fixed" (I've got Asian single lids and this is the double eyelid surgery) a few years ago, I've been considering the surgery, and I'm starting to think about rhinoplasty and liposuction too.

8. I'd love to look like Twiggy. She's my idea of beauty.

9. Secretly, I wish I was Scottish. I'd love a soft, Scottish accent. I find it so charming, I think it would make me charming.

10. I once went to a doctor about being depressed. But even though I scored full marks on the depression scale, I managed to brush it off so well that she ended up telling me "even though you score so high, I think it's just your personal nature and that you're not depressed." Somedays I think about that and I think "if only". I might be very different if she'd referred me on.

11. I love ballet. I'd love to be able to be a ballerina. When I have enough money, I plan to take lessons.  

Questions from Loveylou

1. What do you love most about yourself?

Boy this feels like a job interview! Physically, I love my wrists. I think they look lovely and boney and that's why I would never cut there. Otherwise, I like my stubbornness. How I always do what I think is right and I won't bend to please people who mean nothing to me. 

2. Describe a memory that makes you proud

My qualification ceremony, hands down. Biggest moment of my life. All my hard work built up to it and it embodied everything that I wanted, cared about and had worked for. The dress, the shoes, the lipstick and all my classmates. It was the moment of my life where I lived entirely in the moment. 

3. If you could change one moment in your life, that you think would be pivotal, and could change the course of your entire life, would you? What moment would you change, what would be different?

When I was 11 years old, in intermediate school, I tried out and got the position of an aerobics instructor at my school's physical education program but I missed the first practice and was too embarrassed to go back. I think that if I had kept going, I would have been in the "in" group with some of the popular and pretty girls and my life would have turned out very differently because I have never been popular in my life. 

4. What would you do if your family and friends found out about your eating disorder and/or blog?

The first sign that anyone had found it, this would be deleted. I can't afford for people to read the contents of this. I doubt my family would be first so hopefully deleting it would be enough damage control. If somehow everyone found out, I would go out and throw myself under the first train I found. 

5. If you could be anyone, who would you be and why?

Miranda Kerr. What she has isn't exactly what I want, but she seems so happy with her life. I'd love to be able to be happy with my life even if that means a hunky hubby, a cute son and a killer bod. Okay, so that life doesn't sound so bad after all. 

6. What is your relationship with your parents like?

On the surface we joke around but I don't really feel very close to them. I hold a lot of pent up anger directed against them but I don't think they know about it. Maybe that's why we have so many conflicts in the house. 

7. What's your favourite 'safe food'?

Cucumber. It's so refreshing and tasty and it's sooooo much water and so few calories. 

8. What are you doing when you feel the most happy and joyful?

Driving. I love to go for long drives, fast, winding drives with some good driving music pumping out of the car stereo. That's when I feel so completely myself, that's when I get to do my thinking and sort out my shit, that's when I feel so free and alive. 

9. If you could be any animal what would you be?

Arctic wolf. I'd love to be a graceful wolf, living in the beautiful North, snow, cold, fur. I'd love all that. 

10. What is your favourite fashion statement or 'look'?

It's hard to describe. If any of you happen to be familiar with the designer Alannah Hill, then you will know. It's sort of mismatched, eclectic girly but I prefer to do it with a mix of edgy. Does that make sense? So, super feminine with an oddness that might be a mismatch or a slight hint of rock.

11. If you could make one wish, what would you wish for? (can't be body related in any way)

I would wish for an ididic memory. Then I would read every single medical textbook and know all the answers to everything at work and never feel like I'm panicking when I'm faced with a puzzling medical dilemma. 

Questions from Rachel

1. What music to you like and why?

I love alternative music. Think Tool. And I love Nine Inch Nails. My current love affair is with the Icelandic Of Monsters and Men. I think I like it because the lyrics all mean something to me. I just find it so hard to connect with most mainstream music today. 

2. Do you sing or play a musical instrument?

I used to play violin and guitar but I had to quit both when I got super serious about scholarships and school. I'm trying to pick up guitar again but time makes it difficult. I will do it though. I love the guitar. 

3. Can you pinpoint when your ED began? Why did it start?

I have 2 major points in my life. I can pin point when my anorexic and self harm thoughts first began and it was when I was about 12 years old and I had gone from my multi-racial, down to earth public primary school to an exclusive and exclusively white intermediate school. I was shunned socially, but found a few other outcasts to hang out with. Then one day one of the popular girls asked me what I had got my sports badge for (it was for orienteering). When I replied, she said to her friend, to my face "oh, so that's it. I was wondering, because, you know, look at her." I had first started to really seriously restrict when I moved out of home. At home I my parents dictated my meals but when I moved out I just stopped eating.

4. What's your favourite season?

I love winter. I love winter fashion, I love layering, I love coats and boots. And I love the fact that all that covers my ugly fat.

5. If one food of your choice could have no calories, what food would you choose?

My first instinct is to say fried chicken! Boy, I love fried chicken! But, I'd have to say noodles because I eat a lot of noodles. 

6. Describe your hair: is it long? short? straight? curly? dyed? how do you like to wear it?

I have short, straight, black hair. I wear it pretty much in its cut, almost bob shaped. It's growing out and I have to recut it soon. I'd love to have long, curly hair but I don't have the patience to grow it. 

7. Diet coke or diet pepsi?

Diet coke. But if I could really go around the question, I really only drink Coke Zero. 

8. 3 favourite books?

The Color Purple, The Bell Jar, The God of Small Things.

9. Who are some of your celebrity thinspirations?

I'm sure this will be the same as lots of other people but, Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Also Kiera Knightly, Victoria Beckham, Rachel Zoe and Karlie Kloss. 

10. What's your bedroom like?

It's got cream walls with dark wood furniture. I have a series of photos in frames tessellated on one wall with a dresser and a mirror opposite. I also have a great stereo. Right now I've got clothing covering the floor. I wish I had a bigger mirror but I've only got one thin, floor length mirror. 

11. What is your dream career? do you think you'll end up doing it?

My dream career is a doctor. And I am doing it! 


My Questions:
1. How would your life be different if you didn't have an ED?
2. Thinspiration or reverse thinspiration and why?
3. Favourite item of clothing?
4. What is your dream holiday?
5. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? (can't be body related!)
6. Besides your ED, what is your next biggest problem?
7. How much do you think the fashion industry has contributed to your ED?
8. Do you have any tattoos or piercings? Would you ever get any?
9. How does your ED affect your relationships?
10. If you were on death row, what would be your last meal?
11. What is top of your bucket list?


My nominations:
1. Toofatforwords
2. Oustsideintothin
3. Sam Lupin
4. Jackie
5. striveforperfection
6. nothing tastes as good as skinny feels
7. Christina
8. Lana Banana
9. xXpOsErXx
10. fuckingpicnic
11. Beth

Für Sammy - no hullaballoo. just chemicals. and no one looking down on you.

They want to take our light, make us fight, but never cry for the ones you love. I'll be your warrior, warrior. 

The world isn't perfect. It certainly isn't what I would wish it to be. It's not even close. For one thing, my perfect world wouldn't be inhabited by cockroaches. But that's beside the point. 

Oh what it would be for each schoolgirl crush to be reciprocated by a tidal wave of affection, or for each cut and bruise to be showered by angel kisses, or for each kernel of pain and despair and worthless stored inside the heartwood of our souls to be seen without being seen. 

It's not easy to find joy in pain, or to find success in sorrow, sometimes it feels damned near impossible to even try. Sometimes we choose to bare our hearts to reveal the cowering, crying, love-starved child hiding inside to those who should love us the most, only to have her trampled upon with mockery and jest and words that sting more than ice rain. Sometimes we wish we hadn't. Sometimes it helps us grow. And sometimes, just sometimes, it helps us recognise who loves us the most. 

Is having an eating disorder a weakness? No. Us girls, we are some of the strongest people I've ever come across. We face each day with a smile and a joke for society, a kiss and a hug for friends and family, a good few hours of our life for work and study, all the while a voice gnaws at us and we are waging a war in our heads and hearts. The basic human desire to eat, and that voice that tells us we must be thin. But we don't crack. And when we trip, we get back up. 

It's moments of stress and conflict, not moments of joy, that define who we are, and my friends, we are strong, we will succeed. It might take a year. It might take two years. It might take ten years. But we will get there. Which is more than most people could hope for. It's this strength that binds us together. It runs to my veins. It runs through Sammy's veins. It runs through the veins of everyone reading, and every girl who is on our journey. 

Who are they to look down on us? We have something they will never have. We have power. We have support from around the world. We have a common enemy. When I fast, I feel so accomplished, I can do something they can't do. 

Sammy, if I could turn back time, I would make your family mourn for you. I would make them see what it's doing to you. I would make them see that you are not being silly, you are not being stupid and you are not being weak. I would show them how strong you are, how you function despite all the shit. I would do so much. 

But I can't Sammy, all I can do is to do all that stuff on their behalf. If you can't get your strength from them, my love, take all of mine. 

Though oceans may part us, I sometimes feel you in the room with me. And I can wipe away your tears and take away the hurt and make you understand that you're beautiful. And it doesn't matter if you don't believe the world thinks that. But you have to believe me when I tell you that I think that. If you can't feel their love, dear Sammy, take all of mine. 

What will it take to make you wake up another day feeling less empty inside? When all you've worked for your entire life ceases to hold any meaning, what happens then? Does it matter if we have a purpose? Is it not enough to go through life and try to do as much good as we can in the time we are given, to recognise the blessings, apparent or hidden, and to rest peacefully knowing that we did all we could, and that we could do no more. If you can't find a reason to live, dear Sammy, take all of mine. 

I'm sorry for all that you've gone through. I'd change it, if I could. You truly deserved better, you deserve what I have, but I was luckier, nothing more. If it was mine to give, I'd give you happiness, and everything you had ever dreamed of and more and the will to battle on, no matter who knocks you down. If you can't find strength in the world, dear Sammy, take all of mine. 

plan for tomorrow, I promise you, you're going to be okay

"We're right here beside you, and right here we will stay. Plan for tomorrow, because I swear to you, you're going to be okay." 

I apologise for my absence. The truth is, I'm thinking of taking a wee break from blogging, and from everything. I don't really understand what's happened. Or how. 

Well, that's not true. I think the truth is more like, there is a huge battle going on in my head right now and it makes me utterly incapable of doing anything, including doing this blog. 

The small part of me that wants recovery is rearing it's head again. It's ugly, ugly head. I've been feeling this way since I saw the professor. 

He asked me how many ribs I could see. I told him that right now I could only see 2 of them.  Down from 4 ribs. How I have failed in life. The look he gives me is one that I have trouble reading, and trouble believing. It's a strange mix of concern, amusement and sadness. 

"I know you can still see your ribs because I can feel them when I hug you." 

In my head I celebrate this sentence. 

This must be what it feels like to be loved. 

Part of me is sad. Because now I realise that in all my 22 years of life, this is the first time I've felt loved. 

It's an unspeakable security, an unfaltering tenderness, a place I belong. 

That warmth that spreads throughout a body when one swallows hot soup. That's how I feel all the time. Always warm. Filled with the assurance of safety. 

Filled with the vulnerability that I have been sheltering for so long. 

In a way it feels good to let some of that go. 

So much of what I have worried over for so long is now leaving me. And all it took was for one person to show that they care. 

A new kind of restlessness has filled my bones.

The agitation of joy. Of having motivation. And the relief of not constantly questioning myself and all that I do. 

I feel so blessed.

How did I find the professor?

A man with no children, who can never have children of his own, but desperately wants a daughter. 

How did he find me?

A girl who has spent most of her life wanting the love and approval of a father who can't ever give it to her. 

I know that he hides his affection for me from his wife.

She has her own set of problems. If she knew mine, she'd fall apart. I am a daughter to her. And following in her ED footsteps. 

When it's just the professor, things are somehow calmer. Open.

He reaches for me. Pulls me into his chest. Wraps his arms around me and squeezes. 

"It's so good to see you."

Peck on the cheek. I crinkle my nose and giggle.

In those moments I feel perfect. 

Not a thing that I would change. Not one thing.

Pity it never lasts long.

As I sit and I feel my thighs touch, I imagine getting liposuction in my head. 

I imagine having a gap between them.

I feel so unhappy with how fat I am. Desperately so. 

I hate lying to him. Really I do.

I hate upsetting him, a better daughter would just obey. 

But I'm not a better daughter. And I can't obey this one thing.

Plan for tomorrow. Those three words mean different things to the two of us.

For him it means me getting over this. Looking at food normally. No more cutting. Gaining some weight. And just a little confidence. Then the two of us moving forwards along the same path.

For me it means thin. And thin. And blood and thin. And thin.