skin tight biker pants

"A name in your recollection, down among a million same. Difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed and passed over."

With some trepidation I pull out the black, faux leather, biker pants that I bought in the UK on one of my spending sprees. I didn't really fit them at the time, but it was one of those things that I bought with the hope of one day fitting them. And I do! Well, sort of. I can put them on, with a bit of unflattering tugging and pulling and for the most part I can spend the day in them. They would be a hell of a lot more comfortable if I were a few pounds less, but at least I know I'm making some sort of progress. 

It is a small success in my world that is not so much full of successes. I don't know what the matter is with me. I've been feeling incredibly down. Ancient feelings that I thought were dead and buried are stirring up inside me again. The professor has sent me a rather terse email, telling me not to pester him, he's doing much more important things than my research. And although I know it's true, and I knew I shouldn't have reminded him about my research, it's hard for me not to feel just a little bit shit. 

I worried about how it might affect my career for about half a second when something inside me corrected that track of thinking. Hang on, I'm now 23, going to be 24 at the end of the year. I have always planned to be dead by 27, which is only 3-4 years away. Why worry about a career? I'll be dead before any of that can happen. 

It has been a long time since I seriously thought about suicide. I will always have moments when I toy with the idea of death, but it has been probably years since I last seriously wanted to die and to take my own life. I don't know what changed. Maybe it's because I met all these men...Ben, Mark, Michael, all these guys who gave me a fleeting moment of hope and when I had crushes on them, I felt like I could see some sort of future. I could see marriage, and travel and a family, and a home and I wanted to perhaps be with them and spend life with them. 

Now, for some inexplicable reason, all that has disappeared. Just gone. I don't want any of that anymore. I'm back to where I've started. I don't want those flights of fancy anymore. I don't particularly care if I'm never kissed, never touched, never fucked, never loved. I just want to die, be burned and forgotten. Resources shouldn't really be wasted on me. I've wasted enough as it is and I'm trying my best to balance it out a bit before I bite the dust. 

Mark, Mark, part of me still wants him, but I know he's taken. Last night I had a dream where he was talking to me and told me he was gay. Well, I don't suppose it makes a difference, I can't have him either way. Still, when I'm with him, part of me just hopes and hopes that he will put his arm around me. 

Been thinking that I should just bite the bullet and get my next tattoo. If you look at the two pictures above, I want an anchor on my left thigh, sort of where those girls have tattoos, although not at all like the anchor tattoo she has. It might help to cover the ugly cut mark I have on my thigh. I want something more simple for my other thigh, maybe a barcode or something. 

I've been subconsciously holding back on getting a tattoo. I know not all guys like them and I've been not getting them in case I fall in love with a guy who doesn't like them. But fuck that. I'm not falling in love. I'm getting the tattoos because I want them, not to impress some guy. So fuck it. When I go on night shifts, I'm getting this done. 

I'm still debating what I want to get done on my back. When I touch my spine, I can feel the bones much more easily...I don't know, I will think on that one a bit longer. 

crawling back into the hole

"Head like a hole, black as your soul. I'd rather die than give you control."

I don't know what came over me. I don't know what happened but suddenly, suddenly I feel it all rushing back. 

There is an uncontrollable desire to look at thinspo, which I have been doing for hours. And all this is horribly triggering. I can't stop looking though. The bones. The collarbones, the ribs, the thigh gap. I'm drinking it all in. All of it, back into the space in my head that I've kept reserved for it. And now my whole body is itching, all of it itches to get rid of the fat. At whatever cost. 

I've got another problem. With the desire to lose weight comes the desire to self harm. Always, hand in hand, the two of them come walking. One is screaming "disgusting fatty, no more food" and the other is silent but smiling and hands me the knife. 

I need to cut, I need to cut, I need to cut. I can't sleep. I need to cut. I need to stop watching these goddamn anorexia documentaries. I need to cut it all out. 

This fucking sucks. It sucks. It's far too overwhelming, seeing how little I've progressed. It makes me hate myself even more. It makes all my flights of fancy seems stupid. Why should anyone like me. Fat, ugly me. Ugly, disgusting, fat me. 

Does anybody else get that? It's a kind or restlessness that fills you and stops you sleeping and stops you working and stops you doing anything but think about how fat and ugly you are. And what a failure you are. 

Input and output. Fucking hell. I need to stop shoving food in my gob and I need to run like the fat girl that I am. Fuck. I fucking hate myself. I need to cut. 

I need to cut and let the suicidal thoughts come and wash over me. In a strange way I've missed feeling like this. A part of me misses going to bed each night hoping to not wake up again in the morning. It misses the secret stash of blades, which I'm staring at right now, and the ability to reach out, grab one and peel open the metal packet and slice through my skin. I miss the stinging pain, the rush of warmth and the pearls of blood that bead up and up and up and then run, run, run. 

I miss the cold tears that can only be stopped by blood. I miss the fear and panic and misery and frustration that can only be put to rest by blood and thoughts of death. I miss fantasizing about stepping out in front of a train, about being in a car crash, about slitting my wrists in a bath after a bottle of benzos, about collapsing at work with a stopped heart that won't start again. 

I want to be thin. I want to die. I want to cut and bleed and die. I want to be boney and bruised and dying. 

a game of waiting

"Therefore send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

It's an odd feeling, that moment when you know with certainty that hope is gone and we are left searching for something, anything to cling to. Comfort? Although we are taught of its importance, in this moment it seems so inadequate a goal compared with life. As humans, I think we all naturally hold onto hope. We hope against hope. We hold onto it till whatever end. We hold onto hope against science and judgement and logic and reason. But even with this nature, there come moments when hope is lost. 

And when hope is lost, I can't help but feel small. I spend a lot of my life feeling like I can make a difference. In a twisted way, I feel that I am the anomaly, special, but not necessarily in a good way, but in a way that will ultimately be to my advantage. 

So what if I'm eating disordered. So what if I'm not smart. So what if I'm a lazy ass who listens to old school rock and drinks old school drinks. So what if I cry at children's movies and am horrendously simple. So what. In an odd way, it's endearing to the professor, and in my head, one day he will pick me up, lift me up and then I will be riding a spiral of success to the top where I shall perch, clad in Chanel and Proenza Schouler and Burberry Prorsum and Carven, loved, lusted after, feared and admired. And remembered when I'm gone. 

If I am honest, that is how I've always believed life will be. But then, in these moments when hope is gone, I feel small, insignificant, a tiny, undetectable blip in space and time. 

This is not the first time I've known that a patient was dying. Indeed, I've probably seen more than my fair share of deaths in my short training. But when she is mine, my patient, it feels so different. I wish with all my heart that I could somehow crawl into her body, beat out the infection and make everything okay. 

But I can't. And everything will not be okay. Soon a son will lose a mother, a brother will lose a sister, a father will lose a daughter. For them, nothing will be okay. And I will lose a name off my morning list. 

For many, death will be an angel of mercy for the husk of a woman attached to a respirator and that is something that is very easy to say (it's something that I would've said) for someone who doesn't who have to face those eyes filled with fear each day. 

It's hard. I'm so over this job. I wish I could somehow get over it, get over the stress and the heartbreak and the fear and the exhaustion. But for now, I can only take it one hour at a time. 

Logic in me says I should go talk to the professor about this, at the next possible opportunity. Ask to see him by himself, have a little cry on his shoulder, listen to one of his stories that always makes me feel better, and then eventually recover. If the past is any predictor of the future, chances are, the exact same thing would have happened to him and he will tell me of how he got past it. 

Logic. But the devil in my head says no. I can't see him. Not when I'm this fat. A twisted part of me needs to hear him tell me that I'm skinny. So I shall suffer and cry in silence in the dark of the night. I shall mourn her on my own. But she's not dead yet. I'm just bracing myself for impact. 

In its own special way, once again, my ED has creeped into an area of life that I had thought was untainted by it. I wish it would leave me to have this moment to myself. One moment away from feeling fat, one moment away from calories and restricting. Not even the grim reaper can keep it away. 

thank you and goodbye

Hello there my lovely followers!

I write to you for the last time. After a week of long and careful thought I've decided that I need to delete this blog and end my blogging days. So in a few days, I will delete this blog and I will not be starting a new one. 

Now I don't think any of you will know this, because I've been deleting these comments as soon as I see them, but recently I've had quite a number of abusive comments left here. All of them take offence to everything I say and the fact that I am a medical student is just more cannon fodder. I've had this plenty of times in the past, and I've dealt with it every time, but this time, there are so many of them, and they are so upsetting that I just don't feel like it's worth it anymore. 

If this blog isn't a safe place for me to express how I feel, what I think and for me to feel less alone in this, then it has no purpose at all. I've found myself getting more and more depressed as the abuse mounts up and I've felt increasingly suicidal. It makes me sad to realise that this blog, once a place of comfort and support for me, is now a driving force that propels me closer and closer to suicide. So I feel that the best thing to do is to just delete this blog, remove that force, and carry on the best I can by myself. 

I don't feel any need to say what those comments contained, and I don't feel any need to respond to any of them. All I will say is that I wish I had never seen them. 

I'm writing this post to say a big thank you to all my lovely followers who have been with me through the years. I've shared my heart and soul with you and you have lifted me up when I was down and wiped away the tears that no one else saw. At times I've felt so close to all of you. 

It was always my intention to say goodbye to you lovely people before I killed myself. And while I do not plan to kill myself immediately after I delete my blog, that day is certainly coming and I don't want to go without saying goodbye. I think this blog kept me alive for so much longer than I would have otherwise lasted. The support I feel here is amazing. Now there is something that has taken that feel away. 

Thank you, thank you and thank you again for following me, helping me, keeping me company. I will think of you all until the day I die. 

I love you all dearly and I wish you all the very best for your futures. I hope you get everything that you have ever hoped and dreamed of and more. 

Yours ever,

- Judith Marie

professional opinions of suspicion

Thank you to all you lovely ladies who commented on my last few posts. I really can't emphasize enough how much it means to me and how much less alone I feel for it. 

And I'm glad you liked the tattoo thinspo. I adore tattoos, I hope to get another one sometime soon...like the next few weeks, on my back probably, haven't really decided on the design, but I am playing with the idea of getting vertebrae. 

Here is the story of what happened last night...

...I sit at the table, 100% of my concentration fixated on my etiquette. This is the next fork to use, elbows off the table, smile, nod, reply to conversation. Any effort to keep my mind off the fact that I have sat down to a 6 course degustation. Thank god the courses are tiny. If I only think about one course at a time, then I can feel like I'm only eating that small portion and I will get through this meal in one piece. 

And for the most part, I did get through that meal okay. I was so fit to burst afterwards that I felt like throwing up. We walked to a gelato shop, where I toyed with my gelato. Pity I was having dinner with an old friend who is also a psychologist. She didn't notice anything during dinner, but I could not hide my gelato OCD from her. 

I have this way of fiddling with dessert, I have to smooth out the gelato as much as I can, trying to make a perfect sphere. This takes up so much time that I can barely eat any of it before it melts. She was talking as I was sculpting my gelato and I didn't notice her looking. 

"You're playing with your food. That's what anorexics do."

I try to explain it away as OCD. She nods a bit. 

"But you're barely eating it at all. That's what anorexics do." 

And the conversation goes on like that. I can tell she's suspicious. And that's really not good. The last thing I need is to have a qualified clinical psychologist on my case. With that, I was suddenly glad she was moving to another country at the start of next year. She's section my ass without a second thought if she knew. 

Hearing her talk about her plans for the future makes me realise that I do not have any of my own. I'm just planning to train, work, get skinny. That is all. All my plans for the future revolve around restricting and losing weight and doing ophthalmology. There are no friends in my future. I want to live alone so that I can starve without people noticing. And then I just want to be thin. And alone. And thinner. And I guess that's when I'm going to kill myself. 

you and me. we're in this together now. none of them can stop us now.

...we will make it through somehow. 

Before I launch into this post I want to start off by tying up a few ends. 

Firstly, I want to say hello to any new followers! I looked today and suddenly realised that I have 91 followers now. I'm stunned. Hello, thank you so much for following my blog, please leave a comment and I will follow your blog right back. 

Secondly, I want to say a big thank you to everybody. I really do. I must admit that Andrea's comments threw me wildly. I went to a really low place for a while after reading them. I felt so useless. Reading what she said, well, I'm already miserable, and I know that what I am doing is bad, but if getting a boyfriend and perking up would be enough to snap me out of this, then why wasn't I good enough to do just that? I felt like such a worthless, useless, incompetent mess that I would be better off not existing. I have never known such strong suicidal urges. 

I can't say I'm over it, I can't say I'm not still suicidal. I've been cutting more and more and I can feel the old grip of depression creeping in. But. I've also made myself a plan to lose weight. For now, if I can get a grip on my weight, then I can start to get a grip on other things. For now, I need to focus on one small thing at a time to drag myself through thiss. 

Thirdly, I want to say sorry for my absence. For a while there I really did think I was going to end my life and I didn't want to come here and be talked out of it by anyone. I didn't want to post any sort of message that some people might think to be attention seeking. When I end my life, it will be my choice, and there will be no apologies to anyone. 

At any rate, I return to you all with renewed vigor and determination. Just like the way I've titled this post. This is you and me. We're in this together now. None of them can stop us now. We will make it through somehow. We're fighting a battle that no one can see. That doesn't make it any less real. We are all doing it together. Though we are apart physically, we are all striving for the same thing, we live and breath for the same thing. We are linked together by a common thread that separates us from the rest of the world. And I know for sure that I cannot do this without the knowledge that you are all out there, sending me love, wishing me the best. And I do the same for you all, every second of every day. 

In a strange way, this blog has prolonged my life significantly. This knowledge makes me want to wake up in the morning and give it all another go. And I can't thank you all enough for that. I hope that you all can appreciate that. 

I think this is all I can say for now. I am still struggling with the cutting, and the can of worms that comes with that. I am still somewhat scared and wary of posting anything on this blog because I don't want to read comments like that again. I'm scared by how they affected me and I'm scared of how I may react in the future. When you can no longer trust your one outlet of self expression, everything gets thrown up in the air. 

So I bid you goodbye from this post, with the promise that I will post again, and that like you, each fibre of my being longs to be thin and fears food and the consequences of eating. 

suicidal fantasies

"I want you to know I'm not through the night. Sometimes I'm still fighting to walk towards the light."

There is a deep, primal grumbling beneath me. The jagged rocks cut into my bare feet, I can barely feel them due to the cold. It's a bitter wind, it's a biting wind, it's a bracing wind. It is one last kiss from life. An icy kiss to farewell me from a life that never loved me. 

It's my hometown. It's the place where I grew up. And here I recall a childhood of ignorant bliss, muddy football stained t-shirts and cream cakes and scraped knees. A time where size and weight were irrelevant and calories were still mysteries held by the universe. And here I recall leaving that behind and entering a different world that was not so kind and not so forgiving. 

School balls and Valentines and boyfriends and shopping malls. Those were never meant for a girl like me. They were not part of my world of textbooks and calculators and tutors and exams. I'm not sure if I ever lusted after them. 

Years of trouble. Taunting. Teasing. Loathing. Hatred. Self-harm. Now I am old enough to recognise it as abuse. At the hands of my classmates, my so-called friends, my family. One day I'm stupid. One day I'm fat. One day I'm ugly. One day I'm unworthy. Everyday I am something that I wish I was not. This is what became my reality. 

If my reality is a cage from which I cannot escape then I care not to know what the general populus knows as reality. Because it is irrelevant. 

The grumbling beneath me grows, the stones I stand on start to tremble, my heart begins to race, my body begins to shake with the adrenalin that pumps through me. Automatic and accurate, one foot moves in front of the other and I wriggle them once I am balancing on the smooth metal railings of salvation. 

I want to dance. I have never felt so full of anticipation, so powerful. Now I understand that none of it ever mattered. In this moment in time, none of it ever mattered and I am happy. There is no doubt. There is no regret. There is no shame or sorrow. I am finally getting what I want. 

It's so close. I can hear it now. The vibration down the line is like electricity coursing through my veins. Under my breath I hum that dear old tune that's kept me comfortable for years "she's got a ticket to ride and she don't care". 

I can't see. The light is too bright. I can't hear anything but my heartbeat above the roar fast approaching. The dense night air rushes towards me, carrying with it the promise of resolution. 

I spread my arms to embrace whatever may come. 

I think of all those I love. 

The one promise I did keep - I loved them till whatever end. 

I am engulfed by the light and the noise. 

One big hum. 

The cold becomes warmth. 

The light becomes darkness. 

The heartbeat slows. 

This is freedom of choice. 

I have never been so happy. 

feed my will to feel my moment, drawing way outside the lines.

Reaching out to embrace the random, reaching out to embrace whatever may come. 

Firstly, thank you Christina for that advice. I do try to do that sometimes and while I must say I never fully understand it, it does temporarily provide me with enough insight to at least know on a superficial level that people care about me. I might not take it in at all, but knowing it at all does help. 

There is a lot that I've been thinking about recently. And for the sake of my own sanity and ability to understand a life that is starting to spiral out in all directions, I will list the things that I have been pondering. 

1. My recent weight gain/lack of weight loss. 

There are not too many ways that I can look at this in a positive light. While I'd like to say that this was largely because I have been forcing myself to eat 3 meals a day in an attempt to stave off the collapsing episodes that I have been having, I have to admit that it is also because that I have been using a legitimate attempt to recover from illness as an excuse to eat. 

By default, I am not allowed to eat. And this is the setting that I have operated on for the past year and a half. There are times that I am allowed to eat, mostly these are times where I must eat in order to stop people worrying. Being on a setting where I am allowed to eat all the time, especially when I feel faint (which was all the time) meant I suddenly started eating everything that I wanted to. 

Like I was trying to make up for a year and a half of holding back. I lost all control and just ate like a little pig. And so I gained weight. I'm not surprised. I knew I was going to gain weight. But I allowed myself to slip, all under the guise of recovering from fainting spells. 

2. What I am going to do about this backward slide. 

At the end of the day, the basis of my entire problem can be reduced to a simple equation. If I eat more than I burn off, I will gain weight. As far as concepts go, it doesn't get much simpler than that. So the answer to this question is simple as well. Eat less. Work out more. 

How to fit that in is a rather different issue. Now that I've had an episode of binging, I'm stuck on that mode. I'm always hungry. All I can think about is food. And what else I can cook and what else I can eat and how I can scrimp on money to buy more food. It's ruining me financially. I have to just buy food once a week, and no more and just eat what I have. 

It's not much, but it's step one towards control. 

3. The cutting. 

Now this is probably the one that is the hardest fix of all. I'm writing this post as I pluck my eyebrows and I remember the first time I did it. It hurt so much that it made my eyes water and I wondered why women put themselves through this hell regularly just to have better eyebrows. Now I barely feel it and plucking my eyebrows is just part of my routine. Cutting is just like that. Now it is just part of my routine. 

There is no doubt that I cut more as I get more stressed out. As far as I am concerned, it is a really effective method of stress control. I don't really see a problem with it. My problem is that society doesn't seem to hold the same view as me. I'm running out of places to cut. My abdomen is bearing the brunt of it, but my scars aren't fading at all and I find myself cutting deeper and deeper. So much for the many sets of bikinis that I own. But at least winter is approaching. 

4. The help/the temptation/the burden/the professor. 

Those things are all and the same to me. There are so many issues around this that I don't even know how to start thinking about it. 

You will know that the professor offered to help me. But since I put on such a happy performance, he seems to have happily forgotten about it. I'm sure that the only reason I think that is because I don't see him very often. I'm sure that if I saw him every day I would realise that he has very much not forgotten and is carefully watching me. I think he thinks I am slowly getting myself better. And that pleases him. 

I don't want to worry him. But as I cut and binge and restrict and exercise, all I want to do is to go crawling to him and ask for help. No. It doesn't even go that far. All I want to do is to go crawling to him and have him pick me up and hold me so that I will feel safe. 

He is busy. Very busy. And to ask for time, to ask to be part of his personal life, to let him into the dark, dark depths that I dwell in is just too much. On some level, one more thing added to a million things to worry about isn't very significant. But I don't want to be "not very significant". But I also don't want to be a burden. 

Each day I am more and more tempted to write to him. And tell him that I'm not doing so well. To be held and comforted by a daddy, a different daddy to the one who caused me so much pain. But when I am in front of him, I can't help but smile and say that I am okay. It's not in my programming to tell people that I'm not okay. 

I want him to know. But I don't want to tell him. I want him to know without me telling him anything. 

Each day I feel like I am pinning too much hope on him. He can't be expected to fix me. Only I can fix me. 

5. The end of days.

When you realise how easy it can be to take your own life, in that moment the world seems to pause for you and you are filled with terror and power at the same time. I try to think of all the people who might give a toss. What would my flatmate do? She'd have to give up our current flat and go somewhere else because she certainly wouldn't afford a place like this on her own. 

My parents would be lumbered with the massive debt that I've accumulated during my education. My co-authors would be lumbered with the papers I've left half finished. 

Once that is sorted out, I will have a clearer mind. But on some nights, I don't think the guilt of letting people down is enough. Some nights, at some ungodly hour, I am awake in bed, literally twitching with the desire to drive out and find my train. It would be so easy. But no. I won't. Not just yet. Right now, there are other things that I have to take care of. 

pick your battles

Sometimes you have to just pick your battles. Sometimes it's not that easy but sometimes it really is just black and white. 

Sometimes nothing goes your way. Sometimes nothing is how you planned it. Sometimes you need something to hold onto and if that thing is something terrible but it keeps you from ending it all, then it's not so terrible. 

Sometimes you are so full of nervous energy that you can't do anything at all. Other times you are so tired that you are too tired to sleep. 

Sometimes no matter how much weight you lose, you still think you look the same. There is never a time when you think you are losing weight fast enough. 

Sometimes it is just so discouraging to never feel good enough and never feel beautiful. And sometimes all the compliments in the world won't make that better. 

BMI of 20.6. I'm getting close to getting out of the 20s. I can't remember the last time I was out of the 20s, I think it was probably when I was at intermediate school. 

But with every pound lost I feel guilt. Guilt and triumph. 

Let's play a game. How low can you go?

How low can I go without getting in trouble? How well can I hide it? 

Each pound lost brings unspeakable joy. Absolutely unspeakable joy. Nothing makes me feel more accomplished. The thrill of being hungry, of feeling thinner, of being able to starve, of turning down a meal...sometimes that's the only thing that makes me feel like I'm worth anything at all. 

That feeling lasts maybe a minute. 

Each cut and each blood stained tissue brings unspeakable relief. That tension that stops me from sleeping and stops me from studying and stops me from doing anything at all just melts away. It keeps me sane. It keeps me from jumping off high buildings and from jumping off bridges and from jumping in front of trains. Sometimes it's the only think that keeps me alive and I feel pure and justified and holy.

That feeling lasts maybe a minute. 

Then the guilt floods in. I can never ever wear a bikini again. Even if I manage to lose all the fat, I won't lose all the scars. And what if anyone ever found out. I can only ever explain some of the cuts. Some of the other ones are clearly self harm. 

"Are you behaving yourself?" the professor looks at me with special emphasis. Clever move indeed. Everyone else thinks he's being sweet and making sure that I'm not partying madly or whatever. 

"Of course I am." I meet his gaze and smile sweetly. I made that mistake once, I'm not making it again. He does not need to know that I'm still losing weight and cutting myself. He does not need to know that I have absolutely no intention of ever telling him anything like that ever again. 

I hate lying to him. But he is going to find out one day. He will know, when I am dead, he will know that nothing ever changed. And that I have been lying to him for years. 

But I will do what I want this time. I'm not going to fight with him over this. Sometimes you have to pick your battles. 

blood diamonds

Thank you to Zapfire, Jackie, Domino and Fiona for your comments on my last post. Thank you all for being so supportive of me, and for all your kind words. I appreciate them all and I love reading them. 

I look down at my finger and I see them sparkle like the sun on the sea. 3 dainty little diamonds sitting in a little platinum heart on a thin platinum band. I slide it off my pudgy finger. Such a beautiful thing deserves a more worthy bearer than me. Ungrateful little bitch. My ring cost more than any of the engagement rings of my married friends. I should be happy. Why aren't I happy? 

It means nothing to me. It symbolises the hollowness and ego boost that comes with any consumerist comfort. My father proudly paid for it but it makes me think of all the torment and all the tears and blood that I have spilt on his account. Blood diamonds, that's what they are. Tiffany&Co hearts might be a symbol of love but I don't feel loved at all. It's all a bit too little, too late. 

In a strange way it is better than any cut I could ever make on my body. It's a tauntingly, hauntingly beautiful reminder that I am not enough, that I am not worthy, that I am not beautiful. 

This house holds no sentiment for me. No place ever has. It's just a roof to sleep under, shared with people who all want something from me. It's all I've ever known. I do not feel safe here. I do not feel loved here. I do not feel I belong here. 

I used to want to make it work. I wanted to feel what every child should feel from their parents. I want to be loved unconditionally. Loved for all my faults and all my deficiencies. I used to want a happily ever after. I wanted a fresh start. To go back to zero and forget all the hurt and start new and be a proper family. 

That's not possible. They would never understand. They aren't capable of giving me what I want and what I need. The only option is to go. 

Some people tell me that the professor cares about me. If this is what it feels like to be cared for then it is nothing short of absolutely terrifying. I was hoping he'd forget all that I said to him. I was hoping to let it slide on by into the cold depths of my memory where I would file it under "near misses". But he wants to see me this weekend and I don't know what to do. I don't really have a choice. All I can try to do is damage control. 

Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. Opening up is not easy and I don't want to do it. I have been so judged and held up to ridicule for being Asian and for being fat, for things that aren't exactly bad per se that I can't even imagine what evil I will be exposed to if I confess to what I have been doing. I might be kicked out of medical school. I might be told to take a year off and sort my shit out. 

She's got a ticket to ride and she don't care. I'll be humming this as I wait for my train if that is what it comes to. I don't care about doing something good and leaving behind reasons to be missed. I don't want people to miss me. I don't want people to remember me. Ideally, everyone would just get on with their lives and if I'm lucky enough I will be scattered into the ocean that I love so much. 

But the professor doesn't know any of this. If he did, I'd probably be under psychiatric hold right now. 

Perk up fat bitch. Perk up and say that you are okay. That things will work out this year. Happy and healthy, that's what you are, tell him that's what you are. 

He keeps telling me, in every email, that he wishes me a happy and healthy 2012. It's a very deliberate thing. Happy and healthy, two things that he definitely doesn't think I am. Is it possible to suddenly become happy and healthy in a week? Can I even negotiate new terms? I have a feeling this matter is a very non-negotiable one to him. 

But how will he check up on me? Seeing me once a week isn't going to stop me losing weight. I dare not imagine what threats he might make to force me into compliance. 

This wonderful little world of control that I've meticulously built for myself is crumbling. The professor is blowing away my castle in the clouds. I don't want to let go. 

What am I afraid of? Is it losing my job? Is it the professor? Is it gaining weight? Or is it simply the uncertainty. 

List of things to do this week:

Move out of home to my new city where I will be training this year.

Join the gym. 

Start a new diet and exercise plan. 

Lose some freaking weight! 

See the professor. 

I wish you lovely ladies all a wonderful 2012. I hope it is everything that you want it to be and more. In the words of the professor, full of happiness and health. I love you all. 

something big, something nasty

"There is something big growing inside you, and you have to hide it away and push it down...you are just too nasty for words."

Now those aren't words that are easy for anyone to stomach. And as for me, my father's rather unfortunate choice of words there makes it all the much harder. If I read that sentence out of context, as you will be doing, it makes it sound like I come from some sort of hugely religious family and I have just gotten myself pregnant out of wedlock and my father has just found out I am carrying a bastard child. Would you have guessed that I earned myself that walloping by staying in bed because I was feeling sick and not wanting any lunch?

A very long time ago I wrote a blog entry (professional incompetence) about being sat down and having a "family meeting" whereby my parents dragged out for hours all my incompetencies and shortcomings and reinforced a message that I have hearing all my life: you will never be good enough to be loved by anyone.

Well today there has been another meeting. Another serious meeting. The year is always filled with these sorts of meetings scattered around but fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) there are only 1 or 2 serious ones each year. I had one earlier this year and today was another one. At least I can rest knowing that there shouldn't be any more serious ones this year.

Today's meeting was triggered by me wanting to stay in bed. [For fuck's sake, what's wrong with that. I'm recovering from exams, all I want to do is stay in bed.] I was already in a rotten mood because I'd wanted to drive around the countryside and had woken up too late to do so and so I all I wanted to do was stay in bed.

Riveting, isn't it. I'm sorry that this isn't very exciting, to be honest, I don't know why my parents made such a big deal out of it. Their reaction really sort of would have been appropriate for something like, if I'd been found injecting myself with heroin and wouldn't get out of bed due to some drug induced stupor.

And since I'd woken up around lunchtime, I didn't want to eat any lunch and when they called me for lunch, I said that I didn't want any and didn't go down. Honestly, tell me if I'm crazy, because thus far, I don't think I've done anything wrong at all.

But because of this, my father stormed into my room and dragged me into his room and sat me down to have another family meeting. Apparently, I'd made my mother cry. And he was mad. How dare I have the insufferable cheek to something like that. How dare I. Don't I know how lowly I am?

I have to say that I bore the vast majority of this meeting with iron will and poker face. I was actually feeling rather smug about how well I was handling it. But then, suddenly, for no real reason, I felt it all control slipping away and no matter how much I willed my eyes not to produce tears, they wouldn't listen. It was a moment of total and utter loss. Like all the energy drained out of me and I felt like slumping forwards, have all life drain out of me and just die there.

Afterwards, it was the first time in my life when I've actually physically crawled into a corner and beg to be left alone. I've never felt so small, and so attacked. It's been almost 12hours since the event and I'm still crying. My eyes feel so strained, they feel like they are shriveling up in the sockets and getting ready to fall out of my head. My father told me to always remember that I have something big and nasty inside of me, and that I have to hide it or I will never be loved. That I am not perfect, and unless I improve, I will never be loved. Among lots of other things that I shan't bore you with.

The long and short of it is, I'm an awful, awful person and I will never be loved. The end.

I think that for a long time now, I have been slowly losing hope. Hope in what? I don't really know. Perhaps, hope of me possibly having a happy ending. After today, I don't really think I have much, if any, left. And I find myself making very, very different suicide plans. Previously, I'd always thought of taking a big overdose. Saving up on drugs and taking a huge dose and just being found, dead on my bed. But now, I find that this method has too much uncertainty. What if I am found before I am dead? What if I don't take a large enough dose? No, I've decided I need a method that will make sure I will be dead at the other side of it.

So I've decided that I will drive my car to a neighbourhood that I used to live in and then I will be dressed all in black, and it will be late at night and I will wait in the bushes by the train track and then just leap in front of it. Being hit by a train seems like a reasonably certain method of committing suicide. And I really do want to do it. I'd do it now, but for the moment, I'd feel too much guilt about leaving my friend all by herself next year, in a flat that she can't afford by herself. But part of me is really itching to just go out and do it. This is perhaps the most serious I've ever been about it. I don't care that I have a big holiday coming up, I don't care that I'm so close to qualifying as a doctor, I don't care that I am going to work in Bristol for a bit next year. I don't care. I just want to die. And not have to deal with any of this bullshit.

But I am too fat to do that just now. I have to die thin. I need to be thin. I want to be thin so that I can curl up on my bed and look small. Does that sound stupid?

underneath we're not so tough and love is not enough.

Day 1 of proper holiday stuff and I'm already feeling the stress. I wish I could just be content with general surgery, then life would be a hell of a lot easier. But no. I have to go chasing the unobtainable (again) and stress myself to the max (again) and surround myself with triggers (again). Ah the curse of history repeating itself, but I must like it on some level or I wouldn't keep doing it.

I've just realised that my opening sentence sounds a bit strange. I should say that the reason the holidays stress me out is because I'm working, and I have to contact the professor about a 4 week project that has now dragged out a full year. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it. At least it puts me off my food, every cloud has a silver lining after all.

Now that the summer is on it's way the high pace stage of my weight loss plan kicks into action. I'm thinking that I will diet and will work on skipping lunch and dinner and just having some salad and an egg for breakfast. I'm also thinking of daily 8km runs and yoga and taebo. That should kick some sort of shape into the gelatinous mess that I am right now. I'm 121lbs and I feel like such a big ugly slob.

I have no idea how I tolerated being 143lbs for so long. I must have looked an absolute fright at 143lbs, I must have, because I feel an absolute fright right now and I'm 22lbs lighter than I was then. I hope that by the time I get to 100lbs I don't feel quite so heavy anymore. But you never know. I don't feel any better about myself now than I did when I was 143lbs, on a logical, rational level I know that I should feel some sense of pride for the weight that I've lost but on a much deeper emotional level I feel even more disgusting.

The more weight I lose, the more I want to lose. Maybe it's because with every pound I shed I uncover a small block of potential. As the fat drips off, some sort of light is shining through and it offers me something to hold onto.

But I know now what the light at the end of the tunnel is.

I feel as though I am stuck in a railway tunnel, stumbling across the sleepers, bruising my shins on the rails, grasping at the darkness and finding nothing. The cold, wet solitude of my silent prison stings my skin and the cold, wet solitude of my soul pours down my face as tears that nobody will ever see. But still I crack a smile, it's almost a gruesome sneer, it's satirical broken smile, a sort of Hail Mary to a world that has shunned me and forced me here.

I wish you could see what you have done, are you still proud of yourself?

And in my world of darkness and seemingly infinite horizontal space, I am fit to burst. The air is filled with promises that I can't keep, undeserved faith and words I can never live up to. And the pressure continues, a lonely little girl who just wants a hug, it's not too much to ask for, but it is too much to expect from people who have no hugs left to give. Maybe if I was smaller I would fit in their arms better. Maybe if I was smaller, someone might have the energy to pick me up and tell me that I don't have to walk anymore. Maybe if I was smaller someone would want to feed me the love that I've been deprived of.

But I live in the present, not in a world of ifs and buts. And at present all I know for certain is that there is no one else here and no one wants to hold me. It is so cold. No one to kiss me except the scalpel blades that I hoard. A sharp metallic kiss that is second to none in this world. And for a moment, if I close my eyes and be very still, I can pretend that the warm blood seeping out of my arms and legs and abdomen is the warm embrace of a soul who cared enough to stop and see.

And this is the cruelty of my reality. When I saw J and TS and SPM today, for the first time in a long time, I realised that I've been living in some sort of dream world. It's true that absence makes the heart grow fonder and now it is clear to me that as much as I might yearn for it, they will never think of me as their pet. No matter how much I might care for the professor, he will never be my father. They will never be my family. They do hold some true affection for me, but it runs no deeper than what would be considered normal for one to feel for a student. It was a dream, nothing more.

To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream...For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.

And the realisation of this was quite momentous for me, it really was the death of all hope. I had been holding onto some rose tinted notion that these people might somehow be able to reach down through the earth and find me falling around in my tunnel and pull me up to green pastures and circulating air. But no, I shall be left here to stew and rot in my own sour air and continue on in the darkness, not knowing if I'm walking forwards or backwards or towards anything in particular.

In a way I'm grateful to have this moment. It means that I don't have to waste more time clinging tooth and nail onto false hope. And now, more clearly than ever, I'm starting to see the light at the end of my tunnel. And it is my salvation and it will end my suffering and it will be the end of all things. And one day I know I will be too tired to carry on but then I shall summon all the strength left in every single muscle fibre in my body and run into the light, meet my train head on and I will be bathed in light and sound. Blinded by white, that passenger train will impart its impulse unto my mortal flesh and the energy will course through my body, right to the heart of me and I will fly. Fly through the air and die on the very ground that I've trodden my whole life.

The light at the end of the tunnel is my passenger train and it will make me fly and it will take me away from this world into the next, or into further darkness. And so I can see the end of all things for me. I know that at some point, all this will cease to be worth the effort and when I decide that, I will be consumed with power and with that overwhelming power, I will choose to leave this world.

There is nothing in this world that can save me. Love is not enough.