I listen for the whisper of your sweet insanity while I formulate denials of your effect on me.

Thank you to Jackie, Gracereturnsslowly, Christina and Fat Piggy for your lovely comments on my last post. It's so nice to find that there are people who completely understand how I feel about the purging. When I feel down and alone, I come on my blog and then I see that there are people who understand and support me and I don't feel quite so isolated.

And thank you to all the lovely ladies who wished me a good day. Because today I had a good day! For once!!!!!!! All those wishes must have added up to one good day and I tell you, I've not been this happy for a long time. You ladies have become a second family for me, so my glorious skinny sisterhood, let me share my happiness with you! Let me rant my joy for one post, normal self loathing and restricting posts will resume shortly.

I finally bought myself a white dress. A nice white, casual, comfy dress. I purposely bought it in a large size, it's suppose to be quite tight but it sits loose on me and is amazingly comfortable. I wore it with my pink sequin shoes, the ones I got from a children's store (as I have very small feet) and a light pink blazer. I felt like a 6 year old but it was very, very cute.

I went to work in this outfit and was talking to TS and my friend Steph when the professor showed up. He made fun of me for a full 15 minutes. About how my outfit was so cutesy and girly, how they've never had a student quite as girly as me. Then he moved onto how short I am. He told them about how he ran into me last week and gave me a kiss and a cuddle, how he had forgotten how small I was and so I almost fell through his arms and how he apologised to me because he ended up crushing my spectacles against his cheek. By this point TS and Steph are howling with laughter and I'm hiding my face with embarrassment.

To make things worse, at this exact point the professor points at me and says "you're blushing!" and everyone just laughs so much harder. Then there is more teasing from the professor about my height and outfit and eventually he says that he means it in a nice way, that I look cute and attractive. And he calls me "bijoux". Which is not a word I've ever heard used before. He explains that it means "small jewel", I say "oh, that's really quite sweet" and immediately blush again.

I've just realised that there was a lot of laughing at my expense. By this point, after being called Bijoux several times by the professor, I must have been quite an alarming shade of red, and I notice that TS has the most amazed look on his face and he says to the professor "I think you're the only person to make her blush". Which of course makes me blush more, and makes the professor look very smug.

Later at night, I pop into the professor's office to ask him a question, he tells me that the white makes me look very innocent and "what is your question, little innocent thing?" I'm making myself another theatre hat and I ask him, if I made him a theatre hat, would he wear it? He seems absolutely delighted at the idea. And asks me if I'd like to go to theatre with him tomorrow morning, he'll have no assistants tomorrow morning and so he'd like me to go.

By the by, here is a picture of a theatre hat. By that I mean, a hat that we wear when in the operating theatre to keep our hair out of the way. And yes, that is me in the picture. Feast your eyes on my fat ugly face. the hat is black with white polka dots held on with a pink ribbon that ties into a bow.

I ADORE theatre, so much. I love going to theatre, ophthal theatre especially. The professor's theatre is amazing because he does the most intricate surgeries. And to assist means I get to view the whole thing down the operating microscope which is special. And to be asked to go to theatre with the professor, is amazing. I don't know if that has ever happened to a student. I think sometimes his masters students to theatre, but as a medical student, really, I'm just there to keep him company.

Today was a good day. I got invited to theatre, which I'm so excited about. And the bijoux thing. And, and, and, this last thing will sound utterly ridiculous, but when the professor walks past me, he always just touches me in the small of my back. For some reason, I really like that.

So there we are ladies, a GREAT day. God, if my friends could read this, they would be even more suspicious about me and the professor having an affair. A ridiculous notion indeed, but there are quite a few raised eyebrows.

p(urges) part 2

Every now and then I consider purging. I am thoroughly opposed to the notion, I know that it is bad on every single level. I know that if I started purging, the amount of trouble that I'd be in if people found out would multiply 100 times. (Does that sentence make sense?) I'm already being hounded for not eating enough, I'd probably be burned at the stake for purging.

However, despite all this, if I were somehow granted the ability to purge easily, without too much effort, doesn't leave me coughing and spluttering on my bathroom floor, I would do it. But until that happens, I'm unlikely to make a habit of it.

My problem with purging is really more on a moral basis. It's a bit hard to explain but I'm going to try to, and I apologise in advance if I horribly confuse anybody.

The whole point, is to lose weight by not eating and by exercising. To me, this is almost like an exercise in self control. No matter how much I want to eat, no matter how hungry I am, I don't let myself eat. And I make myself work out. It's like, learning the art of discipline.

There is something in fasting, restricting, essentially starving that I find so comforting. I might be hungry, so hungry that I'm in pain. I might be dizzy and salivating at merely hearing people talk about food but the thing is, I never feel more accomplished and powerful than when I am starving but still refusing food. I feel in total control. I'm in control, and I control what I eat. When I get into these moods, the weight loss is almost a very lovely side effect.

Not to say that the weight loss is insignificant, it's just a cyclical process. I restrict to lose weight, then I become full of power at the being hungry but still fasting and I lose more weight. But there is no such thing as "thin enough". So I will always be in a state of being too fat. Well, I can't imagine ever feeling thin. Not until all my bones are sticking out.

For those of you who have followed this blog, you will know that I am rather into self harm. For new followers - hello! Welcome and thank you for following me. I think restricting is like a form of self harm. Refusing myself food is like punishing myself and there are so many things that I feel like I need to be punished for. I don't deserve food, I don't deserve to be fed. The way I see food has changed dramatically. I don't get any pleasure from binging anymore. I used to though. I only feel a sense of dread when I see food, oh no, what if I binge, oh no, I don't deserve that, oh no, I'm too fat.

As an aside, the self harming, is getting worse, I'm getting lots of ideas of where to cut, but now, these are places that I want to have scars. I've cut 5 lines on my right flank. Parallel, and sort of in line with the contours of my body. And I want them to scar. But the problem is, I haven't cut them deep enough to scar well so I will have to re-cut them at some point. But for now, I can see the pattern and I will go over the cuts before the marks go away. They might be deep enough for a light scar, but I want bigger, darker ones. I found a box of miscellaneous stuff at work, and this included a collection of scalpel blades, some were clearly out of date and so are not sterile but still, scalpel blades are scalpel blades.

Back to purging! I sort of feel that purging is almost like cheating. If the aim is to exercise self control, then I have lost the game the second I put food into my mouth. In saying that however, I would rather purge out what I have eaten than be in a situation where I can't fast the next day. As of yet, I feel like I am still 'with it' enough to not purge. But I can certainly foresee me purging sometime in the future if this doesn't stop. Especially when I start working properly, which won't happen until November next year. I can see myself being consumed by work and restricting.

On some level, I want this to stop. And I think this contributes to the suicidal ideas. This really is a miserable state of existence. I think that at this point in time I have enough insight left to feel like I should get help. I'm now a qualified doctor, I know that this is wrong. But I'm too scared to get help, and nobody knows how bad I am. I'm still fully functional so no one suspects that I might be deeply depressed, suicidal and have an eating disorder. If I add purging to that list, well, I'm going to be in deep trouble if this ever gets out.

I can see that one day I will purge on a daily basis, probably when I'm living by myself. And then, it won't spell the end, but it will certainly be another nail in a well nailed down coffin. By then I will be so far gone, that there will be no possible success for me post-recovery and so the only way to continue will be go on and lose as much weight as I can and then off myself.

Some people would be very distressed if they could read this. I can't possibly tell anyone in my life about this. And this is why I treasure you girls so much.

As always, thank you to:

Leonie

Alice ana

Jackie

Christina

Fat Piggy

nicoleandgwendolyn

Haley

for your lovely comments. I absolutely love your comments and you ladies make me feel so supported in this.

ghosts of the past and future

This post is inspired by Jackie, who helped me remember something I had tucked away in some safe corner of my memory. A dream, from which I awoke, disoriented and shaking and unable to function for days, how could I have ever forgotten?

Love is a word that is so easily flipped around these days that it has rather lost all meaning for me. I think that I can recognise it when I "see" it. In quotation marks because it isn't something that you can see. It's not anything really. It's an electric shock that stimulates all and none of the senses simultaneously and is almost more of an intuition than anything. For instance, I can say with certainty that the professor loves his wife, J. And that I love my dog, my beautiful German Shepherd. I'm sure that if our eyes could see UV or infrared, we would be able to see some sort of mist surrounding us in times of love, as if some little love elf was following us with a big fan and a box of dry ice.

I'm just shy of 22, and thus far I have never had a boyfriend, never been on a date. That side of life has eluded me, and I have happily stayed well away from it. The emotional and social complexities of such a pass time are far too odious for my short temper but on the other side of that same coin, I do want to be part of a couple at some point.

In the past I have dreamed of things that then came to pass. I don't think I'm psychic or anything, but it's happened rather too many times for coincidence and it never ceases to creep me out and I wish it would stop. I dreamed my English teacher was present a week before she announced it to us, I dreamed of a shooting at a military camp in the US and woke up to see it as breaking news, I dreamed of seeing a cute guy by my locker and saw him there a few days later. I hate these things. And most recently, I dreamed that TS and J and the professor were trying to reverse my tag, and when I went to tell TS and J that I was tagged, they told me they were already trying to reverse it.

I am a total skeptic and I don't believe in anything divine, no religion has ever set foot in my life, and it's just not how I was brought up and it's not naturally part of my constitution. But with all this, even I am taking these dreams without the usual grain of salt. And it is with this lengthy foreword that I begin to retell my dream.

I can't tell if this dream is of something that has passed or of something that has yet to pass. But in this dream I am at a party. Already, this is very unlike me, I don't really do parties. I am wearing a dress, it is pink, sparkly and paired with high heeled shoes that are gold. The entire outfit stinks to the high heaven of something retro and I know that these are borrowed clothes, they don't quite fit me. It's not my style at all, which partly explains the unease that I am sensing.

I am also alone, and (here is the part that gives me hope!) I did not have a jacket and so I'm holding my arms, my very thin, very, very thin, bony arms to try to keep some warmth in. I'm quite nervous, I don't recognise anyone there and I'm quite scared. I pick up a glass of champagne, just for the sake of doing something and then I stand at the table, with my back to the room for a while, collecting my skittish nerves, telling myself to turn around and smile and socialise and make some friends. Just leap in!

Turning around abruptly, I make contact with a pair of eyes around the room and I'm thunderstruck. Of his face, all I can make out are the eyes, but I have a distinct feeling that he's brown haired. He's in trousers, a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, tie and (this is what takes the cake) a waistcoat. I look at the ground as he walks over to me, I dare not look him in the eye again. I'm too scared to, because I can feel it, I can feel love, and it scares me to the bone. But somewhere deep inside, I know that he is someone very special and I know that no matter how scared I may be, I will not let him go, because we were meant to meet.

I hope you can tell that I have tried to present the dream in the most unromantic way possible. I just don't hold with such romance at all. I don't believe in love at first sight, I don't believe in soul mates. And yet this dream affected me so greatly that for a few days afterwards, I firmly believed that this mystery man was out there waiting for me. Then I snapped out of that particular stupor and tucked the dream away.

Yet this feeling of love in this dream, that is something that I can't deny no matter how much I want to tell myself it wasn't there. And I know it must have been, because in my dream I couldn't look at him. I have a habit of not being able to look at people who look at me "lovingly". It's why sometimes I can't look at the professor, no matter how rude I think I'm being. And no matter how much I don't want to admit that that is the reason why I can't look at him, if I'm brutally honest, that is the truth behind it. If I do look at him, I blush madly and he immediately says "you're blushing!" and teases me for it.

Still, I hope this quite literal dream man is real and that our paths will come to cross one day. I want to see how accurate this dream is, even if it means wearing an ugly dress and shoes.

Judith Marie and the meaning of life.

An ambitious title indeed! Especially given that the time right now is 1.30am, I don't feel particularly coherent and I've been doing a strange (but productive) combination of crying and researching for the past few hours. In those hours I have learnt quite a few things and now a whole lot of things that have been floating around have all slid into place and things make a lot of sense to me.

Waaaaaaaay back near the start of this blog I wrote an entry called "attachment disorder". I've always thought that I must have some sort of attachment disorder and this is something that has become increasingly of concern to me. Well, not to me per se, but I have friends who are starting to issue me with warnings about my relationship with the professor. I'm not about to change the status quo, but it did make me think. After some digging, and some info from mum, I think I am fairly confident in saying that I have reactive attachment disorder.

It's rare and hard to diagnose, especially as I am now nearly 22 years old and this is normally picked up in young kids and then they undergo treatment. But there is no such thing as mental health care in China (which is where I was born) and my family have no understanding whatsoever of mental illness and their view is so archaic in that they think mental people should be locked up and hidden from society.

Mum had a hard pregnancy with me. And we were both very sick. And health care in China is freaking awful. So I was born by C-section at 36weeks gestation because my heart had started to fail. As soon as my umbilical cord was cut, I was taken to the theatre next to the C-section theatre and I had a 5 hour operation that included a total blood transfusion and some catheter heart thing that mum can't quite explain to me. Then I was moved to the neonatal intensive care unit which is where I stayed for the first 2 weeks of my life. During this time, no one in my family was allowed to have any contact with me. And my dad was only allowed to see my briefly, once, when I was 5 days old and they thought I was going to die.

So I spent the first 2 weeks of my life alone, not seeing my mother once, not having been touched by any of my family at all. Then I was raised in a strange way. My parents almost alternated with my grandparents in my care because of work. They were away on business trips a lot and so my grandma (who I later found out isn't my biological grandma because my dad was adopted) was my primary caregiver. The first sign of problems appeared when I was 6 months old. When both my parents went away for a week's holiday and left me at home with her. When they got back, I essentially rejected them both. I refused to look at them, I refused to be held by them and I didn't want anything to do with them for a few days.

Both my parents thought I was being spiteful, but apparently this behaviour is rather indicative of attachment disorders. Then as I got a bit older I started exhibiting another symptom, which is getting comfort from adults, any adult, often complete strangers. I remember mum would take me out shopping, and for some reason I would always, always lose her in the supermarket or mall or wherever we were. And when I had lost her, I would grab hold the hand of the nearest adult and just walk around with them. Most of the time they would look for her and return me, but one time mum had to chase down a man who had walked me out of the store and was basically kidnapping me.

Up until 6 years old I had my grandma as a caregiver. But at 6 years old, we emigrated and left her in China and so I was separated from her. I didn't see her for a few years, during this time my parents were busy working multiple jobs to make ends meet in this new country, in this brave new world, they couldn't speak English, they didn't know anybody and sometimes I went without lunch and dinner because we couldn't afford the food. I distinctly remember that mum would go and buy those bones that they sell for next to nothing in the supermarket as dog food and boil those up and that would be dinner.

So I didn't see much of them, we lived with this family, and I didn't speak English and I remember being very scared at home, when their children would try to talk to me and I couldn't understand what they were saying to me. But I was young, I picked up English fast, and by the time my grandparents arrived here a few years later, I didn't speak enough Chinese to communicate with them. It's like I can't win!

By this time my parents were relatively stable, but I wasn't allowed to go out after school to play, I had to come home immediately and study. I was never allowed to go to birthday parties, or any party, and when I was a teenager I was never allowed to just go hang out with friends. And a boyfriend? Out of the question! When I was 12 I had basically finished the entire high school curriculum for maths, biology, chemistry and physics and had a private English tutor and had started on calculus.

Is it any wonder I have an attachment disorder? Then I go and get depression and an eating disorder on top of that. Great. No wonder I'm suicidal.

I've learnt from the second I popped out of the womb that there wasn't a single soul on this earth that I could depend on, there was nobody to protect me from anything and there was nobody that I could trust. And my dad did always say to me, for as long as I can remember, he would get me to repeat after him "trust no one, trust no one." Well dad, it worked a treat, better than you could have hoped for.

When I needed people, on the odd occasions that I wanted my parents, they were never there. And so now I think no one will ever be there. I learned to depend on me. I have total control over my own life and that is the only way I know how to do it. But with everyone around me happy and in love, I'm seeing that I'm missing something. Yet at the same time I know that I can't possibly function in any relationship because I don't know how to function in one. It's always been me against the world, what does the word ally even mean? I want to be in a relationship, but I know I can't be in one...but the sheer fact that I got this far in life without anyone being remotely interested in me makes me think that I'm severely defective in some way.

I've seen some awful girls get guys. What exactly is so unacceptably repugnant about me?

I've told you all that I've been tagged. I'm not taking it very well. I'm crying an awful lot about it. One of my biggest fears was TS and J and the professor finding out and rejecting me about it. I still don't know if the professor knows, but today I found out that TS and J knew about it before I did and have been trying to get it reversed since then. I was so touched that I almost broke down in tears in front of them. Never did it occur to me that they would be angry at the medical school for doing that to me and even go as far as to try and reverse it. I was so scared they would think less of me because of it.

When I told a friend about this she said to me, sometimes it sounds like you don't really know these people or understand what they're like. And I guess it's true. Because I would never expect anyone to try and do anything for me, or to hold an unshakable good opinion of me. I'm just not worth that. And yet, despite what TS and J are doing, despite them being incredibly angry at the medical school (I've never seen J so angry, ever), I am still terrified of the professor finding out and what he will think. Funny thing is, he probably already knows, seeing as he's married to J and all.

This depressing, ED, suicidal thing is getting harder and harder to hide. I've hidden it very well so far, but with my depression spiralling a bit and the added stress of the evil tag, I'm finding it hard to cope. It's starting to show. Not much, only ever in little gaps, little gaps of a few seconds at work. If this keeps going, someone will see. Chances are, they will all see it, but he will do something. If he sees it, he will do something.

And all I can envisage nowadays is me, being thin, very thin indeed, with a lovely gap between my thighs, a happy concave abdomen and arms that aren't so fat that they flap about, a small me, a better, prettier me, sitting on the professor's lap, and him rocking me back and forth. No wonder my friends are issuing me warnings. They're worried I like him too much, that I'm going to get very hurt. And I'm worried too. Because if he hurts me again, it will be the end of my days and I will have to bid goodbye to you lovely ladies and go and catch my train.

Wow, I've typed for over an hour and this is faaaar too long a post for any of you to read.

I commend and deeply thank anybody who actually reads the whole thing. Love you all, I don't think I could carry on without you girls.

faking it and more compliments wrapped in love

It would seem that I can't spend a day at work without my weight being dragged into question. Today TS said to me that I shouldn't lose any more weight. "Don't lose any more weight", he says, "this weight looks good on you." And like the professor, he thinks that my waist is starting to look very small. I'm scared that one day all this will go right to my head and I will be grasped by the delusion that I am thin. But ah! I was prepared for this and well aware that I am still fat. I wore a very tight waist belt on purpose, so I could feel it digging into my fat.

It's not that I think they're lying to me, but I just don't think I'm thin enough and I think they get concerned rather easily. I do not think they need to be worried. When I weigh 45kg/100lbs, at that point I think I would understand why someone might be concerned because I would have lost 20kg from my original weight.

The worst thing is that I have to pretend I'm not trying to lose more weight. I am essentially lying to them. But as they are worried, if they catch a whiff of an eating disorder, it will be straight to the mental health ward for me! One thing that I didn't lie about was how it is to lose weight. There was a time when it would just drop off but I've been trying for a week and not shifted a pound. It makes me think I'm taking on my calories than I realise. It's frustrating because there have been times when I dropped weight without trying but now that I'm actually trying, nothing is happening.

I also ran into the professor today. He seems to be in an amazingly good mood recently. I've had more cuddles and kisses in the past week from him and SPM than I have in the past half year of my life.

things that make me think

Today I got some bad news. In one of my clinical rotations, a bitch boss hated me and borderline passed me. Which sucks because she only saw me 3 times in 6 weeks and everyone else there thought I was great. She also called me unprofessional, incompetent, not having enough knowledge, immature and told me the day before my exam that she thought I would fail. Nobody has ever had such a low opinion of me. Except my parents of course.

So I'm effectively "tagged". This is totally unfair. It means that next year, my probationary year of practice, I will be watched like a hawk by my bosses. Thankfully I passed everything and with decent marks and so I have passed the year and I don't have to do extra work, but it's the principle that matters here. It makes me feel not good enough, even though I've done nothing wrong. It makes me feel like people don't think I'm going to be a good doctor. And it makes me feel very angry, and very insecure.

But aside for my rant, a message for you girls.

As always, thank you all for the lovely comments. Even though I've never met any of you, I can totally all the support that you lovely ladies give me and when I feel down (which, to be honest, is a lot of the time), reading the words of encouragement that you leave for me, it's about the only thing in the world that has the power to lift my mood.

Having an eating disorder is such an isolating experience, I can't talk to anyone in my life about it and I have to spend a lot of time and energy hiding it from people who suspect or could suspect something. I very firmly believe that it is not possible to fully understand what it is like to have an eating disorder until you have had one yourself, which is why I value the company of you girls so much.

Furthermore, the advice I get on here, and the different points of view, they get me thinking. Here are my replies to the comments that you have left me.

Fat Piggy, Jackie, Alice ana and outside in to thin: I wish I could live away from my parents and for the most part, I do. I undertake most of my training in another city and I only come home on weekends. But I am sooo far in debt (more than $100,000 in debt) that once I graduate, I will have to live at home with my parents. I won't be able to afford to move out, at least not for 2 years.

I'm hoping that once I start working, I will be able to take extra shifts, not only to earn the extra money, but to be out of the house as much as possible and so I want to have 2 years of constant work to pay off my debt. After that, I will hopefully get a pay rise, be out of debt (or at least very close to it) and then I will move out of home to my own little apartment or something like that.

I really wish that I could ignore their comments and just take them in my stride, but in a way, since I've lived with this all my life, it is so much a part of my life that I hardly need them to say it. I already believe it all, it's just all the more hurtful when my own parents tell it to my face. At each family meeting, it's like playing a game. If I don't cry and stay defiant the whole time, then I win. And I've won sometimes. But last time, sadly, I lost the game. Still, I live on to play another day.

There really are no words to express how low my self worth is and these family meetings have the effect of a sledgehammer, hammering the remnants of the self worth and confidence into the ground. Oh what it is to weigh 121lbs and have my father say the most I should weigh is 100lbs. Crap isn't a strong enough word.

Alice ana: I've had suicidal thoughts since I was about 13. But at the time, all that consisted of was "I wish I was dead, I'd be better off dead, everyone would be better off if I was dead." I've come a long way since then. I have several different plans, most of which have been relatively "docile" up till now. For years I thought I would do a massive overdose. Until I learnt that many, many people overdose and still come back from it if they get to hospital long enough. My overdose would have to be of many different drugs, in huge quantities and I really am not sure if I can physically swallow that much. And I'm not sure if I could get to hospital fast enough and onto life support fast enough to live through the OD.

Whatever I do, it really must be the end of me, because I just couldn't face the consequences of living through a suicide attempt. The being declared unfit for practice, the mandatory institutionalisation in a mental health ward, the stigma and the being watched for the rest of my practicing life. Not to mention facing up to my family and friends. Chances are, my friends will be the ones trying to work out what drugs I've taken, pumping my stomach, putting me on life support and monitoring me.

Then I thought I would tell people I was going away for a weekend, then on the Friday night, run myself a hot bath, take a big, big dose of sedatives and painkillers and sit in my bath and slit my wrists and simply bleed out. By the time the working week started again and people realised I was missing, I would have bled out long ago.

But then I thought, even though there is a lovely, lovely way of dying, there is always that one in a million chance that someone might find me in time. I'd also have to not have a flatmate. So that's how I suddenly though, well, being hit by a train, that sounds very...final. And so I thought, if I'm going to be cremated anyway, I don't need to look good dead and so being hit by a train, that would be a very good way to go. And fast enough for me to not have a chance to change my mind. As you can see from my previous post, it is really a well developed plan.

I must be honest, I've never been more serious about killing myself. And I'm starting to get more of an urge to do it too. I always thought that I'd wait until I had done all my training and become a consultant, but I would be at least 35 years old. But I have always thought 27 was going to be my time to go. So maybe I will spend the next 5 years of my life just clinging on,

Fat Piggy, Leonie and Jackie: I am totally committed to losing the weight. Totally. But with each bit of weight I lose, I have a wee panic about what the professor will say. I don't want to upset him, really I don't. Because I am terribly fond of him, and he also has the power to halt my career whenever he wants to and force me into treatment.

But in saying that, in a strange way, I yearn for him to notice. Part of that is because I don't want him to forget about me from a career point of view, the other side of that is that I want him to care about me and if he's concerned about my weight, it makes me feel like he cares. But it is such an internal battle. What makes it worse is that the eating disorder is sort of just the tip of the iceberg. It may be the most evident one, but he has no inkling whatever of the depression, the self harm and the suicidal ideation. If he did, omg, I think he'd admit me to a mental health ward immediately.

When I worked for him earlier in the year, I was pretty upset for a variety of reasons, principle of which was my father losing his job. And he noticed. Immediately. Not only did he notice, he didn't let it go. When it was just the two fo us, he was constantly checking how I was, and trying to feed me. If he knew about the cutting and the suicidal ideation, I'd be lucky if all I got was beaten into the ground.

I live for his little compliments wrapped in love. Makes me feel cared for, and for a fleeting moment, makes me feel thin. Which, at the end of the day, is what we are all shooting for.

a compliment wrapped up in love

It was 2 o'clock in the morning and as a huge insomniac, I was up watching youtube videos. I suddenly realised that I was many MANY years behind everyone else and had never seen any footage of Ellen and Portia's wedding. So I looked them up and that was all good. Then I came across an interview of Portia on the Ellen Degeneres Show and she was talking about her anorexia.

And then she said something that made a huge amount of sense. She said that when someone said "you look too thin, I'm worried about you" it was like a compliment wrapped up with love. To say that someone is too thin, there's no such thing and so it just felt like a great compliment and to be worried, that was like love.

Which is unbelievably true. It's something that I've always sort of known but never really put into words. It's why I feel so flattered when the professor says those exact words to me and not the least bit concerned about my health, which I suspect is what he is trying to bring my attention to.

Last time I saw him, he said something to me that I have started to fixate on quite a bit. He was talking about how small my waist was looking (oh please, I looked in the mirror and it is soooo fat) but then said, "the rest of you looks fine, you don't look anorexic". And it just haunts me. I keep thinking about it. What does it mean? I think he was pleased by it, but that just irks me so much.

I don't want to look fine, I want to look thin, I want to look too thin. I want to look the way the general public would describe as "anorexic". It has given me something to aim for strangely.

I totally long for the day when I can walk into his office and he looks at me and says, you look anorexic. It really, really stresses me out that I don't look that thin.