“The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood on that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others.”
—bell hooks, all about love: new visions (via pakizah)
June 2013
This is the first summer that I will experience without the effects of poor mental health. The first summer that will be full of hope and joy, and smiles instead of tears reflecting back at me from fitting room mirrors. Even better it will be the first book festival I will experience where I actually have an idea for a novel. Two of my favourite authors are doing an event together and a wonderful author that became an absolute favourite last summer is also doing an event and there are so many others as well. Instead of simply sitting and listening and laughing and feeling vaguely inspired and that I ought to find something to write about I will have a notebook in my bag that I will probably be scribbling in until moments before the events actually start.
I have no way of explaining the hope and lightness that I feel, it’s too new and exciting. I just feel like, at the very least, the next year and a half will be wonderful and I going to keep looking forwards and only look back to see how far I’ve come.
“The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.”
—Goethe (via thedeadrosegarden)
hey if ur ever feelin shitty use this
Holy shit I’m trying not to cry.
uh, a program just made me feel better
I love this.
The last few weeks have honestly been some of the best in my entire life. I’ve got closer to old friends and made new ones. I’ve mucked around and taken part in a play. I’ve discovered that the right dress can make you feel stunning no matter your size (good shoes help too) and even when you hate how big you look in photos there’s always going to be a pretty one if you’re enjoying yourself (and often your favourite won’t be the prettiest but the one in which you were happiest).
I feel so lucky to have come this far and to have met so many lovely and hilarious people. It makes me sad that some of them won’t be here next year but I’m so excited to be coming back for the Masters and I don’t even think being at home for three months will be that bad.
Got the degree classification I needed for my Masters. I’m kind of in two minds about the result because while I’m happy with the overall mark, I got a fairly low mark for my dissertation and I’m simultaneously excited for next year and thinking about everything I did wrong or didn’t do enough of for my dissertation. My friend pointed out that I’ve done really well with everything that’s been going on this year but I’ve been brought up to judge myself on my grades and even though I’ve made so much progress in every other area, I still feel like I’ve failed a little.
I keep trying to tell myself that doing well enough to qualify for the Masters in a year when I was up into the kind of ‘this is worrying’ section on the counselling evaluation is still doing really well but I still end up feeling lazy and stupid and underachieving because of that dissertation mark.
Last night was the final night of the play and I realised that I’d started messing around like the rest of the cast. I didn’t have the confidence to really do that in the last play I was in but in the last week or so I’ve been play-fighting and pulling faces and making stupid jokes along with the rest of them and it was so much fun.
I also felt very happy at the afterparty because one friend said ‘You’re so cute, you’re always so happy and friendly,’ and by 3am I was very drunk and very emotional and the only thing that upset me was the fact that I wanted my bed and none of the taxi companies were answering their phones. At no point was I sat in the corner feeling horrible or trying to hide myself away because I felt too big next to my rather skinny friends, in fact none of that even crossed my mind the entire night.
“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
—Willa Cather (via thedapperproject)
When you have an ED it’s hard to imagine ever living life without it and even in recovery it’s hard to imagine that you will come to a point where it hardly ever crosses your mind. The only thing that remains of my ED now is the fact that I’m still a little self conscious about my shape and even that is getting less. My recovery has proved to me that being ‘fat’ is not the end of the world. I can still look nice, I certainly feel a lot prettier than I ever did when skinny, I have more friends now and they’re better friends, my choices are dictated by my likes and dislikes not by ED driven fears.
I’m slowly following fewer and fewer ED related blogs and the ones that I’m still following I only follow because they’re interesting people and/or they post nice pictures and I’m going to leave fyoured because I’ve realised that my desire to remain a member was mostly part of me clinging to the remains of my ED. My blog is rapidly becoming a pile of things that have sparked an idea for a bit of my story when I’ve seen them, which means that looking through the last page or so of it brings out an excited little smile.
For the first time I have no controlling friends or friends that make me feel small and I have the confidence and friendships to have a social life that is dictated only by what I want to do and not whether or not one friend is going. I had no idea that this was what I was aiming for and heading for when I started recovery but I’m definitely glad to have got here.
“When perfectionism is driving us, shame is always riding shotgun and fear is the backseat driver.”
—Brené Brown (via larmoyante)
“Never underestimate the kindness of others. Sometimes it’s harder to ask for help, than to find it.”
—william chapman (via williamchapmanwritings)
“In retrospect, we regret the things we didn’t do more than the things we did.”
—Empire Records (via onlinecounsellingcollege)
This afternoon I had a dress rehearsal for a play. I have two costumes, one of which is a body con skirt with one of those tight tops that has a kind of flare at the waist and the other is a sheer blouse with a tight top and body con skirt underneath. I was initially slightly nervous before I’d actually put either costume on but you know what? I felt hot as hell, especially in the top with the flared waist. The part of me I felt worst about today was my legs and a) it was wasn’t that bad (it was more of an observation than an ‘oh my god they’re disgusting) and b) once I’m back to doing zumba they’ll change shape anyway.
I feel like my body at the moment is a very clear reminder that losing weight will not make me happier nor will it make my life ‘perfect’. I have flabby arms, chunky legs, my stomach isn’t flat and I’m wearing a 36F bra, all things I spent a long time thinking would be absolutely horrendous. Today I had fun, I laughed at the various silly things that went on during rehearsal (we’ve been rehearsing so much that we’ve collectively descended into madness), I had nice chats with various people, some of whom I’ve never really spoken to before and when my friend came to cuddle me because she was cold I gave her half my blanket and we sat giggling about various things instead of me feeling like I had to shrink away in case she felt how ‘fat’ I was. Being thinner wouldn’t have changed any of that even slightly.
