My life is a big jumble of contradictions. I can look in the mirror and see that I am still underweight, then I glance at myself again and I see a different reflection, I see fat. I alternate between restricting what I eat, eating very healthily and very little, and then there will be one or two days a week where I become bulimic again, eat far too much and make myself sick.There's no happy medium, no equilibrium, and that's also reflected in how I feel about South Africa.
One minute I wish I was going away forever, or for longer than 5 weeks at least, the next I worry that I have been too ambitious. A week ago I ate out with one of my best friends and was almost in tears in the restaurant because my prawns had been cooked in a trace of oil (and again Rosey, I am sorry for being such a loser!), so how can I possibly cope in another country, not having any control and eating what I'm given without making a fuss?! Strangely though, putting me on a plane and sticking me in another country seems to help. In April I was at a pretty low point - not just in terms of weight. I weighed out all of my food to the exact gram, the exact calorie (yes, I was actually weighing out celery and cucumber!) and on the days I didn't obsessively count calories, I was binge-eating, vomiting and taking obscene amounts of laxatives.
For Easter weekend I flew out to Spain and met my sister and nephew. Looking back, I have no idea how I got there and back in one piece as I was physically and mentally such a wreck. But, despite being in a pretty bad place, from somewhere I pulled it together and ate out in restaurants, had a glass or two of wine (one of the few benefits of anorexia is that it's a pretty cheap night out - two drinks and I'm fairly merry!) and my world didn't fall apart.
So I know that I can do this. It's sometimes better not to think about things too much, and just get on with them. I blame the producers of Dawson's Creek - a generation of people my age have been brought up watching teenagers talk and talk and analyse themselves to death! If Dawson had just kissed Joey instead of agonising over it for episodes, maybe he wouldn't have lost her to Pacey. But I digress........
The irony certainly hasn't escaped me....the fact that I limit what I eat, and at one point was literally starving myself, and here I am, off to work with children who are lucky to get one decent meal a day. It does feel a bit strange, almost perverse. I'm sure Freud would have a field day!
I have talked quite a bit about my illness, but I don't want it to be the main thing I write about. However it is hard not to mention it, as it is a huge presence in my life still and will probably continue to affect me for some time. But I am more than anorexia. It does not define me - it is a condition I have, but not who I am. The thing is, I almost can't remember who I was before I got really ill, and I don't think I will ever be that person again. But that's ok......the girl I used to be was on the verge of making herself scarily unwell, and so I don't want to get that back. For me, there is no going back, only going forwards.
For a long time I blocked out how bad things got and how ill I became. Scarily, I actually looked back at myself at my worst and missed being there. It is only recently - very recently in fact - that I have started to remember just how desperate and scared I got, how unbearably miserable I felt. It sounds dramatic, but I think my family started to worry that I would die. The idea of going back to that.....it is just unthinkable. But as much as I hate to remember how sick I was, it helps, because it will stop me from ever going back there. With those memories and the thought of going to South Africa pushing me forwards, I know I can keep going and stay on the right track.
The distance between Manchester and Cape Town is over 6000 miles (6161 to be precise). But by December I will have travelled so much further than just a 12,000 mile round trip........
Wednesday 30 September 2009
Tuesday 29 September 2009
In the beginning.....
So somebody called Abra Fortune Chernik once said, “Gaining weight and pulling my head out of the toilet was the most political act I ever committed”. (I have sat through numerous lectures on plagiarism at uni, and feel the need to point out that I read this quotation in Marya Hornbacher's Wasted. Yes, I am a geek. But a geek who won't be getting sued!) Anyway, I’m going to take that a little bit further, pull my head out of the toilet, out of the calorie book, out of my a**e, and take it all the way to South Africa, to a community project near Cape Town where I’ll be working with under privileged children. The rumours are true, I have quite possibly lost my mind, and on October 31st am flying out to Cape Town then travelling south to Fish Hoek where I’ll live with other volunteers for the next month.
If anyone wants to read more about what I’m doing, details are here and it explains it far better than I can: http://www.africanimpact.com/volunteers/community-work-south-africa/
A few people have asked me about why I’m doing this, so I will try to explain as succinctly as possible.......
Firstly, why Africa? Well, in practical terms, all of the projects in South and Central America were ruled out by the fact that my Spanish is limited to ‘la cuenta, por favor’. And I won’t lie, I was kind of influenced by Out Of Africa and do have some fantasies about running into a (young!) Robert Redford lookalike, being flown around in a plane and having my hair washed on the banks of the river..... I have (somewhat annoyingly) been running around informing everyone that ‘I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills’. But I’m no Meryl Streep, nor am I living anywhere near a farm and my accent borders on being offensive, so I may stop that sharpish.
The project looks pretty amazing too. It’s based in a community just outside of Cape Town and the work they do there is so varied, which is what appealed to me. In the mornings I'll be working in the schools, in the afternoons it's more community based and I could be doing anything from working in the library to painting murals in the classrooms. Although I suspect they may take one look at my painting skills and leave me in the library! After I did summer camp two years ago I realised how much I loved working with kids, and now I am considering teaching, so this seems like a perfect way to gain some experience before I commit to a PGCE.
Some people know, and some do not, that since I was 14 I have suffered from anorexia and bulimia, and that over the past two years it has got hellishly out of control, resulting in me landing myself in hospital for a couple of months earlier this year. I’m not recovered yet, probably far from it. (And yes, the people who run the project are aware of my history! I didn’t lie about that, yet did tell them that I could cope with Afrikaans as I ‘speak a little Dutch’. This is not entirely accurate, but nevermind.....) While I’m not naive enough to be doing this as a miracle cure, I do hope that doing something worthwhile, being less selfish and looking after kids who really need help, will in turn help me to gain some perspective. I might come back bigger, but then I could also come back smaller, which probably wouldn’t go down well. But whatever size I am, I don’t want to care. I don’t want my happiness and self-worth to be defined by the number on the scales. I want to be more than just another anorexia statistic, and this is my way of pulling myself back from the huge low I got to earlier this year. It is giving me something to aim for when I slip, when I don't want to eat. When getting well seems too much of a struggle there is a huge reason for me to keep going.
It will soon become clear that succinct is not my style and that I have a tendency to digress when I write. But really there is no single reason why I am doing this. The past two years have - to put it mildly - not been a whole lot of fun, and I just need to get away from things, to do something new and exciting, to prove to myself that I am capable of more than just losing weight.
Despite being somewhat scathing about blogs and bloggers, I have finally decided to get one to keep in touch with people while I’m away. Mass emails weren’t really an option as certain members of my family don’t speak so therefore can't be included in the same emails and not everybody has Facebook. And I still refuse to accept my parents as friends on there anyway – you’re too old people! ;) Plus last week I saw Julie and Julia and now hope to become the next Julie Powell with my very own book and film deal......
I won't lie - I don't really understand how blogs work. But mine is pink, so it can't be bad! I have no idea how often I will update this - either with ridiculous regularity, or never again. It may continue long after I come home from Africa, or I may get bored before I even leave in 5 weeks time. I may be the only person who ever reads this. But for now a pink blog it is - the perfect way for me to bore you all to death even on another continent!
If anyone wants to read more about what I’m doing, details are here and it explains it far better than I can: http://www.africanimpact.com/volunteers/community-work-south-africa/
A few people have asked me about why I’m doing this, so I will try to explain as succinctly as possible.......
Firstly, why Africa? Well, in practical terms, all of the projects in South and Central America were ruled out by the fact that my Spanish is limited to ‘la cuenta, por favor’. And I won’t lie, I was kind of influenced by Out Of Africa and do have some fantasies about running into a (young!) Robert Redford lookalike, being flown around in a plane and having my hair washed on the banks of the river..... I have (somewhat annoyingly) been running around informing everyone that ‘I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills’. But I’m no Meryl Streep, nor am I living anywhere near a farm and my accent borders on being offensive, so I may stop that sharpish.
The project looks pretty amazing too. It’s based in a community just outside of Cape Town and the work they do there is so varied, which is what appealed to me. In the mornings I'll be working in the schools, in the afternoons it's more community based and I could be doing anything from working in the library to painting murals in the classrooms. Although I suspect they may take one look at my painting skills and leave me in the library! After I did summer camp two years ago I realised how much I loved working with kids, and now I am considering teaching, so this seems like a perfect way to gain some experience before I commit to a PGCE.
Some people know, and some do not, that since I was 14 I have suffered from anorexia and bulimia, and that over the past two years it has got hellishly out of control, resulting in me landing myself in hospital for a couple of months earlier this year. I’m not recovered yet, probably far from it. (And yes, the people who run the project are aware of my history! I didn’t lie about that, yet did tell them that I could cope with Afrikaans as I ‘speak a little Dutch’. This is not entirely accurate, but nevermind.....) While I’m not naive enough to be doing this as a miracle cure, I do hope that doing something worthwhile, being less selfish and looking after kids who really need help, will in turn help me to gain some perspective. I might come back bigger, but then I could also come back smaller, which probably wouldn’t go down well. But whatever size I am, I don’t want to care. I don’t want my happiness and self-worth to be defined by the number on the scales. I want to be more than just another anorexia statistic, and this is my way of pulling myself back from the huge low I got to earlier this year. It is giving me something to aim for when I slip, when I don't want to eat. When getting well seems too much of a struggle there is a huge reason for me to keep going.
It will soon become clear that succinct is not my style and that I have a tendency to digress when I write. But really there is no single reason why I am doing this. The past two years have - to put it mildly - not been a whole lot of fun, and I just need to get away from things, to do something new and exciting, to prove to myself that I am capable of more than just losing weight.
Despite being somewhat scathing about blogs and bloggers, I have finally decided to get one to keep in touch with people while I’m away. Mass emails weren’t really an option as certain members of my family don’t speak so therefore can't be included in the same emails and not everybody has Facebook. And I still refuse to accept my parents as friends on there anyway – you’re too old people! ;) Plus last week I saw Julie and Julia and now hope to become the next Julie Powell with my very own book and film deal......
I won't lie - I don't really understand how blogs work. But mine is pink, so it can't be bad! I have no idea how often I will update this - either with ridiculous regularity, or never again. It may continue long after I come home from Africa, or I may get bored before I even leave in 5 weeks time. I may be the only person who ever reads this. But for now a pink blog it is - the perfect way for me to bore you all to death even on another continent!
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