12,000 miles

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........