Guess who's back, back again?!

I have been meaning to blog more for a long time. Writing is definitely cathartic, but I suppose I have become lazy. Last year, when I was in hospital, I wrote a lot.......mainly as a way to pass the hours. In January 2009 I was admitted for just a fortnight, before discharging myself and later being re-admitted in May, and I recently found a letter I wrote to my doctor during the time between the two admissions in which I acknowledged that leaving hospital had been a mistake. After that I'm not sure what else I wrote, because I wouldn't let myself read the letter properly. Partly because it still hurts too much too remember that time, and partly because at the moment I have really strong urges to go back to the anorexia, so I don't want to remember how bad things were as that might stop me.

To anybody on the outside, the above statement must sound insane. Why would a person willingly choose to go back to something which caused them pain and made them unhappy? All I know is that right now I do not like myself very much. My body and weight disgust me to the point where I can't look in the mirror and I have found myself looking back a photos of myself at my lowest weight and wanting to cry because I am so much bigger now. Getting back to that weight is a very appealing thought, although I am so far from where I was that it doesn't seem achievable, which depresses the hell out of me.

It has never left me. Even when, on the outside, I have appeared to be doing well, it is there in the back of my mind. Some days I listen to it, and then some days it is easier to ignore. But I can feel it slowly creeping its way back into my life and I am too tired to fight it.

In my mind, I fear I will never be free from the grip of anorexia, and that even if I return to a healthy weight, the thoughts will still plague me. I have just come back from two family holidays in Spain and New York, which were fantastic. But I don't think anyone really knows what a struggle every day is for me. For example, in order to do things like having a cocktail, an ice cream or eating steak, things that the average person wouldn't think twice about, I force myself to either restrict the rest of my intake, or to walk for miles, in order to compensate for any extra calories. Calories that my body needs simply just to maintain my weight, but which I don't believe I deserve. It is an utterly selfish illness in so many ways, and when I look at everything that is happening in the world right now, I do feel terribly guilty that my internal world is so small and trivial.

Maybe this is happening because there have been a lot of changes in my life recently and I am nervous about the future, so the eating is becoming my safety net again. Maybe I will snap out of this blip as quickly as I slumped into it. Or maybe I really am just going to be nothing more than another anorexia statistic. I just don't know right now.....

And I know that it's a wonderful world, but I can't feel it right now.

I thought that I was doing well, but I just want to cry now.

~ James Morrison, Wonderful World

Heroes

My older brother has been my inspiration for many things, including writing again. He has caught onto the 'craze' that is blogging and claims that I am the best writer he knows, which is a pretty big compliment. Well, big until you know that, according to family legend, Simon has only ever read one novel from cover to cover.....but little sisters tend to hero-worship their older brothers, so it means a lot to me.

Simon is so different to me and is somebody I hugely look up to. While I am prone to over-reacting, my brother is calm and practical. He didn't go to uni, yet is one of the smartest people I know and now manages a radio station. And, most importantly, he knows how to enjoy life, which is something I am still learning to do......and taking lessons from my brother is helping! Watching him, and many other people in my life, I can see that one day, given time, I may be able to break free from my fears and demons and begin to enjoy myself again.

Working at Children of Hope was hard work, not only physically, but also mentally. It was fun and I laughed a lot, but at the same time it was emotionally draining, as were all of the African Impact volunteer projects. One of the things that kept us volunteers going during our time in South Africa, was the fact that we could walk away at the end of the day, that we could go back to our lives and simply step away from it all for a few hours. Saying it now makes me feel so selfish, especially as Sophie and Ntombie cannot just walk away. Without them there would be nobody to run the school. They live and work in Red Hill every day and they do it with very little outside help. My background in summer camp means that I'm very aware of health and safety rules, so there were a number of things that made me raise my eyebrows. But the children were never mistreated or in any danger - things were just different, which is natural considering it is a different culture.

This is Sophie with two of the pre-schoolers, Apiwe and Aviwe

The Red Hill Township has approximately 1,000-3,000 inhabitants but, as it is an unofficial settlement (and has been for the past 16 years), the residents are not allowed to set up any permanent structures, which leads to problems. One day we turned up to work and there was no electricity, as it is apparently cut off from time to time, and the next day there was no water. It meant that Sophie had to leave her class unattended, one day to cook lunch on a neighbour's gas stove, and another day to go and get water from the camp down the road. Obviously leaving a class of pre-schoolers with very little supervision isn't ok, but had she not done that, nobody would have made lunch. It's just amazing how we take little things like water and electricity for granted and how we prioritise things that sometimes aren't really that important.  

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
~ Christopher Reeve

Picking up where I left off......

It has been 18 weeks, or 4 months, since I last wrote anything. Being a master procrastinator, one of the main skills I acquired at university, time has literally just flown by........After I came home from Africa it was suddenly cold, snowing and almost Christmas. Now it is still cold, still snowing (damn you, freak weather conditions!) and almost April.

I deliberately stopped writing for a little while after I came home - I needed time to process everything, to think properly, to reflect on my time at Children of Hope. The whole experience seems like another world now and I actually miss the children I worked with an awful lot. There were days when the children and the school felt like a test of my endurance, and I suppose I have seen that I am stronger than I ever realised, and that I can push myself really far and not crack. I saw some amazing things in South Africa, met some incredible people and learned a lot about myself. The pictures below are of me with Sophie and Ntombie, the teachers at Children of Hope, and with some of the other volunteers on my last night in Fish Hoek, 18 long weeks ago.

Lots has changed since I came home. I managed to get a place at Manchester Metropolitan University to do a PGCE in Primary Education with French, which I am absolutely delighted about. However, some things have not changed as I still have an eating disorder. Right now it's not something I want to think about or deal with. There have been small changes and I can do things that a year ago I wasn't able to even consider doing, but in some ways I am not a long way from where I was when I was admitted to hospital last May. The main difference however is that I now have a reason to fight, which I didn't really have a year ago. To teach, I need to be healthy and well, physically and mentally. And despite what I insist, I am neither.......yet.

Anything that's worth having is sure enough worth fighting for. Quitting's out of the question, when it gets tough gotta fight some more. ~Cheryl Cole