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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42523062556524813872017-04-22T15:44:38.387-07:00My Cocoa Stained ApronEmily firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-44397644068388461022017-04-21T15:48:00.001-07:002017-04-21T15:48:58.054-07:00If Only... If only things had been different.

If only things had not had to change.

If only childhood would stretch out forever,

extending out towards the horizon

like a desert's endless, sweeping sands.

But things had to change and I was powerless to stop them. Childhood ended; was torn away from me, snatched away from my flailing hands, a delicate leaf borne away by a callous winter's storm.

Ahead of me loomed the darkness of adolescence.

A darkness in which a black-cloaked demon waited, cloaked in its own shadow.

If only I hadn't been so stupid, so stubborn.

If only I had chosen to listen to my loved ones, rather than that monster in my head
which was dragging me down into its embrace, consuming both my body and mind.

Crushing me to pieces, spitting out only the bits which weren't even really me at all -

A hurting, angry, bitter girl, who snapped at everyone and refused to let anyone in.

If only I had listened.

If only I had been stronger.

If only I had chosen to fight back, before it was too late.

But the days turned to months; the months, to years.

My bones became weak and brittle,
crumbling like flaking winter leaves.
My body became weaker. Friends stopped caring, began to slip quietly away.

I was alone. Alone, with nothing, but a broken body and a broken heart.

I forgot how to really laugh, how to really smile.

I forgot how it felt to feel alive.

My happiness, shrivelled up,

like a tender flowerbud exposed to a harsh, cruel sun.

And I look back now and see a countless number of if onlys.

At times like this, it's hard to want to keep on going forwards, searching for that longed for light.

Not knowing whether there is a light, or if there is any point in searching for it.

But try I must and keep trying, we will.

I don't want there to be any more if onlys.

I can only hold on to what is left to me, now. Hold what I love close to my breast, and take those tentative steps forward.💙

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-63787992440501055172017-04-10T15:29:00.000-07:002017-04-12T23:52:40.580-07:00Blind FaithThursday afternoon, 2pm, saw the enactment of a isolated personal drama in the sitting room of just one of Derryguile's well-dispersed houses.

The crisis involved only one hapless subject. That being me, needless to say. Like some sort of bizarre scene in a soap drama, music played gaily in the background as I crept into Mam's room and took the scales out from under the bed. Shoot me down, but I won't fall. I am Titanium. Mam, listening to Sia in the front lounge. After lunch, she had left me sitting rigidly in my little chair in the conservatory, surrounded by towering white mountains of page upon page of study notes scrawled in my messy, untidy hand.

I had felt a sharp jolt of cold, hard guilt as the ice-cold steel had met my probing, nervousfingers. You shouldnt be doing this, a little voice had chided at the very back of my mind.

But stronger than that there was another voice, urging me on. Oh yes, you do. You need to see how f -

No, not fat. I answered, trying to sound firm, resolute. Not fat, no. Im gaining weight, and I need to -

No, no, no.

It was there again, stronger than ever.

you're just becoming fat. There's no point trying to deny it...

No! No, I am not! I am not. Leave me alone. Leave - me - ALONE!!

Yes, yes, yes!! you are, just look! Look at your stomach and you'll see the proof...!

A sound escaped from my throat: half snarl, half sob. Stumbling like a blind man, I fled from the room, the scales tucked under my arm.

I placed it upon the wooden boards of the sitting room and sat back on my heels, staring at it for a few moments. Such an ugly, unsightly thing, these scales. I hated them. I hated them with a bitter, throat-clenching, tangible type of loathing: one which seemed so palpable that it was as if I were able to clutch that hatred with my very bare hands. They represented, to me, an abhorrent instrument of torture. A bloody rack upon which a victim would be placed, to be torn and broken and wracked with indescribable agony.

Yes. That's how I feel every time I step on that horrible, horrible square of blue steel.

This was my torture; and ED, of course, was the torturer who would turn the bloody cogs into motion.

But I knew that I was going to do it. I knew what I was going to feel when I stepped on it; knew, all too well, the sensations that would ripple through me as I watched those numbers flash upon the screen. I knew I was going to be plagued by screaming, relentless tormenting.

I place one foot forwards as if I was stepping right into a pit of vipers. Reluctantly, the rest of my body follows. I don't want to look at the digits appearing between my toes. More than anything, I want to walk away right now. To step off that hateful implement and bury myself in those papery hills of notes. Even driving myself to irritable distraction trying to memories points about Beowulf's androgynous heroism was more preferable, to this.

But I knew, sadly, that to flee to those hills would afford no escape for me. No escape from the Voice, ever whispering in my head.

What do you weigh? Oh, I bet you weigh four times the amount that you did the last time. Just look at yourself in the mirror, and you can;t deny the proof...

I looked. And as soon as I did I wanted to cry. Instantly my head was the scene of the violent, ear-shattering explosions as the Voice let rip to its anger.

What!! Oh my God!! That makes you a bmi of .....!!

No, no!! That can't be right!!It couldn't have gone up that much since the last time..!

It's 3 kg more than the last time I got weighed at Trinity...!!

Oh god, oh god!! That means I've gained...gained...gained at the rate that I did when I was an inpatient...

On and off, on and off I hop like a flustered bird, stepping on, stepping back down again; all the while peering down to that cruel numerical screen between my agitated, jerking toes; my emotions escalating between red hot anger and desperation, to fear, ice-cold fear, to utter, crushing misery. Ive gained weight, ive gained weight, and its much, much more than I had thought it would be...oh, no, god, please..calm this storm inside my head, please. I cant do this, I cant do this....

When Mam came in about half an hour later, I was still there, in the exact same place, my body trembling like a leaf in a gale, my face streaked with hot, bitter tears.

Since that day, I have not been near the scales. Mam talked to me, calmed me down, and quietly suggested that we "leave the weighing to your nurses at Trinity".

Different scales, different weights - that's what she and others have reassured me; and this is what I am now making myself believe. But that moment has remained with me, lying on the very edge of my memory like scummy residue upon the surface of a pond.

Testifying the extent to which I am still terrified of gaining weight. I am doing it; that much I do know: but the fear remains as immense and palpable as it did, all those years ago, when I first embarked upon my journey to recovery.

So many different, separate fears which branch off this one; all of which are intrinsically linked to it; all of which I am as helpless to escape from as an entrapped fly from the spider's web.

What will happen when I am weight restored? What if I just keep on gaining?

Will I be able to pass my exams? Having prioritised, for the past few months...not college, but recovery?

How do I eat when I'm weight restored? Do I have to cut out stuff? Can I eat the same? What do I have to change?

Will the weight ever distribute? Or will I just have this...this..stomach...forever?

How long, how lonely, this journey of recovery. Sometimes I feel immobilized with the fear; the uncertainty, of just what lies ahead.

 It's like stumbling in the darkness of a seemingly endless, winding tunnel. Not knowing how, or when it will end. Not knowing at where, once you have reached that much longed for, sought for opening, just where will be that place which you have been searching so hard for.

How? How to get through this? How could we possibly take such a terrifying leap; when our eyes cannot see, just where this path may lead?

It's blind faith.

Learning to trust, and believe, in the process of recovery. To have faith in everything that recovery stands for, and to take on those fears with that fortitude beating in your heart.

In recovery, you have to have that blind faith. You have to do the thing which frightens you the most; choose to commit yourself to a process which will fundamentally undercut the ED-implanted beliefs about your identity and your body. A process which will change you, both physically and mentally. A process which necessitates you to draw every day upon every single ounce of your courage, determination, and strength.

And the most terrifying thing about recovery is that none of us can possibly tell just where this journey will take us; or how and when it will end. So many unanswered questions; so many whats and what ifs.

My thoughts and prayers are with each and every one of you now. I reach out to you and hope that you will derive some strength from these words.

Have faith. Have faith in recovery; have faith, despite all those fears and endless spinning questions. Have faith, no matter what lies the eating disorder may throw at you. Have faith that this road - this hard, long, painful road - is going to take you to a place where storms will no longer rage.

Emily Snelgrovehttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-38777551420740042792017-04-02T14:21:00.001-07:002017-04-02T14:21:57.259-07:00Trying to Find the Real Me...
The bog resembled a reedy, gorse strewn paddy field. Water had collected in large puddles upon the ground; some of which had joined together to resemble miniature lakes and riverlets. Water dripped from the saturated leaves of the trees, drops of dewy moisture glistening like carelessly scattered diamonds upon the ground. Every step I took left a deep, malformed imprint upon the marshy soil; soil which now resembled liquid tar as sodden black peat was turned to runny mud.

Daisy, however, was as enthusiastic and exuberant as ever. If anything, the recent wet spell had served to raise rather than dampen her enthusiasm for our little morning walk. As soon as we left the road onto the mud track, she began to prance and buck like a horse that has been kept in over winter, her long pink tongue flapping out of her mouth like a banner. I reached down and clipped off her lead, and she was off, ears and tail streaming behind her, shooting across the field like an arrow from a bow.

I watched her for a while as I always do, the corners of my mouth involuntarily curling into a smile. But then my smile faded as I glanced down at my stomach, bloated, as usual, from the enormous breakfast I had just had. Benny, seeing my hands fluttering from my sides to rest upon my belly, looked up at me expectantly, thinking he was going to get a treat. But I was too preoccupied to notice. Despondent and discouraged, I walked on, Benny tagging behind me, his tail now hanging limp.

I walked along in a sort of daze, the Voice increasing in volume in my head: an insistent, relentless, scornful voice of malice. Oh look at you, oh look at you! Recovery really is great, isnt it?

I turned sharply as I heard a splashing noise behind me, before letting rip a yelp of exasperation. It was Daisy, and she was as muddy as if she had decided to taken a mudbath. Flecks of mud flew off her as she shook, showering me and Benny with dirty brown droplets of peaty, dark soil.

"Daisy!" I yelled, so loudly that a thrush took flight from the adjacent hawthorn hedge. Daisy's tail dropped instantly, and she cowered on the ground in a gesture of penitent submission.

My anger melted away like warmed ice, replaced instantly by a burning sense of shame and selfhatred. I mean what do you expect, you bitch? She's just a young dog!!!

Tears sprang into my eyes and coursed down my cheeks. I kneeled in the mud and hugged both of my dogs tightly. Im sorry, I whispered into their soft, sodden fur. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. This isn't me, you know it isn't. Please don't think that was the real me.

Its times like that when I realise just how much that Voice has changed me.

It's not only the irritableness; the speed at which I can snap, suddenly and sharply, at the silliest or most insignificant of provocations. It's also the jealousy, the bitterness. The sense of terrible, deeply rooted wretchedness.

This hit me today when I saw mam preparing afternoon snacksfor Daddy and my brother. I had frozen where I was standing to stare, heat rising into my cheeks, turning them to flaming spots of crimson. My own snack was sitting on the counter, awaiting to be toasted and buttered. Prepared in that painful, agonising manner with which I always prepare my own food. Butter and peanut butter would be applied with tediously meticulous carefulness. The numbers of the teaspoons I was taking from the jar or the tub would be resounding through my head, repeating themselves over and over and over.

That's not fair. A lump wedged itself within my throat. That's not fair. Why doesn't she offer to do me anything? Does she not know how easier it would be for me if someone else prepared this for once?

I turned away, not wanting her to see the pain in my eyes. fleeing to the conservatory, I turned my face to the garden, trying to find solace in the dainty, paper thin leaves of the blossom tree.

Jealousy. I...I hate myself, for it, so, so much. And I never, at one time, would have thought that I was capable of feeling like that. But I know, that I am. That incident today was only one drop in the ocean. I know that there's been many, many more.

Surely that jealous, irritable, bitter girl who I have become is not the real me.

The Real Me...is someone else. That's what I want to believe.

The Real Me was a happy girl. The Real Me was a girl who always had a smile upon her face and always greeted the morning with joy and gratefulness in her heart. The Real Me didnt care about how many potatoes she had on her plate, or how many minutes she would walk with her family for their afternoon stroll in the woodlands. The Real Me was not surly and irritable over stupid, trivial things that really aren't worth even getting upset about.

The Real Me would have respected her body.

The Real Me would have done alot of things differently, to that obsessive, short-tempered, depressed girl I have become.

But.

There is still time to find her.

The Real Emmy, the Real Me. A girl who is happy and healthy, inside and out.

The last time I couldn't accept it

But this time I have to fight harder.

This is where the hardest part of battle

is going to begin ...

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-74309162157433894182017-03-25T17:02:00.002-07:002017-03-25T17:02:58.442-07:00Meal Plan Musings!!! ;) xxx
And so finally here is my meal plan post... I am so sorry for the lateness in this; unfortunately, with college as it is, I only have time to blog once a week at the moment😡

I wanted to share with you a few things in this post. Firstly, my new meal plan with the increases I added in this week. My weight's been going ok, but I decided to increase the plan again for a number of reasons..

I know that the more I eat the better AND I actually feel ready now to add these increases. I wouldn't say my body has fully adapted, yet - I still struggle alot with bloating and fullness - but it's not unbearable and I feel mentally strong enough to increase my intake once more.

I want to give my body, health, and metabolism 101 % chance of repairing itself. And in order to do this I think an increased amount of calories is going to contribute significantly to this process.

Being at college, I am still moving around a good bit; so accordingly it would be good to get in some extra calories in order to compensate for this.

One of my readers asked for some advice re meal plans. Having been recovering alone for a couple of years now since leaving Pat's, I could really relate to my reader's situation - it's can be really overwhelming when you are on your own and trying to devise your own meal plan; even more overwhelming, of course, to have to accept that, when recovering from anorexia, it is both normal and necessary to have to eat much more than you might be comfortable with.

So I really hope that this post helps anyone who might be about to embark upon that journey; who has decided to commit to this difficult task. But please believe me when I say it will be worth it. But it has to be you who wants to do this. You have to want to follow this through for yourself. Otherwise you are setting yourself up for a fall.

I learnt this the hard way. It's true. The past few years, since I started to recover...there was no wanting on my part. I didn't want it for myself and spent most of my time thinking how pointless it all was.

Small wonder then why it was never long why formerly blade-sharp determination very quickly became blunted, losing its edge and keeness. Small wonder then that the motivation which would at first sing in my blood very swiftly broke apart in my veins.

It's only now that my mindset has changed. It's only now that I have felt the first tiny, tiny, shadow-thin fragments; fragments of what I recognise now is that wanting to do it for myself.

And so every day I fight my unseen battle. Everytime I glance downwards and feel my throat tighten as I look upon my swollen, bloated stomach. Everytime I pour my milk into the measuring jug; every time I spread my bread and toast, everytime I eat that snack, even though eating might at the time be the last thing in the whole world that I feel like doing. Everytime I do these things, and more. I am constantly, constantly reiterating that fundamental truth in my head. Letting my own voice grow stronger, overriding and superseding that malicious sneering monotone which has oppressed me for so so long.

I have to stick to my meal plan because...

If I do not my oseteoporosis will only get worse..
My metabolism will be damaged and messed up..
I will never get my periods back..
I will be giving into my anorexia, an action which will make it all too easy for the ED voice to gain full control of me again, and get me back to where I started.

But anyway let's go onto the more practical stuff about meal plans.

just a small sampling of some of my top favourite ever foods..mammy's out of this world banana and custard with MILKA OREO 😍), Lizzy's specialty hot choc and my own roasted almonds still warm from the oven....💚

Making your own meal plan: the golden rules!!😊

Adhere to the basic structure for ED recovery meal plans: three meals, three snacks, every day, no exceptions.

The aim is for you eventually to be eating about 2500-3000 calories a day as a minimum (but see the third point below). It's very important to do this because it allows the metabolism to recover and also, bearing in mind all the damage restriction wreaks upon the body, it gives your body the vital energy it needs to repair and heal itself, too.

I did say this in a comment but it's ever so important so I thought I had best mention it again here!! That being..if you have been restricting severely and have been eating a very low calorie amount for a long time, then you must NOT start eating the recommended calorie amount in anorexia recovery straightaway. This can cause refeeding syndrome, which can be potentially very dangerous. Instead start off with a slightly lower amount (say, 1500) and then gradually start adding more and more in until you are eating the full amount every day.

Don't be afraid to eat MORE than the meal plan. If you feel hungry - whether that be physical or emotional hunger - just don't overthink it, just sit down and EAT. It doesn't matter if it's more than what's written on the piece of paper!! Remember, the more the better, ALWAYS. Bear in mind that in an inpatient setting, the patient essentially has to sit around all day and still eat 2500-3000 calories..and even then the weight gain process isn't exactly what you would call rapid. So imagine how much energy your body needs if you, like me, are recovering at home and still going pottering around the house, doing chores, going to college etc. So yes. Basically - eat. Eat as much as you can, as frequently as you can manage. Some people eat 5000 cals a day in ED recovery and that is OKAY. So no matter what the voice throws at you, KNOW you are doing the right thing. That little bit extra will just make you stronger. Stronger bones, stronger heart, stronger skin and limbs. A healthy, strong body: the most precious and valuable possession you will ever have.

And also just in case anyone wanted some Snack ideas...

- Sandwiches!! Yes. They ARE such good snacks..more than good!!. My favourite has to be toasted cheese and tomato...mmmmm <3 Mix it up by using different fillings, different bread types. Spelt, wholemeal, soda bread, and seeded multigrain are all personal favourites of mine. Fillings basically can be anything you want.There's no limit to what you can stick between those slices of bread!!
- Bagels..don't get me started about bagels..I love them. But I'm afraid Im kind of unorthodox in that I have them with peanut butter. And lots of spread and a good handful of seeds to sprinkle all over them.
- Crumpets. Oh. My. GOD I cannot get enough of those yummy, spongy, yeast-risen treats. Spread with loads of butterly and a great big spolodge of peanut butter....ohhh im in heaven!! 😍
- Teacakes, hot cross buns, scones and English muffins, spread with butter and jam.
- Your favourite chocolate bar. Homemade cookies or granola bars. Make your own!! It's fun and can be really motivating - the more you eat the more you get to bake ;)
- Nuts. But make sure to have the correct amount...a GOOD handful, about 30 g (and that's a minimum!!
- Yoghurt - natural or flavoured; add stuff to it - berries, nuts, seeds, cereal; whatever you fancy!!
- A boiled egg with a sprinkling of salt and pepper ;)
- Slices of cheese on crackers (Tuc have to be the best ;) !! )
-Ice cream....go and get yourself your favourite flavour and have a good bowl with some berries or chocolate shavings..mmm..💚
- Fruit..BUT I don't really think fruit counts as a snack by itself - try to have something with it 😊
- Cereal (with or without milk...though personally i dont think you can beat cereal and hot milk...sorry i know to some that might sounds disgusting BUT I absolutely adore hot milk poured over cornflakes or weetabix 😍

But in all honesty..? ANYTHING can count as a snack, really. Like my morning snacks are meals in themselves in a way. Like this morning, I got up, had breakfast by myself at 7 while mam and dad were still in the land of Nod!! And then at 10 they had their breakfast and I had my, haha, snack if you want to call it that...we all had boiled eggs and soldiers, which for them was breakfast, but for me was basically brekkie number 2. And I actually love eating like that now!!!💪

I'm not really one for asserting that there is a certain kind of snack that you should go for, that some are better than others, blah blah blah. But if you are struggling to decide (and I can really relate to you as ED indecisiveness is something I STILL really struggle with... :( ) then I would say. a.) Go with your gut feeling (excuse the pun). Deep down, I think you will know what it is you REALLY want. and b.) Mix it up. For me for example, I wouldn't tend to have chocolate as my snack, as I always have a bar's worth of choc on my custard and banaan after dinner, hence I don't really feel like having it at snack time. Instead, as you can see from my meal plan, my snacks consist more of carbs and proteins with a milk-based thing alongside. and c.) perhaps take into account the nutrients your body might be deficient in: if, say, you restricted a certain food group for a long time. For me, this was protein foods - something which I regret greatly now, might I add, as I'm sure that was a factor in my developing serious osteoporosis - so hence, as you can see from my own meal plan, I try to add in some form of protein into each of my snack times.

And so here is my own meal plan!! Now I haven't added in the calorie amounts, as I don't want to trigger anyone with all those numbers - and to be honest, I'm genuinely not too fussed about the whole calorie counting thing. It's one thing that I never really have had any issues with. I couldn't honestly tell you how many calories are in 30 g of cheese without looking at the packet...and that's the way I intend it to remain. Afew weeks ago, though, I actually forced myself to carry out the altogether tedious task of sitting down and working out for myself how much my meal plan actually amounted to. Solely for the purpose of just making sure I was eating to the minimums.

Now I know that my meal plan will definitely not be for everyone and I don't want anyone to think that this is the "ideal plan" (whatever that is). But this is what I love to eat and what I think if working for me. It's loosely based on my old inpatient meal plan with my own little adjustments..the most obvious probably being that I don't take energy drinks anymore..don't get me wrong, Fortisip are great and if you like them they can be a great addition to the plan. It's just for me I was never that keen on them - they bring me right back to my inpatient days - and I can't really afford them either. But anyway...I don't think milky hot choc is a bad substitute at all 😍

A. Breakfast: 7.00 – 8.00.

1. Approx 125 ml milk + cereal (2 weetabix/2 shredded wheat/bitesize shredded wheat/shereddies/malt wheats/wheat flakes/muesli/granola/corn flakes/ready-brek/porridge etc etc etc.

2. Banana/melon/strawberries/blueberries.

3. 2 tbsp or more of peanut/cashew/almond butter.

4. X 2 wholemeal, seeded ormultigrain toast/soda bread/oat bread/spelt bread/multigrain bagel + spread ;

5. 30 g cheese/ 50g smoked salmon/boiled egg. Sometimes I stick the cheese in the toast and have that yummy toasted sandwich I was blahhing on about above.

B. Morning Snack(s ;) ): 9.00 – 12.30.

1. Soft or hard-boiled egg/30 g cheese/40 g tuna mayo/50 g smoked salmon/30 g hummus/poached egg/small cheese and onion or spinach omelette/scrambled eggs

2. ½ multigrain bagel/1 slice wholemeal, seeded or multigrain toast/soda bread/oat bread/spelt bread + spread;

3. Handful sunflower/pumpkin seeds

4. Milky hot choc/Miller Rice/Rice pudding/ hot milk with cereal

5. 30-40 g mixed nuts ;)

C. Lunch: 13.00-14.00.

Stuffed tomato, mushroom or pepper with 60 g tuna mayo/egg mayo mix/cheese + salad + dressing + cold potatoes, couscous, or rice

Or Soup (butternut/chicken and veg/tomato + cannellini bean/red lentil etc etc etc.) + salad and protein/roll/bread ;

Or Omelette + salad/vegetables ;

Or Frittata + salad/vegetables ;

Or Tuna mayo/egg mayo/ chicken salad with couscous/cold potatoes

Or Baked potato + baked beans/tuna mayo/cheese + salad

Or Pitta bread/Wrap + fillings

Or Boiled/poached eggs + salad/toast or both

Or Baked beans+ salad/toast or both

Or couscous/rice with chicken/cheese + salad

D. Afternoon Snack: 16.15-17.45.

1. Milky hot choc/miller rice/rice pudding/hot milk with cereals

2. Crumpet, spread + 1 tbsp peanut butter/scone + spread

 E. Dinner

Main course - varies depending on waht I/mam cook but its usually the basic protein + crabs + veggies.

And then, of course...the most heavenly desset on EARTH (in my opinion!! ;) ) : a big banana, lashings of custard, and tonnes of divine chocolate, all melting and molten on top....😍

 F. Bedtime

 Milky hot choc 💛

I really hope that this has been of some help to anyone who is struggling...please do comment below if you have any other questions or require further advice 💚

 <o:p></o:p>

Emily Snelgrovehttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-86876009151038771112017-03-19T14:52:00.000-07:002017-03-19T14:52:20.581-07:00Leaving behind the scared little girl...

Mam was cleaning in the kitchen, her strong, brown hands scrubbing vigorously at the stains upon the smooth paneled cupboards. I approached tentatively, my hands curling awkwardly at my sides, feet dragging reluctantly upon the tiles. my hope, flickering like a weak candle flame in a draughty, cold church.
Seeing me, she stopped, glancing at me enquiringly. "What's the matter, Em?" she said.

My heart leaped into my throat; like a lithe young rabbit jumping towards the stars. The longed for, yet intensely dreaded words. I wanted to pour out everything then - but the moment flitted away from me, flecks of dust being blown away by the wind, passing through my groping fingers. And besides. I had - a question, not a full blown account of how much I yearned for her help, her support in what I was doing.

"I wanted to ask you a favour, Mam," I said. She smiled, straightened, flicked the dishcloth she was holding into the sink.I suppressed the urge to fling my arms around her; to release all of the aching troubles of my heart.

No, Em.

Get to the point.

"I was wondering mam," i began, my voice barely above a whisper. "I wrote myself a new meal plan amounting to about 3500-4000 cals. I was wondering if...if you could look at it for me..?" My voice trailed off at the end; I had lowered my gaze to the floor as I spoke. But at the final few words I snapped my head up again. I had to see and witness the expression on her face.

Something flickered across her eyes like the shadow of a bat flitting across the bright surface of the moon. I searched those beloved, dark green eyes desperately, with the fitful, desperate hope of the last survivor clinging to the wave-washed rocks.

"Ok, Em," she said, reluctantly, wearily. My heart felt like it had been cleft in two by a butcher's cleaver. I quickly turned away from her, my own eyes filling with a rush of salty tears. Pathetic, I know: but I had so badly, so intensely longer to hear, to see, that ready willingness to help me, which she had so readily exhibited in a former time, a former place. That being, of course, in the days of my hospital admission; when everything had been so centred on little Emmy's recovery.

But things, this time, are very, very different.

As I turned and went back up the stairs, painful, fleeting images began to dance across my mind's eye. Images of that bitter, bitter time: but embedded in the thick soil of that bitterness there lay a sweetness which now I longed for more than anything in the whole wide world.

That being the open support, and encouragement, of my parents, who at the time had constantly and consistently advocated every single aspect of my recovery. Mam had sat with me through my most difficult meals and had held my hand everytime I would break down in tears over my bloated, distended stomach. Daddy would often ask me as to how I was coping with the meal plan, and offer gentle words of encouragement whenever we sat together and ate our spreaded scones together at half past 4. They were constantly checking in on me, asking me how I was doing. Every little goal I met, every single step of progress I took: each and every one of them, they would acknowledge with a hug or a smile,

But now all of that is gone.

Now...things are different. Mam and Dad aren't involved anymore. Now it is just me. Me, and a flimsy piece of paper upon which is inscirbed the meal plan that I wrote up for myself. Me and my broken spirit and my cracked heart.

And I know - I know, with every piece of soul - that I am the one who is to blame.

Because I know that they are beginning to give up. All those countless tears and countless promises, that this time, it will be different, Mam. I wont slip up again, I promise. All those countless ruined meals and failed attemots at "true" recovery. Is it any wonder that they have given up on this? Is it any wonder that - whenever I ask for thier direct support - they appear detached, disinterested, distant? Is it any wonder that they think, here we go, again. Emmy says she's going to recover.

I know that Mam and Dad think that this place at which I am now at - this semi-recovered state at which the sufferer is not "severely", dangerously sick, but yet, still sick -is the furthest I am ever going to reach in my recovery. I know this. I see it in their eyes and in their faces. I read it in Mam's face when I asked her that question after breakfast today. I hear it in Daddy's voice when he tells me, in the weary, resigned voice of the defeated soldier, to stop picking at my food and start eating like a "normal person". I sense it in that uncomfortable, loud silence that fills the space between us every time I try to express how much I am trying, or to make them aware of the battle I am continuing to fight, every hour of every day.

Mam and Dad have laid down their weapons.

They think the battle is over; won, by ED.

But this is where I have to prove them wrong.

This is where I have to show them that the Emmy they knew and loved was not destroyed, forever.

I have to prove to them that their little girl is not lost. Well no; let me rephrase that sentence. That their daughter is not lost. Because the truth is I am no longer a little girl. I am a young woman with an eating disorder, who still has, in some ways, the body of a girl. A young woman who has decided to take this fight into her own hands. Because she realises that she no longer can depend on her parents to manage her recovery for her. It's her who has to do the doing. It's her who has to be the strong one, now. For all the love that I bear for them, and always, always will. For all that they ever did for me, and continue to, every day.

Because no girl has known as much love as I have had, growing up here in the sweet leafy surroundings of my beautiful childhood home. And I know that my parents care about me. And that nothing in the world will make them happier..if I choose to recover.

And so I fight on. I look at my meal plan and feel a tiny surge of pride as I think to myself, well done, Emmy. Because I am sticking to it. I am doing it. I am getting stronger by the day. This second relapse has proven to me I am my own source of my greatest ever strength. I am doing it alone but I know that I am not alone. I know there are people in this world rooting for me. Willing me to move on; and leave that sick, frightened, thin little girl behind.

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-43525529704312058042017-03-12T01:09:00.000-08:002017-03-12T01:09:04.896-08:00From the little seed grew a strong, beautiful flower...And from such small, tiny steps... a long, incredible journey is made. 💖

My journey began some time ago. But I remember it as if it were yesterday. I remember the tears that I cried as Mam looked at me, the pain and denial in her own dark green eyes striking daggers of steel into my own weary, bleeding heart.

I remember the sense of self-hatred, the shame. The guilt that felt like a lead weight in my chest; threatening to pull me into the unfathomable abyss of despair. The recognition which we both felt, then. That I had anorexia.

But yet, most of all, I remember the warmth of my mother's arms as she enveloped me in a hug, holding me like she would have cradled me as a baby, when I was so young and innocent and untainted by the world's cruel pressures: when I knew nothing - and cared for nothing more - but the palpability of that love which is a mother's love for her child. The scent of Nivea lotion, wafting gently off her skin; entering my nostrils to soothe my thrashing heart. The words that she whispered to me, gently and softly as if I were no more than a baby girl still. It's ok, Emmy. We are going to get through this. After 8 long years, we finally knew it all. That I had anorexia, and had been actively starving myself, on and off, ever since that fatal first day at secondary school, at the tender age of twelve years.

And that's when my journey began.

Upon that day a tiny seed was planted inside me. A tiny, minute, miniscule seed: so small and weak and non-descript; so easily, blown away by the wind. But then that seed took root and started to grow. Now pulsing and vibrant, it pushed its tender shoots toward the weak sunlight above.

So many times though the growth of that brave seed was hampered, impeded, damaged. There were storms which bore rain, soaking the tiny seed's weak, newly developing tendrils, forcing them to curl backwards and turn back into the soil. There were weeds which wrapped themselves around the budding stem, pinning it down to the ground with their cruel, unyielding tentacles. There was cold and ice and jail, beating down upon that tiny, vulnerable shoot.

But yet, despite all the odds...that seed did not stop growing.

Recovery is just like that. There will be countless storms; countless setbacks. But know now - as I do - that you are capable of anything. That there is no limit to your strength, your courage, your journey.

I am now approximately 1.2 kg off the "minimum" healthy weight. (But as I said before I do not want this to be my target at which I feel as if I should make myself "stop" at.) As I've mentioned before, this relapse wasn't as severe as that which I fell into last year - I lost about 3 kg, at the most - but I'm not going to write it off as not being a relapse, because I know myself well enough to know that, before I checked myself short - I was falling back into some very, very bad habits and behaviours; and had thoroughly slipped into the mindset of oh, the little, the better. So no: it was a relapse. But I - through the help and support of my readers, my Mam, my Gran and a couple of my dearest and closest friends - managed to get myself firmly back on the right track. Leaving up the mountain, and not back down. And now I feel as if I am finally, finally climbing, rather than just inching my way slowly along the rocks and crevices. No. This time I can be the stronger one. Like the mountain lion which prowls the stony mountain path. Though the way is steep and drop beneath her immense, she is not afraid to fall. As she believes now in her own strength; her perseverance. And with courage in her heart she leaps and scrambles her way up the slope.

Now today I made a plan. A plan to further help me to get to the summit of this mountain. As I mentioned above I'm..well, almost there, sort of, if you are judging recovery from a purely physical perspective. Point is though that I'm not. I want to do this thing right this time. As I outlined before in several blog posts...throughout my weight gain, I found it too hard, too scary to make a concrete reduction of my exercise. Everytime I attempted to reduce it, I panicked. The anxiety hit me like a punch in the face; I found myself tottering, and, in the rush and fear of the moment, I gave in. So much pleasure, but yet, so much sadness and bitterness and frustration. Because I WANTED to do the weight gain this time the proper way. As in, eat 3000 + cals, and consciously reduce my walking/bike rides. The eating I have been managing, sort of: I don't calorie count, but I've been sticking to the meal plan which I was on when in hospital, with my own little alterations, of course ;) . And just over the past couple of days I upped it a little more by adding in another toast at breakfast (yay!! 😊) and some extra protein at lunch or breakfast.

But the exercise..ahh, that remained a stumbling block. But today I sat down here at my kitchen table, and instead of spending an hour doing college work, I said screw that for today I'm going to fix my mind on something which is going to benefit my health and my future. What did I do? Well, I made a plan, of sorts: a little day plan for a typical day at home/college (even though college is nearly over...four more weeks of lectures, and then study weeks and exams....)of how I am going to allot my time in order to successfully manipulate ED and reduce my exercise, for now. This is something I've been meaning to do for some time now, but which I kept on putting off - but no, no longer. And yeah, I know I don't have that much left to gain, technically. But. Who said the minimum is my target? ED? Well, since when was that fecker ever right about anything??

So no. I'm going to keep on going. I'll post my "plan" in my next post, and also my meal plan with all the increases (I hope that doesn't make it too boring for everyone 😞) and if anyone has any comments or feedback or suggestions about either I would be so, so grateful 💓. Now. Before I go. I just wanted to extend my thanks to a number of people who inspired me to write this post. To my two dear friends who have helped me so, so much with their advice and support over the past few weeks (I hope they know who they are 💚) and also all of YOU - you, my readers. Your comments and helpful advice means so, so much to me. I want to thank you with every piece of my heart. It's because of you all that I have made it this far in my journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And now I am going to go outside with Benny and Daisy, my camera in one hand. Not for a powerwalk, no: not for now. A gentle 30 minute stroll in the golden sunlight of the sweet new morning.

For today I feel truly happy to be alive...

And that I allowed my seed to grow, that day.

Grow, to become a flower...💚

One of the March daffodils growing in my garden. <3 xxx

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-45242438242770653502017-03-08T15:42:00.000-08:002017-03-08T15:42:27.108-08:00This is what I am fighting for... xxx

And so I went back, back to Trinity, back to the place where I never felt as if I belonged, or was accepted. Late September, with golden crisp leaves falling all around me, dread clenching my heart in its ice-cold, bloodless grip. A sense of fear and uncertainty settling upon my shoulders like a wintry fog which drenches every pore of the skin.

 The months that followed felt like an eternity; an eternity of just drifting along upon the rough, turbulent currents of an endless, swirling ocean. I put myself through the necessary motions so that I just about managed to keep myself afloat - each day, I ate something; each day, I put off the ever-present suicide thoughts, clinging desperately to the flimsy lifeline flung out to me by the tiny, minute bit of hope that I had left: a hope that whispered stop, no, things wil get better...

Please, God, let them get better....

 And the days dragged on, and though I did not drown I felt like I was dying inside. An empty shell,plucked from the rocks, cast reeling into the raging, surging tide. That's what it felt like; that's what I was. Wave after wave of loneliness and depression, engulfing me.

But now. Now I have pulsed to the surface: a vibrant, beating heartbeat, pulsating with strength and life and hope.

Now I am like the long-winged seabird which was pulled into the murky brown depths of this hostile, bitter sea .Her feathers became saturated, weighed down with the water and with sheer, crippling fatigue and wretchedness. but then, suddenly, she found her strength again and propels herself towards the light glowing above.

And I look to the sky now and see that beautiful star, my star. The place where I want to be. The place where I will be able to say...

I made it. Here I am.

Here, recovered.

The Light in my Sky...💗xxx

But I know, all too well, just how easy it is to lose sight of that diamond-bright star. To look up to the sky and only see the clouds; the jagged lightning. To only see the distance that lies between you and there, and then, on perceiving that distance, to allow yourself to be engulfed by crushing waves of despair and self-doubt.

So far away...I'll never, ever get there...

That's how I felt, too, so many times. I would see the star, and my heart would surge with hope. But then, merely a few days later, I was down again, slipping back into old routines, old habits that I had vowed to forever dispense with. And I lost sight of the light.

Rise and fall, rise and fall, like the dipping waves of the sea.

I want to keep that star in sight. Something to guide me through the tough times; when the seas all around me get too choppy and rough. And then, even when the clouds do roll in, reaching with their thick, smoky fingers to blot out and obscure my star. I will look bravely toward that sky, and whisper to myself something which I realise now is the most fundamental truth.

No matter how thick the clouds and violent the storm; no matter how rough and grey may be the raging winter sea....

We have to always remember that recovery is within our reach. And that we can and will get there...if we only just believe in ourselves.💓

I am fighting for...

For my mam and my sister and my gran and all my dear friends, who have always been there for me, who have always believed in me, who always helped me to get back up when I fell to the ground and thought that I could not get back up again. I could never have made it to where I am today, without them. 💗

me and mam, not long after my hospital discharge...2 years ago now..

For my readers, who through their heartfelt support and encouragement gave me the strength to push on along the difficult long road, and who made me realise that I am never truly alone.

And, of course, for myself. For my freedom, for my future, for my life.

I need to recover, because...

To remain where I am is to remain trapped in a living hell.

If I do not recover, my bones will further deteriorate.

To remain underweight will mean that my oestrogen levels will never recover. In my whole entire life, I have only ever had one lone, single period. Without oestrogen I don't stand a chance of improving my osteoporosis or having children.

I have spent half of my life being ill. ED has taken so, so much away from me. And he will continue to do so, again and again and again, until there is nothing left for him to take.

When I am recovered, I will...

Be able to prove to others who have suffered as I did, that true recovery is possible.

Not feel so tired, lifeless and exhausted all the time. To be glowing with health and happiness and energy. 😊

Feel and look so, so much better.

Concentrate properly again.

Be able to work again on my two writing projects - Morokia and The Hand Around my Wrist.

Learn to love and accept my body, and feel happy in my own skin.

Make all of my loved ones so happy and proud.

Eat in a restaurant without fear.

Have a woman's body, not a girl's. Accept my body and feel comfortable in my own skin.

Have curves, a bust and a bum. ;)

Be able to exercise when I want, for how long or short I want - to not feel under a conpulsion to do so; but to do it out of pure joy and pleasure; for that amazing, amazing feeling or moving my body and feeling how strong it has become.

Wear a bikini and not feel ashamed or self-conscious...always, in the past, to do so was something that caused me so much shame and self-loathing...it was always a case of being repulsed by either my weight loss or weight gain. But now all that is going to change. 💪

In order to achieve this, I am...

Make weekly goals in all aspects of recovery.

Eat to my meal plan every day as I have been - but to also add in any necessary increases as detailed below!!

Be open and honest, don't keep my struggles meshed up inside.

Make a list of ED habits and work on fixing them, one by one.

Challenge myself by eating fear foods.

Tackle quite the most difficult challenge of all - reducing (a GOOD bit, not just a little) all forms of physical activity, until I am weight restored.

Reach a healthy bmi (and not the minimum of healthy. )

When college is over, take the time to destress, relax and unwind. Then my plan is to get involved in something which will allow me to further distance myself from Ed.

Throw out all my old, skinny clothes and get new ones which will fit my healthy, strong new body. Mam says that we are going to go shopping around my birthday in April so I think that will give me the perfect opportunity to do this.. ;)

Keeping that brightly glowing little image in my head. The image of me, Emmy, recovered. An Emmy sitting in our favourite Mallorcan restaurant in Mallorca, laughing and smiling with dancing lights in her eyes. Of an Emmy charging through the Daisy field in high summer, strong brown legs carrying her like a fleeing nymph across the ground. Of an Emmy whose smile is real and unfeigned; not a forced little curl of the lips, designed to hide the sharpness of my pain, my turbulent, shattered emotions.

That's what the real Emmy is like...

And so I continue to walk towards to light, my hands reaching for that star...

Ps... It was half past 11 when I made these lists and I am literally so sleepy and yawning my head off...so no doubt I have left LOADS of stuff out..there are so, so many reasons to recover and I may indeed have to add in some more when I am a bit more awake. But for now, it's to the Land of Nod for this girl. Good night everyone 💕

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-9955281934054382002017-03-01T15:36:00.000-08:002017-03-01T15:36:41.989-08:00The hardest path...6.11 am Tuesday morning. My alarm shrieked out in the silence, like the eerie cry of a barn owl breaking through the dawn's calm stillness.

My eyes snapped open as I lay motionless in the darkness. I had wrapped myself up into a cocoon like mass of blankets, my feet - prone to chill banes - snugly encased in my woolen penguin slipper socks. I felt decidedly, delectably cosy; completely and wholly safe. As safe as a cygnet snuggled between its mother's snow white wings; protected from both the cold of its surrounding environment and the harsh, ever watchful eyes of the world.

But as I lay there my brain started to tick and whir, pricked inevitably into awakefulness. No longer lost in the infinite oblivion of sleep, my consciousness became open to the thoughts that whirred around in my head like rotating windmills. Loud and quiet, soft and demanding.

And no possible way to protect myself from them.

Need to get up, need to get up. All that reading that needs to be done...

The essay on the Talented Mr Ripley and then that article on the Female Gothic. Then later translate Beowulf and finish off Sharp Objects...

And then...that essay...
the last one..for Hilary Term...yes, it has to be written...very soon...

And you are going to fail it, because...

You aren't spending enough time studying...
you're too busy thinking about food and calories and your recovery...

Selfish little b....!

And then, the voice of reason, trying weakly to break through.

Hey, Em?

You know you said that...

if you were really serious about gaining weight...

You would cut back on your morning walk, a good bit? As in, perhaps knock off a good twenty minutes; and see where we go from there?

Oh no, I groaned, shoving the thought away. Not today, please, Not today...

But dont you think you'll be sabotaging recovery if you don't do that Em?? Come on, think about it logically...!

Oh, doesn't it just make such perfect, rational sense? It, being to reduce or eliminate exercise for now, just until I reach and go beyond the minimally acceptable weight: and then, to reintroduce it slowly but surely, as something which I, as the recovering anorexic, worked hard to get back into her life. Something to be worked towards; that state of being in which I would be able to do as much as I wanted and felt like; with that sense of liberation in the knowledge that I have worked hard to get to this place at which I am now at; and, now that I am here, I can enjoy again that something which I had to temporarily reduce, or cut out. For the benefit of...my recovery, my future health.

But. this is the one thing that I am finding so, so incredibly hard to do. And why? Why, exactly, is it proving so goddamn...excruciatingly difficult to do so?

I made - in my usual haphazard attempt at rationalising these ed complications - a list of the reasons why.

1.) It's true that I am still so scared about the impact to do so would have on my college work...yes, there's no point in denying it; this insistent voice remains with me day by day, forever chiding for choosing to not prioritise my academic efforts and attempting to put myself first.
Since making my decision last week about college and recovery, I set aside some time to write out a list of goals, one for each day of the week. But the final goal...the final goal which I wrote upon my list was to reduce my morning walk, bit by little bit. But as of yet, I have not done it. The thought of it - of sitting there, trying to write my essay, while my eating disorder screamed and bellowed in my head with the ferocity of a roiling thundercloud - was enough to make my skin cold with fear. I could not see myself doing it.

2.) And then, of course, there's this...fear I suppose of losing the modest level of fitness that I have.
I say modest - well, I can climb hills with only a slight increase in my breathing rate. I can powerwalk, run for short bursts, stuff like that. Nothing outstanding, exactly; I've never been a runner or a jogger; never been a frequent user of gyms or swimming pools. But the whole while I have been ill I don't think there has ever been a time when I haven't done what I do every day; meaning that, I suppose, I have acquired a certain level of fitness which I am "scared" of losing.

3.) And then of course there is the simple fact that I don't want to cut down or eliminate, because to do so would equate to cutting out something which gives me so, so much joy.

I have to face the facts. Logically, I don't think I am ready yet for cutting it out.

I am not a believer in the theory that an anorexic exercises purely for her anorexia. For me - as I am sure is the case with many others - this is not the case. I walk and cycle for so many other reasons that that: to exercise my two furry friends, for starters. To get to college from the station. My walks give me some space to clear my head; to lose myself, for a time at least, in the treasure trove of natural delights extended to me by nature's beautiful, graceful hands.

But, of course, there is a compulsion side to it. I have tried. Numerous times. Tried to go for a day without doing something. The last time was sometime in..November, I think it was. Mam and Dad had gone out; I had resolved to stay at home, and read over my essay. I won't go out, I told myself firmly. So resolute and brave and determined. Until the Voice kicked in with a vengeance. The anxiety began to vehemently swell within me, a balloon being inflated to bursting point. I became intensely and uncontrollably afraid.

 I tried to calm myself by telling myself that I was doing the right thing, the best thing for my body. It didn't work, of course. And so out I went into the soft autumn evening air.

Oh the joy that surged within my heart as I stepped out onto the pebble-strewn pathway. The tender kiss of the sun upon my face; the caress of the gentle afternoon breeze teasing the strands of hair escaping loose from my hat.

But yet behind my delight throbbed a steady, insistent beat. As tangible as that joy which pulsed through my blood, it spoke of my remorse and bitterness and shame.
The shame of knowing that I was not strong enough. Bitterness at the knowledge that one of the things that I loved to do most of all - walks through the countryside in the golden light of the sun; loping across dewy green fields with Benny trotting by my side - was being twisted and tainted by that demon in my head.

I'm not strong enough for this.

A few months later, I find myself still stumbling over the same mucky, slippy ground.

But I wanted this to be the year when things were different; when I made a real, concrete change. And so I know that I need to change, too. In a sense that this time...I need to do things very, very differently.

It's only Me who can make this change, noone else.

We have to draw upon our own strength.

1. To make a new rule for myself. That being, If I choose to exercise, I MUST make sure I eat something extra, on top of my meal plan, to provide the extra energy for it. No excuses. It's a rule.

2. And to try to reduce it..as much as I can without making the anxiety too unbearable.
To start off my just deducting 5 minutes from my morning walk...and then to take it from there. I'm not sure if it's going to be successful, but I know that I have to try.

3.) To try and encourage myself to reduce by writing down and rereading the advantages of doing so..

- It'll give me something to work towards...once I am healthy again, I can exercise when and for how long I want, in a healthy, non-obsessive way.
- An underweight body is a delicate body. Yes, and I am still underweight - 2 kg of so off the "minimum", true; but still, underweight. so that applies to me, too. despite everything which ED tries to tell me.
And so, if I were to fall or place a foot wrong, literally.. I could seriously hurt myself.
- And Ed is also very good at making me forget all the times in the past when I acquired injuries - especially in my foot - just by walking when I was underweight. Ed likes me to think that my body is Healthy" and strong, but it is not.
- I need to give my body a 110 % chance to heal itself...and right now, I know, deep down. That exercise at the moment isn't going to help that.

But it's hard, so hard. And I find myself once again in a state of frenzied, desperate panic; convinced that what I am doing is wrong, and selfish, and that it will negatively effect my college work; will inhibit me from obtaining that precious degree.

Only 2 more months!

Surely you'll be grand till then...!

No, ED, just..NO. I have to do what I can, NOW. It won't be pretty and it won't be perfect. But recovery never truly is. And I know what I wrote in my last post is so, so true. If I wait I will just find another excuse. And if I have to endure this inner mental debate in my head, every day till then...well, so be it. I just know that I have to try.

Try to walk the hardest path that I have ever trodden in my whole entire life.

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-53056099822917885882017-02-21T15:04:00.000-08:002017-02-21T15:04:03.099-08:00And then, the petals opened...It didn't come to me as I had first thought it would: that day, all those years ago, when I took my first tentative step along the road leading up the steep, steep mountain.

It came slowly, gradually, softly. As gentle as a soft summer breeze; one which drifts its way across the heathery slopes of the mountains; rustling tender green shoots and saplings, delicately touching flower and leaf and stem.

It didn't come to me with the speed of a lightning bolt, hurtling down out of a cloudless sky to charge me with the fiery strength of the sun.

It didn't crash into me like a wave, hurtling against the stony outcrops of the windswept cliff face; showering me with foamy droplets of resilience; cleansing me, wholly and completely, of my fears of the unknown deep.

But it came.

It came to me like the tentative first few rays of the early morning sun of the dawn, rays which run their probing fingers gently over the contours of the land.

It came to me like the delicate first touch of spring: a touch which loosens the frozen soil of the ground, gently touching and caressing, calling to the buried seeds to awaken and grow.

That something being a true willingness to recover: a tangible, perceptible, vibrant burning to break free from the illness that became such an innate and seemingly inseparable part of me. It's more than just a feeling. It is a pulse that I can feel deep within me, right to the very depths of the innermost part of my soul. It bludgeons like a beautiful heartbeat, thrumming and pulsating like the rhythmic hoofbeats of a galloping wild horse.

It's more than just a flimsy little wish; floating, like a wispy strip of fine, filmy cloth; across the landscape of my dreams and whimsical fantasies: perceived only in my mind's eye, never to be seen, or felt, and impossible to realise.

But no, I want to recover. Right here, right now: regardless of the fear, regardless of the anxiety; regardless of the discomfort and uncertainty which I know will inevitably be involved. Because the previous times I know that I was never quite strong enough. The flower did grow, but it did not grow enough; for its roots became entangled in the tough, rope-like stems of the choking weeds which have so long pinned it down to the earth. Weeds that wrap their thick tendrils around that flower's tender, newly forming stalks; encircling the buds and pressing them closed, forcing that flower to bend backwards into the ground.

An ED is like that weed.

Stifling and twisting and suffocating, depriving of life and light. Enmeshing us in its vines; its vice like grip; a grip of pain and despair and wretchedness, a grip equatable to that of the predator's jaws upon the throat of its helpless, bleeding victim,

A grasp of death.

And for so long I remained locked within the cold, hard grasp of ED, entrapped and unable to grow.

Because the petals are opening and the newly formed buds are reaching towards the glorious sun. And like that sun casts its rays upon the land, illuminating it in the dusky glow of early morning, so too did the realization dawn upon me; gradually and gently, softly and slowly.

That now my own sun is rising...
That now, my petals are opening, and blossoming.
Now it is time for me to grow,
and to become the person that I truly want to be. 💜

And I know that this renewed sense of motivation does not mean that there will be no more tough times ahead. But. It is a feeling I have not felt for such a long, long time: and I can tell you now that that feeling is so, so incredible.

I realise now that there is no limit to my strength. That I can be as brave as a lioness, streaking after her prey: or as strong and as powerful as an eagle taking flight; beating her snowy wings together to soar and glide across the endless stretches of the soaring, white-tipped mountains of her home.

I feel like that eagle now. An eagle who has so long been a captive with a fetter upon her leg, tying her down.

Each time she tried to raise her wings and fly, that chain would drag at her, pulling her back down to the familiar, hated perch to which she had remained for so so long.

And so all escape seemed so impossible....

until the day she realised that she did have the power to break free from her chains.

It is time for me to soar to new heights. It is time for me to spread my wings and fly away from the clutches of Ed, forever. It is time for me to reach out my petals and grow. Now, not later. Right here, right now, right today. I will not put recovery off till college is over. I have made my decision, now. I can feel the palpability of my new strength coursing through my wings.

I write this post with tears of gratitude in my eyes. Gratitude for the amazing people in my life - they might or night not know who they are! - and to you, my readers..all of you, who have helped me so, so much in my battle against the illness which very nearly destroyed me and all that I loved, that I hold dear. You helped me to see the light and reach out to it with renewed strength in my soul; you helped me to find the path which I have sought and fallen away from so many, many times over the four years.You helped me to step onto that path with the knowledge in my heart that it is the right thing to do: that no, recovery is not something to be casually parceled and put away to one side, to a time when I am ready for it...because no, that time will never come. None of us will ever be truly ready to recover. There is no such thing as that perfect time. As a dear friend told me today, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives.

Now is the time to recover. Now is the time to give this battle our 100% of every minute of every day. Nothing is more important or as valuable than a healthy, functioning body. Getting a college degree should never be prioritised over health; for health, ultimately, is a precious and infinitely fragile thing.

 And you all helped me to see that, and realise it: and here, I just want to thank you; thank you with every part of my heart and my soul.💙

Emily Snelgrovehttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-45934376201068376732017-02-14T10:17:00.000-08:002017-02-15T01:31:41.894-08:00Where the sea meets the rockface....
There's not much to be said for my experience at university. From the very beginning, Trinity became a place in which I felt like a tiny, non-descript, little white pebble; a pebble lying upon a beach of shining, glistening gemstones. Those gemstones never lose their sparkle: they are remarkable, flawless, perfect in every way. And then there is me, the dull, insignificant, pale little rock; not wanting to be noticed while simultaneously yearning for someone to see its pain.When the sea rolls in, the gemstones keep their ground; the pebble, on the other hand, is torn away and dashed haplessly against the rocks.

Tossing and turning, I try to make sense of my situation. Well, I am alive. I know that much. Though it's true to say tht life with an eating disorder is really just like...living beneath a cold, oh, so ice-cold sea. Because noone can see your pain; in here. Hidden beneath those swirling waters, its easy for people to forget that you are still there.

Deep in the water, your emotions become numbed. Hard to see, hard to feel, hard to breathe.

Four more months. That's how long I have left at Trinity. Every day I pray my silent little prayer. Dear God, please, just let me pass. To me these final few months will be like traversing a cliff face of black rocks; black rocks with cruel, tooth like, razor sharp edges. So much rests, it seems, on me getting through them successfully; of reaching that shining, golden prize lying in wait at the other side. That being? A degree. A piece of paper that will certify that I am a Trinity graduate. But what if I don't make it through? What happens if this - the final, final term of the four year degree which has caused me such endless heartbreak and unhappiness - is destined to be the one in which I will trip, and fall?

A failure to me, as I see it, wil destroy me. It will tear my heart and rip me into pieces; break me, as a body is broken when it falls upon those sharp, pitiless rocks.

And then there is this sea. So cold, so deep, so desolate. And those gemstones twinkle all around me, so near, but yet, so impossible distant from me. They are proper Trinity students, a Voice in my head mocks. and you will never be one of them.

You are going to fail and then that will be the end..of everything.

I have to try..try to get out of here.

But what...what is the more important thing..?

To get out of this sea? The sea of my eating disorder?
Or to sacrifice everything in order to traverse those rocks..?

Because that what I have been doing essentially, for the past four, five years I have been in Trinity. Letting recovery fall by the wayside; prioritising college, college work, over everything - including gaining or maintaining an acceptable weight; and all the various other aspects of my recovery effort. The reasons for me doing so are both manifold and complex. But the primary one is that which I know all to well that to dedicate myself 100% to recovery would mean that my college work would inevitably suffer.

This being, of course, because of my fear of the effects of a true recovery effort upon my work ability, my concentration. I will give you an example. Today I awoke and thought that as part of my morning intake I would make myself a cheese and mushroom omelette. The image swelled in front of my eyes, tantalising, tempting. But then, I shook my head, pushing it away. Because I knew what would happen if I did dare to do such a thing: my anxiety would shoot through the roof; I would dwell upon it for the whole entire morning, the Voice would explode through my head, labelling me with no end of obscenities.

And thus rendering any atempt of concentration literally impossible.

But can I afford to really..well, postpone a true recovery effort, now...?

Can I afford to wait for another few months ?

But I am scared and so afraid. The chasms between the rocks loom below me, dark and threatening, insidiously menacing. If I were to fall into them, so much would be lost, it seems. The degree. Thousands upon thousands of wasted college fees. The pride and delight of my parents and family. That security of being the girl who passed. No. If I fall onto the rocks now, I will be forever branded as the girl who tried, and failed.

But...

I only have one body, right?

Can I afford...can I afford to put it at risk? Sure, four months is four months, but I mean...

How do I know how damaged it is right now?

And so the battle rages on between the rocks and the sea.

Put college first Emmy. It's only for a few months, like. And then you can recover, if you want. But I know you don't really want to. I know you want to remain with me.

No. I want to...I want to recover. Right here, right now. I can't go on like this. I need to regain the weight; yes, the final few kilo, and beyond...!

No, you selfish b****! How dare you? How COULD you?! You're willing to sacrifice all the money your family threw at your degree, all because you just want to leave the skinny girl behind? That's what you want, is it? You REALLY want to stop being the just-a-bit-too-thin girl? You want to end this, right here? I will not let you, Em. We're in this together, you and me. Emmy and ED, hidden beneath the sea, stuck together forever, like a limpet attached to a pebble wedged in the sand.

If only I - that pebble - had the courage to wrench that limpet from my back. But I am desperate, so, so desperate, to cross those rearing rocks. And as the days flicker past me, that burning question rages across every passage of my mind. What do I do here. Please, someone tell me what to do.

To emerge from the ice cold sea..
Or to dedicate, for that time that is left...
everything I have into scaling those terrible, terrible rocks which I know, if I fall upon them now,
will tear me apart like thorns ripping through paper.

Emily Snelgrovehttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-31396433346248022252017-02-04T14:02:00.000-08:002017-02-04T14:02:46.808-08:00My Little Blue Swing...It was my favourite place, as a child. The Garden of my childhood.

It became my own little Garden of Eden, of sorts: but also, my Secret Garden; or a place which wasn't really a garden at all.It was a rainforest, a desert; a tropical island, a fantasy kingdom. A wilderness that ranged as far as the eye could see. A kingdom of grass and trees and flowers the colours of the rainbow; of which I was its only queen.

And at its very heart was a little blue swing with green pulley ropes and a narrow wooden seat.

The little blue swing as it is today, minus its seat, sadly. 😔

Often of a fine evening, when the sun began to sink behind the dusky forms of the rosy-tinged mountains, I would slip out to my garden and skim across the dewy grass. I would clamber into that seat and grip the soft rope between my fingers, my toes arched like a ballerina. I felt like a golden-feathered eagle, ready to lift my wings and take off from the ground.

Then I would inch my way back a little on my toes, my heart beating in my chest like a coursing rabbit's, and then I would lift my feet and let myself go.

The rushing air slapped at my face; my hair lifted from my skull to stream behind me like a rippling golden banner.

Benny in his summer garden

Yesterday while I was outside, pegging the washing out on the line, I glanced across at my old blue swing, now rusty and covered with cobwebs and fine green moss.

I remembered how it felt going up - the sheer elation; the longing to not come back down to the ground. And then, having reached the point at which I knew I was going to fall back down, a strange, sharp sense of some indescribable fear.

 And so I suppose that the dips in my motivation to recover are like the rise and fall of the swing.

The strength, the vivacity I feel when my motivation has shot upwards like an arrow loosed from a bow; and then, the counter feelings; ones of fear and doubt and sadness; ones which swiftly move to establish themselves as soon as I begin my descent.

I get a little lift..when eating something I really enjoy; getting a hug from my mam, a comment from a reader, talking with a friend who understands..

but when I am alone, or full, or looking at my body in the mirror...I come crashing down to earth with a cry...

How do I keep it up?

How do I allow that motivation to climb up and up; and, once it has got to the top - to stay there, essentially?

But then I came to realise today, standing outside, my tired eyes fixed upon my little blue swing.

Going up, and coming back down is inevitable.

It's an unavoidable part of recovery.

Recovery is not like a swing that never comes back down. It's more like a dipping, swinging rollercoaster: you go up, you cry out with thejoy, the delight, the exhileration at being on top of the world. But then you see you are going to come back down again, and your heart swells with both fear and apprehension.

But it need not fill you with fear, as you can and will survive them..

So rather than seeking to achieve that impossible feat; of striving to avoid and completely inhibit those dips and falls in motivation...

I must learn to be brave and steadfast, and face them, head on.

And I now have identified precisely the things that will help me see these times through.

Talking to a friend who understands and will not judge me.

Reading through the past comments of my readers upon my blog.

Playing with Daisy and stroking Benny's velvet like head, or sitting on the sofa with the warm fuzzy ball which is Felix upon my lap.

Talking to Mam; or Gran, or my sister.

Reading through my reasons to recover and reminding myself again and again of the importance of fighting on.💛

And I know, that if I keep on fighting, keep on persevering, keep on being as strong and as brave as I can every single hour of every single day - that some day I will reach a place where I do feel on top of the world. Recovery is the highest place that I could ever hope to go. Getting there is like reaching the very top of the shining peak of Mount Everest; beautiful and glowing with pearl white snow. It is a place where there will be more highs than lows, It is a place where I will experience peace within myself; high above the choking grey clouds of loneliness and depression and self-hatred. That's recovery. It is there and only there where I will be able to again experience those sensations I had felt when swinging upon my little blue swing. The exquisite, palpable, authentic sense of joy: the kind that stems from that being in that state of true and beautiful freedom. 💜 xxx

Emily Snelgrovehttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-42245996630039361452017-01-24T05:18:00.002-08:002017-01-24T05:18:41.765-08:00She's had her Weetabix in the morning...interpreting Weetabix as a dual reminder of how far I have come, and the importance of continuing to move forward..Ah, yes. The robust, ever convenient, milk-soaking Weetabix: something which has been something of a breakfast staple of mine, long before even the latter years of my pre-eating disorder days. In fact I have a distinct recollection of eating hot, soggy Weetabix out of a Thomas the Tank Engine bowl, back in my old house at Crabble Close in England while whinging at my sister for having taken my Sylvanian Caravan without my permission.

And so throughout my childhood, I was still munching my way through many a bowl of Weetabix; without care or thought, as I did many other foods. and then, at the age of 12, I entered the world of my eating disorder, and things changed, drastically. As it did with everything else, my eating disorder changed my relationship with this particular food: profoundly, and, unsurprisingly, more than just a little negatively.

Since Weetabix was a food which I very much enjoyed - it has always constituted one of my favourite breakfast cereals - as well as being something which I generally found rather filling at whatever time of day I chose to eat it, I began to "use" it in a way which fitted in with my eating disorder's rigid system of oppression and restriction.

And I have memories - ones which are just as vivid as that one of the four-year-old me, scoffing a hot, soggy weetabix-resembling concoction at the kitchen table in Crabble Close - of such situations: me, Weetabix, Ed.

Of myself, standing in the ransackle kitchen of the house I rented in second year of college, leaning against the peeling wallpaper next to the fridge with a smile plastered to my face and my arms folded tightly against my breast, conversing gaily with the nursing student girls who I shared with. An outer semblance of a chirpy, chatty little English student, who was just that little bit smaller than the average 20 year old, perhaps. But on the inside, I was churning, tossing, plummeting like a stone spinning in slowly revolving circles over the side of a great ravine. My cheeks burned like two mini furnaces side by side; my palms and underarms itched uncontrollably. Don't let them see, don't let them see. Please, make them go away; please, please, please please make them go...

You'd be forgiven for thinking I'd just committed some sort of crime.I hadn't, of course. But there was something there in that kitchen that I did not want them to see.

There was a weetabix box sitting innocently in the corner of the room.

I had just been in the process of moving towards the fridge to get out my 1 litre bottle of milk i had bought from tesco express that morning - skimmed, of course - when the three student nurses had all come in together, voicing loudly how hungry they were after a long and very taxing day at college. I stood there, trying desperately to conceal how pathetically anxious I was, praying miserably that they would not notice what I was doing - or rather, perhaps, what I was not doing; that being, cooking for myself a "proper" evening meal of some description.

But no. Instead of bags of potatoes or rice, instead of a packet of fish or chicken or a package of noodles or bread - instead, on the counter, there was a box of Weetabix.

Having starved myself for most of the day, I had just been about to break my "fast" for the evening, by having a couple of weetabix with a little sugar and some milk.My daily allowance. I would savour every mouthful of that bowl. Because it was one of the meagre few things that I would eat in a day.

That was about three years ago now.

And, since then, I have come far. Those days of rigid restriction and starvation are gone, long gone.

Now, I enjoy Weetabix most days - at breakfast, or at snack time, and not as a " meal " as I used to.
I enjoy 2 - not 1 - at breakfast time usually; sometimes with ice cold milk to retain its delightful crispy wheatiness; othertimes, with milk warmed until hot in the microwave, resulting in a delightful, warming bowl of a weetabix-like porridge.

And then, having eaten that, I eat other foods at breakfast time, too, now: something which, at one time, the very thought of which would have filled me with both horror and revulsion. In fact, such a propsect was unthinkable to me, back then. Often then, breakfast consisted of nothing but a single lone weetabix, a little skimmed milk, and maybe a banana or an apple. And then...nothing. Nothing but endless swigs of water, for hours on end. That was how I used to eat.

Is it any wonder my bones are brittle, weak, osteoporotic - forever?

Is it any wonder that I cost myself so much damage - some of which, I know, I will never be able to repair?

One thing today I can assert with conviction. I never want to go back to those days.
It's true to say that, at the moment, there aredays when I just feel so scared at the thought of moving forward. Over the past few weeks my weight gain has been slow; true to say, I;m around 2 kilos off the "mimimum" acceptable weight (but did not I say that I should aim to go beyond that?) but I know deep down that I should perhaps consider another increase to my current intake. Either that, or reduce the walking again. And the thought of doing either are just...so, so terrifying.

But yet.

Wasn't there a time...

when the thought...

 of eating two Weetabix at breakfast was terrifying? The thought of eating two weetabix and toast; the thought of not eating Weetabix as a main meal, of sorts??

But yet...I achieved all that, and more.

I conquered my fears. And if I choose to, I can conquer more of them: I can reach the top of the mountain.

I feel afraid, I feel terrified, and at times, I feel...completely powerless.

But those oval shaped wheat biscuits are a reminder to me of just how far I have come.

And that, ultimately,

I do have the power to move forward.

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-58859319396895593202017-01-17T03:53:00.000-08:002017-01-17T03:53:14.520-08:00Above, and beyond, that halfway mark...The half-way line. A point , upon the road leading up the mountain: a certain little milestone on the path of recovery, at which I have come to know more than just a little well.

Because basically this is as far as I have ever managed to go. It's not recovery. True, getting here in itself was a hard and gruelling battle. One in which stinging wounds were inflicted and blood and tears were shed.

True, also, that this place is a far outcry from that which I initially started this journey.That being the cold, dark abyss in which I remained wholly immersed in the depths of my anorexia.

But this place is not recovery.
And I am not recovered.

How I long to go further, now: to keep on striding forwards, with the heart of a lion and the spirit of a prancing gazelle.

But the thing is...

I can.

It took enormous strength to get this far up the road.
Yet I remember the time when I stood at the very bottom of the mountain, staring upwards with fear and despair in my eyes. And I remember believing that I would never make it. Even taking that very first step, and then the second. I believed, with all my heart, that I would not be able to do it.

But yet, I did.

And so my journey began.

Me and Benny 💜

After a difficult week - one which was filled with the usual bloating, anxiety over exercise, and persistent feelings of depression and loneliness, yesterday felt that one bit different.

There was..
travelling home from university and watching the sunlight dance upon the glistening rivers and streams of the sweet, dew-soaked countryside.

Sitting and drinking hot chocolate with Mam, running my fingers through Daisy's soft, jet-black coat, and laughing till my sides ached at Mam's raucous Cap'n Poldark impersonations.

And then talking to my sister on Facebook; sharing with her my current, newfound feelings of motivation; as well as my fears that it will ultimately not last. My beloved sister's furiously typed reply brought a spontaneous smile to my face and a warm tears of gratitude and love to my eyes.

When you feel your motivation going, Em, tell that f***er ED that Lizzy is going to kick its ass if it even tries to creep back in.

Me and Lizzy 💜

 It was over Christmas when the loneliness really hit me hard; like a sharp, jagged stone being thrust into my body. Despite the twinkling lights and the happy scenes all around me, I had never felt quite so alone. And then, looking up at that lonely, solitary path which seemed to stretch on endlessly in front of me, there was many a time when I felt a desolate sense of utter despair and desperation.

I'll never get there..
Why does this has to be so...so lonely?

But today reminded me that I am not alone. There are people who I know, no matter what, are here for me. Even if I cannot see them, or feel their hands physically touching my own. Even if I cannot literally hear their voices. I know what they are saying to me. Don't give up, Em. Carry on.

Carry on. Past the halfway mark. Up the mountain, scrambling over sharp-tipped rocks and pebbly slopes. Over yawning abysses and coal-black caverns. Towards the valley. The valley where beautiful flowers grow wild and free; reaching towards the sunlight above: sunlight which spills upon every leaf and every vein and makes their petals shimmer with dancing, sublime beauty.

As that is how I envisage true recovery...
A place in which I feel totally alive, and free, like a budding, blossoming flower.

A place in which I feel totally at peace with myself: a feeling, which I have never felt for so, so long, not since I was that small girl with the long blonde hair who danced and laughed and lived a life that she loved.

And this is how I am going to do it...
By taking small little steps which are also known as goals.

Goal 1.
Follow my meal plan and get to a healthy weight.
And by a healthy weight, I do not mean simply just the minimum healthy bmi.

Goal 2.
Write down all the eating disorder habits and behaviours and work on picking them out.
It's quite an enlightening activity to do this - to actually sit down and have a really, hard look at just what it is your eating disorder makes you do day in, day out. I can literally think of dozens, and so this is going to take up a whole blog post in itself so I won't blah on about it too much here.

Goal 3.
Compose my reasons to recover list and read over it constantly, reminding myself of just what it is I am fighting for.

Goal 4.
Go to a few counselling sessions at Trinity, while I try to finish off the last semester of my degree. Then, when all this is over, I will hopefully have the time to dedicate myself to proper eating disorder therapy, probably at Marino in Dublin or somewhere more local.
I proved to myself in the past that I can manage to get myself physically well, witht the help and support of my family, friends and readers. But deep down I know that, in order to make the full and complete recovery from an mental illness that has already claimed half of my life and the entirety of my teenage years, that I will need to seek some extra support in the form of cognitive behaviour therapy. When I am finished at Trinity (Hopefully :/) I am going to do some proper research and take stock of all the options which are available to me.

Goal 5.
Facing fears and anxieties.
These include specific foods, meals, and also - yes, the exercise thing, which I still regard as one of the hardest things that I am yet to achieve in recovery.

Goal 6.
Start making plans - both short and long term - so that I have something to work towards and keep my mind focused on why it is so important now that I do not waste any more of my life drowning in an eating disorder's depths.

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-83251028103863278362017-01-10T04:04:00.000-08:002017-01-10T04:04:29.528-08:00It's not until it is gone forever, do we realise what we have lost...Having consumed - slowly, and meticulously, as usual - the lunch that I had brought in a tuppaware with me, to have on the bus on my way home from the college library - I leaned back against my seat, pulling my legs up and easing the leather hard skin upon my toes. Sensations. How intensely aware I was of every single one of them. The slight soreness of my foot; the droplets of moisture upon my cheeks and forehead from the soft drizzle that was falling outside. And then - of course, my stomach. It felt...so...full, but yet, there was that weird - and, to me, terrifying - yearning for more.

I shuddered and rummaged in my bag for my book, desperate to divert my mind from the food thoughts which were beginning to flicker across my mind's eye. If I did not - I knew all too well - those flickering images would grow and grow, like a spark shaping itself into a candle flame, and any kind of concentration would be impossible. Must read. Back to lectures in two weeks. I need to read my novel for Dr O'Toole. My fingers scuttle like ants over my various bits of junk crammed into the bag's small interior. Why can't...I just...stop thinking...about food all the time??

Flowers in the Attic. Tenderly, I lifted it out, smoothing the cover with the same attentive care that I handle all my library books with.

And so we rumbled on, through the sodden grey streets of Dublin, passing the sludgy brown waters of the Liffey and the Phoenix Park monument jutting sharply into the sky like a blunted penknife. Onto the motorway, then; past fields of glittering emerald; across babbling rivers and streams which churn their waters into creamy froth and course their way freely to the sea.

But I was no longer in Ireland. For I had become completely immersed in the sparse, brutal world which the narrator of my novel, Cathy, depicted.

Across from and around me, people snored and muttered and stared fixedly at their smartphones. Two children screamed and shouted at their mother, furious that she was adamant that they were not to be given any more Fruit Pastilles. I was oblivious to every single one of them.

The pages turned and turned like the fluttering feathers of an alighting swan. The speaker's raw emotions tugged at my own, iron fingers tugging at heart strings.

A few pages into the novel, I reached the part at which Cathy and her siblings learn of their beloved Daddy's death in a tragic road accident.

My vision became blurry with tears and I snapped the book shut with a snap. It has been a while since a piece of literature had moved me quite so palpably.

For Cathy's message here was plain and true, and struck a chord deep, deep inside me, to the innermost part of my heart.

It's not until it's gone, till you realise just what it is you have lost.

And this is so, so true: in all areas and aspects of life.

We take things - people, too; and states of being - for granted every single day. And it might not be until they're taken away from you that that crucial realisation may dawn.

In a month's time it will be two years since the day I got my osteoporosis diagnosis. It was a day of which I will never, ever forget. I cried a river of tears as it was then I was forced to recognise just what ED had done to me. There it was, right in front of me: the devastation that ED had wrecked upon my body, painted in the harshest and most ugly of colours.

Before that fateful day, I never thought twice about my formerly healthy, strong skeleton. Not until that day: when I stared, with disbelieving eyes, at that immaculate piece of paper with the three-toned graph upon it, which Dr Prasad's long-nailed, slender hand held out in front of me.

I can still see that graph now, to this very day.
The yellow at the very top; the section which represented the state of healthy, normal bone density.
The orange in the middle. Osteopenia. Bones are fragile, more brittle, weakening. But, with the appropriate interventions, they are savable.

 And then. The red bit at the bottom.

Osteoporosis.

At this stage there is no turning back.
There is now getting back to a state of healthy bone mass. That has been taken away from you, forever.

But by the time that I realised that...it was much, much too late.

A healthy body is such a precious, valuable thing. It is probably the most important possession you could ever possess. Money, positions, whatever - compared to health, they essentially equal to nothing. What good will that prestigious degree do you, if your body is too weak, too broken, to function properly? What good will all that money do, that job? Will it bring back the healthy, strong body that you once had, but lost?

I write this as a reminder to anyone who might be reading this, as well as myself. Because I know I am all too guilty of putting recovery on the back burner.And I know - at this stage in my life, the year in which I will turn 23 - I literally cannot AFFORD to "postpone" real recovery for a moment longer. I have seven years. Seven years to improve my osteoporosis, before my time well and truly is out.

Every day ED tries to make me not remember. Not remember what is has done to me, and what it could do, if I don't - break free.

I don't want to reach the age of thirty, to discover then I can't even break into a run without breaking a bone.

I don't want to be in that place again, weeping over something which I once had, and could have saved, but ultimately lost.

I don't want to end up a cripple, an invalid. With a body which is weakened and broken by years of malnourisshment and abuse; of starvation, and restriction.

The time to recover is NOW. NOW, before if is too late. 💗

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-45744000418704113622017-01-05T14:59:00.001-08:002017-01-05T14:59:45.258-08:00Treading carefully...A dainty white tablecloth had been cast over the daisy field. The sky had taken on the hue of rosy-pink peach plucked at the height of springtime.

And so the doggies and I embarked across this spotless expanse of peerless, unblemished white; an expanse which, only a few months before, had been alive with the humming of fluffy bees and gently wafting wildflowers. Nothing moved, now; everything was still and silent, save the crunching of the frost beneath our feet. The earth remained enveloped in its blanket of frost; folds of interpenetrable whiteness which the sunlight's weakly probing fingers could not break through.

Daisy loped and pranced like a deer in a spring meadow, her pink tongue darting from her mouth like a minnow, her breath rising in snowy puffs from the dainty black nose at the tip of her muzzle. Beside her, Benny - my beloved, faithful old Benny - moved somewhat less vivaciously across the frost-covered plain.

Watching them brought a smile to my face, warm prickly tears to the corners of my eyes. So happy and carefree; so blissfully unaware of all the pain and evil and suffering that lurks in a world far removed from the beauty of this isolated countryside. The Slieve Blooms rise like shields to the west; as if guarding this place in which I and my two furry friends have found our home.

Now Daisy tears after Benny as he breaks into a shambling run, probably after some disturbed mouse or wandering rabbit. I laugh as they go, and my heart feels like it is going to burst from my chest. Because it is a moment of sheer joy, and intense and bitter pain. Because I yearn more than anything to run after them, to sprint like a galloping hare. But, I cannot.

The past few weeks or so, my right foot has been bothering again. No way as bad as it was, two years ago now: that injury that compelled me to finally approach a doctor, a visit which then in turn led me to be officially diagnosed with an eating disorder. No, no way near as bad. But there is still something there that I cannot quite put my finger on.

I'm guessing that it's something to do with my osteoporosis. My fragile, brittle bones; the bones of a woman three, four times my age. Anything could break them. Even just walking along and tripping over a tree stump; or maybe just twisting something in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Now, from what I have read (and been preached to, during my time as an inpatient in St. Pat's), exercise, no matter what type or form , is something which should NOT be engaged in during the weight restoration phase of anorexia recovery. And no, I am NOT saying that I disagree with that, at all. It makes perfect sense to me, in all honesty. And if I could make myself do it "their" way, well, I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I would.

But what I am saying right now is that I don't think people can appreciate just how difficult it is; to do just what the experts say, and eliminate physical activity during weight gain. For me, cutting out exercise has always been the hardest,toughest thing: yep, even more than eating more, increasing the meal plan and kicking long established bad eating habits. Alongside bloating, I'd say it's quite possibly one of the most difficult aspects of this phase of recovery; and one, I readily confess, I have never quite succeeded in "managing" correctly.

When I was an inpatient and confined to the ward at St. Pat's, this issue or problem or call-it-what-you-will, was automatically removed as my freedom was just taken away from me: I couldn't exercise, and we were watched all day to make sure we didn't do anything which even slightly resembled it. I'm not going to go on here about how awful it was: for someone who, even prior to the tender age at which my eating disorder initially developed, had always loved being outdoors and just being active in general, this side of inpatient treatment proved to be one of the most intensely difficult. I hated it. When I came home at the weekends, against the advice of my consultant and her team, I still would go out with my family for idyllic walks with Benny; unable to face the thought of being left behind, alone and miserable, at home.

Was I wrong in what I was doing? Quite possibly. Anyhow, about 3 months and many exerciseless days later, I was let go: away from that closeted environment where everything was, literally, handed to me on a plate.

But now, of course, things are very, very different.

I am at home, not in hospital. I am a student, trying to struggle her way through the final year of her degree. I am, in every respect, completely in control of my own recovery. I am the one who has to make the decisions; I am the one who has to tackle all the various different recovery issues, alone. And with this one, I have hit a rock hard. I don't know what to do; and it is the not knowingness of it all which is getting to me.

I guess what makes this "dilemma" of mine that bit more tricky and problematical is the fact that I am not severely underweight (I only have about 2 kg to gain before I reach a minimally acceptable" healtny bmi.) I can move freely and without pain or difficulty (for now, that is..). And then, of course, there is that one indisputable fact. To eliminate my current exercise - that being, walking the doggies, and cycling - would be equal to, essentially, eliminating something which I truly love. Walking Ben and Daisy, cycling, physical activity in general - it is something which I love, which relaxes me, which provides me - for a short space of time, at least - with a sense of well-being, joy, and pleasure.

But to say that there is not one part of me..
which recoils, with fear, at the thought of giving up, or reducing that one bit more...

would be a lie.

These thoughts.. these fears, these lingering anxieties surrounding weight gain, of letting go of this rigidness, this control over every single gram of food I eat; every single minute of exercise I take...oh, if only I could just pluck them right out of my head; toss them over my shoulder and cast them to the winds, watch them float away like grains of dust caught in a sandstorm...

Every day, the same burning question which revolves in endless spinning circles in my head.

Am I doing this right?
Is it ok just to "reduce", for now...?
I have about 2, 3 kgs to gain. Not much, but...is it time to do this properly, seriously..?

I do not know. I do not know. And so, every day, I continue on, still wondering, f anyone has any advice on this topic, I would be so, so grateful.

I guess, for now, I just have to be as careful as I can manage. For this path of recovery is a slippery one; one upon which I know I have to tread carefully.
Emily Snelgrovehttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-45253675172253316312017-01-01T03:38:00.003-08:002017-01-01T04:51:35.318-08:00Step by step, bite by bite...I stand with my left hand by my side, my right hand holding the milk carton; my body poised like a swimmer about to leap into the murky depths of the sea.

I must take this leap.

I must take this leap...

100 ml...125 ml...over 125 ml...I said I'd have more milk today, more cereal...that was my goal for today...

My hand snapped back then like a door bouncing back upon its hinges.

NO!
STOP!
Put that extra milk back!! You greedy......!!!!

My hand quivers. I can feel...I can feel him pulling on my wrist, trying to pull it back towards the still open milk bottle; to clumsily slop the "extra" milk I had poured myself - and more, probably - back in through the plastic neck. Yes, I can feel him. A vice like grip; which has held me for so, so long.

The kitchen was freezing , but I could feel my face becoming gradually hotter. As if I and It were engaged in a vicious tug-of-war, one in which we were both clinging doggedly to the slippery rope of control.

Always, in the past, such moments of attempted resistance on my part against ED would see me tugging desperately at that rope with trembling, clenched fingers; the knuckles white and drained of blood, the rough fabric cutting into my hands. But I was never strong enough to hold on for too long. Eventually, I would lose hold of it and fall, and then ED would trample mercilessly over my body, reveling in its triumph.

This time round appeared as if it was just going to be the exact same. My hands were wavering, hovering towards the awaiting milk bottle.

No! - a weak voice of resistance, pushing desperately through the heat, the dizziness. No, Em! You can DO it...!!! Just think...

Of what...

HE has done to you...

Slowly, inch by painful inch, my hand withdrew.

I can, I mouthed wordlessly, and then it was going in the microwave and I was pushing the buttons and then there, it was done, there was no turning back, I had done it.

An hour later saw me crying bitter tears all over my Eagle of the Ninth notes, nursing my swollen, bloated stomach. The hateful screen, taunting me. Only 2000 words to go, Em! That cruel, sneering voice whispered, maliciously. 2000 - words - I can't - do this...

I wanted...I wanted more than anything else in the world, right then - for someone to comfort me. But I was alone. And I know that this is my journey: the road I have to tread alone. It is only me and noone else who can save myself from the wreck, pull myself from the freezing, icy waters, in which, if I remain, I know that I will drown.

So. That was my morning. A morning in which I, once again, failed once again to make any progress with my essay.

It's true to say that I am getting scared now. the deadline is the 16th of January.

It's just all getting a bit too much. The extreme hunger; my lack of concentration; my raw, pure terror at not being able to write, one single, single word. My very head feels like it is going to explode with the intensity of the pain; the bitterness of the frustration.

But yet.
I succeeded in just one little thing.

I went against my eating disorder.
I achieved my goal of having extra milk and cereal...

Such a small, small step -to someone who knows nothing about eating disorders, it might seem totally laughable that I regard such a feat as actual "progress" - but, to me, it constituted a major victory. It was a point scored against my eating disorder; and, though the anxiety was horrible, I proved to myself that I could actually do it.

And as a dear friend told me a few days ago...yes, the time is NOW to recover.
I am 22. 23 in a few month's time. I have seven years left to improve my osteoporosis. Every day matters. Every hour and every bite.
It's a small step, it's true.
But is that not what the longest and hardest of journeys ultimately is made up of? Hundreds, upon hundreds, of small, tiny steps...?

Anyway, today I made a number of important decisions, it being the first day of 2017, and all: that I AM going to make these meal plan increases; as I strongly feel that I would benefit from introducing them because I am, after all, still doing my household chores, walking the doggies, and moving around more than a person in recovery ideally should.

It's just a matter of reducing my exercise a little, for now...and also, eliminating the "obsessive exercise" which yes, it's true, I did sometimes engage in.
I define this kind of exercise as being compulsive and forced; not practiced for reasons of pleasure or enjoyment - but rather, for when any of the statements below ring true:

I feel like I "have" to do it, even though I do not want to, or the weather is bad, or I am busy doing something else, etc;

I want to do it because it will slow down/prevent weight gain through burning of calories.

But there's another important reason why I think for now it is so important that I reduce my exercise...the matter of which needs a post by itself, so I will leave it for now and return to very shortly.

Today, I was reflecting upon my current exercise patterns and it struck me that, despite everything, I actually made some progress on this score since beginning to tackle my relapse:

Before (Between the end of the summer and November 2016):

I felt compelled to do at least 2 hours of exercise. If I did not meet this target, I would "make up for it" the following day.

I sometimes - not very regularly, but sometimes - exercised in secret in my room by jogging on the spot for a short length of time. I also got up early and powerwalked for 20-30 minutes down the road. For me, back then, going out with Benny at 9 o clock, and then taking him again in the afternoon, was just not enough. I felt compelled to do more.

Well, Im please to say that I have actually managed to kick these habits - the 20-30 minute powerwalk before everyone else got up; the jogging in my room, and the compuslion to do a minimum of 2 hours. I know I still have an awful lot to work on, but I hope that I am now moving in the right direction. I am going to continue to monitor my walks for now anyway and see what happens. It all depends on how my weight goes , I know.

A close friend and reader of mine, also suggested to me that I perhaps shouldshare my progress on my blog as much as I can, even for small, seemingly trivial things (well, I think anyone who has had an eating disorder will understand just how significant these "trivial" things actually are).I just really hope this wont make it too boring for everyone, that's all. But I hope that they will benefit others as well as myself by inspriing yyou to make changes - no matter how small.

And here are some of the little changes and increases, that today I have started to introduce...

One of the new things I was contemplating adding into my meal plan was to have some extra protein in the mornings. The addition of these foods is, if I was very honest, a change I felt I "should" introduce solely for the benefit of the health of my body, rather than for reasons of personal preference - if that makes sense!! You see, to be brutally honest, I would personally much rather eat an extra piece of toast and another big bowl of cereal , say, than a slice of chicken of fish or whatever. (And then of course there is my own moral principles surrounding eating meat, which make me even more reluctant to eat it; but again, that's a topic for another blog post). But protein - protein foods, so to speak - is the one thing that I have restricted most severely since becoming ill, and I suppose that is what served to make my osteoporosis as bad as it now is. So that is the main reason why I thought in the mornings I would add in one if the following, probably with either my breakfast or my first morning snack:

- 20 g cheddar cheese

- a soft or hard boiled egg

- sardines

- a slice of chickenor other meat.

I list these in order of preference..a nice slice of crumbly extra mature cheese would be for sure my favourite, though I'm going to try and incorporate the others in too. Also, I am going to try and lay out the serving on a little plate the day before and put it in the fridge, so when I come to eat it in the morning I can just take it out of the fridge and eat it. Because I find this

Now, another change I am going to make is to be MORE GENEROUS with...well, everything. With peanut butter, with cereal; with my nuts and tuna mayo at lunch..you get the idea.

I am really going to try to listen to my body and respond to cravings and hunger when they hit me.

To not hold back from eating more of the foods I love...namely, you know.. ;) hot choc, chocolate, bananas,peanut butter, nuts, cereal, toast, hot custard. Ooooh bring them on <3 !

And also, if I feel like them - not to hold back from eating stuff like maltwheats, hot cross buns, scones - things I cut out from my diet despite really enjoying them. I did so purely because I was worried about my sugar consumption, what with having alot of hot chocolate, and chocolate, every day. But I suppose in recovery it's all about breaking those ED type rules one has made for oneself.

Fear foods..more on this in another post, but I really want to start tackling them soon. I don't have many, but there are a few. But more on this shortly.

And the change I referred to above and which I tackled today (with success, yes; though I'm not going to lie; I did find it very hard.) that is to make my breakfasts even bigger..I might even try adding in a 2nd peice of toast (and still have my half a bagel later on, too, mind!!)

So, in this new year...

I'm taking it..

step by step,

bite by bite.

Well there's a bridge and there's a river that I still must cross
As I'm going on my journey
Oh, I might be lost...

And there's a road I have to follow, a place I have to go
Well no-one told me just how to get there
But when I get there I'll know...
'Cause I'm taking it

Step by step, bit by bit,
Stone by stone.. brick by brick...
Step by step, day by day, mile by mile...

And so, we have to follow this road now. It may be scary, it may be terrifying, because noone tells us exactly how we are going to get there.

But step by step, bit by bit.

We will make our way upon that road,

the road which leads to that beautiful horizon... <3 xxx

 As you can probably tell...I love Whitney Houston..her songs are so powerful and give me enormous strength.

Happy New Year everyone...

Let's take on this road together, in 2017...

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-8169240421033166512016-12-28T13:40:00.000-08:002016-12-28T13:42:51.801-08:00Look to the Sky...The cool northerly wind pawed at my exposed cheeks as I climbed out of my neighbour's car, in the middle of a bustling supermarket car park in which shoppers intently searched for spaces like hungry lions hunting for gazelles. Not surprising, really: it was Wednesday, the day before Christmas Eve, and it seemed like the whole population of my small home county had descended upon Portlaoise in order to get all their essentials purchased before the big day itself.

"Thank you so much," I had said to him, and he smiled and assured me that it was no trouble. I had got a lift off him into Portlaoise to start the big food shop for mum. I had an hour to kill before I headed into Tesco as it wasn't until half 4 or so till mam would be able to get out of work.

Usually, whenever we did this of an evening, I would cycle into town and make my own way. But, on being offered a lift from James, it suddenly occurred to me that this was the perfect opportunity to test myself. Because that morning, it had rained heavily, and I had forgone my usual romp with the doggies for a quick five minute potter around the daisy field.

An hour to kill, Em.

Anxiously, I looked to the sky.
It was long past mid afternoon at this stage; and the pale yellow orb of the sun was now beginning to slowly inch its way towards the western horizon. The sky was like an endless expanse of pale blue velvet, interlaced, here and there, with wispy, peach-fringed clouds of lilac-grey and creamy pink.

One more hour of daylight...

I have shopping to do, things to get..

But you haven't done any exercise today. Oh it's going to rain tomorrow! Aren't you going to make the most of this lovely dry afternoon?

But...I said that..

I would..reduce...

But you haven't done anything...the shopping can be done tomorrow, sure...you are lazy, you need to move, imagine how anxious you will feel later if you don't do anything now...

And then you will be all moody and surly..you won't be able to focus on your college work tomorrow morning..the anxiety, oh, Em, you know full well you won't cope with it...

And so I bowed my head in acquiescence, adjusted the straps of my bag upon my shoulders, and walked.

My three furry friends <3

Looking back now to that evening, I know that it was wrong.

it was compulsory, it was what ED wanted me to do. I love to walk. Walking with Benny and Daisy upon the heather-covered boglands; trotting alongside them along woodland tracks scattered with pine needles.But here? Upon the concrete streets of Portlaoise; alone, with a heavy handbag slung across one shoulder? No. In this instance, I did not really want to go off power-walking: I wanted to go to Home Store and More and buy some picture frames; before then proceeding to the pound shop to purchase wool and gift bags and Weetaflakes. Did I really want to be wandering the streets of Portlaoise in endless circles for forty-five minutes? No, I did not. But yet, because I had not been able to walk that particular morning, I felt absolutely compelled to do so.

Em, why are you afraid of not exercising..when you have some weight to gain?

But that is the point, isn't it, after all. I am afraid. So, so afraid. I am so scared to gain weight again even; despite all the times when I did so before.

But.
I know that I have to do it.

And so I cast my mind back to that moment when I raised my head to stare up into that beautiful sky; on that cold, pearl-bright December evening, no more than a few days ago.

Up there, birds had been wheeling together on the wing; the jet black crow with his harsh grey beak; a bottle green starling with flecks of silver upon his nape.

So free, up there; in that endless blue infinity; so far removed from all the troubles in this world.

If only I too could grow my own wings and join them. If only I could fly, and soar, and be free. Be free like I have never been for so, so long.

 But I am a human; not a beautiful bird. I have to work with what I have.

 I have lungs and a heart and a head in which a mind is contained. A mind which, I realise now, has the power to set me free from this snare.

I think, for my next post (and I really, really hope that you will do the same too if you are in a similar position as I am ) I will compose my Reasons to Recover list...

Because I truly believe this is such a worthwhile exercise to do; if you find yourself in this state of ambivalence. When you are teetering on the brink between recovery and relapse, perhaps; or if you have embarked upon the road upon the mountain, only to have fallen down upon the stony ground, overcome with the fear of where this road is going to take you.

You are not alone.

This is me right now and I am afraid too.If there was some way I could make this road easier for us, I would cross the oceans of the world to find it..

But there is one thing that I know I posses: I have my words, my voice.

So perhaps, through reflecting, and writing, and sharing, and exposing, I will help both myself and others to recover...

 I may not have much, but I have my voice..
Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-46210999669796924932016-12-26T04:19:00.000-08:002016-12-26T04:19:53.544-08:00The greatest ever gift...and the greatest ever leap..
Before I begin, I just want to stress again how incredibly touched I am over the responses I have been receiving here on My Cocoa Stained Apron since I resumed blogging. I really do mean it when I say it means more than the world to me. It may not seem like much when you decide to write and post a comment on here, but, to me, every single message and response is worth so, so much more than just a few words upon a screen.

It makes me feel so glad that I decided to return to this little thing which is my blog; a little world in which I know I can truly be myself. It's here where I know I can pour out my heart if I want to; it's here where I am free to expose my biggest fears and anxieties and try and shape them into coherent words and forms.

It's here where I can reach out to others in the knowledge that I will not be judged for who I am and from what I have been suffering since childhood. It is here where I can be just Emmy. A girl with an eating disorder, yes: but also, one who has hopes and dreams and passions; a girl who is just trying to find her way along the slippy crags and lonely moors of a mountain known as Recovery.

Hard to believe this was Christmas two years ago, not long before I went into hospital.

But have I changed that much between now, and then...?

Christmas. For me, Christmas has always been a special time, being synonymous with being at home surrounded by my loved ones, and the joyous act of buying, wrapping, and giving a gift; and the excitement evoked on receiving one. It is a time when I suppose the love I perceive human beings have for each other is brought into patent expression. And that in itself is a beautiful, beautiful thing; more beautiful than any diamond wrought star glittering high upon its sparkling Christmas tree.

Though it's true to say, over the past four years or so, each one which passed me was marked by intense and palpable sadness; and a joy wehich was always bittersweet. I guess, now that I am older, I have become more sharply aware of how quickly the time is flitting by me.

How these precious moments we spend together as a family, might well be the very last of these times. Or how many Christmases I have spent with Ed. How many months, years, that U have done. It's now been well over a decade.

Ten Christmases, which essentially have been the same:the same fears and the same anxieties; the same desperate longing to be totally and completely happy; to not dwell, for one single moment, about the portions at Christmas dinner or the difference in the eating times. To not think for a single instant about weight and shape and what I will eat that day.

And I know that the greatest gift that I could give me loved ones is to choose to recover. To dedicate my heart and soul and every last drop of my energy towards recovery. And this isn't just true for me; it holds true for everyone.

So if you, like me, have suffered for any given length of time, choose to make your new year's resolution this year to be one which ultimately will prove to be the scariest, most daunting, most terrifying decision of your life...but also one which give you back hope, and life, and freedom once again. The one which will ultimately save your life. The one which will allow us to break away from this harsh, cold, disparate world created for you by your eating disorder. Because it is a different world; a world in which there is only pain and suffering and hurting; and, inevitably, one which is overshadowed by death.

On the outside that world might appear so aesthetic, so ideal. Before you entered it, it was like you were standing looking across a great river, to a world lying upon the other side which, in comparison to your own, appears so attractive, so vivid, so ideal. It's a world of snow-white glaciers and glittering skyscrapers; so appealing to your hopeful eyes.

You are drawn to that world like a bee to a lily's golden nectar. Because it seems like in there, all your problems will be solved; all your needs and desires instantly fullfilled. It offers you things that your own world does not provide for you, you believe. This was how I felt, anyway. I thought that, leaving behind my old world...I would find what I - that young, naive, innocent version of myself - truly wanted. What was it? Many things. Confidence. Beauty. Control. To make myself different. I thought that I was a boring, plain, ugly thing and that Ed's world was the only route through which I would be transformed.

But I could not be more wrong.

Ed's world did change me, alright: but to a shadow of the person I once was. And I now realise fully just what his world really is like.

The glaciers there are of ice so sharp and cruel that my skin was torn to shreds on stepping upon them.

I thought that on climbing those towers, I would be on top of the world. Id feel more in control, more capable, than ever before.

But I - just like so many, many others - became a prisoner in those towers. And now everything that you value falls away, separated by a hundred billion miles. All there is is...you, and the other sole occupier of this cold, sterile, barren world.

Because that is what the world of the eating disorder really is like. And this is what it can do. It separates; creates a seemingly impassable gulf between you and the world and the people you care for; everything . It isolates, distances, and destroys.

But we remain there; entrapped in this cold, harsh, inanimate world of pain and suffering. Because it's our new normality; it's as if we never knew anything different. And the river separating our two worlds now seems as deep and as vast as the infinite expanses of the ocean.

It might seem an impossible thing to achieve...to close your eyes, feel your way through the dark, then realise the river is there right in front of you. Right in front of you and all you need to do is take that one massive leap.

But I'm here - I'm HERE, at the bank of this river; I know what I need to do...
but it's just...taking..that massive, massive jump, and then, starting to swim...I won't be able to do it...I'm not strong enough...!

Why must we fear the river...

when, deep down, we have the strength to swim through its waters?

But...

Believe you can, and you will.

And I will repeat this to myself every day, because deep down I know ir is the truth. And though ED might try to make us believe otherwsie,

there is enormous strength deep down in every single one of us.

Enough strength to cross that river...
Enough strength to reach the pinnacle of the mountain.

Make this year the one in which you give your loved ones the greatest gift...
And the one in which you take the greatest and most bravest leap that you ever will take in your life.

Why fear drowning in the river...
when we are already drowning in the depths of ED's world?

Thank you so, so much for taking the time to read my blog in 2016.
I really hope 2017 will be the one in which we conquer our fears and achieve our greatest dreams.

And so for the latter part of this year I want to talk a little more about the particular challenges I face and my endeavours to overcome them; and also, posts which I hope, in composing, will set in stone for me how imperative it is that I make recovery, this year, my priority.

I really hope that through the words of my writing, I will be able to reach out and help others in their struggles too; and make a true difference to someone's life.

But I know that, ultimately, I will never be able to help anyone unless I rescue myself.

You know what you have to do, Em.

The happiest of Christmases to all my readers,

Near and far, no matter where you are. <3 xxx

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-64603284810812813372016-12-22T14:20:00.000-08:002016-12-22T15:46:51.160-08:00This time, it has to be different...

Reflecting upon the first blog post that I made earlier this month, i realised that what had happened to me over the later part of 2016 stands as the fourth time that I had slipped into a"relapsed" state since I started my degree at Trinity. Each one of these relapses has been marked by a return to college and a resumption of restrictive behaviour patterns; and a consequent drop in my motivation, mood, and then of course the weight.

Each of them followed what I suppose can be viewed as being a "good" period in terms of my illness - being at home, during the summer, with Mam there to keep an eye on me; with no outward pressures of essays and assignments or of just fitting in at Trinity. I say good, but really, I know it has never been exactly...ideal. My weight has dipped and gone up again more times than I care to remember; but my mind, I know, has remained entrapped, all that while, in a state of static, unchanging bondage. My weight was always changing, but my mind remained the same.

 And though this year's relapse was certainly no way near as bad as previous ones, I'm aware, all too aware, that if it had not been for Mam keeping an eye on me; and for the fear of the weekly weigh ins starting again, then things might well have gone a whole lot worse. But, as it happened, me and Mam seemed to "nip it in the bud" just in time: allowing me to tentatively tread back onto that path again; a path I have been treading now, for over two years which have fleeted by like darting dragonflies.

But I mean, I know it is wrong; that it is because of other people that my relapse was not as severe as it could have been. And it is just another testifier to the extent that I am no way near recovered. As is the fact that I was feeling painfully nervous at the thought of going out last saturday night to the restaurant down in Emo. It was mam's birthday and everyone else was looking forward to the evening; everyone, that is, except for me. The only feelings that I had was fear and desperate anxiety; alongside the enormous and crippling guilt that, on Mam's special evening, all I could think about was my own terror.

 Everyone else's exchanges about what to wear and what they were going to order that night floated above my head like little wispy clouds - so distant, so picture-perfect, so far, far removed, from me. How I would love to be able to chat excitedly about going out for a meal like that.

And I wonder, if..
if I ever really will.

Because I said last year that this time would be different.
But yet, ED lingered, and I remained the same.

Every time we went out for dinner in Mallorca,

I never enjoyed a single moment of it.

Now all I can remember of those nights was the fear, the anxiety.

ED took away memories I should have made with those that I love.

Last Saturday night I sat with my sister and her boyfriend who had come down to stay with us for the weekend of Mam's birthday. We chatted and chatted long into the night; about a variety of things, really, including my eating disorder and countless phases of weight gain, then relapse.

Seeing them go the next day was enough to break my heart, as I know it might be some time before I see them again; though I know one thing that will remain with me today is all that we spoke of that night.

It;s me, and only me, who has the power to save myself.

Others can advise you and motivate you and guide you gently back onto the right path. But ultimately it is you who has to fight this battle. No one else can do it for you. The power, the determination, the strength and the defiance in the face of what might be the most harshest of odds. It has to come from you. You have to become your own soldier,because at the end of the day, it is your life which is at stake here. Your life, your body, your health and your future.

"Postponing" real recovery till after I have finished college is more or less pointless. Because when college is over my eating disorder will simply seek out another "reason" to put off what I have to do for another day or week or month or year. The time is now and anyway, I am more than aware that, for me, time is running out.

And so.

Here is a question for you, Em, I said to myself as I sat at the table with my fingers resting poised upon the laptop keys. What's to stop this time round from just being merely a repeat of your last failed attempt to beat this sh** once and for all??

It's blind faith. Like stumbling through a tunnel. A tunnel that winds and winds in endless spirals and disorientating loops; a tunnel lined with sharp stones which cut and shed blood. A tunnel which seems like it has no end; only a beginning, a beginning which leads back to a place in which you have stood for so many days, months , years - looking in. Looking in, yet too afraid to step forwards now and embark into that yawning chasm of darkness.

There was familiarity there, at the place before the tunnel. Comforting, safe familiarity. A familiarity as cold and as final as death.

Because that's exactly what that place was.

And like all things, that tunnel has a beginning, and an end. An end which might seem like the glistening moon of a clear night sky: so beautiful, so distant, so impossibly out of reach.

But there was someone who dreamt of reaching that moon. And he stopped at nothing till he had achieved that dream.

A beginning, and an end. I do not have much, but, I have a beginning, and a dream.

This time it has to be different...

And so this is where I begin.

Continue to follow my meal plan to the letter, and consider increasing it even more if I feel that I am ready to do so. I've already made a couple of increases over the past few weeks; both of which were hard to make, but..I did it. And now I know I have to Stick to my meal plan, every hour of every day, and allow myself to eat MORE than this when I can!!

Now, this second thing...is going to be one of the hardest. That being to reduce exercise and physical activity while regaining the weight. Just to explain: during my last relapse-recovery, I continued to walk and cycle every day. I'm not going to make speculations about how and why this happened as to be quite honest I don't know enough about all the sciency stuff and I don't want to mislead anyone. But I knew deep down that I really, shouldn't have been doing it - or at least, not quite as much as I was. My biggest difficulty is that I love it; both walking my beloved Benny (and now Daisy) and riding my bike through the sweet countryside are two things which give me so much pleasure; especially at this time of the year, on those crystal-clear days; when the leaves are crisp beneath the feet and the sun slips through the sky like a rosy pebble drifting through the still blue waters of a lagoon. They give me so much joy. But it's true to say that I do feel "compelled " to do it sometimes, even if I don't really have much time on my hands, or if the weather is more than disagreeable, or, in the past, if I had a foot injury - I would still do it. And that, I know, is because of my eating disorder, and its constant and relentless drive to make me burn as much calories as possible.I would find myself prioritising going for my walk over many other things; and that, if I did not do it, I know my anxiety levels would go through the roof. But at the same time...I know it is something that, deep down, I know that I need to do, and that I would benefit enormously from if I were to. But more on this in my next blog post.

This past year, just as I did in 2015, I restored my weight (to a minimally acceptable bmi) only to then immediately start to restrict again by consciously reducing my food intake. Both of these times, I was led to believe by my eating disorder that my metabolism was damaged and that hence I would continue to gain weight on reaching my "target weight" if I did not revert back to restrictive amounts. And so. This time. This time I have to be wiser, smarter. Smarter than Ed. Stronger than the Voice. And on reaching that weight target I know that time time I have to keep on fighting , fighting harder than ever. It's true to say that that is quite possibly the hardest part of the path leading up that mountain; the darkest section of the long, winding tunnel. Because I know, this time, I have to continue eating, continue nourishing, continue to fight and allow my body to find its healthy set point. I don't know what this is and that in itself is terrifying. But I know, ultimately, this is what I have to do. Or I will never be able to improve my osteoporosis; or properly repair the damage that 11 years of anorexia has reaped upon my body.

And finally, a few other practical things which I believe will help me to make this year different. These include writing a book of which I have been deliberating for some time(more on that later) and continue to blog (which I knowwill greatly assist me in keeping and staying on track through my sharing of progress with my readers - and , most importantly of all,the continuous love, support, encouragement and motivation my amazing readers they share with me every day. <3 xxxx

And then..what I am hoping to do next year: a year out, in which I might try and get a little job, but also to set aside the time and energy that the hardest part of recovery - that being, of course, the mental part - requires. I would really like to be able to attend proper counselling and get my mind to the right place.

Together...

let's make 2017

the year that we make the Change. <3 xxx
Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-83243590032450564492016-12-18T03:37:00.002-08:002016-12-18T03:37:57.886-08:00It was time to bite the bullet..7 am Saturday morning.

I finally emerge from the kitchen, my hands full of an assortment of different edible items.

A large jar of Tesco chunky peanut butter and a hunk of extra mature cheese wrapped tightly in crinkled kitchen foil. A bruised banana and a tub of buttermilk spread which had seen better days given all the times that I have managed to drop it. A bowl containing 2 weetabix and a jug with precisely 125 ml of warm milk. I dump these on the table and then I remembered that I hadn't got the cookery so I went right back in and got myself a couple of knives. Then I went back again for the one with the serrated edge for the cheese and then finally a measuring spoon and a teaspoon for the peanut butter. And then, finally, I sat down, and waited for my toast to pop.

I glance at my watch. A pang of anxiety shoots through me. Oh. God. five minutes passed already, and I hadn't even started my breakfast. Five minutes less of writing being done. Five minutes more that I did not spend staring at the abysmal thing that is my attempt at a Children's Lit essay...

My morning routine is, you see, to get up, sort the doggies out (give them their food and let them outside to do their "business"), sort my own stuff out, then sit down and have my breakfast while looking at the blog or emails or whatnot. And then. After that. The part of the day which I dread and detest the most.

It's not what you would call an exactly joyous scene. I sit and I stare for a few minutes at the scraps of sentences upon the laptop screen in front of me and try to conjure up something else that I could write. Sometimes something comes. More usually, something does not. As the minutes tick by I start to feel more and more agitated. My heartbeat quickens and the room suddenly becomes unbearably hot; even claustrophobic. My very skin seems to itch and prickle unpleasantly. The blood pounds wildly in my ears, as loud and as sonorous as drumbeat.

My mind drifts helplessly like a piece of driftwood upon the dipping, swelling waters of the ocean. God I am going to fail this module. God how did I ever get this far with this degree? I am stupid, I can't do it, I...I...

The predominant thoughts which repeat themselves over and over again. But there is also..something else. Food. Yes, food. I have just eaten a massive breakfast but yet I cannot stop thinking about food. Interspersed with these assertions that you are useless and you are pathetic and stupid and worthless piece of sh** there are these thoughts, vivid images of food. I try to put them out of my head; but I might as well have tried to break a pebble in half with my fingers.

"I'm not hungry," I groan to myself, but yet, even while I say it, I know that isn't entirely true. Physically, I feel stuffed; my stomach feels tight and uncomfortably bloated. But yet...there is still this sort of, craving , I suppose, for more. I look up from the laptop and stare unhappily at the jar of peanut butter sitting some inches across the table from me. I don't want any more. I want to get up now and pick it up and put it right back in the cupboard where it belongs. But at the same time..by God, do I want some peanut butter right now. I want to reach across and stick my big teaspoon into the jar's gooey depths and devour spoonful after spoonful.

Now, you can imagine the sort of feelings these thoughts inevitably evoke for me.Feelings of self-disgust and repulsion - Oh my god!! you have become SO greedy!! - mixed thoroughly with an unpleasant, sour-tasting blend of intense and bitter frustration. Because this, of course, all adds up to making writing that essay that one bit harder: or maybe more than a bit, shall we say. Ah, my lovely English essays. Writing them...writing them is like crawling up a hill with your eyes closed. You don't have a clue where you're going or how you're going to get there; and with every knock and every stone that you collide with you're sent tumbling back down to where you started.

Every morning we go through this process. I sit, Istare, I write nothing. I am literally consumed by these thoughts of food and how stupid I have become.

I suppose, this thing or whatever you want to call it which I experience at breakfast time - the intense hunger for more, while at the same time, not being really hungry at all - is perhaps some kind or form of that phenomenon entitled "extreme hunger", which, I've heard, is a most common occurrence for anyone who takes that terrifying plunge into the effort of recovery. But I mean..what can I do?? How on earth will I be able to complete three 5000 word English essays when I suddenly can't even focus properly on stringing a sentence together in my head?

Bite the bullet. An expression which I suppose is highly relevant for this stage of recovery. Because I guess that's what I really need to be doing. Screw the essays. I've read that it's important that..if you get these weird "cravings", despite tangible physical sensations of fullness, than you should just bite the bullet and give into them. To literally bite into that food and eat as much as you want. Because that is what your body needs. Does it feel unnatural? By hell, it does. But is it unnatural?? Well, rationally, I don't suppose it actually is. Because, if you think about it...if you have deprived yourself of proper nourishment for any given length of time, it's only natural that your body now is using every faculty of its powers to try and make you want to eat more and more, right? It's starving. It's deprived of vital nutrients. And so if physical fullness (due to the smallness of the shrunken stomach?) is getting in the way of its attempts at signalling you to eat more...well, I guess it's just going to try and use another method at getting you to eat more than you might actually want.

This is all going by what I have read myself online. My knowledge is a bit scattered and scanty but I know that much AND I know, deep down, that yep, I could eat more; more than even my meal plan which I have, for a few weeks now, been sticking to religiously every day. The physical fullness isn't so bad that I feel I am going to be sick and unable to move if I do give into these cravings or mental hunger. Nope. I could eat more. My biggest concern of all is the fact that these cravings seem particularly geared towards what some people might term as not being "proper" foods - I would never get them for things like fish and meat and stuff like that, essentially, but for things like toast and chocolate and peanut butter and cereal drowned in hot milk - and just to clarify, I am currently eating alot of these foods and have not restricted them for some time. But yet despite that, I would find it really difficult to eat a good portion of chicken, say, or a generously filled sandwich at lunch. But at breakfast I feel as if I could just eat and eat and eat and this also applies to snack times when I eat these sort of foods; and then of course after dinner, when I want nothing more than my banana and lashings of hot fresh custard with heaps of my favourite chocolate.

Ok. Onto the meal plan. I'll talk more about that one tomorrow. But for now I just will continue on. Biting the bullet and biting into the food which I know is my medicine. I need every single scrap and calorie I can get. And the essays are the essays. Are they going to determine my future health and well-being? Are they going to be the ultimate decider between life and death; the thing that determines whether I will be able to attain a functioning, healthy body; or whether I will remain underweight, infertile, severely brittle-boned for the rest of my life; unable to work or socialise or even think clearly without any difficulty? Well, Em? Are you going to screw up everything because of an essay? Or are you going to bite the bullet and take the plunge and...save yourself?

It's me and only me...

who has the power to save myself.

Emily Snelgrovehttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-83980461895041836842016-12-16T14:09:00.000-08:002016-12-16T14:09:32.948-08:00Relighting the candle.. :) xxxHello everyone. <3 xxx

It'stwenty past ten and I am sitting by the fire with Mam and Dad in the front sitting room here in Derryguile. The crackling of the fire accompanies the soft tapping of my fingers upon the laptop keys, while, down at my feet, Benny snores his way across the dewey grasslands of his dreams.

Twenty past ten and the night is still young, but the tiredness that bludgeons in my head makes it feel as if it were a whole lot later. Soon enough I will be joining Benny in my own dream landscape.

But I felt compelled to write a little before I head to my cosy little bed with the soft green coverlet and crumpled pillows. Because over the past few days, I really have rediscovered something which, in my second relapse, I thought that I might have lost forever, this time. That being my joy in, and love of, blogging. If you take a look at from whence I first started my blog, there have been a good few gaps before the most recent one. I don't think they were as significant as this one, though. College constituted one of the main reasons for my ceasing to blog; I could literally not sit and write a blog post, no matter how much I wanted to, without being consumed by anxiety about the work that I was not getting done". But that said, there was, of course, a big part of me too which was powerfully and intensely ashamed.

Ashamed that I had gone back on myself again; having come so far since my relapse last year. Ashamed that I had allowed my return to college to just turn into a repeat of last year. Ashamed, so deeply, palpably ashamed, of myself for being the weaker one again. I had let my blog, my readers, my loved ones down. The thought of that was enough to make me want to weep bitter tears upon my pillow every night.

And alongside all that, then there was also something...something else. That little voice, niggling away at me, again: Your blog is stupid and useless. Noone reads it; its of no use or help to anyone. You might as well just stop now, you imbecile!! Delete that pathetic excuse of a blog post; you have an essay to write!!

But yesterday, I made a decision of my own; pushing away that scornful, mocking Voice with its constant flow of criticisms and relentless stream of mocking taunts. No, ED: I am going to start blogging, again: Because I want to, and I feel, quite ardently, that there are things that I want to say and share with the world. I have a story to share and advice to give; it is only ED, i know, who wants me to remain entrapped within its crushing, suffocating silence. But no. It is time for the Ganache Elf to don her little apron once again. it is time for the real Emmy to dig out her dog-eared blog draft notebook and translate her thoughts to words once again
.
Blogging has helped me so much in my journey to recovery; and I know that it will continue to do so. I really hope that by sharing my experiences and insight that I will be able to help others in any stage of recovery; or indeed anyone who has ever been touched by a mental illness.
But now my eyelids are heavy with sleep and my beloved kitten mug is now vacant of hot chocolate. ;) so I am going to sign off for now and potter off to mo leaba; but before I do so I just wanted to thank you, every single one of you, who read my blog or left comments on a post; who thought of me and wished me well. I can't stress how much this means to me.

Thank you so much for helping me to find the path that I had lost,

And for helping me to reignite

That beautiful, golden, radiant little candle

which for so long remained hidden from me...

but which now I have found again, and set alight with unafraid hands.

That little candle that has a very simple little name.

Such a small little word

for something so incredibly powerful.

That candle is called hope.

Like the twinkly lights that shine upon the Christmas tree,

Hope throws off the darkness and fills my heart with its glow.

Good night everyone. xxx

This isn't our real fire - its the fake one we have in the dining room!! But I love the way daddy has adorned it with these gorgeous fairy lights. Just looking at it every evening is enough to give me that warm fuzzy feeling to the very tips of my toes. ;) xxx
Emily Snelgrovehttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-818853269977991862016-12-11T14:56:00.001-08:002016-12-11T14:58:54.243-08:00The Flames...
Wipe away those tears, Em. They aren't going to change anything.
They're not going to write this essay for you. They're not going to change the fact that you seem to have become a complete and utter imbecile...

A typical day in the life of Emmy, Trying to write her English essays.

So I stood up then and rubbed furiously at my cheeks, angrily chastising myself for letting those tears fall from my eyes. Then, I reread the sentence again, pulling my jumper tightly around me, gripping the soft material with my fingers. The words float around in my head, echoing mockingly; grating together like knives being scratched across a steel plate.

there's that queasy, all to familiar sensation bludgeoning in my head; the subtle reminder that yes, I have been here before. The past few years have been all but the same.

What is wrong with me?

Have I become completely...stupid? Inept?

 I almost feel like reaching out with trembling fingers to scratch those hateful words upon the screen with my very fingernails. Fingernails which are short and worn, on fingers with skin the texture of sandpaper. How I am ashamed of them. Just like I am of everything about my own body.

It seems like forever since I wrote in my beloved blog; though college, of course, did not permit me to do so for the past few weeks, months, of the latter part of 2016. After such a beautiful summer, autumn took on a more darker shade for me. I became weaker and started to restrict again, reestablishing a familiar pattern which seems to be set in motion every fall of every year.

But then, at long last, came the crucial moment of realisation.

Not sure exactly when and where this little moment actually happened. Perhaps it was when I was walking with mam and she said to me, very tenderly, that I was looking just "a bit too thin" again, and I saw the pain in her dark green eyes. Perhaps it was when we picked up our new rescue dog Daisy, four weeks ago, and I took her out on the bog with Benny for her very first walk. I called her by name and she ran to me, placing her head in my lap as I crouched down to enclose her in my arms; wanting her to know that she was now safe, and loved. Noone will harm you here, I whispered. But her big brown eyes were penetrating into my own, as if she, too, was trying to convey to me an unspoken message.

I know that, Emmy. But you have to be well enough to look after me.

Daisy

Daisy is right. I have to keep myself well, to look after her. She is a two year old, jet black collie cross; and is, as the saying goes, as mad as a hatter. Daisy will need lots of long walks. She loves having someone to run and play with, to throw her sticks and then chase after them with her. All things that I want more than anything else to do with her. And which I have been, over the past few weeks. She has already stolen my heart.

But if I were to choose to give up now - to relapse, wholly and completely - than I know all too well that my health and energy will fall, and shrivel, like the fallen winter leaves lying dead upon the cold, hard earth.

My osteoporosis will worsen. the slightest fall or trip might well break an arm, a wrist, a leg.

And this second - or maybe not second; my weight has gone up and down on the scales now for as long as I can remember - has taught me a vital lesson about a fear which Ed had for me established as an undeniable reality.

I realise now that my fears about my "damaged metabolism" were, after all, just that. Fears. All these convictions that I would not stop gaining and that once I was weight restored I would have to revert to restrictive amounts in order to maintain and stabilise my weight. They were lies. Nothing more. From this weight loss I have been able to establish a fact.

Fact:

I can eat what I want.

Yesterday evening I sat by the open fire in the sitting room, watching the golden orange flames leap and dance in the hearth. Transfixed by their beauty, I pushed myself slightly forwards. The delicious heat of those flames drew me ever nearer I stretched out my legs and wriggled my ice-cold toes. As I gently eased off my socks, though, intent upon feeling that warmth upon the bare skin of my feet, an icy shudder passed involuntarily through my body, brought on by what lay beneath the soft wool. Dry, cracked, broken skin; flaky to the touch, rubbed red raw on the edges of some of the toes. I hate my feet, I had whispered to myself despondently, and had swiftly pulled back on the socks, so my eyes could no longer look. They are ugly, so ugly. Just like the rest of my body...

But this is Ed. This is Ed and what he has done to me. One thing he cannot touch is my strength and power of resistance. One thing he cannot take away is my resolve to carry on, no matter how many times I may fall.

Though on the outside, in the eyes of the world I was a "healthy", normal girl...

They could not see what I hid behind my smile, behind my healthy, weight restored body.

And that thing which was inside me made me despise what I saw in the mirror.

The storm continues to build. The thunder roils, the clouds bunching together into one thick, inter-penetrable mass. The noise drowns out everything. I cannot think. I sit in class and I cannot hear what the lecturer is saying. I drift in and out of the conversation, a tiny bloodless smile fixed rigidly upon my lips. I don't really understand what is being said. Psychoanalysis. Koros. Something about linear and cyclical time in children's literature. The words float above my head like pollen grains suspended in a summer wind.

There is just so much... noise, in my head. A crashing cymbal and a raging thundercloud. A tornado which keeps on revolving and revolving, threatening to destroy everything in its path.

But though the storm may continue to rage, I know I have to continue to fight on, Despite that bitterly cold wind which cuts into me like a blade; despite that icy rain running in rivulets down my face.

I said I'd do it in 2016. I will make a full recovery. I'll find the real Emmy. Not some twisted, skeletal version of myself. Not a girl who feels like she is dying inside. I'll make it there in 2016. That;s what I said, this time last year, as I desperately fought to pull myself from the wreck of my first major relapse.

But those sentences by this time sound so familiar; because I know I have said them to myself several times before.
In 2014.
And 2015. And now it's the end of yet another year.

I know alot has changed, since this time last year...

But yet, at the same time, one crucial fact remains unaltered.

I am no freer than before..
 This will be my twelfth year, with Ed.

You might as well give up, Emmy, that voice whispers to me. Give up. So much easier. So much more simple. You know you'll never get there...

In a way I suppose, succumbing to that voice will be like drawing so close to those flames in the blazing fireplace, so close that my skin is set alight and I am consumed and completely destroyed by the flames...

As that is what Ed has the power to do, ultimately. Unless I consume the food that my body needs...it will, quite remorselessly, consume me.

Unless I break free. But yet this is the thing that I yearn for so desperately, at the same time..there is that part of me which remains terrified, which wants to remain subordinate to this malignant thing which resides inside my head. And so. Breaking free. It will be no less as painful as reaching out and closing my open hand around one of the bright and beautiful flames in the roaring fireplace; before then proceeding to crush it, crush the hot flame within my clenched fingers. It will burn. It will singe the skin to the very bone.The pain, the sheer terror, will be unlike anything that I have ever before known.But I know here lies the ultimate, defining decision. I can choose to let it win; or I can choose to extinguish it. To destroy that thing which will destroy me if I do not take action first.

Every day...

just need to remind myself...

that recovery, not college, is my new priority now.

I must feed myself and destroy this illness...

Not feed this illness and destroy myself.

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-44193369054138588012016-10-29T15:45:00.000-07:002016-10-29T15:45:10.478-07:00Back to Basics...The swallows flit across an lilac-peach sky.

The sunlight slants through a canopy of leaves the colour of candlelight.

Flowers fall and blossoms wilt. The branches of the slender-limbed hazel shudder gently in a chill breeze which cuts into the flesh like a knife.

The rowan and the hawthorn hold aloft their garlands of deep scarlet berries. Some of the berries lie crushed upon the face of the earth, shining wetly like droplets of fresh blood.

And though the whole world changed around me,
I still...
remained ...
the same.

It's been a while since I last wrote. Not out of choice, of course; I would never willingly just abandon my blog and cease my weekly writings. But that week two months ago, there was a sense of change in the air; hanging heavy like winter fog in front of my eyes.

And ahead of me, the new college term loomed ominously over my head like a threatening storm cloud upon a grey winter's day.

And so my Morokia notes were tenderly gathered up and put away in the depths of my wardrobe; whereas my various favourite "reading spots" - which ranged in location from the front seat of Mam's Nissan to the petal-strewn table at the rear end of the conservatory - became frequented, not with my dog-eared copies of the Wheel of Time, but with college books and endless piles of refill pad paper covered front to back in my messy, spidery handwriting. The beautiful, golden summer finally had come to an end.

And on a breezy morning in late September, I found myself standing before that familiar arch in Dublin City Centre, the wind tugging sharply at my long unadorned hair as I gazed upon the structure's stony regalness.

Back again. But I don't feel any different.

I'm still that little lost girl at the gates of Brigidine, watching all the people hurry past me, feeling; so hopelessly inadequate, stupid, inferior.

And as I walk these bustling halls and corridors, I have never felt quite so alone.

I sit in the classroom and listen to the chatter of the other students around me. But it feels to me as if I am perched upon the pinnacle of the most desolate, lonely mountain. A mountain from which I can clearly see the signs of human life below me. So close, but yet; so far.

The one companion that I know is here with me - who is waiting for me, at every corner which I turn - is Ed.

Ed was here the first day that I stepped through the Front Arch of Trinity. Ed's been here with me ever since. Sitting in a lecture hall, trying to study in the library; walking through the bustling arts block and trying to avoid every stranger's eyes. Ed is there with me, breathing down my neck. I can feel its hand upon my shoulder, turning me to where it wants me to go.

And this year, I know, is no different.

There are times when I want to be like those falling leaves...

To be blown away with the chill autumn wind, to float gently across windswept moor, to be swept into the surging river, to be carried away, forever...

But no. I know that that is my depression talking; that somewhere deep inside there is a little seed waiting for the light to shine upon it so it can grow. I need to realise that I am not a helpless case. I need to realise that I can nourish that seed, let it push itself upwards, and let it...blossom...

But how?
How do I do it??

Well. I guess it's back to basics...

To nourish myself. And to hell with getting upset about college work I cannot do. Normal reaction: I cry, I weep, I berate myself and label myself as an imbecile. And then? I don't eat properly. My head becomes clogged up with thoughts like I cannot eat that because I know I will just think and think about it excessively afterward and well you will be sitting in that lecture room for a good two hours..you must eat less to provide for that, Emmy. Cymbals, crashing in my head. What I would not give, for them to be silenced.

Ed. Yes. It's time I talked to you. I starved myself for the whole duration of my teenage years and beyond. Because of you, Ed. And now what do you do? You tell me that I need to keep on eating less. That your body no longer needs this food, because you reached a healthy weight, and -

I know it's me and only me who can fight this fight; who can defy and resist these endless, endless lies.

I know that I have to keep on fighting.

Stumbling blindly along this long and lonely road.

So I know that now I need to be open and honest and reach out for support to my loved ones and my readers. To stop avoiding the scales and face up to reality.

And to remind myself, once again...

of why I chose recovery; and why, I chose to fight.

And so this is exactly what I am going to do...

Get back onto my meal plan, properly, with no little missed bits or exceptions.

Check my weight once a week, no more, no less.

Make goals and weekly challenges in my notebook as I know I still have many fears to conquer and disordered behaviours to overcome.

Get involved with something not to do with college which I think I might enjoy..and which will enable me to meet and interact with other people..hard and scary but I know I need to get out of my comfort zone and I think too that it will help distract me from the anorexic thoughts.

Be open and honest and seek help and support.

Help myself by weekly journalling and self-checks, and try to use some of the tools which I learnt in hospital, but since then have long since completely forgotten about. But it's past time to dig out those tattered sheets and put them to good use.

I know I have said this so many, many times, but...it is the ultimate truth.

Each one of us will only be given one body.

This is the one and only body we will ever ever have.

It's not like an object which you use once and then dispose of. It's not an item of clothing which can be crudely fixed if it has been broken or badly damaged. The body is resilient and will do all it can to keep you alive. But there's only so much that it can take. There's only so much restriction and deprivement of vital energy and nutrition. There's only so much overexercise and starvation and lack of essential vitamins and nutrients. Sostop putting off what you need to start doing today. Today we choose recovery. Because there might well be no tomorrow for us. Tomorrow might just be that bit too late. <3 xxx

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-42433166978497405432016-09-17T11:24:00.001-07:002016-09-17T11:24:44.315-07:00Searching for that safe harbour...Up and down, up and down I go; like a bobbing little sailing boat in the middle of a cold, raging sea. One minute, it feels as if I have crested a wave: next minute, i come crashing down again.

Stormy is a perfect way to describe how I feel right now. My emotions roar through me with enough strength and power, it seems, to knock me clean off my feet into the raging waters which course to either side of me.

When I feel joy, it feels so palpable that I could almost reach the stars with my outstretched fingers if I wanted to. But when...when I feel pain...I feel as if I am being ripped apart like a piece of delicate paper. But this, I suppose, is what you call recovery. I reach a little high point; then, suddenly and horribly, am flung right back down to the earth again, landing hard upon the cold, unyielding ground. I know the drill. I have to get right back up again; wipe away the tears, dust myself off. And carry on.

I must not...
I must not lose sight...of that beautiful little light...

Yesterday, when I felt the depression-type thoughts begin to kick in - it was late at night; I had had no contact from anyone I knew; the perfect combination, in my case, for the feelings of bleakness and despair which are more or less familiar to me now - I picked up my polka dot notebook, sat down uin my little chair and had a good, long think. About...about numerous things. About the shape my recovery has taken the past few months; and what, essentially, I have to do to brighten that beautiful little light.

Many weeks have passed now, since the day when I weighed myself and realized that I was "weight restored". Nearly two months, roughly; or maybe just one and a half. How long it has been is really of little consequence. That is not going to be the subject of this blog post; but rather, what has happened, since that day.

And also before we proceed any further, just to say that it is fully intentional that I inserted the quotation marks on the final two words of my first sentence. The reason being that I felt that I needed to remind myself - andj, of course, my readers too - of the actual importance of understanding what that word means. Weight restored. Taken to refer to that state of when an individual has reached an apparently acceptable healthy body weight. But does it indicate actual healthiness? Should it be regarded as the ultimate goal of the recovering anorexic; the final milestone upon the road, upon which having arrived at they would be ale to call themselves healthy?

I answer my own question with conviction, as I am all too aware of what the truth of this subject really is. The answer uis No, it does not. Weight restored does not at all necessarily mean that youi are healthy, in either body OR mind. And I - as well as so many others, I am sure - have allowed themselves to be lured into a false sense of security, that the minimum healthy bmi range is what we should FORCE ourselves to stay at.

So yes, I know it is true that there are some individuals who do have naturally low bmis. Buit it's a rare thing, so I have read. For the vast majority of people, the low bmi range is still much too low.

Do not make the mistake and think that I, in writing this post, have successfully managed to take on this scientifically proven theory in relation to my own weight and bmi. Truth is, I have not. Rather, I know it is true - as I do many things in regard to anorexia - but one thing that my Voice most certainly excels in is convincing me that what is right and true for "most" people uis by no means applicable to me. A size 10 looks nice on any other woman, Emmy, but most certainly not on you. Its ok for everyone else to eat like that, Em, but if you do you will most certainly get fat. Most people have a healthy weight range higher than bmi of 19, Emmy, but you are an exception to that. 19 is just that bit too high for you, I think.

And so the lies go on and on. Problem is, of course, that I allow myself to believe them. And today I thought that it was about time that I sat and reflected about the extent to which my progress since reaching weight restoration stage has been controlled and affected by these lies.

Meal Plan

When I reached the target weight mam had set for me, I immediately expressed to her how worried I was about "How I should eat now." Having dedicatedly followed my meal plan for the past five months and not having ever had to worry abouit what and how to eat - all I had to do was stick to the plan; after all; there was no uncertainty; no indecision - this sudden actuality of NOT having to follow a plan anymore was, to me, more than just a little frightening. My mam calmed me down and advised me to keep on eating as I had been. "We need to make sure you maintain first," she had said. "And anyway, it is not going to do you any harm at all to gain just a bit more, Em. Your body might not have reached it's healthy set point yet." Initially, I had felt soothed by her words. Determined. Yes. Who could say, i had thought, that I was at a healthy weight yet? Whatever happened, I would not let mam down. I would continue to eat as I had been before, and we would thus see what happened.

The first two weeks afterward were easy enough. I felt motivated and my appetite was still as good as ever; I stuck to my plan just as I had bbeen since than day in February. But then, slowly but surely, my motivation began to creep away from me. Niggling doubts began to creep into my brain; doubts which were really, of course, the Voices of ED in disguise. I began to question my diet and my food intake again. Was it really right that I ate so much bread? Toast at breakfast; half a bagel with my nuts and mid morning hot chocolate; a roll at lunchtime followed by a toasted crumpet inthe afternoon. Wait, Em, the sly voice whispered. There must be a reason why the media are always slamming bread? Why do you think your mum does not eat bread anymore? I think it best that you cut down, just in case.

That was the fuirst thing that I really changed, that week. A few other little alterations happily established themselves; changes so tiny and minute that I and only I could have noticed them. The contented dipping into the peanut butter jar became more controlled and more regimented; the amount of cereal I ate uin the morning; my servings of carbs at dinner. Tiny, minute changes. But my question - to all of you now - is that should I be concerned about them? Or are these dietary changes all good and acceptable;completely normal for a weight-restored twenty two year old girl?

Weight

Me and mam both agreed that we we were going to try and move away from the scales and the weekly weigh ins on reaching my target; so the Sunday checkups were accordingly dispensed with. A massive part of me was delighted, of course. I hated those weigh ins and the feelings of anxiety and self-disgust that always accompanied them, whether I had maintained or gained that particular week. But to my surprise, when I heard mam say the long -awaited words - no more Sunday weigh ins, Em! - the sense of relief I felt was small, barely noticeable. It was mainly overruled by the strong feeling of fear that coursed through me, right then. If there are to be no more weigh ins..then how will you know if you gain more weight? What if you go over the target??

But..the thing is... I told myself that I would allow myself to get to my healthy set point, and if this meant gaining more weight, I would do it. But of course, as with so many parts of recovery, this is easier said then done. And I am afraid, so so afraid, to let go of this rigid self-control which my eating disorder imposed on me so long ago, and which, of course, still lingers with me now.

At present I am still unaware of what my weight is, still. There is one voice which is screaming at me that I must go and check it - I bet you have gained more weight!! I bet you have gone over your target, you..! - whereas another part of me is too afraid to go and look. But I will need to know, eventually. Truth is I don't know what to expect when I step on the hated thing again.

Feelings and emotions

I would love to say that I have felt better in myself since reaching the target weight, but the reality is of course that things were never going to be that simple. And, unfortunately, having worked so hard to get to this place, my Voice is now as loud as ever before, hurling insults at me every day about how "awful" I look now that I am weight restored. And worse.

I suppose it is a measure of my own strength that I have managed, so far anyway, to not let the Voice effect me drastically and induce me to turn back to anorexic behaviors.

But I feel...trapped, and, at times, completely devoid of hope. I want to go on, but I do not know how to. I sat and thought, and I did cry, a little, too, because I just want this to be over. I want there to be a magic button there beside me which I an reach out and press, and then I would fall asleep and wake up...and I would be...I would be recovered...

But is this an impossible dream..?

All I can do is..try to keep going..and use all that I have to try and get through the next few days, weeks, months. Years. How long am I going to feel like this? Is there no end to this pain?

How do I reach the safe harbour?

Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-4252306255652481387.post-87374663916690185502016-09-12T15:07:00.000-07:002016-09-12T15:07:19.769-07:00The Little Light in the Darkness...I knew it would never be easy. I knew, that this path was going to be a hard one. The hardest journey that I ever will make. But never did I anticipate just how...how dark this road was going to be. Especially at this exact place: the place after weight restoration.

I often liken the recovery journey to a scramble up a long and lonely mountain. And that is what it is; to me. But halfway up that mountain, the path winds into an impossibly dark chasm. A chasm which I have no choice but to step into, stretching out my fingers as I try to feel the way. I cannot see here; I might as well be completely blind. There is no way of telling what lies ahead of me, or what traps and holes might open up beneath my feet.

That glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Sometime it winks mockingly ahead of me, the faintest speck in the blackness of this cavern. But then, as I start towards it desperately, it winkles out and ceases to exist. I know it is out there somewhere, beyond the pitchblack darkness; but I have no idea how I will get to it; just how exactly I am going to proceed.

Because this is truly what they call blind faith. Walking a tightrope with your eyes closed, precariously balanced with your hands thrown out to either side. A thin little leaf clinging to its twig, which with every puff of wind is almost cast off and blown away. I feel fragile, vulnerable, unprotected. And, above all, I am more afraid than I have ever been in my entire life.

So easy to turn back now; turn back, and try and flee from whence I came. Back to that familiar, seemingly comfortable place behind me.

But that was the place which almost killed me...

And then I know that I have to go on.

And so I step into that chasm and then I close my eyes. because with my eyes open I can see the darkness, trying to close all around me. But in my mind's eye I can paint a completely duifferent picture: images which glow with soft, golden colours. Colours which serve to warm the very blood in my veins.

These images are simple enough; to anyone else who might have seen them at the time that my eyes did. But, to me, they are more beautiful than the sparkling stars of a clear winter night sky; more precious than the most priceless of gemstones in the vastest of treasure hordes. And their beauty and value have caused them to be forever inscribed to my heart; never ever to fade or be taken away. And this darkness cannot touch them.They shine like stars; they glitter like diamonds. But stars and diamonds, to me, are worthless in comparison to what these images contain.

These little images show people as well as words. There is my mam enveloping me in a hug, that very first day when I set out on my battle against my eating disorder. Here are the words of the comments of my readers on the day of my previouis blog post; when I felt like I was drowning in despair; that because of the way that Ed has broken so much of what I had, life appeared so empty and broken and hopeless. There is the memory of I and my best friend, screaming our lungs out as the Cú Chulainn rollercoaster, having reached the crest of 105 m, plunges down towards the ground at the speed of a plummeting stone.

And so I let these images fill me with strength. Because they remind me that I am not alone; that I was not, that I never will be, alone along this long and difficult path through the chasm.I know that this is my battle; one that I and I alone can fight. They cannot carry me; they cannot fight for me. But I know that they are there beside me. I know that they will help to guide me towards that beautiful glimmer of light.

That little light in the darkness is just there in the distance now; seemingly so small, so far away, so distant. But this time I will not cry out. I can dance through this darkness now if I want to, spinning and gliding over all those holes and pitfalls. Ed need not touch me, or catch me. He might try to take hold of my hand and lure me to join him in his own seductive dance. A dance which I know the steps all too well now; a dance which I have trodden before, in the certainty that I could not cross this darkness on my own, to step my own way.

And before I knew it Ed was spinning me to his own tune again. A tune which led me right back down, back through the tunnel, to that familiar, familiar place...

But I know that, deep down inside me, there lies the strength and the courage to to break completely away from you...

And so I step lightly forwards into the darkness, letting the love that radiates from those images pulsate through the blood in my veins. And in the distance I see the little light in the darkness ahead of me. At times its brightness dims and winks out; at times it might appear a million miles away; like some beautiful faraway star suspended in the vast infinity of the heavens. But though the stars of our galaxy may not always be visible to me, I know that they are never truly gone. Just like my little light in the darkness.

And I know that if i keep on believing - that if I never allow myself to lose hope - that one day I will find my way to that shining star. That I will reach the end of this dark and lonely road; and step into the beautiful valley, where soft grasses and sweet wildflowers do grow.

Thank you so much for always being there for me..I mean every word of what I wrote here..your words fill me with strength and hope and give me the courage to strive on with this fight <3 xxx
Emily Snelgrovehttps://firstname.lastname@example.com