Day 2

Weight: 172.0 

Intake:

 Apple & Strawberry puree -- 70 kcal

Ella's Kitchen peaches + bananas -- 75 kcal

Ella's Kitchen bananas + coconuts -- 177 kcal

Kettle Salted Veg Crisps -- 410 kcal

Barbecue-maple whole grain crisps -- 190 kcal

2 slices seeded brown bread toasted -- 192 kcal 

Tub of houmous -- 450 kcal

Fanta Orange -- 96 kcal

Total: 1660 kcal

Going vegan (again) / life updates

Day 1

Intake:

Fine-milled oats, soya milk, walnuts, honey* -- 250 kcal

Innocent orange-mango-pineapple smoothie -- 100 kcal

Lemonade, fresh -- 60 kcal

1 cup white rice, cooked -- 551 kcal

Soy sauce, sriracha -- 30 kcal

Spinach -- 15 kcal

1 avocado -- 180 kcal

Amy's Organic Low-Fat Lentil Soup -- 288 kcal

Hipp Organic Simply Apples applesauce w/ cinnamon -- 63 kcal

1 tbsp peanut butter -- 90 kcal

Total: 1573 kcal

( *Not strictly vegan, but there are worse crimes, and I was out of maple syrup )

The last week has been awful, truly, the absolute depths of chronic and relentless depression. My mother posed the question: is it time to consider hospital? I hate worrying my family more than anything. Truth is, I haven't been able to leave the house in almost eight days. My degree's finished, my dissertation got handed in, but I find it impossible to look forward to the future. Frankly, I'm terrified, and it's making me unwell. My life, my mind and the way I cope (or don't cope) with stress has made me unwell. I've pretty much ceased to function normally. I've been put on 5mg Cipralex, due to increase to 10 after 3 weeks, and today marks the end of week 1 on this drug. Trust me, I really fought and did everything in my power not to revert to anti-depressants, but the situation's got so bad that I didn't know what else to do. It was between that and continuing to have anxiety attacks in my own home.

The anxiety's mildly better, but depression has gotten much worse. I've been picking my face (does anyone else do this? I've heard it's a mild strain of OCD that usually goes hand in hand with general anxiety issues and depression, so it wouldn't surprise me if I wasn't the only one). I gained some weight, getting back up to 178 at the worst, but now I'm back down to ~173, which is marginally better (although still not ideal). The skin picking started again when I had major panic attacks around 2 weeks ago, and I've got the same blemishes I did back then, as they haven't healed. I hate that I do this - it just makes everything worse - and prevents me from going outside even more - but it's a symptom more than anything else.

I asked myself the question today: What am I doing to make this better? I couldn't answer truthfully that I'd tried doing anything, beyond starting the new meds. Part of me feels like I'm beyond trying to "empower" myself at this point, due to the extent of the depression - hence the question of hospital. But my mum put it in this way over the phone, she said, "If you go inpatient, you will be around people much worse than you. People who have tried over and over again to commit suicide, and will keep trying, even when they're in hospital. People who have severe mental health issues much worse than yours - and you'll be pumped full of drugs - do you really want that?" My answer, definitively, was "Fuck no". As bad as I feel, experience tells me that this is temporary, and that it too will pass. I'm waking up every day. I'm showering, eating consistently, I'm not bingeing or starving myself, I'm taking minimal exercise but I still get dressed and go out at least for a cigarette. I'm not hallucinating, I'm not psychotically depressed, I haven't and I don't want to die. In earnest, the problem is the opposite. I want to live, and I'm aware this isn't living. Nowhere near.

I couldn't stop crying, and I hung up the phone before making a few decisions. I'm nowhere near well enough to consider applying for jobs right now, but that doesn't stop me trying to regain some sense of normality. I was normal once, I can normal again. I just have to stop thinking there's no middle ground between the pinnacle of health and happiness, and feeling absolutely fucked day-in day-out.

One decision I made is that I need to go back to veganism, at least for now - initially that decision came from the knowledge that if nothing else, it'll help heal my skin quicker. Counting calories recently got me down to the 160s, but it's unsustainable. When I eat vegan it encourages me to look at things holistically - it's somewhat of a keystone habit. Being vegan makes me want to eat less junk, makes me want to stop messing with my skin, start exercising. Another decision: I looked at my trainers in the hall yesterday and thought, why am I not trying to go for night-time runs? So I feel fucking self conscious leaving the house during the day, and anxious about encountering other people. But that doesn't stop me from taking my recommended 10,000 steps at night in the form of a run. So I'm going to try that - doesn't mean I'll succeed immediately, but since I'm housebound, doing zero physical activity and spending half the day in bed, even ten minutes here and there would help.  

It breaks my heart that I'm breaking my mum's heart, and even if I can't bring myself to get better for me right now, I have to at least try to get better for her. She feels helpless, I can hear it in her voice. Anyway, my lease ends on July 10, or roundabout, so I have the whole of June to do this. And I will not give in to the pressure coming from my dad's side about finding work this month. Honestly, I love him too, but he doesn't understand the same way my mum does and he thinks I'm doing this to myself. Maybe I am, but if I am, it's not something I've been able to help. Therapy tomorrow, hopefully I feel "good enough" to go so I can talk all this through. I'm gonna end this post here, felt good to get some of it down so I'll try to continue the habit.

Tonight: 175 pounds. The past few days felt like new depths of depression.

It's funny, I feel like she has no idea how much damage she's done.

One big long f*cking rant.

Fuck it, I'll just say it: I'm horrendously depressed. I spent the entire day crying, eating, crying, eating and then crying some more. The good news is I finally managed to go through those books, at least enough of them to amass 2,500 words of quotes.

The bad news is that I'm fat, spotty, borderline considering going back on antidepressants. It took me so fucking long to come off them that going back on the stuff is the last thing I want to do, and I want to try to wait this out to see if there's an alternative solution which doesn't involve entering the Sertraline Spiral for the 3rd time in 2 years. But, admitting I've heavily considered re-medicating myself over these past few days is the only way to accurately sum up just how awful it's been.

I weighed in at 171.6 this afternoon when I woke up (yes, you read that correctly, afternoon). I've been picking my face out of anxiety and I look a complete mess. It seems I can only stay afloat emotionally for a night or two, before it all catches up with me again and I end up back in the place I was 10 days ago: wishing that she'd call, to check I'm okay, and wounded that she hasn't; simultaneously, livid at everything she's done, and wishing I could just be unborn from how terrible this feels, and binge-eating carbs in front of Netflix.

Binge-eating, face-picking, crying, not being able to concentrate: it's all anger turned inwards. In fact it was my mum, and then L.T. who originally enlightened me by telling me virtually all of my depression was anger turned inwards. I know that the only way to move on from this is to get this anger out of my system so I can concentrate on my work, because I refuse to let someone ruin my chances like this. At the same time, what outlet do I possibly have for my anger? And how can I get it out productively? My mum suggested I write a long letter or email, just to let it out, but I don't want to have to voluntarily contact L ever again. She's hurt me too much. I was made additionally angry by the fact that today I learnt she's been trying to go through my sister, texting her and asking how I am. She also sent the most stupid fucking message saying she figured I was finding life "so much easier" without her around. Why can't she just write to me directly? To even dare to write that my life has been anything remotely resembling "easy" since last week is the biggest injustice out. This has been one of the hardest times I've had to go through in my entire university experience, and I'm STILL going through it, WITHOUT her. I can't even go into detail about how upset and mad this makes me, honestly. And I've never felt so abandoned in my life. She's a coward, she won't accept responsibility for a thing she's done. I've told my sister how unhappy I am, but it doesn't matter to an extent what information she chooses to pass onto L when L's primary mission is to remain blameless. If my sister tells L the truth, which is that I've been suicidally depressed and dysfunctional, seriously considering medication again for the first time in six months, and unable to work, L will find ways to convince herself it's not her problem. As someone who historically buckles under pressure and emotionally detaches automatically in response to any kind of perceived threat, L would take this as further incentive not to reach out. If my sister remains vague on the information she chooses to transfer, L can continue to eschew responsibility and escape the reality of what she's done by denying herself the ability to imagine a worst-case scenario. Equally, if my sister only scratches the surface in presenting an image of me as merely sad, rather than devastated, L can remain ignorant and keep lying to herself that it's not as bad as it really is.

More than anything, I think it's loathsome of her to text my sister, and not me. On one hand, learning this news was fortunate for me: it only served to re-confirm how puerile her argumentation is. And re-confirm that she's a child. A child who can't grasp anything real.

Tomorrow, there will be cleaning, more crying, and probably pizza. But after Tuesday, it's going to be ten straight days of restricting, (hopefully) in the form of a juice/coffee/soup fast, and non-stop, OCD-level dissertation work. I will go into town every day to get lunch in the form of either a green juice or iced coffee, and I will stock up on cup-a-soups and the occasional ramen. I will vow not to weigh myself until after those 10 days are up. I will vow to be an automaton freak until the end of the dissertation, on the 15 May. Then I will weigh myself, gather my courage, and start to mend myself somehow. And apply for post-graduate jobs. Hopefully whilst a little thinner, braver, and bolder than before.

Day 2/3

Breakfast/Lunch:
- Had half of the Cocio, 1 pain au chocolat, a plum and half of the cheese.

Snack at the library:
- A Sprite, sunbites + a roll of fruit pastilles (vending machine life...)

Dinner:
- 4 Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages + black lentils w/ tomato, feta, parsley, onions

Total: ~1900 calories

So yesterday wasn't exactly low-cal, but this afternoon I weigh 169.8 again, ie. back in the safe zone.

Mummy is coming up on Sunday to keep me company for a couple of days. I really need it. It'll mean having to wake up early af, but you know what, I need to stop sleeping in until lunch time. I need a routine. I have two effing weeks until my dissertation is due for hand-in, I have to get my stuff sorted out. No more fucking around! Yesterday I hauled fourteen freaking heavy hardback books back from the library, and I had to pay a £22 fine in order to take them out in the first place, so you know... I need to actually make that debt worth it and go through those books.

Today I've had 2 pain au chocolats, an Actimel and about a litre of water. I've done virtually nothing, besides binge-watch Gossip Girl and knit. Don't know what's up with my lack of focus lately. oh unless you're counting what happened last Wednesday. But we're not going to talk about that again until this degree is actually finished for sanity's sake.

Going to get a drink with JM tomorrow potentially. I went over to his house last Sunday, it was nice to remind myself I do actually still have some friends. I told him everything that had happened with L, he was amazingly supportive. Also, an old friend of JG is still hanging around town, and wants to see me. Because his name starts with another "J", I'll call him Jed for distinguishing purposes (forgive me, it's been a while since I've blogged about my life to the extent of having to find anonyms for the people in it). I didn't want to give the wrong idea by hanging out with Jed last year because I was sleeping with JG, but seeing as it's been literally a year since I heard from that boy, I'm going to say that potentially it's fine to go on a date with Jed in May. If it is a date. I mean Jesus, I'm getting presumptuous. Maybe he just wants to hang out as friends. Just to throw the question out there: is someone into you if they mention they wanted to ask you to a lecture on sixties cinema on campus, when they don't even attend your university? God knows I can't read signals anymore. Especially not from 25 year old guys.

The GNBGT159QSP (Great No-Binge Get-To-159-Quicksmart Plan) | Day 1

Excuse the ridiculous title of this post; my attempt at humour. But seriously. I have re-affirmed my goals. I want to reach 159 by the time I leave university, which is freakishly close. The date I leave isn't entirely set in stone, but it's going to be around June/July (dissertation in by May, lease over by June earliest). And then of course there's graduation, but we're not thinking about that yet. (Hello, agoraphobia, my old friend...).

Weight this morning was unspeakable. But, as predicted, well above the acceptable mark.

Intake (haven't done one of these in a while, excuse guestimates):

B/L:
- Lemon croissant (250)
- Orange juice (80)
- Fruit salad (Plum (30) Watermelon (10) Mango (10))
- Cheese (150)
(NB: by the time I was done with the above I was too full to have the cocoa; my waistline will thank me later.)

S:
- Black coffee, courtesy of L.T.* (0)

D:
- 2 bacon sandwiches (660)
- Sunbites (120)
- Lemon slice (130)
- Respectably-sized glass of malbec (??who cares)

T: ~1440

Not the lowest, but best I've done in a while.

Starting to heal, slowly. I've finally stopped crying: I think (I know I said this in my last post, but L.T. this evening saw the last few tears. I hope.) It's going to take a while. But, I'm done with the self-destructive shit. I want to be. I'm ready to stop wanting to hurt myself. Time to start giving a damn about my appearance and life again, it's been far too long investing in someone else's.

* L.T. here stands for Lovely Therapist. He really is. More than anything he understands my need for caffeine.

The end of an era

Time to roll out of the bed I've made and get my shit together. I'm sick of being depressed - over L, over my own life - and dysfunctional. I am getting my life back starting tomorrow. It's the end of an era and I need to mourn it and move on. She doesn't care about me anymore, so it's time for me to stop caring too, and stop hurting myself over it.

I haven't been able to stick to any plans, obviously. I don't even know what a "plan" looks like anymore. At least I've stopped crying, but instead, I've been watching TV all day, drinking wine and binge eating toast and butter every evening on top of normal meals.

Tonight I weigh 174.4, after weighing 169 this morning. I'll be in the 170s tomorrow, and I'll hate myself for it. This has to end. Now.

I don't want to diet, I just want the weight gone. What I know is I want to lose 10 pounds, fast. I don't know how, but I have to find a way. Ugh.

Screaming through my fingers at 5 a.m

This week has been the fucking week from hell and the absolute pinnacle of loneliness. Things went from bad to worse with L. I haven't told the whole story on here, because it's tedious, but things have been going south for months. Actually, it's been downhill for longer than I can remember, but I have this funny way of convincing myself things are going fine when they're really not. On Wednesday I ended it properly, and ever since, I've been pretty much exclusively on the floor. Crying hysterically. When not on the floor I've been in bed, eating ice cream. It's been horrendous.

I haven't felt depressed like this in so long that I forgot how it feels to actually want to curl up and die. I feel like I've lost my best friend, my girlfriend, my entire life. It should never have dragged out this long. When I look back, I realise I've been in pain for an entire year, but she didn't have the guts to cut me off properly. It's been constant rejection since she left last summer, and it's gone on long enough. I don't have the energy to go into any more detail, but maybe by starting to put it down here, I can start to heal myself and move on.

And you know what? I'm going to get fucking thin.

I haven't been sticking to my sleeping routine I established before this all happened, aka, I can't sleep because I'm so unhappy. I'm considering drinking again, after not really having a drop for five months, because I'm so unhappy and I don't want to feel like this anymore. But I really don't want to give in to alcohol again. Anything's better than that. I can do it without booze. I can do it without completely numbing myself out.

I binged tonight, crying my eyes out at the kitchen table, unable to move. I pushed myself through an entire bag of doritos, an entire bag of popcorn, half a tub of strawberry Haagen-Dazs, and most of a pack of sweets. I had to resist the urge to move onto the loaf of white bread and slab of cheddar I'd bought earlier today (a trip to the shops was the only incentive I could find to leave the house). This was all, inevitably, on top of the large dinner I'd had, and breakfast. I don't really "do" lunch these days.

I believe in set points. I believe in changing them, I believe that I've changed mine and I can keep lowering it through persistent gradual conditioning. My weight doesn't easily push above 170 these days, through months of conditioning the number to stay down. It's a miracle, but not one I should take for granted. I certainly don't feel like testing out what happens if I keep eating like I did today. The urge to stick my fingers down my throat has never been so hard to resist. Thankfully, I just popped a Nytol instead (pills always preferable to alcohol, these days), put on Gossip Girl (because the mindless sluttiness of it was miraculously enough to stop me from crying and stuffing my face) and made a hot water bottle. Self-indulgence is where it ends - I refuse to plummet back into self-destruction.

And, funnily enough, I don't see the aforementioned plan of getting fucking thin as self-destructive. You know what? I deserve to look good. Looking good, looking my best, will make me feel more than I do now, which is a piece of worthless shit because of her. Not being valued by someone for a year makes you feel like you have no value. I need to gain back my own good opinion.

Tonight was a binge, so I won't be surprised to see 169 or even (ugh) 170 tomorrow. It's also 5a.m., so I probably won't wake up until the afternoon. I hope I don't. I don't even want to weigh myself tomorrow, but I know I will. I've virtually forgotten how to diet, so I'll try to make some plan when I get up. All I know is that I need to stop eating doritos and ice cream. That shit is not going to mend me.

Contra mundum

Sooo... the last few days have felt like, "Hello Darkness my old friend". Get ready for TMI.

So. Thursday night equalled bingeing like I hadn't done in what felt like literally over a year. For the past week I've been steadily maintaining 168-169 lbs on the scales every afternoon (same time, same place, always before eating anything) which actually I've been pretty happy with. Anything below 170 (the official mark where I hit "overweight" for my height) is a bonus. Anything below 169 is a double bonus, because 169 always feels like I'm teetering precariously on the edge of something. Anyway. I binged last night like I hadn't done in ages, I think in part, because I know my mum is coming up this weekend (and although I love her completely, stressful situations or at the very least feelings of tension on my end always seem to occur when we are together). Add to that, and here's the "tmi" part - I haven't gone to the bathroom (yeah in that way) for three f*cking days now. As I've said, I don't really do this whole binge/starve cycle anymore, at least nowhere near the extent I used to, so these issues with digestion don't really occur anymore like they used to either. I remember going weeks without sh*tting as a restrictive-b/p eating disordered teenager. I mean literally, weeks. There's everything this blog catalogues, then there's all the stuff before that too. There's the endless cycles of fasting, gorging, laxative-taking, alcohol abuse and everything in between. Well, safe to say, I don't do that anymore, at least not as general practice, which is often something I commonly overlook until times like these - when I realise just how effed up my system must have been back then (and hopefully, how it must be at least slightly better now).

Anyway, as I was saying: not going to the bathroom in 3 fucking days really wreaks havoc on your mental state as well as your physical state (and I am still horrified that I have all this food sitting inside me - 3 days' worth, excluding what must be equivalent to an extra 3000 from that fucking binge) . It's like, worrying and being anxious about not having gone is making my body shut down even more. To make matters worse, I can't attempt any sort of detoxification over the coming weekend on account of my mother coming to stay. (To any newcomers: that here means, crisps and wine.)

And it's times like these, actually, - ironically - where I end up actually re-considering a dalliance with old tricks. A voice, perhaps the dormant, largely undisturbed voice of my past eating disorder, creeps in to impart its medieval wisdom once again. And suddenly I am scouring the internet for bulk-supply laxative pills, ones I can order so I don't have to appear in public doing the dirty deed.

I'm not planning on buying laxatives - but the brief glimpse of "174" on the scales tonight, at 1a.m., is enough to send my mind reeling, and I feel giddy with fear, contempt, and self-loathing. I hate myself once again and welcome those thoughts back, and they curl up next to me in bed as they used to, and life goes on as it should. Me - and it - contra mundum.

Binge. Binge binge binge. For the first time in MONTHS.

Ugh.

Lurpak O.D.

Oscillating between 167 and 169, and as such, blogging hasn't seemed particularly "worthwhile". I've been trying to bash out work for a deadline, but my brain just hasn't been working properly. Aghh, frustrating times. The one highlight was my breakfast today. It was very French. (And might I add, unusually indulgent - I do not normally try this hard)

I have been allowing myself a bit of cheese and butter the past couple of days, more for variety than anything else (oats and potatoes can get f*cking boring sometimes) but I have to admit that following a month of strict veganism, having a binge on crackers and Lurpak late at night really throws your system out of whack. If you know what I mean. So yeah I don't think I'll be doing that again for a while. Plus: something else I wanted to mention in a previous blog post. I don't know if I'm only just experiencing this now I'm off Sertraline, but with veganism it seems like while instantaneous weight loss isn't guaranteed (when is it ever with me), it's certainly hard to put on weight unintentionally. Meaning, over the course of the last month, having kept to a (mostly, bar the occasional dollop of pesto) vegan diet, I haven't really had to try that hard to drop from the ~172 I've been maintaining for almost a year to the weight I'm at now, (~168). It seems like real challenge is keeping weight off when you're consuming cheese and milk on a regular basis, and I don't fancy sticking around long enough to see if that theory takes shape. So, moral of the story: cheese and milk is okay sometimes, but not every day. It's like an extra obstructive force. Maybe. I feel like I'm not making any sense. I'm very tired.

More than anything, I am craving variety, hence the uncharacteristic 2-day dairy overdose. I'm so ready to go to Wagamama's and get a huge bowl of steamed veggie noodle soup... or something along those lines. But I literally have zero money. Meh. I think I might actually have to go and do that really soon though. I want FLAVOUR.

Life is really boring at the moment and so are these updates. I'm not really "trying hard" at anything right now, just getting through the days. After tomorrow I'll have a little time free to focus on losing weight again, in a (hopefully) positive and constructive way... It's a whole thing I want to get into, but just haven't had the time to process or write about it much. I WANT to think about it more, not in an I-hate-myself kind of way, but in a way of, I want to have a goal again. It was tough but it made me feel alive. I feel like *some* progress has been made (I'm no longer in the 170s, meaning I'm no longer technically overweight) but without the various obstacles in the way I really want to push a little harder. No more crackers and lurpak, I think I need to seriously knuckle down and work hard to get the rest of the weight off that I gained these past 2 years. It's about time, seriously.

Watch this space x

167, thoughts

I'm 167.8 today. L visited over the weekend, yet I somehow managed to still lose weight. She left today before I woke, and when I finally came round, drowsy and fuzzy-eyed after lunch time, I realised I was alone again.

I don't want to be alone over Easter. :( But I guess I'm going to be, unless my mama comes to spend some time with me. I hope she does, but it can also be stressful sometimes. I have so many little annoying rituals and quirks and things that sometimes I think only L can put up with - the incessant worrying, dips and spikes in mood, random bursts of euphoria, long sleeping hours, constant counting and fidgeting and ticcing, an itching to stay up late at night writing my life out through my fingertips...

You know, it's funny, in my last post I talked about how I'd "stopped centering my entire life around losing weight", that it was "no longer the centre focus of my entire existence". Okay, that's true. Food, and the number on the scales, is not something that has the propensity to make me suicidally depressed anymore. But maybe that's because I'm not technically overweight anymore, and over Christmas, weighing anywhere between 174 and 180 on my father's bathroom scales, I was constantly anxious about it: consciously dieting, limiting myself only to the raw whole foods section of Whole Foods, eating stupidly extravagant salads I couldn't afford in an attempt to slim down, and actively trying, not for the first year in my life, to avoid overeating on Christmas day for fear of what the scale would say the next day. The scales are still an instrument with which I cannot break the addiction. I weigh myself every day, same time. If I don't, I start feeling out of control. Yes, it's not the worst kind of addiction, but an addiction nonetheless. I don't know other women who weigh themselves every day like this, but maybe it's because it's not something women go around telling each other. Maybe it really is a point of shame, no less shameful than obsessively checking nutrition labels at supermarkets, or the compulsive covering of blemishes with a concealer stick before each exiting of one's own home. A small, protective measure that helps you feel just a little more in control, even if it's merely the illusion of control.

But I'm 167 today, the lowest I've been since last summer. Funny how such a small incremental change in weight can trigger all sorts of old associations. 167 means something very different from 170, 172, 174. 167 is a different "era" altogether. I wonder if I can keep it up.

I'm still very conscious of food. Nowadays it tends to be more about amounts, rather than caloric value, if there's even a difference. I can eat "regular food". I eat pasta, potatoes, bread in a way I really couldn't before, as long as I'm not uncomfortable with the amount. I feel anxious about getting in enough fruit and veg, and I try to make these the focuses of my day. I'm not afraid of fats, and I'll cook in oil, but I can't eat a giant plate of low-calorie vegetables, simply because it feels like far too much. I like to leave more on my plate these days. I prefer the act of cooking and making food to the act of eating it.

Losing weight once again, begs the question: will I have to start re-exercising a muscle that up until this point has remained, for the most part, almost completely dormant? Will I have to start actually, actively, obsessing again? I don't want to be a weirdo about food. I don't want food to have anything to do with me. I want it to be a distracted concept. I want to appear to others as someone who really doesn't think about food at all. When I look at it this way, it completely makes sense to me that I've been actively resisting the urge to lose weight up until this point, for the very real fear I might "turn obsessive" again. Being fat isn't fun, but it provides a certain sense of calm in knowing you don't have to think about these things in the capacity you used to. It's really nice to just not give a flying fuck about food. Thinking about food is utterly exhausting and can ruin your life. But being fat and not having the confidence to wear, do, be what you want is even more exhausting, and that's why I'm blogging again. I have the hindsight and maturity to recognise that at 5'9", 150 pounds is not overweight. Equally, I have the experience to recognise that 180 is a place I never want to find myself in again. It's all about finding a happy medium. That's what this is about.

I don't have a "goal weight", particularly. Maybe I want to lose 10 or 15 pounds. But moreover, I want to set myself up to have a good experience once I leave this university bubble. I don't want my weight to be a source of depression or anxiety anymore. I want to focus on other things. Creativity, building a social life, working hard. I want to be someone who casually maintains their weight through healthy eating and exercise, not someone who angrily fixates on numbers and unattainable goals and calorie-counting. Maybe "casual" isn't a term I'll ever truly be able to apply to any aspect of my character, but it makes for a nice goal, and that's something at least.

I still exist (just about)

I started this blog almost 6 years ago, when I was 18 years old and still in school. I weighed 146 pounds. I lived in London; my world was pretty small.

I'm returning to this blog at 23. I weigh, as of this afternoon, 168 pounds, but that number feels fairly irrelevant to my existence. In three months I will be finishing my university degree, and I will move back to London, as a virtual stranger, in the hopes of starting the rest of my life.

I'm blogging again not because I think anyone will listen (will you? Are any of you still there?) but because I am alone, lonely, still figuring it out. I tried to journal but it's not the same. This blog remains a safe space, I never stopped thinking about it really. It doesn't feel like regression to return. Things are different now, but in many ways, they're still kinda the same. I still have a desire to type my entire life into a void.      

Updates since the last time I posted:

-I stopped centering my entire life around losing weight. I just couldn't anymore, I didn't have time, and my body didn't seem to respond to any of the trials I was putting it through. While it's no longer the centre focus of my entire existence, and I wouldn't say I have an eating disorder or even "disordered eating" anymore, it still preoccupies a part of my brain significant enough to want to start blogging again.

-I came off Sertraline (Zoloft) at Christmas, and I haven't gone back on it so far. I'm hoping I can stay off anti-depressants long enough to see if they really did have an impact on my weight. I think they did; I also think (hope) I can stay off them and find other ways of controlling/boosting my mood. I'm still in therapy, as I have been for almost 2 years, but that soon will end too, once I graduate. That's another bridge, I guess, which I'll cross when I come to it. For now, therapy, ADHD meds, not drinking, and working hard at things I enjoy seem to be (almost) enough. For later... we'll see.

-I have a gym membership, but I haven't been since January. I'm also broke, more broke than I've ever been, which probably means I should either quit that membership, or start moving my ass to the gym more. The latter seems like a better option. I also bought a cheap yoga mat recently, which I hope is conducive to like... yoga and things. I'm trying to be "healthy" these days.

-I'm trying (sort of) to write a book. (Again we'll see how the fuck that one goes. Watch this space.)

-I don't have a job, and I need to get one of those really soon

-I don't have a social life, hence why I haven't had a drink in almost 4 months... again, one of these would help (a social life, not a drink)

-I went vegetarian a month ago, and by vegetarian I mean mostly vegan, with the occasional Quorn product thrown in there. It helps me control things a little, plus I've never felt right eating meat since I first went veggie as a teenager. I'm yet to see if this has an impact on my weight, which it must have already in some infinitesimal capacity as I was 175 over xmas and these days I rarely weigh higher than 170/171.

So that's it. I don't know what else to tell you currently... but we'll see how it goes. I hope blogging can become some kind of stability/support system for me again, it definitely was before. Anyway. I digress. Please reach out. Gonna finish drinking my mango smoothie now, and clean the entire house, hooray

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