I hate thinking of titles.

I made a mistake in yesterdays post. I said something I didn't mean, well actually, I'm not entirely sure on whether I do or don't mean it. "I don't want to recover"

That is, for the most part, a lie. I do want to recover, I don't want these illnesses to define me anymore. I want to be able to eat nice food with good company and not care about the calories or who's watching. I want to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. I want to step on the scales and not care what the number says, actually, I don't want to find it necessary to step on the scales at all. I want to accept my body and be comfortable in my skin. I want to enjoy food, I want to think about something other than my next meal or my weight. I want my life back. I want to be recovered.

I can't do it alone though. I'm lucky because I have an amazing friend who supports me as much as she can and is literally always there when I need her and I'm lucky that the youth workers where I live have been fabulous. There's only so much they can do though and there's a lot they don't understand and there's only so many times you can cry for help before you become a burden.

I want to be recovered but the professionals don't want to help me. CAMHS were rubbish and basically gave up, the next referral to them was passed on to adult mental health. Their soultion was anti-depressants and other referrals, different doctors sames drugs same dose no success, an appointment with the door wide open for everyone to hear the ins and outs of my mental health. Referrals rejected because I'm too fat. A phone call to IAPT who said they couldn't help. The 'home treatment team' who didn't turn up to my appointment, cancelled others but were the ones to yell at me down the phone. The crisis team who were quite frankly appalling. More pending referrals... I don't want to recover because I don't want to carry on going through this long painful process of spilling my life story to every stranger I meet just to be let down again. I don't want to recover because I don't think anyone can help. I cant recover because I clearly don't deserve the help. This has been part of my life for too long that I can't imagine what life would be like without it, I can't remember what life was like before it. All I know is that if i'd of had the proper help to begin with maybe life would be different, maybe I'd believe there is life without this.

I can't completely blame the mental health services but I can blame them for making me give up with recovery all together.

Havent got a clue

My posts all seem the same these days. South Africa and anorexia. For that I apologize but they currently both are taking up a lot of my brain space. So here I am again counting down the days and counting the calories that enter my body. Thinking about what I need to take and even more so, how I'm going to lose weight before i get there.

There is always internal conflict inside my head at the moment of which is more important to me. Losing weight and liking my body, making myself happy. Or 'recovering' hating my body and gaining (or maintaining) weight, making others happy.

I know if I continue on this path of self destruction suddenly having to eat 3 meals a day without exercising willy-nilly might just push me over the edge. But at the same time gaining weight before the holiday of a life time might do that quicker. I preach recovery but don't want to recover.

It's now 24 days until I go and my mental health is quickly becoming less.. healthy. I want to pretend that I'm in control of this and that by the time I go away everything will be back to 'normal' but what if it isn't?  What if I get to another goal weight and I'm still not thin enough?

I apologize that nothing I say makes sense anymore.

are my eyes broken?

I have worked so hard to try and lose weight the healthy way, exercise and food as opposed to exercise and oxygen. Trying to get to a body I don't mind being in. Getting to a 'goal weight' and still not being satisfied. I do not see a difference between my current weight and my highest weight. The numbers are different, my clothes size was different the way people treated me was different but I do not see a difference.

I've been trying to hard to do it the 'healthy' way but that still displeases people. I'm not a fan of hugs because I don't want people to feel how fat I am. Yet the rare occasion someone gives me a hug i'm told i'm 'too skinny' or that they can 'feel my bones'. But I don't see it.

I could sit and stare at myself for hours, tracing the rolls of fat on my stomach and watching my thighs expand as I stare. And it's hard because when I try to talk about how I feel about my body to people I get dismissed, laughed at, "if you're fat what does they make me?" "it's all in your head" nobody take's me seriously. They don't get it. It's lonely when they don't understand.

I hate it when people say stuff along the lines of 'You've got too skinny' or 'You look like you've lost weight' and even 'Have you been making yourself sick?!' I don't look any different and while they might say it to try and make me briefly happy it just feels like i'm being lied to, then i find it difficult to trust anything that person says..

But, are they lying to me or are my eyes just broken? 

internal monologue.

I leave for Africa in 36 days. 51,840 minutes. 3,110,400 seconds. 864 hours. In that time I will attend college 5 times, spend 20 days at work, go on one trip to Gardeners World Live and go for a jog maybe, twice?

While I sit here trawling the internet on various clothing websites trying to find clothes and swimming costumes to take with me my heart breaks. I click on the 'swimwear' section and stare at the teeny-tiny models with incy-wincy waists. "Why don't I look like that?"  Perhaps I'll sleep instead of go into any pools at buffelspoort... Bikinis that show off my flabby stomach and swimming costumes that still don't hide the layers of blubber that covers my body just aren't for me.

But I still need clothes that I'm not going to boil in while in the African sun.. Skirts, shorts, dresses... I find several that I like, being modeled on match-stick legs with a gap the size of a car separating their thighs. "They're nice, but only if my legs looked like that" I stare at my thighs in the reflection of the mirror. It's normal for thighs to touch but when it's my body it's repulsive. My thighs are wide and keep getting wider. Perhaps I'll wear pajamas the whole time.

It's hard to look forward to things when you don't like how you look. Don't get me wrong, I am super-duper excited to go to Africa I've never been this excited for anything, ever. But the insecurities and anxieties are already beginning to bubble inside of me. Whatifnobodylikesme, theyareallgoingtolaughatmebecauseimfat, howamigoingtogetawaywithnoteating, imgoingtobetheugliestpersonthere,iamfatfatfatfatfatfatfat, illnevergetskinnyin36days...

What's more important to me recovery or a 'bikini body'?