Bless her, she is trying so very hard to help me
I go to see her week in week out having made precious little progress
I've been seeing her for over a year now and the only thing that's changed is my weight
My eating, my frame of mind and my behaviours are still so disordered
I have great intentions when I am with her
Every week I vow to make a better effort
To try harder
But the minute I walk outside her office all my motivation evaporates
Carried away with the wind
This week she asks me how I would feel about weighing myself at home instead of her weighing me
The thought of this strikes fear in to my heart but I said I would try
So I spent all weekend trying to psych myself up to do it
The thought of weighing myself makes my heart flutter with anxiety
You would think after all these years of being weighed by the professionals that it would get easier
But if anything it gets harder
Those little numbers have so much power over me
The number goes down and I sky rocket in to euphoria
The number goes up and I spiral down in to a black hole of depression
They dictate my mood, my self esteem and my self worth
I hate that
I finally mustered up the courage to weigh on Saturday night
I had a safe number in my head
Anything above that I just couldn't handle
I removed my clothes shivering as the cold air hit my skin
Carefully I stepped on to the scale and held my breath
I peeped out from behind my hands
The number was lower than I thought
Thank freakin' Christ
You've probably noticed that I don't reveal my weight here
I used to when I first started blogging but I stopped
I'm not sure why
Maybe I don't want to be defined by a number
Maybe I'm ashamed of the number
Maybe I don't want to write the number down because then that would make it real
I've been thinking a lot this week about how my eating disorder started
Even though I only became aware of it when I was 19, when I look back I can see that it really started when I was a child
As a child I loved my food
Really loved it
And it wasn't junk food I loved, it was proper food like meat and veg and potatoes
I remember people used to say to me 'Ruby you have such a great appetite, you're such a good eater'
I hated hearing this
It made me feel greedy
I wanted to be a petite, delicate eater
Recently I found a card that I made for my parents when I was about 7 or 8
It said 'Dear mam and dad, thank you for all the lovely dinners you make me, love from Ruby'
I kid you not
As a young teenager I was very active
I was in the local swimming club and also did ballet and jazz
I remember being in ballet class and scrutinizing my body in the mirror
At one point my ballet teacher expressed concern that I was losing too much weight
I was secretly delighted
At 16 I gave up swimming and dancing and started to rebel
I began to dabble in drugs and at 18 became addicted to heroin
Heroin made me really sick and so to make myself feel better I started to make myself throw up
Eureka!
I thought I had found a loophole
A way to eat and not put on weight
It became my new addiction
I lost a lot of weight very quickly while on drugs
But that was to be expected
I remember looking forward to not eating
I used to stay in my boyfriends house while using and then go home to my mothers house for a couple of days to re charge my batteries for another round
There was never any food in my boyfriends house
Every precious penny went on drugs
Drug addicts are skinny for a reason
Food just isn't a priority when you're strung out
If I was down to my last 10 euros you could bet your life that I would spend it on drugs rather than food
When I went home the presses were always full of food
I felt so hungry but so overwhelmed at the prospect of all this food
I didn't know where to start
I was so hungry that I binged
And then the feelings of guilt and greed would kick in
I felt desperately ashamed of the food I had just eaten
I was a glutton
I thought about the other addicts out in my boyfriends house
They had no food and I did
That felt so wrong
I took on the responsibility of feeding these people and used to bring bags of food out to the house
I began to associate food with guilt and shame
I couldn't eat and enjoy food the way I used to
Ever since then my relationship with food has been completely disordered
It ceased to become fuel and became either a reward or a punishment
I long to be feel free to eat what I want without consequence
Will that day ever come?
I hope so
I truly hope so
When did your problems with food begin?
