Tullan Strand

In an effort to cheer myself up
My Mother, my sister and I and of course Honey and Lea
Went for a walk this morning on Tullan Strand
There were loads of surfers there today
And Honey stole one of their bottles of water
I didn't realize until we were half way down the beach
And by that stage she had it pretty mangled
Anyway here is some photographic evidence.......

Honey the thief

All the little dots in the water are surfers

Ugly

I'm really struggling with my body image at the moment
I was due to post a clothes post today
My last one
But when I saw the photos
I couldn't bring myself to post them
I don't look like myself any more
I don't recognize myself
My cheeks are full
My face is moon like
My things resemble tree trunks
Every part of me is huge and grotesque

It's really quite distressing
And it's not just my body
I used to feel relatively ok about my face
I knew that I was no great beauty
Or anything like it
But my face was bearable
I could tolerate it
But now
Well
I feel positively ugly
And can't quite stand to look at myself in the mirror

It's just really horrible to feel this way
And  to say that I felt more comfortable in my body when I was drastically underweight is scary
At least then there was less of me
Less of the ugliness
Now I feel like I take up so much space
I feel like I am well over weight
It's making life difficult
I have gone through many periods over the last week, where I didn't eat for a prolonged period of time
I fasted because I want to lose weight
And I feel the urge to do that again today
I hate to say that
But it's the truth

Not even all my lovely new clothes make me feel better
They are now a reminder that I am a bigger size
I don't want this post to be all feeling sorry for myself
But I have to be honest about where I am in relation to body image
Showers are an ordeal
Washing my body
I feel all the lumps and bumps and curves
It can be really upsetting
I feel embarrassed
I feel ashamed
I feel guilty
Guilty for eating
Guilty for beginning to recover
Ashamed that I can't even do that right
My ED tells me that I am a failure
That I am an anorectic mind in a healthy persons body
An imposter
My ED tells me that I need to lose X pounds
I see thin and pretty girls every where I go
And I feel like a heffalump beside them

I know they say that real beauty is on the inside
That the body is just a vessel
That all the things that matter are beneath the surface of the skin
I know that at heart
I am a good person
I try to be the best person I can be
And that my body is just a shell that carries the real person
But that is no comfort to me right now
Right now all I can see is flesh
And curves
And roundness
And more flesh

I guess maybe that is part of the reason that I was buying so many new clothes
To try and make myself look half decent
And that worked
Albeit for half an hour
I just wish that I knew how to make the best of myself
I wish I knew how to dress my new body
How to apply make up
And do my hair
I have no earthly idea how to do these things
I never went through that phase
I want to feel good about myself
I want to look in the mirror and not want to cry
I'm not asking to look like a supermodel
I just want to feel secure
And confident
Is that too much to ask?

I know that I am still on the middle of a transition
I know that my weight and shape will settle down
I just need to be patient
I need to be kind to myself
Be gentle with myself
Instead of berating and insulting myself in my own head
The urge to use ED behaviours is massive
Not to eat
To exercise
To slip back in to old patterns
It would be so easy
I have to keep giving myself pep talks
Talk myself out of going down that road again
It's just hard
It's really f**king hard

I hate being so wrapped up in my own stuff
My very own brand of navel-gazing
But I don't just wax lyrical
This stuff is effecting my life
And confidence
And my mental health
I crave escape
I want to sleep so long that I wake up thin
I think about the oblivion of drugs
But of course that comes at a price
And I am not willing to pay that price any more

Bulimia still blights my life
I can't seem to let it go
It seems that this is as good as it gets for me right now
This is as much as I can handle
I'm just to tired of fighting
Fighting all day every day
Fighting against my ED
Against my addiction
Against my instinct to escape
My urge to disappear
I'm fighting against the huge urge to check out of this planet
To leave this mess behind once and for all
I'm just so tired

Can anyone relate to this?
Has anyone gone through this?
How did you get through it?

Tattoo or not to tattoo

I've been toying with the idea of getting a tattoo
Or a piercing in my chin
I tend to be very impulsive with these things
When I went to Australia first in 2006
We were staying Carirns for a few days
I really wanted to get my chin pierced
But my Mother and sister talked me out of it
In case anything went wrong
It could ruin the rest of my holiday

And again recently
I had a huge urge to get a piercing
So I went in to a local shop where they usually have a piercing service
Unfortunately they no longer had a piercing service
So I took it as a sign not to get pierced that day
And didn't think about it again until now

My friends recently got a beautiful flower winding around her foreman
I love it
And it gives me the itch to get one too
I myself have no tattoos at all
My ex boyfriend's older brother used to tattoo
But he wasn't a professional
He just set up shop in his bedroom
And he was a total scumbag so there was no way I was letting him near me

I know many people with tattoos
I have seen some really amazing ones
But I have also seen some unfortunate ones
So I have been hesitant to commit to one
Ironically it is my impulsiveness that has stopped me from getting tattooed
I know that I do things on a whim
And can regret them
So I have deliberately stopped myself

I've thought about getting tattooed over the years
But I could never settle on a design
Obviously I want to get something that means something to me
I want to illustrate an important time in my life
A time I want to etch that time in colour and design on my body
I love wings on shoulders
Like this




Or else I would like to get some words that mean something to me
I don't know yet
I am undecided
But I will keep you updated

I was wondering about you
Where do you stand on tattoos?
Do you love them?
Hate them?
Do you have any?
I'd love to know......

Over the years (Trigger Warning!)

I found a collection of photos on my laptop that I haven't seen in years
It seems that I used to change my hair
As often as my weight changed
So I thought I would share some with you
Most of them are not very becoming or flattering
I just wanted to take you on a little tour of my past
So here goes........

Long brown hair phase

Asleep in Croatia
Short brown hair

Croatia
Short brown hair
Highest weight ever

Long red hair
Weight - stable at healthy weight

Hair short and red
Weight - Low

Barcelona
Weight - Very low
Hair - short and red

Clothes Post # 8

Ok
I really need to reign myself in on the spending money on line front
As much as I do need new clothes
Not at the rate that I am going
My bedroom is bursting at the seams with clothes
Of every possible size and shape
My set of drawers has literally buckled this week
With the weight of all the clothes that I am trying to fit into it
So this is my last clothes post
For a while
Or at least until the January sales

By the way
I hate my face
My stomach
My thighs
I hate it all

Dark grey snood - Superdry
Black wind cheater
Grey patterend leggings - Superdry

Girls

As you know
This time last year
I was in treatment
I went in at the end of October
I came home for Christmas
And went back in early January
And as you also know
Treatment did not work for me
If anything
I got worse
So I came back home
With my tail between my legs
Broken and defeated

But it wasn't a waste of time
It never is
Even though I have never completed the programme
I have also got something out of being there
And I met the most amazing people
One of whom I meet regularly
As she lives in the next town
And others who I am in contact with too

So that brings me to today's topic
I got a text from one of these girls during the week
Asking me if I wanted to meet up before Christmas
There would be four of us in all meeting up
I thought there would be 5
But apparently she has made it clear that she doesn't want to stay in contact with anyone
Her loss

So yes
There is four of us
I guess we would just meet up for a few hours
Go for coffee
Maybe lunch
I am so looking forward to seeing the girls
But there is a part of me
That little part still governed by my eating disorder
That is telling me not to go
Because I am too fat
Because none of my friends will recognize me
Because I don't deserve to have fun

When we were in treatment
I was the thinnest out of our group
Now I am probably the biggest
That's a hard pill to swallow
And I can't lie
There is the temptation to go on a crash diet and lose 10 pounds before we meet up
But I know that is ridiculous

One of the girls who I am meeting, reads this blog sometimes
So she knows that I have gained weight
She has seen the photos
She sent me a text not to worry about having gained weight
And that she was nothing but happy for me
So that made me feel a little better

And the thing is
If I saw that the other girls had gained weight
I would be truly delighted for them
I wouldn't think less of them
Or judge them
And I know them well enough to know that they won't judge me
Whatever I look like

Being on contact with these girls
Brings back a lot of memories
These girls played an integral part in my story
I spent all day every day with these girls
Attended group with them
Ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with them
Laughed with them
Cried with them
Walked laps of the ground with them
The saw me at my very worst
And now they will get to see me at my best
And that is nothing short of a miracle

So I will go
I will go to Dublin
I will meet my friends
I will drink tea with them
Reminisce with them
Talk about the good times
And the bad times
And everything in between

Photoshopped

I'm not a big magazine reader
I tend not to be that interested in celebrities and their shenanigans
But I know there are a lot of kids out there
That read these magazines
That look up to these celebrities
And try to emulate their style
And want to use the same products
Photoshopping seems to be rampant these days
A slang term that is used to describe any image that has been digitally altered or manipulated
And boy do the magazines and ads like to use it

I guess we have all been there
Looked at a photos of a celebrity or model in a magazine
And literally wanted to be them and look like them
Their flawless and radiant skin
Perfectly coiffed hair
Endlessly long legs
Not a stretch mark or blemish in sight
It can be really depressing
And we inevitably compare ourselves
We for get that these images are photoshopped
Changed
Manipulated to within an inch of their lives

This image is pretty famous
There is just no way, no how that the proportions of this girls body can be real
Look at her legs
He waist
Her teeny tiny arms
And we are supposed to emulate this?
It's physically impossible
Both photos are of the same woman
With 50 pounds shaved off the first photo






In 1989
Oprah Winfrey graced the cover of TV Guide
This was before there was photoshop
So photos had to be manipulated the old fashioned was
Oprah's head was pasted on to Anne Margaret's body
Without either of their permission






This photo of Kate Winslet was taken in 2009
She was outraged when British GQ slimmed her down without her permission
Apart from the fact that Kate appreciates her own natural body
You can actually see her real reflection in the mirror behind her
Rookie mistake




In March 2009
A mistakenly unretouched version of this Kim Kardashian photograph appeared on the Complex magazine web site
When it was replaced by the retouched version later on
There was uproar




In 2011 Rolling Stone published this vamped up version of Katie Perry's photograph
Here they seem to have smoothed her skin
And increased her bust size
But to me this photo doesn't look a whole lot different
And I don't see why they had to photoshop it
She looks amazing before she was retouched






In 2005 Dove launched their campaign for their firming lotions
The campaign was fronted by ads with 'real' women of various sizes, shapes and ethnicities
In order to 'change the way society views beauty'
And to 'provoke discussion and debate ' about public perceptions of beauty
The campaign was sullied when a prominent photo retoucher told The New Yorker about about the challenges if doctoring the women to make them look real but no unattractive
Public outcry did much damage to the ads




These are just some of the images that have made the headlines over the years
It seems that us girls are expected to be perfect
And real bodies are not acceptable
Perfection is the goal
And it's am impossible goal

What do you think about photoshopping?