The beautiful ones

 Up until recently 

I was weighing every day

It was always the first thing I did in the morning

Pee

Strip

And stand on the scales 

Holding my breath as if the air in my lungs would effect the number 

I'd squeeze my eyes shut

And peep through my fingers to see my fate

I have numbers that are acceptable

Numbers that are unacceptable 

Safe numbers

Unsafe numbers

My weight tends to stay within the same five pounds

Tends to be lower in the middle of the month

And higher when I get my period

Just a quick note about periods

I didn't get mine for ten years when I was very ill

It's only in the last few months that my period has come back

Anyway

In recent weeks 

I have stopped weighing so much

As it just drives me nuts

The number on the scales dictates my mood for the whole day 

It really has the power to ruin my day

The number goes  up and I spiral in to black hole of depression

The number goes down and I sky rocket in to euphoria

But in reality

No matter what the number

My ED is never happy 

Never ever 

So I've decided to go by how I feel

And how I look

Rather than what the scale says

And I feel pretty ok

I feel steady and grounded and stable

For the most part

I feel ok in my body

Yes there are things that I would like to change

I would love to be more toned and fit

But being in my body is tolerable 

I can live with it

I've accepted that I will never be a supermodel 

Or one of the beautiful people

You know who they are

They're the ones with shiny silky hair

All tousled and messy like they've just got  out of bed

They have long, lean and tanned limbs

Perfect skin

Trendy clothes

And it all looks utterly effortless 

I on the other hand

Am not beautiful 

I'm average at best

My hair is frizzy

My skin is dry

I try to dress well

But it doesn't always work out the way I want it do

My body is flabby 

And it was even worse before I had a tan

I guess I could be improved 

By a team of stylists and make up artists

Maybe then I could be something approaching pretty

But I don't have the energy, inclination or money to do that

So I just try and make the best of what I have got 

I think the most attractive quality in someone is  confidence

You can have a beautiful face

High fashion clothes 

An expensive hair cut 

But it all means nothing 

If confidence is absent 

I don't have a whole lot of confidence 

In fact 

It's pretty non existent 

I guess I am faking it until I make it

I was wondering about you

How is your confidence? 

Does confidence come easy to you?

Or are you like me and struggle a lot?

What has helped build your confidence?

Tuesday

I saw Breda this morning 

I was dreading having to tell her about what I did last Thursday

I was not looking forward to admitting what I had done

And in the end

I didn't 

I didn't tell her 

I just couldn't find the words

Couldn't stand another person knowing what I have done 

I think I've told enough people

I've spoken about it at meetings

Spoken to friends about it 

My sister 

I really don't think in need to tell everyone  I meet

I will speak to Mary when I see her on Thursday 

As she knows about my shoplifting past

And I won't have to do a whole load of explaining

At first

I thought I would have to hide at home

And avoid going in to town

To avoid the shop where it happened 

And the shop I was caught outside of

And anywhere else where people might know

But I decided against it

And have been going about my business as usual 

I've past the shop itself numerous times

I'm just doing what I usually do

If people know they know

There is nothing I can do about that now

I am undecided about whether to post the letter I wrote

I still have it 

But my gut instinct is not to send it

So I'm not going to

For the moment anyway

Last Thursday really shook me

I've been reliving it ever since

Beating myself up

Putting myself down

Trying to find a way to go back in time and undo it

But of course I can't 

I chose to steal from that shop

So now I have to deal with the consequences

I do acknowledge that it could have been a whole lot worse

I could be sitting in a jail cell right now 

Could have been reported in the local paper

I am eternally grateful to that girl for not calling the cops 

I don't know why she didn't 

But I am so glad she didn't 

As I write last week

All I can do is learn from this

And move on 

I have to let it go

Before I drive myself insane

I have to forgive myself 

And use this as ammunition never to do that again

If nothing but that happens 

At least something came out of all of this

I spoke to Breda about other things 

She asked me if my methadone has been reduced recently

I told her it had been

About a month ago 

She wondered if it will be reduced again soon

I wasn't sure

But to be honest 

I hope not

The less I am on

The more of reality I have to deal with

And I don't want to deal with it

It doesn't make sense really

My reality is not that bad

I live in a nice house 

With nice people

I have an amazingly strong and supportive family around me

I have a small but close circle of friends

I have Honey and Lea who mean so much to me

I have you lovely ladies 

A roof over my head

Food in my fridge

Clothes in my wardrobe

I have a lot more than some people

Abd yet

I still want to escape

Switch off

Opt out

Check off the planet 

And I do so every chance I get

I don't understand it at all

I know that I don't deal with my feelings very well 

And my head isn't always a nice place to be

I think my base level mood 

Is lower than most people

In that my usual mood tends to be on the low side 

I have a perpensity to be negative

My thoughts race

I would never speak to another person the way I talk to myself 

I am horrible to myself

My thoughts run around my head on a loop

And I go from zero to suicidal in seconds 

So the temptation to medicate myself and my feelings is strong 

I know I need to sort out my meds before it is reduced even more

I need to get stable

And to do that I need to cooperate with my doctor and Breda 

It's just so hard to tell them

But I know I have to

I feel like I have made a real mess of things recently

I need to get back on track

Before it all falls down around me 

Because I don't know how much more I can take 

Before I snap 

Tell me why I don't like Mondays

Title taken from the popular Boom Town Rats song

In fact I do like Mondays 

It may even be my favourite day of the week

Let me explain

As you know

Monday is doctor day

Which means I've had no meds since Saturday 

As greedy guts addict over here overused on a couple of occasions

Sunday is a long day with no meds

No little sleeps to break up the day

No chance to opt out 

Or check off the planet for a while

By Monday morning

I can feel the withdrawal setting in

I can feel it in my bones

The yawning starts 

Why it always starts with yawning I do not know

There must be a reason 

But I don't know what it is

Then my nose and eyes start to run 

Usually I have my meds before it gets any worse

God forbid would it get any worse

So I made my way in the my doctor today

My usual doctor is away for a couple of weeks

So I got to see Nice Woman Doctor

Who I really like

She calls me in to her room

Big smile on her face

I settle on the seat

She tells me I look well

I balk at hearing this

As I always do

But manners prevail 

And I smile and thank her

She asks me how life is

The first thing that pops in to my head is the incident last Thursday

But I decide that she doesn't need to know that

And I tell her life is good

That I am starting a course in september

She asks me if its good to have my sister home

She knows my sister as she sees her too

I tell her it is 

Which is true

She also asks me if I am still blogging

I tell her I am 

Touched that she remembered 

She carefully writes my scripts

I thank her 

And leave

I go and collect my meds

Then go to meet my mum who is walking the dogs

I get to my car

And take my daily dose

Determined to get back on track

And take them properly

I know I need to get this under control

I have spoken to Mary about it in the past

And she has told my doctor

Who then put me on daily dispensing

That works 

As I have no temptation in the house

So when I have a weak moment

There are no meds to take

But he usually only leaves me on DD for a couple of weeks

And then it's back to normal

Getting weekly dispensing

I know I need to get this under control

Especially if I want to start my course

And stay clean and sober

As right now

I don't really think I can claim I am clean and sober 

Being clean sober means not using mind altering substances 

Living in reality

Living life on life's terms

Not using meds or dugs to escape feelings 

Being compos  mentis 

And I am definitely not doing that

In my defence 

These meds are prescribed

And I am supposed to take them

But in reality I am not supposed to take a double or triple dose

Hell even a single dose is too much sometimes 

It does not a clean and sober life make

I've stopped telling the professionals that I abuse my meds

I don't really see the point anymore

I talk about it at meetings from time to time

But in reality

I don't know if I want to stop

Despite being ok with the way things are

I have taken steps to help myself

Last week I called in to my local dog kennels and groomers

To see if they had any work going for the summer

Disappointingly they couldn't take me on due to high insurance costs

So I tried the pizzeria I used to work in

He said he would ring me if anything came up

And he seemed glad that I called in

So hopefully that will work out

I  think having a bit more structure in my day will help with the addiction side of things

At least I hope it will

Time is going so fast at the moment

The weeks just seem to fly by

As does my life 

If I am not careful 

I will wake up an old woman

And my life will be over 

I guess I need to find a passion

Outside of writing and blogging

I don't have a lot of hobbies

But I am so grateful to have blogging in my life

Three years later and I enjoy it more than ever 

I write every day

It may not always be riveting stuff

But it's part of my daily routine

Blogging has saved my life 

And my sanity over and over again

It's been such a force for good in my life 

I don't know where I would be without it

and you special ladies

So thank you for that

I was wondering about you

How long have you been blogging?

Why did you start?

How does it benefit you?

Serenity

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Every time I begin to lose my head

Every time I think I am going to crack up

Everytime I think I can't stand being in my own head

Or my own body

I stop

Deep breathes

Gather my thoughts 

And say this prayer

It gives me a couple of seconds to regroup

To collect my thoughts 

And remind myself of these words

I don't know where I would be without my supports 

My family 

My friends 

My meetings 

My higher power 

My dogs 

Mary

My doctor

Breda

You lovely ladies

It's a collective effort

Everyone does their bit to help

I know that I can't do this alone

What helps you get through the day?

The ugly truth

I tried writing a post about something else earlier

But 

In truth 

My thoughts are still consumed with what happened on Thursday 

I still can't quite believe that it happened 

And how close I came to really getting in to trouble with the law

It still feels like a bad dream

Like I'm going to wake up any minute now

But unfortunately 

It did happen

And there's nothing I can do to change that

I had been in hiding since Thursday

Only venturing out to go to my meetings

But today

I decided to bite the bullet

And head in to the town where it happened 

I shit you not

I was so nervous

Every person I passed

I wondered if they knew what I had done 

I was paranoid to the hilt 

Thinking I could hear whispers of 

There she is 

That's her 

That's the girl that was caught shoplifting

But I really wanted to face my demons

And I brought my dogs for their usual hour long walk

I even went in to the shop where the shop owner stopped me

No comments were passed 

But then it was weekend staff that were on

And the only thing the shop assistant said to me was asking me if I'd been away as I had a great colour

I left the shop

And decided to go to the leisure centre to use the sun bed

That meant that I had to walk through the hotel that was right beside the shop where it happened 

I walked quickly

Wanting to get in and out as fast as possible

My heart started to thump when I saw a girl with blonde hair exit the hotel

For a second I was sure it was her

But when I looked closer 

It wasn't her

I breathed a sigh of relief

And continued in to the hotel 

It sucks that I can't go in to that shop anymore

As it was my favourite shop

And I buy things in there quite often

But now I am effectively barred

And that is not a nice feeling

As I wrote yesterday

I had written the shop owner a letter

I haven't sent it in to the shop yet

As I think I am going to re write it

To explain in a bit more detail

As you know 

I have struggled massively with shoplifting over the years

It's tied up in my ED 

First it was food

Then clothes and other items 

In all the years I was doing it

I was never once caught

Up until now that is

I remember being in treatment

And other girls talking about their shoplifting 

I was so glad that I wasn't the only one

As I had come to the conclusion that I was a bad person

Who did bad things

I also remember being at a meeting a long time ago

A woman shared that she had been caught shoplifting the previous day

And was feeling really ashamed

The girl who shared after her told her that it was a blessing in disguise

Because now she would never do that again

It's a lesson hard learned 

I have well and truly learned my lesson

I was shopping today

And sometimes I would skip something in to my bag

Well not today

And never again

I will never forget that feeling of someone tipping me on the back and saying 'Excuse me, did you take something?'

I never want to go through that again

I still don't know the damage I've done

I don't know how many people that girl has told 

I don't know how blackened my name is

I guess time will tell

Even though I feel huge shame about what I did

There was never a question in my mind that I would share this experience with my readers

My blog is all about telling the ugly truth of what it's like to live with an ED and addiction

And everything that goes with that

It was easy writing that post on Thursday

I mean who wants to admit that they were caught stealing?

I didn't go it so it would make for interesting reading 

I didn't do it because I have no money

I did it because part of me is still very unwell

Because my thinking and behaviours can still be very disordered 

I know I have a long way to go

And a lot of work still to do 

I am a flawed individual

Very flawed 

I make mistakes on a daily basis 

I fuck up regularly 

But I know that

Deep down

In my heart

And in my soul 

That I am not a bad person 

And it's not my intention to hurt anyone

I would much rather hurt myself that anyone else

I try to be a good person 

I really do

I love my family and friends to pieces

Am fiercely loyal

And would do anything for them

However sometimes

Against my better judgement 

I do stupid things

Really stupid things

I guess the trick is to learn from these mistakes

Move on

And not spend the rest of my natural life beating myself up

Easier said than done

But it must be done

Or else guilt and shame will fester and eat me up

So that's what I will do 

I will take the learning

And never repeat that mistake again

In fact

It is much easier to be honest

To live an honest life

Being untrue or deceitful is hard work

And you're always looking over your shoulder

Hoping and praying you won't be caught

It's no life really

As I am shown time and time again

I have the most amazing people around me

My family 

My friends

My dogs

And all my beautiful ladies here

Who never fail to rally around when times aw tough

Thank you for that

It means more than you will ever know

Thank you

All my love,

Ruby x

FB

I'm not hugely technically minded

I know enough to get by

But there is awful lot that I don't know

When I first started blogging

It took me quite a while to get used to blogger

A lot of it was trial and error

When I was blogging over on Wordpress

I never quite got used to the dashboard 

And so came back to blogger

To and then she disappeared

Like I always do

As this blog feels like home 

Apart from my blog

I don't really use social media

No Tumblr

No Instagram

No Twitter

Not even Facebook

I do have a FB account

But I think I might have posted twice in my whole life

And I do use it to message people

Or sometimes I have a scroll through my news feed

Sometimes there is something funny or inspiring

But most of the time it's random stuff that people post

I guess I use my blog to let people know what is going on my life

Looking at FB has the power to depress me

Sometimes it seems that everyone is leading this amazing adventure of a life

Photos of everyone dressed up 

Drinks in hand

Smiles on faces

Or photos of their little ones doing something super cute

Couples walking hand in hand on the beach

Someone getting married

Someone else on holiday in Italy

Facebook would have me believe that everyone is living life to the Pepsi Max

A stark reminder that I am not

So that's the main reason I avoid FB

As you know 

I blog everyday

I like to write everyday 

As it helps give my day some structure

I know it's not always riveting stuff

But there is always some little drama playing out

I was wondering about you

Do you use social media?

Which ones do you use and why?

Is there a reason you do/don't use it?

The calm after the storm

Yesterday is over

Thank God that yesterday is over 

It is no longer the day that I was caught shoplifting

I swear it was like a nightmare

I kept waiting to wake

And realise that it was all a bad dream

I often have dreams like that 

That I used

Or drank

Or smoked

And then woke up to sweet relief that it was all a dream

But this wasn't a dream 

It was real 

I made the choice to take that top

And walk out of that shop

I have no excuse

No plausible reason for doing this

I did it because I wanted the top

It was as simple and as stupid as that

I went to two meetings yesterday

The first was an AA meeting

I wasn't going to say anything at the meeting 

But it was a small one so I decided to share

I got very upset while speaking

As the weight of what had happened sat on my shoulders

Everyone was great

Told me not to best myself on

To learn from this and move on

The general consensus was that no one is a saint

And we all have moments of madness and do stupid things 

One of the women even offered me some money to put in a card to give to the shop owner

It was sweet of her

But I politely declined 

This was my mess to sort out

I returned home

Where my sister said that she needed to talk to me

I thought she had read yesterday's post

And that she knew

So I kind of put my foot in it

Because she hadn't

She had quite a bad reaction to it

First she got angry

And said some horrible things

But then that anger turned into disbelief and sadness

She just couldn't understand why I had done it

Either can I 

I don't blame her though

I seem to fuck up time and time again

I went to another meeting last night

Again it was a small meeting 

So I felt comfortable sharing

Some people there suggested I write a letter of apology

So that's what I did when I got home

I write a short note

Expressing my regret

And asked if there was anything I could do to make amends 

As I am willing to do that 

This shop was not some big chain store

It's a small family run business

Who are probably struggling as it is without the likes of me stealing their goods

So I would really jump at the chance of atonement 

But as bad as yesterday was 

I do realise that it could have been a whole lot worse 

That girl could have called the cops 

In fact I am wondering why she didn't

She was well within her rights to

When we were walking up to the shop

She seemed to calm down a lot

And was asking me question

I said as little as possible

Just apologising when I felt it was appropriate

I am so grateful to that girl for letting me go

I could be sitting in a police cell right now

And that would be an utter disaster 

Imagine if I had had to call my family from a cop station

And tel them that I had been arrested

It doesn't bear thinking about

So I guess the best thing to do

Is to take the learning out of this

And the lesson is well and truly learnt

I won't be be shoplifting again 

And if that is the only positive to come out of this 

Then maybe it was a blessing in disguise