For a wonderful person.

I write this post about somebody who is no longer alive, and had a limited grasp on technology so wouldn’t have read it anyway, but I’m gonna do it all the same!

It is not long until it is the “death anniversary” of my Nanny (never called her Grandma!) and I am thinking about her even more than usual lately. Although I had been eating disordered for some time before her passing she never knew, although she probably had a hunch I wasn’t myself. One of the things that upsets me massively is the fact that I sat doing mental calorie maths and planning when I could exercise while I sat next to her barely conscious being in her last hours.

Nobody will ever understand what an inspiration that woman is to me. She was determined and achieved her sole ambition to attend music college and later teach music and also overcame massive hurdles in her life all by herself. The day she found out that alcohol could kill her she quit. End of story. I swear that there are basically no other people in the world who could immediately force themselves to change.

Although I am too young to remember that time in her life I am so proud to be related to somebody so mentally strong. In my memory she was always cheerful, always full of enthusiasm about going here and there, arranging theatre trips for us, and always unconditionally supportive of her many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

As a training performer, she had bouts of knowledge and passion which she shared with me and she never missed anything that I was involved in. As she was such a talented person, every compliment she gave me was precious. People often told me that she spoke about me a lot and was very proud of me- nothing else could bring tears of happiness to my eyes in quite the same way.

I miss her. I’m sorry that she was not able to see where I am now and that I have got into professional training courses. She was somebody who fully understood what it is to have a passion and drive to do something like that, and so I spoke to her about it in a manner that I couldn’t anybody else. 

She was a generous, compassionate individual, who I spent many happy hours with. I wish she was here now, but as she isn’t I just wanted a space to say what I truly feel which is this:

I love her very much. I have never been so devastated as I was by her death. I will never forget what a lovely person she was and I hope that she was half as glad to know me as I am to have known her and to have had such a special relationship with her. Not many grandchildren share their grandparents passions afterall! 

Thank you for being there for me and for me encouraging me to do what I love. I will achieve my ambitions and you will be there- even just in my mind- to watch. L

Random thoughts (same as usual really!)

I have a big rant to go on to start with, so going to get that out the way first…

Today I saw a friend who I haven’t seen for quite a while. She asked me how things were going ed/ depression/ anxiety wise, and I said that they were up and down but “fine”. Obviously they aren’t, as I feel totally unstable, but it wasn’t the time to say! Her response was “well you’re obviously doing some things right, like, you haven’t ended up in hospital”

My ed reaction to this was OH MY GOD SHE DOESN’T THINK I’VE LOST WEIGHT, SHE MUST THINK I’M FAT. This thought has been playing on my mind since the moment she said it. I suppose she may not have been referring to weight at all- I hope now! But I just hear the ed telling me that I’m tricking myself into being ok if I believe that.

On quite a different note, my evening ended with a family member commenting how thin I have gotten since I was home at Christmas. As usual, I couldn’t formulate a response and just kinda shrugged. Part of me is delighted at their statement, while part of me wants to curl up in a hole of confusion as I get less and less able to know what the hell I actually look like anymore!

My next worry is the coming weekend. I’m going with my parents to another town to see some relatives. We are going out to lunch. I don’t have to eat, but after the “are you eating? you’ve gotten thin” fiasco this evening, maybe people will leave me be if I do eat? But then there’s the possiblity I might have a panic attack if I try which I frankly don’t have the energy for at the moment. Ah what to do?!

I’ve been thinking a lot today about how food impacts my family generally. Since a young age, eating out and eating bad foods has always been a treat, a birthday thing, a celebration of an achievement. And I guess I do classify food as a treat, yet it has become something that I can never do enough to earn. Both my parents have quite focused relationships with their bodies and food: one has been phasey and researched into health and dieting extensively, while the other has only recently managed to successfully lose excess weight. My whole life I have watched the latter do a hundred and one different diets and always put the weight (and more) back on when it eventually fell apart.

I would never blame anybody else for my problems, but I suppose it isn’t surprising that I have developed pride in being able to lose weight & attached a sense of achievement and necessity in doing so. Couple that with a perfeccionist personality and lack of confidence and BAM…

As it is 11.30 pm I think it is time for bed. Zzzzzz