Home

Well I have picked up my iPad so this is deffinately progress on yesterday which I spent asleep for 90% of the day suffering with a migraine. I was only awake yesterday for meals and snacks and slept the rest of the time until my dad came. Luckily today although I still have a headache it is better than it was. Despite feeling physically Ill and having a reason to sleep my head screamed at me that I was such a fat lazy slob for sleeping and not sticking to what I had planned to do ie my course work. It feels like everything I ate yesterday has just been turned in to fat fat fat. I feel like the entire day was a failure on my part that I gave in and slept rather than fighting through and doing work, if I had been at home I would have made myself go to work no matter how unwell I felt and so I am struggling to accept that in here should be any different.

However in here is different after all it isn't home its a hospital. On the flip side though I think I found it particularly hard because here is effectively home, a crap home mind you, and so it felt no different for me not to push through the pain and carry on so felt like I had failed by giving in.

I think because you are here for such a long period of time you make your environment as homely as you possibly can so I have photos, pictures, books, my laptop, and other homely items, I don't think it would be possible to survive in here without these home comforts. On the other hand because it doesn't feel like a hospital and because I don't feel Ill it's hard not to feel like you should continue in the way you always have. I suppose it's about weighing up the feeling of being in hospital and this also being your temporary home. Life continues in here and continues on the outside it's just in here it feels like its moving at half speed and that outside its moving at double speed often leaving me feeling like I will be forever playing catch up.

What I find hard to accept is that I will never truly catch up I will just at some point rejoin the real world and it will carry on, I will never be able to claw back the years I have wasted giving in to this illness never have that time again to do things differently.

A nurse asked me this week how my life would look now if I had never had this illness and I was devastated to think about it as in truth it has now been so long I couldn't think of a life without this not having any real idea what I would have done and the person I would have become. I became so angry at the thought but more at the reality that I will never know who or what I would have been because I can't turn back the clock so all I can do is go forward but I am terrified that I will never be free from the grasps of the illness and therefore never really know who the real me is or what a real life is like. What's more frightening though is if I do find these things and discover that I don't like who and what I have become what if other people no longer like me it's the dreaded fear of the unknown. I think that's part of the way this illness keeps you stuck tricking you that the unknown is always something to fear rather than embrace and look forward to even if with some intrepidation making you feel like you should stay the same in order to feel safe and secure rather than vulnerable and scared.

While the unknown I think will always remain fearful to me rather than exciting it's taking a chance that the outcome might be better than the present and thinking in truth with my current situation could it really be any worse. A nurse made a very good point the other day while she stressed she was not advocating it she did say that if I got to the other end or at least as close to it as I could reaching a healthier weight and lifestyle and did find that I hated it as much as I think I will I could always come back to how I am now after all no one knows how to loose weight better than an anorexic! I suppose her point is that it's shit now and it might be shit the other end but at least if I get to the other end I have given myself the chance to see how I feel about it rather than just giving in to the fear and staying where I am.

So here goes another day and while I will continue to try to embrace the unknown weigh day is looming and I am dreading it. Maybe one day I will be able to embrace the unknown, greet weigh day without fear see the weight go up and feel glad rather than utter despair.