Trigger warning: This post contains graphic descriptions of bodily self hate and suicidal ideation so if that would trigger you then please go and make yourself a cup of tea and a biscuit instead of reading. I care about you all too much to cause distress to any of you.
So good news: as of today I am one week and three days vodka free and I don’t want to toot my own horn but TOOT TOOT, considering I was on at least a bottle a day for the past three months I think that is pretty damn good! Ok I still have a long way to go and I still crave a drink everyday, but as a start I have to admit that I am rather proud of myself and if I was a flexible human bean I would be giving myself a well earned pat on the back right now.
Bad news however is that I have woken up into a nightmare, that nightmare being my body.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, over the past three months, due to drinking alcohol and consequently eating things I never have before, I have gained a lot of weight and to be honest when I was drunk all the time it kind of numbed me to what that felt like. Obviously I was bothered by the weight gain on some level, but at the same time there was a large part of me that was too drunk to care. Now though I am sober and I really care. A lot.
I have quite literally woken up into a body that isn’t mine.
For three months I have been practically unconscious but now I am awake and I can see the dramatic changes. There is simply flesh everywhere, thick rolls of the stuff where there never was before. The gap between my thighs is gone, I can no longer get my fingers around the top of my arm, my hands are puffy balls with thick ugly fingers stuck on the end, my face is smushed and piggy, I have several chins, everything wobbles when I walk and my stomach is a giant gelatinous mass. I cannot look at myself in the mirror without staggering back in shock and crying because I simply do not recognise myself and I hate it. I hate what vodka has done to me and what I have become, I am in all honesty a monster.
I am just so angry at what has happened and so distressed because it is going to take me months to lose all this weight again. As I sit here my skin is literally crawling with disgust. I want to get a knife and slice all this flesh from myself, I want to grow nails like talons and rip my skin to pieces to claw out all this lard, I want to tear the fat from my bones and leave my body looking as broken and torn as I feel on the inside.
Ok I will hold my pudgy little hands up and that admit I have never been happy with my body and even at my lowest weight I thought that I was fat, but the disgust I felt previously was nothing compared to what I feel now. I see my reflection in the mirror and I want to be sick, I am a grotesque, ugly, disgusting creature with glasses and nobody reading this blog can tell me otherwise because none of you have seen me in person for months because I have been hiding away. Trust me, if any of you saw me you would be shocked and as disgusted as I am right now.
It is just so frustrating because I wish I could write a blog that was inspiring, telling you all how I have gained all this weight and how great I feel, to inspire others to do the same. I wish I could tell you how happy I am now I am a healthy weight and I wish I could be the strong recovered person you all deserve. I would love to be able to come on here and say how it is all sunshine and rainbows, how I sneezed the other day and a unicorn flew out with a multicoloured mane and a horn made of candy but to tell you this weight gain has been a positive experience would be to lie. It is hell. I just want to be thin again more than anything in the world because despising myself this much is unbearable. I cannot get across how angry I am with myself for letting things get to this and all I can think about is how I wish anorexia had killed me when I was in hospital last admission. All I can say is that I damn well hope it does this relapse because I never want to feel like this ever again.
I just don’t know how to deal with this level of self-hatred. Hopefully, now I have stopped drinking alcohol by the gallon and eating all food in sight, the weight will start to come off but it will be Christmas before I am anywhere near where I want to be and I just don’t think I can keep myself alive for that long. I know that people will probably say that losing weight isn’t the answer in this situation and that what I need to do is learn to love myself as I am, but that is simply impossible. I hate to be so negative but once again I am crying as I am typing because I just cannot physically stand to be within myself. My body feels like a prison that I cannot get out of and I want to break free.
I just wish I could go back in time three months to before I started drinking, before alcohol ruined my body and consequently my life. If I could turn back time I would have never had that first drink and then I wouldn’t be in the state I am in today.
It sounds so melodramatic to say this but I hate my body so much that i don’t know how much longer I can live in it. I know all of the classic things they say about how it is what is inside that counts and I know I shouldn’t be bothered by something so superficial so much, but I cannot help it and I feel absolutely ridiculous. Honestly, I am on the brink of another suicide attempt all because I cannot stand my body, how pathetic is that? What you look like doesn’t matter and if it were anyone else I would be telling them that it doesn’t matter what you weigh at all, but knowing that doesn’t make it easy to put into practice. I know I shouldn’t care about my weight, that I shouldn’t be this tied up in physical appearance but yet here I am crying about the fact that my trousers no longer require a belt. I probably sound incredibly vain but that isn’t it at all. I don’t want to be thin because I want to look nice or because I want people to think I am attractive. Hell, being as thin as I want to be doesn’t make people think I am attractive, I know that from experience. I know that in the past at my lowest weight everybody thought that I looked awful but at least then I felt safe. Ok I wasn’t safe, I was so close to death and in so much danger that they stuck a tube up my nose but it felt safe to me and that was all that mattered. I have said the phrase “I wish” so many times in this blog post which is ridiculous as I know that wishing won’t make any of this go away. You don’t get things simply by wishing for them, there is no fairy godmother out there with a magic wand and a fabulous gown and yet I wish regardless. They say that one in five people die from anorexia and I wish that last autumn I had been that one in five. I just don’t want to be here anymore especially in this disgusting body. It isn’t about vanity, it isn’t about wanting to look nice, it is about not being able to live with a level of self loathing so high it makes my stomach lurch and my eyeballs spurt tears like never-ending waterfalls. It is about being so distressed that you go to bed every night and pray to God that you don’t wake up in the morning because another hour in this existence is just too much for you to muster.
I am really really sorry to be so negative today I don’t know what is wrong with me, I am just struggling so much at the moment with the level of self hatred going on in my brain and I guess I needed to use this blog post to vent it out. I just need to get things back to the way they were. I wish I could be the inspirational healthy weighted Katie you all deserve rather than this fat mess who is determined to be thin again. I wish I could find my sense of humour again and make light of the situation, make jokes like I used to be able to do but my sense of humour has all but disappeared and all that is left is lard. I just can’t do this anymore and I want to give up, I want to disappear, I want to die. I am so sorry I cant be the person you all want me to be or at least the person that you all deserve. I wouldn’t blame you if you all turned away and gave up on me now, lord knows I have all but given up on myself.
Take care everyone x
Born without marbles 
You know I know you are a very talented writer, but I am sorry, some of this needs rewriting, the grammar is all wrong…
It is NOT ‘ I am in all honesty a monster. ….
I am a grotesque, ugly, disgusting creature with glasses and nobody reading this blog can tell me otherwise because none of you have seen me in person for months because I have been hiding away. Trust me, if any of you saw me you would be shocked and as disgusted as I am right now. ‘
Nope. Wrong verbs all over the place.
‘ I THINK THAT I AM in all honesty a monster. ….
I LET MYSELF BELIEVE a grotesque, ugly, disgusting creature with glasses and nobody reading this blog can tell me otherwise because none of you have seen me in person for months because I have been hiding away. DO NOT TRUST MY INNER DEMON VOICE, if any of you saw me I HAVE DECIDED YOU WOULD BE shocked and as disgusted as I am right now. ‘
Not ‘I am’, but ‘I think I am’. You are not a monster, you are not grotesque, we would never be disgusted by you. You may think that. I do not.
love forever xxxxxxxxx
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Thank you so much for this Amy! It is so nice to be reminded that all of the things going on inside my head right now are feelings not facts no matter how true they feel. I promise I will keep doing my best not to trust the inner demon voices. Thank you for reminding me of who the enemy is. Love you xxxx
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I honestly don’t know what to say… this was… so sad.
Now I’m mad, like, really mad. Not at you but at the disorder. YOU ARE NOT A MONSTER, YOU ARE NOT GROTESQUE AND I WOULD NEVER BE DISGUSTED BY YOU.
I don’t believe that you are fat at all. I know I haven’t seen you in real life but I know how anorexia works. It makes you think that you are something opposite from the reality. You’re describing what anorexia sees not what the rest of the world sees, so please forgive me if I don’t believe you.
I love you for what you are inside! Pardon my language but… FUCK ANOREXIA. SHE’S A LIL BITCH!
Please do not relapse, do not go back to hospital, do not harm yourself. You deserve so much more than this.
I love you ok?
Kisses from Portugal ❤
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Aww thank you so much Maria, you are so right! Anorexia is a lil bitch! I promise I will keep fighting and I will do all I can to prevent another relapse. Thank you for not seeing me as disgusting no matter how horrible I feel right now. Love you loads and I am sending kisses from England ❤ xxxx
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i see people who weigh 300, 400lbs, and i’m not disgusted by them – i recognise them as people. i think of them in the exact same way as someone who weighs 60lbs. please don’t try to convince your readers we’d all find you disgusting because it just isn’t true, no matter how you feel about it – and that’s all these are – terrible, awful, life-ruining feelings. i’m not meaning to downplay how you feel about it, because i know how fuckin horrific it is but it’s feelings, not fact. your illness is telling you all these things. i know you don’t care about that right now – that you don’t care about objectivity bc of how awful things are inside your head, but i couldn’t not write something in response to you assuring me i’d find you disgusting. i would not find you disgusting, WHATEVER your weight.
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Thank you so much for saying all of that! You are so right in what you say too, I also see people of all weights and am not disgusted by them so I don’t know why I feel so differently when it comes to me. Must be part and parcel of this horrible illness I guess. Thank you for making me feel less disgusting tonight and for reminding me that all of these thoughts are feelings not facts. It is an important distinction that I often forget and I really appreciate you reminding me of what is reality and what is my head. I hope you are having a fabulous day and thank you for being there for me xx
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I love you. You have my love. I don’t think these things of you, not in the slightest. Infact I know these things you say to be false, I know they are your cruel eating disorder taunting you. I know that you deserve better, I know that you do not deserve to feel this way. This is not you, you are seperate to your eating disorder, you are Katie, and we LOVE Katie, but we absolutely despise anorexia and wish that anorexias grotesque monstrous self would go away!!! See, this horrid illness is the only monster here and its the only thing anyones thinking negatively of round here. Ok? noone here is going to give up on you, hey I’m just a stranger, a reader of your blog, but hey, I’m here, I think only POSITIVELY of you, this head right here has not one negative thought about YOU. Please reach out for help, I know its hard, I do, but please? Because this is not what you deserve, you deserve so much more than the lies and utter BS this horrid thing screams. I hope you’ll be ok, so much. Im sending you love and the biggest hugs, like python style squashing hugs, or y’know what?! penguin huddle hugs! 🙂 please please reach out, in any way you can, because I’m scared, I really am scared by this blog post, and I just hope so much to read you’re ok, I’m here for you, ok? I’ll try help in any way ❤ xxx
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Aww this is such a lovely comment thank you so much! I especially appreciated the penguin huddle hugs! I promise I am reaching out for help at the moment although unfortunately my ED team are thinking of discharging me because I am so far into the healthy weight range now. Nevertheless I can assure you I will keep talking and doing all the things I can to keep myself safe. Thank you for reminding me that it is the anorexia that is the grotesque ugly monster who we all want to go away and thank you for making me feel so loved. It is really nice to feel so cared for when I am in as dark a place as I am in right now. Sending you lots of love and penguin hugs. Really grateful to you for being there for me. Love you xxx
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I actually just discovered your blog from a couple year old entry that popped up in my Google search about disclosing mental illnesses in job interviews, but I had to keep reading. Your voice is amazing, and it almost made me cry feeling like someone else understands and can actually explain how it feels. While I don’t know much about anorexia, I struggle with general/social anxiety/OCD/depression/ASD and understand this so much. I’m fighting my panic in writing this but.. I just felt like it was important to tell you how much you matter, even to a stranger. Just hold on. Like the previous commenters said, it’s your “inner demon voice” speaking, not the truth.
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Ah hello new friend! Thank you so much for reading my blog and even more than that thank you for such a lovely comment! I am sorry that you can relate to any of the words I have written here as I would never want anyone else to be in this much pain but I am very grateful to you for sharing your struggles with me and for making me feel less alone in mine! I can assure you 100% that you matter too, especially to me and I hope it makes you proud to hear how much this comment has meant to me. I promise I will hold on and keep trying to remind myself that it is my inner demon voice speaking to me at the moment and not reality. Sending you big hugs pal, have a fabulous day xxx
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Hi Katie,
I am so sorry to hear you have been feeling this way. Well done for writing this post! As you probably know putting difficult thoughts into words can help us process them.
I don’t think what you’ve written is pathetic or ridiculous. Your feelings are valid, even when they’re a bit scary.
Please try to take care of yourself. This means no beating yourself up about not taking more care of yourself! Perhaps some positive affirmations, talking to a therapist about this issue, or taking time to do something relaxing. You might already know some positive things you can do that will help, or you could try some different ideas and see which ones you like.
All the best.
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Hello friend! Thank you so much for this comment and for using it to validate the feelings I was so afraid were pathetic. I promise I will do as you say and keep trying to take care of myself. I certainly like the idea of positive affirmations and trying to do something relaxing! Thank you for reaching out to me with kindness at this difficult time, I really appreciate you being there for me. Big hugs xxx
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Dear Katie, It sounds like you’re going through a lot of distress at the moment about how your body is. It must be really hard to feel so much fear and self-disgust. We all love you and respect you no matter how you look or are feeling about your body. You are the person we deserve just by being you. I only know you through your writing but honestly I have learned so so much from you and I know you have lots more to teach all of us. You’re the only one who can write the way you do, and without your body your voice would disappear from the world and that would be such a loss. Please be as gentle with yourself as you can and keep yourself as safe as you can. Remember you can call 999 if you need to. Lots of love, Sara-Louise xx
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^seconded (this is lovely.)
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Thank you so much Sara-Louise, it is so nice to hear that there is someone out there who cares for and respects me no matter how I feel about my body. I promise I will do as you say and keep trying to be gentle with myself whilst calling 999 if necessary (I very nearly did today actually because I got myself in such a pickle so thank you for reminding me that that is a possible option for me when I am struggling). Thank you for reaching out and for being there for me. I really appreciate your kindness at this difficult time. Much love and hope you are ok xxxx
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Hi Marbles.
Sorry you’re having a shit week. ❤
I'm proud of you (and you should be, and you are!) for going a week and a few days without alcohol now; that is really brave and really hard and really positive!
You sound like you feel like things are worse than before.
You said you wish you hadn't started drinking 3 months ago, that you could have that body back. But "recovery" is not a straight line; it includes bad patches, being stagnant, doing well, doing badly again.
Sometimes just being alive is a "win" even when it doesn't feel like it at the time cos it means there's maybe a future.
In these three months you've been doing more living plus being addicted to drinking, look at the positives:
-You have kept up your blogging; regularly and with pictures and often great humour. (a lot of people cannot manage that!)
-You have tried new things (the job you tried! I'm still so impressed at that!).
-You have tried a new coping mechanism (alcohol…I didn't say it was a good coping mechanism!) and then made efforts to stop that as well.
You are still trying and moving forward, even if it doesn't feel like it. There are likely more that I don't know about, ask your family and care team for positives, cos they will be there!
Be gentle with yourself too, it's okay to be a bit rattled. It's okay to rant about it to the people who care about you, that's a sensible and good thing to do! You've had some hard times recently, it's understandable!
Re: your body. *Maybe* you do look dreadful, you *certainly* feel it. You know it isn't really about your body, I know that won't stop you caring about it though. When a body gains weight rapidly after starvation it does stuff like bloating and sagginess, this is temporary stuff, whilst your body tries to work out what it is doing, like if you are really eating again or it needs to store it all.
I would advise to try and eat if you have the ability to make the choice, it will help provide you with mental strength/energy plus help your body to know what is happening. I understand it might not be choice right now; you know yourself best and what will help you feel safer + better.
anyway I'm sorry you are having a tough week and feel really bad right now. sending hopeful vibes to you to stay safe and get through it until your brain calms down a bit about coming off the alcohol and you start to feel a bit better and more "normal". best wishes through my screen to yours. ❤ ❤ ❤
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Oh my goodness you are such a good friend! I cannot believe you typed out all of that helpful lovely stuff all for me! Thank you for reminding me of the positive things that have happened in the past three months especially when all I have seen them as are a time of extreme darkness and pain and thank you for all the other lovely kind and supportive words you have written here. You really are a true pal and I don’t know what I would be doing today if it were not for your loveliness. I hope you know just how much I appreciate your help right now (if you can’t tell how much I appreciate your awesomeness then just know that it is A LOT). Hopefully things will improve soon and I really hope that things are ok with you too. Please know that I am always here for you if you ever need just as you are always here for me. Sending much love and hugs from my screen to yours. Remember you are fabulous ❤ xxxx
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Aw, thank you! Glad you are back online. You are always very nice in response I worry about you not feeling well enough to respond, if that is okay to say? Glad you found it kind of helpful, no worries, I like to type ha 🙂 things are actually mostly okay for me right now, thanks tho, i know you mean that offer xxx
Fingers crossed for better days and stuff ! 😀 ❤
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It’s so incredibly sad and difficult to read this. Internally I felt myself sigh and feel really despondent. You can turn back to your ed but you are knowingly turning back to what you have hated so much: people stepping in and taking control, hospital, re-feeding etc. You’ve done this enough times now to know where this path ends. This time will be no different.
As others have said so many times, you are Katie, not an ed or ocd or whatever other label you have been given. It has been so good recently to hear more of Katie and less of a label. Yet I fear this will be gone again. I get the disgust with your body- I am utterly appalled and disgusted by my own body- so it takes not that I don’t understand this aspect. But it’s really hard for me to see you actively chose to go down the same other you have always gone down. To end up in the same place you have always ended up in. And repeat. Ad infinitum.
I wish you well. I really hope that something helps. That some part of Katie steps in and decides they have had enough of this crap, enough of the ed lies, enough of being unable to live any kind of life. I hope Katie decides they are going to try something different. I feel terrible for saying this but I just can’t watch it happen again. Perhaps selfishly because I am trying to make different choices and not do what I’ve always done so to see someone else doing what I want (or the ed wants) brings out the “its not fair and I should just lose kids of weight.” But I also don’t want to forever be existed me and not living. So for me, it’s time to step away and just hope that Katie’s voice is found, heard and acted upon. Wishing Katie the very best and, with the greatest respect (or not) could those labels please bugger off and leave Katie be.
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Katie, many valid points here and I hope you can take this constructively and not let a feeling of abandonment take over. In such a negative mindset, it’d be pretty easy to see this in a ‘negative’ light… But, the reality is just that she can’t bear to see you go back to your familiar pattern with anorexia. Honestly, *no one* wants to see that. 😦 I hope you’ll understand where she’s coming from. We all just want Katie to be Katie. And maybe you don’t know who Katie is without mental illness and labels, but maybe it’s time to try and find out, rather than succumbing to those labels over and over? I believe you have so much to offer this world and already do offer so much by just being the beautiful soul that you are.
It’s never too late to discover new parts to your personality and enrich your life. Most humans evolve over time. It’s the people that don’t evolve that are worrisome. As much as I can say I dislike myself or how my life is now, I can also look back and see personal growth and change. And I hope to continue that pattern! I want you to do the same. ❤
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I just think it is just hard because people see me as “going back to anorexia” when in reality the anorexia never left it was just masked by me being drunk. I have gained a lot of weight but my mental health never changed it was just blurred. I really don’t want people to see this as a relapse as it isn’t that at all, it is just me waking up to the same state I was mentally in three months ago before alcohol took over. I promise I will however keep trying to find recovery and I am trying to get rid of these labels it is just hard. Please don’t give up on me yet, trust me I am doing my best 😦
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I am so sorry to have let you down by being so negative in this post but I totally understand where you are coming from. I don’t know what else to say other than sorry and that I am going to miss you being around here. Take great care and look after your lovely self, you are amazing and I appreciate everything you have ever done for me. Hopefully I will be in a better place soon. Lots of love xxx
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Please don’t go back to restricting and losing weight. Don’t do it. Eat for Marbles. Recover for Marbles. Marbles does not care about your size, shape, etc. Marbles FTW!
*Actually, I can promise you that no one actually cares about such things about you. 🙂
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I promise I am trying, it is just so hard to eat now that I am not drunk all the time because that was what was getting me through the day! I will however try to keep eating for Marbles as I know she doesn’t care and neither should I!
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I have to admit I am very distressed reading this and it seems like your goal is to relapse completely. I believe you don’t want to feel the way you do now, but I fail to understand how a relapse will help in any way.
Also, in response to this: “I can no longer get my fingers around the top of my arm” — YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT! NO HUMAN SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT AT ANY POINT IN THEIR LIVES. Staahhhhhhp it.
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Oh god that thing about the arm is so true…GAH WHY AM I LIKE THIS
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I think it’s pretty common for EDs… but it’s very sick, very irrational. It’s NOT normal. Never think that’s normal or OK, or something to strive for. Tiny babies and little children… they can’t do it. It’s not normal. Don’t strive for that. Unless you have fingers like E.T. (whoa, throwback!), this is very bad. I don’t want to body shame E.T… but he was not a human! On his planet, maybe it’s ok.
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I need to clarify! I know you were never out of your ED just because you gained weight from drinking. Never in a second! And I’m appalled that an ED treatment service would dismiss you due to weight/BMI. I was trying to say (and I think others were saying this, too), we don’t want you to go back to previous behaviors just to get your weight down. We don’t want ANY behaviors, ideally. I hate that people associate EDs with weights/BMIs/etc. Such a harmful stereotype.
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Ah ok, that makes more sense! Thank you for clarifying! X
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