Day In The Life: UNFILTERED EDITION

The unfiltered edition of a day in my life is an entirely raw and honest account of my schedule and activities. I'm delving into one day, confessing my every thought, feeling, win and hardship as an adult living with three mental illnesses, who is the owner of a blog, a writer, a friend, a daughter and (most notably!) a Shopaholic.

9:30 a.m l Iay in bed not wanting to face the world that exists outside of it. I'm afraid of others' judgements and criticism, which feels like an unbearable addition to the resentment I already have residing within myself. I want to remain warm and safe but I have responsibilities existing in the life that awaits me. The first thing I do is weigh myself. My obsessive thoughts are inescapable, my OCD forcing me to remain behind the locked bathroom door until 10 a.m... It entails 30 minutes of stepping on and off the scale, moving it ever-so-slightly back and forth to get the number as low as possible. I want to start my day but I have to take the one opportunity I have in the day to make my self-worth higher. It doesn't even make me feel that much better. Mostly, the whole situation I'm in that involves me acting on this compulsion and being a slave to my own mind makes me feel worthless.

10:00 am I spend 10 minutes opening, closing and re-opening the fridge and cupboard doors. I'm not simply choosing whether or not to eat breakfast. It's the pinnacle point in my day where I have to decide how much I'm going to satisfy the desires of anorexia. I spend this time deciding how much I want to restrict, planning the calories of every meal whilst deciding exactly what it is that I feel like and how I can compensate for it if I choose to plan around a fear food, to eat more than usual or have work that day. I regret it if I choose to say 'Fuck it' and do what I want and I regret it if I choose to suffer from the exhaustion of nutritional deprivation. I hate this time of day but I hate every second that follows it more because I never win.

The only time I'm doing something right is when I do nothing at all.

10:45 am I went to get my nails infilled. It's the only activity I do that isn't disordered or involves the input of my mental illnesses. It equates to a touch of normality in a life that is commonly overthought and analysed. I never feel pretty in a way that's simple, apart from this one hour in my week. I booked for 10:45 to finish at 11:45, allowing myself 15 minutes to have lunch before I started work. As the nail artist was doing her second coat, she said the same thing twice to her colleague, which I couldn't understand because of her accent and her face mask. It turned out that she was asking me if two coats were enough. The third time, she leered at me angrily and yelled in a really patronising way: 'Two. Coats?' The way we speak to others can have a profound impact, considering that you never know what somebody else is going through. I truly believe that kindness holds an understated place in our society. The voice I live with inside of my mind 24/7 is a bully. It constantly yells, diminishes, belittles and despises me. So when an outside person is unkind, especially without reason, it pushes me over the edge of the cliff I'm always on the edge of. I am fully aware of my sensitivity and tendency to overreact. But it didn't change the fact that after her tone and words, I felt like the one hour of enjoyment that I grant myself every week became ruined. I internalised that I couldn't hear her, blaming myself for the disappointment I felt. The way she spoke to me is the way I speak to myself. So naturally, I thought she hated me the way I hate myself. My bully told me that I didn't deserve anything nice, including the challenging lunch I'd planned.

12:00 p.m. I worked for three hours today with a close colleague, gossiping and laughing for the entire shift. I love work because it's a relief from the planning and obsession that fills the time in my day. I tried on some of our new stock when I finished. This left me criticising my body, becoming buried deeper in the pre-existing confusion I have within myself. I'd downsized again. But instead of the eating disorder feeling satisfied, it felt insatiable. I felt perplexed because although the fact was that I didn't fit into teenager sizing anymore, the truth I lived by was that I still wasn't thin enough.

4:00 p.m. Today I had to go to the shops but convincing myself of that fact was something I'd debated all day: 'Yes, you do.' and 'No, you don't.' I rely on the support of my Mum and Dad to gauge what quantity of food in the house is considered adequate. Anorexia finds pleasure in my torment, egging me on to abstain from shopping for as long as possible, to survive on the bare minimum, to not need as much as what others need or as frequently. That's not to say I always play the rules of this sick game, but the urge to engage in it is constant, making me feel like a loser whenever I don't adhere to the rules. So as I try to remember what I require, a voice screams, gradually, incrementingly louder and louder: 'You shouldn't be here', 'You are greedy' & 'You're a failure'.

5:30 p.m Over the years, weight loss has led to bones protruding from my body. If I'm truly honest with myself and with you, as hideous as this sounds, it's thrilling to my eating disorder. Sadly, It makes me feel accomplished, more pretty and more worthy. On days and weeks that I find the strength to eat more, I try to reduce how often and how closely I examine my body. This is because it doesn't matter how much I look at it and decide what percentage I like or dislike it... Afterwards, it never feels enough and always feels harder to eat. Today was one of those days I chose to eat more because I had a dinner date arranged with my mum and dad and I also needed the energy at work. When I got out of the bath and wrapped a towel around my body, I accidentally caught my reflection in the mirror, noticing a bone I hadn't seen before. In the past, it's been an indicator of weight loss but considering I had been looking at my body less, it could've just been that in the past few weeks, I'd missed it. Either way,

The voice that galores and relishes in being more ill was fed and the slither of a desire to be better was starved.

6:00 p.m.

I've spent my day pulling and tugging between myself and anorexia. This tug of wore consists of if, what and when, the following and much more: what time to eat, choosing the higher or lower calorie option, sweet or savoury, 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' and if I'm deserving or shameful. Without any supervision from my family or nurses, the tug of war happens before, during and after any time I eat. And it's true what you're thinking, Dolls, yes, that means that every hour of every day is incessantly unbearable and overwhelmingly distressing. Today, my family planned to have dinner with me, granting me the only moment of relief in my day.

7:00 pm

I find the guilt after eating unforgiving, particularly dinnertime. It's the time I feel that eating feels most unnecessary. Without a doubt, I watch my favourite show at 7 pm, it being the one thing that can take my mind off of my distress.

9:00 pm

The first physical symptom I acquired from developing anorexia was an extreme disturbance in my sleeping patterns. Not only was there an inability to get to sleep but once I did so, horrific nightmares incurred. Additionally, after spending so much time away from home and my family in inpatient settings on medical wards, I began to find falling asleep traumatic, remembering, in my mind, heart and body, the time of day when I would feel most alone. At 20, I couldn't fall asleep if I didn't have a teddy that my Mum gave me when I was 15 in my arms. That was until I stayed well enough all year and began to find refuge from a more sustainable source: my dog. Every night, he allows me to feel safe and loved. Although I still consistently have nightmares, I also consistently fall asleep knowing someone will be by my side to make me feel like everything will be okay if I wake up scared.

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Anorexia is often not recognised as a mental illness due to its ability to present its presence physically. But it is my hope that this day places a spotlight on its destruction to the quality of life an anorexic faces. It isn't pretty, it isn't sweet, it isn't goals... But even in all of its hell, I am thankful for the moments of light my family and friends bless me with. I couldn't do it without them.

Kisses,

COS x