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Would you talk to your best friend or loved one like how you talk to yourself?
How do you think they'd react if you did?
It's your body! It's been with you your whole life and it's not going anywhere now. Surely that makes it the bestest friend you'll ever have.
It does amazing things for you and continues to do amazing things, even when you starve it and treat it so badly. Learn to love it and accept it for the way it is.
Accept that it doesn't look like that fake picture in that magazine, or that photo you saw, or like that person you saw walking down the street. Why?
Because no one else's body is like your body. It is the only one in the world. It is rare. It is unique. And most of all, it is beautiful.
Again crediting my therapist Kathryn for this.

Happy New Year motherfuckers

2019 was a year of recovery: from mental illness, eating disorder and injury. That recovery will be ongoing.

It was also a year of growing wisdom and strength that will continue to grow well beyond the new year. 

May I continue to grow as a person and may myself and all of my loved ones find peace inside of themselves, and may everyone learn to love themselves just as they are.

If only going on a diet were this simple

If someone showed you this before you decided to go on a fad diet, would you go through with it?
If you are unhappy, it is easy to blame your body, when in reality, it could be something far more complicated happening in your life that you have failed to deal with.
If you're having a hard time, don't try to deal with it alone. Speak to someone you trust.
PS. I have to credit my therapist Kathryn for this, and I sincerely hope it changes somebody's mind.

If you fail once, people will expect you to keep on failing.

In fact, they'll keep kicking you until you do.
I took my kids to karate and trick or treating this year for the very first time. People didn't think I'd do it. I saw it in their eyes, simply because I'd failed to do it year after year.
When they found out I was a vegan, people started to kick me down again. 

"Good luck being a vegan in this place," they said. 

"Just eat some fucking meat," they said.
Well, if I had £1 for the amount of times ignorant people have said that, I'd be very, fucking rich.
How about: "Wow, that must really tough, well done you." instead of all that goddamn scorn you seem to be carrying around?

Like I mentioned in my last post, people really don't seem to like it when you start taking care of yourself. I'm a vegan, I practice Ashtanga yoga, and I don't drink, therefore that makes me a perfectly acceptable target for abuse.

Yeah, people really don't give a shit. I get that. And why the fuck should they? My eating habits are none of their goddamn business! However, it's funny that they seem to care just enough to snipe at me with hateful comments, when if they were to sit down and actually asked me why I chose to become a vegan, I would happily tell them:
Yeah, it has been really tough, actually. Contrary to what you might think about veganism, or what you might have heard in the media about idiots chaining themselves to trees, I didn't actually become a vegan for the fucking hell of it. It was actually a really tough decision. I was going through some rough shit and eating a plant based diet has been my way of coping with it. Sometimes in life, you have to make these difficult choices between staying ill and getting better. In the 10 weeks that I've have been a vegan, my family is healthier and I am healthier, happier and stronger. Also, like I just said, I took my kids trick or treating for the very first time. Now, that might not sound like much, but for me, it was a huge step, and one which I will be repeating in the future, and who knows, maybe I'll even manage to eat some of the goddamn sweets. 

Random Observations (until I can think of a better way to say what the fuck is going on?)

Ever wondered how it's bad to fat shame, and yet health shaming is perfectly acceptable?

Knocking down the person who exercises, eats healthily, writes and genuinely works hard to look after themselves is actively encouraged.

No one ever walks passed McDonald's, points at all the unhealthy fucks and shouts, "You should be eating more salad and doing more exercise, you fat bastards!" Yet I've had to deal with the following crap (I'm not kidding):

• Why are you still doing that leasure activity?

• I think you shouldn't do so much yoga.

• Maybe you shouldn't do so much writing.

• I don't think being a vegan is a good idea.

• The issues you have... it's the food you eat. (Yeah, my crappy, VEGETABLE based, but completely BALANCED diet!)

• Why don't you have one glass of wine, it's Christmas.

Apparently, it's cool to mistreat yourself. People pride themselves on how much alcohol they can chug and still stand up, yet if you're tee total there's something wrong with you.
Hell, ever hear the phrase, 'I don't know why I'm so thin. All I eat is junk food.'
And equally, 'I don't know why I have a weight problem, I eat so healthily.'
I honestly don't know either you fucking land whale! Maybe you filled yourself up with bullshit lies?

The amount of times I hear (roughly translated) "I treat my body like such a dustbin, I'm surprised I'm still alive. Accept it's hardly a life because I have all these health problems and my kids have all these health problems and I've no idea why..."

Well, as you can hear, I'm tired of all this shit. I'm tired, not just for myself, because I'm still going to be kind to myself, no matter what anyone thinks or has to say about it, and I really don't care if it's 'cool' or not. Frankly that fucking word can go jump in a lake of fire and get vaporised.
I gave up being trying to be cool when I realised that cool doesn't mean trying to do what all the other sheep are doing. They can go throw themselves off that cliff for all I care.

No. I care about my kids and the message this whole fucking mess sends to them. It makes my job, which is to nurture them into strong, healthy, happy, independent adults, that much fucking harder.

Thank you so much, society.

Say? What's With All This Labelling Anyway?

We've all been labelled. It seems to be this wierd obsession to de-humanise ourselves and that's kind of scary cos I thought we'd left de-humanising to the anti-Semites, but maybe I was wrong...

I've been known as The Anorexic, The Anorexic Goth, The Waster, Blue haired Girl, you name it.

The reason I become a Goth was because I wanted to be part of a collective identity that pretended to be individualistic, when really it was anything but. Let's face it, there aren't many different shades of black, and my so called 'friends' were always looking down their noses at people who dressed normally, labelling THEM as Kevs or Chavs, and wondered why people wanted to kick their snooty heads in.

I stopped being a Goth because I wanted to be a myself. I got sick of the verbal abuse I suffered, but also, I just wanted to wear some fucking colours and not look like a complete dork whenever I went to the beach. Trench coats and Dock Martins are really impractical when the it's hot.

It's such a shame that people who decide to leave behind a collective identities are often seen as traitors, and even lose friends, because it shows that those people didn't see them as individuals at all, just carbon copies of themselves. Not people, but things.

I'm not 'an' anything, and I don't stand for anything. If anything, that's what I stand for. Freedom. Freedom of expression. Freedom to say what the fuck you want, think what the fuck you want to think and BE whoever the fuck you want to be.

But the labelling doesn't stop, not even with relationships. We encourage people to think of us, not as individuals, but collectives. For instance, since getting with my partner, I have come to be known as Zoe and Ben. Ben's Zoe. Zoe's Ben. I frequently get asked what Ben's opinions are on things. How the fuck should I know? I can't read his mind! People seem to assume that we are one entity or something. What the Hell happened to us as individuals?

That said, I happen to like being anonymous. I can be myself, and I'm happy being myself. I don't have to advertise that to the world.

I can except my limitations, because we all have them. By doing what brings me satisfaction, I can now find out my strengths.

Real Interesting Facts About Me

• Fact. I am in recovery. I spent almost twenty years of my life binging, purging and starving myself, and now, I am eating four small meals a day and my weight is both healthy and stable.

• I have been sat beside someone in that same boat, whilst I was ill, and I wondered how I would ever get to be like them. That was ten years ago.

• I'm 33 now, and I thought about where I might be in another ten years. I don't want to be ill when I'm 43.

• I'm at where I am in my recovery. I exercise to build strength in my body and I try to look after myself. I'm not going to apologize for that. If people are doing something that they deem worthy of being proud of, they are within their rights to brag about it. But as the saying goes: pride comes before a fall.

• I want to be strong, not skinny.

• Eating disorder stopped me living my dream. Now I dream of living.

• To put things into perspective, study nature or history. You really think you have a hard life?

• Nothing happens for a reason, BUT there is a reason FOR everything.

• I am a product of the decisions I have made.

• I used to use fags to suppress my hunger. Unfortunately, those things destroy your lungs, so then I quit and started drinking large quantities of tea instead. And then I discovered that the best way to suppress hunger is in fact, to eat.

• I have no friends, and I count myself blessed. I am actually happiest in my own company. I tend to agree with me.

• I don't tell me what I'm doing is wrong. I ask myself, is it right?

• I've never had friends. I've spent my life wishing I had friends, when really I had one all along. Me.

• My boyfriend Ben is my one true friend outside of me. He provides me with love (occasionally) security and wisdom.

• I can't abide people who brag, because actions speak louder than words, and it's far more powerful for me to see someone achieve something amazing and yet remain humble. I imagine it is the hardest thing, for I don't believe I have anything to be proud of, nor do I want to feel this way. I'm simply doing what I'm doing, because I want to feel well.

• Favourite saying: People in glass houses should not throw stones. And stoned people should definitely NOT throw glass houses.

• I'm a blogger. I take pictures of my meals and post them with the hashtag #eatingdisorderrecovery, because I deem that far more interesting than me taking pictures of the time I took a walk outside.
• Also, if I show people I'm serious about what I'm doing, it may spur me on to keep with it, where I have failed before.

• You'll only ever regret NOT doing something.

• Most important lesson I ever learnt. LIFE IS NOT A BIG DEAL! Once you realise that too, maybe you'll lighten the fuck up.