I got it wrong

I have had a terrible few weeks.

Since my Simply Be review, I had a few opportunities come up. One of them was a plus size modelling job and I was to go to London for a photo shoot. A date was set, I just had to wait for a email from the agency, a time slot from the photographer. I had childcare sorted, i bought an outfit, I told everyone I knew. Normally i would chicken out of anything that's outside my comfort zone. But I didn't this time, I wouldn't let the gremlins in my head ruin this amazing opportunity for me, this could be life changing.  Then I was let down. After sending the agency many emails requesting a time, i didn't get a reply. And when I finally did get a reply, it was on the day I was meant to be there and they still didn't have a time for me and i was told  to contact them again in a couple of days and maybe they would have a time for me. I realised then, that with 3 children, this wouldn't be a possible dream and with my sensitive soul, I wouldn't be able to deal with rejection etc within this industry. My skin isn't thick enough for it, and I haven't been able to get over my disappointment.

I feel really sorry for myself. I got myself so ready, I felt so lucky to be given this opportunity and then it was taken away. Like some kind of cruel life tease.

So I have done what i do best. I have ate. I have eaten beyond anything I have eaten before. Usually I binge, then go on a diet for a few days, then another binge would happen.

I have binged continuously for 3 weeks now.

Thoughts of, you are useless, you don't deserve good things to happen to you, what a joke you are, silly cow, why would anyone want you as a model. they have changed their mind because you are so ugly. I haven't written a post for my blog, because, well, whats the point.

I also find myself dissapointed in the realisation that thinking, baring my soul to the world with my blog and my past events would be the cure to my binge eating.

I now realise that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Food isn't the problem. My emotions are the problem.

The main events in my life that i have written about, are the events that I thought caused my eating. Even though they are some of the reasons. They aren't the only reasons.

Its the little thoughts that make me eat.

Anxiety, rejection, vulnerability. Suppressed feelings that are deep rooted in me that i don't want to deal with. Not even major things, everyday stuff.

I hate talking on the phone. I get my words all fumbled and mixed up. The thought of ringing, for example, my local council to come and fix my window, fills me with such fear, id rather write them an email and forever check for a response, which leads to further anxiety and frustration as i'm not getting a response straight away. So id eat until I get a response.

Its dealing with the here and now i have problems with. I have a big fear of being judged, I tend to put on a ditsy act so that I am easily forgiven if i get the information wrong.

I think this comes from school. I wasn't the smartest kid, especially when it came to maths, history and science. Back then, instead of being given extra help, you were just put in the class with the other not very smart kids and given a work book. I know, if i was given just a bit of support, i would have got a lot further at school. I bunked off alot because, whats the point, I don't understand the work, Id rather smoke fags in a field somewhere. I was often in trouble, mainly because I was embarrassed to be a bit thick, so i was the clown instead. All my mates were really clever, like REALLY clever. I never understood why they wanted to be my friend because I was really stupid.

I remember drawing a map of Great Britain in class once. I got it wrong, I asked my mates if Ireland was attached to England and they all laughed at me. Don't get me wrong, I took the piss out of my mates as often as I could, but when it came to them laughing at me, my heart would literally break. I never felt i belonged within my group of friends as it was. And I was forever battling to do things that they would like me for and as long as I got a laugh from them, I knew they still liked me.

I love my friends, but my god, they made me feel like shit. Not intentionally, how could they know if I didn't tell them? Im sure that at times I made them feel like shit to.

I hated being the only friend who didn't have a boyfriend. I hated that my 3 of my best mates would pair off as their boyfriends were friends and id be in limbo. I would still hang around with them, but just as the spare prick.

Sat there twiddling with my hair, bored shitless, because they would all be snogging. I cant even snog my fella today because the sounds of my mates gums slapping together with their boyfriends used to make me feel sick. Id storm off home angry and rejected. Crying to my mum that no one likes me and that i'm fat and ugly and stupid. Feeling heart broken because I wasn't invited to events, because I wasn't part of this boyfriend girlfriend click.

I have blamed a lot of things and how I feel and react to areas in my life on my childhood, but thinking about it, my school life has had a huge impact on my life.

Not just feeling left out, but how I was taught in class as well.

PE was a big problem for me. At middle school, no matter how cold the weather was, we were to wear PE knickers and a t-shirt. We were made to do cross country running and by the end of it, you would get the corned beef mottled effect and your skin would itch terrible.

I wasn't good at PE. I didn't work well within a team, i was always the last to be picked because, basically i was shit. I was awkward and clumsy and not fast enough and I felt fat and gross.

One thing I am and was really terrible at was long distance running.

Once, we had this all day sports event. It wasn't quite sports day, it was something more than that, I cant remember what it was. But everyone had a certain amount of events that they had to do and try and get lots of points for each class. They needed 1 more person to take part in a long distance running event. It was between me and this other girl, as we hadn't chosen enough events to take part in. Somehow, this other girl stayed quiet and I got picked for it and there was a groan from the class as they knew we would lose points if i was to do this race.

I remember silently crying looking out the window as the panic rose in my throat. Already I had let the class down before id even slipped into my Ascot trainers.

It was time for me to do the race. I gathered with the other girls taking part and my heart sank. They were the girls who were really really good at running. They were lean and fast. I was fat (i wasn't fat) and slow and I knew, with my white hair, my red sweaty face would glow like a traffic cone.

So the race started, I kept up with the other girls for about 50 meters, then I slowed, and then I walked. I remember watching them race around the track, knowing that they were going to lap me. The PE teacher was an asshole. I'm not just saying that, he was a proper asshole. His name was Mr Martel. The asshole.

He would burst into our changing room, with no respect for our awkward pre-pubescent bodies. Laughing and being an asshole.

So as i was struggling to run this race, he was there, arms folded, judging me and shaking his head at me as i limped past him. I knew I was letting everyone down enough, I didn't need him to make me feel worse. Asshole.

I was lapped by the other girls and when I had about 2 more laps to go, I just walked them. I didn't see the point in giving myself a heart attack as id already lost. The girls were sat on the field drinking water watching me as i walked round, like some kind of shamed donkey.

I also had the dread that i had to go back to my class mates and tell them the news they already knew. Id lost the class points, because i was rubbish.

I had the reaction i was expecting, but it didn't ease my pain. Another notch on my useless belt.

I always thought I loved school, but thinking about it, school was a big pile of shitting cock.

Teachers weren't like they are today. I'm not saying all teachers today are great, but they are loads better from what we had.

I remember, in R.E putting my hand up in class to answer a question. I never put my hand up in class, but I had this over powering urge to answer a question. The answer was wrong. I think the teacher was having a particularly bad day, because he slammed a book down really hard on his desk with real anger and frustration (it made everyone jump out their skin) and screamed at me 'DONT YOU LISTEN!!!!!!!!!'

Obviously not!

Jeez, I wont bother next time! So i didn't. I wasn't risking making a teacher angry with my silly answers again...

I know you are probably thinking, this is normal stuff at school. And it probably is, but this has had a big affect on my world, and i'm trying to piece together where these feelings of being useless and unworthy comes from and I think I have found the answer.

School life.

I also had stuff going on at home, my dad was busy being mental. My mum was having a breakdown and going through eating issues. My dad went through a stage of being the milkman at my school and Id have to go and say hello if i saw him. He would give me a carton of juice and other kids would be really jealous, where as I just wanted him to sod off.

My packed lunch at school was really crap. Fucking awful. My mates would have crisps and chocolate bars and yummy things and id have bloody diet food. As ashamed as I am to say this and that i was this, but i was always scabbing food off my friends... I was the girl that would always say 'can i borrow some money, i promise to give it back' so i could go to the canteen and get some cake (i never gave the money back).

One day, my mum put 3 custard cream biscuits in my lunchbox. I thought Christmas had come early, i was so delighted to have these biscuits. My mates saw that i had these biscuits and were instantly on me. They wanted them as a sort of pay back for all the food id scabbed off them for years. But i didn't want to give them my special biscuits. Couldn't they see how special this was! But I also knew that i owed my friends these biscuits, but i still didn't hand them over. In the end they were giving me such a hard time i threw them the biscuits and stormed out to have a cry in the toilets. When I came back in the classroom, my biscuits were eaten. Fucking gutted. To me, mum giving me those biscuits was her saying she loved me...

No matter how much my mum told me she loved me, I thought she was lying.

Mum has always been very open and honest about events in her life, ever since I was young. One thing I know now as well, even to this day. I don't get my mum.

My mum would say something that she would think is funny, but i would take to heart and dissect what she said into what I think she said or meant.

But it made me think my mum hated me and that she wanted me to be dead or not to have been born.

Stories of mum with post natal depression when i was born, she would say 'god, i bloody hated you, all you did was scream and cry and scream, in the end it made me mental!'

Mum wouldn't tell me this in a nasty way, it was always said with a nudge nudge wink wink, she would just tell me how it was. But to me, in my sensitive heart, i thought that my existence had made my mum hate me. As a kid I thought what kind of daughter was I to do this to my mum? I would forever feel guilty about everything, if anything bad ever happened, I felt it was my fault.

As an adult, and going through post natal depression myself, i totally get what she was saying, but even in humour, i wouldn't tell my children that's how i felt when they were born.

Even now, if my mum tries to give me advice or her opinion, I doubt myself, my opinion, my thoughts, i try and turn it round so I can take the blame. I get very defensive as I feel i'm being attacked and then i stop listening properly. I feel the most awful guilt if I try and make a stand and even if i know i'm in the right, i will always back down and agree with mum. I cant deal with the feelings that i'm possibly hurting her feelings or being disrespectful.

This is something I'm going to have to work on as throughout my life, i'm not sure what is the truth and what my mind has warped into my truth.

Its strange how a feeling of rejection from a person I don't know in London can kick up a load of suppressed feeling an issues. issues that you didn't even know were issues until you let your mind really digest them and then you think ' Fuck! actually, that really did hurt and actually I really don't like that situation'.

I guess its being honest about your feelings. There are people in my life that i love and because I love them I let things go. But they don't go, they just get buried. I'm amazed that i sobbed writing about my mates and how they made me feel at school, the feelings are still raw, something I thought I grew out of and put it down to us being kids. But actually it still fucking hurts!

I've acknowledged it now, i'm not sure what the next stage is, probably accepting it was what it was and letting go. I will spend the day crying as i've kicked up a load of old feelings, and that's okay, because if i'm crying, then i'm not shoving it all down with food. I've realised that i do dismiss my feelings and they all gather up and then I tend to explode into a big pile of teary snot, and people around me look at me weird, so, as hard as its going to be, I am gonna roll with what my feeling is with any given thing that's going on. If i find something upsetting, i'm gonna be upset. If something happens that gets me angry, i'm gonna get angry. Years of suppressing feeling is making me into a big fat unhappy beast.

I'm not sure of who the girl I am going to be as I don't know myself. I haven't met her yet as she has been silenced with food. But I will be accepting and acknowledging my feelings from now on. If I need to ring the council to fix my window, i will accept I feel anxious about speaking to someone, and then deal with it and get my windows fixed.

Laters x