I finally finished it....

The infuriating thing about this post is that I promised it ages ago....or at least nearly a week ago anyway, and I've had to do it in tiny fragments at a time due to having had a crapload of work for uni. And what happens when one tries to compose a skincare blog in tiny fragments, you ask? you bloody forget things! so here it is, hopefully complete with everything I use on a daily to every few weeks...ly basis (lol) to try and not look like a boil-ridden toad despite having a roaring, raging eating disorder.

Cleansing when your skin is sensitive/normal (not oily)

All of the products I’m going to recommend for normal skin are also suitable for sensitive skin, unless I say otherwise :)

Cleansing waters: The thing god made for those days when you just CBA doing a proper morning/evening cleanse. The ones I like are:

-Bioderma cleansing water (order online only I think, except for annoying people like me who go to France plenty, in which case you can get it on tap in the pharmacies.) NO ONE is allergic to this. It’s ultra gentle. It’s literally like having a dove feather gently stroked over your face by angels…..

-Caudalie micellar cleansing water, which tends to be about….£14 something from boots (big boots, not little boots shops) I LOVE THIS, I use this one most of all really, when I want to take off my make up halfway through the day to freshen up, in the morning as an actual cleanse, in the evening as an actual cleanse AFTER I take any make up off with a make up remover. Obviously, having an ED means that your skin will be up and down the walls all the time, so what I like about this is I tend to be able to use it whenever.

Cleansing waters have actually saved my skin from ME on days when I can hardly move because I’m so depressed but I just KNOW that if I don’t do something I’m gonna wake up with a face only a mother could love. And I don’t have a mother. You may laugh.

Okay, actual cleansers:

Liz Earle’s cleanse and polish hot cloth cleanser. OHMYGOD. I love this stuff. This stuff literally makes your face feel like a new-borns’ buttocks. DO NOT use it on your T-zone when it is oily. Not that it would make it any worse or whatever, there are just better things I can suggest. This Cleanser maintains the status quo. You could even just use it on your cheeks and something else on your t-zone. If different parts of your face look and feel different….treat them differently. Makes sense, right? But yeah, this is just beautiful. You’ll love it. The starter kit comes with two muslin cloths, and a nice big bottle of the cleanser with a pump dispenser, and normally a little freebie, for example I got a little bottle of Liz Earle toner J it’s about….£13/14 ish. Or maybe a little less. But it lasts aaaaaaaages, especially if you prefer to use something else on your T-zone if you have combination skin. And it smells like god himself. True story.

Alpha-H Balancing cleanser-I can use this when my skin is normal OR a bit oily. And it never harms my skin when it feels a little sensitive. It’s just lovely! As the name suggests, it balances the oil levels on your skin.

Cleansing when your skin is dry

When my skin is dry, I only cleanse with water once a day, and this is totally sufficient. But in the mornings I might use:

The Bioderma….see above :)

When my skin is dry, I quite like to spritz “the body shop” vitamin E face mist on my face, wipe off the excess, apply moisturizer and make up if I’m wearing it, and then….here’s the kicker, spritz it on AGAIN. And this time I let it dry on my face. Might sound bizarre, but definitely works, and then throughout the day I can either spritz it on when I go to the bathroom, or apply a little moisturizer here and there on the dryer patches if I think that would be better.

For my one hot water cleanse on a dry day, I do often use the Liz Earle hot cloth cleanser. As my skin improves, as in gets less dry, I switch to the alpha H balancing cleanser, and then go back to my normal routine.

Cleansing when your skin is oily

This happens to the best of us. I tend to get blemishes on my chin more than anywhere, and it tends to be because my ED is messing around with my hormones. (Chin spots tend to be hormonal). I can’t fix my hormones without going through recovery, and I have found that recovery does not suit me. Maybe it will one day, but now isn’t the time. I consider myself to be a total whizz kid at sorting out blemishes and oil. I’m quite a clean person, maybe to the point of obsession, so blemishes REALLY get to me, because they offend my sense of cleanliness and order. So, without further ado….

REN clay cleanser is something I use ONLY ON MY T-ZONE when it is oily. So that’s Chin, nose and forehead. However, it is gentle enough for sensitive skin, and won’t strip your face causing more oil production. I CANNOT stress enough how important it is to not choose the most drying thing you can find. My partner bought me a facial once when we went to centerparcs, and the lovely girl there said to me “Never forget, oily skin works backwards”, meaning that if your skin is producing a lot of oil, it means that it is reacting to being dried out in some way, and is overcompensating. REN smells a bit weird. I’m not gonna lie. But I have come to associate the smell with sorting out my skin, which makes it a positive smell for me, oddly. It IS gentle enough to use on your cheeks, if you feel they are oily enough, but I haven’t ever met someone who finds their cheeks especially oily, it tends to be the T-zone which is the offending area.

I’m going to come on to those times where you have an absolute BASTARD of a spot in a particular area of your face. Maybe even a patch of BASTARDS in an area of your face. Remember:

-if you dry it out until the skin cracks, this might mean more spots there in the long run

-Treat the area individually, not your whole face. Using a blemish-prone cleanser all over your face, when you only have blemishes in one area will cause the rest of your face to over-produce oil, which may equal more spots!

-Only squeeze it if it has a head. I don’t tend to get scars from spots, and I’ve found that getting the pus out and then applying something drying works, but then I have to balance it out again to avoid damaging that little bit of skin. If you know you’re prone to scarring, don’t pick at all.

Every once in a blue moon, I use Clearasil. In principle, I HATE Clearasil. It attacks your skin and dries it out. But I have learned to occasionally use Clearasil in a way that really helps. As a teenager, I often used Clearasil on my whole face if I got a patch of spots somewhere. And I used to give in to the temptation to wash my face several times a day. BIG mistake. Now, I wash blemishes a maximum of three times a day, but normally just twice a day. I use cleanser for NORMAL skin everywhere else in my face, except the offending area. I apply the Clearasil to the spotty area, sometimes letting it soak in. I sometimes use REN with Clearasil, leaving the REN on for a little bit in the bath, like a mini clay mask. I don’t use the Clearasil exfoliator if the spots are red and sore looking. If I do use the Clearasil exfoliator at all, I use it gently.

After cleansing a spotty area with Clearasil and REN, I hold a warm flannel or muslin cloth against it for a bit and then gently wipe away, to make sure no cleanser remains. It also pays to hold a warm flannel or muslin cloth against a spotty area before cleansing, to get the pores open.

-I don’t tend to steam my face with tea tree oil in hot water, unless I am about to use a face mask for oily skin. I don’t want to dry out my face, so I will steam my face in this way using a glass, not a bowl or sink. I will direct the glass over the patch of my face that is spotty, and allow it to steam the area (I add maybe….four drops of tea tree oil to the glass). I have found that this softens the skin up and makes the mask more effective.

My favourite mask for blemishes at the moment is Soap and Glory’s “Fab pore facial peel”. It is, despite the name, NOT an actual peel. It does tingle a little bit when it goes on, but the beauty of it is that it doesn’t dry out completely like a clay mask, so it doesn’t leave your skin feeling tight. It’s lovely. I also like Soap and glory’s “No clogs allowed” for similar reasons. No clogs allowed is a self-heating exfoliating mask type thing, and it does feel veeeeery nice, and is quite a treat really. I’m big on the whole “let’s not dry our faces out to a crispy, leathery purse texture” movement, so these two are really favourites of mine.

Clearasil do a very astringent toner. It contains salicylic acid, and all other kinds of spot-zapping crap. I may use it. But once a day, for a maximum of three days, and only on the juiciest fuckers!

As for natural choices, I HAVE had good results with tea tree oil in the past, but generally when it was a blended oil, say with peppermint or something. Personally I found that undiluted tea tree oil actually burned my skin when applied directly, and therefore made the whole area redder and sorer. Superdrug’s tea tree range have a couple of nice options. They have a nice little bottle of blended tea tree oil, and a tea tree and peppermint oil spot stick, which has an applicator like a little lipgloss wand. I find those are good for calming the little buggers, and as I said before, a couple of drops of oil in boiled water can provide a nice little pore cleansing steam for blemishes.

Lush have a couple of very nice options. One of them I discovered when actually trying to find something to help a very close friend of mine. It is a kind of Tea tree spritzer, and you spray it on your face and you can either dab off the excess, or leave it on to dry. Being tea tree, it will wreak its antibacterial-antifungal powers upon the dastardly blemishes, and will probably have a mild drying effect on them, which for most people (not long term sufferers of acne) is enough to set the record straight.

They also do a kind of sea-breeze type spritzer called “A breath of fresh air”. Because it’s Lush, it’s 100% natural, and therefore all lush options are generally suitable for sensitive skin unless of course you are allergic to any of the natural ingredients. This one just freshens up your oily skin, and smells like a trip to the seaside. It actually cheers me up when I smell it, that’s how ridiculously nice it is.

Lush have various masks that would be alright for blemished skin, but I wouldn’t generally bother with them, they would have a calming effect I suppose, but for spots, you may as well try the soap and glory. While I’m talking about masks, I am gonna bring up a really cheap option, and I bet every female reader from the UK has tried it. Montagne Jeunesse. Yes, the little 99p sachets. Damask rose. Enough said. I actually DESPISED rose face masks, as for some reason for me they has the illusion of being too perfumed and irritating my skin. But I tried this one, and my face just felt so deeply cleansed it was amazing. Also, their peel-offs are nice for oily skin as a quick pick me up too. Maybe not suitable for sensitive blemished skin, but if you check the ingredients out, you’ll know better than me.

As for zapping the spots, without using tea tree oil or whatever, these are the things you should use,in my opinion there is nothing else short of medication that will work.

Pre-spot: you’ve got a little lump, and it feels like it might become a whopper. Dr Nick Lowe spot treatment gel. Tea tree oil. That’s it. In this case, it’s hardly worth bringing out the big guns.

Blackheads: steam and exfoliate

Zits: if not prone to scarring, remove pus. If it is large, use a salycilic acid based spot cream, Nicotinamide or benzoyl peroxide. When it begins to dry, apply SUDOCREM.

Papules: these are the hard round spots that won’t pop if you squeeze them. If a spot has no head, and is hard/firm to the touch DO NOT EVER EVER EVER SQUEEZE IT. In fact, only squeeze it if it has a head, period. Apply fairly drying things to it. Salycilic acid cleansers, benzoyl peroxide. And use a flannel or muslin cloth as a warm compress to try and encourage a head out of it. Steam it occasionally. Treat it with kid gloves, if you get me. These fuckers can ruin your face for weeks. Some of them come to a head. Some never do, but go away when you persist with the gentle drying agents. I would definitely use Clearasil toner on these. They’re often a bit painful. I take an ibuprofen/any other mild painkiller, hold a hot flannel against it, apply spot cream and try to leave it alone. Squeezing them might pop them under the skin. This causes infection beneath the skin. You do not want this.

This brings me onto little whiteheads, red marks/scars and general skin quality. Alpha H liquid gold. Alpha H liquid gold. Alpha H liquid gold. It’s £30ish. I know that’s a lot. Save up. Trust me. I use it about once every three nights, and the quality of my skin has never been better. It even helps blackheads!

I find that Sudocrem helps fade things back into the colour you want them to be, and it's SO bloody cheap it's unbelievable. Don't smack on a whopping thick layer though, as it is qute heavy, i use a little q-tip to rub it in (but then I don't like to touch my face. Every moisturizer/spot treatment I ever use is applied using cotton pads or q-tips etc!) also, sudocrem is BRIGHT white, so only apply it if a)you aren't going anywhere or expecting anyone or b)you are going to bed. It's actually quite effective overnight, and takes things down quite well, but don't apply it to a brand new spot, follow the directions above for those. It's a healing cream, so use it to heal spot remnants and red marks :)

Another point about the cleansers: Pretty much every cleanser I use goes on my neck as well as my face. EXCEPT the ones I listed for oily skin. I want my neck to stay youthful, so I don’t use drying cleansers on it. I DO apply alpha H liquid gold to my neck too.

Every so often for a pick me up, I use Sisley express flower gel. It is VERY expensive, but it makes your skin very very nice. I can only afford to use it every once in a while, when I look like a total crack addict from lack of sleep and such.

My moisturisers change depending on what type of skin day I’m having. But I always use the same toners and make up removers. They are:

-Liz Earle skin instant boost skin tonic WHEN I’M GOING OUT. It’s not the cheapest toner I can get, so I use it as a skin treat.

-Garnier simply essentials soothing eye make up remover

-Garnier simply essentials soothing vitamin-enriched toner

Garnier is cheap as chips, and the simply essential range doesn’t have any nasty things in it :)

The moisturizers I use are:

Normal skin: daytime-Olay UV day fluid for normal/oily skin. It’s light enough for me, and non comodogenic, and protects my pale skin from the sun, super! This is ALWAYS what I use on my neck in the daytime, regardless of whether or not it goes on my face. (except when using alpha H liquid gold)

Normal skin: night time-Nivea visage daily essentials regenerating night cream for normal & combination skin. This is always what goes on my neck at night, regardless of what goes on my face. (except when using alpha H liquid gold)

When I have dry skin, I still use these moisturizers, but I may spritz the body shop vitamin E spritzer with it, and apply something richer like E45 to the dryer patches, or something like that. Alternatively, I will apply, wait a few minutes, and apply again until I get satisfactory moisture. I’ve never needed to go heavier than these creams.

Oily skin with blemishes daytime: REN clearcalm3 total clarity Day fluid, but only on my T-zone, and I stop when the blemishes start to dry out

Oily skin with blemishes night time: REN clearcalm3 total clarity night serum, only on T-zone, and stop when I think my skin is looking more normal

Oily skin because it’s hot, sticky weather, or any other weird reasons like that: Madara ecoface deep moisture gel for oily to combination skin. This stuff smells amazing, and is really good for when the weather is humid or something, I sometimes use it as a night cream for my t-zone when my t-zone is oily but not spotty :)

I use eye creams too, but there are only two of those:

Daytime: Simple radiance brightening eye cream

Night time: Simple kind to eyes soothing eye balm.

On my lips I use Cath Kidston bluebell lip balm, especially in winter. When I go somewhere in the sun, I use a lip balm with an SPF in it like nivea lip care sun spf 25.

When looking for a sun tan lotion, what with being VERY pale, with celtic freckled skin, I try and find a non greasy one with a relatively high spf. I like the spray ones that are clear, and rub in well, like the nivea one in the blue bottle, or L’oreal paris solar expertise transparent spray. I don’t go for pricey sun tan lotion, I go for the middle priced ones so I can buy LOTS of it. I burned my skin as a kid. NEVER AGAIN. And you guys shouldn’t get sunburned either, it’s not good for you! Get an appropriate SPF, and apply often! It’ll keep you young and beautiful for as long as possible. Especially since ED’s dry out your skin like crazy sometimes, making it easier to burn to a rasher!

Right….I think that’s everything for now, except later I’ll probably think shit, I forgot blah blah…..But there’s always another time I suppose, haha!

I'm MORE than happy to answer specific questions about how to cope with something awful that has turned up on your lovely faces. I know I probably don't seem like the first place you'd go for advice, but I started having trouble with my skin aged 6...mainly because I had pica and was eating things no human should eat, and the evidence showed up on my face, I think I've had most skin ailments...impetigo, eczma, rosacea etc. So don't hesitate to ask! If there's something ED+skin related that I haven't addressed and you want me to address it....like lanugo, blue nails/fingers, you know stuff like that, let me know :) the only reason I haven't done it initially is because I'm not sure if you want it!

love to all who read

Jemimah

xxx

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Hi guys, the skincare post is a work in progress, it's taking me a little longer to fully describe all of the lovely products that make life less crappy. But it will come, in time. Another reason it's taking me a little longer is because I have some serious shit going down in my life at the moment, I have suddenly got a thousand assignments due in in the next couple of weeks (okay, not a thousand but it certainly feels that way!) and some social issues involving the circus that my peers taking a horrible interest in my sex life has become. I am under constant scrutiny and ridicule, because I am in fact attracted to people regardless of their gender. I'm very stressed about this at the moment (i decided to briefly blog about it for stress relief when this morning a sizeable clump of my hair came tumbling out as I brushed it....
So yeah, those are my excuses for not having posted anything in anyway good this last week. Another shitty aspect of being really frightened and stressed about uni is that I am throwing up (not on purpose this time, jeepers!) whenever I take anything in, which is making me feel really quite poorly. I might have to drink some rehydration sachets (which i f*cking LOATHE by the way) just to try and level the status quo. So, to sum up, I feel like crap and I have loads of unreasonable work to do, and it's all doom and gloom in castle von jemimah right now...
It worries me and excites me at the same time that I am probably going to end up hating the sensation of drinks as well as food, which was my downfall last time...I'll just have to grit the teeth and try and bear the diuralyte sachets, and hope for the best.

Love to all who read
Jemimah
xxx

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I'm all moved in back at the flat at university, with my boyfriend. The journey was a total nightmare not to mention the fact that I was carrying my two live pet mice in a pet travel case in my backpack (I left the zipper undone a little so they wouldn't suffocate, I transport them like this all the time :) ) We dragged all of our belongings onto the crowded train, and then had to drag them all from the train station to our apartment block, which took us an hour, despite being only 1 mile in distance. this is because the bags were REALLY heavy, and the wheels on the cases FELL THE FUCK OFF, ARRRGHHHHH. All this because his darling mother wouldn't give us a lift to our university abode, because "driving home alone makes her feel sad". This was annoying enough, guys 'n' gals, but then my sister rang me later on, and notified me that she had bumped into his mother in a shop, literally half an hour after we had gotten onto a train, and she was apparently all smiley and chirpy. BITCH. Anyway, rant over. Yesterday, I ate 200cals...soup and some fraction of a cracker, but I have noted my calories as though I ate the whole cracker, because...I like to round up anyway and I couldn't be arsed to imagine what a quarter of a cracker weighs.
I've been trying to think of some kind of useful wisdom I could give to my readers. One that is relevant to having some form of ED. Something relevant to ANY kind of ED. One that wouldn't be encouraging people stumbling across the blog to starve, if they don't already, or encourage them to do any other kind of damaging behaviour if they're not already sick with an ED. So I figured that either tonight, after I've thought long and hard about which products to include, or tomorrowish, I shall post: The ED sufferers guide to NOT having skin like a leathery, hormonal-spotty purse.
This is an art I have had to perfect for a very VERY long time, as I am a very fussy person, and a single blemish throws me into a down tail of hellish proportions. I currently HAVE a blemish on my chin (which by the way, as you probably know already, means it is a hormonal spot. We anas and mias must get used to our hormones coming back to bite. Most of us lose our menses, so we've got to expect of course that our hormones will do other insane things as well) I am confident, however, that because I sat and stared at it for nearly the entire train journey yesterday, literally sizing the little bugger up, I have treated it according to a pronged plan, which involved: the skin around it. The texture of it. The colour of it. The shine or non shine of it. The firmness of it.
I have been doing this for so long, that I have rather an array of products and tricks, saved to memory from all those times when I just discovered THE way to deal with a particular kind of spot/blemish. I will have a small, pinkish mark tomorrow, which I will cover up with yves saint laurent touche eclat, or a concealer pencil, again having considered the things I considered still when I was treating the spot.
So I shall go now, and distract myself from the fact that I don't weigh 0lbs, by composing my list of can't-live-without-products-for-ED-skin-in-all-kinds-of-weather-and-all-kinds-of-skin.
and I shall recommend a steel boned corset once again. they're amazing.
For now
love to all who read
Jemimah
xxx

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It's the beginning of that hideous time of the month where i SHOULD have a period, but nowadays i instead just have agonizing pains in my stomach that make me vomit sometimes....which is great! I take a contraceptive pill, so during the 7 day gap where I'm supposed to bleed, I instead have this. It makes it REALLY hard for me to not just say, ah I'll skip it this month, why not. So I'm sat here, while my boyfriend has gone out, alone with a hot water bottle permanently attached to my abdomen, pretty much bed bound, and to top it off, I have a pretty gross spot throbbing on my chin. Beauty emanates from every pore......It seems soooo deeply unfair that I don't have the period but I still get the pain. Twisted logic if you ask me! anyway, have survived about....five days? so far on a cup of tea per day, plus whatever water/herbal tea I can be bothered to drink. I dunno what I've lost or gained, as I don't have scales until I go back to the flat. I must say though, I care less and less about what my actual weight is. As long as the number on the scale goes down everyday, I feel ok. If for any reason I step on the scale and I have remained at the same weight, or have gained, it throws off my ENTIRE day, and I plummet into a complete depression=trench that lasts until I lose enough to feel like I made up for it. I am SO not looking forward to my 21st.....ugh.....birthdays. At least I don't really do anything. I was thrown a lovely party for my eighteenth, but that was back when I had friends. It was a good time. I recovered, for a short while, and everyone was smiley, and I felt pretty good. I can't imagine having the same big grin on my face this year. Most years, I've been a miserable, starving little swine on my birthday. I am the festive-cheer killer. ESPECIALLY when it's my birthday. I despise birthdays. Not sure why.....but I do. I can feel myself rambling....I don't especially have any big message or information today, which will probably make this rather a tedious and boring post. I guess I'm typing to ignore my pains.....I love how I don't have to distract myself from hunger though. It just literally isn't there. I think I'm not the only one to have experienced this nirvana.....there are girls and boys I've met in IP who have had this. After a while, maybe our bodies stop bothering to remind us. So many fruitless complaints, so many ignored rumblings. So eventually the hunger pangs leave us, and we really, genuinely have no appetite. I think I've lost more than my appetite. I actually do occasionally eat, but it means nothing to me. I don't worry about my boyfriend having sweets in the house, or any other junk, because I know I won't eat it. It's a kind of freedom, but in a way it makes me sad that I've achieved it, because is it an achievement, really? For me to have abused myself so deeply that I don't even function for survival anymore....
It doesn't matter though. I'd suffer either way, except this way I can't tell I'm suffering until something major happens again. It's actually a little more palatable than having to clutch at yourself in agony because your body is determined that YOUWILLEATNOW
haha
I'm going to the cinema tonight, and I'm pretty excited! it's really nice to be excited about something.
Tomorrow will be hell, as I'm moving back to our university flat, and we have to take all of our belongings, my partner's bike, my pet mice AND their enormous cage on the train, as his mum won't help us out.....man her shit is starting to get old for me. Not that it was ever refreshing behaviour. She has pissed me off solidly for the five years I've been with her son.....Must ignore the signals my brain gives me whenever she's nearby, which is kill, kill, kill....kill her until she's a gory puddle of matter and splatter.....
I'm not a psycho, honest. I bet we've all been there....
I'll probably shut up now

love to all who read
Jemimah
xxx

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mmmmkay so I'm feeling kind of interesting.....yesterday, I "ate" a takeaway curry with the boyfriend and his mum....and have worried half the night in case dogs die when they eat Bombay potatoes..... and also that I'll never get the stain out of my blazer, there was a hole in the bag i put in my pocket.... but aside from this, anything akin to hunger has now completely disappeared, and I feel so free! before Christmas, I bought a steel boned under bust corset, which I am wearing for certain amounts of each day, until i "break it in" so to speak, and then I'll aim to wear it all day and night except for bathing/showering, and swimming (i swim every weekday, take ballet a couple times a week, and run some weekdays and on the weekend-apart from the last couple of weeks as I'm post op, and it's sore when touched by chlorine, and i can't put too much strain on it with running, so I'm kind of yoga-ing it up until next week when I'm back at uni and I'm gonna get back in that pool come hell or high water). The interesting thing that I've found with the corset is that, if i wear it during a time when I'm not too much in the "public" eye (in other words the family eye) apart from my boyfriend, who laces me into it most times, and the time I normally choose is for about two to three hours before they all sit down to dinner, by the time I come to take it off for dinner (I've always sat cross legged on the chair, leaning over the table, if I sat any other way they'd think it was weird, and I can't sit this way with the corset on) I have literally NO appetite. I'm only taking in 2-3 inches, as is recommended when you're "seasoning" the corset, but it really does the trick. If anything, once I take the corset off, i feel kind of floppy, which then makes me feel a little nauseous. So even if family-happy-feeling persuaded me to eat, with the addition of the corset to my routine, I literally can't face it. I don't see family very often anymore, what with living away from home, and even when I am home, I live with my boyfriend most of the time, at his mums' when we're home, and just visit with my family, so when i do see them, i'm so happy, it makes me want to make them happy, and after all the IP crap I've put them through over and over, it actually often persuades me to eat a meal for them, to make them feel like I'm out of the woods. So the corset just persuades me to stick to my guns despite the way I feel, and thus in the long run, keeps me safe from hateful thoughts and so on.
When I get back to my flat at uni, I can keep the corset on during the time when my boyfriend sits down to dinner. Even if I have a plate in front of me then, I won't want much, if any.
I'm not sure how I actually feel about uni. On the one hand, it'll give me a lot of my freedom back, and access to my treadmill (yup, last year we bought a treadmill, literally best buy of my life!!!) the beautiful Olympic sized pool that we have a membership for, and my ballet class, which I love. I wasn't sure if I would continue dancing after high school and sixth form ended, but it turned out that I missed it so much, I just had to go back. I chose an amazing class, the only class that offers adult pointe classes, and THE loveliest teacher in the world. So yeah, Uni is kind of attractive in that sense. But in the sense that i'm gonna have to face all that work, the assignments, and the general revision stress of uni makes me feel sick to my stomach. I get so anxious, I basically live my uni life with a perpetual feeling of doom. I kind of brought this up to the doctor last time I saw her, but I'm having some kidney/bladder problems right now, and apparently (i totally had no idea about this) medication that they use for anxiety can clash with those used to treat the urinary system.....news to me!! She gave me the number for my uni counsellor.....but i hate counselling. I actually think it makes me worse, because I worry about what truths to tell, and what to lie about.....so it causes me more stress than it relieves.
yesterday, These are the things that DID pass my lips:
Glasses of water: three and a half, i think
Herbal tea: one, cranberry and raspberry
one actual cup of tea, as I felt faint and i needed to walk the dog: tea, skim milk, sugar (34 cals)
One green bean in some of the sauce from the vegetable karahi that we ordered. (cals unknown. maybe 20-40? with the sauce it's hard to tell.)

I can't often face a lot of liquids, I hate anything being inside me, but yesterday, what with the laxative holocaust i inflicted on my body....it kind of felt necessary.
I had a shower in the morning, and a bath in the evening, and I still can't touch my skin....I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on the blog yet, actually? I think I've picked up a ridiculous phobia, after last year-ish, i saw on this hospital documentary about a woman getting necrotizing fasciitis from touching soil in her garden and then touching her eye....but I literally can't bear to touch my own skin. I moisturize etc using cotton balls or pads, I wash my face with a flannel or muslin cloth, and I wash my body wearing those exfoliating gloves you can buy. I can touch my hair to wash it, although wet hair gives me the shivers, but it's not as bad when it's your own.
I think I've babbled enough...
Love to all who read
Jemimah
xxx

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Started the day with a wicked stomach ache, from laxatives that I took in a slight frenzy before I went to bed. My measurements are 31.5, 22, 33.5, but I'm short so those measurements are worthless. Started the day with a cup of tea to make my boyfriend happy. I think he knows something's wrong. I've steadily lost weight over christmas, instead of gaining, despite the fact that to everyone I spent christmas with, I appear to have eaten what I've been advised to eat by my doctor. Thankfully, being post-op, This isn't as much as a recovery diet, but is still enough to make the bile rise in my throat at the thought. I've reverted to the fashionable blazers, with non-fashion adjustments....sandwich bags sewn in the pockets and sleeves, allowing me to dispose of the crap later. The tea I drank this morning soothed my stomach ache somewhat, but I hate the feeling of the hot fluid slipping down.
I feel like a rabbit hole is about to open under me. Anyone reading this who suffers in the same way will know the feeling, that you aren't going to be able to save yourself from yourself, not this time. Over summer, I wasn't exactly a bad girl. I occasionally purged after days out with the boyfriend and his mum, having been lost in the happy family day out feeling, and eating something that would fester inside me for the rest of the day....and on the days I didn't eat, he didn't know that. I've been kind, and thoughtful, which isn't like me at all. Normally, I actually couldn't give a shit if he knows, because I figure, well this is me, isn't it? But we've been together five long years now, and when I look into his face, I know i have to conceal it. Even if it continues being so blindly obvious, I have to deny, and he hopefully will look the other way to avoid the pain. Because this problem has been in my life longer than he has, but he might be harder to let go of, even if that is a gigantic statement, considering I've struggled for nearly exactly ten years. My 21st looms.
I'm gloomy today. I guess I'll try and drown it with water I don't want to drink, hopefully helping the laxatives I can't help but take along the way.

Jemimah
xxx

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a little thought

It occurred to me today, when i (finally) came home from a ridiculously long and drawn out procedure to close another oesophagal tear....seriously peeved about the fuss they made about putting me under anaesthesia this time. How low can I go? I have this sick feeling in my stomach, Like I literally don't even know the worst of it yet.

let's see shall we
Jemimah
x

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