Bio eating wise

Small ongoing bio for those who can’t read everything about me.

So here is the whole me as in e d me…
Anyway I remember starting my first real diet at the age of nine. I’d always been a big girl and I can still remember now how I felt when I’d lost weight, ecstatic.
It was always the same though the weight soon went back on. And even though I was teased about it all the time I didn’t let it bother me. At High School it was different more vicious but still it didn’t bother me, I kept to myself and ignored them as best I could.
One girl in particular made my life hell, until I stood up one day and told her what I thought of her. She was ugly, I knew I was just overweight..
She never bothered me again
My Grandad died in March 1994. I was heartbroken, and didn’t know how to tell anyone, I cried alone in my room night after night, and had no one to turn to.
Then I I left School to go to collage.
All my trouble first started in that summer. You see I was baby-sitting one night at friends and when I arrived, I found the women weighing themselves.
When they had gone I thought I’d do the same. I was devastated I weighed in at 19st 4lbs. I never realised I was that fat, but now I had seen the real me, I wasn’t happy at all.
That was it I was going to lose weight and so I started to diet.
The weight dropped off, basically because I wasn’t eating anywhere near my normal amount. I was down to under a thousand calories a day, whereas I’d been used to maybe 4000. I began to excersise and it fell off quicker. I felt brilliant. Exhilarating.
My friends kept commenting on the weight loss and my confidence grew. I don’t think I ever realised I had a problem then. I just seemed to eat less and less.
My parents split up because my dad was an alcoholic and my mum brother and I went to live with my Nan while we waited for dad to leave the house.
We moved back just before I left collage.
My weight had stopped falling off by then and I was about 15st. I remember very little of those next few months, I was unemployed and drifted by unaware.
I worked solid on my novel and cut out food completely. I was up at 6:30 every day and I exercised every hour for about twenty minutes.
I can see now how obsessed I was about food. I realise I was anorexic. My periods had stopped for over 8 months, and I was tired all the time.
I believed it was my fuller figure that made no one notice what was really happening.
July 1995 luck changed for me, I tried to set up a house sitting business and I got two jobs. It was while I was on my second Job I became Bulimic.
I was on my own for the first time and away from everyone.
I though it was fantastic, but it gave me too much time to think.
I’ve always kept a diary and as I look through them now I can see the terrible struggle that broke out, it still frightens me to this day.
I thought I was seriously obese and I was very disgusted with myself for not losing any more weight.
One day I treated myself to McDonalds I felt disgusted with myself for eating so much and couldn’t cope.
Those immortal words went through my mind, “Just do it once it won’t hurt!”
If only I’d known the pain that ‘once’ would cause I would never have done it.
I was sick from then on after everything I ate. An orange or a full meal, it didn’t mater. Down the toilet it went.
My throat was sore constantly and I was throwing up blood as well as food. I even passed out quite a few times. Yet no matter how much I hurt myself. The terrible pain inside would never go away.
I got a job as a Chamber Maid at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Southport. At first, I didn’t lose much weight, about a stone and I had an awful Christmas. I hated the job it was extremely hard work for very little pay. I quit in March, and was on the dole again. My routine of writing and excersise started again and my weight plummeted, two stone in three months.
My luck changed in May and I got another job. Started the 29th at Smurfit Corrugated. There I met my first boyfriend Paul Chapman.
Paul moved into our home in Mere Brow to see if we could save it by paying the arrears my dad had incurred when my mum first left him.
Paul introduced my mum to his friend Frank and we went away as a foursome for a break in the Lakes. When we returned Frank moved in with us
It didn’t work though with us in Mere Brow, the house was repossessed in September. We moved to a maisonette in Ormskirk. I hated t, we constantly argued with my mum, and she threw us out.
Paul and I then went to stay with friends in Banks two days before my nineteenth birthday. We bought our first home, a caravan.
29th January 1997 Paul asked me to marry him. My Bulimia reached it’s worst.
I told Paul everything and he listened, soon after he tried to get me to see a doctor, I wouldn’t
Mum and Frank got married on the 6th September that year. I was glad she was happy, but our friendship was never the same.
I finally went see my doctor; she referred me to a Psychiatric Specialist. The waiting list was eight months and that put me off, but I carried on seeing her, which really helped. I kept a food diary and talked to her about everything.
In November I sent off to ‘That’s Life’ magazine asking if they would print my story.
Two weeks later a woman rang, to see if she could interview my on the 28th. I agreed.
Talking to her was great she asked all the right questions, and I found it a real help. Paul stayed with me and listened adding bits when he could.
The article was to be printed in February the following year, I was glad I felt I had accomplished something.
Although no one in my family other than Paul knew how ill I was. The story gave me the incentive to tell them and I was glad I did.
March 1998 and Paul left Smurfit to go to Holmswood Coaches and I felt very lonely in my job even though my mum was with me. But the hospital helped me through it and I learned to cope.
Soon after my mum walked out, and I was left with Frank and a few other friends. The backstabbing didn’t change all I did now was fight back.
I had got over my shy streak and could now give back worse than they gave me.
One incident especially stuck in my mind. A woman started shouting at me in the middle of the factory, basically because I seemed to go to the toilet every hour. She came to my desk and shouted at me there then walked back to her own, and still went on to one of the other women.
I walked over to her. I kept my cool, “Listen,” I said, “are you a doctor?”
She stood dumbfounded at my smooth voice. “No, but you’re not that ill.” She replied, looking round for support off the others.
They kept silent.
“Well then I suggest until you get your medical degree, shut up.” I told her and walked away.
To this day she still rants and raves about how much time I spend in the toilet, but I just tell her it’s only to get away from her bitching.
Paul and I were married on the 25th April 1998 and had the most wonderful honeymoon in Alcudia, Majorca.
I started attending classes for Relaxation at Ormskirk hospital. I met a lot of nice people all with different problems. It even taught me a lot of things I didn’t know about myself.
I then went on a course especially for people with Eating Disorders. It gave me a lot of hope meeting other people who suffered like me, and it was such a relief to talk about all the things we did.
The course made me realise I wasn’t alone. There were other people out there, who feared food as much as I did.
13th December 1999 (My Birthday) we had gone out for a wonderful meal and were asleep in bed when I heard knocking at the door.
I woke Paul up to answer it. It was his brother; Stephen, he had come all the way from Liverpool to tell him his sister, Ethel had died.
I was very close to her and was very distressed by this. Paul never got time to grieve as his brothers ruined his memory of her.
They took over the funeral arrangement and scattered her ashes where she didn’t want them.
Christmas day and we went to my mothers to try to enjoy ourselves. His brother Stephen rang him up and it spoiled everything.
In January, while we were off the caravan site and in my nan’s, his eldest brother Jimmy came to give him a few photos of her and they had a huge argument. He would never speak to them again.
March 2000 and we had arranged to go to Ireland. With one of Paul’s friends from work Ronnie Docker.
I was asked to go into the office at work to cover while someone was off sick, the only catch was I couldn’t have my holiday, and we decided that it would be better for us if I cancelled and let my dad go with them instead.
I really enjoyed the office work but when the factory got busy, I was sent out to the factory floor again.
April 11th 2000 and I had an accident in work, came off my motorbike and damaged my knee. I was off work and Paul went to Ireland
I was alone, and so depressed. My weight had increased by a stone and I was devastated. I couldn’t go anywhere, do anything, I couldn’t cope.
I attempted suicide on the 21st. The night before Paul was due home.
A friend rang an ambulance and I was rushed to Ormskirk hospital. They bandaged me up and asked far too many questions.
I phoned my mum who came to pick us up. She stayed with me until that afternoon when Paul returned.
He was very understanding, and listened as much as he could. He took another week off work to stay with me because I was terrified of being alone and that following week I admitted myself to the psychiatric ward in Ormskirk.
Their constant help and support gave me back the strength to come out a week later.
I had six months off work due to my leg injury, most of it I spent visiting my counsellor and doing a lot of talking.
Unfortunately I returned to Smurfit in October and that was really tough, the girls in the office took great pleasure in giving me a pair of trousers 8 inches bigger then when I had left.
The ed did get worse but I kept it hidden and carried on as normal
April 2000 and Paul, Ron and I went to Benalmadena, Spain for two weeks. It was a beautiful place, we made some wonderful friends and stayed up until four most mornings.
April 2001 twelve months after my accident and we had a run in with our landlord, over our electricity bill. We decided to move from Woodlands and bought a brand new caravan at the Riverside.
I did put some more weight on but was positive about it, and it slowly came off again.
But I wasn’t happy with it. I felt uncomfortable.
Slowly weight came off and the ed just stayed with me.
I had my knee operation in on nov 9th. Was sat at home laid up again when sept 11th happened.
They had fixed my knee, but unfortunately I had to have 3 mths off, and two were where I couldn’t put no weight on my leg or bend my knee.
Was ok for a while, ate normally and felt normal. Was extremely bored though and it was tough on us financially, by Christmas I had to go back to work.
That was tough as I was not ready at all for it, people just took the piss thinking I was skiving for so long, they couldn’t understand why footballers only had six weeks off yet I had 3mths.

2002, was a busy year, didn’t know where it really went to think I was mostly in limbo, I had a lot to do, pass my motorcycle test. (Which I did) and cope with our finances. I got a friend to teach me and he was great, very patient.
Paul was under great strain at holmeswood coaches, so he decided to leave, and find something else, temporarily he went to Arriva at skelmersdale, but the hours were split shifts and for one whole week, I was on my own at nights, and there I stopped eating once more.
October 29th, had an accident on the way to work went down a pothole and came off my bike; luckily I didn’t damage my knee again but did hurt my back and shoulder. I had to cancel yet another holiday in November one with my mum and had a week off.
November 13th day before my theory test for a car licence, another accident with a fellow worker on leaving the factory grounds, he turned up a drive with out indicating and I whacked my right leg on the back of his car breaking a light, and nearly my leg.
14th November, managed to get into town on my bike and pass my theory test, yeah. But week off work with sore leg again. (Took six months for bruising and lump to go)
January, 2003 Our next door neighbour took ill and with working shifts and visiting him Paul and I struggled on.
March 2003 Paul got a new job with Cumfy coaches and we planned a trip to Spain to visit our friends again for our anniversary and my mums 50 bday (wasn’t until November) but was early treat for her. My weight still kept on coming down and I had lost all but 7lb of the weight I put on with the first Mcycle accident (nearly 4st)
I loved being back in Spain with our friends, but felt like my mum was not only using us but them as well, as they paid for a lot of the drinks we had and my mum didn’t, left the bill to us at the end of the night I said we would never go away with anyone else again.
Unfortunately as well for me and I put 10lb on.
When I got back I first sought help off the internet a bbc site to try and help me cope.
It did for a while,
Paul and I decided to get a loan in early May to do up our garden, borrowed a lot, and paid of some existing debt too. Planned to start the garden and get it done with in a couple of weeks, when the work had started it was awful, everyone let us down, and in the end we had to do most of the work ourselves, the builders hadn’t got us the right amount of flags so the job cost us double what we had planned.
I started to learn to drive and as the garden was near completion, our next-door neighbour Vic died, and that was terrible. Paul and he had grown so close over the last year, I liked him, and his wife, but Paul was gutted.
The garden was completed three weeks later, (I hope he could see it.)
We had a big party to celebrate, but it wasn’t the same.
My eating became more erratic, and in September Paul became ill, and had to take time off from his new job, suspected gout, (His toe swelled to twice the size and he couldn’t walk)
Yet his boss thought it was ample reason to get rid of him and when he went back in October.
We thought he would get work straight away which he did for a week but then had three weeks with nothing, the financial strain was really too much, for him and me. He was really down. Then he got a job in skelmersdale again, but it was awful hours and he left to work for a local firm just before Christmas.
Things were bad for me in my nan’s that year, and I really struggled eating and keeping down anything. Yet my weight stayed virtually the same. I was heartbroken.
In March 2004 when we got back home I was so relieved, I could get back on the internet and try to get my head round everything, Paul didn’t know it had gotten so bad for me again but he was starting to notice, and eventually I told him again. He was very worried, and promised he would help in any way he could. All I needed was love, and for me to accept it, at the moment in time, I couldn’t, and still present day am not sure if I do.
I found the eating disorder self help site and this virtually brings me to present day.
Am fighting hard as usual and hope to continue to do so.
2004 – 2005
After attending a course for scriptwriting in setptember 04 I met my best friend, Sian Dawson, together we set up Lsd films, in July 05 our small film company, last year we made our first short film, written by myself ‘Lost Innocence’ based on some personal experience of my Ed.
Last year I went through an awful lot, I was sexually abused by a man I was working with, infront of another woman, and I began to self harm badly. so I seeked help and I fought real hard, I took a lot of time off work and eventually delt with a lot of my pain.
That brings me pretty much up to date.