Hello there everyone

I havent blogged for a bit as i have been very very busy.

These last few weeks have been really challanging for me and I would like to say i have sailed through them.

I have dropped Mondays at cheadle hospital, for my own reasons as well as theres, I am doing much better with eating and am maintaining a healthy weight, even though it has slightly increased I am trying not to focus on it in a bad way, as i know i look better for having a bit of cuddliness. rather than being thinner and pale faced and sullen.

I have been doing lots of thinking and dont know where i still stand on a number of things.

I am finding the reality of leaving work a little more difficult than i had imagined and in some ways of considering going back just to fight off one of my fears, to be able to go back and leave when I want to notwhen they want me to.

I think i still need to focus on other things now, and am really going to look into that seriously.

I have good news about the bungalow, we have the plans back and the builder is at the moment pricing everything up, i know he thinks already he has got the job as they have been out matching bricks and stuff, bless him. We have known the guy a long time, and he comes highly recomended so fingers crossed he comes in well under budget so we have some money left for the nicer things like Pauls 20ft fish pond.

As for me, I just want everything to get started, for me to be in some kind of work and then i feel more financially secure and i know my mum certainly would, even if it is going backwards.

My doctor thinks, it is the fact tht I am so scared as to why i dont want to go back in, because of the way things have been handled in the past when i have had long time off sick, but over the last few years i have never recieved the help with my food issue and thats been an underlying problem, i feel it is now being delt with to the best of my ability.

I have come a very long way in the last 5 months. I have discovered so much about the person I am and more to the point who I want to be, not just what the past has made me.

We have a tennancy aggreement now as well, so am more secured in that knowledge that things are really settling.

As for day care and wanting to leave for my own reasons.

It has become increasingly hard on mondays. There are about 10 more girls, and to be honest the rooms arent big enought to cope with that.

We are doing also this cullinry skills thing, where two of us cooks for the other 12 people…

Now you can imagine cant you. 14 girls all with severe eating problems at various stages, and they are asking us what we would like to eat…

Come on, they are so blind, I know decision making about food is part of the problem, and I am always arguing with Paul because i havent got a meal planned for the evening. But it is a major part of why we suffer. We just dont know what to choose…

To have to make decisions like this is highly stressfull, and for some it is putting them off going to day care full stop.

I also feel that, because there are so many on Mondays and only two members of staff plus the dietition, that there sn’t enough support there for some of us.

It is very easy to let the ones who dont speak up slip under the carpet, and I am the one who is dealing with the comeback.

Basically as I am such a caring person and the other girls really do trust me.

As it was my last day on monday, some of the girls even wanted to change their days just so i would be there with them. That is so nice, and I am very flattered they like me so much, I am beginning to realise that I am a person worth kowing and that I shouldnt hide away.

I think i will have to make some notes of this and put it in the post to Dr Sharma. I know it will def upset the staff but I am thinking of the others who are left without attention when they most need it.

Umm, think that is about it for now.. Keep smiling everyone, and thanks for your continued support.

Dawn xx

Ok so yesterday I really did have a bad day, but I didn’t not eat, I managed three meals, I had breackfast some lunch, and a snack; then dinner. It took me all my time to do it, but I managed it so I do feel better.

I had a busy day yesterday even though I didn’t go to the hospital. I got rid of loads of things of ours, and took the last few bits of stuff to the tip. There is still a fire and a few rugs that I don’t want but hey, I’ve done ok for now.

Most of our clothes are in suitcases and there is a suitcase full of bedding. The drawers are full of clothes now, and its just a case of waiting.

I spoke to Claire a bit last night, and she gets the same impression that I do that my mum is now trying to skrimp and scrape to get this project off the ground.

To be honest, yes of course there are things I do want to buy, and as I found out last night, my mum rang Paul up paniking in case I went out and spent loads of money.

The thing is yes there are things I want. Like a new laptop and the excersise machine, I’d love a new dining table and chairs, but I know for a while it aint going to happen.

My mum and brother need to get their arses into gear and get Gerry sorted out, and a mortgage, other wise I think we will be leaving.

My mum is still going on a bout getting a mortgage and paying off the caspital, but to be honest, I don’t want to do that, and probably cant afford it. We only have 450 a month to pay for the rent and that’s as far as I am willing to go. I think she has this idea again that we will all move into here, but we said that wont work, so its not an option.

As far as I am concerned now, the ball lies in their court, Paul and I have done our part we have sold up and moved out, and believe me that was so so hard. I am finding it really weird, the idea of not going back to our van scares me something wicked.

The next few steps should be to go and see Gerry, agree on a price. Then go and sort out the mortgage…

Simple, yeah but not that simple… we also need to get the plans drawn up on what we want the house to look like, and that is entirely up to mum and chris, so they need to DECIDE.

Its doing my head in….

The granny flat is going to cost a lot of money, but what building doesn’t.

I’m sorry but until this is sorted my head is going to be a right mess.

I just don’t know if I am coming or going… If we are going then, the money I get I will spend on some of the nicer things, like what I want, and in a place that I want to. I will rent a house and do it as I please and sod them…

Anyways, apart from that, the house is looking nice now. I have to say that its been hard, but worth it. Paul has the pond in and wired up, so at least the fish are ok, we lost one fish though it stressed out and died. Bless.

I also went to hip hop class last night with Claire, and I really enjoyed it. The warm up was actually harder than the dancing but that is only as I can’t remember which steps come next so I am finding it hard to follow. I will get there, I have set my mind to it.

I am not as unfit as I thought I was.

I’m going horse riding on Tuesday as well and am looking forward to that….

Oops forgot to say I can now do 20 sit ups…. Am a bit sore after but I think I am getting there.

Anyways as for today, and this weekend, once again its going to be busy.

I’m opening a bank account with mum today and then going to visit Pat for a massage, and then I’m meetingSianand Noel later at The Hayfield for a meal and a few drinks. Am really looking forward to seeing her but I think she will be asleep on us lol…

Then sat we are going toSouthport, and then to sort out the caravan once and for all… Clean and sign it away…

OH MY GOD

Yeah busy…

Speak soon all. Love to ya…

Dawn xx

Hi everyone.

Its been a very tough week, I realised that some of my thoughts, are really still not good, after getting my new meds, I took my first tablet far to early and was asleep at 5 pm, off and on and then in bed at 8pm… lol… I know I needed to sleep but I wasn’t expecting it to be straight away.

Anyways the hospital was good on Thursday, I know talking to Shirley is really helping, and to some of the other staff, I haven’t self injured, although the feelings are there, and I am talking about them now, which is good… Shirley assured me that even with everything that has happened over xmas that I am doing really good. I have made a lot of positive and strong decisions, like forcing Paul Riley out of the car. I as my child self, let my Adult take over and make the right decision instead of being bullied and letting him get in the car and come to Leyland with us.

In the other sense I have made some decisions to whom really is my friend, and who really isn’t. It has been hard to actually admit that certain people are there just because I am a nice person and generally would do lots of things for them, but I have admitted it now and put into practice ways to stop them from carrying on and doing that, and hurting me.

I know in what ever future I have I need certain things in life, and friends are one of them, but I need friends who take care of me as well as let me take care of them.

I haven’t been able to really open up and talk to any of my friends in the past, even with Sian it has been really difficult, and I have felt like by me putting my problems on her, that she will decide she doesn’t like me anymore, and she will run away.

I know that has come from my friends in childhood, Elaine did a similar thing and so did another friend Sally. A couple of other girls were there only for what they could get at the time, and one girl would ring me up and tell me specifically that I was the last person she had thought of to go out to the cinema with.. so she had rung me… I mean come on WHY did I put up with that at school, why didn’t I turn round and tell her that I was a person with feelings….

Nope I just was glad that someone wanted to actually go out with me and I went to the cinema with her…

I am so ashamed of the person I used to be, and the things people used to do to me…

I had to pretend to be something I wasn’t all the time, and that hurt me so much.

Is it a wonder really that I sat in my room making up stories about beautiful people who were loved and cared for, who had friends and relationships.

I did anything I could to try and hide from the shit reality that I had as a growing up young woman.

When one of my closest friends moved away, I was very hurt, she rang me a couple of times, and I rang her, but I didn’t know how hurt she was by her own life, while she was still living in my area, her parents had a very volatile relationship, and her mum was in hospital a few times as her dad had hit her.

I didn’t know at the time, but Louise, was anorexic, and very very down. She talked to me a few times about her family problems, and as I sort of connected with her, I saw her a lot more. My other friend Elaine, was upset and we fell out on numerous occasions, because I was with Louise and not her, I know she didn’t understand that her life was very different to ours.

I admit myself, because she was one of the closest friends I had, I got pretty jealous when she then started another friendship with a different girl, and maybe I did push her away.

When Louise was admitted to hospital for Anorexia, I didn’t really understand that was why she was in there, her tiny frame was under 5 stone, and even now looking back I can see when I was there she would eat some chocolate, but I also knew she made herself sick afterwards.

She was in hospital for a while and through the summer hols I went to visit her a few times, and stayed all day with her.

When she left I was very hurt, and even more so when I got a phone call the day before I started college, to say she had died.

People said that she committed suicide, and others said she choked on a piece of apple and drowned in the bath. I never found out the truth, I was just devastated. You see a few weeks before she had rung my house, and I hadn’t been there, and I never had the chance to ring her back, as my own life was going through so much, most of the time I did just hide in my room, hoping it would all be better some day.

I was very sorry for her, and I blamed myself for not being there for her, when I should have.

I know childhood friendships are very different from adult ones, but I craved it, and needed it so much I would take it from anyone who would pay me any sort of attention.

When Elaine and I really did fall out, I was in my second to last year at high school. She had a new boyfriend, and I just was to jealous and couldn’t cope with this fact, her boyfriend and her new friend were all that mattered to her, and I didn’t, I was possessive, but she was the only one who really had been my friend. I drove her away.

I remember the day like it was yesterday, we had an argument in school and that was it. She walked away from me, wouldn’t even look at me anymore, she stopped sitting with me in class, and no one else spoke to me either. I was completely on my own.

English was the hardest class of all. She made it perfectly clear to everyone in the class that she didn’t want to be associated with Big Fat Dawn Lloyd.

I ran out of my English class and hid in the toilets crying. Why was everything and everyone, turning me away? Was I so so bad, that I wasn’t worth anything?

I had no one……

It was 8mths, before she did actually speak to me. And it was because my granddad had passed away.

She had fallen out with her new friends, and needed someone to talk to, but I wasn’t being that person. Our friendship had ended and would never be the same, so I told her, and carried on my lonely existence.

My exams were a night mare, as mum and dad did nothing but argue, and when I left high school. I really did have no one to share my pain with.

Umm think I have written enough for now…

Love Dawn x

8^th January 2008

Wow it seem like time has really flown already,

I had my appointment with a private doctor yesterday, to assess my hand injury, Its like 12mths since the accident so there is no real evidence left, all I feel is a little aching when it’s cold, or when I am riding the motorbike, he said that was usual in the first winter since an accident and an injury.

Today I have been to see my head psychiatrist, who has now changed my medication, oops reminds me I need to take my tablets now. lol… done.

Yeah so he sort of put my mind at rest really, saying that really after everything I have been through over the last few months, that any normal person would be totally overwhelmed with feelings… my problem is I want to suppress them. By not eating, or now as I am eating any other detrimental habit.

He was a really nice man even though I wasn’t in there with him for very long about 20 mins; I seemed to feel much calmer when I had left.

Good, yes, I was going to go up to the hospital tomorrow, but now am going to get my new prescription instead.

Things are just as mad in my head at the moment, I am so unsure as to which way or what we are going to end up doing, and I am really scared, my mind doesn’t want to get my hopes up to much, but really I want to live in my Nans house, and I do want to be happy and to settle once and for all. I am sure its just not going to happen though, my luck is just so bad, nothing really has ever worked out for me in the past so why should it now….

Anyways, have had a long day so am going. Trying to get some sleep here is hard at the moment, so Im just trying to keep busy. It aint working….