July 8th - blog 1 - weigh day, and a jumbled blog!

So, here we are again…weighing time. I think yesterday morning’s blog was so filled with the expression of what I had realised on Sunday that it was rather full up with talkativeness and openness which was necessary to explain that I understood but not necessarily where I feel I am now in terms of my blogs.

Sunday’s insights actually began with the appreciation that it was just time to get on with what I was supposed to be doing now, if you like. It isn’t novel any more to be facing the routine of weighing. I cannot go through the process of emotional turbulence that preceded my initial weigh-ins every single week – it simply wouldn’t be accurate. I cannot also speak of each meal as if it were my first, or my last, or the most significant meal in the world: there just isn’t that degree of overwhelming importance in each one anymore. It will be a long term (i.e. months) process of consistent and continuous eating and that will have the propensity to not only be boring and monotonous to describe in explicit detail but also inaccurately related if I dwell too onerously on it. Given what I was saying yesterday about the dominance so far throughout my writing having been necessarily food-related, demonstrating my focus intent and vision, there is obviously a shift occurring in the necessity of my focus which will be reflected in my writing and perhaps steer me away from such detailed relating of food/weight explanations as I no longer hone in on it with such paranoia and intensity mentally or physically.

This, I feel, is good. I know it’s not healthy to be so obsessed with the food I am taking in – partly because it sounds like a mental disorder but more importantly because it suggests a deep, underlying physical obsession and difficulty with the processing of such intake. That I feel the obsession lessening – and my desire to be so detailed, meticulous and over-analytic of it all lessening too – there is a beauty in the fact that I have so little to write now! And yet the beauty really lies within the argument that I had yesterday with Mum.

But I’ve just written the above and then the scales came towards me. I’m heartbroken to only be 32.35kilos. Not to mention the fact that I got on first time and was 32.15kilos – a loss of 150 grams. This time I seem to have gained 50 grams – I insisted that they weighed me again after breaking the scales properly. I’ve even asked to be weighed a third time and that we take the best weight because they know I am upset. I felt that I was doing it guys – I have no clue why in the last few days it worked and these few haven’t. I’d added full fat yoghurt, more meat, olives, started eating the coleslaw at lunch time and bought an 100 calorie cereal bar instead of biscuits. All of these things are irrelevant though if they haven’t worked and I feel so foolish for all of my assertions that I’ve been ‘doing it’. All of the effort and stress and intent seem to me to be crap now. I’ve just asked Mum to let me show her because I sense that I’ve been, until perhaps yesterday, under so much pressure that the tension has just eaten into everything I have been trying to do. I am mortified at the humiliation I am about to undergo today, simply because of the unsustained weight gain.

And what can I say to Natasha – I’m getting so much fitter that my mobility has increased and whilst I increased to compensate I have not increased enough? Sorry, but I know how to fix that so let me get on with it…that’s about as much as I can say. More milk, more butter, some chocolate biscuits. I’m almost pleased that what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working because I didn’t think it was working when I gained 400grams and was prepared then to put in more effort. I was elated and thrown by the weight gain – most importantly surprised. I cannot settle within the mental appreciation of calorie counting, this much is obvious. Despite meticulously adding up everything over the last few days and coming to progressively more each day, it has not had the same effect. So hang on – there is a measure between mentally doing this and using my body’s guidance – which last night at 10pm had some more food to eat because it wanted it, not out of guilt or hunger but desire. Where that emerged from I know not, but I do know it was correct.

And so the first few days it was my body – and my weight leapt. I was shocked, surprised, elated and vindicated. Then it’s been paranoia and my mind trying to recreate it – and I’ve achieved nothing. Now I need to incorporate the two into a united front and combine forces to confess to Natasha and Dr Gordon that I don’t know what happened, why it didn’t work. I’d felt like I’d changed very little and upped certain things but obviously it hasn’t had the same effect for which I am immensely sorry and mortified and therefore recognise what I need to do. A little humility and not ego would be immensely positive to show in this situation. I just cannot believe that I feel fitter, fuller and look better with each waking moment. And speaking of waking – I haven’t been sleeping again which could affect it all…I also went out at the weekend along Goring beach and round the Holmbush and I wonder if the foreign-ness of the activity had some sort of affect on the difficulty and the amount of energy required to put in to it. Regardless of reasons it has patently not been enough…so I up it. That’s all I get to Natasha with – have more Babybels, more milk, butter and slightly larger portions again. Chocolate covered biscuits, or two of none-chocolate ones. I know what to do, I just needed to know that what I was doing was not enough…and I hate that that’s the case.

Particularly when I know what I know about what I’m here for. It’s for this reason – to guarantee I can continue to eat a diet which ensures weight gain. But it’s also so I can perfect that person the writes to Mum and you all with such wisdom and beauty. In the real world I want to walk as that person – not some vulnerable individual which usually inhabits the spaces when I walk outside into the world.

I’ve just been re-weighed at my request. From 32.15 which went to 32.35 it went all the way to 32.65 then hovered and settled at 32.50kilos. That is the weight that has been recorded – and double checked with the nurses as the accurate average. (Accurate average???!!!) Nevertheless I can see why this has happened, a little bit anyway. There is the beauty of being able to not be so strong. Whilst it is a weight gain it is not so much as last week so I have no reason to be disappointed but I have reason to say to everyone that I’m happy – but not happy enough. Whereas last week I could not have hoped for more than .4 of a kilo (St George’s plan said .8 a week), this time I can feel slightly disappointed and humbly recognising that will show me in a completely different light for their eyes than the constantly assertive, challenging Victoria. I will get under their skin, covertly alter tack and change the approach with them, because essentially I do not need to take pride any longer – I can be practical without assertion for some reason and do not need to convince them that I’m doing it – I am. The weight gain is unequivocal, the only thing that has altered is the amount of gain...and there is where I can up it a bit to increase that all the more. And moreso if I come in with that as opposed to coming in with being delirious about my weight gain then I will disarm them and alter their foundations which will enable them to accept my recognition that I can put a little more here and there to boost the gaining. This is ultimately what I would have done anyway.

There is a middle way – not mind, nor un-identifiable body – it is the middle route. I feel that the first few days my body hoarded calories without letting them go – it was novel to it, like it was novel to my mind, to have so much food to deal with…so it held on. These few days have been ones where both physically and mentally I have become accustomed to that amount of food…and so I’ll use it.

My hair looks better, nails are less brittle, I am much more flexible and doing far more gym-wise/walking wise. My skin is much improved, my pain much less…my swelling totally gone and I had a huge bowel movement last night. Regardless of their opinion of weight, I am getting so much better.

Beyond this, though, I am beginning to learn how to be me in the world – and that will continue for the rest of my stay here. More than this, last night and yesterday I knew how to write a novel – what it contained, its structure and its inspiration. It all came to me on the toilet whilst having my large movement…and it is what I am going to do in here practically. Write – write until I have written as much as I can, written it all out of me. And no – I am not going to reveal the plot, the storyline or even the characters. But you can all have (buy…!) a copy once I am done!