Wednesday, Oct. 08, 2003/2:00 am

Monday 29th September

Morning, 11.30am.

I can't stop crying. My face is scorched with violent tears. My limbs sore with entrapment. They won't let me leave. The doctors say i have to stay another day. They had to draw a curtain around my bed because i was so upset. I'm going crazy in here. I can't stand it. The children moaning, the nurses acting like saviors, whilst sucking away my life source. I can't do this.

They've been discussing the need for my eating and blood sugars to become completely stable. But i can't eat. Not like this, with no support. Just plates of food shoved in front of me. I can't even bare to look at the contents of my meal trays. Each bite tasting like the last. Hard, ridged cardboard, stodgy to swallow. Lodging itself in my throat, i want to choke it all back up. But i can't purge. I can't, can't, can't. My potassium could plunge. I've had part of a brown roll, the size of a �2 coin and three spoonfuls of branflakes. It feels like it's climbing straight onto my body. I tipped a trickle of milk into the cereal bowl, then after it had slightly wetted the bran, i poured the excess milk back into the cup, along with a few stray flakes. I couldn't allow the liquid to touch me.

I want to jump out of the fucking window. I've chosen to try, i am trying. I will. I can't let this spiral into more destruction. I know that i've got to sort something out, but i can't do it in a couple of days or even weeks. I need months and years. This disorder has been with me for so long. I need to find the source, the tumor. Remove each section as efficiently as i can. Hoping it won't spread but unable to work quicker, in reserve of a total explosion of guilt.

Why can't they see how difficult this is? I want to lose weight. Starve, purge, eat, eat, eat. Spend money on Mcdonalds. See my fading image reflected within the faithful porcelein. I want to hurt myself for feeling like i should aim for more when i am insignificant.

The self hate within me still glows as bright as it did and in here it continues to grow. I've been enclosed in a box and forced to smile. Happiness will come through from inner will and persuasion. Not dirty objects filling my stomach.

Nutrition. I cannot nurture if i won't let it reach the center. I'm still crying, droplets decorating my scribbles. I need to stop now.

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8pm

I feel so helpless. Bound and gagged, i cannot speak or walk free from their clinical grip. White, latex gloves holding me by the arms. Dinner was salad. I've been ticking that particular option a lot lately. As well as choosing no desert whatsoever. Usually if i order cheese and biscuits and leave them, the nurses hold it back for snacks later and i don't want to make that possible anymore.

I managed some cucumber, tomato and a few grains of white rice. I've kept intake low today, because the thought of food swimming around, occupying my once clean and pure space. The thought, feeling, just makes me want to scream until the prison walls collapse. Everytimg a meal arrives, even if i eat very little, i have to cut and merge, tear and slice. My knife searing through everything. I also leave the tray untarnished for at least five minutes whilst i watch the clock. It's such an obsession. My area is kept neat at every moment. I won't let it become messy. My side table immaculate. First on the far left, my blood meter. Next to that a pile of stacked magazines arranged and organised with my book split on top at the current chapter. It all has to be kept in order. I can't sort out my head too well. I concentrate on this instead.

There's something that has happened that i haven't mentioned yet. I suppose I've left it until present, because it's a lot to explain. It's my Dad, he knows. Due to an unfortunately timed phone call, Mum had to spill what's been going on into his judging ears. I was very uncertain and frightened of his reaction, flaring fists, statements he throws without a pause of consideration.

Yet, it hasn't been like that. Not at all. I've been so surprised. He's been to see me twice so far. Once alone and once with Matthew. He had tears brimming in his eyes and said he's really worried. He knows everything now, about the duration of events, heart attack, the struggles through GCSE's. He's finding it hard to understand but he's completely stunned me in his approach. I know he's shocked and confused. We actually had a good talk yesterday. He gave me an insight into why he acts the way he does. He said he knows that some people can find him intimidating and in the past he may have sorted out problems with 'good hidings', but now realises it just doesn't cover it. There's been a few harsh comments like "You can stay with me...i've got a toilet you can be sick in" and "am i going to see you in the crematorium?" But he's also made me laugh a bit with "my head probably weighs as much as you" and "i eat enough for us both".

I don't really know what to say to him when he asks why and how and huh? I don't know what to say to anyone. I guess it's refreshing to have him tell me he loves me. He can't erase what's been set in stone, the rage, shouts and red marks, but maybe the future can be okay.

Everyone's waiting for me and the gates are closing. I've got to get to the other side before they shut, I've got to get through.

I hope,

wish.

I'll have nightmares, want to dissolve into this uncomfortable mattress. But I'll find myself in the end,

I've got to find myself again.