I awoke to the sound of my mum's voice, "Someone help me, please my daughter she's bleeding, someone please help me." I felt a light pressure on my right hand, I forced my eyes to open which is when I was accustomed to the pool of blood surrounding my left side. It was a blur as to what had happened until I remembered that I did that to myself. It wasn't a suicide attempt or any attempt to hurt myself. I just didn't want to eat and I knew that no matter how hard I tried, the nurses wouldn't give up on feeding me and the meals would just get bigger and bigger everyday and I was going to have to face them. I wanted to get better, I really did but this was a big thing for me. A normal person eats everyday without thinking about making them self sick because of it. Food was my enemy. There is no magic cure, no making it all go away for ever. There are only small steps upwards. Our culture is obsessed with perfection, especially when it comes to the way women look. There parameters of acceptability as far as physical appearance go are so limiting that only a handful of women actually fall into this category and the rest of us are left to either squeeze ourselves into moulds that don't fit, hating ourselves all the while, or we just give up entirely. That's one thing I no longer wanted to do, give up but then again who wants to recover? It took me months to get this thin, I wasn't sick, I was strong.

Nurses and Doctors were surrounding me, I got lifted into the leather chair next to my hospital bed whilst they changed my sheets at a rapid pace. "A clot has formed where her tube was so she won't be bleeding anymore but as far as tube feeding goes, I think we will have to try and get her to eat it herself." what had I done. I didn't want the horrible texture of the food to degrade me or make me feel powerless. I didn't want to be in hospital anymore. It should be a basic human right to chose whether you want to eat or not. I am a girl with an eating disorder. I take myself very, very seriously. I am a peacemaker, a do-gooder, a giver and a saver. I am on time, overly prepared, well read and witty, intellectually curious and always moving...I pride myself on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive off self deprivation, I drink coffee, a lot of it. I am relentless, judgmental with myself and forgiving to others. I never want to be as passive-aggressive as my mother, I am the daughter of a feminist who told me "You can be anything." and I heard "You have to be everything."

I watched the clock hands move from 3.30pm to 6pm. Time to eat. All I had to do now was wait for the minute that the nurse was to walk through the door with a plate of nauseating food. I had to do it. I had to overcome my fear. Mason held my hand, kissed my forehead and whispered, "Stay strong beautiful, we will get through this together." in my ear. I suddenly felt the need to eat.