"Height is five foot six inches and weight is one hundred and thirty point two which gives you a BMI of a healthy weight which means you Lauren Roscoe, have been discharged!"

I was so happy. I no longer got frequent headaches or had to pretend that I wasn't disorientated every time I stood up and I no longer was wrapped up in jumpers and blankets in the summer because of the coldness I would feel down my spine and fingertips. My nails were growing back and mum promised to take me and Jodie to go and get them done and my fingers were no longer calloused from where I had been throwing them to the back of my throat in hope to get every bit of food back out of my digestive system. I didn't need to tell people that I had eaten or that I wasn't hungry anymore, I could comfortably eat a meal and feel so much better about myself. I no longer had to check pro-ana websites to see pictures of all of these images which I thought were once perfect but being on a ward with other girls and boys who had an eating disorder had made me see it from another point of view, they weren't happy, none of them were and I don't know why anyone would want to promote or almost glamourise this type of thing.

I felt amazing when I started doing it, at first I lost a stone in a month but after that I no longer felt a sense of achievement from losing any less than a stone in a month, soon it gone down to me only losing one or two pounds a week because my body had started using the fat which was stored away from before I had an eating disorder which resulted in my body also breaking down my muscles because there was no fat left. I was lucky. Some people never recover, they die whilst striving to look so perfect. They have to chose whether to die from the inside out or the outside in, and that's a choice that anyone with an eating disorder has to make. We turn skeletons into Goddesses and tell ourselves that we must look like that to achieve everything we want to in life. I was not a mistake nor a problem to be solved but I was the only person who could fix myself. I could only recover when I picked myself up from the hole I was in and told myself I was going to recover.

The one thing I love most about Mason is that he doesn't see me for my breasts, waist or hips, he sees the nightmare I went through and reassures me everything will get better. Some people who are obsessed with food may either become a chef or a victim of a mental illness that will throw them into a pit of oblivion with no way out. I think the hardest thing for me to do was to tell someone what I felt and what was happening and I found it almost impossible to be honest to myself about what I was doing. There's no magic bullet or pill that will take anyone's pain away but if you think positively and believe that for every dark night there is a brighter day then everything is going to get easier. 'Too many young teenagers have eating disorders due to low self-esteem and a distorted body image. I think it is so important for girls to love themselves and treat their bodies respectfully.' that was a quote used by Ariana Grande in the magasine that Mason got for me, despite the girl on the cover being underweight, I think the power of Ariana's words overpowered the image on the front to the point where many people would read it and think twice about what they really thought of the magasine cover. I hate the fact that there is even an image of 'perfection' being used which is getting thinner and thinner and young girls are aspiring to be like this. I was sick, and to be that sick that people have to come up to you and tell you that if you don't start looking after yourself properly that you would be on your death bed in six months time is hard. It made me want to just die and leave everyone as they were but it also made me committed to making myself better for my mum and friends, well the one's I had.

My mum was on a night shift tonight so Mason text her to tell her that his dad will pick us up from the hospital and take me home. We were packing all of my things away when he went to the very back of my middle drawer and found laxatives.

"Babe, what are these?" he asked inquisitively. I had these in my pocket before I tried to kill myself, I took them out before any of the nurses would find them and hid them. I took them out of his hand and popped each pill into my hand. "What are you doing?" he shouting whilst running to me. I looked at him, walked over to the bin and threw them in there. He smiled, I'd made it hadn't I. I was leaving hospital, I'd done it. We picked up my care plan and Mason carried my bag with my clothes in whilst his arm was wrapped around me, we stood under the entrance to the hospital and I breathed a sigh of relief. A small book had fallen out of the bag.

"What's that?" I asked,

"Oh I've just been writing poems about you." he smirked.

"I have one more thing to ask," he said whilst pulling me closer to him.

"And what would that be?" I laughed.

"Will you be my girlfriend?" He asked whilst staring into my eyes.

"yeah," I said whilst smiling at the ground, a tear was let out of my eye, I actually meant something to someone.

He truly was amazing. No one had ever done this before, I rested my head on his chest and looked up into his eyes as he kissed my forehead. It was me and him against the world now. I loved him so much. I couldn't have done this without him and for that I really owed him my life. I could get on with my life now knowing that I always had someone to turn to and someone to talk to if I ever needed help, advice or even just a chat with someone. Me and my mum were closer than ever, I got my best friend back and I had an amazing boyfriend, what more could I ask for?

Eating Disorders are not beautiful,

And depression is not romantic,

Flowers do not grow from scars,

And a kiss does not heal a sick mind.

When you feel death is the only escape,

I promise there are no roses,

And there is no sunlight,

There is cold and empty pain.

M.H