The Break-Up

Today , about an hour ago, a close friend said "You are such a strong and amazing person". I wish she was right.

If I was strong, if I was amazing, I wouldn't be back bingeing and purging. I wouldn't have bought cigarettes yesterday. I wouldn't have spent three hours running up and down the stairs. On top of an hour's swim, two hours walking and over an hour of aerobics. I wouldn't have had to go to the doctor to get a prescription for Ensure drinks because the truth is, I'm losing weight, and exercising like a fucking maniac, and eating fuck all. Because I can't.  If I was strong, I would be in control. I am so far from that it's almost funny. Except it's really not funny at all. Every day is the same. Eat (purge), sleep, exercise, repeat. If I was strong, I'd be able to live with the decision that I made two weeks ago.

But every day is not the same anymore. Two weeks ago, because of me, all that changed. I broke up with the love of my life, my world, my heart, my rock, my Kegan. Things will never be the same. And it is my fault. Now, every day looks bleaker and bleaker as I go further and further back in to my eating disorder. The difference is now that I am on my own, and I will be for a long time. As I said to the dog yesterday, it's just you and me now buddy there is nobody else. Nobody wants me. And I can see exactly why. I don't even want myself.


Yesterday, basically, everything came crashing down. I let myself feel something. For the first time in two weeks. As I've said, eating disorder is a massive (and effective) distraction technique. However, sometimes, feelings that are otherwise completely ignored and squashed down so far they might as well not exist, come to the surface. And when they do, it's not pretty. At all. What happened was this: I rang my mum and I began to cry, and I said, Mummy, I think I've made a massive mistake. I want Kegan. All I want is Kegan. I love him and I don't want to be apart from him for another second. I hate it. Life without him is not really worth living. She said, Ok Pippa, it's ok, where is he, and I said he's out, she said go find him. Put on some makeup and wear something nice and go and tell him all this. Go and get him back. So, I brushed my hair (for the first time in a few days) and I put on some makeup, and I went where I knew he would be. I wanted to sit down and have a drink with him but he had already left the pub, he was just leaving, so we ended up standing outside the pub in the pissing rain, but still, I told him how I felt. To cut a long story short, he said no. He said, I cannot ignore the conversation we had that led to our breakup (which I will get to in a minute) and if I did, I would be lying to myself and betraying how YOU feel. He said, those feelings, and those thoughts, cannot be undone. He said that he had processed all this stuff and sort of said he had tried really hard to come to terms with it, and that he couldn't undo that. He said that if we did get back together the same thing would happen two months down the line, and that he could not go through that heartbreak again. He said it would be worse too, and that we would end up out of each other's lives permanently if that happened.

So by this time, I can literally feel my heart splitting in to a thousand pieces and I can't even see because I'm crying so hard. And I want to run. All I want is to run away, so far that I run out of my own body because I don't want to live in it anymore. It hurts too much and I don't think I can take it anymore. Full blown panic sets in and I have a huge anxiety attack, which I haven't had in quite a while. I forgot how awful it is. Kegan, at this stage, is crippled with embarrassment because he says we're in public and what the fuck am I doing behaving like a two year old, you're a grown woman, how old are you? Answer me, he says, how old are you? I mumble something, and then break down with more tears. I can't feel anything except pain and I can't breathe because my chest hurts so much. At this stage Kegan, I think, realises that he needs to get me home. He starts walking, because at this stage I'm barely standing. We're still outside the pub and it's still raining. Kegan starts off across the bridge and I really have no option but to follow him. Three times, I stopped because the pain was just too much. By the end of the walk home, Kegan had turned around three times to try and get me to follow him, and in the end, he actually physically put his hand on my back and steered me in to what used to be our happy and loving home.

Not anymore. Now it's really just a place to sleep. For both of us. I have barely seen Kegan for the last two weeks, he only comes home to eat and sleep, and I only stay at home all the time because the food is there, and it's where I cook and eat and purge, and it doubles as a place to exercise. Otherwise I wouldn't be at home either. And now, I have to find myself a new home. I seriously, seriously considering getting the hell out of Killaloe, and moving away. I've even had three job interviews in other places, so we can add that to the list of things that have gone wrong and disappointed me on top of the break up. Job rejections. Other rejections too. I feel pretty fucking defeated. But as of yesterday, I think I've made up my mind that I am going to stay in Killaloe. My life is here. It may be a really shitty life but there's a lot of people here that look out for me and I don't think I want to walk away from that yet. I don't think I'm ready.

On the other hand... Killaloe. Everywhere, anywhere, all of the time, every day, at least twice, someone utters the dreaded words "You're looking well" or comments on my weight, asks me when my baby is due (FOR THE LAST TIME I AM NOT FUCKING GOD DAMNED FUCKING PREGNANT), or tells me how healthy I look. To me, those words are poison. I cannot express how much I hate it. I KNOW, I know, people mean it with every good intention and they want me to know that I look better now that I'm not less than four stone, and they tell me this because they love and care for me, but in all honesty, I hate it, and it literally translates directly as You Look Fat. I have such a history here of the disorder, and everybody here knows me as the girl who walks a lot, the girl who used to be anorexic. Even the shop assistants where I shop know full well that I am buying food I won't even contemplate keeping down. I'm not even allowed in some of the shops here. I don't know that I want to stay. But like I said I just don't think I'm ready to give up my entire life. Obviously, I am going to move out of this house, and really I think that might be enough of a change. So please GOD let me get a job here. Cos I sure as hell can't afford to live on my own without a job. Anyway.

So.  Why did I do it? Why did I even start that conversation? Yes, it was an in-depth and adult conversation, and it was something we should have done three years ago. But that doesn't make it any easier. Deep down, sure, I know it is the right thing but that is somewhat overridden by my insatiable desire to have the love of my life back. The coversation, I think, was sparked by my recent birthday. 29. I think something kind of (slowly) clicked in me that I need to settle down and get the things I want in my life. What I want is babies. Seriously, all I want is to be a mother. I think in many ways it is the only thing that would truly end, once and for all, my eating disorder. I've wanted children since I was only a kid myself. I always have, for as long as I can remember. Kegan does not. There's nothing wrong with that, he just doesn't. But I do. And early menopause runs in my family - my mum was 36. I am running out of time. And I have a thing going on that means it will be difficult for me to conceive anyway, so I need to figure out my options. I want to get married. I want someone who is gonna be there, always. Not always in the pub. That's okay, Kegan, I know you're reading this, and I know how much you like to go out. Like your dad. That's okay. I accepted it a long time ago and I know I can't change it. But even if we did have children, what's to say he wouldn't still be doing the same thing, while I am at home alone struggling to raise our children. I think I realised it's a risk I am not willing to take. I need stability. I've had a very unstable life so far and I need to know I can count on someone. I need to feel safe.

Kegan gave me that for a long time, and I will love him as long as I live for everything that he gave me, did for me and the love and safety he gave with all his heart... but it's been less and less lately... especially with my recent relapse back in to my bulimia and anorexia. I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to be at home with me either. But see, it has become normal. Normal for Kegan to come home to find me fucking about with food, normal for me to exercise six seven hours a day. Normal, then, for him to retreat to the pub. But thinking about it properly, what is normal and what has become the norm doesn't necessarily make it RIGHT. And it has now got to the stage where it is convenient in our relationship for me to have an eating disorder. As long as I'm exercising for all that time, Kegan feels justified in spending the same amount of time away from home. Fair enough. Why shouldn't he? So he has an excuse, and then, while he's away, I abuse food. In more ways than can ever be explained unless you see it for yourself. It is not pretty. So in many ways me and Kegan are enabling each other and that is not healthy at all. Something had to change. And now it has, we had that conversation and now I am alone.

There's a saying: If you love someone, let them go. Kegan and I love each other and I hope we will always be part of each other's life. He is, at the end of the day, my soul mate and my best friend. We have been through too much together, good and bad, for us not to be part of each other's lives. I hold on to that. Today, I miss him. I've hardly seen him, but what I have seen is what my life is now like without him, and I really don't like it. But I guess I have to grow used to it, because there is no alternative. Life feels lonely, withered, and the future is now uncertain and bleak. I really do not know what to do next. I'm the kind of girl who likes to have a plan at all times, so I really am struggling with this. I'm in a sort of limbo right now, and Kegan is too. Until I move out. But honestly, I am not stable enough to do anything at the moment.

So how do I go about making my next move? Has anybody, anywhere, got an answer for me? Because I am, without a doubt, stuck. Up to my fucking neck.

I texted my dad today, asking his advice and he agreed with me that I had made a mistake. At least, he sort of did... His message was a little mixed. My dad is the kind of man that, when he talks, you shut the fuck up and listen. I try very hard to take his advice because much as I dislike it, he's almost always right and he has helped me make a lot of life decisions. And when he gives advice and I don't take it, it almost always goes tits up. So that's why I texted him. I asked him what my next move should be. He told me not to attempt further reconcilliation, and I told him that I wasn't going to. Because it is too late. `But then he said something about not trusting Kegan and his words, which really confused me. So now I don't know what to think. Who knows? All I know is basically I can't lean on anyone this time, it's up to me to fix this relapse. I'm really flying solo this time. Me and Milo.

Speaking of Milo, he knows full well that I am struggling. When I make a load of binge food, he doesn't know what to do, and he leaves the room while I'm eating. He follows me to the bathroom, like he knows I am about to do something bad. I feel guilty, and I feel like I am hurting him. Which is actually heart breaking. If it does that to the dog, what on earth did Kegan put up with for six years? I really can't imagine what it must have done to him, and for that, I will never regret it enough. No wonder he stayed away.

One thing I feel I have to acknowledge: Kegan never, and probably will never, give up on me. I have lost many, many friends over the years because they got sick of it, sick of reaching out and being rejected when I chose my eating disorder over them and their advice and support. I don't blame them. Even my own sister said that if I wasn't family she would have deserted me too. It hurts, and I miss them, and I wish they would give me another chance because I am not like that any more, but I don't blame them. But Kegan, he never stopped believing. Ever. Even at the height of it. Sure, he got incredibly frustrated and angry and all the rest of it, but deep down I know he believes that my eating disorder will not win. I should probably start believing this too. Because otherwise it's never going to happen. Kegan can see beyond the eating disorder, beyond all of it. He sees PIPPA. He always has, and that's what attracted me in the first place.

Ok, I am going to stop talking about Kegan because it's making me sad. Also I've been writing this for three days now so it's time to post and go for a bath and try to eat. Ha. Good luck with that.