MY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD

Its like I'm both aware and unaware of what I'm doing when I'm doing it. I can rationalise with myself either way. 

Do I want to eat? Or don't I?  

I've had issues with food for as long as I can remember. I've tried to figure out where it stemmed from because I know when I was younger I wasn't concerned about what I looked like or how much I weighed. I've come to the conclusion that it started when I was in primary school and found it hard to eat around the other kids that were eating too. I guess I was somewhat of a fussy eater as a child so if someone was eating something I didn't like the smell of it would make me lose my appetite. 

But from there it went on to secondary school where I would have just enough time in the morning to get dressed, brush my teeth and leave. I could never be bothered to pack myself a lunch the night before or get up earlier to be able to do it in the morning, so I didn't. I remember making a game out of it. Sitting in class and seeing how far I could push the table in to my stomach so that it would stop making noise. I'd make it through those 6 hours at school and then come home and binge on whatever I could find. 

For the two years that followed me leaving school it went away. Or maybe it went in the opposite direction - because all I would do is eat. I would have breakfast in the morning before leaving for work. Walk the forty-five minute walk to work (as I was 16 and didn't have a car) stopping off on the way to buy my lunch. Normally that would be some kind of ready meal and as many sugary treats as I could carry. Spend all day eating, walk home and have a snack then have dinner and do it all again the next day. 

Then came my current job, which I love but have never felt like it's an "OK" environment to eat in (it's a hospital). Between the variety of aromas I'm around on a daily basis and never really feeling like my hands are clean I just stopped eating on shift all together. It didn't help that I had started smoking and used that and coffee to get me through my day. 

Earlier this year I had somewhat created another kind of game where I would see how long I could go without eating. This meant that I was eating my first meal of the day at 10pm. Then that became not eating for a whole day and having a meal the next.

Looking back over it all I can see that my worst point was going three days without food. I was at work on the third day and had just about finished my 8 hour shift and ran down stairs to get a set of patient notes before I left and came over all light headed. I just put it down to the fact that I hadn't drunk enough water and carried on even though I could see black spots everywhere. I had gone up a ladder to find said set of notes and at the top my eye sight went almost completely. I came down from the ladder just in time to black out and woke up about 15 minutes later laying on the floor. I got the notes, took them upstairs and left without saying anything to the nurses that I work with (normally I bombard them with anything remotely medical I have going on). I also decided that it would be a good idea to drive home. From then I made a conscious effort to at least fit food in around my shifts. 

I still to this day don't know what brings on the feeling of not wanting to eat but I'm better at fighting it when it does rear its ugly head.

Natasha

METAL COMFORTS

I was never really a person who wore jewellery. I've always had it, just never remembered or could be bothered to put it on. Now however, I seem to have acquired a few pieces that I never take off.

I've worn the same ring for four years, just a simple silver band that sits on my middle finger of my right hand. I got it to wear to prom in 2013 and from that day it has never really come off. 

I have another ring that sits on my index finger of my left hand, this one I guess I've somewhat stolen. 

I wear the same necklace every day because I love it so much. It's a simple thin chain with a circle pendant that has my zodiac sign on it. I'm not a believer in the zodiac but the person who designed it modelled it after a necklace her dad passed down to her and I like that notion.

My last piece — and my favourite piece — is a bracelet. It's a very thing blue string with silver beads, the beads are different sizes and spell out a word in morse code. This again doesn't ever leave my vicinity , if it isn't on my wrist then its on my necklace as I can't wear bracelets at work.

I never thought I would find such comfort in a small amount of metal or string, but I do. Its like being able to carry around your comfort blanket wherever you go. I go in search of them no matter what my mood. I twist my rings around my fingers when I walk or have something to concentrate on. I hold the pendant of my necklace when I'm talking to people or am getting stressed. Its almost like they have become a part of me, just an extra limb to me now.

Natasha

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Its like flying and being out-of-your-face-drunk all at once.

You can feel every pressure point, tension and knot in your body and almost feel them coming undone.

Its like you're having a million different conversations with a million different people but you know you've been silent the entire time.

Its like wanting to take on the world and make it something completely different but also not wanting to move an inch.

Its like having the entirety of your personality release itself ahead of you and you're trying to catch up with it.

Its like you somewhat know whats going on, you just don't care about what it is to really know.

It can transport you into some other dimension and make you live in that world for what feels like forever.

It can make you think things you never thought possible.

It can make you feel things that you never dreamt possible.

That is... until the comedown.

Natasha