Intimacy as an intellectual issue.

Part I

Gastric Gymnastics

I initally fell ill with the "good-girl's" disease; and having pulled myself away from several of the behaviours (most predominantly, restircting to the point of fasting), I instead became caught in the vicious cycle that plagues those with the "not-quite-good-enough-girl's" disease.

Don't misconstrue this as meaning that anorexia and bulimia are mutually exclusive illness: Ted (ie. "The Eating Disorder") harangues me for my weakened will, my deplorable, grubby, grimy, grotesque habits as if I have a choice in the matter of which illness I suffer from; as if I have the power to choose to be a "perfect" part of Ana's inner circle of ascetic idiots as opposed to eating uncontrollably until I am in agony and then ridding myself of everything like Mia would suggest.

It's the same monster, playing with its prey (or more appropriately, its food) in another way.

It is odd being experiencing bulimic behavioural changes when I have an inherently-anorexic personality.

I am an extremely high-achiever, I am paralysed by perfection, I procrastinate, I like order, I don't like making anyone unhappy with me, I want to make people proud, I'm precocious and mature and insightful.

I have sub-atomically-low-self-confidence, I am fearul of being judge for the most menial of things. I am "emotionally fragile"- criticism literally kills me inside, my shiny veneer and my demeanour of self-assurdeness cracks a little bit.

Ted essentially makes me do things that are not at all conducive with my set of morals or my personality type.

Mostly, what I have noticed is the fact that Ted makes me break rules that lie so deeply cemented within me that there is no order anymore.

Once, the worst thing I could conceive me doing would be to litter. Nowadays, the worst thing that I could do is get caught.

Whenever I am eating- indeed, whenever I am doing anything at all- I still hear Ted's voice in my head: but instead of a single monologue and barrage from one perspective, there is also the presence of another voice, one which I am beginning to recognise as my own, urging me to keep feeding myself, to make the change towards normalacy one bite at a time. Having this new-found stability in the middle ground between over-eating and not-eating-at-all is the closest I have ever been to a state of contentment. The fact that I can fight, tooth, nail, tongue, taste-bud and brain over the most basic thing that I deserve as a living being- sustenance- makes me realise that I have the sheer strength and tenacity to fight for whatever it is that I know myself to have a right to in my life.

Part II

LOVE & DESIRE & SEX & LUST.

On the plane spanning the gap from emotionality and physicality, intimacy for me lies at the midway point between the two extremes. Whilst Love and Desire represents the strictly emotionaly realm, Sex conversely sees the objectifying of the object (not subject) of such Lust. In other words, though both are all-consuming and far from selfless, it is undeniable that an individual can fuck without even thinking about the other participant, but one cannot love without considering that whom they love.

Though I do not deny that both are intrinsically linked, they mean very different things to me. Intimacy, as I mentioned, is what I view as the physical manifestation of an emotional want, not of duty or of obligation or expectation, but the fact that the purest of emotions can only be expressed in the most base of manners. It is the instinctive act following intense attraction: it is the consumation of mutually felt-feelings.

Part III

Dear Conor, From Kate

(The Concept of Freedom)

I'm afraid that you think that you're dating a crazed nymphomaniac who wants nothing more than to continually seduce you.

Yes, I am insatiable. I've been hungry my whole life- I long for little more sometimes than to crawl into my mother's bed because I can't bear to be alone. I hate having no-one or nothing to hold onto aside from my own knees. I hate being around people when they expect something of me, but the physical presence of another is the most comforting thing I can think of.

In the past I would sleep with people I barely knew because, like make-believe, I could imagine that for a moment maybe they actually cared about me.

But with you, everything seems so different; completely distant from those former fragments of my life. I like being around you. It's the intimacy, the fluidity, the subliminity, the easiness of being with you, both physically, emtionally and intellectually.

I seem to recall you saying (or did I dream it?) that we connected, clearly in both mind and body. We don't know each other well enough yet to determine whether or not we are compatible in terms of the (cliched) idea of soul, but you give me butterflies in my belly whenever I see you.

I have this theory that the soul resides in the stomach. Deducing this seemed completely natural: the organ of the mind is the brain (duh) and the location of "love" is the heart.

I've always been mildy skeptical about the phrase "soul food", but now I'm beginning to realise that I was never just starving my body, which resulted in the slowly-decreasing flow of blood to my brain. All along, it has been my soul that has been suffering the most, for my continual resentment towards myself, the constant deprivation, the poisonous amounts of hatred and depression pulsing my veins.

Remember how I told you that I had a dream that you were in a little while ago?

I dreamt that we went to a cultural faire together, showcasing countries of the world and their respective cuisines, and we were wandering around eating all sorts of food because it tasted good and I didn't even give it a second thought. And then all of a sudden the faire was the world and we were travelling through every country and I was free, without the restrictions that I have lived with for so long, and feeling the breeze on my back and no longer feeling ashamed of my own skin.

I was always so wrong when I assumed that if I lost weight, if I became lighter and thinner, that I would be able to be free. Instead I've found that the more I shrink, the heavier my soul and sadness and hopelessness grows.

I don't want to be afraid; I want to be free. But I'm so very, very scared to take the leap. I realise I've been telling you many deep, private secrets of late. I want you to know me. I want you to understand that I am who I am for certain reasons. I hope you can learn to love me, not for my supposedly sad-assortment of stories and the fact that what I seem to need is to be loved: I want you to see me as the sum of all the reasons, see that I have learnt lessons. But more than all of that, I want you to see that I want you because you are you, not because you fill any void or criteria or wish or need: you are what I want.

- 15th October

Too bad I only posted the finished copy once it's too late, huh.