Small, furry and fat free.

It was a conscious decision I made one day. I just felt it, I knew I was ready to fully commit this time. Like a spiritual awakening or a calling, I was excited and felt dedicated to embark on a new journey, to transition, to shed. To grow into someone new. I wanted a challenge, a focus with no emotion attached - to win something. I wanted to be thinner. I was thin already, but not thin enough. I decided, I’m going to be thin. Really. Thin.

I had no idea and didn’t even question where the journey would take me, unrealisingly I was welcomed into The Cult. No one could stop me, I was head over heels brainwashed, and it felt beautiful. I wasn’t the same me anymore, I was enlightened. I was high on power and everyone else was below, they wouldn’t understand.

I thought, best to go cold turkey to begin - then slowly I can start bringing things in, when I’ve taught them that I do not really need them.

So at first I didn’t eat anything, for almost two weeks. I did allow myself a boiled egg in the morning and half a tin of pea and ham soup for dinner.

I remember the pain, the disorientation, the shakes, but with willpower I fought through it.

The pride I felt at not being defeated by my body was well worth it.

To rise above and overcome the burden of hunger meant I was in control and all powerful. So eventually I grew to love the feeling of hunger, the desperation. Almost laugh at it, it was pathetic, and I was superior.

I noticed the different wave of feelings inside, the stages, my stomach eating itself. And it tasted delicious. I had to ignore and starve it. To punish.

You can get past the hunger, when your body has found something inside to live off, for awhile. Until eventually it’s eaten any excess fat, then it begins on your muscles.

I was absolutely not a victim. Oh how I can’t bear to be a victim, this was my choice. It was frustrating when people would bother me with their worries, in my mind, I knew exactly what I was doing, picking all the heads off the flowers in this secret garden I had created inside me. I was just playing a game, until it wasn’t fun anymore.

I would weigh myself regularly throughout the day, and depending on the fluctuation in pounds I would be allowed some salad maybe. For now, til I was thin enough - then I’d stop of course.

I never went without alcohol, my calories were saved for that. So the sugar in the evening helped me tide by, something to nourish my body.

If I was going to eat, it would be in front of people so they didn’t worry. I would just have a bit though. Because of course, I had always just eaten.

I had all the tricks, I thought I was a genius and I made all these up myself. I’ll go into that later, and eventually I found out how many ‘others’ were practising all the same little tricks for decades or even centuries, and knew all my secrets already.

It never occurred to me that this decade long fling was a passive, slow suicide attempt.

It wouldn’t have, I’m far too stubborn and I was too smitten with this little romance.

I never really considered the obvious relation of starvation to death, that people are dying of starvation right now. I just wanted to see what it felt like to die, to just play around the outside of it, tease it, then giggle and run away.

Maybe I’d even like it, make friends with it. I didn’t realise til years later, when I’d wake up every night between 3-5am feeling the darkest I’ve ever felt, that actually...I was terrified of it, yet desperate.

I realised underneath all this, I had lost my hope.