Yesterday I did very little and found myself at a completely loose end. You see I have an overactive brain which needs to be challenged or occupied most of the time or else I start to question things that have been left untouched for a good reason. I find that when I sit at home by myself, I start to self-destruct. I pick apart myself, starting with the obvious; the flaws in what I look like before roughly piercing through the surface and attacking the parts of my personality which I don't particularly like.

I have an overwhelming addiction to magazines which I don't blame for my problems, but acknowledge that they do go a long way to contributing to my issues. Body image is something I will never be comfortable with and reading endless magazines which contain images of celebrities with sizes 0-6 as their dress size doesn't help my state of mind. I am a normal size, but normality doesn't exist in the world of celebrity. These are the images being portrayed to impressionable young girls and it is no wonder that psychological disorders, such as anorexia/bulimia, depression and body dysmorphia are on the rise.

'Don't buy the magazines' I hear you cry and of course that would be a logical answer. However, a solution to my imminent boredom which tackles my creative destruction is to cut up these magazines and create boards of fantasies; hot celebrity men(!), celebrity women who inspire me and clothes I wish I could afford. All of this makes me sound immensely shallow. I'm not...I just take an interest in these things. It does make me sad though, because celebrities are ridiculed for being too fat/too thin. It is our culture which is obsessed with images of perfection that have created this insane image that all women should be stick thin in order to be beautiful and successful. While in the short term this makes it hard to combat my own issues in my head, in the long term it makes me all the more determined to defy this. Someday I will have my own success story. And I don't have to be supermodel thin to achieve it.

Some days you just wake up and appreciate how wonderful life is. Today is one of those days. Last night was the last big night out of the first year of uni and it was brilliant. I felt good about myself (uber rare, trust me!) without getting absolutely trollied. I even had some post-drinking chips without feeling like a hippopotamus. That's a massive achievement. I'm gonna be sad to see the back of Brunei; sure we didn't get on so well to begin with but more than anything that was my fault. I've moved on from being the shy bookworm that I was and I've evolved. True I'll never be as outgoing as some people but the Rachel now is so far removed from the Rachel this time last year and I like me a lot more now. I am my own worst enemy and I always will be but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself while I'm learning who I am and who I can be. I have a potentially great job lined up over the summer and I can't wait to get stuck in. The sun is shining, Ian Bell's just got a hundred and I'm happier than I've been for a very, very long time.

10 things.....

1. I'm a Taurus, which means I'm as stubborn as hell and have a real jealous streak, but I have a big heart and don't give up easily.

2. I have two wonderful parents, a truly brilliant sister (even if she doesn't realise it) and a huge extended family....guess that's what comes when your Dad is one of 11 children!

3. I love reading; books, magazines, letters, anything that stimulates my mind and gets me thinking.

4. If there were only 3 foods in the world and I could choose them, they would be cereal, bread and marmite. :)

5. I want to move to New York. Like now. My perfect life would have a real 'Sex and the City' feel to it, I don't care how shallow that sounds, it's my dream, let me live it.

6. I believe I was born to be a mother. It's the only thing I've ever truly wanted to do, I can't promise I'll be an amazing mum but I can promise endless love and a genuine attempt to do my best.

7. I love music and musicals.....I've seen Wicked twice and would happily see it again and again. I would give anything to see the Lion King.

8. Cricket is my life; I got into it at the age of 10 and I absolutely love it. England winning the Ashes in 2005 will always and forever be ingrained in my memory; that series got me through a very, very difficult time in my life.

9. I love caffeine. I'm not really supposed to drink it, but I can't live without tea, coffee and diet coke.

10. I have some amazing friends and at times I don't deserve them. But sometimes fate strikes us a piece of fortune and we have to grab onto it. Be nice to your friends, they're the ones you're going to need when your world falls apart.

Basically I talk a lot. I talk too much. But I hope that some of what I say is constructive. I don't let that many people into my life and here is a little insight into the padlock I call my diary in my head. If you want to know more, get me drunk, I'm much more open then!!!! :D

p.s. I am joking, getting me drunk is not a good idea. But talking to me is, I'm not so bad when you get to know me!

SUNSHINE! :D

Today is May 22nd, it is officially the hottest day of the year to date, summer may well be on the horizon and it's about time! The world looks so much better when it's sunny, the skies are a beautiful shade of blue and everything moves along at a much calmer, less frantic pace than it usually does. But it's times like these that scare me. Not the sun, God help me if I was scared of the sun. Summer makes me dream a lot, not necessarily at night, but I think about where I'm going with my life, where and who I want to be. It does scare me, I fear not fulfilling my dreams but more than anything it excites me. My first year at uni is drawing to a close, and while I'll be sad to see the back of my year as a fresher, I look over it with a great deal of pride; I've achieved a lot this year, I know I made a bad start, and dealt with a lot of things pretty badly, but I've picked it up....I've done things way out of my comfort zone and I've made some truly fantastic friends. I do love uni, I love the course and I love the fact that it gives me a gateway to what I've always dreamed of....a future. There will always be things that stand in the way of your dreams, but you have to learn which dreams are worth fighting for, the ones you'll be prepared to go the extra mile for. Those are the ones that will make you. They may break you at times but if you fight for them, if you really, truly believe in them, they will be the ones that leave you standing on top of the mountain rather than falling over the edge of the cliff.

Now stop reading this and go and enjoy the sun! :) xxxxxx

Life is a bit of a rollercoaster

Well, since I last updated this, I've turned 19, we've had a General Election and my first year as a fresher is nearly over!

19, it's a bit of a nothing age really, isn't it? 18 was a landmark; 20 enters a new decade, but 19 is a bit in limbo really. However, in the year since turning 18, I feel like I've turned into an adult. I've dealt with the highs of being in a relationship to the lows of splitting up; I've acclimatised to life at uni, which at Christmas is something I never thought I'd do and I've had to deal with some very difficult situations at home. I'm a fully-fledged grown up!

As I write, we currently don't have a government; last Thursday was the (long overdue) General Election...I felt proud to exercise my right to vote. I'm not a feminist by any means but people who don't vote, especially women, drive me crazy, especially when you consider what the Suffragettes endured to gain women the right to vote in the first place. But we have a hung Parliament; as of today, Gordon Brown has resigned, making a LibLab coalition look all the more likely; if so, then so-be-it, but this country is a mess and the election results reflect that. We have economic worries, educational issues and so much more that needs dealing with in the immediate future. In fact it's scary. But is Britain as 'broken' as we (and by that I mean the media) make it out to be? No, not really. Look all around, there are success stories everywhere. We have a tendency as a country to be very negative, but let's look on the positive for a change. Look at what people have achieved rather than what we've lost. We aren't a broken country, we do have a broken government but it's the 60 million occupants that make a country, not a shambolic government.

Opportunites

Firstly, and you can accuse me of being arrogant for thinking people actually read this, but to whoever has read the first post, I just want to apologise for being so down and open about things; I'm well aware that people don't necessarily agree with blog entries such as that, but I wanted to give hope and raise awareness about something very close to me. However, if I offended you then I apologise, I didn't mean to.

Anyway, I'm home at the moment for 4 weeks; they say home is where the heart is and I completely agree...I've learnt to love Southampton, I've met some amazing people and have done some great things, but Epsom is home. I went shopping with my sister on Saturday and it was brilliant; I didn't buy a lot, tbh, I can't afford to! But it was 2 hours or so of sisterly bonding and I cannot tell you how much that meant. Han (my sis) always says she wishes she had a younger sibling; I always wish I had an older one...someone who could have guided me through my teenage years when quite frankly I was a bit of a mess! I said to my mum on Saturday that this is the first time in my life where I've actually been happy. I feel stronger, much more confident and able to face the challenges that life throws at me. I've waited so long to feel like this and now I do, I want to push on, carry on, utilise this sense of optimism. I'm not invincible, I'm human...I'll never change the world, but I can contribute to it. I want to be able to look back on my life and feel satisfied that I did everything I could to be happy and did all the things I ever dreamed of doing. I'd rather try and fail than fail to try :)

First time

Wow

This is scary, a whole place for me just to open up about anything. Ok, well tonight I'm gonna introduce myself. Not the whole 'I'm me, aged X and live and breathe this' etc, no, see my Facebook profile if you wanna know that info! But this is me, the real me, the one who only certain people get to see.

5 years ago I developed anorexia, an illness that has simmered inside me since I was 9 years old when I tried to make myself sick after a large restaurant meal. At the age of 13, badly bullied, broken and not knowing any better, I believed my way out was to become thin. In my head, thin equalled beautiful. Looking back, thin equalled misery, heartbreak and pain. I was always a girl with a healthy appetite, I loved my food. My dad believes there are two kinds of people in this world; those who eat to live and those who live to eat. I used fit into the latter category. This cruel illness reversed that. I still don't have a healthy relationship with food. I'm a healthy weight now, I was lucky. I was admitted to a clinic in North London which encouraged (read forced) me to gain the 3 stone I'd lost. I'm now a size 8/10. People tell me I look great, I have a big chest, a small waist and curvy hips. A "woman's body". So how come I look in the mirror and see fat? See an image that makes me want to hurt myself? I would give anything to alter how I perceive myself, absolutely anything. To accept me for who I am. To believe those who say I'm pretty or slim, or occasionally beautiful. I just can't. And it makes me angry. It makes me angry that there are so many people out there who live with this illness and don't get the help because there aren't enough people who understand. Doctors often miss the signs, it's a secretive, deceptive illness but one that needs recognition. So for goodness' sake, if you read this and think 'hey, I know someone who might be experiencing an eating disorder,' help them. Please.