I am turning 30 on the 6^th March.

The occasion is bittersweet.

It has, as birthdays tend to do, sent my mind racing up and down the timeline. Somewhat tragically, the memories don’t hang on the parties or the celebration, but on the particular phase of my eating disorder that each year has become bound up with.

20 through to 25 are pretty much blanks.

Interestingly, the last pre-Eating Disorder party is one of the most poignant, maybe because I hadn’t stopped taking photos at that point or because it feels, sometimes, like I have been frozen in time…

So, there we are, at my 12^th fancy dress (country-themed: it was cool at the time) party; and I am a Spanish flamenco dancer in shocking red over a Victorian-petticoated-skirt. There is a little Mexican-hatted girl beside me, and a Chinese dress a bit further down and I don’t quite know what the rest of them were thinking. We are lined up in a row, beaming at the camera. Later, we watched Lorenzo’s Oil, which was a bit heavy duty for a Birthday; and, we ate fondue, which was my favourite food before I became too scared to eat.

There is not a photo for the next year, nor a theme that springs to mind; but I remember what I was wearing – a long blue Tammy Girl jumper over leggings – and I know that I had just started getting scarily thin.

After that it blurs. All that lingers is the fear of Birthday cakes and a resentment at having to celebrate things with food. We fought, I think, and got frustrated, because, it seemed a bit of a farce to celebrate when it was all going so horribly wrong.

18 comes next, and I wasn’t doing too badly. We went to an Italian, a whole huge table of us, and I was beginning to feel popular and grown up, and like things might fall into place. I had a bean salad (which was horrible) because the pizza was too scary; and got a kebab – of two – to throw up on the way home.

I don’t remember my 21st. I was very ill that year. I feel a little deprived, on hindsight; but I imagine it was a date to endure, rather than one to enjoy.

On my 25th, I went for a drink in the afternoon. The ring that my parents had given me fell off somewhere between rehab and the pub because my fingers were shrinking at the rate of knots. Within two weeks, I was back in hospital.

On my 27th and my 28th, I smiled politely and marked the occasion – but made sure that I was home in time for my nightly binge.

My 29th was my first bulimia free Birthday in over 15 years and was nearly cancelled as I realised that I had lost my friends. It came with a valuable lesson – quality and not quantity – and, whilst I didn’t quite make it to cake, we did make it to Ping Pong Dim Sum, and I started learning how to have fun –

This year, things are totally different.

I am, I’m aware, in a place that I didn’t think I’d reach, celebrating an occasion I wasn’t sure I’d make; and I should, I feel, be pretty happy that I will be spending my 30^th with friends and family, rather than a toilet bowl and a plate of food –

Only the thought of that child – and then this adult – is heartbreaking; and, after all those years, it only just feels like the ice is thawing and the flamenco dancer is coming back to life.

Tags: age, Isolation, Living With an Eating Disorder

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