Today I attended the Beat dedication service at Southwark Cathedral.
It remembered those whose lives had been taken by an eating disorder, and reached out to those who were left behind.
It acknowledged the wide circle of friends, families, carers, professionals, colleagues, lovers, mothers, fathers and siblings that the shadow of eating disorders extends over.
It remembered those who are still fighting.
And those who are now well.
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For the past few weeks, I’ve had a dodgy internet connection. It has upset me more than the fact that I am living out of a suitcase and am not sure, at the moment, where I am meant to call “home”. It means that I want to tweet something – and can’t. And that I want to join in the conversation – but am stopped at the last minute by a “lost internet connection” box.
I have found it quite upsetting.
My online community has become as important to me, over the past year, as my “real life” friends. I have wanted, desperately, for them to share the next stage of my journey as they have been so important in me getting this far –
This post started out as a pulling apart of some of those fears that a sense of disconnection brings but it got railroaded by an overwhelming desire to say a big thank you to all the people who have been so wonderful and supportive of me online. After going round and round the real life / virtual life debate, I have given up trying to work out whether a line exists and analysing the risks of throwing it all out there – because my world is far richer if I extend the parameters and I, far stronger, thanks to the people I’ve met online.
So, this is a shout out to the people who stop by and visit my blog, and the comments that offer me a new perspective, and keep me moving forwards, and make me realise that I’m not trying to make sense of this on my own.
It’s a huge thank you to a wonderful Twitter community that has reminded me of how generous and caring and loving humans are; that has put up with the ups and downs of my tweeting, and helped me to find a sense of humour, and kept me inundated with a stream of fascinating and beautiful and inspiring stuff –
Isolation is one of the most devastating effects of an eating disorder. We need human connections, I think, like we need food and sleep and water and air. I’ve been getting back in touch with the world over the past few years and growing in leaps and bounds, but I’ve been surprised to find that the connections are as powerful and the relationships, as rewarding, when they start off online. I didn’t realise this when I started my blog. I didn’t realise quite how much I’d learn from people online, nor how important those connections would become –
They’ve grown my world and helped to change my life.
Thank you.
xx
p.s. I’ve brought a netbook and a spare wifi card. 
Since starting Finding Melissa and beginning, finally, to join in, I have discovered a capacity that I never thought that I had. It is warm, and gooey, and the fuzzy-haired end of soft; and I think it is called compassion. It is like an unexpected ray of sunshine and the first kiss of warm air after you’ve been shivering, without an umbrella, in the rain.
I had always considered myself to be a rather brittle and cold person.
I am not, by nature, particularly tolerant and tend to lose patience pretty damn quick. I can rarely be bothered with explaining; am only just learning to listen; and, had become accustomed to life as them – and me. Compassion is not a quality I have associated myself with, nor something I thought I’d ever get –
It turns out I might have been wrong.
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I love quotes. There is something immensely satisfying in the encapsulation of a thought in a few cleverly chosen words; in the sudden click of recognising an emotion – or snatching an insight – which helps me to work out where I am.
Like an unexpected reflection, quotes seem to be a way of knowing ourselves – through hearing another – and reaffirming what we do (or don’t) believe. They are a reminder – when I instinctively presume that “no one else feels like me” – that, actually, we quite often feel the same.
And have for years.
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Recently, I started following an account on twitter called ‘OMG I do this too’. A couple of times a day, I therefore receive a tweet which reads something like: “Do you ever get a really good idea, but when you explain it to someone, it sounds terrible so you don’t end up doing it?” or “Do you feel cell phone vibrations, even when you don’t have your phone with you?”*
Most of these tweets bring a huge smile to my face. “YES!” I want to shout: “I do do that too”; and “YES! That is exactly like me”… and I’m not the only one?
In that 140 characters of connection, there is an instant click to other people and the warm reassurance that I am not on my own.
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