Reincarnation of self.......

Just lately I have been receiving lots of comments about my "new" style of dressing. It has come as a shock to lots of you, but not half as much as a shock as it has to me, lol. I have always been happy with the way I've dressed, quirky, individual, always in mostly black.!  I have always dressed for me and for my shape. I wore black because I like black and it always went with my red hair. Tim could never understand it and once said, "I always expect you to wear lots of colour, because inside your head you are a rainbow".!! But contrary to what a lot of people may think, I don't like to stand out, I am happy for the attention to be on my work rather than me.

This has always worked well for me over the years, and having spent most of my life on the slim, slimmer and veritably skinny side, with the occasional weight gain through pregnancy and illness, clothing has never been an issue. I know what works and stick to it. But what happens when suddenly everything is turned upside down.? Owning up to my Bulimia is enabling me to finally come to terms with it after 41yrs. I am by no means "cured" and don't expect I ever will be, but I can understand and I can cope. As a consequence of this my weight has increased and increased and increased.!! I am by no means obese but to someone who is used to being a 10/12 a 16/18 is very frightening.

I have never had womanly curves and never wanted them. The straight up and down look suited me just fine, and although the rest of my family including cousins and aunties were all generously curvy, it never struck me as odd that I wasn't. It was just the way I was, as usual, different to all the rest.
Now, all of a sudden I have all these womanly lumps and bumps appearing all over, which take me by surprise. I have to angle myself differently whilst going through doors for fear of bumping it with my boobs, and I still get stuck on Maisie's slide cos I forget my ass isn't a cool size 10 anymore. At one point this weight gain would have horrified me and possibly tipped me over the edge, but I had reached the point where my desire to conquer my bulimia was more important than my desire to be skinny. Therefore I was prepared for a temporary weight adjustment.

The idea being, it is more important to be healthy than thin...right.!! I know a lot of people have the notion that bulimia is just a silly fad and isn't life threatening, but they would be wrong on both counts. It is an illness that grips your very soul, that controls your every thought, that gives you untold medical and health problems, encourages you to be unsociable and due to its very nature of making you feel ashamed, keeps it a very deep underground secret. It is an illness that is worn on the inside of your heart away from others opinions, buried deep under the dark clothing. It is an illness that controls you from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep.

But it controls me no more, I made the decision to let it out into the open, and on good days I control it, but for the most part we work through it together.

I had thought that after this last two years the weight would start to come off again as my body stabilised and I would soon be back to my "normal" "natural" body type. But that doesn't seem to be happening and was driving me mad, to the point I was becoming obsessive again. All you could hear me say was " I just want to be normal again".!!  It was only when Mr Babe of Deliciousness said " But what if that was never really "normal" for you, maybe it's just what you thought was normal"?

That sent me off on a long journey of thinking. What if all these years my body shape hadn't come from being "naturally skinny", from rogue skinny genes, and had in fact been a consequence of my eating disorder.? What if this is what I was meant to have looked like all along.? Eeeeeek then the panic set in, and it has taken a massive amount of resolve to accept it, and for the most part I am. I now have it n my head, I come from a curvy family, I had a curvy mother, I am supposed to be curvy.
I am slowly coming to accept that having boobs and a bum, hips and thighs can be fun.After years of straight up and down, I now go in an out in the strangest (to me) of places.

Which is all well, but my style of dress for the last umpteen years no longer works. So after a lot of thinking, moaning, crying gnashing of teeth, it became a case of "put up or shut up". So out it all went and a new me was planned. I have always loved the fashions of the 50's, the clothes my Mum grew up in. She looked cracking in all her figure hugging outfits, having all the curves to do them justice. So I started scouring the second hand shops to see what I could find, and slowly slowly it is starting to come together. First a 50's shift dress in a dark colour, a little cardi, a fuller shape skirt, a cropped jumper, a flower for my hair, a scarf for my neck.......and then a flowery dress, a lilac shift, a turquoise top... I am gradually finding a style that suits. Everything is altered to give me that individual Dyan quirk that I need, and I am amazing myself more and more.

 I am starting to quite like the feminine look and enjoying the compliments. The rainbow inside my head appears to be qute liking it on the outside as well, lol. I still have many moments of panic and hysteria, when the battle between healthy and skinny plays out in my head, but for the most part I am embracing my womanly figure and gradually relaxing into it.

My only regret is that my Mum never got to see the "real" me, although I suppose she knew it was there all along.!!

Maybe my new style is in some way a homage to her as well, after years of trying to distance myself as much as possible, maybe I am now acknowledging and accepting where my roots really lie.

Curves of all shapes and sizes...I salute you...