And boy, ain’t it great. I love it: balmy evenings, 20.00 sunsets, cider, the insect reawakening, and someone’s radio playing in the background. Oh, and floaty dresses. Who could forget the floaty dresses? I own lots of nice 1950s prom dresses with floral prints, and also have my eye on these little beauties:

http://www.lindybop.co.uk/all-dresses-c1/audrey-cutesy-pink-candy-stripe-50s-inspired-swing-dress-p1501

http://www.vivienofholloway.com/women-c70/dresses-c10/grace-victory-rose-cerise-p436 (being fair, everything on this website is GOLD)

http://www.collectif.co.uk/floral-fairy-summer-bouquet-print-doll-dress-p-css130811b-c-yellow.html

I own cute dresses with beach huts, with roses, with itsy-bitsy polka dots, with huge whopping polka dots. I couldn’t wait to try them on the other day. I reached for my lovely green floral dress, only to find it didn’t zip up. Ah, zip’s bust. Never mind, I’ll try another one. Zip wouldn’t do up on that one either. And then it dawned on me: the zips weren’t bust. I was bust.

I used to look like this: 

Now I look like this:

I joke, I joke. I haven’t got a trunk. I have, however, put on five stone over five years. A stone a year! That’s quite a lot. It started when the doctor at the Priory assessed me for my medication. Olanzapine was decided upon. “You might put on a bit of weight,” warned the doctor, “you’re trim enough not to notice.” well, people did notice. Don’t you look well! they would say. You used to look ill, but now you’re glowing with health! Whatever you’re doing, they would say, keep doing it.

What was I doing? I was eating. Food. For throughout my university years, I often sat in my room and ate tea lights and toilet paper. I kid you not. Candles and tissues, yum yum yum. My boyfriend at the time would come to visit me for the weekend, and he always used to go to the shops because I would have nothing, but nothing, in to eat. These tablets, as well as helping with my OCD, made me ravenous. They also slowed down my metabolism, so I started to put on weight. Which was something I had never done before. I’d always luxuriated my teeniness. And now I can’t do up my dresses.

To put things in perspective, I’m not huge. I’m a size 14 (Us 10) but I’m still double the size I was when I was first diagnosed. Oh, how OCD ruins my life! It made me lose a large chunk of my youth, and now it’s taking pretty dresses away from me.

Well no longer. I resolve, now I am not on Olanzapine any more, to lose those five stone (well, I might leave a couple on, but I’m damn well going to lose three at least). Yesterday saw me in the gym. Tomorrow sees me hula hooping. Who knows what the day after will bring? Expect progress.