As we say goodbye to 2014, I want to share some of the moments from this year that have stuck with me. I want to remember the hurt, the pain, the weird, the wonderful because it all meant something. I want to spend this last day of the year reflecting and remembering what I can of what 2014 gave me. It's been the worst but the best year of my life and throughout the year, I had a note open on my phone where whenever I remembered, I wrote down something that happened. Now I am going to share these for the first time ever...
January 2014. It's the 2nd day of this new year and I am sat on a train, audibly sobbing to a train of people pretending they can't hear me. My destination is a private London hospital where I have been admitted to and I am feeling a fear I could never have comprehended before this moment. I'm scared of how alone I feel. I'm scared of what is waiting for me. I'm scared of getting better. I'm scared of the fact I know I will be leaving a substantial amount heavier than I am right now. I'm scared of what the other patients will think of me. I'm scared of how worthless I feel.
July 2014. London is having the most insane thunder storms, there's 3 different ones in 3 different directions, I go outside and put my arms out, stare up at the sky and feel incredible.
April 2014. It's the early hours of the morning. I don't know what day it is. I don't care anymore. I've never felt so scared and alone in my entire life. I feel like a failure. I've lost everything. I've given up on myself. I spent hours prior having incredibly vivid hallucinations about throwing myself in front of a tube, a car, a bus, anything that could wipe out my existence in one step. I've taken too many pills. I'm dragging a kitchen knife along the centre of my veins as though it's a game of operation, I hit the edges and I'm out. The blood smells like burning metal and feels somewhere between relief and giving up.
November 2014. She tells me she's in love with me and I realise that every moment of the pain was worthwhile.
June 2014. My best friend and I are stood at the front of a sold out Islington Assembly Hall seeing Sara Bareilles live for the third time together. Her arms are around my shoulders and I'm wiping tears from my face as she plays the opening chords of "December" and I'm really, really fucking glad that I'm alive.
January 2014. It's my first night in hospital and I can't sleep. All I can hear is the girl in the room next to me screaming and shouting. She says she wants to kill everybody. She is a Persian Princess and is biting, kicking, screaming and spitting at everybody who comes into her room. I pull the covers over my head and cry wondering what I am doing in a place like this. It takes 3 hours for her sedation to work. The next morning when we pass outside our floor's kitchen at 9am, she hugs me and gives me a cornetto ice cream, I take it off her and she watches as I open it and take a lick. Her eyes are like a child giving someone a present, holding a breath, hoping that they'll like it. I say thank you, head back to my room, throw it in the bin and spend the next hour purging. I don't feel anything.
February 2014. Oh my god, Taylor Swift was metres away from me performing my favourite song of hers "All Too Well" I'm so overwhelmed I think I'm going to pass out.
May 2014. I'm walking out of the apartment I'm staying at and a dead pigeon falls out of the sky at my feet. I trip over it and spend the next 45 minutes wondering if having a dead bird fall at your feet is sign of good luck. I never did find out.
June 2014. Two of my friends have come over to the apartment I'm staying at for an impromptu Tony Awards viewing party. Jessie Mueller and Carole King are performing together and I can't stop crying because it's so amazing.
October 2014. She takes 3 buses across London at 4am just to come and be with me whilst I'm hurting. I can't describe this feeling.
August 2014. Two months ago I started watching the TV show "Pretty Little Liars" and I've just finished binge watching five seasons, because why the hell not!
September 2014. I'm hanging out at my friend Becka's friend pub in Soho with her, our friend Kerison and my cat who is on a leash fast asleep on a lap. We're drinking gin and it dawns upon me that I am sat in a pub, with my cat on a lead and somehow this doesn't even make the top twenty of most ridiculous things to happen to me.
May 2014. It's a Sunday afternoon and I'm lay in the bathtub of my hospital room's en-suite listening to Joni Mitchell's album "Blue" at full blast, the sun is shining and I realise that not everything has to hurt.
July 2014. I'm sat in my new favourite writing spot in Soho, I'm writing about him, and then a song comes on that just makes me know that he is with me. All the time. He lives in my heart.
December 2014. It's early in the morning and for some reason I'm the first of us both to be awake. This is rare. I'm lying listening to the rain with the love of my life nestled into my side with her arms wrapped protectively around me. Life is so beautiful.
June 2014. The Red Arrows are going to be flying over Buckingham Palace. I don't usually care about things like this but I'm staying around the corner of Buckingham Palace and as soon as I hear the helicopters in the distance, I'm filled with this childlike excitement and grab the keys and race up onto the roof of the apartment in just a towel with soaking wet hair and watch them fly past with a trail of red, white and blue smoke. Wow, I suddenly realise that I'm LIVING in London and this is just a casual day for me.
September 2014. I'm wrapped up in a throw, roasting marshmallows over a bonfire in my friend Victoria's garden and drinking gin. Life is good. Little do I know what is waiting for me around the corner. It's only going to get better.
October 2014. Lindsay Lohan tells me my outfit is cute.
April 2014. I want to change everything about myself. I hate myself and I hate the traces of who has been left on me. Hair. Hair. It has to start with the hair right? I go and get inches upon inches cut off my hair had my hair and am now fashioning a shoulder length bob. I feel free. This is liberating.
July 2014. I accidentally get a kitten.
May 2014. It's a terrible night. I'm exhausted and my head is screaming at me. I've gained a huge amount of weight because of the medication that I'm on and I've just had enough of it. I spend the day in bed refusing to leave or eat anything. Nurses have been trying to coax me out of bed or to eat something all day and evening. One of my doctors enters my room for the third time that day and I just lose it, I start screaming and I'm howling with sobs. I can't breathe, I can't feel anything. I wake up 13 hours later to find that I had been sedated.
December 2014. I'm at the Harry Potter Studio Tour with the love of my life. Could life get any better than this?
April 2014. I'm back in hospital, after a gruelling group therapy session which I have stormed out of, I'm sat crying, when a very famous musician sits down beside me, puts his arm around me and just sits there in silence with his arm around me whilst I cry. People are really special.
October 2014. It's Halloween. We're hand in hand walking around London's Southbank. My heart is so content. I can't remember a time before she existed. I didn't know it yet, but I'd found her.
June 2014. I tell myself I'm enough, and I almost believe it. This is progress.
September 2014. I start a new job and gain a new family.
June 2014. An entire outdoor weekend of free theatre proves to be just what the doctor ordered.
November 2014. For the first time in a very long time, I pick up a razor and don't see it as a weapon to hurt myself with.
July 2014. I'm at an event photographing Keira Knightley. My love for portrait photography has flooded back to me.
October 2014. I have my own flat. My very own place to call mine, finally.
September 2014. I'm browsing Etsy and I never realised how much I needed a taxidermy rat dressed as Captain America until right this very moment.
21st October 2014. My life is changed forever. For the better.
November 2014. For the first time ever, somebody has the ability to bring me out of a panic attack. She holds my hand, strokes my face and looks into my eyes and suddenly I can breathe again.
December 2014. I'm seeing Taylor Swift with my favourite person on the planet.
23rd November 2014. Love, just love.
December 2014. The most romantic night of my life. I'm so in love. I'm the luckiest person in this universe and my life is incredible. What difference a year makes.
Showing posts with label cutting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cutting. Show all posts
Wednesday, 31 December 2014
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
circles and cycles and seasons.
After living out of suitcase for the last however many months, I am finally posting this from my own bed, in my own apartment, in the beautiful North London location that I am now calling home.
Home. It's a funny word. I haven't felt like I've belonged anywhere for so long. Months and months. My house that I lived in before I went into hospital, that's been my home for the last twenty years of my life felt alien to me. I couldn't settle, I couldn't breathe. The city I used to live in felt impossible to live with. Fragments of the ill version of me are scattered everywhere, I was stumbling over ghosts and heartache and loneliness. So I made the decision to stay in London where my treatment was and set myself up from pretty much rock bottom.
Eleven months and one day ago, I tried to take my own life. Eleven months and one day later and I thank every fibre of the universe that I wasn't successful.
It's been a year of learning, of making mistakes, of piecing parts of myself back together, of loss, but also of tremendous gain.
I have gained a small amount of wisdom, a huge amount of weight. I became a healthy weight with the help of the hospital, and then I made the brave/stupid (it depends which day you ask me) decision to 'sacrifice' my idea of the 'perfect' weight and to disappear into skin and bone, to go onto a large number of different medications that would cause weight gain, but stabilise the mood swings, the dark moods, the suicidal thoughts. Today is a day where I think it was brave.
Last night, I didn't. I punished myself for it. I stumbled, and I gave in to the self harm thoughts for the first time in so many months, and it felt so good. But then it felt everything it should have felt; unnatural, wrong, and something I absolutely should not be doing. I could see that there was a way through it all, without having to hurt myself. I felt that tiny ounce of self esteem that has been growing inside of me, come through and start to help me fight for what is important, me.
I've become more and more at ease as the last few months have gone on. I have been introduced to the most incredible people who have become my family, and who make each day that little bit easier. It's a cliche, but I have got the most amazing people in my life right now. People whom I adore, and who make me feel like I am worth something, who make me feel loved and accepted. People who are seeing me at my highest weight and who still love me and go out of their way to make sure I'm okay and happy.
I've never felt part of a family (with one very special exception) or that I was someone who actually mattered amongst a group of friends, and now, I feel like I've found my place amongst some truly wonderful, big hearted, beautiful people, and I'm lucky enough to call them my friends.
There is still so much to learn and to gain, I don't feel so alone in life anymore, and that makes this whole recovery thing a lot more manageable. Small steps eventually get you somewhere, and I'm getting there, slowly. As for what I lost, nothing is lost forever, even the pieces that I treasured the most are slowly making their way back into my orbit.
Home. It's a funny word. I haven't felt like I've belonged anywhere for so long. Months and months. My house that I lived in before I went into hospital, that's been my home for the last twenty years of my life felt alien to me. I couldn't settle, I couldn't breathe. The city I used to live in felt impossible to live with. Fragments of the ill version of me are scattered everywhere, I was stumbling over ghosts and heartache and loneliness. So I made the decision to stay in London where my treatment was and set myself up from pretty much rock bottom.
Eleven months and one day ago, I tried to take my own life. Eleven months and one day later and I thank every fibre of the universe that I wasn't successful.
It's been a year of learning, of making mistakes, of piecing parts of myself back together, of loss, but also of tremendous gain.
I have gained a small amount of wisdom, a huge amount of weight. I became a healthy weight with the help of the hospital, and then I made the brave/stupid (it depends which day you ask me) decision to 'sacrifice' my idea of the 'perfect' weight and to disappear into skin and bone, to go onto a large number of different medications that would cause weight gain, but stabilise the mood swings, the dark moods, the suicidal thoughts. Today is a day where I think it was brave.
Last night, I didn't. I punished myself for it. I stumbled, and I gave in to the self harm thoughts for the first time in so many months, and it felt so good. But then it felt everything it should have felt; unnatural, wrong, and something I absolutely should not be doing. I could see that there was a way through it all, without having to hurt myself. I felt that tiny ounce of self esteem that has been growing inside of me, come through and start to help me fight for what is important, me.
I've become more and more at ease as the last few months have gone on. I have been introduced to the most incredible people who have become my family, and who make each day that little bit easier. It's a cliche, but I have got the most amazing people in my life right now. People whom I adore, and who make me feel like I am worth something, who make me feel loved and accepted. People who are seeing me at my highest weight and who still love me and go out of their way to make sure I'm okay and happy.
I've never felt part of a family (with one very special exception) or that I was someone who actually mattered amongst a group of friends, and now, I feel like I've found my place amongst some truly wonderful, big hearted, beautiful people, and I'm lucky enough to call them my friends.
There is still so much to learn and to gain, I don't feel so alone in life anymore, and that makes this whole recovery thing a lot more manageable. Small steps eventually get you somewhere, and I'm getting there, slowly. As for what I lost, nothing is lost forever, even the pieces that I treasured the most are slowly making their way back into my orbit.
Monday, 4 August 2014
all my resistance will never be distance enough
bod·y im·age
Two words that put the fear of god into me. I will do anything within my power to avoid any kind of question or discussion of any kind about body image. It fills me with fear, anxiety, and overwhelming sadness.
noun
- the subjective picture or mental image of one's own body.
Two words that put the fear of god into me. I will do anything within my power to avoid any kind of question or discussion of any kind about body image. It fills me with fear, anxiety, and overwhelming sadness.
What has prompted this post, was a small breakdown in a changing room. I stood looking at my body and the fluorescent lighting was illuminating every single flaw of mine, like miniature spotlights drawing attention to what I don't like, presenting my body to me as though I was in some morphed fun house mirror. But no, it was just me.
I am fat. I am ugly. I am disgusting. I am an embarrassment. I'm hideous. I make myself feel sick.
This is a monologue that goes around my head for pretty much the entire day, when it's quiet in my head, that's when it becomes the loudest. It joins forces with the "drill sergeant" voice of the anorexia in my head that berates me for what I eat and how much weight I have put on. It punishes me for taking medication that caused such weight gain. It tells me that being thin is more important than being emotionally stable. It tells me I'm wrong for fighting.
There are moments. like earlier, when I was stood staring at this enormous, disgusting image in the mirror, that I want to just listen to that voice and believe it is right.
Fighting it every single day is so, so exhausting. I honestly don't think people understand just how hard people in recovery are fighting every single day.
Today I'm questioning that fight.
It would be so easy to just submit to the drill sergeant inside my head. But what would it gain? At my lowest weight, I couldn't see how dangerously underweight I was, I saw myself as the size I was now. I wasn't happy. I wasn't gaining anything from starving myself to death. I wasn't achieving anything substantial. I was damaging my organs and I was killing myself.
I wish I could be thin and happy, but I don't think that I can be both. This is my dilemma.
I set impossible standards for myself and I am so judgemental of everything that I do. I do not judge other people, and I do not care about the shape or size of others, yet the last ten years of my life have been defined by my size. So why do I do this to myself when it's not something I judge others for?
I want people to know that anorexia and bulimia doesn't mean that you judge other people, just yourself, constantly. I compare myself to every other woman, it doesn't matter what size you are, I will find ways that I am bigger than you. It used to happen every single time I encountered another woman, causing me to isolate myself constantly. However, now it's fleeting. It still happens every day, it just isn't as overwhelming and consuming.
After an entire day of making myself sick on Saturday, to the point of vomiting blood and collapsing, I'm trying to keep the end goal in sight; to learn to be happy and to love myself. I am enough, and I have to keep repeating that over and over again; I am enough. You are enough.
Wednesday, 30 July 2014
my mind is somewhere hazy
There are some days, like today, where I actually wish that I was ill again. It was so exhausting and lonely and killed my spirit. But fighting it? This is equally as exhausting and lonely.
It's so hard to fight against every single thought you have. I put up such a bright and bubbly front all the time, but underneath it all, I'm not this "recovered" person. I have to fight against almost every single thought that comes into my head, my automatic thought processes tell me to self destruct, that I'm not worthy of simply existing, and I have to fight that every second of every day, and it drains me.
Today my brain actually aches because of everything that has gone on. It's hard to fight the thoughts when your brain is completely drained of any kind of energy or motivation.
In a bizarre series of events, the song "Days" by Kirsty McColl just came on in the restaurant that I am in, a song that I associate with the loss of the greatest light in my life, my heart and soul. It's been seven long years without him, and my grief got tangled up amongst eating disorders and depression and self loathing.
Grief poured out of me disguised as blood. It was grief trying to get out. It's still trying to get out. It buried itself so deep within me that it became a part of me. There are shrapnels of him inside of me.
How do you allow yourself to move on? To grieve seven years worth of mourning. The more the issues that were tangled together with the grief get dealt with, the more the grief has to come out of hiding.
I can feel his hand in mine as he slipped away, it's so real, all the time.
I think it's a sign, I really do. I think it's a sign to deal with it and to fight. Maybe once I've began to tackle this, the feelings of wishing I was ill again will go away. Maybe.
Today has been a bad day, those days that you know will happen but dread it and fear will set back your entire recovery process. I thought it was important to just have some kind of record that I am here in a bad day, but I am okay.
I am okay.
I am okay and I am enough.
What I am doing is good, I'm conquering a lot of things, but I'm also recognising the falls and the mistakes. I've made many, but we can only keep moving forward can't we? I need to keep telling myself, forward is the only way, well, as the song by Yazz says; "the only way is up"
It's so hard to fight against every single thought you have. I put up such a bright and bubbly front all the time, but underneath it all, I'm not this "recovered" person. I have to fight against almost every single thought that comes into my head, my automatic thought processes tell me to self destruct, that I'm not worthy of simply existing, and I have to fight that every second of every day, and it drains me.
Today my brain actually aches because of everything that has gone on. It's hard to fight the thoughts when your brain is completely drained of any kind of energy or motivation.
In a bizarre series of events, the song "Days" by Kirsty McColl just came on in the restaurant that I am in, a song that I associate with the loss of the greatest light in my life, my heart and soul. It's been seven long years without him, and my grief got tangled up amongst eating disorders and depression and self loathing.
Grief poured out of me disguised as blood. It was grief trying to get out. It's still trying to get out. It buried itself so deep within me that it became a part of me. There are shrapnels of him inside of me.
How do you allow yourself to move on? To grieve seven years worth of mourning. The more the issues that were tangled together with the grief get dealt with, the more the grief has to come out of hiding.
I can feel his hand in mine as he slipped away, it's so real, all the time.
I think it's a sign, I really do. I think it's a sign to deal with it and to fight. Maybe once I've began to tackle this, the feelings of wishing I was ill again will go away. Maybe.
Today has been a bad day, those days that you know will happen but dread it and fear will set back your entire recovery process. I thought it was important to just have some kind of record that I am here in a bad day, but I am okay.
I am okay.
I am okay and I am enough.
What I am doing is good, I'm conquering a lot of things, but I'm also recognising the falls and the mistakes. I've made many, but we can only keep moving forward can't we? I need to keep telling myself, forward is the only way, well, as the song by Yazz says; "the only way is up"
Sunday, 2 March 2014
this slope is treacherous.
Wow, it's been a while since I wrote on here. Everything got very dark and my depression spiralled to a very, very dark place. In November, I felt at such a loss with myself and with this illness that I couldn't see any way out other than to take my own life. Thankfully, I was taken into hospital and have begun a degree of trying to build myself back up.
I saw this blog as a reflection of how ill I actually was. I had the "fake it until you make it" philosophy ingrained in me, so I felt the more I tried to show that I was okay, or making progress then the more progress I would actually make. But that isn't how life works.
One lie of "I'm okay" created so many webs of lies about my recovery that all got entangled and meshed together. No I was not okay, no I was not making all of these epiphanies and discoveries, they were just small recognitions in my thoughts. I've felt like a fraud. Writing comes so naturally to me, I figured I could write myself out of my disorder. That in itself is a huge signal of how ill I was. I was sat at my computer, writing away under my middle name Bella, preaching about epiphanies I had had about my disorder, when my mind was still consumed with self loathing and hate. People who love me were reading my blog and not able to connect the words with the girl who wrote them. I was trying so hard to "fake it till I make it" that I was just faking it and making it less and less.
My situation has changed dramatically since I was last here, I spent months as an inpatient after an overdose and I can, hand on heart, say that I have made some progress at least. At the moment, however, I'm really struggling,.
It's so hard to keep your head above the tide. It's so hard to not let the darkness consume us. It's a huge fight to not succumb to the bad thoughts and feelings, but doing so is an incredible feat. I am proud of myself for the days, even the moments, when I can keep my head above water, and laugh, and smile and feel something. Something that isn't pain. I have felt joy, I have felt joy and I am fighting to keep those moments alive. I want that joy in my life, I want it to stick.
I am going to continue to keep writing under my middle name Bella, because that way, I can remain anonymous. I started to use that name because I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin at all, I hated every part of myself, down to the name, but now I'm learning to feel comfortable and it's so hard. I have been having bad day after bad day, but I've got a support network who are going through what I'm going through and know exactly what I'm feeling, and just having people there with that ability has made the most enormous change in me.
I am under no illusions that this is going to be a quick process and that I will be "adjusted" any time soon. I'm just doing the best I can. Taking one day at a time is the only way you can do it really and even then, I feel like each day has so many different moments in that it is hard to class a day as a "good" or "bad" day really.
I guess I'll just have to take it as it comes, but I want to steer clear of writing about my feelings in a public forum, because I still try so hard to keep up this illusion that I'm okay and to commit myself to recovery, I have to be honest and open in every single aspect of my life. I will return to this when I feel I'm in a place where I don't have to hide parts of myself away and give an illusion that I am somebody I am not.
Thank you all for your continued support and messages, I have seen that over 8,000 of you have been reading my little blog and I am sorry to anybody that I have let down who has believed in me. I just want to believe in myself and not see myself as never being good enough.
I saw this blog as a reflection of how ill I actually was. I had the "fake it until you make it" philosophy ingrained in me, so I felt the more I tried to show that I was okay, or making progress then the more progress I would actually make. But that isn't how life works.
One lie of "I'm okay" created so many webs of lies about my recovery that all got entangled and meshed together. No I was not okay, no I was not making all of these epiphanies and discoveries, they were just small recognitions in my thoughts. I've felt like a fraud. Writing comes so naturally to me, I figured I could write myself out of my disorder. That in itself is a huge signal of how ill I was. I was sat at my computer, writing away under my middle name Bella, preaching about epiphanies I had had about my disorder, when my mind was still consumed with self loathing and hate. People who love me were reading my blog and not able to connect the words with the girl who wrote them. I was trying so hard to "fake it till I make it" that I was just faking it and making it less and less.
My situation has changed dramatically since I was last here, I spent months as an inpatient after an overdose and I can, hand on heart, say that I have made some progress at least. At the moment, however, I'm really struggling,.
It's so hard to keep your head above the tide. It's so hard to not let the darkness consume us. It's a huge fight to not succumb to the bad thoughts and feelings, but doing so is an incredible feat. I am proud of myself for the days, even the moments, when I can keep my head above water, and laugh, and smile and feel something. Something that isn't pain. I have felt joy, I have felt joy and I am fighting to keep those moments alive. I want that joy in my life, I want it to stick.
I am going to continue to keep writing under my middle name Bella, because that way, I can remain anonymous. I started to use that name because I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin at all, I hated every part of myself, down to the name, but now I'm learning to feel comfortable and it's so hard. I have been having bad day after bad day, but I've got a support network who are going through what I'm going through and know exactly what I'm feeling, and just having people there with that ability has made the most enormous change in me.
I am under no illusions that this is going to be a quick process and that I will be "adjusted" any time soon. I'm just doing the best I can. Taking one day at a time is the only way you can do it really and even then, I feel like each day has so many different moments in that it is hard to class a day as a "good" or "bad" day really.
I guess I'll just have to take it as it comes, but I want to steer clear of writing about my feelings in a public forum, because I still try so hard to keep up this illusion that I'm okay and to commit myself to recovery, I have to be honest and open in every single aspect of my life. I will return to this when I feel I'm in a place where I don't have to hide parts of myself away and give an illusion that I am somebody I am not.
Thank you all for your continued support and messages, I have seen that over 8,000 of you have been reading my little blog and I am sorry to anybody that I have let down who has believed in me. I just want to believe in myself and not see myself as never being good enough.
Friday, 25 October 2013
the price of love is loss.
There is an enormous amount of love in the world. I think if we were to really look at humanity, look back at important events throughout history and the present, one thing that would stand out is love. It's out there, it's always been out there, but sometimes it can be really hard to find. We are a species that create war, who kill, who discriminate, who abuse, who hate. But we are also a species that has love in abundance. You look at tragic events in history, or even just in the news, and one thing that you won't hear about is a lack of love or the lack of an outpouring of help and community that derives from that. I've seen it over and over again first hand.
Maybe that's why I am the way I am. I wouldn't quite classify a pessimist, I'm trying to bring myself out of that way of being (as hard as it is) I would like to be an optimistic person in everything. I'd like to say one day that I am an optimist, but I've had simply too many bad things happen to me again and again to have the mentality of an optimist instilled in me over a short amount of time But I am happy to say I am trying, and my god, I've seen some pretty amazing things.
For all the negative in my life, there is a positive that outweighs it. Control is outweighed by love. As simple as. I am at a place right this second where I'm perplexed and amazed at myself. Something has happened, and I'm too tired to go into it. But it's a negative force that has hit me many, many times. Now go back 6 months, and what has happened would have affected me so badly that I can guarantee you, I would have stopped eating because of it. I would have let the words stick with me, I'd have scrutinised every single meaning behind them and punished myself. Badly. I'd have been unable to see past them. I'd have replayed the words over and over again, getting more upset and agitated each time. I'd have let them get to me so badly that I would believe they were a truth, I'd believe that the mindset caused by them was "normal" and I'd have allowed my control and my self worth to slip. I would have believed I was a failure, I was this ridiculous, inane, pathetic excuse of a human and that would have been the tipping point for me. What was once a huge trigger, is no more.
I need to attempt to keep reminding myself that I am a good person. I am a kind person. I am a worthy person. I'm fragile, I shouldn't be punished for simply stumbling as I move forwards. I need to really believe that.
There are people out there who choose to be my family. Who choose to love me. Who choose to be there for me. Who choose to pick me up when I fall, hold my hand whilst I stumble, and bask in the joy alongside me when I feel it. They are the people that count. They are the ones who mean the most, who have furthered me along in this incredible journey. It's down to them that I am here now. One of them sent me this beautiful poem in the week;
The sun will shine tomorrow
The rain will somehow end
This is not only a promise
It’s just the way it is
Bad times don’t last forever
The tough times they never stay
The heartache and the let down
Will soon go away
In times of deep sadness
The pain is all too real
And it’s hard to believe
That with time the hurt will heal
The dark clouds that hang above
Will eventually move on
And the storms that dance around
Will soon be gone
Stay strong and keep in mind
That again, the sun will shine
Isn't that beautiful? I am so grateful that there are people looking out for me and who think to send me beautiful things like that.
My outlook changes each day, some days I feel like giving up, but today, I have felt so in control and so overwhelmed at the love for me that I am proud of myself. And others are proud of me too. People I love being proud of me for good reasons is incredible.
Wednesday, 23 October 2013
one blow from caving in.
I wish there was a way to describe how it feels. How it seeps into every part of your brain and paralyses you. How you are just a puppet, helpless, pathetic, whilst it pulls the strings. A master puppeteer, that's what it is. It controls you. It controls every single part of you.
It shows you over and over again what you could be, what you should be striving for, but then it constantly reminds you that you're never going to get there. Your goal is unattainable because you are weak. You are pathetic. You are a failure. It's your fault. It laughs as you try again and again and again. It watches with satisfaction as you can't pass a reflective surface without breaking down in tears of shame and disgust because you hate the way you look.
There is never a moment where you can look at yourself with complete ease and clarity and say "Okay, I'm skinny enough, I'm thin now, I'll stop" the disease is a never ending spiral of discontent and dysmorphia.
You measure your self worth in how much you weigh and what size in clothes you are. You don't choose that. You don't choose to be crying on your bedroom floor because your size 0 jeans are getting a bit more snug than previous. You don't choose to constantly be looking for flaws on every part of your body. Not that you have to look because there's a voice in your head pointing them all out and screaming at you to sort it out.
This disease has stolen so many years of my life, yet I found myself today thinking that I am a fraud. I'm not skinny, I'm not thin. I don't care if people say that that's my body dysmorphia talking, but it's a truth. I don't know whether to be proud, or to breakdown.
It's a constant battle. I want to be better, but I want to be thin. I can't see any how you can become "recovered" and not be "fat" I wish I could learn to differentiate between the two.
I hate that it got it's control back today, but it was only temporary. I want to be better than I am. I want to keep bettering myself. I want to be healthy and happy and continue to embrace the love that surrounds me.
Ultimately, being happy is worth more than anything.
I will not be made to feel bad for being proud of the good days. It's taken me 8 years to even have good days. I haven't fought this for 1/3 of my life to not be proud of my small victories. Just because I am having good days doesn't mean they're all like that. They're not. But I'm not going to not celebrate and revel in the good days, the days when that's exactly what they are; good days. I had years worth of good days stolen from me, I'm not letting these ones just wash over me, I'm letting them sink into every pore of my body, I'm letting them in and I am celebrating in them. I will not apologise for that.
Love is prevalent in recovery. Love for yourself and love for your body. Whilst I may not love my body, I'm beginning to try to learn to love myself. We are all worth something. We are all worth more than numbers on a scale. We are all worth more than this disease. We all have our own special qualities to put out there and to give to others. No one person is worth more than another. There is beauty within each and every one of us. We all hold a unique and special place in this world, never forget that. We may have to fight to find our worth, to find our beauty, to find that we are more than numbers on scale. But I promise you, the fight is worth it. At the other end, there is an abundance of love and acceptance waiting for you. I'm hoping that I can realise that and get there soon.
It shows you over and over again what you could be, what you should be striving for, but then it constantly reminds you that you're never going to get there. Your goal is unattainable because you are weak. You are pathetic. You are a failure. It's your fault. It laughs as you try again and again and again. It watches with satisfaction as you can't pass a reflective surface without breaking down in tears of shame and disgust because you hate the way you look.
There is never a moment where you can look at yourself with complete ease and clarity and say "Okay, I'm skinny enough, I'm thin now, I'll stop" the disease is a never ending spiral of discontent and dysmorphia.
You measure your self worth in how much you weigh and what size in clothes you are. You don't choose that. You don't choose to be crying on your bedroom floor because your size 0 jeans are getting a bit more snug than previous. You don't choose to constantly be looking for flaws on every part of your body. Not that you have to look because there's a voice in your head pointing them all out and screaming at you to sort it out.
This disease has stolen so many years of my life, yet I found myself today thinking that I am a fraud. I'm not skinny, I'm not thin. I don't care if people say that that's my body dysmorphia talking, but it's a truth. I don't know whether to be proud, or to breakdown.
It's a constant battle. I want to be better, but I want to be thin. I can't see any how you can become "recovered" and not be "fat" I wish I could learn to differentiate between the two.
I hate that it got it's control back today, but it was only temporary. I want to be better than I am. I want to keep bettering myself. I want to be healthy and happy and continue to embrace the love that surrounds me.
Ultimately, being happy is worth more than anything.
I will not be made to feel bad for being proud of the good days. It's taken me 8 years to even have good days. I haven't fought this for 1/3 of my life to not be proud of my small victories. Just because I am having good days doesn't mean they're all like that. They're not. But I'm not going to not celebrate and revel in the good days, the days when that's exactly what they are; good days. I had years worth of good days stolen from me, I'm not letting these ones just wash over me, I'm letting them sink into every pore of my body, I'm letting them in and I am celebrating in them. I will not apologise for that.
Love is prevalent in recovery. Love for yourself and love for your body. Whilst I may not love my body, I'm beginning to try to learn to love myself. We are all worth something. We are all worth more than numbers on a scale. We are all worth more than this disease. We all have our own special qualities to put out there and to give to others. No one person is worth more than another. There is beauty within each and every one of us. We all hold a unique and special place in this world, never forget that. We may have to fight to find our worth, to find our beauty, to find that we are more than numbers on scale. But I promise you, the fight is worth it. At the other end, there is an abundance of love and acceptance waiting for you. I'm hoping that I can realise that and get there soon.
Monday, 21 October 2013
all at once my heart took flight.
Sometimes, I forget that my mind is constantly at war with itself. The white noise very quickly became a normality to me, and scrutinising every thought and every interaction, and the constant self criticism became a part of daily life. I fought, but I never won the battle, let alone the war. There was always some part of me that could not get out, no matter how hard I tried to swim, the current of fragmented, disordered thinking patterns and behaviour held me under.
When I can have these tiny, fleeting moments of joy, the noise inside my mind stops. The self criticism and doubt, the black and white thinking, the pain... It all just temporary subsides and and something else is begins to filter through for a brief moment. It's taking a huge gasp of breath and breathing life into you.
It's like the feeling of finally getting water after days in the desert, it's like being wrapped up in a warm blanket after getting soaked from the rain, it's like finally you're warm inside, your brain quietens down and your mind, body and soul are able to soak up positivity. Sometimes, it's just for a few seconds, but my god, those seconds are worth it. I revel in each and every second. I live those moments, I let them in, I let them in through every pore in my body, I live them with every fibre of my being. They are the moments that make this battle less treacherous.
Sometimes it is impossible to see beyond the sadness and the pain. When there is a voice constantly in your head telling you that you are nothing, nobody, that you are a burden to everybody around you, that you deserve the pain you feel, that you should be punishing yourself for simply existing, and that you would be better off dead, it's incredibly hard to block out. But just getting a few moments of relief from that, for muting the voice, and letting happiness in, creates a volume switch in your brain. You are able to turn the volume of the voice down slightly, even by a fraction. One good moment can set a series of doubts to what that voice is telling you. The more you get, the more you start to realise that the voice isn't telling you the truth. You are worthy.
I can't feel love because of that voice. I can barely feel anything at all, and when I did feel, all I felt was sadness, pain, self loathing and shame.
I have had the most incredible few days in the last week, where I have actually felt joy. My intake of love is increasing by the day.
When I can have these tiny, fleeting moments of joy, the noise inside my mind stops. The self criticism and doubt, the black and white thinking, the pain... It all just temporary subsides and and something else is begins to filter through for a brief moment. It's taking a huge gasp of breath and breathing life into you.
It's like the feeling of finally getting water after days in the desert, it's like being wrapped up in a warm blanket after getting soaked from the rain, it's like finally you're warm inside, your brain quietens down and your mind, body and soul are able to soak up positivity. Sometimes, it's just for a few seconds, but my god, those seconds are worth it. I revel in each and every second. I live those moments, I let them in, I let them in through every pore in my body, I live them with every fibre of my being. They are the moments that make this battle less treacherous.
Sometimes it is impossible to see beyond the sadness and the pain. When there is a voice constantly in your head telling you that you are nothing, nobody, that you are a burden to everybody around you, that you deserve the pain you feel, that you should be punishing yourself for simply existing, and that you would be better off dead, it's incredibly hard to block out. But just getting a few moments of relief from that, for muting the voice, and letting happiness in, creates a volume switch in your brain. You are able to turn the volume of the voice down slightly, even by a fraction. One good moment can set a series of doubts to what that voice is telling you. The more you get, the more you start to realise that the voice isn't telling you the truth. You are worthy.
I can't feel love because of that voice. I can barely feel anything at all, and when I did feel, all I felt was sadness, pain, self loathing and shame.
I have had the most incredible few days in the last week, where I have actually felt joy. My intake of love is increasing by the day.
Sunday, 13 October 2013
it's cloud illusions I recall.
I always seem to accidentally preempt bad days by talking about the good ones (though I'm not going to let that stop me) today was a bad day.
I had another slip up. When you wake up with low self esteem and feeling like the world is pretty much against you, it's almost impossible to change your outlook. No amount of CBT tricks can override that feeling for me. I just have to roll with it. So I did, I hauled myself out of bed, endured a panic attack, faced the struggle of doing my make up and hair with one hand (I had to take a trip to A&E yesterday due to an accident at work which has damaged the nerves in my little finger so it's strapped to another finger and pretty much immobile) and made my way to work.
I can sense when it's one of those days that won't really get better, unless a miracle comes along, so I try not to push anything too far. I did some meditation, I took my valium on the train, I listened to music, I didn't rush, I went at my own pace, and I thought about all of the positives in my life.
I had potential things to look forward to after work, if not the following day, and also on Tuesday. I thought if I focus on them if trying to "be present" didn't work as well as it could, then I'd be okay.
Over the few hours I was in work, my skin got thinner and thinner. My self loathing grew larger and larger. It was like I was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, any second I was just going to erupt and the tears would come and wouldn't stop.
Thankfully, they held back until I'd at least finished work. Then, not long after, sure enough, I was walking through my town's city centre and I had never felt more alone. I felt unwanted. I felt like I was nobody. I felt like I was some kind of monster for being so difficult and such hard work to love. I felt like everybody was staring at me, pitying me. I thought about how my illness has affected me, how my life is so different to other people my own age. What a failure I've been. How I wasn't even able to finish my A Levels because of my illnesses. How I am too sensitive and how I let myself upset over the most innate of things.
I spent my entire bus journey quietly sobbing. Gaining even more unwanted attention. I just listened to "Glory and Gore" by Lorde and prayed to God that I would be home as quickly as possible.
Thankfully I was, but I was so angry at myself for being so self loathing and sensitive and just annoying. So I went and threw up. And it felt great. It felt like I finally had some kind of control over what I was feeling for the first time all day.
But then the guilt hit me. It hit me hard. I felt disgusted with myself. I felt so terrible that I'd allowed myself to "give in" I just cried even more and I could feel a vicious cycle coming on. So I just got into bed and I slept.
I feel so much lighter now. So much clearer. The fog that I woke up with wrapped around my brain, has gone, and I feel like myself again.
I got myself out of it as quick as I got myself into it. It's something I now have proof of, I can do it, however rapidly I'm spiralling, I can change my course. It is possible. When I'm bad, my mind keeps me in this illusion of an infinite dark sky where there's never any cracks for the sunlight to get in. But that isn't true, and once I'm able to show myself that is not true, and what I'm feeling is just an illusion my brain is playing on me, I can make my way through.
I had another slip up. When you wake up with low self esteem and feeling like the world is pretty much against you, it's almost impossible to change your outlook. No amount of CBT tricks can override that feeling for me. I just have to roll with it. So I did, I hauled myself out of bed, endured a panic attack, faced the struggle of doing my make up and hair with one hand (I had to take a trip to A&E yesterday due to an accident at work which has damaged the nerves in my little finger so it's strapped to another finger and pretty much immobile) and made my way to work.
I can sense when it's one of those days that won't really get better, unless a miracle comes along, so I try not to push anything too far. I did some meditation, I took my valium on the train, I listened to music, I didn't rush, I went at my own pace, and I thought about all of the positives in my life.
I had potential things to look forward to after work, if not the following day, and also on Tuesday. I thought if I focus on them if trying to "be present" didn't work as well as it could, then I'd be okay.
Over the few hours I was in work, my skin got thinner and thinner. My self loathing grew larger and larger. It was like I was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, any second I was just going to erupt and the tears would come and wouldn't stop.
Thankfully, they held back until I'd at least finished work. Then, not long after, sure enough, I was walking through my town's city centre and I had never felt more alone. I felt unwanted. I felt like I was nobody. I felt like I was some kind of monster for being so difficult and such hard work to love. I felt like everybody was staring at me, pitying me. I thought about how my illness has affected me, how my life is so different to other people my own age. What a failure I've been. How I wasn't even able to finish my A Levels because of my illnesses. How I am too sensitive and how I let myself upset over the most innate of things.
I spent my entire bus journey quietly sobbing. Gaining even more unwanted attention. I just listened to "Glory and Gore" by Lorde and prayed to God that I would be home as quickly as possible.
Thankfully I was, but I was so angry at myself for being so self loathing and sensitive and just annoying. So I went and threw up. And it felt great. It felt like I finally had some kind of control over what I was feeling for the first time all day.
But then the guilt hit me. It hit me hard. I felt disgusted with myself. I felt so terrible that I'd allowed myself to "give in" I just cried even more and I could feel a vicious cycle coming on. So I just got into bed and I slept.
I feel so much lighter now. So much clearer. The fog that I woke up with wrapped around my brain, has gone, and I feel like myself again.
I got myself out of it as quick as I got myself into it. It's something I now have proof of, I can do it, however rapidly I'm spiralling, I can change my course. It is possible. When I'm bad, my mind keeps me in this illusion of an infinite dark sky where there's never any cracks for the sunlight to get in. But that isn't true, and once I'm able to show myself that is not true, and what I'm feeling is just an illusion my brain is playing on me, I can make my way through.
Friday, 11 October 2013
the winds of change are blowing wild and free.
A sweeping sense of solitude has washed over me. There are moments of pure unadulterated clarity, where I see myself as a "survivor" someone who is overcoming demons that have haunted me for too long, someone making their way towards the light. But then there are moments, like today, where I just pull the panic cord and go into a complete state of "but why?" every single one of my senses are heightened and my mind turns into an emergency check point, combing through every little detail of anything that passes through it, scrutinising it down to it's very last inch, checking it over and over to make sure I didn't miss anything.
You get stuck in this infinite state of questioning. Not just questioning where you are and how you got there, but why you feel the way you feel and why certain people arouse such a variety of emotions within you. There is never an answer. There is always another "but why?" to any form of answer you can derive.
I will not apologise for the fact that peoples actions and behaviours have caused a subconscious series of emotions and behaviours that are triggered when I am in their presence. It's not something to criticise or tell me to "snap out of" it isn't that simple and I'm working through it. But they didn't come from nowhere, sometimes the harder people try to help in their own way, the worse they make a situation.
I have faced let down after let down, I haven't even had any kind of expectation with regards to certain people, because I get lulled into a false sense of security that maybe, just maybe, this time they may have changed. But then, there they go again and let me down all over again. Except I told myself I wouldn't get let down, because I was anticipating it, it was to be expected. But it still hurts each and every time, no matter how much you anticipate it.
I am a strong believer that people can change. I can see change within myself daily, I like to give people a chance, because I would like to think that people would give me one too. I know how hard I can be sometimes, how difficult and exhausting I can be, I'd like to think that if I let someone down when I was in one of my "episodes" that they would be understanding and would be willing to give me a second chance. "Treat others the way you wish to be treated", isn't that how the saying goes? I think for me, there is some element of that in how I go about my daily life. But I also think that we all have an obligation, as human beings, to show care and love to the people around us. Those deserving of it. It doesn't take a lot of energy to be kind to someone. Showing kindness to somebody you care about, or love, should be a reflex, it shouldn't be something that seems like too much hard work.
It's taking me a long time, and a lot of therapy, to at least recognise that loving somebody and pleasing somebody isn't the same thing. They do not go hand in hand. Trying to constantly please somebody and adhere to what they want, isn't love. You can love somebody and not constantly alter yourself or what makes you happy to try to please them. You cannot please everybody, I have to train myself to stop trying to please certain people or worry about other people's judgements. You just have to please and look after yourself. As long as you aren't hurting yourself or others, it's okay. If other people don't like it? Tough. It's still taking me a really long time to distinguish it, but I think I'm getting there. It's not being selfish, it's not loving those people any less, it's knowing more about who you are and what makes you happy and not letting others dictate your happiness and control what you do.
We're all unique. We don't all occupy the same brain, the same heart, the same religion, or have the same principals or beliefs. Some people look down on what they don't understand, but all we can do is help them understand, we can show them what we feel, what we think, we can talk about it, put it out there. People have a right to disagree with you, but they do not have the right to make you feel inferior for whatever you do (as long as no harm is being caused to anybody)
I don't know where life will take me, where my mind will take me, which days will be bad days, which days will be good days, which side effects my next lot of meds will bring me, which path of treatment I am headed onto next. But what I do know is that I can get through it. I can fight against the current and win. Even when I feel like I can't, I know that I was in a much darker place twelve months ago and I made it through those.
Sometimes the people that help us the most aren't the people you expect. Sometimes it's hard for other people around you to understand that despite the fact they're your parent/family/spouse/lover/sibling whatever, they aren't necessarily the person that can fix you. I'm sure it must be a hard thing to deal with, especially when all they want to do is help.
But at the end of the day, the only person who can really fix you, is you. Some are lucky enough to find somebody along the way, in whatever form of love, that mends our broken parts. That helps fix you, that provides strength as you become the glue as you piece yourself back together. If you have somebody in your life who is as instrumental in your recovery, please, treat them well, let them know that they too are loved and that you are so grateful for them.
Sometimes people come along once you've started doing the repair job. I've seen it happen first hand. Nobody is ever alone in recovery, in putting themselves back together. There is always support out there, even if it's through a computer, there are still people who want to help you and love you, and help glue you back together. Even if it's just through listening.
You get stuck in this infinite state of questioning. Not just questioning where you are and how you got there, but why you feel the way you feel and why certain people arouse such a variety of emotions within you. There is never an answer. There is always another "but why?" to any form of answer you can derive.
I will not apologise for the fact that peoples actions and behaviours have caused a subconscious series of emotions and behaviours that are triggered when I am in their presence. It's not something to criticise or tell me to "snap out of" it isn't that simple and I'm working through it. But they didn't come from nowhere, sometimes the harder people try to help in their own way, the worse they make a situation.
I have faced let down after let down, I haven't even had any kind of expectation with regards to certain people, because I get lulled into a false sense of security that maybe, just maybe, this time they may have changed. But then, there they go again and let me down all over again. Except I told myself I wouldn't get let down, because I was anticipating it, it was to be expected. But it still hurts each and every time, no matter how much you anticipate it.
I am a strong believer that people can change. I can see change within myself daily, I like to give people a chance, because I would like to think that people would give me one too. I know how hard I can be sometimes, how difficult and exhausting I can be, I'd like to think that if I let someone down when I was in one of my "episodes" that they would be understanding and would be willing to give me a second chance. "Treat others the way you wish to be treated", isn't that how the saying goes? I think for me, there is some element of that in how I go about my daily life. But I also think that we all have an obligation, as human beings, to show care and love to the people around us. Those deserving of it. It doesn't take a lot of energy to be kind to someone. Showing kindness to somebody you care about, or love, should be a reflex, it shouldn't be something that seems like too much hard work.
It's taking me a long time, and a lot of therapy, to at least recognise that loving somebody and pleasing somebody isn't the same thing. They do not go hand in hand. Trying to constantly please somebody and adhere to what they want, isn't love. You can love somebody and not constantly alter yourself or what makes you happy to try to please them. You cannot please everybody, I have to train myself to stop trying to please certain people or worry about other people's judgements. You just have to please and look after yourself. As long as you aren't hurting yourself or others, it's okay. If other people don't like it? Tough. It's still taking me a really long time to distinguish it, but I think I'm getting there. It's not being selfish, it's not loving those people any less, it's knowing more about who you are and what makes you happy and not letting others dictate your happiness and control what you do.
We're all unique. We don't all occupy the same brain, the same heart, the same religion, or have the same principals or beliefs. Some people look down on what they don't understand, but all we can do is help them understand, we can show them what we feel, what we think, we can talk about it, put it out there. People have a right to disagree with you, but they do not have the right to make you feel inferior for whatever you do (as long as no harm is being caused to anybody)
I don't know where life will take me, where my mind will take me, which days will be bad days, which days will be good days, which side effects my next lot of meds will bring me, which path of treatment I am headed onto next. But what I do know is that I can get through it. I can fight against the current and win. Even when I feel like I can't, I know that I was in a much darker place twelve months ago and I made it through those.
Sometimes the people that help us the most aren't the people you expect. Sometimes it's hard for other people around you to understand that despite the fact they're your parent/family/spouse/lover/sibling whatever, they aren't necessarily the person that can fix you. I'm sure it must be a hard thing to deal with, especially when all they want to do is help.
But at the end of the day, the only person who can really fix you, is you. Some are lucky enough to find somebody along the way, in whatever form of love, that mends our broken parts. That helps fix you, that provides strength as you become the glue as you piece yourself back together. If you have somebody in your life who is as instrumental in your recovery, please, treat them well, let them know that they too are loved and that you are so grateful for them.
Sometimes people come along once you've started doing the repair job. I've seen it happen first hand. Nobody is ever alone in recovery, in putting themselves back together. There is always support out there, even if it's through a computer, there are still people who want to help you and love you, and help glue you back together. Even if it's just through listening.
Here are some useful numbers and links:
(US) National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - 1–800–273-TALK (8255)
- (UK) Samaritans - 08457 90 90 90
- (ROI) Samaritans - 1850 60 90 90
Monday, 7 October 2013
something beautiful, a new chance.
Today, I stumbled. Metaphorically, of course, not literally. It was a waiting game really, when I was going to have my first slip, and today just happened to be the day.
But it's okay. I can pick myself back up, dust myself off, and carry on with my journey. I can try to not let it set me back, or let these compulsions and thoughts take over my brain and drag me backwards into the past. There is no point regretting my actions today, I am sad, yes, disappointed, yes. But cycles of behaviour don't just stop, we have to keep fighting them and instilling new, positive behaviours into our life.
I had an interesting discussion about regret in terms of self harm scars a few days ago. I like to think of scars as battle scars. Proof that you fought the fight, and won. That you overcame. A scar, by definition, means that some form of healing has taken place. Wounds have slowly healed over, gained new strength, gained a new layer of skin to them. The human skin isn't an easy armour to carry anyway. Rarely, do we ever "fit" into our own skin, we don't feel comfortable in it, we aren't happy with it. It's is never, ever thick enough. It cuts, it bleeds, it burns, it dies, it scars, but it also heals.
Sometimes a little adjustment is all that is needed to feel acceptance in yourself. Adjust your view, adjust a thought, adjust an outlook; maybe then, your skin, your armour might feel a little more comfortable.
Having thin skin isn't a flaw. It's human. We aren't all capable of being able to let a comment, words, thoughts, anything not get to us. The saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is complete and utter bullshit. Words can do more damage than a wrecking ball. It's okay to be sensitive, it's okay to not be comfortable with who you are, or what you look like. It is rare to come across people who were born with the "perfect" layer of skin to be able to brush off negativity.
If you have scars, you have scars. It's an unfortunate consequence. I used to get incredibly self conscious of my scars and cover them up with make up. I remember seeing the horror on someone's face at work when I rolled up my sleeve and they saw my arm had been hacked away at. I know for some people, it's just "another part" of them and I am in awe of their confidence. I would like to think that we are capable of eventually accepting our scars. Metaphorical scars too. We don't have to like them or love them, or think about what lead us to inflict pain upon ourselves. But accepting they are a part of us, is accepting that we have fought the fight against our mind, and we are healing. We may not be healed, we may only be a day into recovery, or a week, or a month. But what we are is better than we were before.
But it's okay. I can pick myself back up, dust myself off, and carry on with my journey. I can try to not let it set me back, or let these compulsions and thoughts take over my brain and drag me backwards into the past. There is no point regretting my actions today, I am sad, yes, disappointed, yes. But cycles of behaviour don't just stop, we have to keep fighting them and instilling new, positive behaviours into our life.
I had an interesting discussion about regret in terms of self harm scars a few days ago. I like to think of scars as battle scars. Proof that you fought the fight, and won. That you overcame. A scar, by definition, means that some form of healing has taken place. Wounds have slowly healed over, gained new strength, gained a new layer of skin to them. The human skin isn't an easy armour to carry anyway. Rarely, do we ever "fit" into our own skin, we don't feel comfortable in it, we aren't happy with it. It's is never, ever thick enough. It cuts, it bleeds, it burns, it dies, it scars, but it also heals.
Sometimes a little adjustment is all that is needed to feel acceptance in yourself. Adjust your view, adjust a thought, adjust an outlook; maybe then, your skin, your armour might feel a little more comfortable.
Having thin skin isn't a flaw. It's human. We aren't all capable of being able to let a comment, words, thoughts, anything not get to us. The saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is complete and utter bullshit. Words can do more damage than a wrecking ball. It's okay to be sensitive, it's okay to not be comfortable with who you are, or what you look like. It is rare to come across people who were born with the "perfect" layer of skin to be able to brush off negativity.
If you have scars, you have scars. It's an unfortunate consequence. I used to get incredibly self conscious of my scars and cover them up with make up. I remember seeing the horror on someone's face at work when I rolled up my sleeve and they saw my arm had been hacked away at. I know for some people, it's just "another part" of them and I am in awe of their confidence. I would like to think that we are capable of eventually accepting our scars. Metaphorical scars too. We don't have to like them or love them, or think about what lead us to inflict pain upon ourselves. But accepting they are a part of us, is accepting that we have fought the fight against our mind, and we are healing. We may not be healed, we may only be a day into recovery, or a week, or a month. But what we are is better than we were before.
Thursday, 3 October 2013
was a prisoner inside, now i'm breathing the air
I'm sat eating a bar of chocolate, and I keep wondering what would "she" say? How would "she" feel? How would "she" react?
When I talk about she, I'm referring to anorexia. My eating disorder became so embedded in my brain, it became me, I became it, together we were one. Now our connection is tumulus, not quite severed, but it is not quite the symbiotic relationship we once had.
She was my first real love. My first real friend. My first real driving force. I want to say letting go of the anorexic, eating disorder ridden me has been a lot easier than I anticipated, but in actual fact I've spent over a year getting to this place. Bit by bit, our bond got chipped away, it wasn't noticeable. At the time I thought nothing was happening, but seeds were being planted in my brain. Parts of my brain began to break free from her grip over me.
She stole me away without me realising. She took me prisoner and she wouldn't let me go. She told me over and over again that I was nothing, that I was worthless, than the only value I would hold was to be thin. And I believed her. I hung on her every word. She made me feel special, she made me feel wanted. As long as I was striving to be thin, I thought I had control, when in actual fact, it was her that was in control. She caged me, she chained me in, I was confined to one goal and one goal only.
Every second of everyday her voice was in my head; "Don't eat, purge what you do eat. Fat is nothing. You are nothing. You wonder why nobody likes you? It's because you're so fat and ugly. At least if you're thin and ugly, you'll at least be thin. That girl is thin, why can't you be that thin? Why are you such a failure? You're nothing. You're lazy. You're disgusting. You make me sick."
She made me doubt people's love for me. "How could anybody ever love you?"she taught me that compliments were people's way of laughing at me. "They're really insulting you, whatever they're saying, they really mean the opposite" she taught me to smile and politely thank them and then go home and cry and listen whilst she told me how grotesque and what a failure I was.
But she was there for me when nobody else was. Nobody ever stayed around, but she did. She was there when I needed someone, she was there to spur me on, to make me want to achieve my goal of being thin. I was reliant on her, as long as she was there, I was safe. I was in my comfort zone. My comfort zone was starve, purge, hate. An endless cycle of soul destroying, torturous thoughts, where I felt nothing but shame and disgust.
She brainwashed me. For years, she manipulated and controlled every aspect of my being. She convinced me that thin would equal happiness. She used my body dysmorphia against me, she used my other mental illnesses against me, she twisted them to what she wanted and what she needed them to be; failures. Failures on my account, they were there because I simply wasn't good enough or thin enough. For years, I was burdened with the notion that I had brought about my own mental illness, and that was yet another failure to add to my increasingly long list.
She had me under lock and key; I can't look at any other female without instantly racking up which parts of their bodies were smaller than the parts of my body. No matter what their shape or size, and due to my body dysmorphia, I can't understand that a UK size 20 has bigger thighs than me, or a bigger stomach. I can't see it. It's a blind spot for me. There is an inherent lack of comprehension that remains within me in regards to body size. All I see is people smaller than me.
She was happily living alongside me, inside me, and I was happy for her to stay, we would have probably been set for life. But then I found love in small places, friends, extended family, and then they set to war. One voice told me I was worthless. Others told me I was worthy. One praised me for being thin. The others cried over my weight. One told me I was ugly. The others old me I was beautiful.
Slowly, I found myself listening more to positive. The people who saw something in me that I clearly couldn't. I trusted them so implicitly, I knew they would not lie to me, I knew what they were saying had to be truth. Maybe not "truth truth" but a truth how they saw it. And that floored me. Never had I ever been made to feel anything more than what my mind had told me I was. Their love started to drive the other "her"'s love away. I wanted to trust what I could see, what I could really feel.
It's a very strange adjustment to make, but the impact it has had on the rest of me has been remarkable. I still have some deep rooted issues with other mental illnesses that I suffer with, but finally, in terms of eating, I feel like I can breathe a little bit again.
I find myself somewhat hypocritical writing this, because only today I had thoughts back of being too fat and restricting what I ate. I am in no way recovered. My eating disorders are still a huge factor in my life, they are just manageable now. Despite those thoughts going round my mind, I still "allowed" myself to eat a chocolate bar, I still "allowed" myself to indulge. Two months ago, I couldn't do that. Allowance of indulgence required a sacrifice; eat a meal, throw it up, don't eat anything the next day. Eat something with too many calories in, throw it up, exercise, don't even think about eating anything else for at least a day. But now, I allow myself these luxuries, they aren't luxuries, they're non disordered ways of thinking.
Sure I do slip, but I'm only human. I'm just working on making sure those slips don't turn into falls.
One day at a time. One day at a time.
When I talk about she, I'm referring to anorexia. My eating disorder became so embedded in my brain, it became me, I became it, together we were one. Now our connection is tumulus, not quite severed, but it is not quite the symbiotic relationship we once had.
She was my first real love. My first real friend. My first real driving force. I want to say letting go of the anorexic, eating disorder ridden me has been a lot easier than I anticipated, but in actual fact I've spent over a year getting to this place. Bit by bit, our bond got chipped away, it wasn't noticeable. At the time I thought nothing was happening, but seeds were being planted in my brain. Parts of my brain began to break free from her grip over me.
She stole me away without me realising. She took me prisoner and she wouldn't let me go. She told me over and over again that I was nothing, that I was worthless, than the only value I would hold was to be thin. And I believed her. I hung on her every word. She made me feel special, she made me feel wanted. As long as I was striving to be thin, I thought I had control, when in actual fact, it was her that was in control. She caged me, she chained me in, I was confined to one goal and one goal only.
Every second of everyday her voice was in my head; "Don't eat, purge what you do eat. Fat is nothing. You are nothing. You wonder why nobody likes you? It's because you're so fat and ugly. At least if you're thin and ugly, you'll at least be thin. That girl is thin, why can't you be that thin? Why are you such a failure? You're nothing. You're lazy. You're disgusting. You make me sick."
She made me doubt people's love for me. "How could anybody ever love you?"she taught me that compliments were people's way of laughing at me. "They're really insulting you, whatever they're saying, they really mean the opposite" she taught me to smile and politely thank them and then go home and cry and listen whilst she told me how grotesque and what a failure I was.
But she was there for me when nobody else was. Nobody ever stayed around, but she did. She was there when I needed someone, she was there to spur me on, to make me want to achieve my goal of being thin. I was reliant on her, as long as she was there, I was safe. I was in my comfort zone. My comfort zone was starve, purge, hate. An endless cycle of soul destroying, torturous thoughts, where I felt nothing but shame and disgust.
She brainwashed me. For years, she manipulated and controlled every aspect of my being. She convinced me that thin would equal happiness. She used my body dysmorphia against me, she used my other mental illnesses against me, she twisted them to what she wanted and what she needed them to be; failures. Failures on my account, they were there because I simply wasn't good enough or thin enough. For years, I was burdened with the notion that I had brought about my own mental illness, and that was yet another failure to add to my increasingly long list.
She had me under lock and key; I can't look at any other female without instantly racking up which parts of their bodies were smaller than the parts of my body. No matter what their shape or size, and due to my body dysmorphia, I can't understand that a UK size 20 has bigger thighs than me, or a bigger stomach. I can't see it. It's a blind spot for me. There is an inherent lack of comprehension that remains within me in regards to body size. All I see is people smaller than me.
She was happily living alongside me, inside me, and I was happy for her to stay, we would have probably been set for life. But then I found love in small places, friends, extended family, and then they set to war. One voice told me I was worthless. Others told me I was worthy. One praised me for being thin. The others cried over my weight. One told me I was ugly. The others old me I was beautiful.
Slowly, I found myself listening more to positive. The people who saw something in me that I clearly couldn't. I trusted them so implicitly, I knew they would not lie to me, I knew what they were saying had to be truth. Maybe not "truth truth" but a truth how they saw it. And that floored me. Never had I ever been made to feel anything more than what my mind had told me I was. Their love started to drive the other "her"'s love away. I wanted to trust what I could see, what I could really feel.
It's a very strange adjustment to make, but the impact it has had on the rest of me has been remarkable. I still have some deep rooted issues with other mental illnesses that I suffer with, but finally, in terms of eating, I feel like I can breathe a little bit again.
I find myself somewhat hypocritical writing this, because only today I had thoughts back of being too fat and restricting what I ate. I am in no way recovered. My eating disorders are still a huge factor in my life, they are just manageable now. Despite those thoughts going round my mind, I still "allowed" myself to eat a chocolate bar, I still "allowed" myself to indulge. Two months ago, I couldn't do that. Allowance of indulgence required a sacrifice; eat a meal, throw it up, don't eat anything the next day. Eat something with too many calories in, throw it up, exercise, don't even think about eating anything else for at least a day. But now, I allow myself these luxuries, they aren't luxuries, they're non disordered ways of thinking.
Sure I do slip, but I'm only human. I'm just working on making sure those slips don't turn into falls.
One day at a time. One day at a time.
the tune without the words.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -That perches in the soul -And sings the tune without the words -And never stops - at all -And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -And sore must be the storm -That could abash the little BirdThat kept so many warm -I’ve heard it in the chillest land -And on the strangest Sea -Yet - never - in Extremity,It asked a crumb - of me.
I love rediscovering old favourites through old journals. The image is from tumblr.
Sunday, 29 September 2013
everything that happens is from now on.
I've finally done it, I've started to put this blog "out there" so to say. Up until today, only four or five people in my life knew it existed. The only people who knew the real me, what was going on with me. But today I decided it was time to start sharing it amongst people, and the truth be told, I'm terrified.
These are people who call me "constantly happy" "so bubbly" "a ball of energy" these are people who I have spent weeks, months, years fooling. People who think they know me are now going to find out they don't know me at all. I'm not the person they think I am. Are they going to think I'm weak? I'm a bad person for not letting them in? Are they suddenly going to pity me and not have fun with me any more?
So, to all of you who are reading this and thinking "what?!?!" I'm sorry that I wasn't strong enough to tell you who I really am and share this with you. It doesn't mean I respect you or like you any less. It's just very hard for me to let my walls down, and take this "mask" off.
I just want to make absolutely clear that I am not doing this for me, I'm doing it for other people out there who go through what I go through every day. I've already had messages from people who have thanked me for starting this because they can relate to it and it has caused them to take action and get help. And that is all I want. I'm not doing this for attention, I don't want people to feel like they are walking on eggshells around me now that you know. Just please understand that I have my good and my bad days, I'm not a complete and utter mess trying to pretend to be okay all the time.
life is a beautiful mess.
"These words on a page, carry the pain, they don't free it."
Sometimes I wonder, is writing really a blessing? Or is it a curse? I've had people tell me that my writing is beautiful (I hate repeating compliments I receive, because 9/10 times I never believe them and hate repeating them because it makes me sound pretentious) but my writing isn't beautiful. I write my thoughts, I write my mind, and my mind isn't "beautiful" my mind is a mess. My mind is a maze of twisted complexity, I suffer from black and white thinking, I constantly question everything and search for hidden meanings, I overreact to everything, I can't process any of my emotions at a "normal" (god, I hate that word) rate, and I have negative thought after negative thought.
So when I write, I'm really only writing my mind. A thought. A question. A moment. All of them are fleeting, in the grand scheme of my life, each and every piece that I write is a fleeting moment in time. Do I really want my thoughts, my messed up mind immortalised?
Sometimes I think that when you write about something, it loses it's meaning. The original moment or thought you were writing about diminishes and it becomes quite literally words on a piece of paper, or through a blog, or through a screen. The thought is gone, the inner workings of my mind have changed, that no longer exists in the present now, it's gone. So is writing it down where it can never be forgotten something that is productive?
I haven't suddenly decided to give up on my blog or my journalling or any of that. I'm just thinking through my writing, I guess. I think it's nice to chronicle your state of mind when you're going through recovery, or even anything really, to look back and see how things have progressed, how your mind has moved forward, how you have grown and flourished.
But in reality, do you really need to be reminded of thoughts you had? Do you really need it there to see? Can't it just be lost along with the hundreds of thousand other memories that we create and forget?
Saturday, 28 September 2013
black and white begins to colour in.
"Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life."
My mind is a maze. To me, if I'm not the perfect person, perfect at everything I do, then in my mind, I'm a bad person, I'm a failure and deserve to be punished. There's no in between for me. One mistake, no matter how trivial, means that I'm a terrible person and can't live with myself.
There is no in between with how I react to things. It's either a complete overreaction; sobbing, hysteria, shouting, screaming. Or nothing. There's no middle ground. I can't just take something on board, I have to run through every single "bad" scenario possible and then freak out over all of these imaginary scenarios. It's so unhealthy and it's something that I wasn't really aware of until today. I knew I overreacted a lot, but I never really looked at how or why.
The last few days have hurt my heart a lot. But I think I'm better for it. I'm trying to tell myself that pretending that I'm okay brings a whole new series of problems, it affects every state of my being, it penetrates through to my relationships. It puts too much pressure on those who love me and it leaves them at a loss. Pretending I'm okay brings a whole new cycle of behaviours that have been brought to light to me that I didn't even know existed. When you're so busy putting up a mask, you don't think of the domino effect that it has on your behaviours and emotions. As long as you're pretending that you're okay, it doesn't matter. But it does.
I have been told of the behaviours that I've been displaying, I know need to stop pretending that I'm okay and look at all of the issues that pretending that I'm okay causes for me and the people closest to me.
My behaviour has caused resentment and dislike towards me by people that I adore and who love me and all it makes me want to do is drop my "mask" and just focus on everything that comes about because I have that mask up. It's been so ingrained in me for so long because I've spent so long pretending I'm okay that I've never noticed or been shown the ramifications of what that does.
Mood altering medications do exactly what they say; they alter your moods, they can make you more low, they can bring you up, they can cause suicidal thoughts, they can do a lot of stuff. But I don't solely blame those, I blame the fact I've spent so long trying to keep this mask on - even to those closest to me who I tell virtually everything to, I keep some stuff hidden from them to not cause them worry or pain - that I've failed to see what that has done to me, my behaviour, my thinking and what it's done to those around me. And this isn't something new, this has been ongoing for years.
But how do you just stop pretending and and actually really face up to what you're going through 100% without breaking down and letting it win? I don't know.
Friday, 27 September 2013
when you know, you know.
"We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More Compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide."
Thursday, 26 September 2013
there's beauty in the breakdown.
"So let go, jump in.
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's all right, 'cause there's beauty in the breakdown.
So let go, yeah let go,
Just get in, oh it's so amazing here,
It's all right, 'cause there's beauty in the breakdown."
Maybe you can't always forgive, but you can forget. Holding onto hate can cause your heart to turn very bitter. No matter the reasoning behind the negative feelings. Freeing your mind of the negative energy simply gives you more room for positive energy.
Build bridges. Bridges don't necessarily have to have the same foundations they once had. Once it's burned, it can never be replicated, it won't be the same, it will be different. But build them anyway. You don't have to love or like the person, you just simply have to let go and move forward.
I made a choice today to try let go of all negative energy to a few certain people who have harmed or wronged me or my friends and family. If it's unforgivable, they don't even deserve another thought, they're forgotten and not forgiven, but I can't hold onto it, it's not healthy. If it is forgivable, I'm need to learn to let it go, I want to attempt to rid all of the negative energy out of my life. I don't want to hold onto grudges or previous wrong doings. We're all human, we all make mistakes.
Saturday, 21 September 2013
one golden glance of what should be.
After a prolonged period of time last night, I found myself holding a pair of scissors with the intention of old habits. However, for the first time ever, I found a part of my brain was overpowering the desire to cut. It was telling me that I was better than this. I was worth more than cuts along my flesh. That inflicting pain upon myself, when my mind causes me so much pain and suffering anyway, wouldn't get me anywhere or help me achieve anything.
I ran a list through my head of all of the amazing things that have happened to me since I last hurt myself. Of what I didn't gain the last time I did it, and the time before that and the time before that... The release is only temporary. No matter how disgusted and ashamed of myself I was last night, I fought back. I fought my mind for myself. And this time, I won.
Does this mean that I am learning to respect my body more? Am I starting to like myself on even a subconscious level? Is the love that I am receiving from certain people penetrating that deep that it has brought me to here? There are so many thoughts spinning around my mind, but for once, they aren't negative, they're positive.
I achieved a lot last night and I am so proud of myself, as silly as that may sound, the pride I feel has caused me to break down in tears. Even if it doesn't last forever, this feeling of achievement is more than I can even begin to describe.
I ran a list through my head of all of the amazing things that have happened to me since I last hurt myself. Of what I didn't gain the last time I did it, and the time before that and the time before that... The release is only temporary. No matter how disgusted and ashamed of myself I was last night, I fought back. I fought my mind for myself. And this time, I won.
Does this mean that I am learning to respect my body more? Am I starting to like myself on even a subconscious level? Is the love that I am receiving from certain people penetrating that deep that it has brought me to here? There are so many thoughts spinning around my mind, but for once, they aren't negative, they're positive.
I achieved a lot last night and I am so proud of myself, as silly as that may sound, the pride I feel has caused me to break down in tears. Even if it doesn't last forever, this feeling of achievement is more than I can even begin to describe.
Friday, 20 September 2013
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)