Lost? Time To Find New Pathways!

First of all I want to thank everyone for your support and compassion when it comes to my last post. I was, as the title suggests, extremely discouraged and depressed. I still am battling depression hugely, but there have been little glimmers of hope for me since I wrote that.

That post, as some wise owls also remarked in the comments section, was an example of pretty screwed up, negative, unhelpful thinking.

By saying things like “I will NEVER…” I totally deny myself any chances of that thing happening, before I’ve even really tried. I close the door just like that. And I do deny faith, deny God. (I’m sorry if you don’t believe in God – each to their own. I do) Deny any plans that He has for my life, or any faith in Him that with Him I can get through anything.

Diane mentioned that to come back and use my newly minted CBT skills on those statements I made would be very helpful and I agree. Those are thoughts that have been going round and round in my mind, upsetting me, causing me anxiety and making me feel hopeless. If I am not challenging them, they will never change. Challenging them is the first step.

I may no longer have the dreams I had when I was younger – but who of us ever knows what is round the corner? Even the best laid plans fall, and often. If only we had a crystal ball, we could plan our way to success and happiness step by step, including navigation around every hurdle we would face on the way! But life is not like that.

Life doesn’t only give us hurdles. It opens doors. All the time, in unexpected places. Opportunities don’t always announce themselves. We have to keep a look out for them. And we have to believe in them. If we don’t, we won’t look, and we will sail right past them.

There is no factual evidence at all that I will never amount to anything in my life. NONE. I am ONLY 35 years old. That is not even half of a person’s life expectancy. And I might not have things like certificates or diplomas or degrees, I might not have a job or career or a family or house or car, but I have lived experience – and that is something you just cannot buy or learn.

I don’t have a crystal ball or ESP. I have no idea what the future holds for me. I don’t even know what tomorrow really holds for me as opposed to what I’ve planned. 35 is not too old to begin anything. I might struggle to have kids, and who knows, maybe I never will meet a partner, but I have wonderful friends who love me in the ways I need to be loved, and there are many kids out there who some day I might be able to adopt or foster. They won’t be ‘my’ kids, but I would hope that I could be part of thier lives even if briefly.

There are definitely things I can do – I’ve been researching with the help of a close friend, Tertiary Preparation Programs, which are short uni courses that help you get back into being a student. I might soon be doing one of these, online and part time. It would be awesome to call myself a student again after so long – and this might be a pathway into something like a psychology degree or case management or social work, which might be another 8 years if I did it part time (and then still not be actually qualified) but I’ve just thrown more than 15 years of my actual life away to the ED, more than that, so what’s another 8 years when it’s going to be positive stuff? And this is very sudden – yesterday my therapist just suggested it as I was bemoaning exactly what I wrote here in my last post. I do need to feel like I’m actually working towards something again. The cognitive difficulties? I’ll tackle that as it comes. Even if I have to do only one unit at a time, I’ll do this. I’m still not actually finishing most books I borrow from the library, in fact I don’t start most of them – but I’m getting through more of the book before I give up. That’s progress I guess.

I’ve been told of a program that is run by survivors of child abuse, for survivors, that’s situated out in a remote area, a series of 5 day retreats. It sounds really great, and what’s more, they do not turn anyone down based on financial difficulty – they help you come up with a way to do it. Feedback sounds really good – some people say the 5 days was worth more to them than a 6 month hospital stay. What’s more, since the volunteers who run the course are all past program participants who have come through their own troubles and trained to then come back and help, that again is another pathway to my future that I might choose. I’d be really happy with something like that. To help other people like me as a volunteer at a place like that.

Basically what’s most important to me is that my life is meaningful, in that I left something behind that was better for my having been here (as opposed to leaving a deficit because I took much and contributed nothing or very little.) For me, meaningful means helping others, however I achieve that (whether directly or indirectly.)

I’ve looked into some other options for therapy (8 sessions left for the rest of 2013) including funding that’s set aside for people with Eating Disorders to attend therapy (not very likely but worth a shot) and a community counselling organisation which would provide free or sliding scale sessions. They do seem to specialise in ED,  I do worry that they sound very ‘feminist’ based which isn’t my thing at all, but again, I have nothing to lose by checking them out and I have an intake appointment next Tuesday to meet them and see what they are like. (And I am, as usual for me, petrified!)

A close friend has recommended a psychiatrist who specialises in Trauma and will bulk bill (sadly bulk billing is getting scarce these days), and psychiatrists are able to bulk bill I think 50 sessions a year as opposed to the 10 that psychologists can. I had given up on psychiatrists – my experiences being that they throw medication and labels at you but don’t do anything to actually HELP you, whereas psychologists are all about changing your thinking and behaviours and working with your emotions. They give you real tools to take away and use for the rest of your life. But I will give this fellow a chance if he will give me one. I googled him and he has a huge reputation in this country so I just hope he’s not too busy for someone like me.

To help me face up to the anxiety that is ruining ballet and volunteer work with, I’ve been working with my care team to come up with ways they can support me to get there – after which once I get stuck into it I’m fine. it’s getting there in the first place where I fall down most, and it’s spending 2 or 3 days before hand constantly in panic attacks about it that exhausts me. I panic over the simplest things like “will I get up on time” and “I need to leave by x o’clock, remember that” and to have someone support me in the getting ready and getting there will help a lot of that anxiety calm down. I’m also changing my volunteering day, because Mondays is perhaps the worst day of the week for me. My weekends tend to be my busiest days of all and by Monday I am physically and emotionally a wreck, which doesn’t help in getting myself there in one piece or feeling very productive and helpful once there. And to help with the anxiety about what people will think of my appearance at Ballet, I’ve visited Bloch and come away with some really nice dance clothes that cover my scars, are loose but not baggy, and breathable. (I hate that I fret over this, but to me, the people at Ballet represent a group of people that once judged me very harshly, and to go back to them covered in self harm scars and underweight is something I feel very ashamed and self conscious about.)

I bought dancewear very like these!!

This leotard in Rouge

A similar wrap top, but very light and floaty material (for our hot summer) in baby pink

Black skirted jazz pants very similar to these, with a tie front, but no pattern.

And one for the wish list:

Another reason I NEED to have children some day. So i can dress them up in adorable clothes and shoes.

I don’t help myself when I catastrophise about possible disastrous outcomes (that 99.999% of the time never happen) or engage in all-or-nothing thinking (“I’m not a success, so I’m a failure.”) I don’t help myself when I let what I feel override what I know to be true (for example, feeling fat overriding knowing I’m actually underweight, or feeling that people will judge me and find me to be a loser over actually knowing that those particular people like me, are nice to me, and accept me.)

I don’t help myself when I close myself off to any possibilities not just right now, but in the future, by declaring my life ‘over’.

I don’t help myself by forgetting that I don’t have to fight my problems by myself, or even face them alone. By forgetting that God has a plan for every single one of us, and that He has a plan for MY life too – even if I don’t know what it is yet. He is fighting for me every step of the way, and everything that I go through is part of His plan for my life. I don’t help myself by losing faith not just in God, but in my own self. (Thank you, Missy, for the reminder.)

Giving up on myself is the same as declaring myself worthless. And if God finds me worth fighting for, and even worth creating in the first place, who am I to have the arrogance to say “God, you are wrong, I’m awful!”

I’ve been enlightened in SO many ways since I wrote my previous post that I DO have more options than I can even know of right at this moment, that more options will be coming along in the future. That it’s never too late to change or to start afresh, to begin with something new. And that the fastest way to really fail, is to declare yourself a failure before you have even tried. It’s not failure when you give something your best shot. It’s only failure when you never even try at all.

I could go on, but this is already a heck of a long post. I am also needing to work on my screwed up sleeping patterns and have taken proactive steps to try and get more and better quality sleep –  but I didn’t mean to include boring other people to sleep as well!

Thank you to everyone for your support and your belief in me – and for reminding myself to believe in myself.

(Image sources – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Discouraged

The post-festive period is often a time of steep come-down for many people.

For me, lately, it’s been peaks and valleys.

If my life has been a journey, it’s been a rough one.

But that’s made me all the more determined to continue on, to make it through to the end – wherever the end may be.

For all the times I’ve struggled to climb a steep, rocky slope, I’ve slipped down an equally treacherous abyss.

For all the times I’ve realised just how worth living life is, how wonderful and amazing this world is and how much I love those people I am blessed to know, I have been equally as hopelessly lost in a black well of depression. Unable to see but a star in the sky – but I hang on to that star, because it reminds me that there is a way out. And it reminds me to dream. Because dream I do, and dreaming is how I convinced myself I had a reason to live when I was in my rock bottom places.

 

My dreams used to be high as the sky – there were no limits. I was going to be a dancer, a writer, a veterinarian, a biochemist, an artist.. there truly were no barriers. If I wished to achieve something deeply enough, I worked my guts out at it and I got there. My childhood and adolescent years were heady with the heights of my own successes. I rarely knew failure. I was labelled ‘gifted and talented’.

The hell of home paled when I threw myself into that world.

But there comes a time when the good can no longer block out the effects of the bad, and the nightmare overcame the pleasantness. I no longer was able to become lost in the dreams I worked towards, no longer was able to concentrate, I was only partly there any more. I was dissociated.

Part of me ran away. Flew away. (Still wants to, all the time, today.)

Here I am now. I have incredible difficulty living in the present.

It’s scary to be me. I’m 35. I have nothing to show for it. No hopes. No dreams. They all were lost. Ravaged by what happened. By illness and trauma.

I have never had a job. Never will have a career. My brain is incapable of study. Cannot remember even the basics of stuff I need to know when I need it. Cannot read and enjoy books. Cannot concentrate to paint. Cannot hold a conversaton sometimes.

I will never have a partner or husband, never have children of my own. Never have grandchildren or nephews or nieces. Never play Santa or the Easter Bunny, bake birthday cakes, pick out pretty dresses or play in the garden with my kids. Never take them to school and coach them through their homework. Never be frazzled by tantrums and tears.

I cannot enjoy ballet, cannot enjoy volunteer work, because I spend days flooded with anxiety about just leaving home, getting there, being there, and coming home again. I’m wracked with fear about just doing every day things. I still do them. But enjoy them?

My brain is mush, my heart shattered, my self broken, my body wracked with pain. What is there to live for?

I have no future.

The best I can hope for is to survive. I will never heal completely from the traumas, because there are no options to help me with it here in Australia beyond what I’ve accessed already, and try as I have to help myself, I’ve gotten nowhere.

As a child, I was prisoner of my family.

As an adult, I’m prisoner of my mind. Of my past.

Is it any wonder that all I want is to fly far, far away?

(But I won’t give up. I never have. I never will.)

Image sources 1, 2, 3, 4

Compulsive Self Deprivation

As I’ve written previously, I struggle a lot with body image. But much of the time these days I still manage to accept myself enough to not want to stomp all over myself until I’m a pulp, preferably invisible pulp.

I try and remember that I’m doing the best that I can do, with what I have. That’s all any of us can do, really. I’m not superhuman, nobody is. And I can’t force things to get better NOW because I’m so over the way things are. (If I could force things better, I would have been better a loooong time ago!)

The most important thing to me is to try and be a good person. To not hurt anyone – that comes first. One day I hope I can help people, but I know that at the moment I have very little to give. I try – because no matter how little we have, we can always listen, always care, always have a hug to give, a shoulder to lend someone. I can do those things. And they might not be changing the world, but they are something.

I try and be a kind person, too. I’m not always kind – I’m human there, too. I have thoughts that are angry, or mean, about others. But mostly I try and treat people and think about people with compassion – the same way I would hope people would treat me or think about me. I know that many people do not – but that doesn’t mean that I can’t either.

And yet, I hate myself. I always have. I know I’m not alone. I’ve met so many others who struggle with intense self-hatred. I’ve never found anything about them that’s hateful, either. Never.

It’s really hard to look after yourself when you hate yourself. Nothing you do is ever ‘good enough’. Everything is always ‘your fault’. Other people must secretly find you disgusting. They must be crazy for wanting to have anything to do with you, let alone LIKING you. You feel so guilty if you do anything nice or caring for yourself – including basic self-care.

My mother never really taught me basics of self care like looking after my finger and toe nails, how to properly care for my skin, etc – but even as an adult, having access to the information on the internet and in books and magazines, I struggle to allow myself these things. For years I didn’t bother moisturising my face, because moisturiser is an ‘indulgence’ to me. I don’t wear makeup unless it’s a special occasion and even that is once in a blue moon, maybe once every few years.  I’ve had my hair cut by a hair dresser a few times in my life time – preferring to just let it be in a pony tail or have a friend/some unlucky person trim it (Many of my adult haircuts have been while in hospital – a good excuse to not have to consider going to a salon.) And I don’t bother with my fingernails or toenails. I keep them short, and neat as possible, and clean, but that’s it.

When it comes to clothes, I LOVE clothes. Love looking at them in fashion spreads. But they are, to me, something that other people can wear. I just am on the outside looking in, liking them, but clothing myself in op shop finds and plain shirts and jeans. As a child, I never had nice clothes like the other girls, but it was to the point that all I wanted really was a clean, unstained or torn t shirt and a clean, unstained or torn pair of shorts. And a pair of shoes that fit and weren’t breaking apart. Basic things. As an adult, I have far more than that – and I’m thankful. So although I love fashion, I don’t crave it. I also feel guilty and like mutton dressed as lamb if I try and wear it – I still feel like it’s not for ‘me’ because I’m so ‘different’ to others.

Other people are worthy. I’m not. That is how I have felt for my entire life. And that is what was instilled in me personally by my family as I grew up.

Where I’m going with this is, that as an adult, I still struggle with these messages of having no worth, despite the fact that I rationally know they are not true, and that I am as worthy as any other person on this planet. Old habits of thinking die hard.

CBT helps a little. My therapist gave me a list of questions to ask myself whenever I have thoughts like this. I write down the thought, so for example, I will write “I’m not worthy of having nice clothes, everyone will think I look silly in them and fake.” And I feel shameful, disgusted with myself – that’s the emotion that’s come up with this thought.

Then, I question my thoughts. What factual evidence to I have to back up this thought? Is there an alternative way to look at it? What might a friend of mine think in the same situation? And so on. I know that I have no evidence to back up not being worthy of nice clothes – and nobody is going to look at me any more than anyone else wearing the same clothing. An alternative way of seeing it might be to ask myself, would you prefer to assault the eyes of the public by wearing indecent clothing? Because they would most likely prefer you had nice clothes too. And I know that my friends, in this position, would probably not even think twice before buying the clothes for themselves – because that’s what people DO.

CBT is starting to help  me with a lot of things – not just whether I’m worthy of nice clothes or not. But it’s something that requires me to do it every single day, like homework. Seriously. And it’s worth it.

However – even though I have noticed an improvement in my thinking in that I am automatically asking myself the questions, automatically starting to correct my thoughts that way and tell myself “That isn’t true, that’s something you feel, but it’s not based on fact, the reality is..” I still find myself believing the old messages. I know I am worthy of nice things. I know I am worthy of self care. I know I am just as worthy as any other person.

But I don’t believe it.

It’s the same as when I’m telling myself  that I look fine, I’m not fat at all, that’s the eating disorder lying to me, my eyes and perception lying to me – I’m not believing it, because my reality is the opposite.

Also, the way I’ve thought for so many years is my NORMAL. When I’m feeling sick, hungry, in pain, fatigued – that is not pleasant, but it is normal for me. And so things feel ‘secure’ in my world, in some tiny way (because they aren’t really secure.) When I’m feeling satiated, strong, healthy, awake – that is such a scary feeling. It feels alien and wrong to me. And I know this sounds so screwed up. It’s like I am wired backwards.

It’s like I am wired for self-deprivation.

Recently I was reading an email newsletter from Psychcentral.com, when I stumbled on a blog entry about compulsive self-deprivation. The author wrote about it in the context of being the silent partner to addiction. (This blog is about sex addiction – ignore that, unless you actually do have a sex addiction!)

These paragraphs grabbed me:

“Where does compulsive self-deprivation come from?

Self deprivation has to do with how you care for yourself.  Most often .. addicts come from families in which they experienced a lack of appropriate nurturing.  In adulthood, people tend to care for themselves the way their parents cared for them, or failed to care for them.

In other words you treat yourself the way your parents treated you.  Growing up with less than adequate nurturance, you may have no idea of what good self care should look like.  If your parents were rigid, distant or withholding caregivers you will learn that you are expected to “disappear,” and to disregard your own feelings and needs.  By being compliant in this way you as a child hoped to please your caregivers and gain their love or approval.” (Source)

This is me. This is so true for me, for my history, for the people who brought me up. Another piece of the puzzle as to why I am the way I am – and understanding is a first step to being able to change that.

I related so much to the common features of compulsive self deprivation: (source)

Compulsive self-denial or self-deprivation can take many different forms. The behaviors can be superficially acceptable behaviors like religious asceticism and fasting or they can be extreme behaviors that qualify as mental disorders in their own right, like anorexia, workaholism and self-harm.

YES this is true for me

Not taking care of your basic needs

This includes neglecting all kinds of basic self care such as attending to medical needs and dental needs, neglecting hygiene, allowing garbage to pile up, not repairing things that break down, not paying bills or taxes and not reaching out to significant people in your life.

YES. I used to be so careful to take care of myself and do all the things I was meant to do – but for years now I have found it really hard to do these things, sort of like I am trying to let myself fall in as big and deep a hole as possible.

Denying yourself pleasure and tolerating pain:

This includes restricting food, going on unusual regimens and cleansing routines, compulsive exercise, excessive body piercing or tattooing, and cutting yourself. It also includes avoiding sex and other pleasurable activities, hoarding money instead of spending it on legitimate needs and becoming over-involved in religious or spiritual practices that demand excessive self-denial and withdrawal.

YES to the point that it’s terrifying to me to not feel really bad, painful hunger, it feels wrong to NOT feel that. It feels scary being ‘well’ again rather than feeling awful and sick, despite it being so awful. I do NOT ‘like’ the pain/unpleasantness/being sick – I just find it really alien to not feel it, it just feels too wrong. I only feel okay when I’m suffering.. if that makes any sense?

Avoiding success and abundance and living in fear

This includes avoiding opportunities for success, working for free or for too little, overwork, going into debt, living in minimal surroundings and with a lack of fulfilling relationships or activities, and letting go of previous recreational pursuits.

I want SO BADLY to have success, to achieve as I used to – and yet it does seem like I’ve gone out of my way to stop myself doing so. Right down to refusing to let them pay me when I used to volunteer because it just freaked me out and I felt too guilty.

Do any of you relate to this at all? 

Compulsive self-deprivation is very much a strong part of my whole eating disorder – and I need to work at permitting myself to meet my basic needs, believing in my own worth as a person, believing that I deserve to feel okay physically and mentally – and to practice staying with feeling ‘okay’ until that becomes my normal instead.

Of course, it’s not all that simple, life never is – but it’s helpful to have an idea of why we feel the way we do.

(Featured Image credit, Image 2 credit, Image 3 credit.)

Happy New Year! High Tea, Friends, Happiness, And More To Come.

Hello! I just wanted to quickly pop in and share with you my special, challenging day – and most of all to wish you all a wonderful, happy New Year.

I can’t believe that 2012 is coming to a close already. It goes so fast!

Today, I did something that a few years ago I never would have dreamed of doing. Another something – after Christmas and my Sleepover parties!

I met up with two special friends for a Fashionista High Tea at a pretty amazing place, the Palazzo Versace hotel on the Gold Coast. We had high tea in this amazing room – the Le Jardin restaurant -

High tea was sublime -

Eyeing off the goodies…

Of course, I take terrible photos. Focus on the FOOD, and the surroundings! The pool was amazing. We are all going to have to come back at some stage and get ourselves a pagoda!

That can totally be a New Year resolution.

I’m not really big on actual formal resolutions any more. I used to aim for the sky, far higher than I could possibly hope to achieve. It meant for me, that I fought harder and usually achieved more than had I aimed for what was ‘reasonable’. That was one of the secrets behind my high achievements of my younger years.

The biggest secret was that I was obsessive and relentless and pushed myself, body and mind, beyond the limit – and this contributed to my eventual break down. I guess there are ‘reasonable’ limits on most things for a good reason.

I often think just how much more I could have achieved in my life, had I stuck to limits that were reasonable for me. I might be in a career now, I might be married, or at least have a partner and kids, I might be a totally different person in a totally different position to now.

But we can’t waste more time with regrets. We only have right now – our future is made up of a series of ‘right nows’ – and it’s by making right now the best we can make it that we ensure our future will also be the best it can be.

And that’s what I’m going to focus on in 2013. Trying to make every moment count. Trying to continue the good things I’ve managed to achieve this year, and add more, but not overwhelm myself to the point of relapse.

In 2012, I achieved 2.5 years hospital free, and with a fairly stable weight at around 15 kilos heavier than what I used to fall to, and 5 kilos heavier than what my discharge weight used to be. I started volunteer work, graduated from physiotherapy after 18 months, started ballet classes, moved suburbs, completely cut off my biological family, and grown in many other small ways. I’ve taken up some more hobbies like gardening and sudoku, been painting and in an art show,  and I’ve been stretching myself so much more socially – getting out there meeting friends and DOING things with them instead of letting the social anxiety part of things cut me off.

I’ve eaten out so much, eaten so many new things. Like Christmas dinner, birthday meals, just meals at restaurants and picnics, high tea today. A couple of years ago, there was no way I would even put a speck of that stuff in my mouth, or keep it in my body,  and that’s before we even get into the ‘in public’ stuff.

I’ve  even gone swimming in a public pool and at the beach, and I’ve slept over with friends twice.

And I’ve started proper therapy and am working hard, making good  progress.

It’s been a great year. And there is so much more to come.

In 2013, I just want to keep expanding on these things. I want to increase my work hours so I can get a real job, and keep on volunteering because it’s good for my spirit. I want to do more ballet, and tackle the crippling anxiety that I have to fight to get to do it every single time. I want to do more things with more friends more often. I want to enjoy my own time more, doing more things I like or find meaningful or constructive rather than sleeping my life away or being sucked up by all ED thoughts and activities. And I want to progress even more with the therapy, and hopefully be able to achieve some peace – to that end, I already have an intake appointment lined up with an independent ED-based counselling/therapy service provider early in January and hope that when my 10 psychologist appointments are up, this fills the gap. (I also found the courage to ‘fire’ my private psychiatrist.)

I’m not making any ‘absolutes’ though – because we never know what is going to happen, and I think that as long as I’m going in the right direction, that is what matters.

I hope all of you have a wonderful, safe, happy new year, and that it brings better times – better health, peace, stability, healing. I hope that the good things are only a sign of things yet to come. And despite wishing you all so much more, in the same breath, I wish you all enough.

Okay, enough of my long winded ‘quick’ post! Go celebrate, go sleep, go see out 2013 in a way that makes YOU happy, and start the new year in a way you mean to continue.

And thank you all for being so supportive and lovely to me throughout this year of blogging.

(Image Sources: 1, 2 , 4, 5, 6)

(Ps, Shalimar has informed me of her desire to spend the new year eating, sleeping, catching lizards, and repeating it all over again )

My Experience Of Body Image

I do a lot of pretending.

I pretend a lot that I’m going better than I really am.

I pretend that I’m happier than I am, or at least, not as unhappy as I really am.

I pretend that I have a lot more hope than I do in reality.

And I pretend that I don’t really want to be ‘thin’.

I don’t know what to say to explain that one!

No, I really do NOT want to be emaciated, or even ‘too thin’. I feel like such a failure, and that everyone can SEE it when it’s that obvious. It’s not a nice look at all, in fact, it can be quite disgusting. Have you ever seen someone who is emaciated’s bottom? There is this big… concave HOLE there. And the anus that is usually hidden by flesh is.. stretched out in the middle of that hole. Too much info right?

Grossed out yet? Imagine LIVING WITH THAT. Still want to be thin?

And yet, I would give anything to go back to being almost 15 kilograms less than I am now. I don’t care how gross it might be. I don’t care about people looking down on me or treating me horribly because of it. I don’t even care that it might kill me. I am too much, and I will always be too much. At least in my mind, I am too much. I know in reality I am not, far from it. But to me, always too much. Always. And even at my lowest weight, I never even started to not be too much.

My body image is SO distorted. Even when I was at my lowest weight, on a good day I would see a normal, maybe rather fleshy person. On a bad day, I’d practically be able to roll myself around. And yet, under all that, my wise mind was constantly saying “But I’m too thin. I know I’m too thin. The ‘numbers’ say I’m too thin. And yet what is this incredible fleshy hulk I’m hauling round with me every day?”

Every now and then I’d catch a glance of what I called “Michael Jackson” in the mirror – a glimpse of how I truly was – and scare myself terribly. But that lasted for a glimpse and a few moments post-glimpse – before “too-much” loomed over me again, threatening to squish the ‘me’ right out of myself.

Okay, I know my nose is bigger and it’s REAL, but yeah. Scary stuff.

One of the common myths is that people with anorexia and/or bulimia enjoy their disease, enjoy the ‘thinness’ that many of them achieve. I think the reality would be closer to we don’t even get to experience it let alone ‘enjoy’ it.

How do I really see myself?

Imagine your body is SO heavy and huge that you find it hard to move. You find yourself very weighed down. Sluggish. One of the reasons my dancing started to fail in uni was because, yes I’d gained some weight initially, but after that, even though it was plunging DOWN, I felt heavy and unable to MOVE properly due to having so much flesh stopping me. It was a complete utter delusion.

You can’t walk with your legs together because your thigh rolls prevent that.

You can’t put your arms down properly to your sides because the rolls of fat under them and on your torso are too huge.

And it all feels SO REAL. So completely utterly REAL.

It’s not just about the body image way of being ‘fat’ either. It’s about being that aforementioned ‘too much’.

I experience the world as though I’m towering over everyone around me. I am more tall than I am short, but I’m not THAT tall, and I still feel this way when the person next to me is actually a lot taller than I. The same with width – I feel monstrous next to everyone else, even if the person beside me outweighs me by 100 kilos.

Even without the comparing of size, I just feel too much ME.  I’ve spent my life trying to squeeze myself out. Trying to disappear. To be invisible. Apologising for taking up too much space, for being so wrong, for being so grossly overimposingly massively HERE.

The way I experience my own size against that of the world has also see-sawed along with my actual weight, except that it’s strayed ever further than reality each time. The first time I ever lost weight, I felt tiny, I could feel myself and see myself shrinking. The world became huge, but only in relation to my own size.. Then I was refed, and although I grew, oh boy did I grow bigger, the world seemed to stay the same size. Each time I went down after that, the world got bigger while I stayed the same size. And each time I was refed, I grew bigger and the world stayed the same size. Can you understand that? We were becoming more and more skewed the more I lost and gained, I growing ever bigger, the world ever smaller.

Whoever invented those carnival mirrors, I wonder if they knew what this was like to live with?

This is just how I see my own face! My brain stretches it out so that it appears smeared.

So my problem is, I guess, that it’s so hard to live in a body that you feel so wrong in, one that you constantly wish you could literally unzip and step out of.

And while I struggle so much with my body image, I guess I have had to get to a place of maturity – listening to my wise mind and rationality over my discomfort and my desire to strive for something I find more pleasant to both see and be. 

Not everyone has reached that place.

Eating disorders are NOT about food, shape, weight – that is surface stuff. That is the language of our culture. That is the language we fall to first, when we are not happy, worried, anxious, have problems, and have no other way to express them but “I hate myself, I am so ugly, I am so big, if I lost weight, my problems would be better.” But food and weight and body image issues are often triggers for eating disorders to begin – and for the malnutrition that they cause to trigger the cognitive deficit and irrationality that leads to it becoming a mindset and something that overpowers us easily.

It’s very dangerous to be constantly giving us images to which we are expected to conform when they are physically not even possible for most. So many of us are struggling to even accept ourselves, let alone find ourselves acceptable in context of the rest of the world… and we are bombarded by reminders that apparently we never WILL ‘size up’.

What do you think of this?

And here I will end my ranting and leave you. Do you feel you ‘size up’ or are you too much? Is your body image distorted, or normal, or can you even tell when you only see what YOU see? How do you know if what you see is the reality?

If you have an eating disorder – how much do you feel it’s about food, weight, body image? Do you find that if you take those issues away, you still are stuck with your disorder and the problems that are underneath?

Do you find yourself yearning for something that is forbidden and dangerous? How do you deal with that?

And – if I don’t get to post again before midnight tomorrow - HAPPY NEW YEAR!! May 2013 be the happiest and most positive year all of you have lived to date – with better things on the horizon. xx

(Image Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 taken from Facebook.)

Christmas Is Over For Another Year

Thankfully Christmas is over for another year! I hope that whatever you celebrate or don’t celebrate, you all got through it okay – at the very least. I wish, more than that, that you managed to enjoy it, to share some time with the people who are special to you, and not let your problems steal any more of your lives from you.

I had a really good one this year. And I can see again, that I’ve come SUCH a long way. For years, Christmas was not something I could even ditch the ED for one day for. I would pretend I was festive while eating my same lettuce salads, turn down every chocolate or sweet with a big (crazy?) smile.. determined to show I was ‘having a good time’ when in reality I was miserable and I was making the people around me miserable too.  And I barely connected with any of the people who were in my life then, because I was just too wrapped up /obsessed/distracted/freaked out in all that was going on in my head.

It wasn’t easy though! I am like a duck on a pond – I can seem fine, and like I’m calmly coping with everything thrown my way, but under the surface where you cannot see it there is a heck of a lot of franticness going on. The difference now is that I DO the things that terrify me despite the same struggle and the same inner screaming of insults, panicked adding of the calories eaten, etc as before. I do it anyway.

On Christmas Eve I went to stay with my long time best friend, her partner and her family. They gave me a bunk in a super-duper caravan with my friend and her partner in the queen sized bed – this thing was a hotel on wheels, I have never seen a caravan with it’s own air conditioning, toilet, shower, oven etc before! (Then again, I’ve never slept in a caravan before either haha.) So that was an adventure in itself!

We had a really lovely (scary) dinner of salads, rolls, leg ham, veggie patties, cheeses and crackers, and I ate a bit of everything – a reasonable sized plate. I also had a glass of red wine, a really nice one that smacked me in the back of the head a bit (cannot remember which, I think it was Brown Brothers Pinot Noir). I am not much of a drinker – I don’t like being drunk, don’t like how it feels at all. I also haven’t had many opportunities to drink at functions or parties as an adult – eating disorders rob you of things like that. So a little will affect me a lot, and one small glass left me pretty giddy for the evening – but not too giddy to enjoy it.

I also sampled some traditional eggnog – it tasted a bit like junket, a bit nutmeggy, a bit custardy.. was really nice.

Christmas was such a stressful time, our tree exploded.

After dinner we went out for a drive around the Christmas lights – there were some amazing displays, and it left our night feeling magical. We came home and played a few games on the Wii (another new experience for me) before I fell into bed exhausted.  I had some strange dreams that night, probably because the ‘people’ in those Wii sports games are freaky, does anyone else think this? The way they stand there and BREATHE with their mouths in that open smile, the way they often have no arms or legs, especially in the bowling game, the people on either side bowling then jumping up and down with no legs… freaky haha.

I wish our Mii caricatures were this pretty!

Now Christmas day! It was awesome! The magic of being part of this traditional family Christmas continued. Lunch was huge – again, I ate a bit of everything, and appropriate servings. We started with HUGE king prawns, and oysters. I have never had an oyster before, mostly because the thought of it squicks me out. But with some encouragement I tried one. It was gross going down, but really does taste of the sea.

Our main course was a table groaning with food. Leg ham, turkey with stuffing, pork with crackling, sauces, dressings, two different salads, steamed potatoes. I had some of everything, even a bit of crackling! And I finished my plate. Not only that, I had about 3 smallish glasses of wine to try the different types. Was pleasantly buzzed haha.

We spent the day talking, opening presents, and watching the carols on TV. Unfortunately I had to leave in time to get home before it was too late so missed cake, pudding and pavlova with fruit which I’d helped my friend decorate earlier – but I was relieved. I seriously felt like I would have to roll myself home, I was SO beyond full.

It wasn’t easy. I might have appeared fine, but inside, my head was screaming. About how could I possibly be eating these things or even entertain the thought of eating them. About how everything was ruined. How I’d pay. My head added up every single calorie as it was consumed and tormented me with that the entire time, still does a few days later.

But despite that, I did it, ate that food, kept it down, enjoyed the party and the people.  You lose, ED.

A few years ago, this would have been impossible.

I’m so quietly but deeply overwhelmed and thankful for how far I have come – and the hope that I can continue down this path. Who knows where next Christmas will see me?

Santa was good to me too, VERY good to me. I still find it hard to believe people would buy me such beautiful gifts as they did. Among them, I got several outfits of clothing, a pretty beaded necklace, a beautiful New Zealand paua shell necklace, a brand new phone (!!!) and my favourite of all, a duck!

Yes, a duck!

This duck!

I can’t stop smiling every time I see the card – it’s really  a feel-good present. It’s wonderful to think that someone overseas is a lot better off because of that duck, and it’s amazing how much good a single duck can do. This was my first experience with being given a charity gift and I’m over the moon about it. I hear a lot of people expressing that it’s not a ‘real gift’ and that they are grumpy about someone donating to charity on their behalf, but in my eyes, it’s the gift I’ve enjoyed the most this year, from the moment I opened the card and burst out laughing, to now, thinking about the duck and how it helps, and thinking of my friends and how lovely they are.

So that’s my Christmas! How was yours? And would you love getting a donation to charity as a gift, or not? 

Next up, New Years Eve! 

Shalimar also enjoyed Christmas, I bought her a few better than usual cat food varieties, and she pretty much spent the time I was away sleeping and eating. When I returned, we had lots of cuddles She’s a gift every single moment. A very precious gift.

(Image Sources: featured, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

ETA (28/12/12) – I just wanted to add that the presents above were among what I opened on Christmas day. I also got some really lovely gifts from my other best friend and little sister – a foot care pamper pack with slippers!! and divine smelling lotions, chocolate coated ginger (I LOVE dark chocolate and I LOVE ginger!), lemon and ginger tea!!!, and a very pretty set of cutlery that now makes my meals that bit more special – pretty green handles, and they are NICE. Meal times should be NICE. 

I have just felt so overwhelmed this year by the generosity and the love from my friends (FAMILY) and I didn’t want my little sister and other bestie to think I’d forgotten her!  

It’s Nearly Christmas

Christmas has come so fast! In a few hours in Australia, it’s Christmas Eve.  I will be going to the Gold Coast to spend Christmas Eve with a very close friend and her family – followed by a huge Christmas Day. I’m so excited and also so nervous – it’s the biggest challenge so far to the eating disorder and the various forms of anxiety.

And I’m going to rock it.

“…is it FOOD?”

My only sadness is that Shalimar will spend Christmas day alone. Comfortable, yes. Well-fed, yes. But not with me. Thankfully, she will not even know it’s Christmas!  I know now that she will be more than fine – she will spend her time sleeping, watching lizards and lying next to her bowl, scooping the chow out with her paw towards her mouth. These things make her very happy indeed!

No matter what you celebrate, and no matter where you are with your own individual journey – I wish you all a happy, safe, peaceful and hopeful holiday season, and hope that the New Year is one of positive and hopeful times.

Thank you to all of you for your readership, your comments, and your amazing support during the just over a year I have been writing this blog.

All the best – Fiona and Shalimar xx

 

Tis The Season To Quake With Terror – Food and Christmas.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of quaking lately! The closer we come to Christmas, the more pressure I feel under and the more challenges I face.

A few Christmases ago, I could not even change my behaviours in order to not hurt the people I loved most. It broke my heart to know they worried about me, and I beat myself up endlessly for not being able to ‘fake it just for a day/week/appearance’ in some way to just set them at ease. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world – I knew that. One meal, like a Christmas dinner, would not have completely negated the years of starvation when it came to my body. It wouldn’t have suddenly made me fat or no longer emaciated. It wouldn’t have meant all hell broke loose and I lost control. (Although the reality was, I had NO control – I was controlled by the disorder, to a degree where I could not even disobey it if it meant saving my life or that of another.)

Christmas back then, if I was spending it with my Dad and his family, meant making myself a larger version of the same boring green iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and celery salad I had every single meal, just adding in a few bits of watermelon for the dessert, and chomping on raw carrots when they snacked on nuts and nibblies. I guzzled diet coke as they downed juice and wine, and laughed and smiled insincerely to show how much I was enjoying myself and how full of the Christmas spirit I was. Wasn’t it all wonderful!!! (NO).

I didn’t fool anyone except myself (and hardly fooled myself either, I was miserable and I knew it.) Worse, I’d often end up bingeing later  on leftovers. Then wracked with guilt because that was their food, not mine, despite the many times they implored me to have some too.

The last couple of years have been different. My dad and his family are gone, he has passed away, they want nothing to do with me. So Christmas with them is no longer an option. I have cut myself off from the rest of my family  and so Christmas with them – an ordeal – is not ever going to be a threat. Mostly I spent the alone Christmases either hiding in bed, or volunteering. But the last couple, I’ve spent with my ‘chosen family’ – friends who are dear to me. Who make the day special just by their presence. And who treat me with the same respect that I treat them, something my mother’s side of the family never accomplished.

And I took part in the actual eating, too. The hugest challenge of all!

Two years ago, with a friend and her family I ate roast chicken, salad, roast veggies, and had pavlova and cream for dessert. Last year, a friend and I had a picnic ourselves in a park – a BBQ with sausages, veggies, salads, fruits and berries. Both of these were just amazing days for me, memories I will cherish for a long time.

This year, I’m actually doing a full on Christmas, with a friend, her partner,  and her extended family. I’m to join them for Christmas eve – we will tour the lights, and then go to a Christmas eve mass. On Christmas day, I have no idea of how it will actually unfold – but so far there are going to be at least 15 people, one of my friends who has been busy cooking is a chef, and these people go ‘all out’. It’s going to be Christmas with Bells on!

I am so excited. AND SO SCARED. So far in the last few days I’ve eaten SO MUCH scary food – like cheesy melty grilled sandwiches, deep fried battered fish, and real handmade fudge.  And it’s not even Christmas yet. Much as it’s a triumph being able to overthrow the ED when I’m with people who are dear to me, I’m more scared that I CAN eat these foods than when I didn’t used to have any power at all. I’m scared that if I can do this now, the old rules that used to keep my monstrous, gluttonous greed in check no longer will, and that I’m only ever a step away from losing control completely and eating myself into obesity. I still feel like one bite of something that is forbidden completely ‘blows’ years of abstinence. It still feels like the imminent end of the world to have food that is ‘forbidden’ inside me, and staying inside me. It feels that bad for ANY food actually.

The difference is I am feeling these fears, and eating the food anyway. In a way I’m doing my own exposure therapy and I’m proving to myself that the world doesn’t end and I don’t blow up or eat myself to obesity when I do allow myself to eat the ‘wrong’ food either. Hopefully with practice, this will come to feel okay. Maybe even normal? I live in hope (but still not much belief… yet..)

I think one of the most important lessons that living with an eating disorder has taught me over this more than 20 years of having it to a clinical degree, has nothing to do with food or weight, and everything to do with people. It’s brought home time and again how precious the people we love are, and how fleeting our time with them actually IS. Because when we avoid food, we end up avoiding them or distracting them and ourselves – we miss out on them and they miss out on us – even in the same room or at the same table, we are missing – gone AWOL.

Just a week ago, a close friend’s uncle died. He was in perfect health, and his car simply veered off the road on the way to work and smashed. He had suffered an aneurysm - no warning. Not a second to do anything about it – just healthy, then dead. It was a huge shock to his family, and a lesson to my friend to cherish every moment with her family and her loved ones, because we never know when this moment might be our last with them.

We just can’t afford to let the ED get in the way of that, either. We just can’t. There is no guarantee, and there never will be, of next Christmas. Until it happens, there isn’t even a guarantee of this one. We only ever have right now – and when we put it off for reasons like food, weight, etc – we lose it. Forever.

So this is the time we need to be making plans of how we’ll get through this season, while still being able to enjoy spending time with those we love. If that means bringing a safe food, then so be it – it’s preferable to not miss out on their companionship. If that means NOT going to a get together you would attend out of obligation but the people there are toxic to you – then that’s also a very positive step. Just as life is too short to spend avoiding our loved ones, it’s also too precious to waste in the company of those who only hurt us. 

What is the hardest part of Christmas for you? And how have you prepared, or feel would help you to cope? 

(Image Sources: 1, 2)

Frightening World

I wonder how many of you find the world ‘too much’? Just as many of us with eating disorders find ourselves to be ‘too much’. I do.

I have been thinking over this a fair bit recently. With all the violence and fear and pain in this world, I always find myself wanting to remove myself from it. To opt out. Not to be a part of it. I cannot cope with the feelings, cannot cope with other people in pain – wanting them to not be hurting and not being able to do a thing about it – and so I just cannot cope with ‘being’ at all.

It’s a fact of life now that we are completely surrounded by pain and suffering. People get killed, or die from horrible illnesses. Or hurt. Or betrayed. A multitude of things. There are people who suffer from going without. From loneliness, from poverty of both the heart and of things needed. There are people who spend their entire lives scrabbling to just get by and survive. Too much power is in the hands of those who do wrong with it, and too little in the hands of those who would do good. The actions of one person can kill millions of people.

And there is nothing I can really do about it all.

I feel so powerless.

And I feel so frightened and overwhelmed by it all. By the terror and pain everywhere I look.

This is a big part of why I step away from the world and bury myself in my own, in the world either of my own imagination, or I simply dissociate somehow. And the starvation of anorexia helped me to do that. The more I starved my body, the less I found my mind lived in reality – I flew away, I really did. I simply flew away from here and all that hurt. Left it all behind.

Being refed brings me back to reality with a thump. A thump of having a body, and a thump of having to deal with all that goes on around me. And I still don’t know if I can handle it.

But I have to. And so now, I strive to. It seems that a lot of what I’m learning in therapy to help myself tethers me even more strongly to this world that I often find myself HATING. And yet, if I keep ‘flying away’ I cannot live or survive. I have to choose – live or die. Tether myself or fly.

I’m choosing to live. And though that’s the harder of the choices, I guess that it’s important that we always remind ourselves – we are not as powerless as we feel.  So we might not be able to change the world all by ourselves and straight away! But every little bit counts.

Have you ever heard the parable about  how the constantly dripping water wore away the rock, but the bucket of water couldn’t? That is how our own actions work. Little bits over time – adds up to real, powerful change. We can throw all we have at a problem, all the solutions in the world at a problem, but it’s not going to make as much impact as little bits, constantly, over time.

And that’s something every single one of us CAN do.

Conclusion – we are NOT powerless. I am not hopeless or helpless. I can make a difference in this world – and I choose to stay and try. And so can you.

(Image Source: 1, 2, 3, 4)

Sleepover Parties

… are something that eating disorders exclude you from.

It certainly excluded me from weddings, parties, anything.

Never again!

Today I’m apologising to you, my readers, and to the brilliant bloggers whose posts I love to read, for being awfully behind in my commenting and responding – for a GOOD reason -

I’ve just been enjoying a sleepover with a very special friend – and it was awesome. Absolutely awesome.

It’s really lovely to be doing some things that are ‘normal’ – but for me, so, so special.

PS this is the face that greeted me on going to bed last night – her puppy!

Don’t tell Shalimar!! She was fine, though. One night alone (with plenty of food and water and toys) is still a far cry from the days she spent months at a time in pet motels. She was absolutely fine.

I think she’s dreaming of driving a car or dancing a jig..

Have you reclaimed anything that you lost to being unwell?

(Featured image source)