Be Yourself

Growing up in a nest of vipers… whoopsidoo, I meant, family of Narcissists and Sociopaths is an interesting experience – when you get past the fear and loathing bit of it. I got to observe them close up for the first seventeen years of my life.

It was interesting that even though I was the odd one out in our little family, I did not buy into their thinking or their philosophies. It was like I held my own inborn morals and values, secretly and carefully, hidden in my heart. I held onto my truth – believed in that truth, even when I could not believe in myself. I do believe that this helped me survive. It gave me some sort of rock-solid core to stand firm in the face of all that happened to me and around me.

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(Side note – in later, more recent years, it’s been all the more heartbreaking for this reason when I found myself going so against my own dearly held beliefs, shoplifting food for binges. It will always break my heart, and it shattered me in a way that noone had been able to all these years – my own betrayal of myself. I felt like I had become what they were trying to make me.)

Something I saw a LOT was the donning of masks. Now, I do not mean the sort of masks you physically can wear – but still, I often find myself thinking of Roald Dahl’s book The Witches, and if you are familiar with this awesome book, you will understand why. In short, the witches of the title are children hating women with extremely ugly faces, hairless rashy poxy scalps, clawed talons instead of fingernails, squared off feet instead of toes, huuuuuge nostrils and very keen sense of smell – children smell like dogs droppings to them. Their life’s work is about eradicating children. In public, they look like really lovely ladies (all the better for sucking in hapless kids) because they wear wigs, realistic face masks, gloves, pointy shoes.. and cotton wool up their noses to stop them fainting at the smell of those awful unwashed children! Check out a clip from the movie here.

Every time we left our home, my family would don their masks. Not physically (although we put on our ‘good’ clothes and did our hair and all that) but you could almost ‘see’ them put on their masks. They became smiling, polite, charming, lovely people. They became virtuous, upstanding members of society. You would not begin to imagine the secrets their innocent facades hid.

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I always found myself wanting to yell at people who didn’t know better “That’s not who they really are at all! It’s all an act! They are liars!” Their deception was actually so polished that had I done so, they would have scoffed and said something like “She really has problems you know, she’s not stable, don’t worry, she’s seeing a child psychiatrist..” and people would totally have bought that and thought even more of them, poor lovely people dealing with a crazy stuffed up kid… people who knew me better suspected more because they knew my heart, they knew that the way I was – scared, shy, withdrawn, crying often, dirty and scruffy, bruised – was not ‘right’. But they fooled everyone else.

I learnt young that life can be far more.. bizarre than fiction. You couldn’t make my life up. It was like being stuck in a bad soap opera at times. A bad horror movie at other times.

My point is, many of us wear masks in our every day life. We often feel extremely vulnerable, especially when our self esteem and confidence is already lacking. It’s not just bad people who wear these masks – it’s good people too. Most people have at some stage in their lives. How many times, for example, have you ‘put on a happy face’ to face the world when you have been truly miserable, or smiled while choking back anger? There you go.

In some cases, wearing a mask can be the way to be diplomatic and appropriate in certain situations – many of us have a ‘work’ persona where we are professional, courteous, pleasant, and we don’t allow ‘ourselves’ to really intrude into the work environment. And that’s much of the time very appropriate – we are there to do a job, most of the time our employers and customers don’t want to deal with the human side of us that has problems and emotions and feelings and can be up one day and down the next.

But what about other times? What about with our friends? When we go out generally, to the shops or the movies or to the park or anywhere really?

Do you find yourself often pretending to be happier than you are? Friendlier? Laughing along when you don’t feel like laughing or think it’s amusing? Do you pretend to be funnier than you are, more outgoing? Tough when you really are a softie at heart? I’m sure you all could add things we sometimes pretend to be. Because I’m sure we all have at some stage done this. But what about all the time, with people you are close to?

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My thinking is that  people who truly love you and care for you, love you for YOU –  through good and bad, thick and thin. They love you despite any failings you might have and are prepared to stick around if you aren’t perfect. To accept you.  Because who is perfect? I’m not. I’m sure you aren’t. I’ve never met a person who was. It’s humanly impossible. In fact it’s being imperfect that makes us truly loveable – because it makes us unique. It makes us ourselves.

If you don’t feel like you can be yourself around someone, I think it’s time to have a good look at them, and yourself. Why do you feel you have to pretend? Are you scared they will reject you, and why? And then ask yourself Is this a real fear? Or is this fear unfounded? Are my ‘failings’ that heinous? Chances are likely they aren’t – they are on a par with everyone else’s ‘failings’, certainly no reason to be rejected. And then ask yourself, would this person, or these people really be likely to reject me if I was my true self with them? It can be quite illuminating to ask yourself these questions.

If someone is likely to reject you for being your true self – are they are true friend? Are they someone who is really healthy or helpful to have in your life? Or are they soul destroying, spirit-draining? Or not very accepting people? And is it worth having them in your life?

Is it worth taking a risk and finding out, by dropping the mask and being you?

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I truly think that struggling to accept ourselves is something that is part of and perpetuates eating disorders and many other problems that include poor self esteem and self hatred/loathing.  And I’ve found that as I’ve started to be more accepting of myself, I’ve been able to be myself more. I’ve always been pretty straightforward, but I’m a people pleaser through and through, and have always tried to be the person I think people want, and to act the way I think they expect me to act. Not any more. These days, I’m pretty much me, all the time. I realised that if being myself wasn’t okay with someone, they weren’t going to like me anyway and I was better off knowing that, and that not everyone in our lives is going to like us and that’s okay. I’m never going to be perfect or please everybody, or agree with everybody,  and that’s okay too. And it’s far less exhausting to live this way too! It’s refreshing, both for me, and I think for many people who just want to be with ‘real’ people themselves.

I don’t mean ditch your manners and let it all hang out. I’ll still observe social niceties. For example, if I don’t find someone’s joke funny, I’ll not be joining in with the tittering away at it. I’ll say so, or move on, or something more appropriate to the situation and how I feel.

And I’ve found that most of my friends still accepted me. In fact, the ones who walked away, weren’t truly friends, and I’m better off without them. Is it really worth compromising your own sense of self and your values in order to try and gain or keep someone’s respect? Life is too short.

And you deserve better than that.

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I dare you – pick one person in your life you wear a mask for, and be yourself with them today. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Be yourself – because you are perfectly YOU, and there isn’t a single person on this planet who is better at being you

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I don’t take kindly to being called a hypocrite by a hypocrite.

I’ll warn you here – a wall of text is coming at you, and it’s not pretty.

I have thought long and hard about what my response to the recent drama that has erupted should be. There is no easy way to deal with this, and a lot of people have been burnt.

I was going to not name names, but mine has been dragged through the trash over on Nicole‘s blog in these posts, so here I go.  For me, the last straw has been her post My Dream, in which she calls me a hypocrite. But before that, I hung in there and defended her over on GOMI for months, and stayed loyal despite not agreeing to her militant hatred of fat and people as expressed in Buying the Model, where she calls normal women ‘lumpy’, the resulting comments, the comments on The big fat, fat fat article, I’d rather be dead than fat, her comments about Beyonce being fat on my own posts about beautiful women… and then the shit hit the fan.

After her attack of the lovely Missy in I’m Baaaaaack, I stepped out. I said

“Nicole, you know i care for you. But this is just going too far. You DO need to get some help. What did Missy do to you that was so ‘mean’? She CARED. And you threw it back in her face. YOU have been the ‘mean girl’ – to Missy. And posting her photo like this? NOT ON. This is so beneath you. Please get help. I’m out – Still care about you, but I cannot sit and watch you self destruct and lash out and hurt others any more.
Take care xxxx”

Her response has been to follow me around the internet attacking me on other blogs, on my own blog, and to post calling me a hypocrite.

People have asked, what did Missy do? Well this is what Missy did. Missy posted this comment in response to Nicole’s I’d rather be dead than fat post, where Nicole publicly posted a picture of Jessica‘s body idol – which Jess had not wanted public, and expressed her opinion that if Jess would be happy looking like that, then it was okay and she encouraged it.

“um…..is this real life????

“when I drop below a certain point/weight (and corresponding aesthetic)….I feel just that, as though my body can stop working at any point.”

what if this is how Jess would feel physically if she reached her ideal? (which could actually continue to change — to perhaps even thinner or more muscular. EDs work that way.) what if pursiung that ideal caused her to feel like the walking dead? heart beating erratically, muscle failure and tremors, obsession, depression,…etc/

not saying this would or would not be the case…just “what if?”

anywhoo- my point is — what if this would also be for Jess “unhealthy” would you still support her pursuit — to the death?
rationalizing all the while that sometimes “the unhealthy is healthy,” as you put it?

do you think you might change your opinion of “she died happy” after she was dead?

Jess, one way to lose weight is to ditch some of your “friends.”
just saying.

i am very concerned. and disturbed. in so many ways.”

As you can see – not an attack. A very concerned (with good reason) comment. Concerned for Jess’s wellbeing over all things.

This and this were Nicole’s responses.  As you can see, not at all appropriate. And if you have time to read the hundreds of comments, the attacks just keep coming. Missy has bowed out – and is fine. She’s wise.

I am a very loyal person. I have lived with mental illnesses all around me. I’ve volunteered with the homeless, of whom a large percentage are in that position because they are mentally ill and have fallen ‘through the cracks’ so to speak. I’ve spent over 150 admissions mostly in a psychiatric ward for my eating disorder where I have had the opportunity to become extremely familiar with mental illnesses and those who live with them. I have good friends with all sorts of problems – and mental illnesses. My best friend in the whole wide world lives with Schizophrenia – and I’ve hung in there despite at times, being scared of losing my friend to a stranger who just happened to inhabit her body and could hit out at times verbally. I’ve seen friends become psychotic, either from starvation in anorexia, or other mental illnesses. I’ve watched friends suffering anorexia and bulimia become distraught and verbally abusive in hospital, even physically fight those trying to help them. I myself, have been abusive both verbally and physically in my own admissions – “I hate you! How could you do this to me? It’s MY body! Mine. Leave me alone! You can’t make me have this! You can’t do this, I won’t let you!” and so forth. Physically I have fought tooth and nail to keep them from nasogastrically feeding me. I am not proud of that, but I was sick. So I have stuck around for friends despite this behaviour (and scarier) in them, because I love them for them – not their behaviour. I separate that from them and support them hoping for their recovery.

This is what I expected to be able to do with Nicole. From the beginning, she was a lovely person to know. She was kind – sending me gifts  and inspiring me to have hope that I can beat the bulimia part of my eating disorder – by adopting a practice of buying my food daily, not keeping food to binge on in the house. I could see myself doing it, whereas before that, I couldn’t imagine it being possible.

But Nicole has changed hugely. At first there were glimpses, little signs that things were not completely okay under that facade, but lately she has spun wildly out of control.  This behaviour – the last straw being her attack on Missy – has gone way beyond ‘sick’ and into just plain nasty – and I believe we are dealing with someone who is a Malignant Narcissist.  Wikipedia describes it as an

“”an extreme form of antisocial personality disorder that is manifest in a person who is pathologically grandiose, lacking in conscience and behavioral regulation, and with characteristic demonstrations of joyful cruelty andsadism“.^[1]“

I know now, that I can rest easy that stepping out was the best thing to do.  I could stay loyal to Nicole – and if she ever does get help for her problems and settle down and try to be a sincere person, I will gladly again support her. But we have to draw a line – and sticking with a cruel and sadistic person is like placing your own head on a chopping block after handing them the axe.

That said, I now wish to talk about what Nicole has said about me.

If what I am doing makes me a hypocrite, so be it. But I know, in my own heart, that I have been working my arse ON in my efforts for a better, more functional life. I might be far from any kind of ‘well’ in anyone’s language – but I’m getting there.

Several years ago, I was on my deathbed. I had been dying for the past decade. I was never out of hospital for long periods of time – I pretty much have spent more than a decade practically living in that place – fighting them, and fighting for my life. My weight dropped as low as 29 kilograms on my 170cm frame, constantly. Not just once, but many, many times. I would lose the weight pretty much as soon as they discharged me. They stopped taking me up further than 40 kilos to discharge me and I would be back in the low 30′s within a week and my bloods would be dangerously out  of whack. I was on 30+ medications to just keep my body alive daily, as well as constant medical admissions for IV’s to save my life. I had chronic severe neutropenia – meaning I had very few white blood cells and my immunity was dangerously suppressed, so I spent a lot of time in the infectious diseases ward too. A very simple infection – a cold, an infected cut finger – would have killed me, I had nothing to fight it.

I started out a restricter, but after some admissions, learnt to purge. I then slowly became bulimic as control was lost to the urges from a lifetime of starvation. So while I was losing this weight, I was bingeing and purging horrifically, so that my eating disorder (diagnosis is Anorexia type II) was extremely dangerous – all the worst aspects of both anorexia and bulimia combined. It was also a living hell.

Over the last couple of years, even nasogastric feeding did not help me. I could throw up ANYTHING and did so, even when restrained with two point restraints – you are strapped to your bed, on your back, by your wrists. What did stay down, no longer seemed to be used by my body. So I was kept alive with TPN – total parenatal nutrition. I got extremely sick every time I was refed with refeeding syndrome. It was touch and go. I have been told several times I would not make it through the night. I have been told I wouldn’t live to 24, to 28, to 30 – I’m now 34. I wasted to the point that I was not able to sit up myself, could not stand up without support, could not walk. I was a broken mess.

All this time, I was working in therapy – asking for more help, working with my case managers and doctors. I was honest with them, and tried to do what I could to help myself, but it wasn’t much. I felt utterly hopeless in the face of a beast that screamed (still does) 24/7 the most horrible things. I felt overwhelmed by self hatred and in the depths of major depression, which I was first diagnosed with at nine – and felt I needed to die, to stop my horrible-ness from infecting the world.

I reached a point just a couple of years ago, where I was able to ask for more help – despite my fear, I asked them to NOT stop at 40 kilos in this admission – but to take me all the way to 45 kilos – so instead of  just hitting BMI 14, I asked for another whole BMI mark. It’s scary because for me, going above 40 is a huge point of fear. I can’t stand being 40. I can’t stand being in hospital and was basically asking to stay there longer. And they refused. I had to beg and beg before they said they would help me – because they did not believe that I could do it, or that I would keep the weight on anyway.

And I did it, over two admissions and by myself – I ate that weight on. And I have kept it on. It’s two years this May since I have been in hospital and I’m still 45 – 46 kilos. For me – that is a miracle. My treatment team, and the doctors and nurses from the hospital when I bump into them – still gush over what a miracle it is.

I am far from fixed. I am still only BMI 15. I am still living a hell in my mind. So I have a long way to go. But I’m getting there. Over this two years I have been working in therapy – very hard. I have been doing physiotherapy to get my body strong enough to do all the things I could no longer do – this took a huge comittment from myself, since physio is quite painful for me and requires me to do daily exercises despite that pain. I have moved to get away from my family and two abusive, stalking exes – and was fortunate enough to have needed a transfer to a lower ground unit as my severe osteoporosis requires me to not have to constantly walk up and down stairs. I have tackled my chronic pain and been active despite it. I have come a long way, still have a long way to go on the physical and therapy fronts. But from someone who couldn’t even sit up or hold her  head up, to someone who in a few short weeks will be starting ballet barre and pilates classes – wow.

I struggle with C-PTSD every single day, and I cannot use losing weight (and therefore my mind – turning the memories ‘down’ like a volume switch) to escape that any more. Every day I am flooded with flashbacks. I come from a history of severe child abuse – sexually, physically, emotionally, and neglect. I grew up hungry, dirty, and battered, and was bullied at school for being hungry, dirty and battered. It was a cruel upbringing. I then was raped and captive, then stalked, by a two men after I left home. So I have those memories all the time, and it’s not a matter of putting it all behind me – because it doesn’t work like that. I have moved forward, but anything can send me crashing out of reality and into the past – like living in a time machine. It’s extremely real – simple memories do not involve feeling, smelling, hearing what happened as though it’s really happening for the first time – but my flashbacks are that powerful. Using DBT skills (I am not eligible for DBT or CBT groups so I have been working on the skills from those by myself with the help of a case manager) I have learnt to distract myself and bring myself back into the present, to notice my thoughts and not be sucked into them – become an observer, etc, to lessen the severity, but it’s still a daily battle.

I still binge and purge, but nothing like the scale I used to do it on. I also manage to eat and keep down enough food to keep my own weight stable without the need for constant hospital visits. For years, I had a problem with shoplifting, a huge problem, and I have now not stolen for a long time. Probably close to six months – which I realise sounds not very long – but for me It’s such a relief. Morally, I hated myself, hated what I was doing. The urge to grab food and hoard food is still always there – but I don’t steal. This is my own doing too – I asked for help and support and now have someone with me twice a week to go shopping with.

I have help with physical tasks I cannot manage from my home and community care (HACC) people too, I see a psychiatrist once a week, a consultant psychiatrist once a month, a dietician when needed, a mental health case manager weekly, a HACC case manager monthly, Physio several times a week, a GP every couple of weeks, and other appointments as needed eg Endocrinologist and ECG, Echocardiograms, blood tests, scans, x rays etc. It tires me out – it doesn’t sound a lot to someone who works but for me, it’s exhausting. It also takes a lot of mental energy to constantly engage with people who are ‘shrinking’ me in a way.

I have also been working with an agency that helps people who have a mental illness and have been out of work to get a job. This has been a committment over months – appointments, interviews, paperwork. I’m very hopeful about being able to get a job. I would have to start small – cognition is terrible (I cannot read at the moment – even small amounts of reading on the computer are difficult and slow, heartbreaking as I’m a bookworm – and yet I still am trying, constantly in the library) concentration is bad, energy levels are low, pain is high. I also live with constant chronic pain and fatigue. I have bone pain from severe osteoporosis and I have peripheral neuropathy from malnutrition which believe me, is AGONY. Back on the subject – I would have to start small – maybe one shift a week or even fortnight – but it’s a start. Another step forward.

I could go on – I’m sorry for this super-long blog post. But I wanted to defend myself against Nicole’s accusations. In her own words-

“Fiona, Missy Miller, Karen Carpenter, etcetera might preach about birds and Lauren Hill.  But did that give them a clean esophagus?  Did that feed their bodies with nutrients?  Did that create health?  Fuck no.  They are bitches who want to pull you into the depths of their despair.  Don’t fall for it.

They thrive on the great sorrows of their disease.  SICKENING.  GROSS.  DECEPTIVE.

I manage my disease, successfully.

Don’t judge me.  Judge the hypocrites.”

OH for goodness sake, is she for real? This woman calls herself the “Ex-Bulimic” and blogs that she is fashionably raising awareness of eating disorders (and by the way, calls mental illnesses like depression ‘personal weaknesses’.)

Nicole has swapped bingeing and purging for alcoholism. She has NOT dealt with her issues at ALL – instead she hits out at those around her, spews hatred about fat and far from eats a healthy diet – choosing to sit with an empty plate at her family’s easter lunch and eat only corn and peas for thanksgiving. She restricts her diet not in calories, but in terms of nutrients. And she calls us hypocrites? Thank you so much! (not.)

The behaviours of eating disorders are NOT the illness itself. Whatever the underlying issues are, (different for each of us), they are the core of this illness. When someone with anorexia is refed and their weight restored, they are not cured. Likewise, you cannot no longer have a problem just because you stopped bingeing and purging overnight. You have to put in a lot of hard work to consider yourself better from these diseases, and swapping bulimia for alcohol abuse is NOT an improvement.

Lastly, in her latest post, she says that

“Fiona, the Liberal, campaigns to earn the support of those who want to love.”

Love is amazing. Love is precious. It isn’t just thrown around like words can be. I’m all for love – but I don’t campaign for it. If I campain for anything – it is acceptance and understanding - both qualities that Nicole has done a lot to harm when it comes to both those people with eating disorders, and people with mental illnesses in general. She accused my  post about Stigma of being contradictory because I counsel against trying to cure someone with a mental illness through prayer – but am all for having and keeping hold of HOPE. Hope and prayer are not the same thing. I am Christian – but I do not expect anyone else to be, or try and push that on others. Hope, for me, is the belief that you can get through something, the belief that things can get better, the belief in basic goodness – aside from the hope that being Christian brings me. And when we lose hope – we are lost indeed. Perhaps this is why Nicole herself is so lost and hurting so much that she needs to basically attack everyone who isn’t ‘for’ her, belittle anyone else’s efforts at happiness or hopefulness, and why she’s so unable to have a basic concept of how it’s possible to be happy without needing to be skinny and fashionable and beautiful. That’s sad, because true happiness isn’t about the outside – it is within. Just like true progress when battling any sort of mental illness is, too. Perhaps that is why she pretends to be so happy and gaily upbeat and content. She doesn’t fool me. She doesn’t fool most people.

Okay – I have run out of gas here! Thank you if you read this far – it is a long and wordy post about unfortunate and uncomfortable things.

I don’t know how exactly to end this rant! Just that it’s been a relief to get it out, and that it’s time we all moved on. Hopefully Nicole will put it all behind her, get help, and move on herself.