Honesty Amidst Setbacks

I find it incredibly difficult to be completely honest about how I’m really going. Especially on such a public forum as this blog.

There are perhaps a couple of people I’m always totally honest with – and that is because they are part of my treatment team. Being honest with them is obvious to me. They can’t help  me unless they know what’s happening! Scarily enough there are many people with eating disorders who cannot be honest with their treatment team – in fact, it seems to be very common in the earlier stages of being so unwell, or when the person is lacking in insight. Insight makes a huge difference in this fight – being able to understand that you are unwell, and why, and that the people around you are trying to help you, not persecute you.

It’s quite obvious in the blog world, actually, to come across people who blog about their supposedly ‘healthy lives’, but don’t have the insight to acknowledge the elephant in the room, their eating disorder – and the fact that they are becoming more and more unwell and more people every day are speaking out in concern for them. I can never understand some of these people when they so blatantly ignore the concern and pretend they are fine, or worse, they are well - and it’s often hard to find respect for them. There are so many people, especially younger and more vulnerable people – who read these sites and take on board the messages these sick bloggers are putting out there. If there is one thing I would absolutely loathe myself for, it would be inadvertently causing or triggering someone else’s eating disorder.

But despite it being so easy for me to stand in judgement – we often forget that eating disorders are by nature, an illness in where the person suffering from it often lacks that insight or is in heavy denial. That they often act in ways that infuriate, irritate, frustrate, people around them. That deceit is a classic behavior  born of shame and fear and the need to hang on to their disorder. Being sick doesn’t make someone bad. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been thought of and told that I was a bad person, because I was too unwell to just eat and keep it down and behave. And I would have done anything at those times to ‘behave’ so that I could stop hurting, worrying or frustrating people – I tried with all my heart to do that. It wasn’t something I was capable of doing at that stage.

One of the main reasons I find it so difficult to be honest with people about how I’m really going, is deep shame. Long before I had the foggiest notion that I actually had an eating disorder, I saw people with anorexia on current affairs shows on TV and just was heartbroken for them, and frightened for them that they were so fragile and that they would die – and I couldn’t understand at all why they were doing that to themselves. It shocked me to think they had actually chosen to do that to themselves and then to continue to do so in the face of imminent death and the pleas of their loved ones. I just could not get my head around it.  I thought they were also incredibly vain, to be killing themselves to just be skinny – I didn’t even see the appeal of being skinny. All my life, I had found skinny quite ugly. Instead, I strived to be strong, and to be able to dance. I was extremely proud of being able to dance at the level that I had gotten to, and at what my body could do. Even as a young child, It had been obvious to me that the worst dancers in my class were the skinny girls, who just couldn’t get anything right and always looked gangly and out of place. Conversely, the biggest girl was also the best dancer and always front and centre. She was bouncy and full of energy and personality.

And I have to admit – I thought they were brats. Sick, scared, lost, hurting brats, but brats nonetheless. I thought they were selfish. I thought they were manipulating everyone who cared for them in order to get attention and mollycoddling. I truly did.

So when I finally had to admit just after my first hospital admission for anorexia (spent protesting that I had needed to lose the weight and that I wasn’t at all like the ‘real anorexics’) that I had anorexia too, it brought incredible shame and disbelief down on me. I couldn’t believe I had an eating disorder. I who had been overcome with fury when other class mates had whispered “That’s what Fiona has” during a biology class discussion about anorexia, who had disgustedly retorted “that’s what spoilt vain brats do, and I would never do something that stupid” had indeed, done exactly that. Talk about irony!

Now I know better. I know that’s not true at all. I’ve never wanted the attention having an eating disorder has brought me. And I didn’t have anyone to mollycoddle me – my family has never cared. My dad, when he tracked me down a few years into my hospital admissions, tried his best, even offered initially for me to move in with them in the Far North – but I was too scared to, at that stage he was a complete stranger to me. And I didn’t want to impose on him and his family. I didn’t want to bring my problems into their world, they didn’t deserve that. He persevered with me – and I stayed with him a week or two here and there over the eight years I knew him – it was such a blessing and a privilege to be given a second chance at having a real family. I loved my stays with them – I was made welcome, treated with kindness and respect, and my little sister was always all over me which warmed my heart – I loved her dearly. (Still do.)

Unfortunately, despite wanting more than anything else to be able to just ‘stop’ being unwell when I was with them, I couldn’t. I tried so hard! I usually lasted at best a few days. In those years, I wasn’t even really able to eat ‘normal’ food, so great was my fear, so I usually had my own food and created meals to eat with them, mostly dinner meals. I tried to make these meals look large and as close to ‘normal’ as I could – hoping that my family would just think I had other preferences and was feeding myself satisfactorily and not worry or be sad that I couldn’t enjoy some of their delicious meals. I wanted them to believe I was happy. I didn’t want them to worry at all. I failed.

A huge pile of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and a million carrots (nibbled mostly during the evenings when I just badly wanted to EAT everything in sight) does not look like a good nutritious meal to anyone. Neither does a pile of brown, terribly overcooked cabbage. I only fooled myself. It was plainly apparent to anyone that I was sick, and even when I wasn’t staying with them, my dad worried. He would phone me (in the days I was still trying to communicate via phone) and ask me how I was doing, and I’d tell him I was going okay, hanging in there. Unfortunately he could tell just by my voice that I wasn’t well at all, he later told me, and instead reached out to someone he thought was a friend of mine – who had given him her details at a time he’d visited me in hospital and she had been there. She wasn’t a friend – I thought she was too for a while, she turned out to be an enemy – she fed my dad the nastiest of lies – told him my eating disorder was to hurt him, to ‘get back at him’ for not being around when I was younger. That it was for attention. That I was dying, when I was very sick but definitely not on my death bed (she also tried to force me to make a will once visiting me – and got promptly kicked out, who does that?!) She also contacted my sister, who was in her very early teens at the time, perhaps even a tween still at that stage – this forty-something year old (really)parent’s basement-dwelling woman, friended a kid. And fed her lies about me too. Told her that if I loved her, really loved her, I wouldn’t be doing this to myself, and that my dad died of cancer – melanoma – because of the stress I had caused him.

I have deeply regretted that I wasn’t honest with my dad about how I was really going, no matter how unwell I was. If I was honest, he wouldn’t have felt the need to ask someone else how I really was, and he might never have been fed such a pack of lies that probably coloured his views of his own daughter, nor would my little sister have been fed the lies that led to her gradually hating me more and more until the last straw was me actually doing something deplorable – shoplifting binge food and getting caught on the morning of dad’s funeral – for which she cannot forgive me. She hates my guts now. What’s more, I just reinforced the lies by what I did. Shoplifting is the thing I hate perhaps most about me. I haven’t done it for a while now – but I haven’t let my guard down and I never will. There have been so many times in my life that I have stopped, for years sometimes – and then fallen down that hole again. The urge to grab food is always, always so strong, even more so when I’m upset, stressed, unwell and definitely, hungry. And the bingeing and purging is the most horrible thing ever, I wish with all my heart I’d never started down that road, a road I feel unable to break free from now. I would never have struggled as much as I have, and I would never have shoplifted food – something so, so wrong to me.

I fear judgement so much. All my life, I have been harshly judged, by my own family, and by society. My own family (apart from dad) never made any attempts to understand me. When I got out of there  they didn’t know me. They had had nearly 17 years living with me from my birth to get to know me – and they didn’t have a clue. This was because they simply did not care.

Everything in my life was something I was judged for. My mother spent my life berating me for all the good things she did do for me – telling me endlessly that if only she didn’t ‘have’ to take me to ballet, the car wouldn’t be wearing out, she’d have more money for other things, she would have more time to spend with my brother and sister. She would have been able to finish her studies and be working now. She would have been a successful artist. She would have fixed our filthy, unfinished house up.  It didn’t matter that she took me to ballet perhaps 3 times a week, which took about 2 – 3 hours at a time tops. That is not the lions’ share of the week. She had all day that we were at school to be an artist, to do her schoolwork, to clean up or fix things and so on – and she instead would sit around watching soapies on TV or working on the growing pile of receipts she kept to create another bill to send our dad of money she wanted to demand from him. She spent all day with my older sister who was home all day too, they were like best girlfriends rather than  mother and daughter. She had time to take my brother to soccer and martial arts and basketball. They weren’t starving for attention or time with her.

The last couple of years I lived there she didn’t even have to take me to ballet or pay a cent for me aside from absolute basics – food and clothing. My ballet was paid for by scholarships and sponsorships I’d won, and I got myself there using public transport. My days were long – a school day for me was up at 5am, chores, breakfast, cold bath, try to iron dry damp clothes I had to wear. Catch bus at 5.55am. Transfer to train, for nearly an hour. Transfer to another bus to school. We started dancing at 8am with Limber, followed by usually ballet class, then jazz or tap or repertoire or pointe or contemporary or something else afterwards. I danced during the class breaks, and danced afterwards til everyone had showered so that I was in there mostly alone to avoid the bullying that was happening all those years. Showered and caught our bus to school to begin academic work at about 2pm, going through til 4.30pm. Then reversing the transport home, at 6.30pm where there were more chores, homework, and endless family battles to navigate. I would practice most nights and end up either lying in bed all night exercising or falling asleep at about 3am at my desk, to repeat the next day. This was six days a week, there was no time for me to get a job and between the ages of 14 to 16, I was still extremely immature and probably wouldn’t have been able to find anyone to employ me anyway. (I did try – volunteering during my holidays and canvassing local businesses for work with my resume.) My mother, who was paid a single parent pension, an allowance for me for my disabilities, and maintenance from dad – refused to supply most basics for me aside from food – and very cheap food at that, usually buying food for the family and cheaper food just for me. She even refused to buy me a school uniform, and the school supplied me with one out of their spares cupboard, kept for accidents, four sizes too big and stained. One of my school teachers helped me tape the fronts of my shoes together and paint over the tape so they stayed on my feet. I also tried to keep my shoes together by nailing nails into the sole from the inside – and ended up walking painfully on them all day as they worked themselves upwards. (And I was grateful – it was a uniform, just like everyone else had.)

My point is, my mother was not only needlessly cruel, she seemed to blame everything on me. I was just a kid, and one who had been tightly controlled too, so that I was very emotionally immature, and she was my mother. My PARENT, who was meant to feed me, clothe me, look after me. Instead, she taught me that I was some horrible, unworthy and inherently wrong creature not worthy of what other people took for granted, and the bullying I suffered due partly to  my constant scruffiness (especially during ballet school where most of the others were from affluent backgrounds) and partly due to my ineptness socially, just reinforced this. I grew up deeply ashamed of myself as a person in every way.

My own family never cared enough to really find out who Fiona was, and they made it clear I wasn’t even worthy of being understood or accepted,  and so they certainly didn’t even try to learn about or understand eating disorders. They believed every stereotype there was – to them, my eating disorder was a sign of me being the spoilt naughty selfish girl they’d always told me I was. In later years they accused me of using a ‘made up illness’ to basically be a lazy bludger, never working, never achieving anything but sponging off the taxpayer, and this stung deeply. They of all people, knew how hard a worker I was, and how I surpassed all expectations, winning a local Australia day award among other acknowledgements for my striving and perseverance. They used their words and their cruelty to basically ally themselves with the eating disorder and strip me of the last vestiges of self – invalidating my past, and stripping me of even being able to hang on to knowing I was a hard worker and an achieve who was capable of better things than this, or that it wasn’t laziness that had stopped me in my tracks. That my whole life hadn’t all been a complete failure.

It makes sense to me that if your own family judges you so harshly, what can you expect from people who don’t know you? I went straight from leaving home into the arms of the man who raped and stalked me for years. It was a very familiar situation for me – and it felt like all I deserved. I’ve met quite a number of people who were more than happy to feed my insecurities like the so-called ‘friend’ who lied to my dad and little sister, and a certain number of ignorant people who don’t seem to realize that not everyone is born with the privileges they take for granted, that some of us have to really fight to even survive let alone enjoy the milestones that they are assured of achieving. In my own heart, I feel like the biggest failure ever, I reflect on my life and see missed opportunities, on so much hard work thrown away, and so much support and belief from people I failed in some way – let down, failed to meet their expectations, or cut off. I feel as though at 35, I haven’t even achieved as much as most teenagers have, and that there is no way I will ever be able to catch up to them, let alone those of my own age group.

I’m just so deeply ashamed.

I’m reminded constantly by those who have taken the time to get to know me, and who genuinely care, that I have come a long way, that I can’t afford to compare myself with anyone else, because nobody else has had to fight the same things I have in my life – same as there are so many people out there who have faced circumstances I have no idea of and for me to judge them on their face value at any point of time that I come in contact with them would be so wrong, and totally belittling how much they HAVE achieved – just in a life completely different and therefore with different milestones and measures of progress to mine. And yet, I am so scared of others judging me harshly and finding me a failure, a loser, that I judge myself the most harshly of all.

And here is where honesty comes into the equation – I’m already ashamed of the fact that I have an eating disorder. My shame when I am struggling more than usual or I relapse is many times greater than that. Throw in the harsh judgement towards people with eating disorders that I often come across online, particularly if they blog about it, and the shame of having fallen from my position of being able to say “Here I am, I am proof that a chronic severe eating disorder doesn’t have to kill you or mean you can’t turn things around.” and most importantly of all – “There is hope” – and it’s extremely hard to face up to people and be honest with you all about the fact that I’m not doing all that well any more.

I don’t consider myself to be fully in relapse – but I’m borderline. I’ve slowed down, perhaps stopped the weight loss, but I can’t seem to get it to go back up again – and what’s more, am sitting just above what used to be my discharge weight from hospital back when times were bad. And as always, ED brain has taken over – I struggle to keep hydrated, struggle to eat, struggle with bingeing and purging. Physically I have lost a lot of strength and the chronic pain I worked so hard to rid myself of is plaguing me again. And I’m so angry at myself – I know how hard I worked to get where I was – and now, I’m no better than I was on leaving hospital during those bad  years again. I am so disappointed in myself, and so scared not only for myself, but more so, for Shalimar. What if I get so sick again, what will become of her? I don’t want to send her back to the pet motel all the time – she’s getting old now. She deserves so much better than this. And I don’t want to miss out on sharing a single moment of her life with her. I missed too much of her life when I was in hospital. I’ve let her down, most of all. She depended on me and I am not living up to those responsibilities.

And I’ve let you down, the people who read my blog. It was supposed to be a journey of hope, reclaiming a LIFE, of proving that just because everyone has expected you to die, doesn’t mean you have to.

Here is where I am going to take on board my own message. I am going to believe in hope, and I am going to remind myself that it is always within our power to change our behaviors and our thoughts, if we desire to enough. The more I walk on my chosen trail in a forest, the more worn and visible that trail becomes, and the less visible the trail I’m no longer walking on becomes as nature reclaims it and grows over where it used to be. Same with my mind – the more I practice new ways to think and new behaviors, the more natural they become to me, and the less natural the old ones will be, too. It’s called creating new neural pathways. It’s also called not giving up, being stubborn, and fighting to live – all things true of me.

I have so much to live for – even more now. I have less than two months to go until I am officially a uni student again. And I’m finally realizing that my hopes and dreams and goals these days  might be vastly different, but they are still things I’m able to be passionate about, and my life still can be for good, rather than have been pointless.

I’m not going to live up to the expectations of the people who taught me I would never be anything more than a loser.

I’m going to fulfil my own expectations – and those of the people who truly care and want the best for me. I’m going to fight and make this life truly count.

Thank you for reading, I hope to be able to bring a more positive post next time.

 

(Image sources: 1, 2)

Flashback to 2009 – Hospital Days.

I was searching through my hard drive and came across some old writing – not journal entries so much as little random bits here and there. Times that I must have gotten on the computer and just let the thoughts flow.

This essay was written in 2009. I’d just been discharged from yet another hospital stay, and ended up in the same old spiral as I’d been falling into for years. The desperation and feeling of hopelessness in this saddens me now. During those years, I knew no way out. All I had to look forward to was more of the same, until my body gave up.

There was a better ending than I anticipated – I’m pretty sure that it was after this admission that I started begging the hospital team to help me gain more weight than I usually did – to the weight that I am at today. I had a couple more admissions to achieve that – but I did, and I have maintained – whether that is a fluke or not, it’s given me another chance at life that I really don’t think I deserved. But that I’m determined to make the most of.

Please be aware that this is a highly triggering piece of writing. It talks about hospital treatment, weight loss, food, eating disorder habits, death and hopelessness.

Monday, 13 July 2009

I was discharged from my 125^th hospital admission on Friday afternoon, 10^th July.

It was a nightmare in many ways and lifesaving in many others. For the first time I made a significant breakthrough in that for the first time in about a decade I was able to keep everything down (and eat everything too). I struggled most with the crap going on around me (petty molehills become mountains that lead to major arguments and tantrums in the stuffy HDU microcosm) and the crap going on in my head – either totally overwhelming, spending too much time sucked back into the things I never want to remember – or totally vacant.

When you’re too Ill to be sedated and so are restrained in bed in order to protect your PICC line and the TPN; when you’re too immune-compromised to be transferred to Wattlebrae as they now have swine flu there, but as soon as you fight off one infection you pick up yet another; when you’re traumatised already and undergoing way too many more invasive procedures; (the worst I think was one of seven PICC insertion attempts – in the ICU, without anaesthetic. They couldn’t get it past my shoulder and were yanking it out of the socket and kept cutting the site, then stitched it into place – I felt like a fish that’s been hooked. All that, and the x-ray showed it wasn’t viable anyway, didn’t reach my heart) – you lose yourself and become a body that seems to be everyone else’s piece of meat. Indeed, I often wondered if any of the Treatment Team ever considered what they do to my spirit? It’s shattered even more each time I’m there, ‘til I wonder if it wouldn’t be a kindness to actually let my body die. What point dragging this broken mess back to life again and again if there’s no quality of life and you’ve killed the person inside the body? My whole life has been spent being punished by others, punishing myself… and then I go to hospital where they punish me again for all of that.

I concede inferiority – all my life it seems I’ve been trying to convince people I’m not as bad as they think. But if I’m the only one who believes that (and I don’t, anyway) – then they’re right. There’s something very terribly wrong with me and always has been.

All my life I’ve been running from something. From danger. From violence. From myself. This time, I ran from Death. Or was it the fear of death? Whatever it was, it got me stuffing myself with my entire meal plan in a shock turn-around, and keeping every bit of it down. Of course, it was agony, in my mind and body. This body hasn’t had any solid food really stay in it for nearly a decade and it struggled, strained, raced, sweated. My mind thumped me in every way, every moment of the day. We’re trapped now. We have no choice. But I’ll get you, I’ll make you pay, when you are free from here. The eating cut the expected couple of months on TPN to just a couple of weeks. And I was home by the end of the week it was ceased.

No preparation. No maintenance. Just straight from two months in a bare hospital room to the chaotic big wide world.

I hoped I’d be able to keep things going. I want to LIVE. I know that if I can’t nail it now, I will die. I’m desperate to survive.

It’s been a mess. It’s been like ‘imploding’ – fragile, newly-bolstered hope caving in unsupported by any confidence within. Social phobia returning as strong as ever – now I know why it’s so hard to remember what the world’s like when I am hospitalised. I don’t look people in the face anymore, I go about anything I do with my head down in shame and fear. Withdrawn. Even at home, I don’t take in my surroundings much anymore. It’s chaotic and too busy on my eyes. They like to be closed, and words don’t come easily anymore either. I try so hard to be there for my beloved Shalimar yet it seems I am so vacant in my mind, she can sense it. And it frightens her as much as it does me.

I like that word – ‘imploding’ – for describing this parasitic eating disorder. It is like one is collapsing in on oneself as the disorder eats away more and more of your inner core. You pull away from others, curl into a protective shell as small and invisible as possible. In trying to feel ‘safe’, you find yourself increasingly alone with what’s trying to kill you, more endangered. ‘Exploding’ happens, too. I would describe that as the ‘fighting’ stages of this – when you’re resisting it’s pull as much as you can and it’s fighting you back. You fight to get the food in, it explodes it back out. You fight to save your body in every way you can, and it finds more and more violent ways to undo any good you’ve achieved.

Where to from here? I’m a mess. No matter how much or what I buy from the supermarket, when I try and put it together in my head, it doesn’t make any sort of sense. That’s if I am successful at the supermarket. I can write a concise list of what and how much I need, but being faced with aisles of cans and boxes and bottles, so many colours, so many numbers and letters and names and varieties and sizes and so on – I just freak out. Brain goes off. Autopilot takes over, I come out with a basket of stuff I haven’t a clue why I bought it and what to do with it. And none of it’s anything I even feel like eating. (Four packets of plain pasta… a bunch of different seasonings reduced to clear… one of every different variety of non-dairy milk in the UHT milk aisle… three tubs of margarine which I don’t eat and haven’t anything to put it on.. What can I do with that? )

The fruit and vegie shop’s still chaotic for me, too. If I can haul myself out there early enough in the morning, there might be a fair variety of stuff on the ‘reduced’ rack and that takes away the problem of actually choosing stuff. If it can be cooked and it’s colourful and tastes ok, then I’ll grab it. I end up with a lot of capsicums, apples, eggplants, tomatoes and sweet chilli, but that’s ok. I like them. The staples that I’ve always been addicted to – pumpkin, cabbage, carrots – are in season and plentiful. The hardest part is craving sweeter, water-rich fruits – they aren’t very easy to find at the moment. Lettuce used to be wonderfully refreshing when I could eat it raw, but even if I can (and I did try) at the moment my mouth is sore after just a bit of chewing and full of too many ulcers. Not to mention it’s fricken cold!

I really have to pull away from relying pretty much on just fruit and vegies though. They aren’t going to keep me alive – especially if I can’t keep them down anymore again. I’ve spent about $150 this weekend alone just on Up&Go drinks, Sustagens, etc – Nutrition Australia can’t get any supplements to me till tomorrow – though I rang them this morning and they might be able to get a few Resource+ drinks out to me today. But I can’t stomach them very well and they’re about a third of what’s in a Resource+. (360 calories and all your nutritional needs in one little popper) My taste buds must be screwed, too – it’s not helping that everything tastes like mud.

Whoa. All I do is complain! It’s a blessing to be alive, to be free again, to be back with my Sweet Shalimar. To sleep in my own bed again, wear my own clothes, keep my own times, be warm, have privacy, watch TV with teletext. Have nobody telling me that a few mills more of boiling water to soften my weetbix will blow my 1.2L fluid allowance for the entire day (since supplements and liquids in meals are counted, thirstiness is something I feel all the time in hospital) and nobody measuring my urine output, having to wipe my bum, wash me, even worse forgetting to wipe my bum – you end up smelly and damp from drip-drying into your undies. All dignity goes out the window in hospital. Not that I had any left.

I want to make the most of everything wonderful in my life. I want to stop taking it all for granted. It’s a miracle that I’m still alive, and I’m blessed with the most wonderful friends and some family. I have Shalimar, a place to live, clothes to wear, shoes for my feet, food to eat (theoretically, anyway) and all my basic needs. The biggest blessings are the people I love so much, and what’s left of this beautiful Earth. Je’aime la Nature.

I’m scared, God. I know I don’t talk to you very much anymore. Like everyone else, you’ve been shut out. It’s so hard to break down the barriers I keep rebuilding every time I manage to smash them down, and I’m tired, very tired. But please, my God, please hear my cry. Please have mercy – I don’t want to die, not this way. Please, I had hope that I could get around the mess in my head, that I had turned it around, but I find I am as trapped as ever. Will I ever be free, will I ever overcome this? I’m a survivor yet this battle is proving to be the most arduous I’ve fought. Terrifying how one’s own mind can be a stronger, deadlier foe than the physical dangers I’ve battled.

I can’t stop hearing [consultant] saying “You WILL die”, if the TPN was unsuccessful. I can’t help remembering how much of a struggle it was to insert a PICC line anywhere – my veins in both arms have been ruined now. I’m lucky to have even been alive to see another hospital admission – nobody thought I’d pull through last time and they all warned me that my body wouldn’t survive even one more physical relapse. What terrifies me is how sick I still really am in my mind. My body was bumped up about 10kgs really fast – but now I’ve lost nearly half of that in a weekend. Nothing was done for my thinking or my mind or learning how to care for myself. I’m trying so hard but as trapped and scared as ever, so powerless. Still fighting – ever fighting – but the feeling of hopeless futility is stronger than ever. I’m going down again already – and it doesn’t look like there are any options left now that will help me live. A long time ago, if I’d helped myself, I’d be far better off today. Now I’m beyond the point of having any control over this or even knowing how to fend off the blows in my head, the battering it gives me every breathing moment (even in my dreams/nightmares). Now there’s nothing left to even physically save me if I’m ever admitted to hospital again.

Please help me God. Help me help myself.

I didn’t survive all I have, to die of a piddly pathetic eating disorder.

 

 (image source: 1, 2)

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 )

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

 

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)

Reflecting on Shalimar – My Angel

I realised last night that in early January it will be a year since Shalimar and  I moved into the apartment I live in now. We have had absolutely no regrets, either. It is a peaceful and safe place to live for both of us and I’ve never seen Shalimar as happy as she is these days, not in her entire nine years. Whoops – nearly ten years!

Yes, Shalimar will be ten years old on the 13th of December! Her ‘birthday’ was decided by counting back two months from her official Adoption Birthday – which was 13th February, 2003. I still remember that day like it was yesterday – picking her out from a cage chock-a-block with kittens at the shelter – and knowing on sight that she was the kitty I’d come for. Somehow we had bonded before I’d even left the shelter. I still remember waking up the next morning – Valentine’s day – having hardly slept from a night of having this little kitten crawl all over me. My first thoughts were “She loves me.”

For someone with a life history of rejection and abuse, that is an incredibly wonderful, precious thought and memory. I can’t imagine living without her. I don’t know how I survived before I adopted her.

I have come to believe there are angels on earth. And I’ve come to believe that animals can absolutely be angels on earth.

Shalimar has saved my life many a time, in many ways. She’s given me a reason to live at all. She’s given me so much love over the years, unconditionally. She’s been my constant companion, especially during the loneliest years of my life.

Before I adopted Shalimar, it was common for me to have periods of unconsciousness that lasted scarily long times – for example, having a nap on Sunday afternoon might lead to me waking up on Wednesday night, completely unaware that more than a few hours had passed. But Shalimar wouldn’t let that happen. She woke me many times by crouching over me and patting my face with her paw, not stopping until I’d dragged myself out of the black hole I’d been slipping into. Many times I woke with a face like mince meat – she never used her claws deliberately, but even with claws retracted, cat’s paws can be quite sharp.

Shalimar gave me a reason to fight to get out of hospital – thinking of her in a pet motel, despite knowing they knew her and treated her with the best care and a lot of cuddles broke my heart, and I missed her terribly.

I’ve heard of therapy dogs (or care dogs?) trained for soldiers with PTSD. Apparently, these dogs know when their soldier is having a nightmare, and are trained to gently awaken them, switch on lights, and provide companionship and comfort.

Shalimar definitely would make a good care cat for PTSD. In a way, she is one already. I realised this on Friday when she woke me up from a pretty terrible nightmare with her gentle patting. She then cuddled up to me, gently butting my face with hers and stroking it with her paw. (I think she tries to copy my stroking action, which used to hurt given cats have claws, but she’s learnt to keep her claws retracted. Smart cat!) She’s done this many times before.

These days, it gives me a lot of joy to see how happy Shalimar is. Moving here was her version of coming home to paradise. It’s like night and day compared to living in the gritty city area where, to a constant soundtrack of traffic and sirens, she witnessed probably thousands of drug deals, and thousands of weddings in the Church across the road from her little balcony.

Shalimar loves to stalk lizards, and to pretend she’s going to catch those annoying birds that sit in the tree next door and taunt her (they even swoop her!). She  loves to just sit in the sun, watching the kids next door scream and endlessly jump on the trampoline (more proof to her that these human beings are all nuts). Grass isn’t some heavenly treat that I bring a bunch of home when I find it. It grows all around, and she can walk on it let alone nibble it. She has developed rather discerning tastes, though – so far she’s eaten my climbing beans, my corn plants, all of my chives and basil, and now she’s started on my tomato plants.

I’ve gone from being too depressed to sit and just ‘be’, to being able to sit on my porch and watch Shalimar just ‘being’. To watch her being happy and contented does wonders for myself and our time outside has become the most calming and cherished time of my days.

I wonder what the next year will bring for both of us? I think the sky is the limit. We’ve both come a heck of a long way.

Tiger in the grass! Watch out, lizards!

If You Could Have A Say…

For almost 15 years, I had no say about when I was admitted to hospital, or what happened if I needed to be admitted. I had no say in any decisions to do with my health.

Recently, I’ve been offered a little bit of that power – an opportunity that I think many of us who are fighting eating disorders and caught up in the health system would give anything to have.

As I am a ‘complex patient’, my case manager is now required to have plans drawn up for every aspect of my management. Usually my admissions have been planned – I’ve been becoming too unwell, or medically I’ve become unstable, my case manager and/or GP has contacted the ED specialist unit at the hospital, and because they know me, it’s pretty much been a case of “Okay, she’s coming in at x time, see you then.” All that’s remained has been for them to bring me in.

However there have been emergencies and crises, as there will be when someone is battling a long chronic illness that has so many volatile aspects to it.  And without a written plan in my files, they have been difficult and even traumatic. There was the time I was taken to hospital by a case worker who was standing in, for chest pains. The registrar didn’t check me out – instead, he gave me a few lectures about how people with eating disorders are manipulative, spoilt brats who just want attention – and told me to go home and eat a sandwich. I really did have heart problems – ended up in hospital with them a few days later – but that experience is just one of many similar, not just for myself, but for friends I’ve talked to.

It’s scary that many of us will not go to emergency under our own steam, because of the fear of being treated with no understanding, even being accused of attention seeking or malingering. Often staff in emergency aren’t aware of what to actually test for medically – beyond basics like electrolyte levels, and even that at times has been something that if I haven’t reminded them of, would have been overlooked. One of my friends who had to attend for her self harm was stitched up with no anesthetic, because obviously, she wanted the pain, right? (No, she didn’t, and it traumatised her.)

So having a chance to control some of what happens in this situation is truly an opportunity I don’t want to waste. It also might go to abate some of the fears I have of ever being in hospital again – that I will always be at the mercy of others, never have a say, just be reduced to a body, because I have a mental illness and therefore I don’t get a say.

As far as my health goes, my case manager is going to help me take out an Advanced Health Care Directive. It’s a good idea to have it done now, and have it signed off by a doctor to say that I was mentally able to make my own informed decisions at the time that it was made. When I’ve been in hospital, there has often been a point at which things have been too much – too traumatic or too painful – and I’ve wanted to be able to say “No more”. Indeed, I’ve begged them at times to let me die – because at that time, there was truly not much hope, I had tried everything and tried it many times. I was tired, I was broken, now medical help had just become more abuse – and I wanted them to just be kind to me now. But because I was mentally ill – I was told that I didn’t know what was best for me and was incapable of making those decisions.

Recently in the  news there have been two women who have been in this situation – and it went to court. One woman was granted the right to not be fed – (trigger warning, stupid cliché anorexia photo) despite wanting to live. The other was ordered to be fed against her will – despite there being no hope for her and suffering the medical and psychological effects of years of a long, hard battle. Today, I am glad that I was kept alive despite wanting then to just be allowed to die. Because I’m still here, and I have a chance. One of my past doctor always used to say to me “While there is life, there is hope.” And she’s right.

A now long gone friend of mine was resuscitated and her chest was smashed from the efforts, she lived in agony for a while before she died. That terrifies me, because I have severe osteoporosis so the chances are the same would happen to me. I do have heart complications, according to my case manager, so it could happen. I wanted to have a Do Not Resuscitate order at one stage, was knocked back because of the ‘mentally impaired’ thing. NOW, I can have it if I want it. But I’m scared of not being resuscitated, too. As much as I struggle to live, struggle to want to live when hurting and fighting 24/7, I’m scared of dying too. Who isn’t? The thought of having a heart attack and them NOT trying to save my life is too scary to think about.

I want to be able to decide when to no longer push to save me. When I’m to be considered ‘end of life’. That is also such a hard decision. When is anorexia ‘end of life’? Who gets to make that decision? Nobody with an eating disorder should ever get to that stage but it does happen. When you are in organ failure, for example, it’s a bit silly to try and keep saving you, especially if it’s painful and traumatic.

I definitely want to specify that I not be restrained ever again. That isn’t worth it, and I’d truly rather die. I don’t know if that would be acceptable on an AHD, but I can try.

Generally, I get to have instructions to emergency staff about what is helpful for me, and what is not. For example – not to say “Go eat a sandwich” to me! My case manager is putting in details of what medical things to test for (in case they don’t know, but seriously, I hope it becomes compulsory for all front line nurses, doctors, and any other professional health staff to be taught about eating disorders, since they are often the first point of contact for sufferers and how they handle the situation can heavily influence the sufferer’s attitude towards accepting help in the future.)

Very importantly, I can have instructions to care for Shalimar. I’ve always been scared that she would be left alone to fend for herself if I was suddenly unwell and none of my treatment team were around to arrange for her to be cared for. She is to me, my ‘child’ – and she is reliant on me in as many ways as a child.

I’m struggling to come up with what things I would like to have on my plan. I was shocked to be given the chance to have input, and thankful that I have a chance to influence what the future might hold, before I got to a point where my opinion no longer counted – NOT that I ever intend to revisit that state of health again. The most important thing here, is that this is a safety net for me in many ways.

What would you choose to have on an emergency admission care plan? For both medical and psychiatric emergencies? What would you want the people who are helping you to do or not do? Are there any triggers that you would benefit from the staff knowing in advance and so avoiding?

Would you ever take out an Advanced Health Care Directive or do you have one? And what would you have on that directive? What is your biggest fear health-wise?

Thank you for your input! I am so interested to see what you all think.

(Image source – I love this picture, and I love this verse.)

Let Go, Walk Away.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been able to distance myself from the people who have hurt me more and more. This hasn’t been easy, surprisingly.

You would think that if someone hurt you, it would be the easiest thing in the world to get as far as you can away from them and stay there. After all, we have an instinct that keeps us alive – to flee from bad people (or to stay and fight them, but even the most fighting spirit knows when they are beaten). It seems that this is overridden, however, by another survival instinct – bonding.

My psychologist explained to me that human beings are actually the only species that is completely helpless from birth for a significant period. This surprised me – I mean, kittens are born blind, for example, and baby birds seem fairly helpless. But no, she assured me, they become able to fend for themselves very fast indeed, and if they are pushed out of the nest or abandoned, they can survive.

Humans, when abandoned or attacked as babies, cannot.

So one of our earliest and most important survival instincts is bonding with our parents, especially our mothers. We want her to love us and bond to us. We want her to care about us – because our life is completely at her mercy. If our mother doesn’t love us or bond to us, she might not want to look after us and we will die.

This hit home hard for me. For my entire life, my mother, my older sister, my brother – they have all hurt me continuously. With my older sister, I very early on accepted that she was ‘not a good person’ and ‘dangerous’ and to keep awares – but even my deep down belief that people – especially family – are inherently good and are on my side led me to constantly letting my guard down with her and being wounded by her again.

My brother and I were very close when we were little, but as he grew older he became more and more violent. I kept on forgiving him. I never forgot that childhood bond, and I suppose that because I knew he had been subject to sexual abuse at the hands of our older sister too, he was dealing with his own stuff in the only way he knew how, which obviously was outward, whereas mine was inward. So I didn’t really blame him, and it was hard to hold it against him much past the actual acts of violence. He’s also shown redeeming qualities – he tried hard to be there for me at several points over the years I was struggling with the ED, and he also rescued a pile of things from our childhood home and mailed them to me in a few batches. The memories were overwhelming and it was a truly precious gesture and one I’m forever thankful for.  (My mother would not allow me to even see my own photos, certificates, yearbooks etc when we were growing up, and I left behind pretty much everything I ‘owned’ when I left.) 

My mother. How to even begin to talk about my mother. A very complicated woman and a very unwell one. Or insane. Or just evil? It’s hard to think of your own mother as evil. I can easily see without a doubt that my older sister is extremely evil – but with my mother, well, she’s very good at appearing ‘nice’. The harm she causes is more underhand, sly. But yes, I can look at it and see that in most cases, she truly meant to cause that harm, whether she will admit that to herself or not (or to anyone else, ever.  Because my family in their eyes, are absolute f*cking saints.)

My mother has absolutely devastated me with her actions towards me many times. And yet, I gave her a pass, every time. I kept on going back. I couldn’t believe that my own mother could possibly mean harm to me. After all, mothers are supposed to love and protect their children, aren’t they?

Sadly it doesn’t always work that way.

It took me years to understand this, to accept it, and to be able to stop wishing that it was different. Even after I realised and accepted that my mother had no love for me and at many times actually meant me harm, I found it so difficult to stop thinking that maybe I could change it. Had I not been loveable enough? Was there something about myself I could do differently? How could I be different enough to please her? Maybe both of us could change. We might not have had the best relationship so far, but many people work hard on their relationships as adults, and become if not friends or close, at least friendly, right?

I tried all that. For years. I tried everything I could think of. And nothing got better. It was a truly toxic relationship. I couldn’t do right by her, but not just that, she didn’t CARE. She didn’t care what happened to me, she didn’t care if I died. She didn’t care enough to want to know who her daughter actually was as a person, she just wanted another possession that she could manipulate and control and create drama with to satisfy her own warped wishes.

I also felt like a traitor. These people, they are my family. The people with whom I share blood. Despite the harm they have done and the harm they wish on me, they kept me alive during my growing up years. My mother educated me, clothed me, fed me, took me to ballet – that’s something many kids never get. And I’m forever grateful for that. (To a degree – my mother was also very often negligent and cruel to me, witholding even basic necessities.)

So how can I just reject them? Turn my back on them and walk away – forever. Not just for a while, not just creating distance – completely cutting ties. Forever.

As much as I loved my mother (despite not actually liking her as a person – there is a difference and I knew that very young) I had to accept that having her in my life, having any of them in my life, was only destroying me.

I realise now it’s the only way I can ever find peace and perhaps healing from this. With them in my life, I was constantly being hurt and upset and never had a chance to put things behind me. It was constantly there, being raked over again like raking open a wound that’s trying to heal.

I started cutting ties over a year ago. Slowly. Because I knew I would never be able to just rip myself away. And because it’s hard. Even now, I feel regrets and tinges of sadness and panic, all the time. What if they have noticed I’ve vanished from their lives, and are hurt, think I never loved them? What if they decide I’m an ungrateful brat (well they pretty much already always have said that – so nothing much would be different.) 

And then, there’s my little sister. She’s not the same as they are. I don’t think she realises just what they are truly like. I don’t think she believes how much they have hurt me, especially I don’t think she would ever believe my brother has hurt me. And I think she hates me for even suggesting it.

She hates me for a number of things. For always being unwell. For not being able to cope with my dad dying and his funeral without bingeing and purging at night in secret, which led to me desperately stealing binge food. And so, for getting caught shoplifting on the day of his funeral (something I thought I’d kept to myself and that they didn’t know. Something I have never forgiven myself for, and never will.)  For ‘using my eating disorder as a reason to sit around and be lazy and not work’ and ditto with the abuse and the rapes. For making everything ‘about me’ despite me trying so hard to make it about anyone BUT me and hide my own problems for them. For just being a complete failure as a sister I guess. For ‘not loving her enough’ to get better (and if only she knew how hard I tried, and how much I hated myself for not being able to do it for her since I couldn’t do it for me.)

I wonder if she remembers how close we used to be. I don’t think she does, and I don’t think she cares. She’s completely cut me off and ignores me completely. I have tried so hard, in every way I can think of to try, and it’s been rejected. I have been rejected, and in many ways, hurtfully and rudely. I know she has her own issues – indeed her own mother talked to me about how hurtfully she’d treated her, too – but it stings and it’s heartbreaking and there isn’t anything more I can do about it. It’s her choice.

My little sister is my biggest fear in cutting off my other family. I’m scared that one day she might come around and give me another chance, but there will be no way of her finding me. And the more distance I put between us all,the harder it is for me to find her, even on facebook, now. I’m scared that she will think that I didn’t love her enough, didn’t care about her, when I disappeared. That I didn’t want to be involved in her life when in fact the opposite was true. It hurts, it really deeply hurts.

It’s been a while now. I haven’t spoken to any family members since last year. I didn’t tell them when I moved away and I went silent on the electoral rolls and discontinued my main phone. I’m about to adopt a legal alias in preparation for changing my name, change my mobile phone number, and I might close my facebook and create a new one to just distance myself from the web trails that account has made. I’m planning to move interstate in the end, hopefully sooner rather than later. My point is, I’m moving closer to this all the time, and my chances of ever getting to know and maybe even be friends with my little sister again are diminishing.

And yet, if I hold on, just in case, I’ll truly never be free. No hope of peace. No hope of healing.

If you love someone, set them free. If they return on their own, they are yours, if they don’t, they never were (~ Richard Bach)

<– I hate that quote. But all I can do now is accept it, and live despite it. Focus on the positives, that I have people who truly love me, truly accept me, and would never dream of treating me the way my own family have. I have my beloved Shalimar, who is my ‘everything’. I have hope again, as I rebuild my life little step by little step. There is so much out there for me to do, so many places to go, people to be with, I think the person I most need to set free in my life is myself. 

(Image source 1, 2)

Have you loved and lost? 

Spring Memories, Spring Distractions.

I’m really loving the arrival of spring lately. Clear blue skies, sunshine, and flowers blooming. Even my neglected garden has sprung back into life, prompting me to start watering it again.  Because they had died, I’d replanted, then they died again, it’s been fun trying to work out what the heck some of the plants are!

Some are more obvious:

I’m pretty sure this is a type of lettuce, maybe Rocket or Coral.

I can’t wait for the tomatoes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some, not so much

When you plant, then replant with a random scattering of seeds, and they all decide to grow at once… good luck working out what is what!

I know there are some snow peas in there, some parsley, and possibly some kinds of basil. The rest are a mystery to me and all I can do is wait for them to grow a bit more obvious! There are flower plants in there too, so tasting the mystery plants might be a bit risky.

I did actually manage to grow flowers – but who can kill nasturtiums? These flowers are full of memories for me, they were everywhere at our place growing up.

classic Shalimar – didn’t waste any time checking it out to see if it was edible.

Although I love nasturtiums (and they ARE edible – did you know? You can eat the leaves and the flowers!) I really had to think hard about planting them, as they do tend to trigger a lot of memories for me, many of which are just not good.

Lately I’ve really been struggling with PTSD issues. More than I usually do, because it’s an ongoing problem for me. Part of this is because I’ve always been very connected to the outdoors, to nature etc – as a child more often than not I would escape to my own world that involved trees, grass, mud, watching willy wagtails and other birds, gazing at the sky, etc. So my adult life is a minefield of triggers, especially in the spring time when the natural world comes alive. This in turn is exacerbated by the fact that it’s just ‘that time of year’ when there are some pretty hard to bear anniversaries, plus the memories of things happening around those events.

Recently, a young family with kids moved into the house which has a backyard right opposite my back door. Also, a lot of backyards converge near my back door – lots of them having young kids. Every day, especially in the afternoon and early evening, the air is full of squealing and laughter, the sounds of little kids playing.  This is a truly wonderful sound that never fails to make me smile.

These days it’s more usual for kids to NOT play in the back yard, so it’s really nice to see and hear. But, for me, it’s a huge, huge trigger. Every afternoon I’ve been getting lost in flashbacks, no matter how much I try to stay in the present, remind myself I’m safe now, etc. Even good memories are all mixed up with bad. I end up losing a lot of time, or just crying my eyes out.

So I’m really glad I’m finally seeing a trauma therapist and look forward to learning how to take a lot of the pain out of this.

In the meantime, what’s worked best is trying to keep my focus on MY ‘kid’ being out there playing too. Late afternoon/early evening is the time I usually let Shalimar go out to play, while I keep an eye on her usually from inside while I do other things. I do sit out there with her sometimes, but I find it hard to just sit there for long!

She really likes it. A lot of the time she just sits. She also likes to ‘stalk’ the birds who often fly and perch just above her in the trees, and tease her!

And then I call her in for her tea, when it gets a bit close to too dark.

We’ve also been cuddling – this afternoon:

 

 

 

 

This is what’s under my covers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also have been making myself laugh – and today I thought I’d share some of the funnies with you. Today, a friend of mine was looking for halloween costumes for her little boy for playgroup. It didn’t take long for things to get hilariously cute! I think some parents must either be very hungry, or it’s just that babies can be so cute you want to eat them right up!

would you like fries with that?

Some amazing comparisons – who did it better? Let me know!

 

 

 

I think the people who made these costumes maybe should have had something to eat first! And I don’t mean the babies (or fur babies!)

See more awesome food baby costumes here!

As you can probably guess, it wasn’t long before I was looking for cat costumes, instead of baby ones. And Shalimar was NOT impressed. Especially when I thought I’d get her this one:

neither is Shalimar…

I haven’t worn a costume for years and years. Halloween has been a non-event here for most of my life, although I’ve worn some pretty amazing dance costumes.

I think I’ll be going as myself this halloween.. that could be pretty scary!

See what I’ve done here? I’ve taken the focus right off things like bad memories and flashbacks – and made myself laugh! I hope I brightened your day or night too.

Last of all, since I’m putting up a heap of pictures today, I’ll leave you with some of me – my hair is finally able to be put up in a (pathetically teeny) pony tail!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed finding the pictures for it!  Now I’m off to cuddle up with my kitty in bed again

How are you finding your spring, or your autumn, depending on where you are? What’s the best thing about it, and the worst?

Do you have a garden?

What is the best costume you have ever worn?

Have you ever celebrated Halloween – gone trick or treating, or to a costume party for example?

Image sources: 5, 7, 8, 9, 10