Gosh

Well thank you to all out there who cared enough to notice my absence. I'm writing this as an inpatient in a psych ward. Ended up cutting badly enough to lose 2 pints of blood and need treatment for shock, including bags of fluid. Luckily I'm ok.

I will be out of here Tuesday all being well. I don't have access to the internet really so I guess I'll update better when I'm free. Right now I cannot leave or I'll be sectioned. Fun, hey?

Hope you're all well xxxx

LIES

Ah, nice birthday but hard times.

Well I had a good day but I drank and I didn't let on. So now I feel guilty guilty guilty and scared that I'm going down a baaaaaaaaad road. I know this ALWAYS leads to serious trouble, and serious consequences. I need to get my head screwed back on and sort this mess out.

I'm shattered from drinking and not eating properly. When I drink I can't eat as much because if I let myself then I'll consume SO many more calories than I need, and I really can't deal with weight gain on top of everything else.

So I have another gig tomorrow night. Let's hope I can make it through the day without drinking.

I HATE LYING.

I HATE MYSELF FOR LYING.

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY

Blah.

Had a nice day, it would have been marginally better if I'd eaten a little more. My blood sugar was low due to my lack of food, and considering I was shaky and faint it was hard going on our 3 hour walk. It was beautiful though and I did eat lunch. Since we got back I managed cereal for dinner.

I guess the reason I'm not eating so great is because my weight is REFUSING to budge downwards. I know this is because I'm pretty small anyway, and right now I don't have a lot of muscle, so I guess I'm not burning the amount of calories I'm taking in and then some. I'm not gaining but then again I wouldn't expect to at this level of eating.

So I'm kind of tossing up between major restricting or trying to maintain, which is possibly scarier because when I eat more I end up getting hungry more, and that triggers the urge to binge.

Argh, decisions!

So yeh, it's by birthday tomorrow and we went for the most gorgeous walk today and saw some cool waterfalls. The dog had an absolute blast, and I enjoyed it too, especially as there's a lot of really rough terrain so I got a good workout. I'm shattered now but in a good way, and tomorrow we're going shopping and for food so I have a nice day to look forward to.


I REALLY want to drink.

Oh, the gig last night went really great. It was awesome and I got offered another one Tuesday. Yay! I kind of hate that we never have a set list and I have to improvise on practically every song. It makes for really hard work and a lot of concentration. If I zone out for even a few seconds I'm in danger of not following what's going on, especially when I don't know the structure of the song.

I shall post more later, when I have more thoughts...

EMPTY

I'm feeling empty tonight. I don't understand why a lot of the time I feel this knawing, hollow pain inside of me, and no matter what I do, it bugs me constantly. When I say pain, I guess I mean mental, I guess I mean sadness and anxiety. Other than that, I'm just great.

On the food front? I managed one meal today. Hmmm. I'll prob have some cereal before bed so that I can sleep. I HATE sleeping hungry, I find it near impossible. Plus my body freaks out if my blood sugar drops, and then I'm struggling with nausea, sweating, shaking, racing heart....not good at night when I'm trying to relax.

At the moment I wouldn't say I'm deliberately restricting much, I'm just not hungry much and if I'm not I don't eat. So I guess that means my intake could be more, but my body just doesn't feel like food. Ever since I started on the pain patches I have definitely had less of an appetite and have lost weight. I keep thinking how cool it would feel to push my BMI down lower, like if it was a point lower I'd feel better. Obviously I know this is bull. If anything I'd feel like crap, tired with no energy, grumpy, cold...right now I'm still well and at a weight where I don't get sick because of it. I just need to stay here!

Anyway, enough rambling...more tomorrow x

CONTENT

So it's a beautiful day outside, wintery and crisp. Perfect walking weather. Me and my furry friend just got back from a great two hour walk. I think I managed to wear him out. He's asleep on my furry slipper boots right now. Anything to get close to Mummy's smell, hey?! Silly dog.

In other news, I'm feeling pretty good today. I ate pretty normally yesterday, as drinking makes me RAVENOUS, and I weighed the same this morning. I've been EXACTLY the same weight for days now. That never normally happens; for some reason my weight majorly fluctuates. Maybe my body is happy here.

It's a fine line right now between me being 'healthy' and 'slim' and 'gaunt' and 'skinny'. I mean, I'm probably a stone under the weight an average person my height would be. However, I have an EXTREMELY small frame, like my bones are teeny tiny and I do not carry weight well, as I am the classic pear shape despite being small.

So I guess I can't trust my own judgement. Yet I'm SO much more functional at this weight, I'm calmer, happier, more confident....I guess because being heavier means I'm using bingeing, which means I'm purging, which means I'm anxious and angry, and constantly frustrated with myself. Plus I isolate REALLY badly when I'm in B/P phases, because I can't stand the thought of other people knowing how much weight I've gained. And like I said, it shows very quickly on me. I don't carry weight well at all as a little person. God I want long, lean legs!

So it's my birthday Monday and my OH is working Saturday so he can take the day off and spend time with me. I hope we can go for a lovely long walk in the country and go out for dinner. That would be perfect. I need to go into town at some point - I haven't done any decent clothes shopping in AGES and I feel like being girly and traipsing around the shops on my own.

I guess it would be nice to have a close girl friend here. I isolated myself so totally during the last few shitty years that I literally have no close friends now. And I don't know how to make them. I'm not good at close relationships, I'm not great at getting out, I'm confident yet shy... go figure. I have acquaintances but noone I would even consider close enough to go shopping or for coffee with. That's pretty sad, because I know I'm good company when I'm well. I guess people always FREAK when they find out how unstable and self-destructive I can be. Plus obviously people judge me by the terrible scarring on my arms. It intimidates a lot of people. Luckily I'm not ashamed of them at all and don't cover them up. I guess it's because I want there to be more awareness of SH as an issue that is seen as shameful and something to be hidden. I know that some people would like to bear their scars but don't feel brave enough or safe enough to do so. Perhaps by showing that it's ok to do so I can promote a healthier image of the issue. I think it's surprisingly taboo, considering the extent to which drugs, alcohol and food are singled out by the media as aspects of self harm or self abuse.

This post has turned out long. I guess I talk more when I feel good. There is a lot that I want to write about at the moment. For now I'll go get tea and see how the day pans out. I should really be practising for Saturday's gig. Whoops.

AN ASIDE

Oh and while I remember...

My weight is stable. Smile.
I'm eating. Smile.

Two ticks in the positive boxes.

Now to just convince my ED brain that I DO NOT need to lose X pounds in X amount of time or the world will implode.

AN UPDATE

I didn't feel much like blogging today because I knew I'd have to 'fess up to my awful night last night. It goes something like this:

RACE OUT THE DOOR WHILE OH TAKES DOG AROUND THE BLOCK
RUN SO FAST TO SHOP TO GET VODKA I HAVE AN ASTHMA ATTACK
GET HOME JUST BEFORE OH
START DRINKING
THROW UP ALL OVER MYSELF AND THE NEW FLOORING
CALL OH WHO FREAKS
PASS OUT
WAKE UP AND DEAL WITH CONSEQUENCES

So not fun.

Luckily for me my OH is AMAZING at forgiving me. It is heartbreaking to see that the trust he has in me right now when it comes to my alcoholism is pretty much ZERO. Who could blame him? But it sucks. I feel guilty, angry, frustrated, sad. At myself for allowing the demon to conquer me. I did SO well yesterday, nearly made it through...started drinking at 9pm.

WHY?!

I f*ing HATE it when I do it, I HATE the anxiety beforehand, I HATE the consequences...

Yet I still believe that drinking will make it all better, all go away, all numb.

Clearly not.

Missed my gig tonight because I was still throwing up. Lately whenever I drink I get really sick, I'm guessing because of the opiate based meds I take. It was a pretty yuck day.

So I have a BIG gig Saturday night and it's paid. Let's cross my fingers I stay sane and sober.

NO DRINKIES FOR L


I know some of you may not understand, or may find my actions frustrating.

All I can say is that if you've lived it, you'll understand.

And me now, compared to me previously, is a WHOLE new person. I used to be MAJORLY messed up. I guess I'll share some fun stories with you guys to let you into my past soon. I think you'd appreciate my sarcastic humour when it comes to my own idiocy.

I really hope you guys all had a better day than me.

Let's just say that a mistake is not a mistake if you learn from it....

Pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again x

BEAR WITH ME....

OK.

So there are plenty of people out there with HEARTBREAKING, HEARTWRENCHING, physical diseases...

And they need support, love, encouragement.

Of course.

yet, to this day, I have not been able to acknowledge that I AM SICK.

I AM NOT STRONG.

I TRY.

BUT I OFTEN FAIL/FALL/SLIP/SLIDE




Well. What can I say? I would LOVE to tell you all that today has been great and I have been perfect.

It would be SO EASY to say that.

NO

I DO NOT AGREE

I WILL NOT DECIEVE







I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY OF YOU RECOGNISE THE DIFFICULTY OF STANDING UP FOR YOURSELF WHILST DRUNK.

IT SUCKS.

I HAVE TO TYPE MY WORDS OVER AND OVER AND OVER

AND YET WITHOUT THEM

SO MANY OF YOU WOULD BE LOST

SO

THERE IS A REASON TO COMMIT. There is a reason to persevere, to succeed, to become more than a number on the scale.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT?

I CAN HONESTLY SAY THAT THIS IS ME. HOWEVER RAW I AM. HOWEVER SAD THIS MAY BE. THIS IS ME.

Please, all of you that are scared and afraid and stuck, reach out.

It will make bearing my soul worthwhile.

I BELIEVE IN YOU ALL. THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE X

Quick Question

Who out there finds pictures of SH scars triggering?

I know I did when I was deep in my destructive behaviours.

MMM.... CAKE

My sweet Mummy is the world's BEST baker in my opinion, and my childhood is filled with warm, crafty memories of needlework, claywork and BAKING with Mother!

What could be more comforting?

I adore my mother for teaching me to cook before I could talk. She was a stay-at-home mum and she had her share of challenges when I was little, but she was AWESOME at nurturing the creative in me.

I guess when I grew up as a middle-class child of the 80s, I had that experience of 'homemaker' but with the promise of a bright future.

My mum's mum died when she was 12 of breast cancer, and I cannot IMAGINE how hard that was for her to deal with growing up. Luckily she had a Nana to take care of her and her two sisters, but I think she was, as the eldest, expected to be the mother figure for the two younger siblings.

My mum has always been such a wonderful, healthy influence for me in terms of food and the nurturing, loving and compassionate bonding vessel it can be between two human beings.

I have vivid memories of her allowing me and my little sis to make our Mr Men biscuits (we had bright orange Mr Men shaped cutters) out of her left over pastry dough. Obviously we were allowed to help with the pie pastry too (cold hands, not too much flour, not too little, careful with the rolling pin), but sometimes it was best left to Mum, especially when she made her amazing almond pastry which is IMPOSSIBLY difficult to roll without cracking.

I have such fond memories of creating lemon butterfly cakes, jam tarts, mince pies, Christmas cake....gosh, including the year we discovered a layer of fluffy green mould on the Christmas pudding on Christmas Eve... only to rush out and buy a respectable one for the day itself!

I could write forever and ever on this post. It makes me warm and calm inside.

So how come, if my mother made food so beautiful and good, did I get sick from the fear of eating at all?!

I will come back to that one.

For now I'm simply enjoying and savouring my memories of precious childhood years with my amazingly wonderful mother.



So the point of this post is finally coming....

My mother has clearly taught me to bake (as well as to cook very well).

So I guess I don't need her now, right?

Well when she and my Dad came up yesterday, she brought me a Dorset Apple Cake for my upcoming birthday, on the solemn promise that I would eat it promptly!

Oh, the love, and the memories, and the nurturing instinct that is baked into that cake. Of course, it tastes WONDERFUL, but it symbolises SO MUCH MORE. Never mind that my OH has eaten most of it so fast that I thought I had a plague of angry mice :-). He is another big fan of my mother's cooking.

I feel like I owe my mother an apology.

She pretty much stopped baking for me and my sister around the time we decided we were 'too fat' for her food.

I know that hurt her.

I know she didn't make batches of mince pies every Christmas just to freeze them for guests.

I know she was sad when she didn't make a Christmas cake or pudding any more because there was 'no point'.

Both my sister and I have had MAJOR issues with food.

She is still very very underweight and I guess still in denial.

I am well, will eat her food every Christmas and remember why it matters so much.

But it must be crushing as a mother to have that food rejected by your beautiful babies, hey?

My baby sister is getting married in the Spring and I hope, so badly, that she gains some weight so that she can have a period on her own without the aid of pills....why!? Because I know she wants a family and I know that I would love to be an Aunt again one day soon.

I know this post won't make that much sense to many, but to me it is my mother's arms around me, and that's good enough for now.

Many thanks for reading x

I'm going to have a heartfelt outpouring, I can feel it coming on...bear with me!

I realise I have quite often posted my food and weight on here. Yet I often fail to identify with what is going on with my ED and how much of a grip it has on me sometimes.

Right now, and often, I feel huge. I feel bloated and uncomfortable and like I really don't want to face eating ever again.

Yet between these periods I battle the urge to binge when I am hungry, I worry about how to know how much food is enough, or not enough, or too much.

I struggle to 'sit' with feeling full at the moment without feeling guilty or anxious.

I freak if the scale moves upwards, feel happy if it goes down.

I have a 'goal weight' that is NOT healthy or realistic.


THESE THINGS SHOULD SET ALARM BELLS OFF IN MY HEAD.

And they do...and get lately I have been struggling to keep my head above water. I am trying SO hard to not give in to my ED. To nourish my body, be grateful for all it does to keep me alive, and respect that the damage I've already done is too much. That I cannot afford to restrict. It is too dangerous for my heart, for my bones, for my poor, damaged body.

I have to remember WHY I worked SO hard for SO long to recover.

Yet I still sit feeling round and chubby and sad.

What am I really feeling?

Scared that my life is stalling
Scared that I will never fulfill my potential
Confused as to what the above means

Afraid that I lost my chance at having a soul mate

Scared to take the plunge
Scared to break away
Scared to grow up

What now?

Just Keep Swimming

I have decided that, for now, I shall keep numbers on my blog to a minimum.

I would never consciously want to trigger others by posting my weight or how much I've eaten.

I am having a hard time understanding my ED right now and my relationship to it.

I went a long time as severely anorexic from when I was around 18-20. Certainly, I had an eating disorder much younger but this was the most acute phase, medically. I was, at one point, given days to live. I wasn't allowed to go IP because their insurance wouldn't cover me. They called me a 'walking death wish'. So obviously my choice then was go into a medical ward for an NG and refeeding, then on to IP. OR, do something about it myself.

I guess I freaked, decided to eat, tried hard... gained weight.

Eventually, though, I let it slide out of control and before I knew it I was bulimic. Full blown, B/P sometimes 7 times a day. EXHAUSTED. At the higher end of my weight range and DOUBLE my low weight.

Well, obviously...it's been a long, hard road back to normality.

For the last couple of years I have managed to stabilise myself to the point where I have eaten normally and had fewer and fewer periods of B/P. My weight was in a healthy range...I guess I considered myself more or less 'recovered'.

Only, here's the thing. Honestly, I see myself slipping sometimes. More and more restriction, less bingeing (great!) but more obsessional, ED related thoughts and behaviour. I have lost weight, yes. But this is usually a cyclical thing. Normally I lose, then I B/P for a few months, then I lose...you get the idea.

This time, well what I'm saying is that I think I just have to keep myself in check. My BMI is just about normal, I look healthy according to everyone around me, I don't look underweight or anything. I just want to check my behaviours now before I let myself go too far down a dangerous road.

I don't want to start comprimising my life again just for the sake of a few pounds.

Luckily I'm not in that dark place, and I know I often feel like going down that road. These days though I have seen how beautiful and amazing life is when you actually FEEL it and LIVE it for real. And I can't ever let myself slip too far. I guess it's a matter of life or death.


Well my day was good. I had physio, I had a meeting with an outreach lady, I'm planning on going back to the gym and am starting hydro again soon. So, yes, a good day.

It's been damn tough though. I have had many opportunities to go to the shop on our street and buy drink. I've come close. But I have the power these days to talk myself down to reality and convince myself that I am SO MUCH BETTER OFF without it.

And of course I am.

I forgot how ravenous alcohol makes me...all last night and today I've been STARVING despite eating a ton of food. No wonder I lost weight when I gave up my late night drunken binges.

So, the plan for tomorrow...have a laugh at my own expense with my new exercise DVD (I just got the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred). Bit scared of it to be honest because I'm a wimp when it comes to exercise! I'm pathetically weak at the moment and that's the worst for my joint condition. So I'm going to kick my own butt tomorrow! Wish me luck!

One last word: Do any of you have a question you'd like to ask me about my life? If so comment and I'll respond, and ask you one back. A little getting to know you...getting to know me...

Love to you all x

The Morning After…

Thank you all so much for your support and your kind words. You have no idea how much it helps me to pick myself up with those statements in my mind.

This morning I got up and made myself pretty. I have a full day and I don't feel too terrible from my drink-fest so hopefully I can get myself back on the straight and narrow and put it behind me.

I thought I should explain that when I said I was still sober yesterday evening, it was a subjective degree of soberness....

Meaning that I had been relatively drunk but still able to function and not SEEM drunk all day. Rather than crying/slurring/passing out drunk that normally happens when I drink that much in one go.

I am so damn glad I began to write this blog. Today is a good day.

The dog is standing over me looking over my shoulder at my post - I guess it doesn't matter if he knows I drank hey?! He's good at keeping secrets.

Love to you all x

Apologies

I will confess that today, no, I didn't do so great.

Seems ironic given my last few posts.

To put it simply:

My parents visited today.

I bought half a litre of vodka

to drown out the pain

drank it all

that's where I am right now.


It's sad, yes. The saving grace is that I spaced it out so much that I am still sober.

The worst part? I let myself down bigtime.

Luckily, I am the only person close to me that knows.

Neither my parents nor my OH know I've had a drink...

To some of you this may seem dishonest

But if you knew that you'd have nowhere to sleep tonight or for the immediate future if you told the truth, would you do so?

Perhaps you would. Perhaps you'd like to think you would.

But I've been there before.

I've had nowhere to go.

I've had noone.

And it's freakin scary stuff.

So right now, I'm going to forgive myself for using alcohol to numb the pain/fear/stress that comes from seeing my family.

And I shall wake up sober tomorrow and continue my abstinence.

Maybe to some of you this is not brave.

Perhaps I seem hypocritical.

But I believe that the difference between me now and the 'alcoholic' me is that I can admit my mistake, be sorry for it, accept that I did wrong, and learn from it...

Most importantly, I will wake up tomorrow EVEN MORE DETERMINED to stay sober and back on the track to the life I want to lead.

This does not have to end in tears.

I'm sorry if there are bloggers out there who believe I am in the wrong,

But to you I say that it is harder to ADMIT to your mistakes and learn from them, than to believe that you are perfect and continue to live a blinkered life.

Love to you all,

L x

HOW TO SAY?

Isn't it sick the things we do to ourselves when we no longer care? When our goal is fighting the self-destructive urges 24/7?

EXAMPLE: Burning yourself SO badly *full thickness* and in a compromising place *lower arm and hand, over the wrist joint* because you knew it would involve a skin graft operation, and you wanted one because you were bummed that they refused last time as it was self-inflicted?

Isn't that just so awful and sick and quite sad?

Yet at the time it was exciting, thrilling, numbing... attention....love....compassion.

Oh so much fear, so many tears.

I am forgiving myself.

But I will never forget.

And I am sorry to all those that suffered alongside me as witnesses to my pain.

Be thankful, whatever life brings x

WOOOOEEEEEE THE WIND!

IT'S MEGA MEGA WINDY, OH YEH! YOU GO WIND, WHIP UP A BAD ASS STORM! TEAR UP SOME TREES AND UNPLANT MY GARDEN!

Did I mention I love the wind? Only when I'm inside and it's not with me. Strictly to observe it reek havoc and play with the outdoors as though cars were made of plastic and street signs of paper.

Gotta love it. So long as the roof sticks good to the house.

I'm gonna catch me some wind vibes.

Laters x

REASONS WHY I'M THANKFUL TO BE ABSTINENT

1. I AM IN CONTROL OF MY ACTIONS - I cannot tell you how scary it is to wake up in the morning with amnesia and find out you have a broken hand, are black and blue and have a concussion from thrashing around and screaming like a murderous psycho for six hours in the psych room of A&E.

2. I HAVE A HOME AND A FAMILY - The threat of being kicked out is so REAL when I drink. My personality turns into a total evil psycho bitch and it has in the past led to BAD things...more of those stories another day. My OH WILL eventually leave. He has threatened too much for it not to be real. I have been on the phone to emergency social housing before, I have been left in the middle of nowhere 3 hours from home, I have been in an ambulance solo countless times.

3. I CAN CONTROL MY IMPULSES - I have not self-harmed sober in a year. The last time I did SH I nearly died. I cut through muscle and veins in my wrist and lost 3 pints of blood. I don't remember a thing except waking up in resus being told I needed a blood transfusion. More stitches, more family trauma, more threats of abandonment from my OH. I won't go on.

4. I DON'T WAKE UP FEELING LIKE DEATH - A blessing to get out of bed at a decent hour without puking, having the runs, shaking uncontrollably or having the worst headache in the history of the world. Also, I have a heart problem that is WAY exacerbated when I'm drunk/hungover to the point where it freaks me out bigtime.

5. NOT BEING TERRIFIED TO GO TO SLEEP AT NIGHT FOR FEAR OF DYING - Alcohol, Morphine, Benzos...every night an overdose, a litre of vodka....bad.

6. NOT COUNTING DOWN EVERY SECOND OF THE DAY UNTIL I CAN DRINK, OR LIE TO OH ABOUT HOW MUCH/WHEN. Probably the saddest thing is the deception. I was a devious little bugger and the word 'trust' is still a dodgy one in our house.

7. NOT BEING SO DESPERATE FOR DRINK THAT WHEN I DRANK VODKA STRAIGHT AND PUKED IT UP I DRANK THE PUKE TO GET THE ALCOHOL IN ME. What can I say? Most of the time I cried when I was drinking it because my insides were already burning and messed up totally from the incessant drinking. My liver would scream and my stomach would be on fire and yet I still drank on.


8. BEING ABLE TO LIVE - the joy of being spontaneous, having the energy and desire to have fun, to go for long walks, to read, to journal, to make music.

9. HAVING FRIENDS THAT I DON'T FREAK OUT/PUSH AWAY. Alcoholics are lonely, isolated people. Primarily because they lie and shout and do idiotic, impulsive things. I lost SO many friends who just couldn't deal with me anymore. They reached their limit. My OH was the ONLY person to truly remain my rock.

10. HAVING A FUTURE. Looking forward to the experiences of life I have waiting for me, instead of living in a drugged fog where everything I did was aimed at getting the next fix. For once I have a chance of being able to look further forward than a few weeks, with a realistic chance of being alive and sober.


Just thought I'd share....any other experiences from you bloggers you'd like to add?

Addiction Sucks. Recovery Rocks.

Peace x

SO? I HEAR YOU ASK

I thought that for once, as promised, instead of trudging through my dreadfully boring day-to-day existence, I will explain some of how I came to be in this position...FLASHBACK ALERT!

Think back to the year 1999... I was at the tender age of fifteen. The same year that I started having the dreaded 'curse' each month, or there abouts. I also started stressing more and more about why I was unpopular, chubby, ugly...you know the sort of banter that goes on in a pubescent girl's head.

I was ALWAYS an anxious kid. Everything made me freak out. These neuroses came from my mother, I swear. Silly things like we had to dry our hands before touching light switches so we didn't get a shock, we had to use a separate pan to boil eggs because the shells released deadly toxins....I really don't know how I didn't just sit in a corner and shake like a nervous wreck.

So how does that relate to my teenage troubles? I guess it just meant that I was very on edge and terribly self-conscious. Because I was constantly criticised and rejected at home, I felt like my entire circle of peers was doing the same. Of course it didn't help that I was murderously bullied.

Actually, the worst bullying incident I remember happened when I started college (age 17). Our college was across the road from a park, and sometimes we would skip class to go hang out there. Now, a gang of my supposed 'friends' thought it would be a great idea to torture me by wrapping me head to toe in duct tape, put me on the roundabout and leave me there to rot. As you can imagine, it was a pitiful sight and I have NEVER been so mortified in my life, considering these people who called themselves friends never bothered to come back. God, I cringe even thinking about how hard it was to hold back the tears while the only friend that stayed around pushed herself to me in her wheelchair and untied me. I feel so embarrassed even writing that story out....but it goes a way to explaining how alone and pathetic I was in my teenage years. Insecurity sure is a curse.

Anyway...back to school days. I got in with a bunch of kids who, like me, were pretty messed up about the world and how it had treated them. I had always 'hurt' myself for attention as a kid, without realising what it really meant. I would scratch myself or pour hot water on my arms so mummy and daddy would take notice and make me better. I would pretend to be ill ALL the time so I didn't have to go to school, and succeeded to the extent that in the year of my GCSEs my attendance was 30% and I was taking taxies to and from school. Anxiety riddled wasn't the word.

So yeh, I guess I knew from a young age that physical pain takes away the hurt inside and gets you love and attention from people who rarely give you what you need. I think this may have been a phase if I wasn't in said group of misfits. There were the abused kids, the bitter-alcoholic-single-parented kids, the poor kids. And I got really big time sucked in to their ways. Pretty much all of us had some kind of ED or were self-harming.

I remember the first time I seriously did it for real. I had contemplated it for months, agonised over it, wanted it to help for me like it did for my friends. So I took a compass and carved lines into my arms. I guess at the time it felt good. It took away some of the hurt and abandonment and deep, aching loneliness that a mucked up teenager goes through.

I'll leave the cutting there for now...don't want too many freak outs at once!

But I guess I should say that the summer of that year, before my final year in school, I was SO anxious (repeat pattern of 8 year old kid) that I couldn't swallow and I lost a ton of weight. When I went back to school in the autumn I was suddenly liked MUCH more. I guess being the fat kid really does suck.

Problem was, even though I had better friendships, I was still messed up at home every night and I guess I had already begun a cycle of starving myself and using physical pain to block out how hopeless I felt.

Cue Prozac, the cure-all for depressed kids, right? Well. Not really in my case but I took it faithfully. Still do.

I guess with all this mess around me I decided the one thing I would NEVER do is get fat. So I freaked out over my weight, dropped out of college and concentrated on my weight loss full time. Sad, hey?

Needless to say by the winter of 2003 I was down to around 68lb (pretty near dead) and was given days to live.

Now bear in mind that my loving parents had not mentioned ONE WORD to me about how terrible I looked, how I never ate, how when I wore 4 layers of clothing I was still a bag of bones.

I guess they stuck their heads WAY in that sandpit.

In a fit of craziness I prayed, and it came to me that if I didn't leave I would die. I remember being crawled in a ball on my bedroom floor sobbing because the pain my stomach was SO bad. I was GREY. It was scary, really scary. My hair was falling out in clumps, my periods had stopped, I had lanugo on my body. I had scars and bruises all over my back from obsessively exercising in my room.

I will still never forget how absolutely near death I was. I was so weak I could barely walk, let alone DO anything. Any movement made me exhausted. Like, the deep down, aching, painful tiredness like when you've just trekked all day and night in the snow. And did I mention the cold? Blue nails, blue lips...white fingers.

Enough. Back to my crazy escape - I packed my bags and flew to Australia to stay with my Aunt.

I will never forget the awful look of sadness on my father's face at the airport. He knew how sick I was, deep down, he just didn't know how to express it. His eyes told me he thought I'd die trying, I'd never come home...


This feels very convoluted and is pretty draining so I will pick up where I left off next time... at Heathrow waiting to board a Boeing 747 Singapore Airlines flight to Perth.

Oh and...

Oh, and another thing, how can it be that when I am lower in weight than usual I feel bigger than ever? My trousers fell down in public today. Damn.

One of those conundrums I will never solve. Maybe having a balloon of a belly isn't helping, hey.

Here's to a *number two* event.

SUGAR AND SAUCE

The only two things I've managed to get down me today - left over pasta sauce from last night's bolognaise, an apple and some sweets.

Rubbish, hey? Let me explain. When I was a full-blown bulimic I had terrible IBS and would often get bad cases of rush-to-toilet-or-else syndrome. Then of course my bingeing merged with the new-found joys of alcoholism and I found myself living on the loo in the mornings. As any alkie will tell you, not pleasant. How can your excretions smell SO much of vodka!? Eww. Makes me feel queasy thinking about all that time I passed trying to hold my breath whilst getting it over as fast as possible...TMI?!

So after all the drama of my ED and drink-induced bad bowel habits, I finally started to get regular and happy in that department. It's funny how things go in waves, hey? Just when I thought I might actually be NORMAL in one, small, private department...my doctor put me on a Morphine-based painkiller.

When people spy a patch on my chest/back/arm and ask me what it may be, and after I've told them, No, I'm really not trying to quit smoking, I tell them it's morphine and they go all funny-eyed and pass comment on the unpleasant *cough* 'constipation that seems to be an all-too-well-known side effect in my social circles.

Awkward hey?! I suppose it diverts attention away from the other questions about WHY I need pain drugs...which inevitably lead to me repeatedly spelling out the name of my condition, or shouting it in peoples' ears at the pub. It really irks me when they then proceed to tell me utterly brave I am, and how utterly terrible and crushing it must be to live like that...well, no, not really?! I have legs and arms and they work, don't they?! Funnily enough they don't talk to the guy in the wheelchair next to me at all. Strange how the world works.

So, today. Good in that I didn't do anything bad. A bit boring, actually. I suppose the dog getting me up at an ungodly hour to go for a pee was the highlight of the day, especially as we were both shivering and sleep-walking our way around the block. The sun hadn't even bothered to get out of bed. I swear Sunday mornings are like a ghost town where I live. Tut.

Anyway, then me and said dog retreated upstairs under the covers for a good few more hours, and woke up to glorious sunshine (hooray!). Unfortunately, my joints are being sucky today so OH took the dog out to play without me, boo. We did get out briefly to run a couple of errands, but otherwise it has been a hermit day. I have read too many blog posts, watched too much TV and felt increasingly bloated and uncomfortably about my football belly that REALLY needs to get moving! Just took some of the dreaded sugary-syrupy bowel mover medicine. Yum. It really is stupidly sweet. I generally hold my breath and swallow a gallon of water on top of it. I don't mind sugar but I hate sweet drinks. Even 'real' Coke sets my teeth on edge. Yuk.

My parents have decided to pay a VERY spontaneous visit on Tuesday *as in, only told me yesterday and have given me NO time to clean/tidy/sort out the mess that is our house*. Dear dear, it would be so much nicer if they warned me well in advance. Last time I stressed so much about my darling mother staying overnight that I spent WAY too long ironing the bedsheets (something I have never attempted in my entire life, before or since), only to have my mum in hysterics that I would think of doing something so daft. I probably would have been a better host had I remembered to get food and supplies in the house - as it was, we ate out. God bless parents and their supply of cash for such emergencies.

Been very quiet on the gigging front, and my amp is still broken, despite a desperate last ditch attempt to repair it today with a new part. I have conceded that I shall have no choice but to send it back for repair. I've had it a month, jeeeeeeeeez! What else could possibly go wrong in musical-instrument-land?! Well, my new keyboard has a sexy flight case that was custom made and I bought on Ebay for a scandalously good price. Thank the lord, as it would have cost me about £350 new, and I paid around £85 including postage. Bargain! It still adds up to around 36 kilos of dead weight though. Bearing in mind that's about 8 kilos less than me. Ouch. Heavy. Good job the band is made up of three males plus one weak, pathetic female, so I get away with murder when it comes to batting my eyelashes and looking useless in the strength department.

Tomorrow, then....dog walk, clean, clean, clean! Countdown begins. T minus 36 hours. Help!

Oh, and I reckon if I don't have babies I should be allowed at LEAST one more adorable doggy to ease the pain! I'm working on it...

Although G is SO my baby, don't think he'd take it so well.

Night all x

AH, THE SATISFACTION

I have had a really lovely day. It's not often I say that with entire sincerity. It's usually something I tell other people so I don't appear miserable, or something that I try to convince myself of when I'm trying hard to be positive. But today, NO effort, just felt happy!

I LOVE it when this happens. It makes me kind of sad that I am missing out on so much by having so many days where I DON'T feel like this - and what would my life by like if I had more days like today?

Well I guess I have to find out why today was so good...I got up on the right side of the bed?!

I managed to get my OH's new jacket and fleece in colours that really suit him, and we both bought new waterproof gloves for the coming wet weather. I got some waterproof socks too as last winter I kept pinching his! So we're kitted out for the winter. We both already have a ton of hiking and wet weather gear for going up mountains etc, but I can always find excuses to buy more!

Tomorrow hopefully we'll take the camper van to the waterfalls and spend the day walking. We can set up and have tea and something to eat then, so we have no rush to get home. The dog always has a ball too. Can't wait!

So much for the good weather though...it's been grey and blowing a gale all day!

Food wise? Good. Had quite a few sweets and two pieces of fruit (to balance out lol) and I made a gorgeous spag bol for us both tonight, packed full of fresh veggies. I have to say I cook yummy food when I can be bothered. Lately I have been having cereal for dinner way too much, and I used to cook from scratch every day. Must get back into the habit because it feels great to eat better.

I don't know if you guys across the pond get 'Come Dine with Me' on TV but I swear I'm addicted and they have just uploaded new episodes online on the 4OD website. It's a show where different people each night host a dinner party for a group of people they haven't met before the start of the week. Needless to say they deliberately mismatch personalities and there are always fireworks, coupled with a lot of disastrous food and bad behaviour! I know there is an Aussie version but don't know if you Americans and Canadians get it over there? It's highly entertaining if you like watching the public wind each other up!

Anyway, living in Wales will become wetter from here onwards...the autumn has set in and if last winter is anything to go by, we shall be facing snow for months to come. Brrr!

GOOD GOOD

Today is a great day in La La Land...

I don't know why and I'm not complaining, but I woke up feeling GREAT today, positive and motivated. Have already been out with my OH on a dog walk. Nearly got blown away in the miserable weather - the forecast was 22 degrees and sunny....it's probably 14 degrees and grey. Whoops! Good job we didn't end up going camping.

Do I'm off to do some necessary shopping...I was pissed because it was my OH's birthday last week and I ordered a really nice new Berghaus jacket and fleece. He is ALWAYS a size M and omitted to tell me that in this particular brand he is a size S lol. So one company will take the fleece back but I lose £10 on postage charges, and the other £75 jacket I have had to put on Ebay at a significantly reduced price. So we're off to a local outdoor shop to REbuy these items in the right size! Oh dear... lots of money and time wasted, but I want him to have what he wants, lol, he's pretty small and looks ridiculously swamped in the size I got. Next time I'll have to make it a non-surprise...

Hence why I hate clothes shopping for men - why oh why do they refuse to use dressing rooms?!

I also need to go to the Post Office to send the fleece back, and get my prescription dispensed. Busy day - then it's time for a jam session to get our shit together.

Weirdly I seem to feel bigger than I did a few months ago, despite being significantly smaller. My weight spooked me this morning.... 6.6.6. Oh dear! Creepy. Bad omen!?

I'm having a happy day. Isn't it great when that happens?

Thank you to all who commented about numbers. I am still mulling that over .

BETTER...

Today was much better.

Just wanted a quick opinion from you other bloggers out there - do you think it's appropriate for me to post numbers/lists of food on my blog? Sometimes I am hyper aware that posting my weight and other such specifics can be very triggering. I know myself that I am never triggered by other people posting weight, binges etc. But I want to be as conscious as I can that there are people out there who could be influenced, especially as clinically my weight is on the low end of normal and my eating can be pretty dysfunctional at times.

So, anyone have an opinion? Would be interesting to know your thoughts.

Had a great walk with the dog today and he met his best doggie friend. They like to chase each other until they flop, at which point they cuddle each other and lick each others' faces. It's so cute! He has his favourite friends, most definitely. He's scarily human sometimes. I swear we read each others' thoughts. Bless.

I managed to see my therapist today. She gave me another proverbial kick up the backside about getting out, and after my appt I managed to walk quite a way through a busy shopping district, buy some bits for the dog and change my library books. Go me! Hopefully I am pushing for my OH to take said doggie and I out for a long long walk tomorrow. We have a gorgeous waterfall we go to and it's very special being able to stand behind it and see the forest through a blur. The dog gets a bit freaked out and wet, but I'm sure it's a good experience for him!

So food wise...I did ok. Perhaps I could have spaced my eating out better as I had nothing until dinner, and then too many snacks in the evening. But overall it wasn't too bad, considering yesterday's disaster. And it is always so hard to pick myself up after a binge so I am giving myself some credit for progress.

Plus as my T constantly reminds me, I have come SO far in the past year. I've become abstinent from drink and drugs, I've completely stopped self harming, I'm no longer clinically depressed...in fact I think my bad moods are often due to frustration about not being in a place to do all the cool things at once that I want to achieve. I have to remember baby steps, baby steps....keep going forward and if I make the same amount of progress this year I could almost be classed as 'normal'! Whatever that is. Just not so obsessive would be good. And detaching my emotions from my weight and food intake. It's happening. It's just slow.

The best things come to those who wait...

Hope you've all had a good day x

BEING NICE TO ME

I think I need to take care of myself this evening and tomorrow. If I can forgive myself for this slip up then life will be much easier. I guess every time I pick myself up off the floor there is less of a way to fall and I fall less often. Progress, my friends.

Doesn't mean I'm not having a hard time sitting in my body right now. Yuck. I realise a couple of days of normal eating and my stomach won't be hard and bloated. Shame my distorted brain can't figure out how to believe this information.

So tomorrow - nutritious food and gentle exercise.

Be kind to L day!

YEH. NOT SO GREAT.

Well, ironically after speaking about how hoarding food can end up being dangerous for me...I binged today. Damn. I won't go into specifics because I still feel huge and yuck. But I probably ingested around 4000kcal in one sitting. I purged but I'm by no means empty. I still feel lethargic and grumpy from the sugar rush-crash, and my stomach feels like I swallowed a brick.

I am getting so much better, at this stage, to accept that punishing myself and feeling terribly guilty about this will only feed my negativity and cause me to get stuck in that awful, uncontrollable downward spiral of bingeing and purging.

So, damage control, even though I didn't really feel like eating (ironic, huh) I made myself a healthy meal. Unfortunately I purged that too. But it's better than what used to be stuff my face until I'm practically gasping for breath, get rid of as much as possible and wake up MISERABLE the next morning. Yah.

In other news, I don't know how to process the way I'm feeling at the moment. Because I'm isolating so badly at the moment, I have way too much time to be introspective and pick holes in myself. I'm getting that sensation a lot where I want to just put the covers over my head and pretend I don't exist. I am basically sabotaging myself, as I was gradually building a pretty full life, and now I'm terrified to go out without my partner or dog. I'm working on it...

My stomach looks and feels like a football, but I am at least going to give my throat a rest and not purge again. It already feels like razor wire. Side effects are NOT fun. Nor is bingeing. I actually don't know what triggered it today, other than the fact that last night I was super hungry and ate a little more than usual, which panicked me. It always amazes me that I then eat MORE in my anxiety, not less. Surely if I went to the gym or walked the dog miles instead, I wouldn't feel so gross and bloated?! It's a bizarre illness. Yet I am getting there. I will be doing some strength training tomorrow, whatever happens. I HAVE to start reintroducing a life into my existence, and getting toned and fit is something I love doing. It's rewarding and productive and gives me a focus. Plus I don't get obsessive over exercise so it's not a trigger for me to start losing weight. Probably because I'm lazy about working out, and a very good procrastinator! Ultimately the excuses for not doing it are only hurting me, noone else gives a damn if I'm exercising or not. So I have to try and be honest with myself and tell myself that I will feel mentally and physically better after a good workout. Which I DO.

I did follow through on lowering my pain meds but I'm having major trouble coping with the level of pain I'm in, especially as I'm feeling low anyway. It's just constant and deep and nagging. I am torn. I might just up my other meds as I have constantly been waking up in the night in pain, and I could really do with a decent sleep.

Will try and elaborate more later...I want to expand on the reasons behind all this dysfunction, but I keep putting it off because it's quite emotionally tough to write about my history. It's eventful to say the least!

Hope you're all smiling today, remember you are loved x

TORN

Well I've had a fairly good day. My mood has been quite positive and I've been less snappy. I cut down my pain patches as planned. So far I do have more pain but it's not intolerable. I guess it'll hit in the next couple of days when there's less in system. Fingers crossed I will feel the energy return! I'm sick of living in a drug-fog.

G (dog) got a really long walk this morning and the sunshine was gorgeous. It's October and I was seriously wearing shorts and a vest top. How bizarre. Granted I walk fast to get my heart rate up and that warms me, but still, it was sunny and warm. Why can't every day be so pleasant?!

Food wise, hmmm. I feel guilty about what I ate today, I feel like it should be less. I want to lose a few pounds and right now it's pretty unrealistic. I properly exercised for the first time in ages yesterday and woke up aching. At the start of this year I was super fit, loved the gym and had a toned body and no love handles. Now although I am actually a lower weight, I have many squishy bits, so I'm gradually reintroducing strength training. I miss being toned and athletic.

Food today:

4 Weetabix
Small serve pasta with veggie sauce
2 Apples
Kiwi fruit
Sweets
Giant white chocolate cookie.

Not the end of the world. But not great, especially as I am trying to ward off a binge right now. I have a habit of stashing comfort food away when I'm restricting, which inevitably means when I finally crack and binge, I have heaps of my favourite foods to binge on. I am working on this...but for some reason I feel safe and secure with the food there, even if I never eat it. Bizarre!

Hope you all had a good day. It's nice to feel like this gets read and responded too. I am doing better at responding to others. When you have no impartial sounding board in everyday life, a blog is a good friend to have.

MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

Well, a positive day. I managed to get a two hour walk in with the dog this morning, followed by an hour of strength training. Granted, I then fell asleep for two hours and woke up just in time to take the dog for a wee, whoops!

At the moment I am trying to learn to live within my energy limits, because I am so drained constantly due to the high levels of opioids I am on for pain. It's pretty disheartening sometimes. I managed to read a few pages today but before I started these patches I was easily reading 4-5 books a week. I miss it a lot.

Last week I attempted to cut back my dosage to 10mg/hr (from 15mg/hr), but by the next morning I was in too much pain to play the piano or walk the dog. It sucks, such a horrible balance to get!

So tomorrow when it's time to change my weekly patches, I will again try to succeed on just 10mg/hr, coupled this time with regular anti-inflammatories and paracetamol. I don't hold out too much hope but we'll see. I can also take Tramadol on top if I need to, but it's another opioid and sometimes I feel like I am overloading my system.

I guess at the moment it's about listening to my body, not getting mad when I'm exhausted and need to rest, and taking advantage of the times when I feel well.

Today has been much better eating wise, as was yesterday. Here's today's food:

Approx 10 boiled sweets
Small plate pasta with heaps of veggies in tomato sauce
2 Weetabix
Kiwi fruit
Apple

Not bad, hey?

It's my OH's birthday tomorrow so it's my turn to look after him. Hopefully he will decide on a nice dinner that I can cook for us both, because he HATES eating out. Which sucks because I adore it! That's probably because I am a good cook and do all the cooking in the house, so he sees no need to pay for someone else to...but in my opinion it's a nice break!

Well it's early but I'm going to bed, see if more sleep time makes me less tired! I have been addicted *psychologically* to these OTC sleeping tablets which are basically just strong anti-histamines that cause drowsiness. Even though I doubt they actually work, I have been taking them every night for a year. It is kind of expensive and it's not good for my body...so I'm going to try to cut down and eventually stop altogether. I get paranoid that I won't sleep without them, but to be honest why am I so afraid of being awake at night?! No idea. I guess it's because I started taking them after I detoxed off of alcohol and tranquillisers. Obviously on both of those a night I was totally passed out unconscious and never worried about sleep. So the OTC tablets made me feel safe, at a time when I felt totally overwhelmed having my security blanket taken from me. I guess I've moved on a hell of a lot in the last year and I need to give my body a chance to get into a natural sleep pattern....here's to trying!

As usual the dog has snuck onto my side of the bed whilst I've been on the computer and is looking way too comfortable with his head on my pillow, little sod! He sleeps downstairs at night in the kitchen but he spends all day and evening attached to me. It's kind of touching, the degree of love and devotion he has for me. Not that it's just one way - he is my world, my best friend and a constant source of unconditional love. He really gives me reason to laugh at the goofy things he does :-).

NOT BAD

I have actually done pretty well for me eating wise today. Now, ideally I wouldn't have had ANY sugar or eaten after dinner, but right now hooray for small victories. I have managed not to weigh myself in a few days. I'm afraid to in a way. I just don't want to go over 6st 7. I think I can sustain that without starving. So tonight I had 2 weetabix with hot water, an apple and three boiled sweets. That's cool I guess. I reckon I'm still only at around 1000kcal today.

Apart from that, it's been a lame day. I didn't make it into town, and I desperately needed to go to drop off a script and get a haircut. The fact that my hair is such a mess at the moment is making me want to hide away more. I will feel SO much better when it's done.


I backed out again this evening. I signed my dog up for agility classes a year ago and he finally got to the top of the waiting list last week. I was all excited and had budgeted the petrol and the fees and worked out that it would be feasible. So my first night was tonight. I didn't go. And I won't be going now, seeing as I wrote them an email saying to give my slot to someone else. Stupid, hey? I just feel like I couldn't commit to paying for 10 weeks up front when I'm having SUCH a hard time getting out of the house. I would do what I always do, stress for the whole week about it and make myself ill over it, and then end up not going anyway because the anxiety would be so high by then. Plus I don't really feel up to committing myself to any activity right now, given my inability to keep appointments.

The super sad fact is that I REALLY did want to do it. Again I chose the easy option and crawled into a dark hole. Well to be precise, I sat myself on my beanbag in front of the computer and blogged the evening away, all the while watching shit American TV to drown my sorrows.

AT LEAST I DIDN'T BINGE!

Tomorrow I really have to try and kick my arse out of the front door. After I walk the mutt I shall try and get into town.

We shall see...

Bad Memories

You know things are fucked up when the guy who is sexually abusing you does so in front of his 3 year old daughter, and her words are 'Daddy, you love L more than me'.

Broke my heart.

SUGAR

I'm struggling. Managed to drag myself to the supermarket with my OH. Wasn't that good but I managed to be RELATIVELY restrained. I managed to get cream cakes for him and resist that temptation. But I still came away with cookies, sweets and white chocolate. Damn. So far I haven't touched any. I guess I'll give in to the temptation with a few boiled sweets this evening but I'm going to try and hold off eating any other junk. In an ideal world I would manage not to eat ANY crap, but I'm not doing so great today.

Food so far:

Small portion pasta with lots of veggie sauce
Pear
2 Weetabix
Apple

Not bad.

It's the evening that always buggers me up though. I need comfort and I give up trying. Yet ironically it just makes me feel worse, and beats my self-esteem further into the ground.

I'll do my best.

Blank

I have gone 12 hours without sugar. Right now I’m NOT having a good day. I’ve already argued with my OH, who was REALLY pissing me off this morning. I won’t go into the boring details. Let’s just say he can be stubborn and is always right, if you get what I mean! Plus he nags me when he knows I’m already feeling like shit. Then of course I snap back because I can’t deal with it. I know that I overreact, probably a borderline trait but mostly because I am just impatient and stressy with him. And he is the same with me. I have a really bad temper. I get frustrated SO easily and I end up shouting at him when he doesn’t get what I’m saying. I know I’m horrible and he always forgives me. God knows why!? I’m lucky to still have a partner. I wouldn’t put up with me. Not that he’s much better!

So I’m already dying to comfort eat. I am feeling so miserable at the moment. I’ve actually had a great few months mood wise, and now I feel myself sinking back into depression. I HATE feeling like this, and I guess trying to get my eating on track is one pro-active step towards dragging myself out of it. When my body feels healthy and strong my mental state improves. Yet it’s so hard because when I’m sad all I want to do is snuggle in bed with lots of crappy food to cheer me up. Oh and crap TV, which means I stay in the house and don’t venture further than walking the dog. I took him out this morning and I was planning on going into town and trying to make my day a bit more interesting. But right now I can’t find the motivation to go out. I feel too anxious and totally overwhelmed with the world. I know that my CPN is coming to take me to the supermarket on Wednesday. A couple of months ago I would have been more than capable of going on my own. It’s a slippery slope. I’m having to force myself even to do gigs. I usually love playing. Why can’t I get myself up the hill?!

I think some of this might be to do with the increase in my pain meds. I started off a couple of months ago on Buprenorphine 5mg/hr. Then it went up to 10mg, now 15mg. I have noticed how tired and spaced out I feel most of the time now, and I have no energy to do anything. It’s like I’m in a fog and I’m apathetic to life. The problem is without the meds I can’t function, I can’t walk, I can’t take the dog out, I struggle even to play at gigs, particularly because I’m in so much pain in my hips, and at the same time my hands are cramping and giving up on me. I know I’m still in pain now, even on strong meds. But it’s a fine line between quality of life and being able to function on so many meds. There really is no answer. I go back to physio again next week. I have been dozens of times through the years and the best exercise for me has always been hydro, i.e. swimming. Yet even though there is a pool five minutes walk from my house, I can’t bear the thought of going alone. I have noone to go with, so I just don’t bother. Even though I REALLY would love to! I need to kick myself out the door ☹.

I’m so damn FRUSTRATED with myself! Any suggestions?!

I think I’m going to go back to bed. I can’t deal with life today.

OH GOD.

Two Bakewell tarts later and I'm MAD.

I get so ANGRY.

Want to rip my throat out so I can't swallow.
Tear out my heart to stem the pain.

Why does it even matter?

I need to get the reins back and TAKE CONTROL.

I HATE THIS.

I'm trying right now to persuade myself to sleep. I want oblivion so I don't have to face how bloated I am and how crap I feel. Sick, sick, sick.

Tired of all this fighting.

I NEED to lose 3lb and it's not going to happen like this.

Ideally I would get from my current weight of 91b to 84lb (6 stone). Last month I was 6st 3. That's 87lb. That would be beautiful right now.

What does it feel like to binge?

SCARY...GROSS...LOUD...

I won't be purging. It just triggers me to binge more. I reckon I'm at about 1800 kcal today. Way more than usual but still not devastating, IF I STOP NOW.

So action plan...

BRUSH TEETH, SNUGGLE DOG, GO TO BED WITH BOOK...

End of a crap day.

I feel like dying just to escape the pain. What's that all about? Bit drastic.

If I had some pills I would take them to get me to bed. I have some mood stabilizers that have an effect on me if I take too many, make me dizzy and sick, and really drowsy. But it really wouldn't be great to do that on top of the morphine patches. Danger...danger...

Earlier this year I was REALLY abusing them and ended up with pretty messed up bloods. So I stopped. Now it seems tempting.

WHY after having an ED for over 10 years and going through countless therapies, do I STILL feel so ashamed and so guilty for eating? Especially over indulging.

When I starve I feel POWERFUL AND ALIVE. STRONG. IN CONTROL. SUPERIOR

Right now I feel SMALL AND FURIOUS. VULNERABLE. WEAK. PATHETIC. INFERIOR.

Feeling full is too REAL. I can feel it too much. Starving is to numb my thoughts and my body. It is to cleanse myself of the dirt inside.

I want Vodka. I want endless dark.


I know this is the millionth time I've posted today. I guess I wanted you all to see the reality of how I am 'dealing' with this. I'm trying.

PLAN FOR TOMORROW:

NO GODDAMN JUNK. NO SWEETS!!!

I am addicted to sugar I swear, and it only makes me binge more. If I simply gave up sweets and nothing else I'd lose a ton of weight. I even eat them when I'm starving. In restricted amounts.

Food allowed tomorrow will include:

Weetabix
Fruit
Pasta and Sauce

If I can make it a good day then I should be ok. If I let myself go I'll be back in that vicious cycle of bingeing, purging and beating myself up with that 'fuck it' attitude. I screwed up so I may as well finish it. Eat what I want, ignore my body and my head screaming 'NO! DON'T! PLEASE!' and stuff my feelings down.

I don't want to do that. Seriously.

The only way is to eat well and eat healthily. I know that. It's damn hard though. I know I'll be shaking tomorrow when my blood sugar drops. I always get mad headaches and nausea when I try to stop eating sugar. I HATE IT. I always give in.

Maybe this time I'll stick it out.

I'm off to make tea and dream x

DAMN

Damn it, where is my self control? I just consumed yet another giant cookie. That's two today, on top of a gross amount of sweets. I feel like a whale.

Is it so wrong to want to be a mother? I missed out when I had my chance, when there was a child. Now it's passed and he refuses to allow me that blessing.

What to do...

Should I stay or should I go>

Later...

So…

I got so sidetracked earlier. I want to write until I am exhausted at the moment. Is that a good thing? Perhaps.

I haven’t done great with my eating the last few days. I haven’t exactly binged, but I’m terrified that I’m eating too much and will have gained weight. Today:

4 Weetabix with water
Sweets
Few squares white chocolate
Oatmeal and raisin cookie
Small bag baked crisps

I think that’s it. Possibly. I feel HUGE. Gross, my tummy is distended, I look massive. I love the empty numbness I get when I starve. Yet I’m going through a patch where I want to comfort eat and starving doesn’t work so well. I tried today. I am still fighting it. Without consequences I would have eaten the house today. Yet I know that it will NOT help. At all. I have managed not to be sick.

Just ride out the storm…

The dog is keeping me company.

I feel like I desperately want to see my therapist before Friday. It’s so far away right now. I am freaking out without a lifeline. Sometimes I cope without her, but I’m not doing so well at it right now. I miss her. I know that I want to drown my fears in alcohol. I would die for a drink but I’m on the Antabuse at the moment. I am trying not to fight against it. I guess it keeps me safe, but it also leaves me to deal with raw emotion. It’s hard work.

I am considering buying benzos online again. Not sure.

Part of me wants to burn badly so that I will be hospitalised and get another skin graft. I feel so vulnerable and want to be mothered, babied, taken care of. Yet I feel so guilty for feeling that way. It’s pretty sad that the only way I know how to get attention is to self-destruct. I really would like to be in a safe place right now.

ATTACHMENT AND REJECTION

3rd Oct

This journal is becoming decidedly self-obsessed. It feels like I moan about life to the extent that I am an ungrateful brat. Don’t get me wrong, I have a good life compared to many people. I have a partner who loves me. I have a home. I have enough money to live on. I’m able to express myself through my art. In that respect, I am extremely grateful for what I have. I just wish I could feel that gratitude more.

I spent many free hours today reading the journal of a beautiful young woman named Eva. She suffered from Cystic Fibrosis and despite transplantation, experienced Chronic Rejection and died earlier this year. Her journey was incredibly inspiring. Despite going through a living hell, she remained a light in so many peoples’ lives, and left a legacy in the form of an intimate documentary about her life. If you want to read about her, you can still access her journal at 65_redroses.livejournal. com. It brought me to tears on many occasions.

Why was it so hard to read? I guess because even though it puts my struggle in perspective, there are aspects of life that I do not understand. Here’s a young woman, the same age as me, with a chronic physical condition. Yet she is self-motivated, confident, charismatic, brave…so brave. She smiles through the pain and her strength is awe-inspiring. Then there’s me. Pretty capable, physically. Able to follow my dreams, you would think. Situationally I have a good lot in life, despite some medical issues. And yet I still wake up sad, I still struggle to control my urges, to not hit self-destruct. And I feel so damn guilty for it. I really do. I feel like I should have been taken instead of someone who clung so dearly to life, who wanted to thrive so badly.

Obviously I don’t want to die. I don’t. I love being alive, and every step I take is a positive one, towards a better future. What doesn’t kill me has made me strong. My life experiences have given me awesome perspective and the wisdom to pass my strength on to others that are still suffering.

I guess what I need to focus on right now are the positives.

Last night’s gig was awesome. I played and sang well, got lots of compliments and got paid at the end of it all. Always a bonus. Yet I still felt anxious, hollow, scared…sad ☹.

Gosh, I am whining.

I see my therapist on Friday. I haven’t seen her in over a month. I guess I have been avoiding her calls and not made appointments because I can’t face leaving the house on my own and bussing it to town. I have to see her though. She puts me in a better place.

The problem I have with her is emotional attachment.

I’ll try to explain. Having BPD I find myself often viewing older females in my life as mother figures. I guess it extends the opposite way too in that I fear older men and am extremely uncomfortable alone with a man.

So my journey with S started over a year ago. I met her whilst in a detox facility, being treated for drug and alcohol abuse. I was in a pretty bad way. I had been severely self-harming, to the point where I had almost died several times, and being in resus was getting too regular. I was actually afraid OF myself. Weird hey?

She ran a therapy program in the hospital and once I had been discharged she offered to take me on as a client. Of course by that time I had already attached myself to her emotionally and was almost honoured that she would want anything to do with me. We’ve been working together since last September and the further along we get in therapy the closer I get to her. Which also freaks me out, makes me want to push her away instead of having to deal with the eventual rejection when she decides not to see me anymore. Sometimes I want to be sick again so that she won’t leave me. I have a huge fear that when I’m seen as ‘better’, as well enough not to need therapy any more, I will crumble without her.

My whole life I have attached myself to teachers, youth leaders, older women in general. It is either love or hate. Sometimes I hate my therapist because I feel like she can control how well I am, and that when she assumes I don’t need to see her one week, it really affects me and I generally end up depressed and isolating.

I had a CBT therapist when I was 18, in an ED clinic. I HATED her. I actually really did. She would drive me to the point of sitting fuming in silence. I blame her for my OD at the time. I guess because she made me so mad and told me I was catastrophising and I wasn’t ever going to kill myself. So I attempted suicide out of spite. How ridiculous. Anyway soon after she dumped me on the psychiatric services, saying she couldn’t deal with my self-harm. Genius. Although I never ever liked seeing her through the two years we worked together, I was still devastated when she abandoned me. I phoned her and begged her to take me back and she point blank refused. It really hurt.

It sounds so ridiculous. Crying over the loss of someone I didn’t even like. All she ever did was accuse my dad of sexual abuse (which NEVER happened) or tell me she sensed a lot of ‘anger’ in the room. Plus she was very overweight. Now I realise that is a superficial comment. But treating me at 18 with an ED is tricky when all I perceived was that if I followed her advice and ate properly then I would end up fat and would be so distressed I would kill myself. See how things escalate in my mind?!

These attachment issues have got me into big trouble. I realise that it does stem from the experiences with my mother and father rejecting me emotionally in childhood.

I have always had a mother who just thinks that the way to deal with someone’s problems is to ‘buck up’ and just get over it. Despite the fact that she suffered from post-natal depression. She once told me that she just kept on living as normal, feeling that way, but telling herself that she wasn’t depressed, tricking her brain. She is convinced that this led to the disappearance of her depression. What became clear as an older child was that my mother had rejected me as a baby. She spent a long time when I was very young in a mother and baby psych unit and I guess that we didn’t bond. I used to hate her. Now we have a good relationship and she is more open about my struggles than she ever was when I needed her most. Both of my parents took the ‘bury my head in the sand and pretend it’s not real’ approach.

I remember my favourite teacher, who I was massively attached to, betraying my trust by phoning my parents and telling them I was cutting and burning. They flipped out. I was only 15. Yet their solution? ‘DON’T DO IT EVER AGAIN’. And we never talked about it until I ended up needing stiches a year later. At 18 I weighed under 5 stone and flew myself to Australia to stay with relatives there, because my parents were refusing to take notice. They just didn’t want to deal with it. So I was emotionally starved in times of great need. I remember being curled in a tight ball on the floor one night, crying in pain because my body was shutting down from starvation. I was too tired to walk, my body HURT, I no longer had periods. My hair fell out…the list is endless. And they never said a word. So I took myself out of the situation. I will post more about my anorexia/bulimia in another entry. I just wanted to give some context as to the extent of my abandonment issues.

I guess you could say that was bad. As was the torture of having my dad rejected me out of fear, embarrasment, shame…I don’t know what.

Yet I feel like one of the worst periods of my life was when I was doing my A-Levels. My parents actually enrolled my in college when I was still overseas. As usual they controlled my life. I was in a way glad to have a focus, and I loved it there. I had three years there and I got healthier in some respects. I also grew WAY too attached to a teacher named N, to the point where I would watch for her car in the carpark, and watch her in college when she didn’t know I was there. I was OBSESSED with her. I just wanted her to pick me up and cuddle me and melt away the pain. We were actually very close, as I was her favourite student and spent most of my time in her office. Yet I think it was unhealthy because I’d come home and spent my nights obsessing over what it would be like for her to adopt me, take me in and care for me. I was pretty numb when I finally left. Days when she seemed to reject me I would go home and cry.

Given that I was also being sexually abused at the time (I’ll get to that), I was always suicidal, crying in classes, acting out, being awful to the teachers. I was cutting daily, starving and bingeing, purging…the list is a long one. I really needed N to cling to. I guess I used her too much in some respects, but after my parents kicked me out I felt so rejected that I put more emphasis on my relationship with her. It was terribly bad for me inside, because often I would hate her for not noticing me more, for not taking care of me. Bear in mind she was only a teacher! These issues run deep.

The reason why my parents eventually rejected me and kicked me out? It started when I developed PTSD after being sexually abused. I developed severe eczema that was related to us having a family dog, who made my skin worse because of my allergies. Several doctors asked my parents to get rid of the dog because it was killing me. I had cellulitis around my eyes, constant eye infections, I could hardly see, I was bleeding all over, my body was COVERED in eczema. I was always on steroids and antibiotics.

Yet, still, my father was so attached to the DOG that he kicked me out instead of giving up the dog. I had nowhere to go and ended up living with strangers from church. Bear in mind I’d never even talked to this couple. And I was halfway through A-Level exams. It was pretty bad. I was psychotic from the stress and in a bad way. I guess that’s why I moved out and to a different country. A fresh start. University. Friends…

Subjects I have touched on that I must elaborate on:

Sexual abuse (two men)
My ED
Episodes of hospitalisation
The A word
Alcoholism and drug addiction

I will begin to fill in the blanks. I don’t think this is ever going to be remotely chronological but I will attempt to give dates. Sorry this post was so long. I feel mixed up.

SOME EARLY MEMORIES...

THOUGHTS...

Being very anxious as a small child
Having fears of the house catching fire because of my bad thoughts
Fearing going to school
Fearing swallowing food.

I guess that ending up with anorexia was probably preceded by the fear I had of swallowing ANYTHING as a child. Obviously I think this has something to do with my early fears of taking tablets and the fact that I was forced to take them, plus the fact that I was forced to sit at the table and choke down cold vegetables until I retched and cried. I guess I began to equate my mouth with shame and fear. I was also very vocal and learnt that people were often ‘annoyed’ by the fact that I talked too much and too loudly. I became very anxious about people disliking me for my talkative nature, and I often tried to hold off on speaking. I was very very self-concious and afraid of people rejecting me. I guess this fear was realised later in life.

The first time I remember cutting I was 15. I was in a pretty negative place. I was certainly depressed. I would come home from school and shut myself in my room so that I could cry in peace. I became very withdrawn and socially anxious. I was in a very damaging group of friends at school who all self-harmed or had eating problems. A lot of them had also suffered abuse or trauma. I guess I came from a stable, middle-class home and I always saw myself as the ‘sounding board’ who would never do something as ‘silly’ as cut myself. I guess I was worn down, I was very very unhappy at home and I tried it in the vain hope that it might work for me like it seemed to for my friends.

At the time I was quite chubby, although in retrospect I never weighed more than around 8 stone so I think nowadays I wouldn’t have been picked on as much. I was severely bullied, at home and at school. To my father I was a waste of space, worthless, a hypochondriac. He would tell me that he couldn’t talk to his friends about me because he was too ashamed to have me as a daughter. NOTHING I did was ever good enough, nor was it ever going to be. just recently I asked my dad what he would do in my position regarding whether I should take a degree course or drop it. In response he said, ‘if it were me I’d just do it’, meaning without all the heartache and drama that I seem to create. He simply cannot understand why I can’t ‘snap out of it’ and be better, just like that. In fact, I don’t think he believes that there is anything actually wrong with me. Rather that I just like to find excuses for doing nothing and for why my life is such a mess. I’m not the daughter he wanted, nor will I ever be. I am a disappointment to him always. As a child I idolised my father, and each harsh word choked me, each violent act forced me to withdraw further into myself and punish myself more for not being the person he wanted me to be. day after day after day he would put me down, tell me I was making up how I felt because I was lazy and wanted attention, treating me like he was totally ashamed to have me around. Even my mother was so ashamed of my cutting that until a couple of years ago I wasn’t allowed to show my arms when I’m with her. As I child I was taught that I should be ashamed. Ashamed to be fat, to be noisy, to be anxious, to be a cutter, to be ME. In retrospect I don’t know that anything I did would have been good enough. But as a child I tried and tried to be good, to please my parents. In turn I got more and more beaten down, and eventually it wore me into the ground. Hence the suicide attempts, the cutting, the ED, the BPD….the FEAR of being me.

I will get back to these thoughts. Obviously I just couldn’t sleep. My head is in a mess tonight. I want to break free.

UP/DOWN....AND AGAIN

Well what can I say? As usual things are going well but I don't feel good inside. What do I mean by that? I'll try to explain. Basically everything is, I guess, as it should be. My weight is stable enough and I'm not bingeing. I played a great gig tonight and got lots of compliments, including being asked out on a dinner date (not sure my OH was too impressed!). I've been able to walk the dog without collapsing in pain, and I've been taking my Antabuse regularly.

Yet...I STILL feel down, hollow, numb, empty.

Will I ever get to a stage where the good days outweigh the bad? Sometimes I really just want to black out the room, lie on the floor and pretend I don't exist. At least that way I can shut out the world. Unfortunately I can't shut myself off from my thoughts, and since I'm doing such a 'great' job at not using negative behaviours, I find myself stuck with a head full of crap that I don't want to deal with.

Take last night. Now, as an aside, I very very rarely cry. I'm not a girly girl, I'm not slushy, and I can't even remember the last time I cried sober. But I was watching a stupid documentary on school leavers' proms, and for some reason I was in floods of tears. It took me hours to calm down. I just felt like a scared little child again, and all of the pain and fear and shame of my childhood and how desperately unhappy I was hit me full in the face. It's not really something I've ever looked at or tried to deal with. I guess I have always tried not to look backwards, because it is painful and usually not productive. But suddenly I found myself SOBBING for the childhood I never had, mourning my loss and feeling like I've lost so much of my life that I'll never claw back.

I guess the saddest fact is that I'm 25 years old and I still feel like a vulnerable, scared child that cannot cope alone, and needs someone to support me otherwise I will crumble and fall. I know that I am STILL holding myself back from living the life I want to live, in terms of my career, my friends, my relationship...pretty much everything. All because of fear. I'm afraid to be alone, I'm afraid I couldn't cope, that I'd end up back in hospital. And the sad thing is I probably would, given my track record.

Gosh that all sounds pretty depressing. I guess relatively I DO feel good, and things ARE going well. I mean, last year I was pretty much in and out of the hospital (medically) from doing so much shit to my body...overdoses, alcoholism, skin grafts, drug abuse, severe self harm to the point of cutting through muscles, veins, nerves....I know that my poor body wears the scars of all the years of abuse. And there is much progress being made. It's just hard to stay positive when sometimes I just want to get off the rollercoaster and take a break from my emotions.

Well, I should probably try to focus on the positives, including the fact that tonight was wicked, and I sang harmonies as well as playing. I feel like my musical life is progressing well, but there are SO many things I want to do with my life and I am still holding myself back. I will post more about my desires soon....I just don't feel very coherent after a night of blasting my ears out with live music. It was kinda fun though, hey?!

I wanted to take the opportunity too to say THANK YOU to everyone that has commented. It means so much to know that I am not alone. I will be responding, I promise, I'm just mega tired and in need of my bed!

Much love x