Suicidal blonde

I'm home
Back to cold, cold Ireland
I have to admit even though it's freezing it's a relief to get back in to jeans and jumpers
If I never have to get my arms and legs out again it will be too soon
I'm weary from jet lag but I'm kind of enjoying the sleep deprivation
At least I'm feeling something



I've been feeling strange since I came home
I don't know quiet know how to explain it
It's like I'm scared
I have a sense of impending doom
Like something terrible is about to happen
Everything is so overwhelming
From having a shower to leaving the house
Everything is too much
I'm still restricting
It's not good but I can't stop
I'm so afraid of where this is going
I'm literally paralysed with fear
I've thought long and hard about disappearing
Going over it in my head again and again
Trying to find an answer
I'm just so confused
Anxiety and depression are creeping in
I just don't know where to go from here
I want to crawl in to bed and never get up
Maybe I'm just not cut out for life
I'm not robust enough
My mental state is so fragile
Constantly on the verge of tears
Constantly about to break down
I can't handle reality
I can't handle life



I fear for my sanity
I really do
I'm terrified that my mind is breaking
Or that is already has broken
Am I going insane?
Is this what crazy is?
I don't know what to do anymore
I don't know how to fix this
I keep getting sucked back in to this illness
It just won't loosen it's grip on me
And I just don't have the strength to fight anymore
I think back over the last month and I'm not even sure how I got through it
There were days when I thought that I was cracking up
Days I thought would never end
I tried to enjoy myself and I did at times
But my eating disorder was always in the background
Lurking in the shadows
Ready to ruin it all
And it very nearly did

I have to do something about this before it's too late
Something has to change
I'm just going round and around in circles
Have been for years
It's tempting just to give up
To hold up my white flag and surrender
But I have to try just one last time
I owe myself and my family that much
I feel like such a burden on them
Emotionally
Financially
I'm like a child that never grew up
I'm sure they're frustrated
I'm sure they're sick of all this
I know I am
I  just want to give them some peace of mind
I want them not to worry
I want to be able to look after myself without their help
I want to be independent
But my eating disorder keeps me in this child like state
This twilight
This needs to end one way or the other
Or I truly will lose the plot
The last week of my trip I prayed every morning for help to get me through the day
I just didn't know what else to do



Have any of you been in a similar situation?
Do you have any suggestions or advice?

'An apple a day'

I've wanted to write a post for the past few days but I just couldn't find the words and just didn't have the energy
The crying continued for about 4 days straight
Anything and everything made me cry including a nature programme we were watching one evening
I continued to restrict all last week, dragging my weary body around Sydney
But then yesterday we were going on a 2 and a half hour bush walk so I made myself eat something
And I really had to make myself
Interestingly the crying stopped once I had food in my body
It was literally crying out for food
I haven't purged in almost a week
This would be a good thing if I were eating properly
Purging is a tricky business is someone elses house
And there are 4 of us here in a small two bedroomed house so the risk is just not worth it
I don't miss it at all
Not one little bit
Binging and purging is not an option when you have an audience



I think one of the things that may have contributed to my fragile state last week was my choice of reading material
I picked up a book called 'An apple a day' by Emma Woolf
Yet another eating disorder memoir
Emma Woolf is Virginia Woolf's great niece and wrote this book just as she was embarking on her journey to recovery
I could relate to her a lot
Her eating disorder developed at 19
So did mine
10 years later she is trying to recover
So am I
I cried my way through this book
For her and for me
But the thing I couldn't relate to was that she had managed to accomplish so much in her life
She managed to get through college (Oxford)
She had a lucrative career in publishing and she had a loving long term partner
I can only imagine what that's like
I suppose I have to remind myself that I've also had drug addiction to contend with
Which turns your life upside down and inside out
At the end of the book Emma had made great progress
She was weight restored
Eating a wide range of foods
And was trying for a baby
Although I enjoyed the book I was probably not in the best frame of mind to read it
These memoirs make for tough reading and you really do need to be in a good place

 

So it's Monday today here in Australia and I plan on doing very little
I also feel a little relieved as I don't have to eat either
Is it wrong that I like that?
I don't know if I've lost weight
I still feel fat
I haven't weighed myself since I left a month ago but Mary will be weighing me next week
I'm dreading that beyond belief
Going home is bittersweet
I will miss my sister but it will be nice to be home
To get back to normal
To have my supports
And I do need them
My eating disorder made this trip very difficult
It tried time after time to ruin it
And it almost succeeded
It whispered in my ear
It tried to break me down
It sapped my energy
But I kept going
I got through it
Just about

Anorexia

I know before I came to Australia I said that I would probably be posting less while here, but if anything I seem to be posting more
I guess I need the support as I don't have much here
No Mary
No doctor
No friends
And I don't want to worry my mother and my sister
So I'm trying hard to hold it together in front of them
I hope you understand



The last couple of days have been unimaginably hard
I've eaten once in the last 3 days
I just couldn't face
The fridge is filling up with my uneaten plates of food
Yesterday my mother and I went to Cougee beach
I woke up feeling very emotional and was fighting back the tears all morning
I knew I should eat but I couldn't
I wanted to I really did
We arrived in Cougee and went to cafe
I felt so overwhelmed as I looked at all the food
Baguettes
Pies
Carrot cake
Apple muffins
Brownies
I couldn't take it and started to sob
I went outside for a smoke and tried to pull myself together
I did and we went to the beach where I settled down with my book and cigarettes
My mother went for a walk

Here I was at a beautiful beach in an amazing country and I just couldn't appreciate it
My eating disorder was ruining it
All of a sudden I was crying again
Harder than I have in along time
My mother was busy looking around that she didn't even notice me until I started gasping for air
I tried to explain how I was feeling
Like I was slipping
Crumbling
Falling apart
Severely restricting
Obsessing over mine and others bodies
What I didn't tell her was that suicidal thoughts were rearing their ugly head again
Planning
Plotting
Thinking about disappearing
I just couldn't tell her that
She tried to soothe me
Calm me down
She said that she had noticed that I was eating less and less
I hoped she hadn't noticed
But she always does



I spent the rest of the day mostly crying
We were due to go out to dinner that night with my sisters parters family
Thought of it was too much to bear
I hadn't eaten in 2 days and I feared it so much
I decided there and then not to go
It was too much and I already felt so fragile
We arrived home from the beach and I went straight to bed
My sunburned skin stung and I enjoyed the pain
I hid from everyone and hoped they'd understand if I didn't go
But then and I don't know how, I somehow found the strength to go
I didn't want to but I made myself
So we all went out to a local restaurant
The menu consisted of sharing plates so we ordered a selection
This turned out to be easier for me
I could nibble little bits and not look out of place
It was much easier than having a big plate of food on front of me
I ate a little bit of Spanish ham and some cracker bread
I ate so little that I didn't feel the need to purge
In the end I managed to enjoy myself
I even laughed
Isn't it always the way that the anticipation of an event is always worse than the event itself

I thought breaking my fast would whet my appetite
But now I am back to nil by mouth
And I feel incredibly guilty
But it isn't enough to make me eat
Where is this going?
I'm not quite sure
Watch this space

Living on air

As you may know I am an eating disorder/food/mental health documentary junkie so I was delighted to find one that I hadn't seen on you tube
It was called 'Living on air' made by the BBC
It began by showing footage from the 'Minnesota experiment' some 50 years ago
A group of men were semi-starved for 6 months and the effects monitored
I had heard of this experiment in treatment
As the men lost weight they began to exhibit symptoms of having an eating disorder including obsessing over food
They began to isolate
Some tried to escape
Others are grass they were so hungry
One man became so distressed cut off 3 of his fingers with an axe







The documentary followed the story of 3 girls
Betsy, Hilary and Rachel
Betsy was a well spoken American mom who had suffered with anorexia since she was a child
She believed her condition was genetic as her grandmother had starved herself to death
Betsy was extremely worried about her 7 year old daughter who had begun to copy her behaviour
Betsy is fighting hard
She is in close contact with her doctor and attends a support group
I felt hopeful about her

Hillary was a 22 year old suffering from anorexia/bulimia
It was shocking to see her at four and a half stone
All her piercings and jewellry couldn't disguise her emaciated body
She had been suffering with the illness for 7 years and was preparing to go in to treatment for the 6th time
Even though she was in a desperate state I also felt hopeful about her
She was making good progress in treatment and within the first month her weight increased to 6 stone
Still very thin but it was a great start



But the story that broke my heart was Rachel
As her story began she was leaving treatment after a 6 month stay
Her third in 6 years
Although she expressed ambivalence about wanting to get well she remained hopeful and was due to start university at Cambridge
Leaving treatment she looked healthy and happy
But a few weeks later as Rachel returned to the treatment centre as an outpatient she had lost a considerable amount of weight
She looked and sounded a shadow of the girl we saw just a few short weeks before
She spoke slowly and looked so sad and lost I just wanted to reach through the screen and envelop her in a hug
She spoke of how things at home and school were tough and this was her coping mechanism
As we saw her at university she looked pale and gaunt
She said she felt that anorexia had 'tricked her'
That she thought that things were ok until it was too late
I wanted to cry watching Rachel's story
I could relate so much
In and out of treatment
Hopes raised and dashed
Recovery and relapse
The never ending merry-go-round
Or more like a ghost train
It's a sad reality that so many of us relapse time and time again
It's part and parcel of the condition
But I just felt so sad that Rachel had relapsed so quickly
Before her life had even really begun



If I think about all the people suffering from eating disorders it drives me insane
As I watched Rachel I wanted to shout at the screen

'Why are you doing this to yourself?
Stop!
Please stop!
Can't you see how beautiful, talented and smart you are?
Don't waste your life on this cruel illness
Stop, right now!'



But of course it's all too easy to tell others what they should do
When it comes to ourselves it's so much harder

Watching this documentary reminded me of my own time in treatment
Or should I say 3 times in treatment
I never really made much progress
On 2 occasions I was discharged for failing to continue to gain weight and the other time I discharged myself
I spent a lot of time on bedrest and continued to restrict, binge and purge
I remember one day a nurse caught me with a bag full of chocolate bars
I was so ashamed
I also got in to a habit of waking up in the middle of the night and binging so they started to lock the kitchen
Again so very ashamed
I would like to think that I will go back to treatment
Someday
When? I don't know
But I know that I won't go back until I know that I can give it 100%
I just can't right now

If you get a chance check out this documentary and tell me what you think