Sunday 20 December 2015

Oh Christmas Tree...

I love Christmas dinner. Turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes and especially Brussels sprouts(they are little balls of vegetable joy, you're weird if you don't like them). For the last three years I have been in charge of making dessert, and I love pouring over recipes looking for something new and challenging to make. I see the meal as a marathon, not a sprint, and happily languish at the table for two hours, eating more meat as soon as there is room in my stomach. I look forward to Christmas dinner for 364 days; typing this I have visions of roast potatoes dancing in my head.

In four days my favourite meal will be in front of me, in all its festive glory. But this year instead of excitement, I have a growing sense of fear. I'm afraid because I have not kept a Christmas dinner down for nine years. Every December 25th I eat whatever I want, and then immediately excuse myself so I can go to the bathroom. If I eat a second plate, I'll return to the bathroom, dessert too. I think I spend more time throwing up food over Christmas than I do eating it. When I should have been enjoying time with family, laughing at terrible jokes from crackers and savouring the moment, I was instead focused on drinking enough water while I ate. Or worrying about how long food had been in my stomach, because I couldn't leave the table without interrupting a conversation. While everyone relaxed in the living room post meal, I worried that I hadn't fully emptied my stomach. Christmas Day was another thing I gave up in my pursuit of the perfect body and sense of control.

My recovery is still in it's infancy; I throw more toast in the bin than I eat, and that's with a Valium to keep my decrease my anxiety at meals. Food is still the moat important thing in my life, although now the focus is on eating it, not running from it. I'm too ashamed to tell you how often I think of giving up, it would be so much easier. So I take it one day at a time, one meal at a time. But I want Christmas Day to be different; I don't want to think about food at all on the 25th. I want to think about fairy lights, paper hats and Monopoly. I want to eat my Christmas dinner, and then a mince pie and feel no guilt. I am determined to have one day off from being a neurotic mess, and what better day than one I used to adore.

Saturday 12 December 2015

Going out

I don't expect anyone to understand what I'm about to say, although I think a few of you will identify with some of it.

Yesterday I almost self-harmed, which would have been the first time since I was in hospital in July. The urge was so strong I had to walk out of my house, because only a small part of me wanted to resist. The thing is, if I had given in I would have felt better instantly. Cutting myself is the quickest way to regulate my emotions, and it is guaranteed to work every time. It only takes a few seconds, and in a house you are surrounded with suitable tools. Not self-harming was obviously the 'right' choice, but my sadness and pain remained, until I eventually gave up trying and curled into a ball on the couch.

Your probably thinking something awful must have happened to cause such distress, but that wasn't the case.

A friend of mine is having birthday drinks this evening, and kindly invited me. I was excited to go, because she is a wonderful friend and I haven't seen her in a while. My usual anxiety around social occasions and leaving the house aside, I foresaw no difficulties with going. Until yesterday, when I started to think about what I would wear. Before going further I should point out that one of the 'coping strategies' my therapist has put in place is that I have to choose outfits for social occasions in advance. This is in order to avoid an hour spent changing clothes with increasing frustration, until I eventually end up in tears or refusing to leave the house. This strategy has worked in the past, so I went ahead and started looking through my clothes.

Since leaving St.Pats, my weight restored to a healthier number, I have struggled with my body image. Anything that draws my attention to it sets of a tirade of judgmental thoughts and feelings of intense shame and disgust. So things like walking, sitting, bending over...breathing...I essentially feel ashamed of and repulsed by my body from the time I wake up, until I go to sleep. Even then I sometimes dream about muumuus and heavy duty mobility scooters. Things got even worse after my last weigh in. Showering usually ends in tears, I've thrown out piles of pajamas because they had elasticated waists and I can't bear to be touched by anyone, lest I see the revulsion flicker in their eyes. That being the case, I wisely decided, or rather that masochistic ED voice decided, that I should start out by trying on a tiny pair of shorts. I know that these shorts are a size 6/8, I also know that they are high waisted, which I hate. But when I was at my lightest, they were gloriously baggy on my things and the material at the back sagged divinely where an ass should be. But that was 11kgs ago, I KNEW they would not fit the same. So of course I put them on. And that was that, my ED exploded back to full force.

Since short-gate I have been a ball of misery; I am still wearing, and slept in, the clothes I put on yesterday morning. I have seriously considered taking everything that isn't loose or over-sized out of my closest and burning it(then the rain started, stupid rain). The thought of going out, facing people, showing them how enormous I have become is terrifying. I want so much to see my friends, but I can already feel the mocking glances as I stand next to these beautiful women like some sort of before and after advert. That voice keeps telling me over and over that nothing I do will make me look any better, so what's the point in trying?

When I sat down to write this, my hope was that I would be able to look at the situation more rationally, once all the emotion was laid out in front of me. No amount of words can change how I feel about myself right now, my own and yours will fall on deaf ears. But there is a whisper, very faint, that if I let the shame and fear control me today, it will only strengthen their control. I'm still not sure what I am going to do, although fashioning a dress out of an industrial bin bag is currently the number one outfit choice. Maybe with a belt to jazz it up?

Friday 4 December 2015

Christmas

When I saw my psychiatrist earlier this week for my last appointment of the year, he asked me if I had an worries about coping during Christmas. I had never been asked it before, or thought about it, so I automatically dismissed his concerns and went on my way. Later that day, while wrapping a pile of gifts, the question popped back into my mind and I realised he might have had good reason for asking.

Christmas has always been my favourite time of the year; I love the decorations, buying presents and then getting buried under mounds of wrapping paper and ribbon. I spend hours baking festive treats, cutting out paper snowflakes and have an advent calendar of Christmas films to ensure everyday is festive. Even my dogs get advent calendars...and stockings...and wrapped gifts. Don't judge me, they are my surrogate children and I shall treat them as such. I left home when I was 18 so I have been free to decorate to my hearts content for the last twelve years, and I have done so with gusto. In summary, Christmas is the best thing ever.

But over the last few years, I have struggled more and more to get into the spirit of the holiday season. I started putting off pulling out the trees, and if I'm honest, mu rapping skills just haven't been up to scratch. This year, I feel about as jolly as a the Grinch before his heart grew three sizes. Sitting on the floor, measuring out paper and sellotape, I wasn't lost in the thrill of neatly folded corners and perfectly curled ribbons - I was irritated. There had been a definite drop in my mood leading up to December, which I was putting down to difficult therapy sessions. But maybe it was more than that; Could Christmas be contributing to my increasingly dark thoughts? Within seconds I was in floods of tears; those awful, ugly sobs that come from some raw place deep inside. Usually bringing a lot of snot up with it. Afterwards, I decided it was possible that this year I was not the happy/irritatingly cheerful Elf in training I usually am. Something about Christmas has changed for me, so in an effort to try and revert to form, I'm going to try and find the reason for my change of heart.

My earliest Christmas memory is a special one, because it is the only one I have before the age of five. I'm not sure exactly what age I was, but it was before my sister was born so between 2 and 4. I was in a car with my parents, still married at that point, and we were driving back home to Greystones(lovely little seaside town in Wicklow). It was dark outside, and the only real light was from the moon and the car's headlights. I was sitting in the middle of the backseat, leaning forward to stick my face into the front, and I was singing along to the radio. It was Driving Home for Christmas, and I remember laughing because we were driving home for Christmas(child's sense of humour remember?). Whenever I hear that song it brings me back to that car, and to the overwhelming feeling of happiness and love I felt at that moment. It's also the only memory I have of being with both of my parents and feeling utterly at peace.

When my parents separated, Christmas was divided in two. We would spend Christmas with my mother and then go to my Dad's until after New Years Eve. My parents had a horrendous separation and eventual divorce, but at Christmas they always called a cease fire - at least as far as we knew. I'm not ashamed to admit that as a kid I could see some benefits to the arrangements; we essentially had two Christmas days, one with each parent, and got twice as many presents. My parents always did everything they could(separately of course) to make sure we had the best Christmas, but for me there was always an undercurrent of sadness. I worried that my dad would be lonely on Christmas day, and then that my mum would be lonely when we left. I worried a lot when I was younger, perhaps as a result of being caught in the crossfire so much, or simply because I was a bit of a sensitive child. And of course, being a child, I had the childish desire to have a real family Christmas, like everyone else.

As I got older, that desire turned into relief that I didn't have to be in a room at the same time as both of my parents. I found my own ways to enjoy Christmas, and embraced it in all its gingerbread infused glory. Besides, I had my annoying but adored younger sister to wake up with on Christmas day. We would sneak into each others rooms and open our stockings together, waiting impatiently for our mum to wake up and take us to the presents. Then we would go to our Dad's house for more presents - we were the one constant in each others lives really. Until my mum and husband number two decided to move to South Africa and took her with them. I went over for the first Christmas, but it wasn't the same. I didn't know it at the time but marriage two was breaking down, creating a less than jovial atmosphere.

So after that I started spending Christmas Day with my boyfriends' families, mostly because their very kind parents didn't want me to spend Christmas Day alone. That only happened once, and if I'm honest, it wasn't that bad. You might be wondering why I didn't spend the day with my Dad; he offered, but my Dad's house has never been my home. I go to visit him, his wife and my brothers; and I have never been able to face the pain of being a visitor in my Dad's house on Christmas Day. Even though I haven't spent Christmas Day with my Dad in about 23 years, the thought of being a 'guest' is too much for me to risk. That's not a judgement of my Dad, it's just how things turned out. My sister eventually came back from South Africa, and like me started spending Christmas with friends and their families, until she moved to Australia. I don't remember the last time I saw her on Christmas Day. Again, not a judgement, it's just the way it is.

My mum moved from South Africa to Spain, and had come home to Ireland over the Christmas period a few times in the last 8 years. But I haven't spent Christmas Day with her since she left when I was 18...just the way it is.

Now I spend Christmas day with Alan and his family. They invited me over when we had only been going out for a few months, because they wouldn't hear of me being on my own. That's just the kind of people they are, kind and loving. Every year we have a great meal, a rousing game of Monopoly and I'm not a guest, I'm part of the family. But with each year I've spent with them, and with all of the lovely families who have had me over over the years, I get a little bit sadder that my family are so far apart that spending Christmas Day together doesn't even come into the equation. I think I miss that feeling I had, driving home all those years ago. Strange how you can miss something that was so fleeting.

Even in a room full of laughter and brussels sprouts, you can feel really lonely at Christmas. But perhaps it is time to let go of the ghost of Christmas past, and focus on the present, as its 'life upon this globe is very brief'.

Tuesday 24 November 2015

Insight

Over the last year I've spent a lot of time trying to explain my eating disorder to family and friends. To most people, risking permanent medical problems, and even death, in order to loose weight is incomprehensible. They don't understand when I tell them that I am fat. They assume I am fishing for a compliment, or reassurance. The reality is, you could tell me a million ways that I look fine, and I will never believe you. I can't believe you, because people lie. I know this because I lie, all the time. I lie to therapists, doctors, my family, my friends and to myself. It's much easier to keep quiet, wear a mask, than show people the ugly truth. But I want to help people to understand eating disorders, that's one of the reasons I write this blog. Understanding the problem is the only way to find a solution, or at least do damage control. Today I found myself in a difficult situation, but I am hoping I can use it to bring you inside my head a little bit.

I was discharged from my last hospital admission in July. On my last day I had a final weigh in and this, along with other information, was sent to my GP. I was to attend my GP monthly for physical monitoring, and my GP would then share the results with my psychiatric team. Two weeks after discharge I had my first visit, and in the space of two weeks I had lost 2kgs. As soon as my eyes took in the number on the scales, I felt dizzy with relief. That abusive, hateful voice in my head was blissfully silent for the first time in months. My doctor was less than pleased; a gentle but stern lecture followed and I promised to try harder. The following month, my weight stayed the same. As my GP explained the importance of reaching and maintaining a healthy weight, I was being torn apart on the inside. I was a failure, I was weak, I was fat and ugly. As soon as I left I started sobbing. The noise in my head got louder and louder, until all I wanted to do was rip myself apart, tear flesh from bone and let all the pain bleed away.

So I stopped going to my GP. My psychiatrist warned me that if I didn't go and see her, he would have me weighed in the clinic. I assured him I would go, but every time I picked up the phone I was overcome with fear. I am 30 years old and I am completely and utterly terrified of the scales. I won't even keep them in my house, which is unusual for someone with an eating disorder. Today I had to attend the clinic for a weigh in, after ignoring repeated requests to see my GP.

I woke up at 4 this morning, my appointment was at 9.30. For five and a half hours I sat in my kitchen, staring longingly at a glass of water and the coffee machine. I was thirsty and my mouth felt like it was full of cotton(a side-effect of my medication), but not a drop of liquid passed my lips. I was hungry, and I am supposed to eat within half an hour of waking. I threw my bowl of porridge in the bin. At 5 I took my dogs for an hour long walk, after which my head was throbbing. But I still couldn't drink anything. At seven I had a shower, after debating for an hour how much moisture my skin would absorb and if it would have a significant effect on my weight. I dried my hair until it felt like straw, because wet hair weighs more than dry. Clothes were next. Despite the cold, a string top was a definite and a bra was out of the question - I couldn't risk the 0.05kg. I always wear leggings for weigh ins, no excess fabric to tip the scales. But just in case I pulled out every pair I owned to find the lightest pair. This took about twenty minutes because plain leggings tend to weigh the same amount. But I found an old, worn out pair that are almost see through at this point. Ankle socks, obviously. I ran the hair drier over my hair again, just to be sure.

I was freezing in my worn out leggings and string top, but shivering burns calories so I threw on a jacket and headed for the clinic. I don't remember the 5 minute drive, all I was thinking of was numbers. I'm pretty sure I didn't check my mirrors once and my legs were shaking so badly I couldn't change gears properly. Thankfully, or regretfully, I arrived safely. In the waiting room I ran through every 'bad' thing I had eaten in the last 3 months. I ran my hands over my hips, feeling the flesh where there used to be bone. I moved in my chair, noticing how it was no longer painful to sit on a hard surface. I flexed my arms, stretching the muscles that were growing back where they used to be so beautifully wasted away. I pulled at my face, my neck, pinched my thighs. All the while feeling more and more disgusted and ashamed of myself. I had thrown away all that hard work, for nothing. I had given up when I was so close to being the perfect weight. People were laughing at me, the fat girl who says she has an eating disorder.

As much as I pleaded with the universe for the number not to have changed, I knew it had. Logically, I had been eating relatively healthy, high protein diet and combined with long, vigorous walks with my dogs meant I was slowly rebuilding muscle tissue. I knew my weight would be up, that was after all the goal right? But when I stepped on those scales, and saw where the pointer stopped, all reason went out the window. For a split second, everything inside me froze, and then my brain exploded into action. If I just cut myself a little bit, it would help. No, maybe we need to binge and purge? Definitely not fatty. Back to self-harming...no I'll get caught. I couldn't think through all of the screaming in my head. I hung my head as I left the clinic, certain the nurses were thinking I was a time waster. I didn't need weigh ins, I was a heifer. I had to roll down the windows to make it home safely, the rain pelting down was the only thing keeping my mind present enough to steer.

I wanted to crawl into bed when I reached home, curl into a ball and cry. But the eating disorder had other plans. I didn't deserve to lie down, we needed to plan. Check my new BMI...19.3? Ten minutes of staring in horror at the big, green HEALTHY WEIGHT on the screen. Another ten minutes of using online calculators to figure out how I could lose 2kgs in the next two weeks...twenty minutes checking how many calories are in apples, bananas, oatcakes. Then a walk in the rain with the dogs while looking at apps that calculate how many calories you have burned. Off come the leggings and on with my standard uniform of baggy jumper and tracksuit bottoms.

Finally, three hours after my weigh in I stopped. I had hidden my lumpy, hideous body under shapeless clothing, I knew what I needed to do to get back in control of my weight. Now I could sit and replay the moment I looked at the scales over and over in my head. That's about as good as I am going to get today, but the majority of my day will be spent obsessing about food. Ruminating over every morsel I ate recently, or that night I had wine, or how twice last week I only walked for 7 kilometers.

Maybe none of what I just described will make any sense to you, or maybe some of it will. I don't know anyone who enjoys being weighed and I know plenty of people who avoid the scales as much as I do. But I think the main difference lies in the intensity of our reactions to the situation - you might decide to eat less carbohydrates or work out more, I'll figure out how I can starve myself without anyone noticing.

Friday 20 November 2015

Treatment

I was discharged from hospital at the end of September 2014, after 8 weeks. During my stay, I had discovered the addictive high of starvation, self harmed repeatedly, and attempted suicide. At times my despair reached such devastating levels that I took to hiding in the tiny wardrobe in my room; this happened so often the consultant had to issue a note to the ward staff that I was allowed to use the wardrobe to manage my distress. At one point he suggested I purchase a cape, to offer comfort when I was out of my room; thankfully I had just enough sanity left to decline the recommendation. Sobbing in wardrobes was one thing, creeping around a psychiatric wars in a hooded cape was a bit to Phantom of the Opera for me.

When I was discharged, I was not 'cured'. My depression hadn't lifted and my eating disorder was stronger than ever; but as is often the case with BPD patients, they simply ran out of patience and solutions to my problems. In my experience there are two reasons why this happens. One is that the doctors and nurses begin to suspect you are lying about, or exaggerating your symptoms. The idea that lying is a characteristic of BPD is not universally accepted by professionals, and it is my biggest problem with my diagnosis. I have never exaggerated about my emotional state, thoughts or destructive urges. In fact the only time I have lied about my depression, is when I want to leave A&E and avoid a psychiatry referral. I have lied because I know the nurse sitting opposite me thinks I am a nuisance; or to stay out of hospital. Certainly not to seek attention or acquire a ticket to a mental hospital. Disclaimer: when it comes to my ED, I lie more than a banker at a tribunal. More on that later.

I returned home, back to the very kind and tolerant embrace of my local mental health team. Over the next few months I attended a day hospital as an outpatient, ended up in A&E six times for serious self harm injuries and more suicide attempts. I barely slept, barely ate...time kept moving but I remained rooted in the same painful spot. Large portions of my life during that time are lost to me, perhaps because I didn't have a life to remember, I just existed. Moving reluctantly from one day to the next with no destination. The only thing I had in my life that I could cling to was my new friend, restriction. That's what I remember most from that time, restricting all day until my boyfriend came home, and then throwing up after dinner. I structured my days around what I could eat, what I would purge and perfecting the art of lying so that nobody knew the full extent of the problem. Because it wasn't a problem, it was the only thing that got me through the day. If it wasn't for my eating disorder I would have been dead already. It was the only thing I had that brought me any peace, and I felt fiercely resentful of all attempts to take it from me. As I've said before, it became my best friend.

Sure my new BFF came with some downsides; I was cold all day, everyday. My joints ached, my skin and hair was dry and my gums throbbed from all of the acid. Then my white blood cells started dropping, and dropping and dropping...when it was decided that my immune system was compromised, my doctor took charge. I was once again referred for treatment of my eating disorder, but this time it was to a private residential facility.

Wednesday 11 November 2015

I was, I am.

Before I delve into the next part of my story, I wanted to give you more of an insight into the ball of neuroses that is my mind. But I wanted to do so with as much honesty as possible; no re-written sentences and deleted words. During one of my sojourns in a psychiatric facility, I did a stream of consciousness writing exercise. We were asked to write two pieces; the first as the person we were before our current mental health difficulties took hold, and the second as the person we were in that moment. I pulled the two pages out recently for the first time since I wrote them, and my beliefs about who I am have changed very little since that day. So I am going to share them with you, in the hope that you might better understand how I ended up where I did; or that you might see something of yourself in it and know you aren't alone in your thoughts. Bear in mind that I wrote this without thinking, so forgive me for the poor quality.

Then and Gone

I am a quiet, introverted girl who enjoys the simple things in life. I love curling up with a book. I like clean bed sheets and hot showers. I like holding my boyfriends warm hand and his lips on mine. I like talking to my sister and my dad, even though they are far away sometimes. I love crisp Autumn evenings and pumpkin carving. I love cold Winter days and bright Christmas lights. I love deeply and openly and I am not afraid to trust my heart. I educate myself in my spare time to exercise my brain. I like to cook and delight in food; a cold glass of rosé wine with a friend over a trivial joke or a deep conversation. I care about others and can put their needs ahead of my own. I laugh often. I want to see my friends. I listen to music. I love to watch movies for hours and discuss them at length. I make jokes, I work hard and am happy making my house a home. I like walking in the evening and then cosying up on the couch. I am friendly and can talk to others, and even though I'm weird, people like me. I have had some bad times in life but I have fought back and I am winning.

Now

I was born to parents who hated each other for most of my life. My mother tried to leave me when I was one. My father left when I was seven and then I became the hated one; the symbol of all that was wrong in my mothers life. She remarried when I was e;even and he didn't want me either because I wasn't perfect. At school I was the freak, at home I was the unwanted and in my head I became the ugly one. At eighteen my mother and sister left me and I was alone. At eighteen I tried to kill myself for the first time and I was sad when I failed. I have never been enough for my parents, I needed to be replaced with others. I have hated myself for as long as I can remember. I am lost, broken, disgusting. I am damaged goods. I have been beaten by woman and man for my crimes. I hurt people. My life is a series of failures with no end. I cannot remember what love is. I find no pleasure in life. I remain only to not hurt the few who still love me, but I am unworthy of their love. I am a waste of space, I am destined to die and I despise myself. It is all my fault.


When I had to read them out, I cried for the person I had lost. Grieved for her. I no longer mourn who I used to be, I have long since accepted that the old me is gone. Which is probably sadder than anything else I have written.

Tuesday 3 November 2015

Anorexia

In June 2014 I tried to hang myself; the depression, self harm and constant purging had become too much for me to bear. I have written about that attempt before, so I won't go into it again. Eight weeks later I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, for treatment of depression and an eating disorder. However as I was a danger to myself and at risk of self harm I could not be placed on the ED ward. Instead I was on a general ward, and other than a handful of meetings with the incompetent nurse who rang the ED programme, left to my own devices with regards to what I ate.

Restricted to the ward, with all sharp objects out of reach, I threw myself at the mercy of my eating disorder. The despair had eaten away at me, I was a shell of a person. I felt like I was walking around with a black hole in my chest, that devoured all the light from the world. MY mind was always racing, from one self-abasing thought to the next, faster than I could blink. I would have done anything to stop the pain, even if it was just for a minute. The part of me that belonged to the ED offered up a solution. If you loose weight, you won't be so worthless. Worthless, and fat and repugnant. If you skip that meal, it will be quiet in your head for five minutes. The hunger pains took the edge off my self harm cravings. Skipping meals and secretly vomiting made me feel like I was taking some control nack from the doctors and nurses.

I started to loose weight, but it wasn't enough for that voice. Every time they weighed me it would whisper, 'So close, just a few more and it will stop'. The truth is, that goal weight will always be just out of reach. Because you can always try harder; because you ate that piece of toast on Tuesday; because you just have to look in the mirror to see that you're still fat.

The more weight you loose, the more behaviours you engage in, the stronger the eating disorder gets. It's like a leech, draining your body to feed itself. While you waste away inside, it thrives. I could no longer look directly at myself in the mirror, or look down in the shower. The sight of my stomach or thighs made me want to tear into my flesh, to punish my weakness. I stopped eating altogether for a few days, because I knew that I could. The less I ate and weighed, the more I hated myself. I think most people have been self-critical, more than once, and for some people it could be a regular occurrence. I don't think I've met anyone who thinks they look perfect all the time; I mean rarely anyone looks good swimming underwater, except that Nirvana baby. But for me, I don't even have to be looking at myself to be critical. I just need to be awake, and even then, I regularly dream about how grotesque I am. Right now, as I'm typing, that little voice is whispering to me about how doughy my thighs feel when my legs are crossed. And how rounded my wrists look, and my pudgy fingers. I'll stop there, but you get the point. It never stops, not even when I get so hungry I can barely stand. But it gets quieter, when I do what it says.

I said before that one of the reasons I started restricting was because it gave me a sense of control when I felt so powerless. In reality, the eating disorder had all of the power. It was stronger than me, that little part of me buried under all that shit and hurt, and if I'm honest, I didn't but up much of a fight. Because there was one other reason to give in, the distant hope that if you push it enough, your body will perish.

Thursday 29 October 2015

Addicted

Shortly after getting my tooth removed, my weight loss plateaued. Purging and laxatives will only get you so far, as neither is very effective in terms of calorie control. The latter has absolutely no affect, by the time the laxative takes effect, what you have eaten has already been digested. There was a treadmill in the house, so I decided it was time to bring exercise into the equation. I was never into sports; I even managed to avoid PE class for most of secondary school. I was incredibly unfit, and a smoker(the more you smoke, the less you eat!) so in the beginning I struggled with a fast paced walk. Logically, I can see that this was to be expected: a smoker who lead a sedentary lifestyle and wouldn't even jog for a bus. But in my head, my laboured breathing and aching thighs were proof that I was still overweight. So I walked, then jogged and finally managed to run for 5 minute intervals.

Nothing happened, other than an increase in my lung capacity. But who really cares about lungs when your thighs touch? I needed to take it up a notch. I joined the gym and started doing weights, in addition to increased cardio exercises. I rowed, crunched, lifted and stepped until I was weak at the knees. I hated every second of it, I cried more than once in the locker room as I sat there heaving and sweating. My sole motivation for going was weight loss; to quiet the voice in my head that constantly remind me how disgusting I was; how weak I was; how pathetic. Unfortunately, my years of exercise avoidance meant that I knew nothing about it. I had assumed working out would equate to weight loss, it was basic physiology as far as I was concerned. I don't think I can really convey the devastation I felt when the number on the scale barely dropped. All of that effort, all of the pain and the early mornings has been for nothing. I was clearly eating far too much, I wasn't being strict enough when I was purging. It never crossed my mind that perhaps there was another reason I hadn't lost much weight. For the first time in my life I had toned and ever so slightly muscular arms. My calves and thighs were like rocks, and I could run at a steady pace without gasping for breath. Looking back, it's possible that the reason I didn't loose weight was because I had converted some of my body mass into muscle. Possible. But I couldn't see that at that time; it was just more proof that I was a failure.

I immediately quit the gym, if it wasn't going to help me loose weight I wasn't interested. Around the same time, I was experiencing some difficulties in work. I won't bore you with the details, but the situation was causing me a great deal of anxiety and stress. I knew of only two ways to cope with distress - self harm or weight loss. I chose the later. Within a few months I was purging up to 15 times a day, mostly in work. The saddest part is, I wasn't even indulging in delectable delights. My idea of a 'binge' was 4 rice cakes. By now my eating disorder had become my primary focus; what to eat and what to purge; what I could eat and when I could eat it; what lies I needed to tell to keep my secret; which pharmacy was next on the laxative rotation. I was like an addict, jonesing for my next fix and using my ED behaviours as a crutch when anything difficult or distressing happened. Focusing all my attention on food and weight also meant I could disconnect from my disintegrating emotional state.

As I have said before, I have struggled with depression for more than half of my life. It should therefore come as no surprise to you that as my ED spun out of control, my BPD characteristics reared their ugly heads again. Mood swings, irritability, depressive episodes, insecurities, impulsivity...not to mention the long list of dysfunctional thinking styles. For good measure, my body decided to join the party and began protesting my treatment of it. I'm not going to sugar-coat anything, so prepare for the ugly truth. My bowels no longer functioned on their own, I was completely reliant on laxatives and enemas. My teeth and gums ached constantly, and part of one of my front teeth broke off. Despite being on the pill, my periods became irregular. The skin on the knuckles of my right hand were so raw from rubbing against my teeth that they developed scar tissue - if I get too hot or cold my knuckles turn red and angry. My concentration waned and I was constantly irritable. My lows dropped even lower and my interest in all other aspects of my life dwindled. The acne I had suffered as a teenager flared up. I was permanently tired, and when I wasn't in work I was lying on the bed.

But what about the rest of my life? My boyfriend, family and friends? They were all secondary to my eating disorder, I no longer hesitated if I needed to lie to them to keep my secret. I had enough experience with mental health problems and knew myself well enough to know I was in trouble. But I couldn't risk losing the ED, it had become more than just a way to change my body, it was my best friend. And I wasn't willing to give it up for anything, or anyone. Even myself.

Wednesday 21 October 2015

Lies

When I moved in with my boyfriend and his family I knew I would have to stop throwing up, the privacy I needed to purge was gone so I had no choice. For a few weeks I managed to resist the urges, but as often happens when you're in the honeymoon period of a relationship, I put on some weight. Not much, I know that now, but at the time I felt like Violet Beauregarde after she eats the gum in the Wonka Factory. My self loathing was at an all time high; I alternated between mournful resignation and complete denial of my size. In the end, the ceaseless self degradation became too much to bear, and I gave in.

Knowing I couldn't escape dinner, I focused my attention on my daytime eating habits. Not eating at all wasn't an option for me, I lacked the willpower to restrict and I couldn't do my job properly if I was tired and dizzy all day. So I began to 'diet' during the day, eating foods that were low in calories and fat. After a week, I started running for the bathroom once I had finished my lunch. After a month I was throwing up lunch and the apple I ate in the afternoon. This still wasn't enough, I wasn't trying hard enough. I was pathetic; I was weak; If I really wanted to loose weight I should work harder. One day, I stood in front of the mirror and surveyed the disgusting blob I called home. Lumps and bumps in all the wrong places, flesh soft and doughy from my chin to my ankles. I was neither waif-like or curvaceous. I wasn't lean and athletic, or carrying the right amount of 'junk in my trunk'.

Unless you have experienced it, I don't think there is anyway for me to convey exactly what it's like to look at yourself and be truly horrified and repulsed by what you see. To constantly criticise and despise every inch of your body. That's not to say that being insecure about one's appearance only happens to people with eating disorders. I think most people have or have had some part(s)of their body they don't like, or wished they could change. I doubt you could walk more than 2 feet down a busy street without passing someone who is insecure about how they look. People of all shapes and sizes disike their bodies, it's not just those of us who have eating disorders; in fact we are probably the minority group in the body hating category. But in my experience, if you have an eating disorder, you fucking hate your body. You hate it to such a degree that you would rather destroy it than live in it anymore. Whether you are bulimic, anorexic, a binge eater, orthorexic or EDNOS(Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified *eyeroll*), your behaviours can and will kill you. But death is not as terrifying as letting go of your ED.

A couple of months after I moved in with my boyfriend I cracked, and two or three times a week I would make a beeline for the toilet after dinner. I didn't even notice when it became an everyday ritual. I did everything I could to hide what I was doing, which is to say, I lied my ass off. For me that's the worst part of the ED, the lying. But as much as the guilt tore at me, I couldn't tell the truth. If I did, people might try and take it away from me, they wanted to steal my best friend. That's what my ED was then, it was the one thing I knew wouldn't let me down. Purging for me was just like self harming; it dulled whatever overwhelming emotions I felt, it gave me control when I felt powerless; and if I did it right, it would help me loose some weight. It was, and still is, my safety blanket. People will come and go(there's that abandonment issue again), but the ED will never leave you.

Not every moment of my life at that time was marred with sadness, I have plenty of good memories, more good than bad. I considered myself to be 'well'; I refused to see the ED as anything other than a diet, and a companion. When things became difficult in work I just upped my game, soon I was throwing up anywhere from 3-15 times a day. Not even rice-cakes escaped, everything was on the clearance aisle in my stomach.

Other than suffering with IBS, at this point my overall health was unaffected. This was proof that I was fine, and if that changed I would immediately stop. Then my right back molar had to be extracted - the stomach acid had started to erode my teeth. The dentist assumed I drank a lot of fizzy drinks and suitably chastised me. I knew better, and as I walked out of the dentist office, crying, I told myself I was done. I had gone too far, and I believed that for about an hour. It was only a back molar, and it had probably been eroding for some time. Just like that, my promises to quit were gone. The crumbled in the face of the ED

Wednesday 14 October 2015

Phase Two

In 2012 I was 27 and I found myself single for the first time since I was 19. I also found myself in need of a new place to live as the apartment I shared with my sister was being sold. Happily, a casual friend of mine was also seeking a roommate so we rented a house together for a year. Before I get to the boring serious stuff I just want to say that I loved living in that house. Other than the fact that it was colder than the North Pole for the entire year, and that the shower mostly just dribbled water on you, it was a pretty fun year. I laughed all the time, made brownies in mugs, drank far too much wine and definitely ate too much Chinese food. But the best part was my roommate, who went from someone I saw on nights out, to one of my closest friends. Also one of my most understanding and patient friends, who never gave up on our friendship, even when I was so lost in my illness that I couldn't even be counted on to meet for coffee. Hell, she is still tolerating my unreliability while I struggle with my compulsion to be anti-social. So despite what I am about to divulge, that year of my life was a pretty good one.

At the beginning I struggled with my new single status. I was a serial monogamist, because without a boyfriend I had nobody to validate me, or make me feel loved. Even when my relationships were breaking down, and both parties were miserable, it was better than being alone. Even though I knew I could never be good enough for the other person, knowing they had picked me meant there must be something acceptable about me. So when I found myself without that emotional crutch, I floundered, desperate to find some way to avoid falling back down into that black hole. For the first few months I was single I threw myself into the dating game, or more accurately, the one night stand game. Just as I had done in college, I used sex to make myself feel wanted. I tried to tell myself it was all fun and games, the single life, but it started to eat away at me. The short term feeling of being wanted by someone paled in comparison to the self loathing and remorse that lingered for days afterwards. I needed something else, anything that would separate me from the emptiness and sorrow.

I had at this point been making myself sick on and off for 5 years. I knew that purging could lower the intensity of my emotions; I also hated my body and still felt massively overweight so the most logical step in my mind was to throw up more often. At first it was once a day, after my dinner. It was perfectly reasonable and safe in my mind, like being on a diet. Then I turned my attention to what I was eating during the day, low calorie soups and rice cakes entered my life. I started walking to and from work, just to get fitter. Weekends were different, because by Friday I was so miserable I turned to the one thing I knew would comfort me, food. You might be wondering why I kept on throwing up and dieting if I was still so unhappy. Immediately after purging I would get a burst of pleasure, many bulimics experience a 'high' after throwing up, which is one of the reasons relapse is so common. That high is addictive, it's like taking ecstasy, but the effects wear off much faster. The other reason is that in that moment, choosing to make myself throw up, I felt in control. For most of my life I had always felt somewhat powerless, bulimia made me feel like I was finally in charge of something, I wanted to loose weight so I was choosing to do this to achieve my goals. That feeling of being in control is just as addictive as the high. No matter what is happening in your life, you know you can do this one thing of your on volition. So I kept throwing up, and then I would binge on sweets and take away at the weekends, and throw it all back up of course.

The bingeing and purging unsurprisingly started to affect my digestive system, so I started taking OTC laxatives once a week. Very quickly I started taking the laxatives everyday, convinced that they would aid my weight loss. When the laxatives stopped working, I turned to micro-enemas instead. One a week turned into twice a week and then before I knew it I was using them every second day. I never worried about what I was doing,In my mind I was completely in control of the situation and I told myself that once I reached the right weight, I would stop.

I had always been insecure about my body, but suddenly my weight and size were all I could think about. All day, everyday, I would pull at the softer parts of me; stare wistfully at other women and their perfect figures; stare for an eternity at the millimeter gap between my thighs. IF I wasn't thinking about my weight, I was obsessing over food. What I had eaten, what I wished I could eat, how many calories were in that apple, what was eating later before I purged, what would I binge on at the weekend...It never stopped.

When I moved out of the house at the end of the year, I couldn't go a day without throwing up. As often happens with bulimia, my weight had stabilised, but I kept telling myself if I just stuck with it, it would start dropping again. At this point, other than a sluggish digestive system, my health wasn't being affected by my behaviour. Which, as I repeatedly told myself, meant I wasn't bulimic. So it was fine, according to Wikipedia, and we all know Wikipedia is the most reliable source of information on the internet. So in April 2013 I moved in with my boyfriends family, and I was 100% fine, other than being too fat.

Monday 12 October 2015

Food Equals Soothe

As I said previously, I had always believed my problems with food began when I self-induced vomiting for the first time. IT was only during my last hospital stay that I realised my distorted relationship with food started when I was a child.

According to compassion focused therapy (yes that's a real thing, and harder than it sounds), we have three main regulation systems for our emotions and thoughts: Threat, Drive and Soothe. Threat(Anxiety/Anger/Fear) is basically your fight/flight system, when we feel a threatened in some way this system kicks in for protection. Drive(Excitement/Motivation/Achieving) is when you are trying to obtain a resource or incentive, and Soothe(Happy/Safe/Kindness) is when you feel content, protected and cared for. We move between the different systems as we go about our lives, and we can quickly jump from one to the other.

For example, imagine you have to prepare a group presentation in work, and whichever team has the best presentation wins €100 each. You will most likely be fully in drive, focusing on the task at hand and the end goal - the €100 prize money. But what if Larry, who you've never really liked, starts to take over the project, refusing to listen to any ideas but his own. And Larry's ideas are terrible, really terrible. So not only will you not win the cash, your boss will probably think you had something to do with that sorry excise for a presentation. So your brain goes into threat mode, your self-preservation kicks in and you snap at Larry to let other people talk. Assuming Larry concedes, you will flip back into drive and start firing off counter ideas. Although you may keep one toe dipped in threat, just in case that damn Larry doesn't tow the line. So, Drive->Threat->Drive.

There are plenty of online resources about CMA, which explain it a lot better and more accurately than I just did. But hopefully you get the basic concept. How is this relevant to my ED? Excellent question Cyberspace, so I'll get back to the matter at hand.

My earliest memory took place when I was three. I was running down my grandmother's garden, being chased by her dog Daisy. I don't remember running headfirst into an apple tree during said chase, and splitting my forehead open. I definitely don't remember being brought to hospital and getting 8 catgut sutures, while bawling my eyes out(understandably). However I do remember being handed a Cadbury Flake bar. So I have fear of the dog(threat) followed by yummy chocolate(soothe). You're probably rolling your eyes at me, its just a dog and a Flake, although Freud could probably have a field day with it. As far reaching as it may seem, that moment was pivotal in my life.

When I was a child my house was a very scary place to be, my parents nasty separation being just one example. At all times I had a certain level of anxiety and fear, just waiting for the next attack, constantly in threat mode. Luckily, I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandmother, Joan. From the moment I was born she looked after me when my parents couldn't, and even as a teenager I stayed in her house regularly. My grandmother was the one person in my life who made me feel safe, her house was my safe haven, it was the one place my soothe system was activated. And like most grandmothers back then, she spoiled me rotten, in the form of sugar. My grandmothers house meant red lemonade and 10p bags of jellies, it meant 20p coins to spend in the newsagents. It was sitting up late with her watching Coronation Street, eating pink wafers. Tiny Mars bars or ice cream between wafers if I was good. Homemade jams, stewed apple and rhubarb with custard...Food meant I was wanted and that I was being rewarded. When she got older, and couldn't get up to make breakfast, she would leave out cereal bowls filled with pink and white marshmallows for me and my sister. Nothing could make a seven year old and ten year old happier than watching cartoons while eating a bowl of marshmallows.

When my dad left home my mother would sometimes bring us with her to the pub at the weekend. In exchange for our good behaviour my sister and I would be gifted with a £5 note to spend in the shop next door. We would sit quietly in the corner, surrounded by inebriated strangers, safe in our little sugar bubble. When I was eight or nine I started stealing money from my house. It started out with 5p from my mum's purse, or if the man she was seeing was over, I would rob every coin from his coat pockets. I also got pocket money from my dad, £1 every second week I think. If something particularly bad happened at home, I would take my money to the sweet shop near my school and buy flying saucers and red licorice whips to cheer myself up. I'd buy 100 cola bottles and eat them until I felt sick, because with every jelly I thought less and less about whatever had happened. Because in my little mind, I subconsciously associated sweets with the one person who made me feel unconditionally loved - my grandmother. So if I couldn't be with her, I would try and replicate that feeling of safety and contentment with food.

When I moved to a new house and school at eleven things got even worse. My shy, bookish and slightly weird personality did not fit in with my new classmates, or my family. Now I was miserable in school and at home, so almost everyday I would spend my bus fare in the nearest shop and walk home. The combination of a long walk and the limited amount of food I could buy with my bus fare meant my weight stayed the same. At home, it was toast. I would sit in the kitchen alone every evening, watching TV and secretly munching away. Food was not just something I needed to live, it was a way to push down any thoughts or feelings that were too intense, or a way to try and fill up the growing emptiness inside of me. At the time I didn't think that there was anything wrong with my relationship with food, but I deliberately used it to comfort myself.

By my mid-teens I had, for the most part replaced food with self harm. A slice of cake had nothing on the sting from a fresh cut, in terms of dealing with distress that is. The cake obviously wins the taste test. Using food as a coping mechanism is not specific to people with eating disorders, or personality disorders. I would go so far as to say that most people have turned to food for comfort at some point in their lives. Whenever there is a break-up scene in a chick flick, ice cream and/or chocolate will inevitably appear. It's perfectly normal to eat Nutella off of a spoon after a really shitty day at work. The problem occurs when you think the only way to feel better after that shitty day is a spoonful of Nutella. It's when you realise you're standing in your kitchen holding an empty jar and panicking, because now you have to feel emotions. It's when you never think of food in terms of nourishment, or family, or celebration, that's when it's a problem.

So while my eating disorder first manifested when I was twenty two, my maladaptive relationship with food started about 19 years earlier. Which makes changing my beliefs around food and eating even more fun. Rather predictably, I now have an overwhelming urge to go and buy cake, in order to block out the memories I recalled for this post. But I'd probably just throw it up, so why waste good cake?

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Bulimia

You might be wondering why, after writing so many posts about my mental health between the ages of 12 and 19, I gave brushed over the next 10 years of my life. From 2004 to 2014 I lived the same life over and over again. I would have a period of being well, then the depression and mood swings would return. I would self harm until eventually I ended up in A&E; be referred back to a psychiatrist; take more medication...round and round and round. Some of the characteristics attributed to my personality disorder were always, and will always be, active. There were however, three significant events during that time that I want to talk about. The next few posts will focus on one of them - the beginning of my eating disorder.

Whenever I have been asked when I started engaging in eating disorder behaviours, my answer is always: when I was 22. At the time I was in a stable relationship, working full time and through a combination of therapy and new medication I had been stable for a few months. I was also very overweight, and that is not an exaggeration or my eating disorder talking. The medication I was taking increased my appetite, and I doubled my portion sizes for every meal. Then my moods started fluctuating again, and instead of facing it I tried to pretend it wasn't happening. Then I started eating whenever my mood would dip to cheer myself up. I have always loved food, so in the short term this strategy was effective. I was filling that hole inside my heart with cake...and chocolate, and sausage rolls and...well you get the picture. As a result, I started gaining weight. But again, instead of facing it, I ignored it, and my weight skyrocketed.

I only have one picture of myself at my heaviest; in it I am wearing an outfit I'd had for a number of years but, as I had almost doubled in size, the flowing baby-doll top was now skintight and bursting at the seams. I don't know how I managed to ignore what was quite literally right in front of my face, but until the day I saw that picture, that's what I did. When I saw that photo, I was horrified and repulsed. My mood plummeted. I became depressed, my mood swings worsened and my fingers were itching to pick up something cold and sharp. I made half-hearted attempts to exercise, but after a few days I would always give up. I just didn't see the point in trying.

I was in the toiler in work one day, hiding in a stall trying to get control over a sudden onset of tears. I had just finished lunch, all I could think about was cutting, and out of nowhere I decided to stick my fingers down my throat. After several minutes my throat was burning, my knuckles raw from my front teeth and my stomach ached from the violent retching. It felt wonderful, that addictive combination of a silent mind and pain. So I started throwing up every lunchtime to help me get through the afternoon. All too quickly, once a day wasn't enough to quiet the tirade of abuse I lashed myself with every waking moment. As I ate breakfast at work it was easy to add it to the purge schedule. I quickly learned the tricks of the trade - ways to ensure I emptied more of my stomach. I didn't see the harm in what I was doing; I had plenty of extra fat to keep me going and really, it was just like taking a Xanax. More importantly, I wasn't self harming right?

I couldn't, or wouldn't, see any connection between making myself sick and self harming. They were completely different, the vomiting wasn't doing any harm. In fact, the vomiting was helping me. My clothes slowly started to become looser, I was actually loosing weight. It was just a diet, and like any diet you had to stick with it. So I started throwing up dinner, as much as I could without alerting my boyfriend. I never questioned why my 'diet' had to be so secretive, but it did. I knew I had to keep it to myself, or it might be taken away. By this point I couldn't go one day without throwing up, I was completely addicted to it. Even when my boyfriend discovered what I was doing, I wouldn't stop. I finally had a way to manage my emotions, to block out my thoughts, and nobody was taking it away from me.

Over the next few years, until about 2012, I would go a week or two without throwing up, but I always went back to it. I had lost a lot of the weight I had gained, and as often happens with bulimia, I hit a certain number on the scales and stayed there. It didn't matter though, the weight loss had always been a bonus. The purging gave me control; it was the only thing in my life I felt like I had any control over. But more on control later.

So that's how it started. Or at least that's what I thought. The thing about eating disorders is, they don't normally spring up out of nowhere in your twenties. The behaviour, the purging, started in my twenties. But I have come to realise that my relationship with food had been distorted long before that.

Friday 2 October 2015

Don't Leave Me

I attended the day hospital for six weeks in 2004, attending the same groups and covering the same topics as before. While the day hospital gave structure and routine, I came out feeling just as lost and directionless. I returned to work, took a room with a family my dad knew and attended saw my psychiatrist monthly. The appointments were just 15 minutes long and served only to review my medication, and check the box next to 'No suicidal intent'. Still, I took my pills and tried my best to get on with daily life, fake it 'till you make it. Over the years I have spent long periods pretended to be happy; smiled when I wanted to cry; laughed when I was picturing razors and rivers of blood; kissed when I felt dead inside. I worked so hard at faking it that sometimes I can't take the mask off, sliding it into place is as natural to me as breathing. Not once has faking it improved my mood(despite what countless therapists have said), but it makes other people feel better. If you know me, you've probably only seen my real expression because I've had way too much to drink, or you've had the joy of bringing me to or from A&E. Other than that, what you're seeing is probably an act.

Between 2004 and 2014 I continued to battle depression and self harm. I have no idea how many times I had to go to hospital for stitches over the course of those ten years; how many psychiatrists I saw; how many therapists I spoke to; how many suicide attempts I made. If someone else told me that they couldn't count all the times they tried to end their life, my heart would break for them. But the rules are different for me. On my good days, if I think about it, I chastise myself for being such a nuisance. On my bad days, I berate myself for being so utterly useless, for failing so many times.

I had periods of being 'well', months where I was not self harming or in need of medication. But self harm wasn't the only aspect of my personality that was problematic. I frequently drank until I passed out; I racked up mountains of debt through impulse spending; I hurt people I loved and I allowed others to hurt me. I had no control over my emotions, I could go from one extreme to the other in minutes. Nothing was ever bad, it was terrible; I wasn't just happy, I was delirious. Everything I felt, I felt it with an intensity that never matched the situation. I didn't just love you, I loved you and would die if you left me. And I mean that literally. I don't remember ever saying 'If you go I will kill myself', although it's possible I did, but I know that it was definitely implied on multiple occasions. I know how awful that sounds, and there is no justification for such blatant emotional blackmail. My fear of losing the one person who I couldn't live without far outweighed my morals. That would be yet another characteristic of BPD - tendency to form intense and unstable interpersonal relationships.

If you grow up in an environment where love is not always given, or is expressed in negative ways, the one thing you want most in the world is to be loved unconditionally. All you want is for someone to choose to love you, to fill that need inside to be accepted and wanted. As a child I often felt there was something wrong with me, that when bad things happened it was my fault, always. I remember being 7 or 8, sitting at the top of the stairs one night listening to the noise below, and feeling so very cold and unwanted. Once that feeling takes hold, that shard of icy doubt in your heart, it won't let go. We learn to love by being loved, and if your own parents don't love you, there is no way you can love yourself. To this day, age 30, I still can't name one thing I like about myself, let alone love.

So when someone comes along and loves you, not because they have to, but because they want to, it's terrifying. Yes, terrifying. Imagine yourself balanced on a tight rope, arms outstretched, high above the ground. You're halfway across and the air is still, the only sound is your own heartbeat. You're smiling, you know this is your moment to dazzle the world below. You slowly lift your right leg up and forward, and as you lower it back down there is a sudden gust of wind. You wobble, desperately trying to right yourself. Your arms are stiff, moving up and down to counter the motion of the rope. The rope stills, your arms once again stretched out straight on either side, the terror subsides. You mentally shake it off, maybe laugh at yourself to dispel any lingering fear. You refocus on the rope, on that right leg still poised in the air. Then you notice it. Somehow, during the commotion, you arched your left foot upwards. You are now balancing solely on your toes, your right foot is in the air. If you put the right foot down first you risk pitching forward. Equally, if you put down your left heel first you could fall back. You look down at the ground, down, down, down. The fall will most likely kill you, and if not the pain will make you wish you were dead. You freeze right there in the middle, one false move and it's all over.

Being loved when you don't think you deserve it is like being on that wire. One false move and it will be taken away, the one thing you want more than anything else is the one thing that can destroy you. Everyday you are afraid, of loosing your balance, of loosing love. You let the fear have control, you torment your partner with your insecurities. With baseless accusations. With your insatiable need for reassurance. The more they try to reason with you, to affirm their feelings, the worse it gets. You get smaller and smaller, as the relationship consumes you. You can no longer see yourself outside of the pair; you just want to make them love you every second of the day, even if you drive them crazy in the process.

It took me a long time to figure out who I was on my own, including a small relapse into the land of promiscuity. I still don't like who I am, but I know that I'll still be the same person alone. I know I can be alone, I don't need someone else to survive. Depression does not care what your relationship status is on Facebook, but neither does happiness.

Monday 28 September 2015

Snickers

Forgive me for the lack of posts recently, I have been struggling over the last two weeks and the keyboard was too daunting to face. Ironically, blogging is one of the coping strategies that help me stay on track when I'm struggling. Keep up the good work brain, god forbid you made sense for even a minute.

I'll stop the self-flagellation there lest I scare you away. If you are even there, perhaps I am just sending my thoughts out into cyber space, to drift unseen as 1s and 0s. Maybe I should throw in some flagged words so some analyst in a bunker somewhere in Idaho has to read my blog... Anthrax are a band I like; I also like to watch The Strain, which is about a scientist from the CDC caught up in an outbreak of an unknown virus which causes strange mutations. Heroin is a narcotic, according to the news it is regularly smuggled out of Mexico by drug cartels. Tijuana is a city in Mexico, I don't think they get much snow or ice there.

Okay I'm done annoying Tim from Homeland Security, sorry Tim.

North Korea.

Sorry, last one, I promise.

But seriously, a ridiculous number of those words are allegedly flagged. I mean have there been viable threats involving ice? Angry Eskimos? Hoards of ice cube wielding Yetis? *Gasp* Is Winter coming?

Back to the matter at hand, me being nuttier than a Snickers. After being kicked out of my college dorm I stayed in a hotel until I ran out of money. Then I slept on a friends couch for a while, trying to make it to the end of the semester before facing my parents. I had no hope of passing any exams so I didn't even bother opening a book. Instead I continued to self medicate with drugs and alcohol and slice my arms and thighs open whenever I could. As you can imagine my memories of that time are hazy, but there is one moment that stands out among all the chaos.

I was outside with a group of 1st year students I knew. If I'm honest, part of the reason I had initially befriended them was because most of my existing friends had come to a point where coursework was given priority over the more hedonistic aspects of college life. This approach did not fit in with my self-destructive lifestyle, so I needed new playmates. As a happy coincidence they were all interesting, smart and funny people.

So we were outside one day, sitting under a tree on campus. Everyone was laughing, joking, making plans for the weekend and I was sitting slightly back from them, enjoying the speed I had just sucked up my nostrils. As I looked at them I was struck by this overwhelming sense of loss, there was a sudden wrenching in the pit of my stomach and I had to close my eyes to hold back the tears. I realised that I was looking at something I would never have. This group in front of me represented everything that was lost to me - the future, possibilities, happiness. That was the first time I really believed that my suicide was a foregone conclusion. That it wasn't something that might happen, something to dream about when my thoughts grew to heavy. It was my destiny, the only mystery was when. It's a strange thing to accept your own death as fact, terrifying and liberating at the same time. After that day I no longer needed others to give me an excuse to misbehave, I threw myself head first into being as stupid as possible. It was a wonder I had any friends left, so many of them had to carry me, hold my hair or patch me up. Or just generally be in my obnoxious presence.

Luckily (or unluckily depending on how I'm feeling) I hit a speed bump on my way out of life. I had taken to smashing pint glasses and self harming in toilets on nights out. One night, unsatisfied with my attempts to cut my wrist, I decided to stab myself in the stomach. I won't go into the gory details, but it was pretty disgusting. At this point I was self harming nearly every day, I knew what I was doing. But every so often, you make a mistake. You press too deep, or whatever you're using was too sharp or you just got a bit too enthusiastic. Whatever the cause, there's a split second where you realise you've messed up and time actually stops. Everything freezes. And then it happens, before you can even blink its like the elevator doors opening in The Shining. If anyone reading this has ever self harmed, you'll most likely know exactly what I'm talking about. Well this was one of those times, I knew immediately I had gone too far. I was drunk, in a dingy pub on a night out and there were at least two hours of drinking left. So I did what any rational person would do, i wrapped toilet roll around myself and pulled back down my top and wandered off into the night. I lasted about 5 minutes before the toilet paper failed and I was rumbled.

I eventually allowed myself to be brought to A&E the next morning, where I was stitched up and referred for a psych evaluation. My mother was called, and after she spoke to the psychiatrist she told me that if I didn't sign myself into the nearest psychiatric hospital I would be sectioned. This was a lie, but one told with good intentions (I've only come to terms with that lie in the last year, it was a serious point of contention for many years. When we arrived at the hospital I was put on the closed ward, intended for acutely ill patients, including those who are a danger to themselves or others. As I was considered a suicide risk I stayed on the ward for five nights for assessment. My first time as an inpatient was both frightening, and enlightening. Fortunately my doctor decided to release me and refer me back to the day hospital programme I had attended the previous summer. It felt like I had come full circle and was back at the beginning, or the end.

Tuesday 22 September 2015

The Idiots Guide to Making Things Worse

From the moment I started my second year in college, I knew I was in trouble. From the outside it appeared that I was back on track after my 'difficulties' the previous year. I had passed my repeat exams and made it into second year; I was living on campus, which gave the illusion of being more suitable for academic success than rented accommodation; I had a part time job at a pharmacy to pay for day to day living expenses and I was medicated and seeing a psychiatrist monthly. I was now ready to move forward with the next stage of my life, a healthier and happier person.

If only life was so straight forward.

Six weeks of group therapy and some pills were never going to undo six years of using self harm to cope with emotional turmoil and distress. More importantly, they weren't going to erase the childhood problems that had led me to start self harming in the first place. Your past experiences are an integral part of who you are, and when I returned to college I was the same person. My fear of abandonment was now a reality. I had, in my mind, been banished by my family. I felt unwanted and this feeling fueled the cacophony of self-abusing thoughts in my head. Coward, damaged, disgusting, disappointment, failure, freak, lazy, liar, obnoxious, stupid, selfish, ugly, useless, unkind, uncaring, unlovable...unwanted. The self-loathing I felt was so intense that at times I felt it would burn me up from the inside. I knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with me, and no amount of medication would fix it. I was trapped in a loop; on one hand I understood that I was a bad person, and therefore couldn't to be loved or accepted. Yet I craved validation and love from others so much, that I hid how broken I still was, because people knew the truth they would rightly reject me. Please love me, even though I know you can't.

The mental pain I felt only intensified when I began living on my own. Almost immediately I began self harming again. Despite my six weeks in group therapy, I didn't know any other way to quiet the war in my head. Cutting myself became a way to survive my own thoughts, while also punishing myself for my imperfection. The problem with self harm, and most maladaptive coping strategies, is that over time they become less effective. You have to up your game, so to speak. Cut more often, cut deeper... eventually you need some other way to numb the pain. So I went looking for new ways to self destruct.

Let me be clear, the choices I made at that time were entirely mine. I in no way believe that my depression or personality disorder excuse my behaviour. BPD doesn't rob you of your ability to see right from wrong, and more often that not it will cause you to see things as good or bad in the extreme, there is no grey area.

As discussed in a previous post, I used casual sex to try and feel like I was wanted. Looking back I can see that one night stands, by their very definition, would probably make me feel unwanted. But I persevered, not linking my diminishing self esteem to what I was doing. And then there was the drugs. I started out smoking hash, although I rather quickly lost interest in it. It didn't stop the din between my ears and tended to make me nauseous. Ecstasy on nights out was a frequent indulgence, changing me from self conscious and melancholy to a happy, dancing twat. The drawback was the come down the next day, I always seemed to fall down much further than I had climbed. But speed, oh how I loved speed. I would snort a line anytime of the day. It made my head spin, gave me energy, made me forget why I was sad five minutes ago. I was in love with a narcotic, it blocked out all the pain and fear. It blocked out most feelings, other than the feeling that I needed more speed.

The problem with using drugs as an emotional crutch (other than the fact that they can kill you) is that they aren't actually fixing the core issue. In the short term they were the answer to my problems, but it was like putting a plaster over a gaping wound. It stemmed the flow temporarily, but eventually everything would start seeping out. You keep sticking more and more plasters over it, but eventually the whole thing is going to fall away, revealing the festering hole underneath.

I became more and more reckless, acting on any impulse without pause. I self medicated with drugs and alcohol, I abused my body through self harm and empty encounters, I tore away at the last vestiges of self respect I had and became a hollow, parody of myself. I was so busy self-destructing there was no time for academic endeavors, I attended three lectures over the entire year - the first one for each subject. I fumbled my way through the mandatory practicals, relying heavily on my lab partner to pull me through them.

Then, somehow, I managed to make things even worse. There are many versions of this story, several from my own mouth, but what follows is the truth. I was lying on the couch in the living room one night, smoking and watching television when I was supposed to be studying a years worth of printed lecture slides on the floor beside me. I wasn't completely sober, having stopped off at the student bar after printing said notes. As I lay there, alone, I looked down at the reams of paper and knew that I had no hope of passing my exams. It simply wasn't possible to cram a years worth of information into ones head in a week, and even if it was, I didn't understand half of them. I was going to fail second year, I would have to endure my parents disappointment again, and I had no-one to blame but myself. I pushed back the wave of panic that hit me, what was the point in panicking? This was just one more bit of evidence to back up what I already knew, that I was a failure. I felt nothing then, empty, but I was comfortable with empty. I stretched my hand out and very slowly pressed my lit cigarette onto the top of the pile. I didn't need the pages, they were better suited as an ashtray. I felt the last threads holding me to the world, pulling me toward a future life, slip away. I wish that was how the movie ended, a dark and foreboding final scene, the camera slowly closing in on my lifeless eyes before fading to black....

But a crazy thing happened, the pile of paper started to smoulder. I know, flammable paper, who could have foreseen such a thing? Interesting fact, a large block of printing paper won't burst into flames, but it will create a lot of smoke in a very short space of time. Queue me jumping up to grab the fire blanket(Don't ask, lets just blame the alcohol, flinging it dramatically over the paper, which just created even more smoke. My brain finally decided to join the party, I replaced the blanket with a pint of water, crisis averted. Or at least it would have been, if my flat mates hadn't come home at that exact moment to a hallway full of smoke. They were strangely not at all reassured by my attempts to explain the situation, and swiftly fled the scene screaming about carbon monoxide. And possibly something about me trying to burn the building down. Stranger still, when the accommodation manager arrived he refused to accept the explanations of the drunk, weird girl in the dog collar over the well mannered, pleasant girls from the country, and also decided I had tried to burn the building down. Should you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I don't recommend trying to defend yourself by starting any sentence with 'If I really wanted to burn the building down, I would have...'.

So, in less than a year I went from being 'back on track' to being evicted from my dorm under suspicion of arson, a guaranteed failing grade in every subject and my mental health was worse than ever, thanks to my brilliant attempts to escape life with mood altering substances. In short, I had destroyed what was left of my life in spectacular fashion. Looking back, I try and find some humour in what occurred back then. It does me no good to lambaste myself for something long since passed. But if you read this, and are struggling, numbing the pain will only work in the short term. Eventually whatever method you are using will stop working, and the sorrow and desolation will still remain, darker and hungrier than before.

Wednesday 16 September 2015

Mirror, Mirror

I'm stepping out of the past for this post and bringing you into the present, something I had never intended to do when I began this blog. It has always been my intention to share my story chronologically, in the hopes it might help others who have had similar experiences. I will return to that, but today I need to help myself with my blog, so forgive me for the inconsistency. I need to release some of the words buzzing incessantly inside my head, before they drive me down paths I don't want to travel.

I have been out of hospital for six weeks now, following nine weeks as an inpatient on an eating disorder unit. This was my second time in an ED programme, having spent six weeks in a private residential facility in January of this year. The first one didn't work out, obviously. When I entered the hospital in May I was just 1kg above my lowest weight, and had attempted suicide two days before. I was a voluntary patient; the combination of my ED and year long depressive episode had physically and mentally exhausted me to the point that I knew I had to get help, or die.

The programme on the ED unit had two objectives: weight gain(or loss if needed) and to help you take back control from the ED, on a psychological level. The later was done through group work on self esteem, nutrition, cognitive behavioural therapy etc. The weight gain was achieved through that revolutionary concept called eating. Each individual was given a meal plan, depending on their admitting weight and physical health, and if necessary this meal plan would be changed. Anyone who was underweight would, when physically safe to do so, be put on a plan that had an expected weight gain of 0.8-1kg a week. We were weighed twice a week, and if the average had not increased week to week, you would be moved up a meal plan. The higher the meal plan, the higher the calorie intake. We had three main meals, and three snacks a day - the size of your meal or snack depended on your meal plan, but all meals and snacks were eaten under nurse supervision and they were not optional. I remember the first desert I had to eat, a chocolate muffin covered in chocolate sauce. You think you can't get any lower, and then you find yourself sobbing over a cake. If you don't have an eating disorder I imagine that sounds completely ridiculous, but if have or had one, you understand how much I hated that brown blob.

So you had to eat what they gave you. Even if you really hated eggs, unless you had an egg allergy approved by the dietitian, you were eating those eggs. Bathrooms were locked after meals and snacks; fluid intake was monitored; all condiments were rationed; fruit intake was restricted; high calorie milkshakes were used if needed. In short, they had the weight gain process down.

So I gained weight, about eight kilos. I was still slightly underweight, but no longer in danger of my body eating my organs. Objective one completed. Objective two was a whole different story.

I have always hated my appearance. I honestly don't remember ever liking what I saw in the mirror, even as a child. They used to say in the hospital that if you stared at your finger for long enough you would find something wrong with it. I didn't need to stare at it, I could list three things wrong with it without even thinking. The part I hate the most is my face, I've spent countless hours daydreaming about plastic surgery. I used to cry at those television shows were they gave people who felt ugly new faces. I would have done anything for a new face. But, until I win the lottery, there isn't much I can do about my face. Other than use layers of make up to try and detract from the worst of its flaws.

Coming in a close second for most hated part of me, is my body. The entire thing, from my chin to the top of my toes. I could fill the screen up listing all of its flaws, but that's not going to be fun for anyone. But trust me, there is not one part of it that I like. Or tolerate. But unlike my face, I can change my body. Or at least the size of it. So that's what I did. If I had to be ugly, I could at least be thin and ugly. That way I could blend into the background, the smaller I was the less people would notice me. And if they didn't notice me, they wouldn't see all of my defects. So I became bulimic (there's more to it than that, but that's for another post), and then anorexic. Then eventually it was 'eating disorder not otherwise specified'. Which basically means I was a bit anorexic and a bit bulimic. Or, in my head, I wasn't disciplined enough to even have a real eating disorder.

So my weight dropped, stabilised, dropped, stabilised...and then went all the way down. Other people would tell me I was too thin, or that I was underweight, or my BMI was too low. I knew they were all lying, all I had to do was look in the mirror and I could see how fat I still was. Most people don't believe me when I say that, they don't understand it when I tell them I am still overweight. I don't understand how they can look at me and not see that I still need to loose weight. At my lowest weight, I knew I still had so much weight to loose. When I admitted myself to hospital, I did so knowing I would come out grossly overweight. But I had to make a choice between gaining weight and dying, and in that moment I picked gaining weight.

Since I have left hospital I spend 90% of my time in jeans, tracksuit bottoms and baggy tops. Everything must be loose to hide my chubby thighs, thick waist and protruding stomach. I have worn make up and put on dresses on three occasions, and each time I wanted to claw my skin off because I felt so self conscious. I have not looked at myself fully in a mirror in months. I can't look down at myself in the shower, I can only focus on one body part at a time or the pain inside threatens to swallow me whole. I have to accompany my boyfriend to a work event this weekend and I have already started to panic about what to wear - tracksuit bottoms are not an option. I didn't even own tracksuit bottoms until I was in hospital, now they are my favourite thing in the world other than pajamas. I am embarrassed when I see people I know, because somehow I know all of these gorgeous women, who always manage to look amazing on nights out. That's how I see them anyway, I'm not one to assume to know how they view themselves.

So here I am, I can eat food now. But getting dressed makes me cry. If someone else told me they couldn't think of one thing they liked about their body, I would want to hug them and I would hurt for them. But it doesn't work on myself. I'm not sure I will ever complete objective two, but maybe someday soon I can think of one thing I like about that finger.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

Therapy

After my suicide attempt I was released from hospital and sent home with my parents(well my mother, my father living separately of course). We went to meet with my psychiatrist in college and it was recommended I be referred to the nearest psychiatric hospital. I had no health insurance, so all of my dealings with mental health services would be through the public health system.

I was assessed by the hospital, although I have no memory of it, and I was registered as a day patient. This meant that I would attend the hospital Monday to Friday, participating in group therapy sessions. I was also linked in with a new psychiatrist in the local mental health clinic. I would remain a patient of this clinic for a number of years, but as it was a public service, the doctors would change every six months. This constant change, coupled with my intense fear of abandonment, meant I never fully trusted any of the psychiatrists I met. It also meant that despite records being kept of my visits, I had to repeat my history for each new face I saw. The years I spent under the clinic were like being stuck in a perpetual time loop, always being dragged back to the past.

The Day Hospital was terrifying at first; I was incredibly self-conscious and shy, which left me feeling awkward and uncomfortable at all times. I had also never spent time with other people who suffered with mental health issues. As there was only one day programme all of the patients in the group struggled with different difficulties, and were at different stages of their recovery. I freely admit that I was slightly apprehensive on my first day, fearing that the bi-polar patients and the young man with schizophrenia might erupt at any point. I quickly realised that my per-conceived notions of psychiatric illnesses were entirely incorrect, and that the people in my group were no different than anyone else. In fact, in some ways, they were better because they understood what it was to have your own mind turn against you. There was also a sense of camaraderie - we were all there because we were suffering, and we were all there trying to get help. That is not to say we all believed the programme would work, I certainly didn't, but we were willing to try.

I spent six weeks in the day hospital; talking, painting, writing, sculpting, talking some more. I did not come out 'better'. There is no better with mental illnesses and disorders, and even if I could have been fixed, a few weeks of splashing paint across a page wasn't going to do it. But my time there gave me an anchor while my medications were being tweaked, and a safe place to go as my suicidal urges slowly receded.

Throughout this time my relationship with my father had been strained; he did not believe there was anything wrong with me that hard work or a walk couldn't fix, and he was vehemently opposed to me taking medication. When I was discharged, my parents assumed I had put all of my nonsense behind me and I was expected to get my life firmly back on track. I re-took and passed my first year exams, allowing me to begin the second year of my degree that September. My dad found me a job working in a friends pharmacy, as I had left my data entry job in a bank after my suicide attempt. College, job - as far as everyone was concerned I was back to being a normal, sane person.

But the thing my parents forgot, or rather didn't know, was that I had not been 'normal' for a long time. They believed my suicide attempt was a result of stress, that I had become overwhelmed in college and this had caused my depression. I know the college psychiatrist told them my diagnosis, but it was forgotten the moment it was heard. For my part, I did nothing to alert them to my continuing problems. Primarily because I wanted to avoid any more confrontations with them, but also because I hadn't stopped self harming and I wasn't willing to give it up. I was still struggling with intense and frequent mood swings, anxiety and depression. The medication and therapy had done nothing to change the thoughts and emotions that thundered inside my skull, so self harming was the only effective tool in my arsenal. So I kept quiet, plastered a smile on my face, and waited. Waited for that black wave to pull me under again; death was coming, I just had to wait.

Before I started my second year of college, my mother, step-father and sister moved to South Africa. They certainly(and understandably) weren't going to give the crazy 18 year old free reign in their house, so my dad paid for me to move into on-campus accommodation. If you asked me to list the most significant moments in my life, their departure would definitely be included. On a rational level, since my step-father had retired they wanted a change of scenery, an adventure somewhere warm. I was starting my second year of college so going with them was impossible, and I had no interest in living in South Africa. Oh if only rational thought reigned supreme in my mind. To me, emotional mind running rampant of course, this was yet another rejection. My father had left me as a child, my step-father had openly rejected me and now my mother was abandoning me. To me, this was her way of telling me she didn't want me. This led to my next conclusion; I was living on campus because my dad didn't want me in his house. I had always known I was unwanted and unloved and now I had proof.

My first night in my new dorm I cried my eyes out. I cried from loneliness. I cried from fear. I cried because I couldn't stand my own company, but I was all I had.

And then second year started, and it all went downhill from there. More downhill. I actually dug a hole at the bottom of the hill and just kept digging.

Thursday 10 September 2015

Killing the Thing on the Outside

In 2003, when I was 18 years old, I attempted suicide for the second time. I was home alone, with bandaged wrists from my first attempt the previous night. When I woke that day the numbness that had set in the night before remained, I felt no emotions and my mind was blissfully silent.

I ate breakfast, showered, dressed and had every intention of going about my day as if nothing had happened. But as time moved forward, as it tends to do, the silence began to recede. Sorrow came calling first, I cried because I had come so close to dying and then I cried because I was still alive. Guilt was the next arrival - if I had succeeded my mother would have had to discovered the body of her eldest child; my sister would have been heartbroken; my parents might have blamed themselves as they buried me. I was ashamed of how selfish and uncaring I was. Regret filled me.

Sorrow, guilt, and shame - I felt these things every day, and as they washed over me it was as though a switch was flicked in my brain. I suddenly remembered who I was, what I was. I was a terrible daughter, I had disappointed my parents time and time again with my inadequacies, and I was once again letting them down with the mess I had made of college. I knew I had no hope of passing my course, I was too stupid, too incompetent. My sister didn't need me, I was a black mark in her otherwise perfect existence. I was not a daughter and sister that would be missed, I was an embarrassment. I brought them nothing but misery, and they would be better of without me. They would be happier without me, removing myself from their lives was the best gift I could give them.

I was broken inside, that was clear to me now. Fundamentally flawed, without talent, without intellect and with nothing to offer the world. My outside was as hideous as my inside, I looked in the mirror and saw the ugly truth in front of me. I looked and looked, my revulsion growing with each passing second. What an eyesore I was, what a waste of flesh and bone. I was a failure; defective; repugnant. A lifetime of mistakes played in my head, the fiasco of the night before just another scene to tack on at the end. I remembered how lonely I was, always feeling like an outsider looking in. An unwanted intruder in other peoples lives.

Then the pain returned. It felt like my chest had been ripped open from the inside, and all the light in my world was sucked into the darkness. The hole pulled and pulled, swallowing all of me, leaving nothing behind but despair and misery. This pain had been a part of my life since I was a child, but in recent months it was my constant companion. It never stopped, not even in sleep could I escape it, dreams had been replaced with nightmares. As the day went on I sank lower into the abyss, unable to escape the thoughts that tormented me or the agony of being me.

I had tried counseling, I had taken the pills, I had tried. I couldn't bear the thought of living one more day with such ceaseless suffering. So the decision was made, killing myself was the only option.

As soon as I made the decision a sense of calm washed over me and I knew I was making the right choice. Everyone, including me, would be so much better off after I was gone. I felt almost giddy with relief; dying didn't scare me, living did. I poured myself a beer, gathered up my months supply of medications and any paracetamol I could find, and sat in front of the television. I wanted to watch something good, maybe even a comedy so I could leave with a smile on my face. I took the first handful of pills and started flicking between the channels. Much to my dismay there was nothing on but news and soaps, so I chose the latter and swallowed some more tablets. I topped up my beer and another handful went down. Then another, and another. As I waited for the inevitable I grew restless. Dying was taking longer than I thought it would and I couldn't bear anymore dreadful soap operas. It suddenly struck me that talking to someone would be the best way to kill some time. I checked the computer and nobody was online. My head was starting to feel heavy now, and balancing became something of an issue. I tumbled to the floor and laughed, was this what insanity looked like? Laughing as you slowly died?

I felt drunk, the xanax probably, and my restlessness turned into a sort of mania. This was it, I was finally going to destroy the body that shackled me to my pain. I wouldn't have to hurt anymore, it wouldn't matter that nobody loved me or wanted me. It would be silent in my head forever. Wait, I hadn't written a letter and my hands weren't working enough to write one now. I had to talk to someone, someone who couldn't foil my plan but could perhaps get a message to my parents. Yes, I needed the phone.

Dialing the number for The Samaritans was challenging, as my vision swam in and out of focus. From this point on my memories are almost completely gone. I remember I spoke to a woman, and told her cheerfully how I had taken all the pills and I would be dead soon. She tried to engage me in conversation but my ears were full of cotton wool and I couldn't remember why I was on the phone. She very gently asked me to do her a favour and please hang up and dial 999. I was on the floor at this point, my body limp and my head heavy. I didn't want to upset her, she had been so patient when I explained how much I hated soaps. I ended the call and with great difficulty rang 999.

"Ambulance, Police or Fire?" (Or something to that effect)
"Eh, I took some pills and the woman said to ring"

She asked for my address, I started to drift off and she shouted down the phone. Why do I have to open the front door? Stop shouting. I rolled down the stairs and managed to pull the door open. Oh good, now she can stop shouting...then everything went black.

I woke up the following day in hospital, my worried and understandably angry parents on either side of me. This time I couldn't lie my way out of the hospital. Instead I had guaranteed my place in a different kind of hospital.

I want to tell you I felt fortunate to be alive that morning. I wish I could tell you I never attempted suicide again. I wish I could tell you that my life got a little bit better everyday after that, and that now I am a paragon of mental health. But obviously I am still here, so my while there would be more pain in my life, my story hasn't ended.

Monday 7 September 2015

Borderline

By the time I had my first appointment with the college psychiatrist, my mental health had declined to the point that every area of my life was affected. I was failing all of my subjects in college, I no longer attended lectures and struggled to focus on even the simplest aspects of my coursework. Sitting down and reading a text book was impossible - after about five minutes my mind would drift away and I couldn't even remember the paragraph I had managed to read. At home I had completely isolated myself, spending most of my time alone in my room, a stranger in my own family. I was self harming almost daily, having graduated to scalpels and burning myself. Whenever possible I would drink myself stupid to quiet the thoughts that slammed angrily inside my head, and dull the constant ache in my chest.

I had no expectations as I sat in the waiting room that day, my last encounter with the counselor had left me convinced I was a lost cause. I remember very little of what happened that day, I know I answered a seemingly inexhaustible supply of questions, posed by a smiling man with a calm voice, and colourful socks. Don't ask me why the socks stood out to me, I assume it's because they were the focal point of my permanently downcast gaze. I remember leaving with nothing but a time for the next appointment, but it's more likely that I was also started on medication that day. An antidepressant(Effexor), a mood stabiliser(Lamictal) and Xanax for my anxiety. I returned to see the psychiatrist several times and my dosages were slowly increased, as my symptoms showed no signs of abating. At one of these appointments I was told I have Borderline Personality Disorder. Like most people, I knew nothing about personality disorders, although the words immediately brought to mind the film Girl, Interrupted. My behaviours(promiscuity, impulsivity, mood instability, self harm to name a few) were all explained by this diagnosis, but I was cautioned to do no research into it, as apparently this can lead to patients developing more negative aspects of the disorder. Amazingly, for once, I did as I was told.

I wish I could tell you that I felt a sense of relief, having a name for all of the pain and torment. That finally having someone listen to me, and try and help me gave me a sense of hope. But it didn't, in fact it had the opposite effect. I kept waiting, and waiting for these magical pills to work. But they didn't. Up and up the dosage went, and down and down I went.

I was home alone the first time. Sitting on the bathroom floor, I pressed the blade as hard as I could to my right wrist and dragged it across. There was a split second, a pause in the fabric of time, and then there was blood everywhere. I remember worrying about the mess, that my mother would be cross if I stained the floor, so I crawled into the shower. I took a deep breathe, and took the scalpel with my right hand. But my fingers couldn't grip the handle properly, and my hand was weak. I was frantic, desperately trying to stab at my left wrist and failing to cut deep enough. The scalpel slipped from my bloody hand and I started to cry. I hadn't cried until then, until the moment I knew I wasn't going to die. I had done my research, it was unlikely one slit wrist would bleed enough to kill me, and I was physically unable to tear open the other one. When you try to kill yourself, most of the time you are very calm. It's as if making the decision to end your suffering finally quiets the noise in your head. It is usually methodical, and sometimes accompanied by a sense of relief. It isn't always that way, but it was for me that night. SO when I realised my plan wasn't going to work, I crumbled. I lay curled on the shower floor, sobbing, bleeding, and feeling more broken than ever.

Then the strangest thing happened, like a switch had been flicked, everything stopped. I felt nothing, I was still, my mind was silent. I know now this is called disassociation, and over the years it has become my favourite party trick. Calm now, I wrapped a towel around my right wrist and stepped out of the shower. I took off my bloodied clothes and walked to my wardrobe and dressed. I checked my purse, and then called a taxi. I asked the driver to take me to the nearest A&E, as I had cut my wrist. He politely asked me not to bleed on his seats. I laughed.

In the hospital they saw me quickly. Yes, I had tried to kill myself, but my hand wouldn't work so I couldn't finish the job. Oh I nicked a tendon?

I laughed some more.

Yes, I am on medication. Yes I have a psychiatrist. Of course I will ring him tomorrow. No, I have absolutely no plans to hurt myself again.

Stitches in both wrists. The nurse, scolding, shaking her head at the patchwork of cuts up and down my arms. I watched it all from a distance, nodding occasionally. I'm too pretty to be doing this to myself? I laughed some more. Then, suitably chastised and bandaged I was free to go. I walked home. When I got there I immediately cleaned the bathroom, removing any trace of my failure from sight. Clothes and towels were washed. Then I climbed into bed and that was that. My first suicide attempt was done, and nobody would have to find out. Everything was fine.

Until tomorrow turned into today.

I was home alone the second time.