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, 21 October 2015
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)