The truth about laxative addiction

Most of my friends and family know now about my addiction to laxatives. It was a struggle that I kept secret for years but over time became something I couldn't hide anymore.
Recently someone joked that they'd be intrigued to see what laxatives were like, presuming I take them to lose weight. That's the danger, you initially think you might lose a couple of pounds and then that's that.
The truth with laxatives is you don't lose weight. Pounds may lower on the scales but that's water weight and it will never truly stay off.
My usage of laxatives has grown over the recent years, I don't think it's helpful or healthy to write down that number I take. The world of eating disorders can be even more lethal when numbers come into it.
But, nevertheless, it's grown to the point where it's classed as an addiction by doctors and dieticians, it's grown to the point it's cost me more money than I can even think about, but more importantly it costs me my health.
My health wasn't great before, have an eating disorder and all. But what nobody realises in the early days is that laxatives drain your electrolytes. They literally strip your stomach lining out of you. Your stomach lining that is full of good bacteria and electrolytes that you need to keep your heart steady and your liver healthy.
Electrolytes help with hydration. They rebuild broken parts of you, like cuts and grazes.
Electrolytes ranges from sodium to calcium to potassium.
And laxative abuse will drain them from your insides.
The effects of this then range from dehydration to dizziness to heart palpitafions, and so on.
The reality of a laxative addiction is horrendous. It means being able to physically feel the goodness of electrolytes leave your body and this leaves you dazed, slightly confused at times, your face turns whiter, you're cold but also sweating and then the heart palpitations and the nausea kick in.
People suffer heart palpitations for all sorts of reasons and I've had them before my eating disorder and many times since my laxative abuse, and in a nutshell,
they are horrible.
A tightness in your chest and the feeling that you cannot control your heart beats. Irregular and unnerving and sickly beats.
In the worst case scenarios, laxative abuse leads to sudden seizures or death, because your body can't regulate it's organs, most specifically your heart, liver and your kidneys. So in these worst cases scenarios, your heart just packs in.
I suppose it's the same last dying from a heroin overdose or ecstasy. The drug has made your insides irregular and your heart can't take it.
I've clearly not died due to laxative abuse, unless this is the afterlife? (Actually maybe I'm in hell and that's why I can't break my addiction.)
But back to me being alive, I've had some moments where I've said to myself this is going to kill me.
Many people think taking laxatives just means you shit yourself basically you get bad diahorrea and that's that. Maybe that's how it is if you take a prescribed amount once or twice.
But that is not what chronic laxative abuse is. Chronic laxative abuse is, like I said, all the goodness draining from you and being able to literally feel your heart strain to cope with what you are doing.
It's being tired all the time, feeling sick, not being able to keep any food inside you, dehydration, dizziness, it's being in a foul mood a lot of the time, it's sweating, fainting, horrendous pain, it's total and utter shame over what you've done to your life.
If writing this can steer even one person away from taking laxatives to cope with an eating disorder then I'm not ashamed of my issue and I won't be embarrassed to put these words out there for the world to see.
Starting taking laxatives was the worst decision of my life and you have to believe me when I say it will ruin your life.
It's hard to believe when a packet of laxatives is a couple of quid and so easily accessible, but heroin is easy accessible if you know the right people. 

Can nature be a type of therapy?

One of the most infuriating things about mental illness is that there is no one cure. There's lots of things proven to make people feel better, therapy, medication, even time is sometimes a healer, but there is no one, universal cure.
I want to talk about the impact nature has had upon my mental health, and in specific, gardening. For people who don't know me, I started experiencing depression and struggling with self harm when I was 16. This snowballed somewhat for a few years and in my late teens I developed an eating disorder. Around April-May last year was when my mental health really took it's toll, I dropped out of university, was finally officially diagnosed as anorexic and my life came to a complete stop.
Through anti depressants I eventually found a little bit of solace and I started therapy.
However the thing that really made a difference to me was being outside, being around nature, and eventually when I had more strength I started gardening.
I'm not going to write about numbers or weight, because it isn't helpful to anyone, but at first I was so underweight that I didn't have the physical strength to try gardening, so I would just sit outside and look at the trees and plants.
I especially love sitting outside in the rain. There is something magical about nature because it is not man made. There is something amazing about looking at a tree and acknowledging that that tree was alive long before you were and likely will be long after you are gone. Many times when I was unwell, I would be so caught up in my own mind, my dark thoughts and my pain. I would sit outside and look after at the flowers and trees and I'd think about how these plants would be alive no matter if I wasn't.
Does that make any sense? I don't know but it makes sense in my head.
When you are mentally unwell, you lose your faith in everything.
You lose faith in yourself because your mind tells you you're worthless.
You often lose faith in services because more often than not treatment isn't available, takes so long to access or isn't what you need.
You lose faith in the world and the world becomes black.
Nature helped restore my faith in the world.
We see nature every day but do we really look at it?
When I started to look properly I saw colours I'd never seen before. I started to realise there was beauty in the world that mental illness could never destroy.
When I started gardening, I started to grow vegetables and I continued doing this through the ups and downs of recovery.
I'm no where near fully recovered now, but I'm a healthy weight and I'm able to work again, and nature played a big part in that.
On bad days I go to my allotment and look at the all the vegetables, all these vegetables that I'd grown and nurtured from tiny seeds.
It felt so good to care for something else living when caring for myself was often so difficult.
Being around nature and gardening is not a cure, but it's peaceful, it's grounding and it's reassuring that there are still pure, wholesome things in the world and you can create them.
You can plant flowers and care for them and see them bloom into beautiful things.
When your mind is screaming and racing at a thousand miles an hour, being outside surrounded by plants and trees can ground you. You finally feel able to breathe.
You see there is so much more to life than mental illness, there's so much more in this world than humans.
It's not a cure but it's a type of therapy. It's breathing space, somewhere safe. 

Old brain VS new brain

It's been two weeks now since I started to attempt to weigh myself less.
It's hard.
I never realised the unhealthy comfort that it gave me to weigh myself 8/9/10 times a day. I knew it made me feel better to do it but I didn't realise how much I was reassured and comforted by it.
My constant companion, my eating disorder, the thing that has given me life at the exact same time as it has destroyed my soul.

I try now to weigh myself once every 2/3 days. Sometimes I'm successful with this but often I'm not.
The temptation calls to me. Beelzebub reminding me that I can just quickly stand on those scales and then at least I will know exactly what I weigh.
Trying to change the way you have thought for years and years and years is hard.
It's almost as if my brain just doesn't know what to think anymore.
On one hand it tells me to weigh myself and then I can base what I eat or dlnt eat around that, I can use laxatives and be in control.
On the other hand it tells me if I weigh myself I'll start losing weight and I'm still classed as underweight so that would be bad.
My old, eating disorder brain VS my new non-eating disorder brain.
The problem is that my new non-eating disorder brain is so young and inexperienced, and my old, faithful ED brain feels more homely and much safer.

I cannot complain because in general I do feel better now than I did a few months ago, or than I did this time last year, but I'm still fighting and still struggling.
And I wonder if the struggle will ever end. 

An experiment

The latest thing I am trying with my therapist is to not weigh myself as much as I usually do.

Averagely at the moment I weigh myself six or seven times throughout the day.

It’s really a habitual thing more than anything.

I believe it’s a common thing for us ED sufferers to do. More than anything it’s reassurance isn’t it? Reassurance that we haven’t slipped too far, put on too much.

I’m trying over the next fortnight to only weigh myself once in the morning and once before bed.

At first it was a scary thought, really scary, like I’m going to lose control.

But then I thought about it, and actually it doesn’t mean I’m going to lose any more control than I would have if I were weighing myself the usual amounts.

It’s a habit I’ve gotten into and come to rely on, but it’s unhealthy and I know that deep down.

I’m feeling quite confident that I can manage to resist the temptation of the scales.

I know I’ll be anxious about it, but I have to keep reminding myself that Beelzebub is wrong when he tells me I need to weigh myself. That won’t rid me of the anxiety. All weighing myself religiously will do is give me momentary peace and then more anxiety will build until the next weigh in.

I have to ride the wave of the anxiety, stay strong, stay away from the scales, stay distracted, until the anxiety passes. 

Letters to my eating disorder

My therapist asked me to write two letters to my eating disorder. One letter addressing the disorder as my friend, the other addressing it as my enemy.

I don’t really know what I expected myself to write, but reading them I was quite taken aback. I don’t think I realised what the ‘friend’ letter would be like, well really I had no idea what either letter would consist of. I tried to write them at times where I felt 'ok', so I wasn't biased towards the disorder being more of a friend, or more of an enemy. 

I think the comparison of these letters is probably one of the best ways to explain what having an eating disorder is like, to somebody who knows nothing about them. The two sides, contrasting feelings that tear the sufferer down the middle.

Dear ED, my friend,

I do not really remember my life before you. I do vaguely, but it doesn’t seem real to think that there was a time you were not a part of me. It would be a lie to say that everything you’ve done for me has been pleasant, but through the worst times you have been there to offer me control and to give words of encouragement. Through the hundreds of sleepless nights, the daily physical struggles of crippling stomach pains, the loss of energy and muscle mass, and through the worst times where my hair has fallen out and my bodily systems have been taken far out of my control, you have been there. You have encouraged me that these struggles are worth it. You have always been there to remind me that these struggles will lead to the ultimate goal: to be thin, as thin as possible.

I named you Beelzebub, after Binsfeld’s classification of demons, named the seven princes of Hell.  This name suits you because you are powerful and, like Beelzebub, you make mere mortals worship you. Beelzebub is also one of the seven deadly sins, it is gluttony; which felt very fitting.

You have made me feel powerful, so powerful; by showing me I am not weak. You taught me how to have the will power to starve myself for days on end if I want to, or how to live on a single piece of fruit a day. If I have that power, then nobody can call me weak. I am more powerful than other people, because you taught me I do not need to eat like they do. I have no need for three meals a day.

I was raised as a Christian and have always believed in God, so for me to insinuate that you are God-like would be wrong, but just as I know God cares for mankind, I know you care for me. It is hard to not liken you to a God. Your powerful is extraordinary. You can sustain me in a way that food cannot.

I have missed many social occasions because of you, but I know, although I miss my friends and family, you are showing me the way to my ultimate goal and sacrifices must be made. 

Through our relationship, I have become less emotional and I often feel numb or empty. But I am never empty because I have you. Some people may think the deadening of my emotions is a negative thing, but they’re wrong. Thanks to you I realise that most day to day things are meaningless. I know that achieving our goal will be a constant fight, so I do not need to waste my emotions on irrelevant issues.

It could be argued that you, Beelzebub, have taken my life away from me. I’m sure many people would view it that way. Actually, you have given me more control over my life than anything else ever has. You are my greatest and most faithful companion.

With love,

Your Catharine. X

Dear ED, my enemy,

It’s hard for me to remember what my life was like before you were here. It feels an extremely long time ago. I suppose that’s because it is a long time ago. It has been over seven years since I first met you, and being twenty five that is a considerable chunk of my life. I can vaguely remember what it was like to go out with friends or family, to go out for meals and not feel sheer panic, physical sickness, anxiety and absolute dread. All I have are distant memories of my life before I met you.

I wish I had never met you. Since you, my life has fallen apart bit by bit. I have lost friendships and a relationship because you turned me into a shell of who I was. You made me into an anxious, terrified, pathetic mess whose life revolves completely around you. You have rendered me incapable of socialising properly, made me believe I am unworthy of friends, unworthy of anything nice.

You have complete power and control over me; you have ensured that the only thing I truly long for is the ultimate goal of being as thin as possible. Sometimes I feel very small parts of who I used to be coming through, trying to fight their way in. In these moments I’m more likely to eat something, I’m more likely to have energy and motivation, but these moments last such a short time. You stamp the old parts of me down, until they shrink into nothingness again.

I can never escape from you, you’re there when I go to sleep and there when I wake up. You’re everywhere I go because you have made a home inside my soul.

But my soul was not yours to take.

I lied earlier, there is another thing I truly long for and that is to be rid of you.

Regretfully yours,

Catharine. 

Mental health & exercise

I heard an article on the radio this morning about how little mental health help and exercise prisoners get. I can well believe this, and it will, no doubt, be detrimental for them. 

I don’t believe patients in the majority of psychiatric hospitals get enough access to the gym, yoga classes or other forms of exercise. 

I used to go to the gym several times a week and really enjoy working out. At one point, when I was a healthy weight, I could calf press four times my own body weight and would go 15-20 miles on the spin bike each gym session. 

Naturally with my weight loss I also lost the ability to do that much, I can feel my arms and legs are much weaker than they were. 

I can’t lift things around the house like I used to. 

But recently I’ve tried getting back into exercise, even though I tire easily and motivation is hard to summon up. Even a little exercise is better than none, right? 

Months ago I bought a punch bag and boxing gloves, and I find using the bag is a good way to channel urges of self harm. 

I’ve also been trying to do more yoga and meditation. 

All of this is minuscule in comparison to what I used to do, but I think it helps me. 

There are obviously days where I don’t do exercise and just moving from my bed is difficult enough, but on better days boxing is fun and a good way to channel negative thoughts.

Yoga and meditation brings some quietness to my brain. Some days my brain is so overloaded I can’t focus on anything positive, but meditation can offer a peaceful time, even if it only lasts five minutes. 

‘Do you not know that your bodies are temples’ - 1 Corinthians 6

‘Enjoy your body, use it every way you can’ - Baz Luhrmann 

I want a burger

Tonight I am really craving a burger, just a big, huge, stacked up burger. 

I so badly want to go and eat one.

I’ve spent an hour looking at different menus online for takeaways and restaurants, toying with how bad the guilt and self loathing would be tomorrow. 

But I can’t let myself. Actually, Beelzebub won’t let me. 

It is almost as if 90% of me wants the burger and wants to eat, wants to indulge in chips because it’s been so, so long. But then the 10% of my brain that is Beelzebub, the eating disorder, will always win. He will always overrule anything I want. 

So, instead Beelzebub will allow me the 106 calories from a corn on the cob. 

I really miss food. 

This cannot be for ever

I want to feel alive without relying on venlafaxine. 

I want to be able to eat whatever I fancy. Today I had 7/8 celebrations chocolates at work, they obviously taste nice but is eating them worth it when I can’t let myself eat anything else for the rest of the day? 

I can’t live my whole life only being able to eat 300 calories a day. 

I want to be rid of the guilt, the disgust and the mental torture. 

I want to be able to put on a brave face for more than one day in a row.

I want my life to be real again. 

All consuming darkness

I haven’t been able to complete my food diary in the last few days. It’s just a blatant, enormous, undeniable reminder of what a failure I am. 

I know for many people 300/400 calories a day isn’t much but my demon tells me differently.

It’s way too much. 

I can’t even write the things inside my head. It’s too much for anyone to read really. 

I have sharpie marked on my thighs to indicate how far up my thigh I can put my fingers round to measure and my fingers will meet. 

I have such a long way to go and it’s dark. 

Precious venlafaxine

I’ve always read things and been told that missing doses of psychiatric medication can really mess you up. Thankfully I’ve been quite good at remembering to take my tablets, but yesterday evening I realised I had forgotten to take my morning venlafaxine. 

Quickly the reasons why yesterday was such a horrible day became clear. But even with the knowledge I hold about medication, I was surprised how awful I felt only missing one dose. 

The urge to self harm was incredibly strong throughout the day, I couldn’t concentrate even on the television without images of my thighs ripping open bursting into my mind. 

I ended up crawling into bed around 2pm because it felt simply like it was too painful, tiring and overwhelming to be awake. The longing to sleep forever more was even more overwhelming. 

By the evening I had a weird feeling of energy, I had a glass of wine and tried to watch television. My mind was racing and I wasn’t concentrating on anything. 

As the evening went on I wasn’t feeling the usual tiredness I should feel at that time, and after that it was as if I went into a slightly manic state. I felt absolutely ecstatic, I decided 11pm was the perfect time to play hide and seek. I was finding everything I was doing utterly hilarious. 

After a few hours I felt like I was on a comedown from speed. Eventually my body slept but I still don’t feel like my mind was resting. 

I woke up today feeling all over the place and tearful. As soon as I was awake this morning I took the venlafaxine and I’ve never felt so much relief taking tablets. 

I owe a lot to venlafaxine, I know it’s the reason my suicidal and self harm urges are more easily kept at bay. Again, even with the knowledge I have on medication, I never really ‘believed’ properly in anti depressants until I started venlafaxine. But, in reality it isn’t far off a life saver at the moment.

The voice

I wish I didn’t have a voice in my head that randomly says ‘wow don’t your thighs look big?’, or ‘you must really regret that bowl of porridge’. 

How can you kill a voice that lives inside you, goes everywhere with you? How can you destroy it once and for all? Maybe you can’t, maybe it will live inside me forever. 

I’ve started seeing a private therapist and as terrifying as it is I know I need to put everything I have into this or I won’t get better. 

She said it’s okay to feel like Ivor lost my identity, or rather than my identity simply is an eating disorder. I am completely defined by my illness, as it dictates every day of my life. 

Keeping food diaries is horrible, scarier and more stressful than I thought it would be. 

Having to be truly honest about the demons inside my mind is even worse. 

I hope there is a light at the end of this tunnel. 

Walk away quietly

I’m sure I won’t get better. 

For as long as I really can properly remember, my every day life has revolved around my eating disorder. 

I am certain this is just what my life will always be like. Can it be fair that I can be destined for such a miserable existence? Or does fate not exist at all? Or am I meant to rid myself from this existence and hope for a different world, a different life. 

I know many people are ill for years and years and years, I have only been in this battle for seven years, but it feels quite long enough. It has peaked and troughed, sometimes feeling quite bearable for a couple of months at a time. 

But some sort of hurricane hit me six months ago and it spiralled out of control completely. 

My life is not my own. 

It is dictated by the demon in my mind. 

I want a life of normality, without terrible urges and thoughts. 

Seven years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things, but it really is quite long enough. 

I’m able to cover most of the cracks for short periods of time, able to work a day here and there just to feel like the person I used to be. 

In reality though, that person is gone and now Beelzebub controls my body. 

I have little fight left, I know it isn’t time right now to give up, but I also know I don’t have another seven years in me. 

I think when you are fighting a war you know you simply can’t win, it is nicer to walk away quietly. 

World mental health day

Speaking about mental health is probably one of the most difficult things to do. For some ridiculous reason, many people still hold the medieval thinking that mental illness equals shame and weakness. 

I started this blog to document the inner most thoughts and feelings I have surrounding my mental health. 

I have received a hug, huge amount of love and support because of this blog, but there are still numerous times I have started writing my thoughts down and chickened out of posting it. This is usually because I’m afraid that once I press post, it means those thoughts are there for the world to see, it leaves me open and vulnerable, but most of all it means that people can see the darkest and most secret parts of me. Very often sharing those parts of yourself can help someone else, or at least raise awareness. But sharing those parts is terrifying.

I have written posts that I have not published because I don’t know how others will react, and unfortunately because I’ve been ashamed. 

This is a very sad fact, that I can say I’ve felt ashamed of my mental health, even after two years of psychiatric nursing training, even after working in various mental health organisations, even when it is 2017.

I’m sure so many people feel the way I feel. Mental health is petrifying, isolating and absolutely all consuming. My own mind has the power to destroy everything I hold close to my heart.

How do you stop your mind turning in on itself, screaming and tearing everything apart?  

Today I had a bowl of mango chunks and raspberries and a yoghurt for breakfast. Then in the evening I had some fresh prawns and lettuce. 

My mind is screaming at a thousand miles an hour. That’s too much to eat. I know all the facts and figures, I know what calories the body needs to survive properly, I know I haven’t eaten over a couple of hundred calories, I know all of this. It makes no difference.

My mind is racing and screaming. Diet pills, laxatives, nothing even makes a difference anymore. I take them because it’s almost as if I don’t remember how not to take them. But nothing helps, I still ate. I have days where I can’t get out of bed because I’m so exhausted of fighting this fight. Days where giving up seems like the only thing to do. Days where I cannot look in the mirror. Days where I am just wishing for a way out of this nightmare. 

This is something I am deeply ashamed of. I question over and over what on earth is wrong with me? There are parts of the world that are starved of nutritious food, people who would give a leg to eat what I have the option to eat. Yet here I am, crying over some mango. 

I am ashamed of the suicidal thoughts I have. I feel huge guilt over the thoughts of ending my life, because I have so much to live for. 

Yes I have an eating disorder and depression, but people face a lot worse in their lives don’t they? 

I feel ashamed to admit that my nightly routine consists of taking 15-20 laxatives. I feel quite disgusted that I inflict that on myself, because some people endure horrendous physical illnesses like bowel cancer. I’m sure these people would pay a large price to not been bound to the bathroom for hours on end. Yet here I am ripping my insides apart over a bowl of salad and prawns.

These thoughts of embarrassment, shame and guilt pace around my head every day. 

But I am wrong to feel ashamed. I am wrong to compare myself to anyone else, disease or no disease.

I have experienced first hand from an immediate family member how it feels to be told your mental health is silly, to be told to ‘just get over it’, to be made to feel invalid. 

Mental illness is VALID. Your mental health is so valid. 

It is 2017, we have put man on the moon. 

We have split the atom, we have created electricity, created penicillin and vaccines against diseases. 

We have developed technology to such high levels that we can now FaceTime people on the other side of the world. 

How can humans be so advanced in so many areas, but so backwards when it comes to mental health. 

It is now time we accept mental health in every form it takes. It is time we open our eyes and give acceptance to every soul that struggles. 

Where I am may be lost

I can't remember the last time I wasn't in pain. 

Not only mental pain but physical too. I get huge discomfort if I eat more than a salad or half a sandwich a day. 

Every day, at one time or another, I'll be in pain from laxative use. This ranges from hours of stabbing pain that can wake me up in the night or stop me from sleeping, to just an hours pain when I first wake up. 

It’s usually when I’m in this pain that I think I simply can’t carry on like this. 

I get a right feeling in my chest and heart palpitations from excessive amounts of diet tablets. I get headaches due to lack of food and drink. 

Yes I’m alive, breathing and I have many, many thing to be grateful for, but what quality of life is it to be ruled by an eating disorder? To plan every day around the needs of the disorder? To put the needs above the disorder above everything else? 

I ask myself over and over why I do this to myself, as if I have any choice or control. 

Mental illnesses take control of people and make us lose touch with who we really are.

So many people who suffer with eating disorders hide it, I hid my problem for years. I pray one day the society we live in will be more open and people will not have to hide the truth. 

'I am not lost for I know where I am. However where I am may be lost' - A.A Milne 

Dragging the weight

Today my care coordinator discharged me from the CMHRS, stating there wasn't anything else for them to offer me, she said although my weight is under what it should be it isn't of critical concern and that I still weigh too much to be able to access the therapies I feel would help me.

This came as quite a surprise after I saw her two weeks ago, when I said I felt I should discharge myself as the work her and I were doing wasn't helping me and she could not accept that I didn't want to treat my eating disorder as self harm. Her view was that we had to delve into my life to find what had happened to me in order for me to self harm by restricting food. 

For me this isn't what my eating problem is about. 

I know abuse and trauma are often key parts of why people become mentally unwell, but I also know that I am not suppressing abuse from my childhood or some traumatic event. 

I told that if she didn't understand that and see it the way I do then I'm wasting their time. I said I would rather contact a private therapist who could work through issues with me and stop focusing on the eating being a form of self harm. Of course restricting food intake can be classed as a form of self harm, but I do not do it cause myself pain or to torture myself for some reason. It's quite the opposite, as not eating makes me feel good. 

She told me I was due to get a new care coordinator today, as she was going to a new job, and she said hopefully the new care coordinator would have a different approach that I would take to better.

So today I turned up ready to meet my new care coordinator. Only to be told that they had discussed me after my last appointment and decided yes I could be discharged. 

My care coordinator said that my consultant had said if I didn't want the clinical management work around self harm then there wasn't anything else they could offer. 

This upsets me, not because I feel rejected from their service but because I have always backed up the NHS. Through it's constant criticism I have always believed that the NHS is a wonderful thing that we are lucky to have. In my job I've been on the receiving of a lot of criticism from patients and families, I always saw their side but also thought 'patients don't see how hard it is for staff, they don't see the lack of resources or the lack of staff, they don't understand that we are doing our best under immense pressure'.

Now, when I talk about the NHS I don't mean physical care. I've had a lot of physical health care hospital stays in my life and the care has always been amazing. 

But the mental health side is lacking so much. 

It isn't nurses fault that there isn't enough money in the NHS, but for nurses and doctors to state so bluntly that you just aren't thin enough for help is almost cruel? I could never even imagine being so blunt to a patient about something that is clearly such a huge issue for them. It left me feeling as if I wasn't taken seriously at all, and made me question if there's even anything wrong with me. 

When I asked my consultant what help I could be given for my laxative addiction, she told me to 'just cut down on them'.. as if I hadn't ever thought of that?

People speak of an obesity epidemic that's hit the world, what about the mental health epidemic? 

So much of the NHS is amazing and there are brilliant mental health services but they are so few and far between. 

Having a mental health illness is like carrying a weight tied around your heart. Some people manage to drag themselves along with the weight, stumbling through life. Some, over time, learn to balance that weight and live a decent life. Others cannot lift that weight alone. 

I've spent the last five years lifting those weights for people. That's what I want my career to be built around. If I can find a way to drag my own along and carry on. 

??

Will I ever be happy with who I am?

As I am now, I have very little energy. I have huge bags under my eyes, my hair comes out in big clumps and snaps at the ends and I've half most of the muscle mass I had. My knowledge on nutrition and the human body tells me I would feel physically better if I ate more and put on a bit of weight. But my brain tells me I can't do that because it may give me more energy in the short run but it will make me feel even worse mentally. Even more depressed and digested and repulsed. 

My knowledge tells me that I am underweight and that's why I'm tired. 

My mind tells me I'm still too fat so I can't eat anymore than I do. Infact I need to keep cutting down what I eat. My mind tells me that people don't think I look thin enough. People think I look a normal weight, probably chubby. 

My mind tells me you have to push harder because 'normal' is too big. I am at constant war with myself because I know logically what is healthy and what isn't. I see people who are healthy weights and people who are overweight and I know they look beautiful, they look attractive and good. So why can I not be happy like that?

For years and years I've restricted my intake, trying never to max 500 calories a day. Clearly some days I do go over this but many days I manage to stay well under. The feeling of only eating an apple is exhilarating in many ways. Like a power that runs through my veins as if my brain is saying fuck you to my body and to science, I don't need to eat. 

But as exhilarating as it is, it's also detrimental to me physically and it's exhausting. 

So how will I ever be content with who I am? 

Will I actually ever know who I am? Will I be constantly at war for the rest of my life? If so, what sort of a life is that? 

The eye of the tornado

Today is the day I should have got my results for the end of year pharmacology exam. The exam that takes you into final year and brings you that step closer to qualifying as a nurse. 

But I didn't get my results as I didn't get to sit the exam. 

Instead my life was, once again, dictated to me by my illness. 

In the same way that my illness dictated which friendships I'd lose, the same way it broke my year and a half relationship. My illness decided it would also change my career path. 

Granted right now I am only having a year out of university, so my career path could stay the same I many ways, and only be delayed by 12 months. But it will be different, because I am different. 

There is no guarantee that I'll go back to university. There is no guarantee of anything really. 

Mental illness is a difficult pill for anyone to swallow, and being in the midst of it almost feels like a tornado. You are pulled this way and that way, pushed down and down and constantly smothered by it. 

It is hard for everyone it touches, not just people who have the illness but their friends and families too. When I first became unwell I thought I could list easily the people who would stand by me, but if I had listed 10 people then I'd have only got 3 of them right. 

You see who is left standing when the tornado hits. 

Along with the people you expect to stand by you, you also expect to still have your job or your university course. You expect, and hope, things could stay the same. 

But the tornado is in control, not you. The tornado is set to wreak havoc and isolate you.

I'm so bitter and angry. So bitter about the relationships I've lost during the last six months. I'm so bitter that my degree has been put on hold. I'm angry that I have no control. 

I am a tiny, insignificant pawn in the eye of the storm.

Happy Monday

I sit on the floor in my hallway, my cat is meowing next to me, scratching at the front door. You want to escape too do you, kitty? Her big eyes stare at me, as if she's saying Catharine just get up and open the door for me. But if I did that, you might never come back to me. I wonder if she knows I'm different now, I wonder if she recognises me anymore. Animals have instincts don't they, they sense when something is wrong, they sense danger and even sadness. I wonder if she senses that I've lost myself. 

I sit there reading an article written by someone recovering from an eating disorder, she writes that she always felt a fraud, like a bad anorexic, because she never fitted what society class as being someone who is anorexic. 

I don't really know what my diagnosis is anymore, but it doesn't make a fucking difference anyway. Some professionals throw around the word anorexic, some say ednos, some think I've simply been abused as a child and won't admit it. But I remember the first time a nurse said the word anorexic, I nearly laughed out loud. How could I be? Didn't she see the rolls of fat through my tshirt? What was she talking about. 

It doesn't matter about the figures and statistics. It doesn't matter that I meet the generally required for diagnosis bmi of less than 17.5. 

I'm still not thin enough.

She was crazy. Everyone is crazy. Maybe I've gone crazy. Maybe my mind has slipped away. I've lost my fucking mind. Beezlebub. 

The situation is dire

There are 202 NHS beds for children and young people with eating disorders. On top of that there's a handful of private hospital beds with NHS funding. 

I'm not sure of the exact number for adults, but when you think how often eating disorders start in adolescence, this figure is disturbing. This situation is dire.

I am, by no means, someone in a bad situation, not in comparison to other people. 

This is not a pity party. But I am someone who is told repeatedly that I am not thin enough to get help, I am still too heavy. My consultant psychiatrist sat opposite me a few weeks ago and asked in an ideal world what help I would like, I replied that I wanted therapy around the way I view food, the way I view gaining weight, in order for my brain to understand that healthy weight gain is not a negative thing. She smiled at me, and said 'oh well you don't weigh little enough to get that sort of therapy'. Again, this is no pity party, but I sat there weighing 45kg. 

Yet that is still too much. 

Therefore I am given 'general' mental health help, from a team once a week, who see people with a range of mental health difficulties.

Although I am grateful for this help, the team I see do not specialise in eating disorders.

When I was referred I was told I was an 'urgent' referral. From my course, I know urgent referrals have an assessment target time of a week. I waited four weeks for my assessment.  

In a way I was lucky, as I only lost a handful of pounds in those four weeks. But for other people, those four weeks could be detrimental. 

As well as the physical side of losing weight, there is also the mental side, and a big deterioration can happen in four weeks. 

I know I will never recover through the help I am getting now, and I am lucky I can choose private help. But not all people have that option.

The situations, the waiting times, the help, everything that people with mental health illnesses face have room for improvement. But people with eating disorders, above all else, are massively overlooked, pushed aside, under-treated and made to wait for far too long.

Having trained as a nurse and worked in several different mental health teams, I know all too well that the money isn't there, there aren't enough beds or staff or agencies to help everyone.

It's all over the news that we are constantly slamming health services for not doing enough but, again having worked in many services, I know that professionals are doing all they can do. There just simply isn't enough of them.

Eating disorders become chronic and completely take over your life. 

The best way to beat eating disorders is to catch them before they become chronic. All I can really say is if you know someone who struggles, or if you are struggling, look for help through your GP or online services like b-eat and look for help before it snowballs into even more of a hellish nightmare. 

The nightmare

I've tried really hard with eating in the last week or so. I'm hardly ever having a day where I eat nothing. I've even bought oats, wheat flakes and dried fruit to make my own cereal. 

Yet every day is still a huge struggle. I can't let myself put on weight, I still have to restrict and laxative. I can't carry things I used be able to, I feel pathetic. At one point last year I could lift 120kg on a calf press. I'd give anything to be back in that place. I have a constant headache, my legs ache and I get tired doing simple tasks.

My hair still has days where it comes out in big clumps. My energy levels are still rock bottom and my mood is still dark a lot of the time, but I am trying.

I wish I could see an end to this. 

I wish I could just avoid mirrors or thinking about myself.

When I see my reflection I wish I could rip the skin off my body. My skin burns with this repulsive, strange and foreign feeling. As if my body is not my own anymore, it belongs to a darkness, not to me. The darkness feels all consuming, Beelzebub alive and breathing. How can there be an afterlife consisting of Hell, surely this is Hell now.