Therapy update

My therapist was speaking to me about externalising my eating disorder. This is something I have already done in my own head, naming it Beelzebub, after the demon. 

She said how it’s often easier for people to see the disorder as something that lives within you and often takes over you, but it is important to remember it isn’t the whole of you.

There is a ‘healthy you’ there too. 

Beelzebub is not the whole me. 

He is a huge darkness that lives inside me and takes control of me, but he does not define my entire being. 

Everything she says about this makes sense to me logically, and with my academic knowledge on therapies I can totally see how this works for people. 

But there is something so different when it’s about me. I can see easily how it could help Tom, Dick and Harry but can it help me? I have doubts. 

Part of the aim of the therapy is to increase the presence and power of the ‘healthy me’ and therefore lessen the presence and power of Beelzebub. 

I don’t know if this is even possible. 

I have to put faith in her skills and knowledge and trust that she can help me change the way I am and tackle the disorder.

She told me that the therapy does not aim to make me think I can never restrict my diet again; I will always have that ability, my body will always be able to cope the way it’s coped for the recent years and I’ll always have the mental power to do that. The aim of the therapy is to show me that I can carry on and do things with Beelzebub in charge, or I can try a different way, a healthier way.

I have to put faith in her being able to show me that there is a way for Beelzebub to not be in charge. 

Even as I write this he’s laughing at me. Laughing because he knows the control he has. 

This is a demon that will live inside me for the rest of my life, there is no killing an eating disorder. You can only hope to manage it. 

Lost

I’m over half way through my time off university, I don’t feel as though I’ve really made any progress. 

I don’t feel as if I’ve made much of a relationship with my therapist yet, which I know, naturally takes time.

The medication I take has dulled my urges for suicide and self harm, which is a relief and a positive. But in other aspects my laxative and diet tablet consumption has increased by quite a lot.

My weight continues to go up and down between its usual perimeters, continues to make me feel sick, continues to dictate my life. 

People ask me am I looking forward to continuing my degree? Am I ready to go back? ...I’m not really sure of the answer, but it’s definitely not yes.

I know I need time to heal but it isn’t happening, and I don’t want to carry on with anything or do anything. 

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. 

Things I have learnt from having poor mental health

• Not all friends will stand by you, treasure the ones who do 
• A lot can change quickly, practically overnight 
• You may feel the best part of your life is behind you, this is not true
• However much you love people, some are just not meant to stay in your life 
• Being outdoors is almost always a good idea, sit in the pouring rain under a big umbrella and take in your surroundings 
• It’s okay to hibernate in your duvet for a day or two, or seven, if that’s what you need
• Dark days come, they often turn into weeks of darkness, but good days will also come every now and again. Focus on making the good days more frequent 

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.

Reflect on your blessings

The last few months have been the worst months of my life. The darkness has been unbearable at times. In the recent week or two I have tried so hard to eat a little more than I was, but it's difficult and I'm still not putting on weight. My laxative use renders me half paralysed at times and makes it impossible to sleep properly at night. My blood tests show my immune system struggling. My hair is starting to die and falling out due to lack of nutrients, and I feel weak almost all the time. 

Due to how dark things feel, I decided to try and think about things I am grateful for.

I don't mean the big things in life that we are all grateful for, like my family, friends, my cat. 

All very important things but I wanted to think about the little things that I probably don't even realise I'm grateful for. 

-The fact my flat has a private garden, my garden is definitely my 'calm place'.

-The fact supermarkets sell low fat iced coffees.

-Tracksuit bottoms and slippers.

-The elderly couple who live a few flats away from me, whom I've never actually spoken to, but who wave whenever they see me.

-Johnson's baby bedtime bath soak, it smells amazing.

-My recent weekend stay in Somerset, I love that place and staying there reminded me how much I want to qualify so I can go and work there. 

-One of my close friends just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Looking at this gorgeous baby reminds me I have to get better otherwise I won't ever be able to have a baby of my own. 

On top of these things, I am blessed with a loving family and such caring friends. I know in that aspect I am extremely lucky. 

Out of each week, I probably only have a day, or maybe two days, where I can see the good in life and the things I am grateful for. I also know if I carry on the way I am, my body will continue to shut down and eventually that will be the end. I know the fight is far from won but the things I am grateful for push me on. 

'Reflect upon your present blessings' - Charles Dickens 

Nine circles of hell

Being diagnosed with anything, physical or mental, can be a long and trying process. 

It can take time for professionals to be able to diagnosis or professionals may not always agree with each other. 

A diagnosis is not the be all and end all, but for some people it can be comforting to put a label or a name on the feelings they have. 

The diagnosis for my eating disorder is atypical anorexia nervosa. 

The 'atypical' part means that someone meets the majority of the criteria for anorexia nervosa, but not all of it. There is also atypical bulimia nervosa, and the 'atypical' disorders are often categorised as the 'eating disorders not otherwise specified' (EDNOS). 

In my case, I meet the criteria for anorexia, all apart from the fact that most months I still have my periods. In many ways this makes me feel invalid. 

As time goes on and I see more of my care coordinator and more of my psychiatric consultant, I am repeatedly told that I'm not a low enough weight to get any NHS help for my eating disorder.

I have said time and time again to professionals that I don't want physical help, as in being helped to put on weight. 

I want therapy to help my relationship with food and to help stop me seeing food as an enemy. 

I'm so sick of being told I still weigh too much to be helped. I'm sent for weekly blood tests and the slip I am given each time states 'anorexia nervosa' across the top, yet I'm still too heavy to be given help. 

Obviously there is private help, which I am looking into but I lack motivation to follow these things up or to make effort to contact anyone. Mainly, because I have little hope of this getting better. 

After hours upon hours with professionals, discussing every part of my life, the only statement that is left ringing in my ears, is that I am still too heavy. 

Dante wrote about nine circles of Hell, I am certain I am within one of them. 

Roo's strengthening medicine

My morning routine that used to simply consist of a coffee with venlafaxine, now also consists of two vitamin tablets which claim to have a fruity flavour but definitely do not. Followed by a liquid medicine (Roo's strengthening medicine) full of iron and zinc which tastes frankly revolting. 

The worst part about Roo's strengthening medicine is that I have to take it twice a day.

Once the medications are out of the way, my days consist of watching crap television and occasionally sitting in my garden.

Focusing on anything is difficult, I force myself to attempt sudoku and crosswords but my attention span seems to stretch to only a couple of minutes.

I think sometimes people make the mistake of thinking that if you have depression, that means you're sad, miserable, crying all the time. 

Depression isn't that at all. 

Depression is a lack of energy, motivation, attention. Depression is numbness. I have days and days on end where I feel next to no emotion at all, just an empty numbness. 

Of course, there are days when I feel the sadness people associate with depression, but the sadness definitely does not define depression. 

Where is summer?

Days seem endless, full of assessments, visiting different hospitals to hear about a range of treatment programmes. 

I know almost everybody wants to help but nobody knows what to do. 

Nobody can diminish the darkness. 

I desperately don't want to go into a hospital, but my other options seem bleak. 

I'm tired of being tired, of being exhausted. I'm tired of feeling so mentally drained.

I long for someone to discover a medication that can stabilise this disorder, that can silence the voice of this disorder. 

Someone once said to me that it can snow as late as May but summer will always come in the end. That phrase has always stuck in my mind and all I can do now is to hope that somewhere along the way, summer comes and the darkness ends. 

Stigma/my diagnosis

The stigma that mental health illnesses carry are like dead weights. 

I can only write about things I have experienced myself, things I have heard people say or stuff I've read about. From my experience one of disorders that carries one of the heaviest and most detrimental stigmas is personality disorder. 

The name 'personality disorder' covers a range from avoidant to schizoid to narcissistic to emotionally unstable or borderline. 

Perhaps the most commonly heard of personality disorder is emotionally unstable/borderline. 

Borderline is the name given in DSM-IV and unemotionally unstable in ICD-10, but the criteria for borderline and emotionally unstable are almost identical. 

DSM-IV and ICD-10 both list the features of this disorder, and a person does not have to meet every single feature to be given the diagnosis. 

EUPD, unfortunately, holds a stigma with it that people with this disorder are manipulative, attention seeking and 'badly behaved'. That when/if they self harm or attempt suicide it's always only for attention. They purposely cause arguments and often make false allegations, they can't be trusted and a common phrase I hear about patients with EUPD is that they 'love being in hospital'. 

In actual fact, EUPD means the person has problems regulating their emotions, often leading to self harm. They may have unpredictable mood swings and/or not know why they feel certain ways. They often have identity issues and insecurities, making 

EUPD very common in people with eating disorders. 

But, it seems some healthcare professionals do not deem personality disorder as a 'real' mental illness, and do not view it in the same way they see bipolar or schizophrenia.

Patients with EUPD can be hugely challenging, as can patients with any other illness, but is this a reason to tarnish the name of personality disorder so new patients are almost written off before even being met, simply because of their diagnosis.

My official diagnosis is an atypical eating disorder, co-morbid with depressive disorder and traits of emotionally unstable personality disorder.

I wasn't surprised when I was given this diagnosis and it didn't upset me, but it does make me hope I am not seen as a manipulative or attention seeking patient. Even though it isn't a 'full' EUPD diagnosis, people are still quick to stigmatise. I knew I would be told I had EUPD traits due to my self harm, suicidal ideation and identity issues. 

Luckily, I knew myself for twenty five years before this diagnosis and I know I am not what any stereotype says. However, some people are not as fortunate as me and they get almost consumed by the stigma of disorders. 

Surely the best way to erase stigma is to remember that every illness is a valid illness and to try and see past the difficulties that mental disorders presents. 

The addicting outlet

(Trigger warning; post about self harm)

I first self harmed when I was fifteen years old. Looking back now I don't remember the reason why I made those first cuts.

My care coordinator questions me around this, she's looking for some sort of trauma that hit me at that age to start it off. 

But for me it wasn't a trauma or a life event that made me start self harming, it was just something I did. I wasn't terribly happy at the time but again, for no specific reason. Looking back I know I was a teenager and I probably felt emotions and didn't know how to deal with them, so cutting was my outlet. 

The problem with self harm, in whatever form it takes, is that it is hugely addictive.

I've heard many healthcare professionals say that they cannot understand what would take someone to the point of wanting to mutilate their own body. I think to myself good for you that you can't understand, that means you've never had that level of mental torment. Or, maybe, you could argue they handle their emotions in a more positive way, who knows. 

For me, self harm takes the form of cutting and burning, and the addiction is real. 

I think the pain is quite nice, physical pain can momentarily relieve the mental pain.

But it is about more than just the pain, it's something I can't even put into words. 

Having been addicted in the past to tablets containing speed, I would like self harm almost to the hold drugs can have over a person. 

You can have every good intention, every will in the world, but when push comes to shove self harm is like a familiar friend, a warm invitation that you recognise and know. Something incredibly hard to break away from. 

My care coordinator recently asked me if I feel ashamed or embarrassed about the scars I have. She asked this gesturing to the burns on my hands and scars on the inside of my arms. 

I think she wanted me to say yes I would be humiliated if someone saw them. - if I had said this, maybe she would have used this as a reason for me to stop.

But I said no, and that's the truth. I'm not ashamed of any scars or burn marks I have. 

I wish I could have got this far in my life without self harming but I don't believe that was possible so I have these marks on me, but I'm also still here. So no, I'm not ashamed. 

Nobody should be ashamed of self harm because it is natural to need to find ways to cope, and not all ways are deemed 'healthy', but at least you're still here. 

Do not feel pity

I don't write this blog so that anyone feels pity for me, or sorrow. That's the last thing I want.

This blog is to try and raise awareness on mental health issues, make people more open and comfortable talking about them.

Of course when people message me kind words of comfort and motivation it means so much to me and I am grateful.

I have lived a life that's been wonderful in so many ways, and I have been very lucky in many ways.

So nobody need pity me that I now have a mental illness. 

Because anyone of any walk of life can become mentally unwell, and it doesn't matter that it's happened to me, because I am more than happy with the hand I was dealt before this situation arose. 

If one day this mental illness kills me, then sorrow will not be needed because I will have had a life so full of love that there is no room for sadness. 

Far too often, people with mental health issues die and sadly suicide is often the cause. 

I hope this blog will make people think more about mental health, about stigma and about the damage these illnesses can do.

Mental health illnesses know no discrimination, they affect people of every race, religion, gender, sexuality. People of every single walk of life.

I hope the world continues to make the progress it has been slowly making in the recent years. 

The voice of an eating disorder

I have spent years longing to be able to eat whatever I feel like eating. People sometimes may the mistake of thinking someone with an eating disorder just does not like food, but this is so wrong.

I LOVE food. I just can't let myself eat it.

I love macaroni cheese, garlic bread, fish and chips, lasagne, spaghetti bolognese, chilli con carne.. and these are probably the type of foods that many people eat regularly.

I know these aren't particularly 'unhealthy' meals. I remember my parents making spag bol, chilli, lasagne, fish pie, all sorts of meals for our family dinners every night. 

I used to eat them every night, and it was more than okay. 

But now, I can't imagine what it would even feel like to eat a meal like that. 

On the rare occasion I eat something I deem as 'bad', then follows days of more laxatives than usual and more restriction than usual. To ensure I lose whatever I may have gained in that one 'bad' meal.

It's so complicated in my mind because I know logically how weight, metabolism etc works.

But logic means nothing when I have a constant voice in my head telling me I can't eat that, I can't eat this, I have to lose more weight, keep pushing keep pushing.

I long to eat whatever I crave that day. When I walk through supermarket aisles I long to just pick up whatever takes my fancy. Instead of looking at the food and then hearing a voice saying no you can't eat that. It has too many calories. Walk away. 

I long to eat with my friends and my family, to be able to eat the same meal that my family eat. 

I long to silence the voice. To be completely free of the voice. 

But the voice is part of me, a part that I don't think will ever leave. 

When you think about it, it's who I am. It defines my very being. I am my eating disorder.