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.