INCARCERATION

How small a world becomes when locked away,

Be that lock constructed of our own fruition.

Sometimes life overwhelms.

Sometimes the pain is unbearable.

Sometimes we are misunderstood – no more so than by ourselves.

The locks come out.

A room.

A window.

A desk.

A bunny.

Rules for food.

Rules for clothes.

No mirrors.

No hooks.

No cables.

And the tears.

The unshed tears of decades of buried emotions.

The unshed tears of burned and discarded dreams.

The unshed tears of fear and failure.

The unshed tears of what now. Who am I?

Incarceration.

The foundation upon which to build a new me.

A new life.

A new way of being.

There is no time frame. There is simply time.

Acceptance cannot be forced. Only learned. Through patience.

Traverse the path of emotional turmoil for the reward of freedom.

Free to unlock the door for which I always held the key.

It’s a small, small world, and from here I will grow.

DAY 12

It’s a wild ride as an inpatient at a psychiatric facility.

I can’t honestly say I’d recommend it. But then sometimes we have to do necessary things in life that aren’t necessarily

enjoyable. I didn’t traipse all the way here for fun. I left behind all that was comfortable and familiar, to learn uncomfortable, unfamiliar ways of managing my emotional and eating behaviours. At this stage I am far from cured.

I have struggled (understatement of the year) with increased depression and anxiety. I have felt like an absolute mess. But I guess if there’s one good thing about being in a psychiatric facility, they’re well equipped to manage depression and anxiety. Today I have woken feeling less desolate than other days. I received a lovely unexpected gift from a good friend – the bluebird of happiness. It is now sitting on my windowsill enjoying the small amount of greenery that I get to see. I have had a visit from another lovely friend who lives over here. We had a beautiful chat for a couple of hours and she left me with a beautiful soap that smells divine. My cousin visited and brought me supplies of gluten free snacks, a lovely doona for my bed, and a snugly, fluffy blanket. I feel so much more homely.

I have been feeling so alone and isolated and disconnected and really struggled with this.

Yesterday one of my close friends facetimed me (is that a word? according to the red line underneath it, it’s not. I don’t care…) It was so awesome to chat face to face. Not quite the same as being able to reach out and have a hug, but so much more connecting than writing text messages. I then facetimed my husband after dinner and it was beautiful for both of us. I am going to ask a couple of other friends to facetime from time to time as that sense of connection reminds me I’m not alone here.

I’d love to share all the progress I’ve made, but for now I haven’t noticed any. I eat six meals a day – they’re all enormous (in my opinion). We’re monitored for an hour after every meal. So that pretty much translates into almost nine hours a day eating and being monitored. Doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else! We do two group sessions per day with varying topics and they are for the most part pretty good. The program is exactly what I expected and exactly as difficult as I expected and I have to keep reminding myself that this too shall pass and at the end of this, there are good things waiting.

There is a giant silent elephant in my metaphorical room.

And that is my lap band. It is problematic. It makes eating food extremely difficult. I don’t know if it’s too tight – but according to the non-experts around me, it is too tight. I will discuss it with the doctors today and I’m prepared to do as they suggest. I’m terrified of having it loosened as I fear losing control over all my eating behaviours. I’m terrified of leaving it as is because I can’t keep food down comfortably – or at all on occasions. So I’m caught between a rock and a hard place and I’m now willing to be guided by the professionals as to how to deal with it.

As the memoir I’m in the process of writing (currently paused… too sleepy…) has a theme heavily based around connections and disconnections, it has been eye opening for me to experience such an overwhelming sense of disconnection here and how quickly my mental health plummeted while feeling so isolated. Which makes me realise the importance of staying connected – however I can, and whatever that means to me. I’m hoping facetime will become my new best friend. And as I gain more freedom from the clinic (we move through different phrases) I should be able to leave more frequently and start feeling a part of the real world. Which to be honest, has ceased to exist.

There’s not a lot else to share. I’ve done a lot of writing but it isn’t suitable for public viewing. Sometimes writing just needs to be for me. To narcissistically and cathartically express and expel all that consumes me.

So that is me on day 12. I’m feeling a turn in mood. I hope to soon feel a turn in behaviors. My worst fear would be to complete this program then go home and return to my old disordered self. That is just not happening. My number one new goal which I am adamant I will cling to, is no purging. I have made a pact with myself to never purge again. Ever.

I am determined. That bluebird of happiness is watching over me – just in case.

DAY THREE

I made it to the clinic and apparently I’m settling in.

Well – lots of people ask me every day how I’m settling in. What do you say to that? I’m here and I’m following the rules. I’d rather be at home cleaning my toilets but I’m not. So here we are.

My world has become very small.

I have a bedroom. There is a communal area where we eat and watch television. There is a corridor and there are people around. That is now my world.

I can see the rest of you out the window – wandering around with your freedom and day to day worries. Not limited by regimented clothing guidelines and eating structures. I see you. I envy you. It is not your ability to walk out in the fresh air I envy – I can leave here any time I choose. I’m not here involuntarily. What I envy is your normality. Your decision to eat what you want, when you want. I envy those who don’t stress and ruminate about those choices every moment of the day. I long to be just like you. One day.

When your world becomes this small, there is a lot of time for self-reflection. So, reflect I have done. Today there was art therapy – a most hateful activity. I was not looking forward to it. While it is true that the marks I left on the paper will not be hanging in a famous (or infamous) gallery any time soon, it is also true the art therapy allowed for interesting emotional expression.

As my hands were shaking like a leaf (thanks to a combination of high anxiety and lots of ventolin), I decided against trying to create anything requiring straight lines. But interestingly enough, I found myself “drawing” anxiety. Swirls and swirls upon swirls. I filled the page with crayon swirls. And in between the swirls, I wrote in almost invisible letters,

This too shall pass. This too shall pass.

I didn’t consciously draw anxiety. We were given a couple of exercises, and then the third exercise was to “draw something that expresses how we’re feeling at the moment”. So I held up my page of purple & silver swirls and said, Just like this. But apparently that wasn’t enough – I had to get another piece of paper and do something else. So I used water colours and filled the page with huge black and purple treble clefs – with added swirls – then did a golden wash over the whole lot, so the treble clefs smudged and ran. Then I wrote, gone in the bottom corner. That’s how it feels. My musical world – gone. I found it very upsetting to be honest. Luckily being one of the new chicks I didn’t have to explain in great detail what I’d drawn, why I’d drawn it, and how I was feeling about it.

We all hear the importance of letting stuff go.

Let emotions go. Let stress go. Let people go. Let your career/husband/kids/dog go. But it’s not that easy is it?

I remember being at Questacon many moons ago, and they had this free fall slide. (They still have it if you happen to be in Canberra any time soon.) It’s basically a slippery dip, but you have to hang from a bar and free fall onto it. From the ground looking up, the drop is very small. You free fall a split second and then you’re on the slide and heading down as per usual. But hanging from the bar looking down, the drop is enormous. Despite knowing it’s completely safe, biological instincts kick in to say what you’re doing is unnatural – stop it right now. Heart pounds, breathing is rapid, the body shakes. And the inside of your head is screaming, I can’t do it! It’s incredibly hard to override the fear with logic and let go of that bar.

Letting go of emotional issues and well worn coping mechanisms feels just as terrifying. A biological instinct kicks in saying, don’t do it, don’t do it. And all the rational and logical statements in the world don’t help. You know you have to do it, but overriding that instinctive fear mechanism is all consuming and exhausting. Arachnophobes, aerophobes and acrophobes all know exactly what I’m talking about. As do all the other phobes.

I seem to have multiple fears.

Fear of failure (atychiphobia). Fear of dogs (cynophobia). Fear of getting fat (pocrescophobia). They are my big three – and today I’ve learned they all have proper scientific names, which ironically makes me feel less alone. We all have fears – if you think you don’t, you’re wrong. But some are less obvious or intrusive than others. And some people have more extreme versions than others. My pocrescophobia is overwhelming. It rules my life and has escalated in the past five years. If I can’t overcome this fear, I will be trapped in this place forever.

I have been fat. I have been thin. I was no less fearful when fat or thin. Losing the weight doesn’t help the fear – at all. In fact it makes it worse. I am now incarcerated with 20 young women all of whom have the exact same fear. We sit together at meals, staring at our food with longing and fear. Their body sizes vary enormously, but I can see the fears are identical no matter their size. I feel their fear. I share it.

Six times a day we have to eat. S.I.X times. That is a lot of eating. Do people normally eat six times a day? I’m not sure what normal people do. They probably don’t know either. They probably get hungry, then eat food and stop thinking about it. But when you live your whole life thinking every morsel of food is going to make you fat, and that when you’re fat people will judge you, then all these morsels are fear inducing and you’re left hanging from that freefall bar again and again and again. All day long. Once you’ve let go once and got to the bottom, and your heart is still racing and you’re thinking you don’t ever want to do it again, then you have to climb back all those stairs and take a second bite. All day long. It is exhausting.

This too shall pass.

AND IT’S TIME

In 12 hours, I’m heading off to the clinic

I think I know what to expect, but I also know I have no idea. Does that sound confusing? Of course it does. Life is confusing. Whatever preconceptions and expectations I’ve managed to construct for myself over the past few weeks, tomorrow will be the day where it all comes to pass and reality sets in.

People keep asking me how I feel about going.

I actually have no idea. This is the trouble with being the kind of person who feels a lot of things. All the time. Very deeply. If you really want to know how I feel about going into a psychiatric facility for the next six weeks to tackle five decades of ingrained disordered eating, the answer is Yes. Whatever word you want to put in my mouth – yes. I’m probably feeling it. (Unless that word is sexy. I’m not feeling that. Not even a little bit.)

I am concerned I’ve built up my expectations of the clinic. That somehow I’ll return home in six weeks magically cured and everything will be hunky dory. My life will just become perfect and I’ll be rich and young and beautiful and never grumpy again. You know – rainbows and unicorns and all that jazz.

I am concerned I’ll leave the clinic in six weeks’ time and I will not be one bit different than when I arrive tomorrow. I’ll have invested all that time and energy and money and hope into nothing, when at the end of the day the problem is inside, not outside me, and going away is just doing a geographical and searching for a solution when all I have to do is change – by myself.

I am concerned about leaving my husband and boys behind to fend for themselves. I’m completely aware they don’t need me at all to prepare food or clean the house – they pretty much do all that themselves now anyway (certainly nobody living in this house wants to rely on me for regular meals). But I’m not convinced they’ll speak to each other for the next 42 days. I’m the one who runs DOFF (the Department of Forced Fun). I’m the one who organises weekly family dinners. I’m the one who keeps everyone in contact and talking and behaving like a family. And I’m pretty damn confident that while I’m not here there won’t be much socialising happening. Which isn’t my problem and is probably just the way they like it. I feel guilty anyway.

I am concerned about being away from my job. I have a fantastic boss who is incredibly supportive (and doesn’t to the best of my knowledge read this blog, so I’m not being nice just for the sake of it). He is very encouraging of me prioritising my health and well being. But I’m also conscious he’s running a business not a charity and that I’m an employee who is taking great chunks of leave endlessly and there will come a time where I’m so useless they won’t want me there. Which is pretty much what I said to him in an email. I want the best for his business, and I no longer believe I am the best person for them. I suspect I am now unemployed – I just don’t know it yet.

I am concerned I won’t be able to keep up with all the writing I want to do – my writing masterclass, the book I’m trying to write, the new business I’m trying to get up and running (that seems to be gaining ground but needs a lot of work still), and the short stories I’ve suddenly started and I absolutely have to write. But writing takes time – without distraction – and I have no idea what the next six weeks will hold.

Most of all, I’m concerned about the firm slap of reality that’s about to hit me.

I can’t wear normal clothes (baggy pants and baggy tops and no excess skin showing and no shoes with laces and no wearing pyjamas during the day time).

There will be compulsory meals – six times a day – that have to be eaten within 20 minutes. And then I’m observed for an hour to ensure I don’t head off to the bathroom. I have a lap band… Eating fast guarantees I will need to head off to the bathroom.

I have to share a room for the first little while. Eventually we get a room each, but we start in a shared room. I might sound like a princess here, but I don’t want to share a room. It makes me incredibly anxious just thinking about it. I have a sleeping disorder! I won’t be able to sleep – I know that already. And I don’t want to be waking other people up. I’m hoping they’ll let me wander around in the corridors in the middle of the night, or curl up on a couch in the lounge room with my laptop. But there are no guarantees and this is a biggie for me. Even without sleep issues, the thought of sharing a room with a complete stranger freaks me out.

And what about bathrooms? I’m going into an eating disorder clinic as a bulimic – and the vast majority of inpatients there will be anorexic. So I doubt I’ll be allowed my own ensuite bathroom… I’ll have to have a shared bathroom as well. Which is not as bad as sharing the bedroom. But still – I’m feeling precious about this lack of privacy. I’m a loner. I need time alone. There will be no time alone. Not anywhere. Not even at night. And that is freaking me out.

And I won’t be able to exercise. We can’t use the stairs or pace the floor. I have to be sedentary. Just the sound of the word makes me feel slightly ill. I feel far too sedentary as it is, and taking away the option to at least pace for a short period of time is very distressing. I can’t sit still.

Everything is freaking me out tonight.

It’s fear of the unknown – and some of it is fear of the known. I keep trying to remind myself it is all for a good cause. I’m not going there for fun – it’s a hospital and hospitals are for sick people. Even if it’s not a physical malady, I still need the support and expertise they (hopefully) offer, and petty things like shared bedrooms and bathrooms shouldn’t matter. However many sleepless nights I have to endure, it will pass. I’m unlikely to have 42 consecutive sleepless nights – I suspect at some point they’d offer me some kind of pharmaceutical relief for a night or two if it all boiled down to it. So I just need to get through the first week and by then I should have some routine and a little more comfort. That’s the plan anyway.

So this is it. My last night at home before the big trip. I might come back a completely new person. I might come back exactly the same. I suspect reality will be somewhere between the two, but only time will tell. There is one thing that I do know with absolute certainty – I am going there by choice, and I am going to do everything I can to take on board the lessons I learn. I can stay at home and be a know-it-all for free – in the comfort of my own bed. If I’m going to endure the indignity of sleepless nights and forced feedings, I’ll damn well learn something while I’m there. Stay tuned.

VISIONARY

I wasn’t going to blog tonight, but I’m feeling just a teensy bit chirpy and chuffed so I thought I would share.

I am a master procrastinator. Yes. It’s true. When I want to do something, or necessity dictates I have to get off my butt right now, I’m an amazing gogetter. But when I’m feeling a bit blergh about something, or don’t really want to do it, I can out-procrastinate the world champion procrastinators. In fact I believe if there were such a competition, I’d be inclined to win.

So imagine how pleased I am with myself that I have created a vision board.

A vision board is so far out of my comfort zone that we are most definitely not orbiting in the same solar system. I work with words – not images. I am not an artist – I don’t picture things or draw things. I can’t even do a good imitation of a stick figure. So when asked to create a vision board I promptly moaned and groaned (internally) and put it onto the back burner as the least possible important thing I would even consider doing in the week prior to my hospital admission.

Now the reason I found myself in the uncomfortable crevice between a rock and a hard place, is because I signed up to do a year long masterclass to write the first draft of my memoir. As part of our January challenges, I needed to create a vision board. Being a wordsmith I was quick to articulate (silently) all the reasons why I couldn’t – and wouldn’t – ever be able to do such a thing: I hate glue. Cutting things out is for children. I’m hopeless with visualising things. It’s not my cup of tea. I don’t have time. I hate doing art. I don’t know what to do. What’s the point?

But after a little discussion, and watching other masterclassers share their visions, I thought I would put on my big girl socks, be conscientious, and just trust the process. I am so glad I did.

I have absolutely no idea if my vision board is good or bad or if such a thing is even quantifiable. I mean, it’s my vision – so you’re not really in a position to tell me I got it wrong are you? I bent the rules a little bit – I still hate glue – but I did tear up a lot of perfectly good magazines and eventually found myself completely mesmerised by the process. I was searching for themes – not literal representations. So while it would be easy for a memoir about a chick with an eating disorder to have lots of pictures with food, skinny girls and exercise equipment, the eating disorder is not about that.

Yesterday I also wrote my manifesto (another January task) for the draft and between the two exercises, I feel I’ve really started to discover the themes that speak most loudly to me – connection and disconnection.

As a child I felt disconnected from everyone around me – from the world in general.

I was in the world and there were people around me – good people and lots of them – but I felt separate. Alone. Isolated. I have always felt that way. In the past few years I’ve looked really hard at my relationships, and realised that for about the first 20 years of my life, I was overwhelmingly alone. I had few meaningful relationships with family or friends. I had (have) family. And I had (have) friends. But I was separate and alone. I wasn’t connected to them. The why’s are not even important now – it just was.

By the time I was in my 30s I was fortunate enough to be developing some strong bonds of friendship and I am now very connected to a lovely number of people – but it has been a long hard road.

Writing my manifesto (the written version of a vision board, complete with the Why, What, Who & How) and then sitting on my bed tonight looking at pictures that leapt out at me, I realised the theme of connection – and disconnection – is the strongest theme in my story. My written story and my real life story.

So that is why I’m excited. Through doing something I really found incredibly distasteful at first, I discovered things I would not have learned through words alone. Each time I turned a page in the magazine, I was drawn to images of solitary trees, harsh & barren landscapes, and solo travelers with the weight of the world on their shoulders. After enough of those appeared I was drawn to bridges and paths and steps and an amazing image of interconnected trees.

I can’t say I would do another board the same way, but I am really taken with how much this has helped me today. I have also decided to do a goal-oriented vision board for 2018 (prompted by a lovely friend of mine), and it does not need to be limited to imagery alone this time. But as glue and scissors are not my friends, my future vision boards, will be envisioned digitally.

I also cannot express enough how excited I am that writing is taking such a starring role in my life at present.

When I first started blogging I had no idea I would end up so passionate. My husband sent me a link to a random Facebook post he’d seen about the 7-day free writing challenge and I thought at that price, it was too good to pass up. It feels like one of those turning point moments in my life.

I have a mere six days to now organise myself before heading off, and I’m determined to take not just the vision of my book with me, but I’m going to search for the vision of my life as well. Because I cannot think of a single thing that would be more useful for me to pack in my hand luggage, than a vision for my future self.

NATURAL WOMAN

I’ve been away (again) for four nights – in a beautiful shack by the sea for a couple of nights with a friend, then a couple of nights with my husband (not friend and husband at the same time – just to be very clear for anyone wondering). It’s time to go home today, but I was thinking how very calm and peaceful I feel while I’m here – for myriad reasons – and it occurred to me…

I’m very much a nature gal.

Now by nature gal, I don’t mean frequenting nudist colonies on a regular basis, or dismissing western societal beauty standards by allowing my body hair to grow in its natural place at the natural time. Not at all. I have grown up far more prim and proper than my teenage self would ever have believed possible.

By nature gal, I mean I love the natural world. I love the animals and the birds, the sea and the sand and the wind in my hair (unless I’m going to the theatre and just had my hair done – then the wind can be gone please). I rarely want people around me – just a few of my nearest and dearest. I prefer the sound of pebbles rolling around at the water’s edge than the steady hum of society in the distance. I feel mesmerised watching a wedge-tailed eagle soaring in the sky, or an echidna hunting for ants in the sand.

In the “real” world, where real people – including myself apparently – have to live, being close to nature is often impractical. There’s bills to pay, toilets to clean (not the kind of natural world I wish to be close to), and all the real world things to be done. Staring up at one of Tasmania’s last 130 breeding pairs of wedge-tailed eagles, while kayaking past stunning sandstone rock formations, is not a daily option. But I have come to appreciate the cathartic healing that comes from time in nature.

Sure – I knew all this years ago. But I think the last couple of days have really consolidated the importance and I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not selfish to have a break. It feels that way, especially when the last two years have been an endless stream of breaks – and it feels incredibly wasteful to spend money on holidays – but the older I get the more I value memories over “stuff”. Some stuff is really special – I have a handful of items I absolutely treasure – but my most treasured possessions are always memories.

Breastfeeding my infant son at two am, soaking in the serenity and perfection of two sleeping toddlers.

Half asleep, with the calming effects of oxytocin coursing through my veins and at peace with my place in the world. Knowing this was the last baby I could ever have and these precious moments needed to be inhaled deeply. And how well behaved sleeping toddlers are. Perfect angels, every one.

Washing dishes in my sister’s dated kitchen at her tiny apartment, as she lay dying in a dark room.

When Party Rock Anthem played on the entertainment channel she called out, Do you think I can still shuffle? I was pushing 50 and didn’t like to confess I thought shuffling was done with a deck of cards. I peered around the corner with damp tea towel in hand, and watched my once lithe and luscious little sister, drag her failing body up to shake her booty one last time. Unadulterated joy briefly disguising her jaundiced face. Jet black hair in a plait to the waist, beneath an old purple beanie we’d picked out at the local charity store, swaying around with the last echoes of youth and innocence. Her 40 year old body slipping into eternal peace a few weeks later.

Saturday night at a busy pub, with the sounds of drinking, laughter and too many people in the background.

I was in the billiards room with my three closest friends and four dashing young men who took it upon themselves to teach four middle-aged women to play pool. Drinks were aplenty, laughter rained from the sky and just for a moment, I felt flush with youth, surrounded by nothing but laughter, friendship, and the sounds of merriment. It was the first time I fully understood the phrase, I laughed so hard I practically peed my pants.

When I lead my every day life, I forget these memories – moments from my life that are precious beyond words. It is only when I take time away I find enough stillness to remember. But not just remember. To dream.

When the heavy weights of real life have dragged me down for so long I’ve forgotten to remember and lost the ability to dream, it is the cathartic healing of time in nature, and quiet companionship, that reminds me all I have to do, is let go of the weights.

I will soon be heading off to a most unnatural environment, where I’ll be spending large periods of time in self-reflection. I am dedicating this year to relearning myself. To fusing priceless memories into the essence of my being, and working on dreams I’ve forgotten to dream about. Not grandiose dreams – sure I’d love to be a ballet dancer, but let’s just assume this plump, 52 year old, chronically sore body, is not going to debut with the Bolshoi Ballet company any time soon.

This is a year for me balancing the scales (not the scales I threw away), but the scales of life.

Time out vs time invested. Energy out vs energy in (in every sense). Caring for others vs caring for myself. Natural world vs real world. It’s all important, valuable and necessary – it’s a balancing act.

I will no longer want to have my cake and eat it too – for if there is one thing I dream of, it is to stop dreaming about cake. Instead I yearn to lift my eyes to the sky and watch the majestic wings of an eagle, while my feet are firmly on the ground, and to once again know what my place is in the world.