MOMENTS IN TIME

Another thought-provoking question in my writing course…

What are the five defining moments of your life?
How did each one take you to the next step of your journey?

Our lives are defined by way more than five moments… But let me see if I can hone it down.

I was born

So were you. Not much of a surprise really. While I was blessed with much good fortune in childhood, my mental health issues stemmed from the way I was parented. No need for me to rehash old history here. Suffice to say, I developed food obsessions at a tender young age, became intensely ashamed by every aspect of my physical being, and learned to bury every spark of emotion burning through me.
There were also incredible opportunities I was afforded through music and teaching, and the luxury of a middle-class life with free access to good health and education outcomes. It’s so easy to take these things for granted – I try hard not to.

As I entered into the big wide world of adulthood, I blossomed as best I could with my strengths and pretended as only I knew how I had no problems. I was blissfully ignorant of the depression, anxiety and eating disorder I was developing.

I graduated from university

I trained as a flautist and learned the basics of teaching. I achieved the beginning of my lifelong dream and believed the world my oyster, anything was still possible. I was blessed with meeting and making amazing friends who taught me all the things my family could not – warmth, affection, caring, acceptance, fun, love and laughter. University years were the best of times and I had the best of friends. Thirty years later they’re more like family than friends. By the time I graduated from university I had a sense of identity and purpose. I knew who I was, what I wanted, and where I was going.

While the intended teachings of my tertiary education were specifically honed to developing as a professional flautist, the unintended teachings were humility, patience, tolerance and dedication. As I moved on to the next stage of my life, these lessons became invaluable. I developed the skills to flourish in all types of relationships and I was ready for the next big step.

I got married

It hasn’t been a perfect marriage, but it’s been a jolly good one. Great highs and lows, but always, always, a deep sense of trust, and the knowledge I have a safe place to fall. I am loved and adored no matter what. We piss each other off – that is the nature of spending long periods of time with one person. We have grown up and spent more than half of our lives together. We are incredibly fortunate to weather marital storms and still be together after all this time. When the shit hits the fan, I know with every ounce of my being there is someone who will be there for me. No matter what. I recently had to answer a series of questions, one of which was, “Who do you trust?” My husband. Always my husband. I trust him with my life and my love. I trust him to be honest and accepting. I trust that when I stuff up he’ll tell me all about it, then let me move on. I trust that when I can’t say a single word out loud because the turmoil in my head has left me mute, he will let me sit silently and wait until I’m ready.

This must be what true love is. Not flowers and chocolates and endless romance (although that is nice!). Not lust or longing for endless sex. But just a gentle knowledge that when I’m recovering from abdominal surgery he’ll help me shower when I refuse to nourish my body, he’ll bring me food, when I have nothing but tears to give, he’ll hug me tight. He’s always there when I call. Of course, we piss each other off – we’re normal. But I trust him with my very life and that is an amazing grounding for the stresses being a real grownup inevitably brings.

I became a mother

The most glorious of days. The happiest time of my life. Once you’ve held a baby in your arms, you’re in the club. Forever and ever. But those early days of being hands-on, 2 am breastfeeds, trips to the park, teaching them to read and ride bikes and be nice to each other. Oh my, I loved those times. I hate those days are gone and I’m thankful they’re over.

Motherhood taught me an intense, unique love that only exists between parent and child. It taught me the very definition of marriage as you determine together how to raise these new little people with the blended histories you bring together. It taught me priorities and gave me hope and purpose. It taught me the true meaning of exhaustion and exasperation. Frustration and fear. There is nothing about being a mother I don’t love but there are many things I don’t miss – nappies, cracked nipples, vomit in the bed at midnight, and the terrifying trouble teenagers seek out.

Most of all, motherhood gave me an identity I wouldn’t swap for all the tea in China. I willingly sacrificed career possibilities and all the elastin in my breasts. As my children exit childhood and I navigate a new type of relationship with my adult children, I’m learning even more about myself. And I’ve long kissed that elastin goodbye.

I broke

Not only was I losing my identity, but I was experiencing a great many of the stresses that strike in middle age – teenagers (if you’ve had one, you know what I mean), sick and dying family members, financial woes, career confusion, marriage meltdowns, health concerns. It is really unfortunate how all these things hit at the same time. And for me? They hit hard.

I’d had declining mental health since 2009 and by 2016 I was in a bad place. There is the old phrase, rock bottom. Perhaps my bottom was sitting on the rock – I have no idea. But personally I don’t believe there is any such thing. When things are falling apart it is just this endless series of horrid. From that very dark place – a place filled with fear and self-loathing, self-harm, starvation, and a desperate desire to end my life – I started the long, long road to recovery.

Breaking was hard – hard on me, hard on my family and hard on my friends. Hardest of all for my husband. But it also gifted me the opportunity to really look at myself and start to identify the faulty thoughts and maladaptive coping mechanisms I’d ingrained into my being as a small child. I am still working on these things. Thoughts and beliefs and behaviours in place for 50 years do not change overnight. I can’t even recognise them overnight. It takes a lot of analysing, thinking and discussing with trusted professionals. This is where I am now. From psychologically and emotionally broken, to learning how to understand myself in a way I’ve sought to understand others all my life.

So there you have it. Five moments in time: birth – bachelor of music – bride – breastfeeding – broken.  I know how those moments moved me from one period of time to the next. The interesting question now is, What next?
 

FINE

It feels so cliché to even write about this…

I’m fine.

How often do we say it? How often does someone ask, “How are you?” Barely a day goes past without these social niceties. The attendant at the service station, the telemarketer on the telephone, colleagues at work, friends on Facebook, my kids, husband, father.

Everybody asks. They all get the same answer.

I’m fine.

Except when they know I’m not. Then I say,

I’m fine.

They want something concrete. Something to clarify what’s going on. A sentence or two to explain the exhaustion in my eyes and the sadness in my voice. But I don’t know how to say it. I don’t even know the answer myself.

How do you sum up a sense of despair or hopelessness in just a few words ? How do you tell those that love and care for you, right now you’d rather go to sleep and never wake up? How can you say you feel shit but you don’t know how, why, or what for? But you do know it will pass. You do know what to do. You do know it will be okay. And you also know the words won’t come and it is far, far easier to say,

I’m fine.

Is it dishonest? I guess so. Is it unfair? Yep. Will I divulge more if you push? Undoubtedly.

Why didn’t I explain the first time? Because I don’t know how. Because I don’t know if you really want to know (most people don’t). Because dealing with your problems is far, far easier than thinking about mine. Because explaining what’s going on is exhausting and I don’t know what’s going on – I have to work through it and that takes time. Because there might not be anything going on at all – but I’m still not fine.

So here’s the thing, if I say, I’m fine when I’m not, what do I need from you?

I need you to be honest. If you think I’m not okay, say so. If you’re not sure, ask again. If it pisses you off I wasn’t honest the first time, say so. I’m fragile – not precious. (Yes – there’s a difference!) When I’m really not fine? I definitely need someone to care enough to dig just that little bit deeper.

And you know what else? Sometimes when I say I’m fine, I really am just fine. I promise 🙂

RESTRICTED

I’ve always considered myself an overeater. A binger. Food addict. Pig. Someone with no control over what I ate and destined to spend a life battling an obsession with body image and food.

I have sought resources for eating disorder recovery for a decade. And as time went on, my seeking became more desperate and my search more earnest. Until I started to feel I was beyond redemption.

At a support group last year, however, one lovely lady mentioned something I’d never been told before. Something I’d never considered. You’re bingeing because you restrict, she said. I thought that was hilarious.

Sure. I’d been through a period of extreme restriction (starvation…) for a month prior to my hospital admission, but that was the first time I ever restricted. Prior to that, I’d always binged. So I thought.

Upon more discussion with this very wise woman, I realised my food intake had been restricted since I was an infant – either by others or by me.

My mother was concerned about how fat I was as a baby, so endeavoured to lessen my food intake all the years I lived at home. As a result, I learned to sneak food whenever she wasn’t looking. Routinely bingeing, and becoming a chubby little girl.

Once I left home, I had free reign to eat what I want, when I want. And so I did. But I gained weight – not surprisingly! So I tried not to eat and white-knuckled and lost weight. Until I gave in, binged and got fatter. Then white-knuckled. Binged. Purged. White knuckled. Fat. Thin. Confused. Obsessed.

Bingo. One bulimic.

It shames me to say this, but I always wanted to be anorexic. Not because I want to be ill, but because I want to have that kind of control over food. I’m conscious it is common for anorexics to think of nothing but food, however, they also exhibit the strength to resist. And I wanted this strength for myself. Instead, I feel weak. Always on the see-food diet. See food – eat it.

What I am starting to realise (Hallelujah! they all shout) is if I eat regularly, I binge less. Irregular food consumption, and regular bingeing, leaves my body constantly wanting to be fed and never knowing when it will receive nutrients. So I perpetually crave food. Ingesting food at five regular intervals throughout the day means my body will learn to expect food and will cease to crave it constantly. That is the message I’m hearing from almost every eating disorder resource I stumble across.

I feel like a slow learner. And I still really struggle to believe the answer to a lifetime of food woes is to actually eat food. Every day. Five times a day. And then good health and a stable weight will fall into place, providing the food I eat is balanced, healthy and not in excessive quantities. Too simple really.

And yet… While I have not managed to implement this magical new lifestyle on a regular basis, when I do eat regularly, my body feels better and cravings diminish.

So I repeat again, my major goal now is to eat food and keep it down.

Every day. Have I managed that recently? No. Not even a little bit. My routine has been all shot to pieces with trips away, and I need routine. But I can – and will – get off this wobbly place and back on track. Prior to adjusting my lap band, I need to develop and maintain a regular habit of eating five times a day – three small meals and two small snacks.

I’m also going through the, not sick enough, phase again. I’m a plump middle-aged woman with no major health issues. Everything I go on about is a storm in a teacup – I have this dreadful fear someone will label me a hypochondriac. There are people out there with real problems, serious mental health issues, majorly restricted eating, significant physical complaints directly related to eating disorders. I’m not “sick enough” to warrant all this recovery work, and not well enough to ignore it. Limbo land. If I keep doing what I’m doing, I’m bound to get sick enough sooner or later. If it really isn’t a big deal, I should be able to change everything quite easily, without clinging to old habits like a drowning woman.

It’s all in my head.

• Change my thought patterns and habits. Eat five times a day. Implement the tools and changes.
• Don’t restrict. Do eat. Don’t be a negative nancy. Do be a positive polly. Look forward – not back. Practice acceptance.
• Don’t restrict.
• Don’t ever restrict.

I got into this mess when I learned food was unreliable. I’ll get out of this mess when I learn food is always accessible.

Nourish the mind, body, spirit.

WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth – so I’ve heard.

Me? I was born with a chubby foot in my mouth. And it seems I’m a slow learner. The reason I journal and blog, and became increasingly shy, quiet and retiring over the decades, is I really suck at the spoken word. It takes me ages to formulate what to say. I’m not quick off the mark with rapid repartee, then can’t process conversations and respond appropriately in a timely and intelligent fashion.

It is driven home on a regular basis, that things I say are not interpreted the way I intend. A common phenomenon for most, but happens to me with alarming regularity. I am tempted to zip my mouth and become for all intents and purposes, fully mute. In lieu of that slightly dramatic and entirely unrealistic option, I can allow conversations to have a focus outside of myself, which is safe ground. Listening to the loves, lives and losses of my nearest and dearest is comfortable and familiar. Discussing my own life and internal dialoguing just never works out. I struggle to articulate my true meaning clearly. But with the written word? I feel far more comfortable and eloquent.

Why does this matter?

It shouldn’t. Loads of people are not eloquent – and that is fine. But my lack of eloquence is coupled with crippling self-doubt and every time I slip, my default internal response is to remind myself what a dreadful person I am and how incredibly inadequate and hopeless my social interactions are destined to be. All of which is astonishingly unhelpful.

I am working really hard on overcoming the poor emotional coping strategies of the past. I have made a lot of progress. Had some recent slips. Pulled my socks up and determined I will plough on ahead. Having to regularly fish my foot out of my mouth is not conducive to recovery. Hence my blogging – a place I feel confident and comfortable with emotional expression and personal analysis.

High expectations have always been placed upon me. I have cogitated deeply upon this reality – do I create these expectations myself, or am I genuinely held to a very high standard by others? Quite possibly both – I have always been held to a high, unrealistic level of expectation by key people in my life. From there, I developed a personal expectation of perfectionism.

People make mistakes. Myself included. I am incredibly unforgiving of my own mistakes. And every time I slip up? There is someone to remind me I fucked up.

I burnt something. Missed a deadline. Sent the wrong email. Drove too fast. Said the wrong thing. Missed a payment. Forgot something. An infinite list of things I got wrong.

It is disconcerting how harsh I am with my lack of perfection. And even more astonishing how many people reinforce this self-hatred notion by pointing out my errors and asking what the hell I was doing.

Just once – once! – I’d love someone to help me feel better about myself rather than worse. To demonstrate the forgiveness I’m expected to have for myself. To offer the acceptance I try wholeheartedly to proffer when I see someone being hard on themselves.

There are so many things for me to learn, embrace and implement in my recovery – but the biggest of all is changing destructive thought patterns. It feels to me, that the safest option is to verbally converse about others and to discuss myself primarily through the written word.

Is this the coward’s way out?

Possibly. Do I care? Not at all. It is an act of self-preservation and for now, I’m acknowledging my strengths and weaknesses. I am so tired of feeling like a pariah. The less time I have to spend fishing my foot out of my mouth the better.
 

THE BODYGUARD

I am writing my story. Not here – not right now. But on my own and in my own time. It is the project I choose to do in association with the Author Awakening Adventure.

As part of the coursework, we choose an angel to watch and guide us as we travel the long, lonely path of writing a substantial piece of work, and that angel was initially my grandmother but has morphed into my mother, grandmother and sister. They are so intrinsically linked to each other and to my personal story of growing and developing mental health issues. But I also now see them as cleansed of mortal imperfections and ready to inspire and forgive. I feel very comfortable and at peace with having them as my angels.

I also need a bodyguard – mental protection from the inner critic. I have talked about my powerful, noisy inner critic before. That voice is my mother and I farewelled her voice then brought forth the child Simone – a little girl who instinctively knew how to look after everyone but was not allowed to care for herself. I don’t think that little girl is my bodyguard though – she has neither the wisdom nor the experience to protect.

I believe my bodyguard is Coco. He is a cat. A beautiful, loving, devoted cat who considers himself human. He is intelligent and devoted and loyal. He loves without condition and demonstrates self-care without an ounce of regret or indecision.

When I was at my lowest ebb, locked away from society for a month while rest and recuperation were pressed upon me, he missed me. And on those few occasions when I was let out for a few hours he would lay his head upon me, or curl up in my lap, letting the warmth of his body seep through my weary bones, and the gentle purr of his living motor nurture my broken spirit. He is my guardian in a way no mere human could ever be. He cannot physically protect me – although he does demonstrate a decent set of claws and teeth if a careless mouse crosses his path – but I am blessed to have never required physical protection. Coco is a soothing balm when my soul is tortured and a grounding force when my spirit is breaking apart. He is protector, bodyguard and healer.

I have never felt protected – emotionally or psychologically – by anybody. If someone heaps criticism upon me – justified or not – I pretty much expect the crowd around me to jump on the bandwagon and join in – a “Let’s all hate on Simone” party. That’s how it’s been all my life. Criticism is what I expect, and criticism is what I get.

But Coco? He’s doesn’t criticise. Like most animals, he instinctively knows when comfort is needed and seeks out the warmth of my arms to burrow his cold little nose until we are warm together. Golden eyes guard me against the ever-present critic residing inside, grounding me back in reality and reminding me, this too shall pass and you’ll be okay. My bodyguard is a Burmese cat…

IN MY OWN TIME

My recovery is not going at the speed some people would like. I’m too slow. Not making enough progress. I’m not doing enough work or making changes quickly enough. Apparently.

It is absolutely true that many people who commence recovery – from anything – progress at a faster rate. They make changes and those changes stick, perhaps with some small relapses, but a fairly linear recovery process. That’s awesome – I wish I was one of those people! But I’m not…

My faulty relationship with food started when I was three weeks old.

Three weeks!

It’s hard for most people to imagine what that is like – to have never, ever experienced a healthy relationship with food. To have no healthy memories to call upon. To have no trust in the experience. To have known nothing but obsession with wanting to eat and using food to numb every aspect of my being. And to have that coupled with severe body image issues.

I have no doubt I’m not alone. We live in a society that places an enormous amount of emphasis on body image and we’ve done this for decades – generations. I am also the product of generational eating disorder behaviours – my grandmother passed her unhealthy relationship with body image and food on to her only daughter, my mother. My mother had an even more unhealthy relationship with body image and food, and she taught these values to my sister and myself. I am a little bit relieved we both had sons and have – hopefully – broken the pattern. That doesn’t solve my problem though.

I’m not recovering fast enough.

I’m frustrating people – people I really respect and care about. But you know what? I’m doing the best I can. I refuse to give up. I have made progress and implemented changes that are slowly becoming more habitual.

When I slip and slump and slide in the wrong direction, that does not negate the changes I’ve made. If I’m crawling along at a snail’s pace – that means I’m moving. Snails move – continuously.

I’ve articulated my progress before – I don’t need to do it again. I’ve expressed frustration at all my slips before – I don’t need to do it again.

What I need, is patience and support. For acknowledgment that my journey – like everyone’s journey – is unique. I have a lot of similarities to others and a lot of differences. That’s how things work.

At the start of my recovery, there were some very major roadblocks I needed to push through, and probably the biggest three were, get rid of the bathroom scales, eat regular meals, loosen my lap band.

The bathroom scales keep me focused on weight and body image. I got rid of them in May.

Eating regular meals will help reset my hunger signals and assist with reestablishing metabolism – teaching my body that food will be available on a regular basis. I started eating regularly in June.

Now I need to loosen my lap band. The band is too tight and it is just so easy and tempting to purge constantly. I have made an appointment for an adjustment on 23 August.

Making that appointment has been highly triggering and I am struggling to stay on top of things now. I am in fact doing very poorly – anxiety pretty high and feeling a need to lose as much weight as possible before the adjustment.

For anyone wondering why this is such a massive step, I’ll see if I can articulate it…

The lap band reduces hunger and slows down food consumption. For someone like me, however, it can also be used as surgical bulimia – eat fast and you’re forced to purge. It’s just too easy.

So loosening the band means I will feel more hungry and I’ll purge less. In my head that translates into weight gain. And while a looser band means I can keep down healthy food more easily, it also means I can keep down unhealthy food more easily – and that is my fear. I fear if I eat a little bit, I’ll eat it all. Because historically that has been the case.

I also acknowledge that loosening the band is essential for my recovery. I know this. It has to happen sooner or later and relapsing in anticipation is almost inevitable as well. This too shall pass.

In the meantime, I’m sorry I’m not progressing as fast as you’d like. I’m also not progressing as fast as I’d like! But I need to do this in my own time. Any faster than that and I’ll just go backwards. I can’t be forced into changing five decades of habitual problems overnight. I can’t even force myself.

I need you to acknowledge my progress and gently nudge me to the next step – because there is a lot of fear of the unknown. If you’re already living in the land of healthy food relationships, keep reminding me what it’s like over there – because I have no idea! But I will get there – I’ll join you in that magical place. And I’ll do it in my own time.