EYE OPENER

Today was an eye opening day.

It began as any other Saturday – a late lie-in, snuggling with my husband, watching the sunrise through our bedroom window.

With porridge in front of me and a cup of tea by my side, I logged onto my laptop and checked today’s task for the 7 Day Writing Challenge. My heart almost stopped and I was on the verge of tears. I wasn’t sure I could do it.

Take a mirror and spend two minutes studying your own face, then write down what you see. No judgment. No writing how ugly or old you feel. No descriptions using adjectives of judgment. Just describe what you see.

I was horrified.

My anxiety immediately soared and my first thought was that I didn’t have to do it. Nobody could make me. That is of course completely true. This a free writing challenge – I’m not going to be assessed. If I don’t participate nobody will know, and I’m the only person who will care.

So no, I don’t have to do it.

The second thought was, the thing that terrifies me the most, is the thing I most need to do. Nothing about change is comfortable, and nothing about this task was comfortable, therefore doing the challenge could contribute to facilitating change.

I pottered around and procrastinated. I had a shower and did the washing and put clean sheets on the bed. I painted my face on, as I do every day. Then I took a pile of selfies, picked the one I felt was most genuine – not the one with the nicest smile, not the one showing the worst wrinkles – but the photo I felt best showed me as I really am.

I spent several minutes staring at my face then used the selfie as a reminder while I wrote. These are the words that flowed from within, while my conscious self closed down.

The task – to gaze upon my reflection and see not flaws or angst, to look past the fear and loathing, to seek that which is hidden in plain view for all the world to see. The task is to see Me.

I see healthy plump cheeks with a peachy complexion – dusted with powder and cream. And faint reminders of the kiss of the sun in the fading freckles beneath.

I see gentle furrows etched softly across the forehead, deeper between the eyes, mirroring the joy and grief a lived life receives.

I see a small, wide nose, nestled centred in a soft round face. A nose finely tuned to the faintest scent wafting on the air it breathes.

I see wet pink lips. Sparkling with the glow of brushed on gloss. Lips softly pulled into a gentle smile, hiding the secrets of a thousand kisses. Ready to share a thousand words and ready to silence a thousand more.

I see soft brown brows, framing the windows to the soul. Speckled with moments of white, anticipating the passage of time.

I see small hazel eyes beneath plump fleshy eyelids. With soft brown lashes and a small blue mole tucked gently on the edge where the eye meets the bones below.

I see eyes with a layer of salty water protecting from the brisk winds and filled with hope and fear. Eyes that silently listen. Eyes that always see. Eyes that hide great pain and share great love. Set deep beneath the soft, brown brows, these hazel eyes, with pupils rimmed by a fine black ring and speckled with the reflected light of the day around, these hazel eyes have looked and seen, then looked some more. They’ve seen what’s there and what isn’t. They’ve felt a thousand sorrows and embraced a thousand joys. They’ve stared into the depths of a lover’s gaze and beheld the wonder of new life. They’ve watched life fade away and die. Friendships blossom and grow. They’ve seen hurt and bias, jealousy and vitriol. They’ve seen it all. They’ve felt it all. And sought to understand it all.

I gaze upon my reflection, and I see Me.

I felt nothing as I wrote – the fearful tears from earlier in the morning were gone. I just let my insides out and followed the instructions we’d been set.

I felt nothing throughout the day but by late afternoon I started to figure out I wasn’t having a “hungry” day or a “domestic goddess” day. I wasn’t having a “feed my family” day. I was buttering bread, cooking chocolate sauce and raspberry jam, baking chocolate chip biscuits, and making pancakes, because I was doing what I’ve always done – seeking food to bury emotion. I tried to run from my feelings with a dozen chocolate chip biscuits.

I was bingeing and gorging and purging,  all because I had to look at myself in the mirror.

Not glance into it to see if red boots match a green skirt. Not focus on my eyelashes while applying mascara. I had to look at myself and see what others see. Not to say, old or ugly, wrinkly or pale. Not to pretend I see beauty or love or a life well lived. Just to see what’s in the mirror. And it’s terrifying. I don’t do that. I have never done that.

I listened to the group video later on. A video acknowledging the difficulty so many of us face with a task like this. A video that talked about the pointlessness of self-loathing. Nobody is interested in it – and that point rang true. If I point out my flaws to others they contradict me or change the subject. Nobody is interested. They don’t lack compassion – it just isn’t relevant.

I spent time yesterday writing a timeline of progress I have made in my mental health recovery over the past twelve months – and that progress is pretty significant and substantial. I still have a lot more work to do, but the work yet to be done, does not diminish the gains I have made.

One area remains hugely problematic and a very big hurdle – it needs to be tackled now. And that is body image and confidence. I hear again and again, freedom from disordered eating will never be achieved while focusing on weight. Weight gain or loss is a natural product of finding a healthy relationship with food and with my body. Once that happens, the body will stabilise at the weight is meant to be.

Today’s writing task shows me just how much work I need to do in this area.

Today’s writing task took me deep within and opened the door to acceptance. It was eye-opening. I will look into that door for some time – contemplating what lies within.

FRESH AS A DAISY

Wallowing around in my little pity party yesterday was very cathartic. I feel fresh as a daisy today. Which is ironic given I had bugger all sleep last night. There never seems to be a direct correlation between the amount of sleep I receive and my energy levels the next day. Bizarrely.

I credit a lot of today’s freshness with the writing challenge I commenced this morning. I signed up for a seven-day writing challenge a while back and today was the big day. I had no idea what to expect, but it was not what I expected. I was excited to log on this morning and be taken to the first exercise which was rather entertaining and very thought-provoking. Not my best writing by a long shot. And could quite possibly win prizes for my worst writing ever.

Once finished, we were tasked with going back and finding keywords or phrases that jumped out and spoke to us, and these were the few I was most comfortable with:

• Bald as a baby’s new butt
• Maternal love demands eternal protection and she’d failed – he was dead
• A child that grew in the family, but never grew in life
• The constant fear of living with her. The constant fear of living without her
• He was fat and fair and round
• While my husband and I indulged in the carnal delights of obligatory marital sex
• Despite a relationship fraught with angst and animosity, the natural safe place to fall was the bosom of her own mother
• We were swept off the only earth we had ever known. Our physical home was swept up into the heavens and held in the palm of a godly hand. And the earth was cleansed.

What does it all mean? Absolutely nothing 😀 The point was not to find meaning or be clever or deep. The point was just to let words flow and see what happened. And a lot of words happened, of which the vast majority were meaningless drivel.
That little exercise got me off to a merry little start to the day. And beginning the day in a merry way always feels nice. It also sets me up to succeed, and as I frequently taught my lovely little students, success breeds success.

Today is the first day in (umm… anybody been counting?)… let’s call it a very long time… that I have not binged, or purged, or restricted. Or weighed myself. Or self-harmed. None of those things. Not one. And while clearly I am still awake, which does offer me the opportunity to fuck up before the day is over, at this point in time I’m fairly optimistic I can see the day through successfully.

One day. Just one.

Maybe there’ll be another. Maybe there won’t. Who knows? None of us can predict the future. But getting one whole day under my belt has felt like an impossible dream. So if I can do it once, perhaps there’s a chance I could do it again. And then perhaps, the sky is the limit. It may be possible for me to find that elusive freedom.

While I was feeling fresh and daisy-like, I not only steered clear of eating disorder behaviours, I also indulged in some self-care. Not exciting things like bubble baths and painted toe-nails – I did boring things like physio exercises, imbibing ghastly tasting medication for chronic constipation, and doing stretches for my neck injury. Boring, boring, boring. Necessary – but boring. I also indulged in the fun self-care stuff as well – I went to gym, had lots of cups of tea, caught up very briefly with a lovely friend, and did lots more writing. All this self-care stuff seems to make a difference. And more importantly, I think I’ve almost reached a stage where it doesn’t feel selfish.

I’m not sure about that though? It could just be that external demands upon me are not huge right now, so there is more time for self-care. I won’t test that theory by wishing for more external demands though…

If daisy-inspired freshness is something to look forward to on a regular basis in the land of freedom and recovery, then that would appear to be quite a motivating factor for getting my butt into gear and walking a lot of the talk, that I have carried on with for so long.

I’m not sure why I am so resistant to change – I know many people who finally get themselves into recovery start making really big progress really quickly. My progress is slower than a lethargic snail with a nasty case of the flu. Mostly bedridden and asleep. It’s time.

This fresh little daisy is going to wake again tomorrow, and work hard to keep this recovery gig a happening thing.

YEARNING FOR YONDER YEARS

I hate where I’m at in life right now. I want to go back. Or forward. Anywhere but here. It is a wish guaranteed to come true, because the present moment only lasts a moment, and just yesterday I was holding my now 23 year old son as a newborn in my arms. So I guess yonder years will be here sooner than I might think. In the meantime, now sucks.

Why does it suck? No reason. I just don’t like it. I had a friend ask me today if her own problems are dragging me down. Of course not! I feel blessed to have such beautiful friends and not one moment of time spent with friends is ever begrudged or regretted. No. I drag myself down right now – wallowing around in my own little pity party. I need to get it all off my chest here, so I can put it into perspective, get over it, then move on.

I feel dragged down by the inevitability of watching my 98.5 year old grandmother in rapid decline – she has a fracture in her spine and has been put on oxycodone for the pain. She’s never had anything stronger than aspirin in her life. She’s off her face, totally out of it and will be much the same for the next 6-8 weeks. I’m not confident she’ll make much of a mental recovery at all. She can’t stay awake long enough to sip her tea any more.

I feel dragged down by the inevitability of having to accept I have chronic pain. Not just a temporary backache – a permanent one. It’s never going to go away. I have to learn to manage it and that pisses me off. I want to be more active, do more bushwalks, lots more camping and exciting outdoor activities, not be constantly modifying everything I do to accommodate for back, neck and shoulder issues. But this has been going on for at least three years and despite constantly searching to strengthen and improve everything, it’s deteriorated. The pain is fairly constant now. Not unbearable, just permanent.

I feel dragged down by exhaustion.

Will I ever not be tired again? I slept for seven hours last night. Seven straight, uninterrupted hours. That is the first time in many, many months. And yet I feel more tired today than I have the past week. I feel like I’m going to be tired forever. I keep reminding myself, this too shall pass – but it is passing like a kidney stone and that’s no fun.

I feel anxious about having  hidden my scales away. I don’t know what I weigh now. I don’t know what to wear. I have no evidence my weight is staying the same or going down, therefore I make the assumption it is going up. Unless I have a significant change (one way or the other) I can’t know for sure where I am. Maybe tomorrow I should put my “skinny” clothes on to see if any fit. And when (if) they don’t fit, I’ll put my “fat” clothes on and see if they’re still loose. But then maybe if I’m feeling rational in the morning, I’ll do neither of those things, and choose whatever clothing I feel like wearing.

I feel anxious about recovery. I have made really good progress in lots of areas in the past month. I really truly believe that. I have made changes in both the things I do and the things I think. But there are also situations where I choose to make no change at all. Those situations of course are always the most emotionally driven times, and therefore the times where I most need to make the changes. And I’ve made none. I start to rapidly lose confidence anything can change. I desperately want the change, and I desperately want to keep repeating the same destructive patterns every time I’m in a stressful situation. So if I can’t fix it all, is there any point in fixing some of it?

I feel anxious about my future.

What does it look like? What do I do? Why am I bothering? I have a sense of pointlessness, purposelessness, and the inevitability of becoming a big burden on the people around me. And I can’t bear the thought of being a burden. I think it is all stemming from spending so much time at the nursing home with my grandmother and knowing I don’t ever – ever, ever, ever – want to be in her situation. I must keep reminding myself it is 47.5 years away for me. I need to focus a little closer to the present moment for now.

And of course I am still feeling a really strong sense of loss for all the blessings and opportunities that gave me such joy in the past – my children, performing, teaching. I loved those things so much. And I haven’t yet found what will replace them in the future.

Okay – I have cathartically extricated all that negativity from deep within me. Before I wrap up for tonight, I will do another gratitude list and keep repeating to myself the affirmations I shared a little while back – most significantly, I am enough.

I am so incredibly grateful for:

~ a husband who sticks by me no matter what
~ the world’s greatest collection of friends
~ a job I absolutely love
~ an amazing gym and personal trainer
~ more material possessions than a gal could desire
~ the capacity to express myself with the written word
~ the opportunity for recovery – again, and again, and again
 
 
 

MELANCHOLY MOODINESS

I had a really lovely day today. For the most part, I made good decisions around food. And yet for no apparent reason, this evening I feel incredibly melancholy and moody. I’m overcome with a range of emotions I can’t even describe. To be honest, I just want to cry.

Why? I have absolutely no idea. None whatsoever.

This is the problem with having all your emotions invalidated in your formative years. You learn to quash them. To refuse to acknowledge them. To actually be ashamed of having emotions – any and all emotions. Don’t get angry or excited – nobody is comfortable with that kind of emotional display. Pride is a sin – be humble. Love is for those not independent enough to manage alone. You have nothing to cry about when there are people in the world with much bigger problems than you have. Don’t overdo that happiness gig, you’ll make other people feel uncomfortable. I genuinely have no idea what I was supposed to feel. I think I was meant to be bland and boring. I think that’s what I became.

I know I was a difficult child.

I was really hyperactive and stubborn, inquisitive and independent. And I was highly emotional! I still am – but now I don’t know how to identify those emotions. I bury them until a few days later they just bubble to the surface. Then I find myself on a Tuesday evening, having had a lovely day at work and with friends, feeling all moody and melancholy and teary, and not having any idea why.

During my psychology sessions I am often told I need to sit with my feelings – I need to let them wash over me, accept them, name them if I can, and just feel them. Feel the feelings. It seems so obvious! It seems so simple… It isn’t.

Over the years I have developed an uncanny ability to recognise buried emotions in other people. I can read faces like a book. I’m really very good at it apparently. But my own emotions? I’ve spent five decades burying them and they’re jolly hard to find. Now I need to spend a long time digging to find them.

I’ve been digging for a couple of years and I’m getting there – believe it or not. Six months ago I would have just found myself staring at the bottom of a recently devoured ice cream carton and wondering what had just happened. Instead of unexpected melancholy, and moodiness, I would be struck with the unexpected necessity to binge and purge. In fact if I’m entirely honest here, I will admit that I am still struck with the unexpected necessity to binge, only now I try and interrupt the desire. I can white knuckle for a short period of time, or do any of the many tools I have learned. But feeling the feelings… I want to do it. I don’t know how.

If I try to think about today’s melancholy mood, I can’t find any obvious trigger.

I have been trying to come to terms with my changing life – getting older, my kids leaving home, my music and teaching career tossed away, the many family members that are gone – forever. These are all perfectly normal life changes that I have been expecting. The alternative to getting older is death, so for the most part, aging is the preferred option. My kids will leave home because I raised them to be capable, independent young men, and I am excited for them to break away and lead their own lives. I loved, loved, loved being a flautist and a teacher – but I was tired and I’d had enough. I left it voluntarily, at a time when I was ready, with no regrets. Family members die – that is a reality. Nobody gets through life, without experiencing death.

There is nothing unusual or tragic about the things I miss. But I still feel a little lost. I still feel consumed with regrets. I regret not appreciating my youth – I would have liked to be slimmer, and fitter and more beautiful when I had youth on my side. Parenting gifted me the happiest years of my life and I hate that those years are gone. I feel deeply, deeply sad knowing I will never play the flute again. So, so sad. I loved, loved, loved it. It was my biggest and greatest dream – to be a musician. I would give almost anything to have the opportunity to spend another day with all those family members I’ve lost – one last party to tell them how much I loved them.

So – on this very melancholy, moody day, I want to acknowledge how sad I feel. I want to acknowledge that I feel grief for times, places and people I genuinely loved and deeply miss. I cannot bring those days back, but I am incredibly grateful I had the opportunity to experience so much gratification, excitement and love.

I am truly blessed.

And now – now I need to remind myself that recovery is about focusing on the future – on what is to come and what I am dreaming of, not continuously looking back and regretting that which is now gone.

To finish for tonight, I will share a little gratitude (an exercise I am hearing on a regular basis is an excellent means of developing a more positive outlook), and then I will dream a little dream for the future.

I am grateful for my excellent health, my adoring husband and my amazing children.

I dream of a future filled with hope, purpose and love. I dream of a future where I contribute meaningfully in the workforce and financially in our home. I dream of a future where I appreciate the amazing friends and family I am blessed with. And I dream of a future filled with the excitement of travel planning, the contentment of domestic bliss, and the appreciation of good friends.

With a thousand words, I have moderated my melancholy mood 🙂

NOT IN BLACK & WHITE

Perfectionistic thinking. It can be a bit of a curse. Apparently it can also be a really great personality trait – but I suspect one would have to utilise it in a slightly healthier way.

When you’re a perfectionist, the world is black and white. I’m right or wrong, it’s easy or hard, I’m good at something or I suck, you like me or you hate me. Finding the shades of grey between polarising opposites is tricky – and I’m not talking about the 50 shades of Christian Grey…

But I’m in recovery now.

I have to keep saying this, so I can come to believe it. And because I’m in recovery, it’s important I become more grey.

Today hasn’t been a great day – no idea why. I just fucked up. And normally I would criticise myself relentlessly and lash myself with whips of self-loathing about what an idiot I am, how weak I am, why bother, throw in the towel. etc etc. But as someone in recovery, I must forgive myself. To accept what happened and move on. To put things into perspective. Not to analyse WHAT happened, but to analyse WHY  – so I can learn for next time. Forgiveness is something I have always given other people and never myself – it is foreign and awkward and I don’t even really know how to forgive myself. But I do know I can try.

I realise how damaging black and white thinking is when I come face to face with someone else doing the same thing. The rigidity of thoughts. The inflexibility and unwillingness to try different or awkward ideas. The excuses as to why something won’t work or how I can’t do an exercise for this or that reason. When I see someone else doing exactly what I do, it makes me realise how damaging it is. And how frustrating for other people.

So I’m going to learn to be grey. I’m going to try and find at least 50 shades of grey between right and wrong, good and bad, happy and sad, disordered and recovered.

So… today? Today I wanted to eat when I shouldn’t have. I wanted to eat things I shouldn’t. And I white knuckled for a while, and then ate a fair bit of crap, and then threw most of it up. Not a great day, despite good intentions.
Black and White Simone, wants to give up, to remind myself past recovery attempts have failed and this one will be no different, I’m fat and ugly and the best way to get thin is to throw up, I’m not worthy of recovery, I’m a shameful disgrace for binging and purging. A waste of a human being.

Shaded Grey Simone is reflecting on the emotions and situations that led to poor decisions, and how I could make different choices. I haven’t been well lately, and I’m very tired, so physically I feel weaker and more in need of comfort. Instead of feeding that exhaustion with food, I could have had a rest and a coffee. I was also bored, which I could have acknowledged as boredom then done something productive rather than destructive. I have recovery tools at my fingertips I chose not to use – I don’t have to like them or agree with them.

I just need to try them.

What I have done for 50 years is not working – so recovery requires me going way outside my comfort zone and trying the weird, whacky and wonderful, until I find what works for me. I can: journal, do tapping (EFT), visualisation, reframing, mindfulness, meditation, contact a friend, do some recovery reading, exercise, drink water, pros/cons, planning, affirmations and mantras, any kind of distraction or delaying tactic! I’m sure there are other tools… That’s all I can think of at the moment. The point being – I didn’t use them when I could have. So rather than beat myself up tonight, I want to remind myself of the tools I need to reach for next time. Perhaps that is what forgiveness is… Perhaps forgiveness is just not being horrible to myself. Perhaps it’s just being analytical and working out how things might be different next time.
Black and White Simone is going to be very gradually replaced, with Shades of Grey Simone. A girl who can accept and forgive. Who can learn and change. Who can adopt freakishly unfamiliar tools to forge a new life, free from disordered eating.

ILLUSIONS

I’m fluffy today. And floppy. I had lots of drugs…

I have pain. I feel like I have chronic pain, but compared to people who actually have chronic pain, I don’t. I do, however, have some back issues (facet joint hypertrophy between L3-4 and L4-5), tendinopathy in my left hamstring, and rotation and shift in my pelvis. Mostly (but not entirely) caused by my hypermobility. I think…

I have physio exercises to do, and one day (theoretically) the pain should go away. In the meantime, I have nerve pain running from my left hip to ankle, and a hamstring on the same leg that feels permanently torn, and a butt cheek that is always really tender, and when the hip is not corrected (it’s much better than it was) I have a big clunk every now and then with extra nerve pain running along. It’s a bundle of laughs.

To add to all this excitement, since starting my new job, I have more than doubled the amount of time spent working at the computer, and consequently developed really bad pain in my neck and shoulders. It got so bad on the weekend I could no longer move my head – at all. This makes driving problematic…

And it really fucking hurts, so that’s no fun.

I had a fabulous massage yesterday, with a remedial massage therapist. She did an awesome job but unfortunately could not make me completely pain-free in the space of an hour. It was better – but not fixed. When I woke this morning, I had a sinus headache to add to my woes (I’ve been home sick for a few days with a cold, and I think it’s turning into some other kind of infection – kinda dizzy and wheezy now.)

I was sick of all this pain so this morning I took: prescription anti-inflammatories, Sudafed, paracetamol, aspirin, doxylamine sulfate, and codeine. I didn’t take everything at once… I just kept trying things until I either a) felt better or b) fell asleep. Eventually, both things happened 😀

I’m not pain-free now, but I care a whole lot less.

Anyway – the point of all of this was to talk about self-care. I realise this was a long-winded way of getting to self-care, but I’m having a long windy day.

Self-care is so important. And I suck at it. I’m good at self-pity – but not self-care. Self-care might not be in the least bit fun but is about recognising the importance of doing what needs to be done to nurture and nourish the body and soul. And physio exercises are a huge part of that for me. I go back to the physiotherapist in another week and she’ll be asking how the exercises went. For a while I was fantastic – doing them every day, making progress, pain diminishing. Then I got slack and stopped bothering. Then the pain got really, really bad and all of a sudden I remembered the exercises. Now, of course, the pain is worse than before because of the added neck and shoulder stuff. I did my exercises today – a lot – have done them the past few days as well, and will do them daily until I see her next week. They really help.

I don’t know how to prioritise my self-care. I know when the pain gets bad enough, the exercises become a priority, but that is foolish. I need self-care as preventative medicine, not as a means to patch myself up until everything falls apart again.

So – illusions. The illusion of good health and well being gets in the way of my self-care. I must see through that. Prevention is better than cure every day of the week. Every single day. By investing my time and energy into caring for my body, I will be preventing myself from going through preventable illnesses. I can’t prevent accidents or unpreventable illnesses… But the main stuff I can work with. So even when I’m suffering under the illusion of good health, I need to do the following self-care activities – daily!

• Physio exercises
• Real exercises (usually at the gym)
• Eat well three times a day
• Stay hydrated
• Get adequate sleep
• Do mindfulness and/or meditation
• Spend quiet time without a screen in front of me
• Connect with humans – real humans
• Plan my day in the mornings and reflect in the evenings
• Forgive myself

The last one there? That’s because I’m never good enough. I’m always doing something I feel is wrong, or not doing something I feel I should have. But I’m not perfect, and I don’t need to be, and if I stuff up I can just learn, accept, forgive, move on. That would be an awesome idea.

I’ve been deluding myself with the illusion of good health and it needs to stop.

My recovery is my most important goal right now, and a huge component of that is self-care – physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual. Nurturing my body, mind and spirit every single day. No more illusions – see the realities and do the work, woman.