For nigh on fifty years I was like most people – very quiet and private about my personal life. I barely shared my inner world with myself, let alone anyone else. But now I live my life like the door to my house is wide open and everyone can see inside. And there are reasons for that profound change. Let me see if my humble words can explain a little bit.
Read MoreI have a cycle. And it’s not menstrual (that ended 20 years ago). It turns out that every four years, something major happens in my life that changes me. Forever.
Read MoreChildhood is a tricky time. As is parenting. And while the vast majority of parents do the very best they know how, sometimes it just isn’t enough. Sometimes the scars last a lifetime.
Read MoreAt 11:03 AM on Tuesday 03 September 2024 I developed a tremor. It hasn’t left yet. I think it highly unlikely it ever will now. It was triggered by shock.
Read MoreBroken hearts have been around since mankind first walked out of the primordial slump. But for all the long and painful history of heartbreaks, there is still no tried and tested formula for navigating something that is so deeply personal and individual for every person.
Read MoreDepending on which of the nine different eating disorders is the primary issue, we may have to eat more or less food, more or less frequently, or different food altogether. But as food is an essential survival tool, at the end of the day, we have to eat.
Read MoreToday my friend, I want to talk about grief. This is a hard story to write but let me start at the beginning.
Read MoreJanuary 28 will forever be a memorable day in my life. It is the day my mother was born. And it is the day my father died.
Read MoreFor much of my life, I was driven and busy and energetic and doing shit all the time. I didn’t sleep. I ate a lot. All my spare time filled up with mothering or wifeing or friending or working or volunteering. It was a fairly typical life for someone in their thirties and forties. Then I imploded and everything changed.
Read MoreOver the weeks and months and years of my healing journey, I have heard the word ‘boundaries’ whispered in my ear countless times. Although, sometimes it’s less of a whisper and more of a fish wife’s guttural screech, echoing around the chambers of my people-pleasing brain.
Read MoreI take up space in this world and I don’t like it. I am wired to the core of my being to […]
Read MoreI did a hard thing. Well… It was hard for me. Perhaps you would find it easy. Or impossible. Perhaps like me […]
Read MoreI am still struggling with high levels of anxiety and resorting to moments of scratching at my hands – but it isn’t escalating. I have an appointment with my new psychiatrist tomorrow and managing the anxiety is going to be top of our chat list. I’m still on clonazepam and I’d like to be off it and find a longer term solution. I feel the improvements in my eating regime have contributed to my sense of fragility and vulnerability – escalating my anxiety.
It’s been a wild ride. My last two days at the clinic were focused on discussing healthy ways of managing my out of control anxiety issues. I had one day of leave cancelled altogether (Sunday) as I couldn’t be trusted not to harm myself. I didn’t even trust myself. The next day was escorted leave and Tuesday – my final day as it turned out – back to full unescorted pre-discharge phase.
Forty three days down. Nine to go. I am ready – but glad to have these last nine days to consolidate what I’ve learned, set up support at home, invent a new life for myself, and gain the confidence to know it’s not only possible for me to recover – or even probable – but I have to believe I will recover.
g things I have to share. And it’s not because I only focus on the negative – I promise! It’s because life in the clinic is fairly routine and dull, and unless I’m having some kind of emotional crisis, there’s nothing to share. And today I’ve had no emotional crisis. I have in fact had a great (but slightly dull) day.
Today’s psychology task – write two letters. One from my body to me. One from me to my body. Here goes:
This morning I woke to the news one of our founding members, mother to the firstborn of the August 1996 babies (arriving early, in June 1996) passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.
Today I’m very sad. I guess it was inevitable. After 25 years of marriage I don’t normally blink an eye when spending time apart from my significant other – but this is different. We’ve been apart a month and will now be apart another 2-4 weeks. Which in the big scheme of things will become a blip on the radar, but today we’re surfing the blip.
One of our tasks in group therapy today was to “create three characters to live in your own ‘Land of Oz’. Give them each something to search for that YOU are searching for through your eating disorder (NOT related to weight). Give reasons why the Mighty Wizard would say that you already have what you are looking for.”
Today I am afraid of recovery. I’ve been in this place before – where I’ve felt the beginnings of change and then become overwhelmed with the fear of that change and what it might herald. so I rush back to the safe and familiar.
As I may have mentioned once or thrice, I suck at art. And the thought of doing art therapy leaves me feeling cold and slightly nauseated. However, it is also true the art therapist is not only a lovely person, but also a very good therapist. Plus she’s nice to me – and by that I mean, she often lets me write in lieu of drawing. So here’s a few of my art therapy, “works of art”. Spontaneously produced. Unedited. Raw. Cheerless…
I’ve spent a lifetime as a highly anxious person pretending it wasn’t so and secretly not coping. Nobody knew. I hid it. Very well. Now I don’t want to. I want to accept and manage it instead. It won’t solve all my problems but it will be a good start. I have no idea how to manage it…
So in contrast to my previous post on resilience, I now concede that in some areas of my life I can become and behave in an extremely resilient manner. There are areas I need to work on, but for now I’m surrounded by professionals who will gladly work with me towards those goals.
I have to do art therapy while I’m incarcerated as an inpatient. I can’t begin to put into words how much I dreaded this concept. I even told the very lovely therapist how I feel about art therapy. She was very understanding – and surprised. Because no matter how I feel about the activity, I am here to immerse myself in all the therapies, regardless of my preconceived ideas.
Same old, same old. Neither better nor worse. I feel my depression has sunk pretty low and I spent a lot of today mapping out “exit” strategies. But I also communicated this with the registrar and have requested to have my dose of pristiq increased. She’s also modified my leave to “escorted” which is fine by me.
A friend of mine has encouraged me to share my private journals of inpatient. I hope it’s not triggering for anyone. It’s deeply personal. And I’ve made every effort to remove identifying information of the clinic, staff and patients. It’s a long read! But this is what life is like.
