I live in a house, surrounded by nature. I sit in bed of a morning, watching native birds sing in the tree outside my bedroom window. I can see the water. I can hear the waves. I can watch the sunrise. These things are always here. They always have been. I’ve lived in this house for 16 years.
I may not be a dog person, but I am acutely aware of the joy, love and hope a beloved pet can […]
Am I normal or different? Am I sick or healthy? I have no fricking idea… I feel normal. I’ve always been like […]
I spent years telling myself it’s overwhelmingly difficult – nigh on impossible – to overwrite the dialogue of my childhood. That whatever […]
A year ago I was a mess. A great big psychological mess. I was heading towards a breakdown and a stay in […]
I have spent so much of my life feeling like a failure. Musician: failed Housewife: failed Finances: failed Resilience: failed Beauty: failed Weight: […]
… a thumping heart … a tight chest … short, quick breaths … a knot in my stomach … a swollen throat … heavy […]
“Are you on a diet?”
I was 22 years old. I was not on a diet. I was not overweight. Yet…
It was Christmas Day and I was away from my family. Invited to a friend’s house for the day, I met a lovely Japanese couple. His English wasn’t the greatest and when I said I didn’t eat meat, he asked if I was on a diet. It was an innocent question – and his wife quickly jumped in to clarify. He was asking if I had dietary restrictions. I did. I was vegetarian.
Within a year I was also bulimic.
Mental illness is illness. It’s not a choice. Not a decision or a lifestyle. It’s an illness. Like most illnesses, there are a […]
I grew up in a pretty normal, conservative, middle-class household. My parents weren’t super strict. Or super lenient. They were just sort of – […]
Oh man. I am Struggling today. Struggling with a capital S and so incredibly tempted to give up. Give up on ever finding any type of recovery. Give up on therapy and just accept binging, purging and restricting as my normal. I am my own worst enemy. I’ve learned all the keys and steps and lifestyle changes. The insanity remains. I know all the buzzwords and metaphors:
We’re born to be nurtured.
Unlike most of the animal kingdom, little humans begin life utterly dependent on their caregivers. In a perfect world, we’re raised by loving and caring parents supported by their whole community – it takes a village to raise a child. Perfection is a rare commodity.
Food tastes like failure.
I don’t savour beautiful textures and flavours. I never mindfully and sensuously nibble delicacies, inhaling aromas and luxuriating in the tantalising sensations on my tastebuds. When I eat, I scoff food down like a starving woman fighting a horde of ravenous dogs, scratching around for the last morsel on a carcass. Washed down with guilt and loathing and fear, and an overwhelming sense of failure – I’ve done it again. I’ve eaten food I didn’t want, in a manner I didn’t like. I’ve failed myself. Food tastes like failure. Day in and day out – I eat failure or I don’t eat at all.
And that failure is an emotion so powerful it’s almost tangible – I could reach out and touch it. Food tastes like failure and failure is a feeling.
But that’s a lie.
I don’t know who I am…
I know the core values I embrace. I know the person I’d like to be. But I don’t know who I really am.
Does that sound absurd? It does to me…
Today I want to sleep.
I want to go to sleep and never wake up. To luxuriate in the endless bliss of nothingness. I want to be free from physical pain. Free from exhaustion. I don’t want to feel worried or anxious or guilty or afraid. I don’t want to be fat and old and lost and weary. I just want to rest. To slip into eternal, blissful rest.
