THE SOUND OF SILENCE
Sometimes I stop talking This irritates other people because it happens right at the moment when I am most expected to talk. […]
Sometimes I stop talking This irritates other people because it happens right at the moment when I am most expected to talk. […]
How are you, is so common our responses are automated. That’s fine for chit chat with the checkout chick, but when you’re with your nearest and dearest, when you have big emotions you’d love to share (or would benefit from sharing), it’s not helpful to reply with a conditioned, I’m fine. But what other options are there? Are you okay? is becoming popular, but it’s still not enough.
A lot can happen in two weeks. You can lose everything, as so many people around the world are now discovering. You can become isolated, locked away, afraid and no longer in control of your life.
Navigating a lifetime of depression is like being an avid bushwalker and mountain climber. For years on end the scenery is stunning, the flora and fauna breathtaking and the hard yards well rewarded. For short periods of time steep, rocky, unnavigable mountains appear that seem interminable and impossible to navigate. Clambering over invisible rocks always happens in the dark and every inch of your body screams, No! I can’t do it any more! There are people at the summit cheering, saying, Come on – not far now! You know there are people below struggling on the same mountain, or back in the safety of the pretty woods. But on that dark mountain, you’re alone, lost in that sense of hopelessness – completely reliant on voices from afar – and the squabble between the angels on your shoulders.
“We belong to what we value, not what we desire.” A cool guy I know. I love that statement – it really resonates with me. I spend time and energy, make commitments and secret pacts, with the things I value. Not with the things I desire.
Perhaps desperate times call for desperate measures. Or the humbling experience of being utterly defeated by life creates a willingness to look beyond that which makes sense. Or perhaps true peace can only be found by seeking comfort in the mystical and spiritual.
On 29 July 2018, I met a girl. A real girl. Due to the vagaries of distance and finances, we couldn’t meet in real life – until 44 days ago. That girl has changed my life.
Just as I was knee-deep, wallowing around in my little starving pity party, I received the feedback from my manuscript assessor regarding the first draft of my memoir – temporarily titled Stalked by Demons. Guarded by Angels | The Girl with the Eating Disorder.
It takes six little words feeding the eating disorder voice, to override a year of conversations nurturing the timid voice of recovery.
It takes very little time in the world of mental health treatments, before acronyms and mnemonics become everyday language. Psychiatric therapies have come a long way from the induced seizures, exorcisms and lobotomies of the past. Today there are countless methods of treatment – pharmacological, behavioural, community, and medical. Psychiatrists tend to be the big boss of drugs and medical treatments like ECT or TMS, while psychologists tend to deliver the behavioural and community therapies. And they love their acronyms. For anyone out there that hasn’t been blessed with the opportunity of gracing the couches and uncomfortable plastic chairs of therapy groups, I thought I’d share a summary of my experience of the ABCDs of therapy.
There is something incredibly healing about being so close to nature and having the time and freedom to just explore. I challenge anybody not to be calmed by the beauty of a sunset over the painted cliffs, the vista atop the peaks of Bishop & Clerk, or a baby wombat poking its head out from mum’s pouch for the first time.
When the burden of being a burden becomes so burdensome the burden can no longer be bourne, it’s crunch time. Disappear into Wonderland with the big white rabbit, going permanently mad? Or just go – permanently? Or do what needs to be done and reach out? Clearly the latter is the healthier option.
Hope seems like such a positive emotion. Something anyone would want to have and strive for. Something we’d all hope to have […]
I have found God. Some people reading this will rejoice. Others will wring their hands and wonder what the fuck happened to […]
Monday afternoon I presented at the hospital for an overnight admission to have my gastric lap band removed. I wasn’t thrilled but was coming to terms with it, and valiantly thinking of it as a turning point in recovery. Which may well be the case. Who knows?