I miss you

There are times when I sit and look at old photos, knowing the torture I am putting myself through.

I sit and I cry, missing my eating disorder. Missing it for what it 'gave me'.

I miss hospital, inpatient treatment for the security and the care that I feel has always been absent in my life. There I was always supported, always listened to, always seen as important. Seen. Heard.

People sometimes do not understand institutionalisation, and I never thought it would happen to me. Missing a world of white doors, long corridors, the hardest times of my life, tears, self-harm, purging, confrontation. A world of pills, restrictions, rules, regulations and seeing the sun through a small window or through a puff of smoke. 

How could someone understand that sometimes I miss an illness which tore my life apart, tried to murder me and take me from my family and friends, and from myself.

Who could understand that?

But I don't think we always need to understand.

We just need to be able to grab reality and say, no. 

The reality is an eating disorder kills. It kills you. It kills family. It kills friends. It kills a little part of everyone who knows you.

Nothing good came from this illness, nothing good came from starving myself or attacking myself.

And its here I realise its not me that misses all of this. Its my eating disorder.

So I turn around.

I smile.

And I say out loud, "I don't fucking miss you.".

I should be so lucky

Firstly, I have a new blog which is more educational and about tackling the stigma of mental illness:

http://soundofsilence.blog.co.uk

I thought I should update on my progress.
I am not sleeping at all, falling asleep at 10 then waking up at 2am and not getting back to sleep.
Apart from that, my mood has begun to shift again which makes me relieved that the episode I just had is over.

The blooms upon my desk open slightly. Painted yellow with rouge tickling their edges. The scent of roses fills my room and moves me with a sense of purpose, that these few roses are beauty captured in a time frame which will soon end. You must adore and admire their beauty before they inevitably fall.
Just like life, we must admire it. Seize it. And that is something we all must start opening up to, like the blooms upon my desk.
What keeps me going in life is the possibility of true love capturing my heart and taking me captive in its cave of wonders. But to be taken captive, there is usually an element of surprise. You cannot hunt love, it hunts you. But it never kills its prey, its a different kind of killer. It kills all the sorrow and pain that surrounds that person and holds in close in a tight embrace, kisses planted on lips which open waiting, just like an early bloom.

I am such an old romantic, and I know I have had one real lover. My eating disorder.
It was always there in relationships, stopping me from giving myself to that other person.
It was my mistress, my master, my everything, and it never let me breath. It choked me and smothered me so I couldn't escape. This killer is cunning and sly, with a smirk which fills my heart with sheer fear.
It twisted me till I was on my knees, weak and feeble. My body emaciated and my heart too.
I begged for death, for what I thought was my inevitable end. Death by anorexia.
I sometimes imagined my obituary, my gravestone, the faces at my funeral. And I knew still there the ghost and killer anorexia would be standing at the back knowing he got away with murder.
Well he didn't. This time he lost. And I see the fear in his face as I push him away.
Every bite, every meal, every smile in the mirror I see him get scared and try to take me back.
Its over.
Over.
You will never have me again.

Now there is no third person when I enter a new relationship. This is scary and exciting, that I finally can open my heart and let it bloom.

xxx

I get by with a little help from my friends

The Beatles song rings true, how would I get by without a little help from my friends?
A friend to just unwrap you from the covers and get you up.
It makes a difference. Massively.
From the depths of my suicidal depression, which I am being honest about, they saved me.
I was willing, and this is no exaggeration, to end my life. To stop it there.
But my friends took me away from my bed, fed me, loved me, nursed me.
They saved me.
They reminded me that I have love all around me, and that love can be in the form of friends.
That I have a purpose.

God, the little things I can analyse and internalise into something thats awful about me.
A meer comment can trigger a spiral of depression and once it starts its unstoppable.
But friends, friends can remind you of the truth and the reality. That YOU are not the things you think you are.
I adore them for that.

I have learnt that the word suicide isn't to be used lightly, so when I say it I mean it.
From my attempt last year I fear my inability to control my mind and actions in such a state.
But it can just take a friend to break that state of mind.
Yet what I have learnt most from this is that when a friend offers help, take it.
I have often sad no, I am too much bother, too bloody depressing. Do not think of me.
But if friends offer help, they want to help. And it takes great courage to say 'ok, help me. Please.'
Its scary to ask for help.
It completely undermines our sense of control, that we need an intervention.
Interventions can be so important, and they don't have to be in the form of a hospital admission or a professional.
They can be through friends.

I am sitting here now of sound mind, after a night of love from my friends.
Allowing them in, to enter my internal world and see me at my worst, well, they have saved my life.
Thats not being dramatic. Its the truth.

They do not help me just 'get by', they help me live.
I live with a little help from my friends.
You know who you are, I love you so much.

Prozac Nation

As I cry into my cup of tea, stirring the sugar to dissolve like a whirlwind of snow, I wonder how many other people in the city are currently doing the same.
There are not that many people out there who truly understand the word depression as it gets thrown around by everyone, to do with any situation which could be remotely upsetting.
That program was 'depressing', this song 'depresses me', I have so much work its 'depressed me'.
But how many people really understand chronic depression?
The depression where you cup a handful of pills and you shake through your actual inability to make a decision: live or die.
The depression where you will destroy your family, bring your family through never ending pain.
Still, my parents call me and when they hear me crying desperately I can hear their complete lack of surprise combined with their complete and utter heartache.
The pain to watch your child hurt in such a way.
They are used to providing band aids and telling you its going to be alright.
What if they can't do that anymore? What if its not going to be alright?

So I sit, breathing out smoke into the evening air, above a city full of people smiling and laughing, and probably someone out there crying into a cup of tea, deciding whether they should end their lives tonight as well.
I want to take that other person and hold them and say, "You are not alone."

I'd tell them the one thing more isolating than depression, is suicide, and I will not let them give up the fight just yet.
I put down my handful of pills and get into bed.
Not today.
Not tonight.
Not ever.

Depression cannot beat me.

And it turns

As with emotion regulation disorder, one must expect the waves to turn sometimes.
My mood has shifted.
Back from happiness to sheer desperation for life.
I am very suicidal right now.
I just tell myself, it will change. It will move.
I guess, I have moved into halls and it reminds me of the abuse I went through when I was first in halls.
Its triggered memories and flashbacks and its haunting me.
That, and I feel majorly rejected emotionally right now.

I just listen to Jeff Buckley and think, you couldn't see your beauty. Maybe thats like me.
Maybe I have beauty I am not seeing.
I still, however, feel like I want to take a razor blade to my legs and see the blood.
I won't. And as depressing as this blog is, it has a great deal of positivity.
I am not acting on my thoughts. I recognise them and that is all I do.
But I still cannot help but feel all these feelings.
I just want to disappear.

God, please let the wind change tomorrow.
Please.

Living and dying

I haven't blogged on where I am right now or my suicide attempt, and I guess I should.

I am somewhere beautiful right now, in a place I never thought I could reach.
I wake up and I am glad to be alive.
That may not sound like much, but its a miracle.
After years and years of praying that death take me, for it to take my hand and free me from pain.
After years and years of crying to sleep. Begging my mum to let me take my life.
That sounds awful, but I used to get angry, so angry, that others would not let me die. I got mad at them. Shouted. Swore. And it got to the point where my mum saw my pain, and just once she said she would let me seek death if it is what I wanted.
I am glad I didn't.

When I tried to take my life, it was in the middle of a train station.
I was lucky to have someone there to take my hand and tell me no. This is not your time.
And sitting in the hospital bed, I wasn't glad I chanced death and survived. At the time I was angry.
I am on very very strong meds for my mood regulation due to my emotion regulation disorder, but although they were strong they cannot actually kill you. Just make you bloody sick. For days. And days. And make you have a massive comedown.
I was angry at myself for not knowing this.
How could I of?

But its not the fact the meds couldn't kill me, it was the fact I was that desperate death was the only option. And in that moment of time, I did not think about my family or friends. the effect it would have on them.

I find it hard talking about this experience. And I feel as time passes, how I talk about it changes.
Right now, I look at it as a blessing.
It made me realise how bad things were for me and that I needed help. I had lost control over my mental health and it has consumed me and forced me to enter a dark and dangerous place.
 It really truly opened my eyes and now I look at life and cherish it. I cherish that person who sat with me, held my hand when I was crying for death.

An hour before this happened, I was at home. Planning.
I want to thank my good friend Emily, who has done more for me than I can imagine or even thank for.
She took away the evidence of my inevitable efforts to take my life.
That meant the world to me, and I cannot imagine how that was for her.
She has never given up on me. Always believed in me. Always loved me.
It was this experience that made me realise I have friends. I have a life I am not living. Friends like Emily who I love more than anything in the world. She is my soul mate. My soul mate not in a romantic way but platonic. I find it hard to thank her, as sometimes I feel guilty for what I put her through. But now I know she did this because she cares for me. The thought of her not being in my life, well I cannot comprehend it. She makes me laugh, a medicine I cannot live without. I am literally crying as I type, as I do not know how I met such an inspiring person. She inspires me daily, to say fuck off to what anyone else thinks. She inspires me to be myself. To just be. To act. To live.
If anyone is my role model its her. She will laugh at how bloody soft I am being right now, but like you say Emily, fuck it!
Emily, thank you. I love you so much.

I wake up now and I look out the window and smile.
I feel relatively free from my ed and I feel I have control over my mental state.
Things are well mentally, physically I have decided to gain 8kg and get to a bmi of 20.
So my physical health can match my mental health.
The experience of a suicide attempt still lingers. I have the scars to remind me of that time in my life.
But they, as I like to say, are warrior wounds.
I spoke to a darling girl the other day, and we both agreed that we are not survivors. We are warriors.

I am a warrior. I am still here and I am living. Finally, living.
I just want to take life in my hands and treasure it, every single moment.
All the shit I have been through, well, it was worth it to get here.
It may have taken 15 years, but I do not care. I am here NOW. In the now.

Living. Breathing. Smiling.

xxx

RIP

I believe animals are far more than they seem.
They are friends, with levels of compassion and love we cannot always comprehend.
The 'them and us' social conventions, that man rules over animals is something I cannot agree with.
On the contrary, I respect them often more than any human. They do not create war, nor throw hate around till we are bleeding metaphorically inside from pain, from pain that words created.
I had a dear friend called Prudance. A cat that moved me.
I don't know, when you watch death happen in front of you it can have profound effects.
Darling Pru, I took her to the vets and she had to pass. It was her time to leave the earth.
I do not know why, but the fact I watched death come over her... its had a big effect on me.
I have a big sadness that life is short, temporary. That I am not living it to its full.

Some would laugh that this is stupid. A minor event in my life that sweeps past me like the blur of paint on a canvas.
But instead, these brush strokes will last within me.

So, to my Prudence. You had a home with me for not long, but you died with love around you. And there is no better way to go.