Sunday, June 3, 2012
momentum
Already the fact that I am writing this/here is ridiculous.
Things are I am ridiculous. I intended to write an email to my best friend (who probably already gave up on me during her last visit) and tell her...tell her es geht mir nicht gut. But I could not and here I am, writing to nobody.
I have almost everything I have ever wanted work-wise and I am ruining all the fascinating possibilities in grand style with *surprise, surprise* my eating disorder.
I've always thought that my work is something that I want so much that it will always motivates me enough to stay away from clinically/socially apparent ED/depression behaviours. Mistake.
I know I need to do something if I want to stay sane and adult and I do not know whether I care enough to --- but probably I care at least minimally given I am writing this drama queen pathetic note to self.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Pizza panic/partial success
Pre-warning: the most boring post EVER. I just wanted to share my (haha) "success".
So tomorrow after work I'm supposed to go for a dinner (pizza:/) with my working group and some visiting researcher. I know it since Friday and I am scared. As I mentioned in my recent post I don't feel like belonging there and to be somehow useful and like having something to say or contribute (partially it is my paranoia, but only partially:/) and it makes the eating part much harder. At Friday my first thought was: great- so you'll restrict and overexercise the whole weekend to reduce the level of anxiety at least tiny bit. Fortunately (or UNfortunately - this knowledge is nothing else than years of experience) I know that if did so, on Monday I'd be an exhausted emotional wreck panicking even more and acting even weirder than usual. So I was brave and ate every single bite of meals and snacks during this weekend (plus now I am going to eat my night snack) and exercise like every weekend and I probably'll just reorganize my meals tomorrow and hope I will survive. It is quite probable that I will actually survive. The question is the degree of anxiety --> awkwardness I will reach...
So tomorrow after work I'm supposed to go for a dinner (pizza:/) with my working group and some visiting researcher. I know it since Friday and I am scared. As I mentioned in my recent post I don't feel like belonging there and to be somehow useful and like having something to say or contribute (partially it is my paranoia, but only partially:/) and it makes the eating part much harder. At Friday my first thought was: great- so you'll restrict and overexercise the whole weekend to reduce the level of anxiety at least tiny bit. Fortunately (or UNfortunately - this knowledge is nothing else than years of experience) I know that if did so, on Monday I'd be an exhausted emotional wreck panicking even more and acting even weirder than usual. So I was brave and ate every single bite of meals and snacks during this weekend (plus now I am going to eat my night snack) and exercise like every weekend and I probably'll just reorganize my meals tomorrow and hope I will survive. It is quite probable that I will actually survive. The question is the degree of anxiety --> awkwardness I will reach...
Thursday, November 10, 2011
how long
How long has it been since my last post? 3 months, 3 days, 3 lives? Or this one forever repeating life of someone, who can adapt at new city or new language quiteok-ish, but who hasn't learned to adapt at herself.
Right now I feel so incredibly stupid and out and not-belonging to my research group. Another level of my stupidity is that I can't make myself to communicate properly with my labmates (who are all nice and mild and kind educated people and I actually like them, but I feel some kind of barrier, wall of social and intellectual inadequacy between them and myself. It is a vicious cycle, because the less I trust myself to speak to them the more isolated and stupid I feel and then it is harder to speak and not hide.) Yesterday there was a meeting where I was literally one lacrimal-canaliculi-milimeter from crying.
I guess it is not hard to guess where I am trying to find a source of alternative adequacy. After almost 12 years of anorexia/various stages of recovery I feel like food, exercise and body field is only field where I can project my feelings, anxieties and frustrations. And the fact I KNOW that spending late evening hours exercising won't make my socializing and communication skills better and won't make my academic performance better and won't make the overall quality of my life better (experience, someone?) surprisingly doesn't stop me. I am so fed up of this pattern. I don't know who I'd be without this pattern. I don't know if I'd be able to survive without it. I don't know how long I can live like this. (And how long my professor will tolerate my lack of communication skills in our group. He is this american supercommunicator and I have a feeling he is not very fond of my semi-autistic features:/).
I kind of nostalgically remember the time when I didn't know. When I was so sick that I completely lacked some insight and actually believed that if the number on the scale is (the day before - x) and the amount of exercise is (the day before + x) I am safe and all will be well. But now I KNOW now that this is not a solution and this knowledge hurts. I am so confused. What kind of life I really want? How honest I really am with myself. I am eating and I know I need this f*ing 56 kilos to function but I am so tired of constantly reminding myself of it and constantly eating in same rigid pattern (there are so much social things including some dinners in the late November/December and I am beginning to feel really overwhelmed with it. It is not I can't go there and eat the stupid meal, it is I can't go there, JUST eat and speak and concentrate on the real reason of the meal- meeting people, enjoying conversation, learn something new, share, reach out, remember).
Ok end of rant. There are positive things going on like the city itself and my first own appartment and some parts of my work I really enjoy (usually when I don't need to speak:/) and the landscape around my city and being little bit more independent than at home and that at home everything goes quite well and mum and M. are really brave (sometimes not at the same times, but still it works) and hopefully I will write another/more optimistic post with some pitctures soon. Now I just needed to get this out.
If someone is still reading, I hope you people have a nice colorful fall (the colors are slowly fading away here, but it was SO beautiful that I wanted to become a tree very often) with lot of adventures and steps forward.
Right now I feel so incredibly stupid and out and not-belonging to my research group. Another level of my stupidity is that I can't make myself to communicate properly with my labmates (who are all nice and mild and kind educated people and I actually like them, but I feel some kind of barrier, wall of social and intellectual inadequacy between them and myself. It is a vicious cycle, because the less I trust myself to speak to them the more isolated and stupid I feel and then it is harder to speak and not hide.) Yesterday there was a meeting where I was literally one lacrimal-canaliculi-milimeter from crying.
I guess it is not hard to guess where I am trying to find a source of alternative adequacy. After almost 12 years of anorexia/various stages of recovery I feel like food, exercise and body field is only field where I can project my feelings, anxieties and frustrations. And the fact I KNOW that spending late evening hours exercising won't make my socializing and communication skills better and won't make my academic performance better and won't make the overall quality of my life better (experience, someone?) surprisingly doesn't stop me. I am so fed up of this pattern. I don't know who I'd be without this pattern. I don't know if I'd be able to survive without it. I don't know how long I can live like this. (And how long my professor will tolerate my lack of communication skills in our group. He is this american supercommunicator and I have a feeling he is not very fond of my semi-autistic features:/).
I kind of nostalgically remember the time when I didn't know. When I was so sick that I completely lacked some insight and actually believed that if the number on the scale is (the day before - x) and the amount of exercise is (the day before + x) I am safe and all will be well. But now I KNOW now that this is not a solution and this knowledge hurts. I am so confused. What kind of life I really want? How honest I really am with myself. I am eating and I know I need this f*ing 56 kilos to function but I am so tired of constantly reminding myself of it and constantly eating in same rigid pattern (there are so much social things including some dinners in the late November/December and I am beginning to feel really overwhelmed with it. It is not I can't go there and eat the stupid meal, it is I can't go there, JUST eat and speak and concentrate on the real reason of the meal- meeting people, enjoying conversation, learn something new, share, reach out, remember).
Ok end of rant. There are positive things going on like the city itself and my first own appartment and some parts of my work I really enjoy (usually when I don't need to speak:/) and the landscape around my city and being little bit more independent than at home and that at home everything goes quite well and mum and M. are really brave (sometimes not at the same times, but still it works) and hopefully I will write another/more optimistic post with some pitctures soon. Now I just needed to get this out.
If someone is still reading, I hope you people have a nice colorful fall (the colors are slowly fading away here, but it was SO beautiful that I wanted to become a tree very often) with lot of adventures and steps forward.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Breaking
However hard we are trying to adjust to some new situations and prepare us for some challenges, reality sometimes hit us unprepared with the scariest and most unpredictable, unexpected twists.
First half of 2011 was frenzied and I am afraid that the second half won't be better.
I need some blog hiatus. Or some life hiatus. I am very thankful for every single comment and email you wrote here and I hope I will continue to read your blogs and emails and one day I will be back with some good news. Thank to Anne and Zoe, I've resurrected my forgotten twitter account and I will be there and rant about general things or my new job, but not directly about ED things.
Right now I hate this disease so much that it is impossible to describe it. And I don't want to describe it, actually. I want to put my head on a ground and fall asleep for years.
First half of 2011 was frenzied and I am afraid that the second half won't be better.
I need some blog hiatus. Or some life hiatus. I am very thankful for every single comment and email you wrote here and I hope I will continue to read your blogs and emails and one day I will be back with some good news. Thank to Anne and Zoe, I've resurrected my forgotten twitter account and I will be there and rant about general things or my new job, but not directly about ED things.
Right now I hate this disease so much that it is impossible to describe it. And I don't want to describe it, actually. I want to put my head on a ground and fall asleep for years.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The other side of exercise
I have realized that I was little bit unfair in my post about exercise addiction. Not that the points weren't true, but I didn't mention plenty of points that makes exercise important for me in positive or at least less negative way. I don't mean the high I get from endorphines or the better body image couple of hours after exercise and its anxiolytic effect. It is part of the addiction and similar to every crack/food/alcohol/gambling addiction. It is definitely NOT good. But I thought about some more points about exercise in context of actually staying in recovery/moving forward.
- Exercise makes me feel connected with my body (for a while). It is not only the better body image. I have never experienced significant body dysmorphia and I (ironically) don't think about my body that much. My body is something numb down there under my head and I don't feel connected to it the most of the time. I have no boyfriend, thus no feeling of perceiving my body with someone else*. During exercising I am able to feel the body in some kind of positive way (see other points). Actually I don't think that feeling disconnected with your own body is something eating disorders related. I've discussed it with a (non-ED)-friend and she told me she feels the same way, somehow almost bothered by having to have her body and being jealous of that women who enjoys their bodies and live in harmony with them most of the time. The olfactory or pain perception is also very individual, so why not the feeling of being connected with our bodies?
- Exercise makes me be thankful to my body. I know I should be thankful all the time. And it makes me feel almost ashamed that my body seems to be much more persistent and resistent to stress than my mind.
- Exercise motivates me to stay in healthy weight range. I know it is not the best argument, because you could object that it is only substituting one ED behavior with an another. It is complicated to say why exercise is so important to me, I think it is something for another post, but when I compare the benefits and damage, I honestly think that exercise (well running) is kind of saving my ass. I hate not being able to run at some pace and I know I need some minimal weight (not the edge minimum to be able to run couple of miles and be out of danger zone, but the minimum to feel strong, run fast and enjoy it at the same time). I think the idea of losing the ability to run (and the experience of going through this several times in the past) scares me enough to stay on track. Maybe not the healthiest motivation, but motivation that counts.
- Exercise makes me thirsty. This is weird reason, I know. I am terrible drinker. Well non-drinker. Unless it is not 35°C or unless I exercise, I almost never feel thirsty. I usually drink only with meals or snacks, because I like feeling at least little bit hungry/not full before the meal and fluids make me feel full. In my second hospital I really struggled with my 2 liters a day and my poor roommate struggled even more looking at me, because she had the opposite problem and was on fluid restriction. We were so jealous of each other in the first days! During/after exercise I am able to drink about 1 liter of fluids, sometimes even more and sort of enjoy it which is nice.
- Exercise gives me sub-identity. This is ambivalent. I don't want to base my self-worth on exercise (and sadly I do it quite often and hate it). But I think it is better to have the identity of someone who is active and exercises than of someone who is anorexic. It is like choosing minor hell in favor of greater hell, I know. But I live and I would probably not live if I stayed in greater hell. (Rationalizing too much?)
- Exercise makes me make time for myself. I've always lived in big city. But we have traveled a lot and we were often in our weekend house and spent weeks in summer camp or sport camps. I LOVED it. The most incredible memories I have are always located in the nature. I have had very old gray-violet sweatshirt with big front pocket that I call klokanka, something like Kangaroo-sweatshirt and I spent hours in the forest walking and filling its pocket with stones, pieces of moss and resin (yep, Mum and the washing machine weren't impressed), nice twigs and leaves and other things. In Sweden I was walking on the beach and collecting stones and shells and something what we called amber (old rounded pieces of glass). I could walk like this for hours, just thinking and talking to my imaginary friends and planing what to do with the treasures in my pocket. I still have some. I enjoy this kind of splendid isolation during exercising outside. It is just me and my thoughts.
Ok, I think these are my major points. The not so good part of this all is that I know I will need to cut my exercise quite drastically in very near future and I have no idea how I will cope. On the one hand it will give me the opportunity to rearrange my schedule and make it less hyperactive. On the other hand I am scared that without this motivation exercise gives me I will feel miserable and slip into restricting (it happened in the past:/). Do you have some behaviors that are so ambivalent- part of them is disordered and other part is motivating? I hope everyone will have good week and I leave you with a song I have listened to last week very often. I think it is beautiful.
*Aaaargh. Trying not to write NO TOUCHING, NO SEXUAL LIFE and not feeling awkward turns out to be much more awkward than writing it directly.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Miserable identity-card self
I am burried under loads and loads of paperwork, official applications for validating my diploma for another country and everything takes so long and these official translations with certification stamp from lawyer are SO expensive (--> no new books and coffee in next 3 weeks for me:/) and I didn't received some details about my thesis that I hoped I will have this week and and and... welcome panic attack. (It wasn't anything horrible, compared to what I used to experience it was like kindergarten panic, but I haven't been in the middle of proper panic attack for a long time and I haven't missed it.)
Mathias is doing somewhere between 5 and 11,5 (on Mum's scale 1 to 10). His (ex)roommate and all-time role model from school has visited in the weekend, because he is leaving for university in couple of days and for M. it was one of the best weekends food- and moodwise I think. School is M.'s motivation number one and although he won't be allowed to get back to boarding school in 3 weeks, he is working hard (as hard as Mum) to be able to go to local school and despite all anxieties and insecurities I believe every school will love to have him.
Grain of autumn is in the morning air. I got soaked at least three times last week (I am chronic no-umbrela person). I also saw the most massive and brightest rainbow ever. It was so strong and beautiful that it was almost scary.
I visited my Greatladies (Grandma and Great-aunt) for 3 days last week in our weekend house and it was good. I am glad Grandma took some holiday this year, because she is working like crazy despite she has problems with her spine and is constantly in pain. Greatladies are over eighty and every year less and less tolerant, constantly fighting over details (for example with what kind of rag I should clean windows - 15 minutes debate), they always know better (doctors, you know:) and they are cooking things I would never cook and eat at home, but they are awesome. You could see through their little fights how they love each other. And explaining my Grandma MicroRNA is the best:) I wish I was like them in my eighties!
Tiptoe has recently some good posts about getting rid of things that symbolize eating disorders in some ways and about loss of identity of eating disordered self. I was thinking about it when I was discarding my old student card and identity card for hospital. These cards were made 6 years ago when I was not as physically sick and lost as when I was 15, but when I saw the face on the picture (I've seen it 6 years non-stop, but you kind of put your card on the white coat and don't care) it scared me. Deadened eyes and 1/3 of hair I used to have and unsuccessful attempt to smile a bit. I was freezing cold just from looking at that face. And at the same time I was/am jealous. Not that I like myself on the photo. I am sorry for my 20 years old ugly and miserable self in 2 pullovers. But I can feel the anesthesia, the I-have-no-power-to-care-or-freak effect of starvation, the relative simplicity of my ED rules at that time compared to all scary changes and responsibilities that are coming now. I am telling myself I don't want to be that girl every.single.day meal/exercise urge. I want to be like my Grandma, full of life and enthusiasm and ideas even at 84. I want my grandchildren to explain me something that will be new and exciting in medicine in 2069. But at the same time I wish I could escape of this life, escape of what everyone expect me to do and achieve and to look at the world with this disinterested, indifferent way whispering: I am not participating on this game anymore. I am not here. I live by another rules.
I am not going there. The pictures on my new cards are healthy looking. But why does staying on the right path still cost me so much mental power and space? Why is this idea of feeling nothing and being emotionally flat so tempting?
Mathias is doing somewhere between 5 and 11,5 (on Mum's scale 1 to 10). His (ex)roommate and all-time role model from school has visited in the weekend, because he is leaving for university in couple of days and for M. it was one of the best weekends food- and moodwise I think. School is M.'s motivation number one and although he won't be allowed to get back to boarding school in 3 weeks, he is working hard (as hard as Mum) to be able to go to local school and despite all anxieties and insecurities I believe every school will love to have him.
Grain of autumn is in the morning air. I got soaked at least three times last week (I am chronic no-umbrela person). I also saw the most massive and brightest rainbow ever. It was so strong and beautiful that it was almost scary.
I visited my Greatladies (Grandma and Great-aunt) for 3 days last week in our weekend house and it was good. I am glad Grandma took some holiday this year, because she is working like crazy despite she has problems with her spine and is constantly in pain. Greatladies are over eighty and every year less and less tolerant, constantly fighting over details (for example with what kind of rag I should clean windows - 15 minutes debate), they always know better (doctors, you know:) and they are cooking things I would never cook and eat at home, but they are awesome. You could see through their little fights how they love each other. And explaining my Grandma MicroRNA is the best:) I wish I was like them in my eighties!
Tiptoe has recently some good posts about getting rid of things that symbolize eating disorders in some ways and about loss of identity of eating disordered self. I was thinking about it when I was discarding my old student card and identity card for hospital. These cards were made 6 years ago when I was not as physically sick and lost as when I was 15, but when I saw the face on the picture (I've seen it 6 years non-stop, but you kind of put your card on the white coat and don't care) it scared me. Deadened eyes and 1/3 of hair I used to have and unsuccessful attempt to smile a bit. I was freezing cold just from looking at that face. And at the same time I was/am jealous. Not that I like myself on the photo. I am sorry for my 20 years old ugly and miserable self in 2 pullovers. But I can feel the anesthesia, the I-have-no-power-to-care-or-freak effect of starvation, the relative simplicity of my ED rules at that time compared to all scary changes and responsibilities that are coming now. I am telling myself I don't want to be that girl every.single.
I am not going there. The pictures on my new cards are healthy looking. But why does staying on the right path still cost me so much mental power and space? Why is this idea of feeling nothing and being emotionally flat so tempting?
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Come and Work
Holy Macaroni. It seems that all that stress and doubts from this post were worth it and I was given a chance to work in the S-land in my first choice clinic. I've known it since weekend and I have again at least forty conspiracy theories about how and why I got the job by some complicated mistake. I didn't hope to happen it anymore and I was about to accept a job in university hospital just about 1 driving hour from my home where I know some people and I was actually relieved and ready and pretty content with it. I was already searching for some accommodation and practical things there when I got the offer from S-land and because I am not a person that can change her plans from minute to minute, it has made me pretty anxious and uncomfortable. (I know it may sound ungratefully, because I have plenty of friends who are journalists or lawyers or media-something-I-don't-understand working really really hard and who still can't choose or find their jobs so easy, because there is kind of crisis in these job areas. But it is how I felt.)
(Btw. I don't know why I am doing this not-telling-the-name-of-the-country-thing, because I will write about it sooner or later anyway, but for now it feels somehow safer to do it so.)
I am happy and scared at the same time. Which is pretty frequent state of mind when something good happens, because anticipation anxiety immediately arrives. It is like: this thing is good, but it is impossible that you can be good to not to screw it. It is probably how my anorexic mindset was "created": You are good at running and everyone is saying you are thin (I was in healthy weight range for my age), so you must inevitably be just worse and fatter in the future. And so I tried to avoid it.
Anyway. The job means I will live the farthest from home I have lived (except of 3 months in high school) and plenty things to arrange requiring speaking to so much new and probably twice as intelligent people as I am, giving up my pipette and protein isolation and learning some new scary imaging software. Not speaking about the clinic. S-land has 50 hours working week for doctors, so that I am already freaking out about how I will eat and exercise and being able to stay in a state of body and mind that the job requires. I think there is no point in making plans and scenarios right now, because it will be all different then, so I think I will just wait and see (as you know something I am not very good at). But soon I will be officially student at medical faculty again, which feels good, feels like coming home. I like the student identity. Probably it gives me kind of mental permission to not feel so old and so adult, to wear jeans and sweatshirts or cardigans all the time and to not have kids and fancy house. (Am I just fooling myself again?) However it definitely means cheaper trains and books. Yeah.
There is a good thing blog-wise. The research/thesis part of the job is in English (another reason to freaking out and wanting to stampede away until it is not late) which means this time I will really have to try hard and move myself from fourth-class-Come-And-Play*-level somewhere further.
Ok, I am going to look again at the list of things I should do now and.......big surprise.......freak.
*Come and Play was our incredibly dumb English book in elementary school. One of the main characters was Pixie Dixie, a boy that came from Universe in his red spaceship. Despite the spaceship being in every chapter, it was oh-so-boring. But it wouldn't be fair to blame this book for my bad English.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Who falls again
I rewrote the post about relapse a bit and decided to post it after all. Warning: I have another tendinitis and my sister has no more patience with ED in our house and makes it pretty obvious = I am not very optimistic fed up with everything (mostly myself) right now. I don't say absolutely nothing new or insightful in this post. It basically is prolonged persuading myself to keep going. Here we go.
1. Who falls again. And how.
Wikipedia says: A relapse (etymologically, "who falls again") occurs when a person is affected again by a condition that affected him, or her, in the past.
1. Who falls again. And how.
Wikipedia says: A relapse (etymologically, "who falls again") occurs when a person is affected again by a condition that affected him, or her, in the past.
It's not how many times you fall that matters, it's how many time you get back up.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Every time I read these kind of quotes I want to yell: Oh really? It sounds really wise and maybe it works in healthy people, but constant falling and struggling to get back on track and not seeing an end of it isn't much of a life. Anorexia has not killed me and in some aspects it has made me stronger, but I won't say this kind of acquiring strength is what someone would wish for.
It is not very clever to argue with omniscient Wikipedia or old wisdoms, but I say: it is never A relapse. It always is The Relapse. Individual. Morphing like eating disorder behavior itself. Scary. It is very complicated to define or classify it.
I absolutely didn't see first relapse coming/happening. One week you feel super strong, finally having an almost normal life of a 17 year old, second week just little bit low and third week life is bad dream, you can't eat and you can't sleep and you can't be awake and only thought that keeps you survive a never-ending day and never-ending emptiness is the thought about a perspective of ending your life (and couple of hours later, in the night, your heart is going mad and your chest is burning and you beg God to not let you die that night, because Mom doesn't deserve it). Couple of years (and kilograms, hope and trust lost and regained) later I let myself gradually slip and I was at least half-aware of where I was heading to; starving myself was at that time simply (haha) more bearable than the anxiety. Sometimes I've fought back and avert the coming relapse. Sometimes I've given up. Some of my relapses or lapses were triggered by some stresses or situations, but generally I am a kind of person that can sing: Good Times Are Killing me (even without LSD), because I tend to do better under stress and slip when I have long holiday or too much free time (free time became in the mean time really stressful for me).
2. Is this real?
I think now I know myself and the tricks my mind is able to play better after the years and I live, but I don't feel stronger.
Actually I feel pretty drained, fed up and tired.
Moreover, I am afraid (as always when I slip a bit) that what others think is depression and anxiety is just my social laziness, inability to challenge myself properly, me being spoiled and void and superficial and having low threshold for stress tolerance, that it is just abnormal coping mechanism and not a real disease.
Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
-Dumbledore
3. Reasons for not falling.
Right now everything in my head is screaming how easier and calmer and more predictable my days would have been if I allowed myself to eat little bit less and/or let my exercise go to typical pre-2009 summer (=crazy) mode. Just a few weeks before you start work. The tricky thing is that I know it works. It works for a while. Like a drug that makes my anxiety levels drop and my mood marvelously stable. For a while. For a while before the calmness becomes frost.
And at the same time I have so many objective reasons to keep myself as far from the verge of anorexia abyss as possible:
- My family. My dear friends. Enough said.
- I think a lot about patients. Actually about people. All these people that were patients when I was in the school and thus helped me to finish it. About people who are (my) future patients. Every single cell of my body wants so madly to help them, to make the last 6 years of my life useful, to learn more, grow up, face challenges, make a little difference in someone's life. (Which does not mean every single cell is not fucking scared out of their
scullmembrane). To make this job properly, I need to take care of myself, both physically and mentally.
- There is writing. Piles of scribbles in the box under my bed and couple of bites (well tons of them) in my computer that I am scared to call novel and not sure what to do with it when it is finished, but it is important for me to finish it.
- This winter I felt so physically strong. In January I just took my running shoes and tried to run 10 km on the stadium with a friend. The air was so cold and I felt weird, because last time I was running on this stadium I was very underweight. During the run my mind was spinning even faster than my legs: I (unfortunately) still somehow missed my old body (or better: I miss the missing parts of it), but the feeling of running really fast and not feeling dizziness or cramps in calves was so worth it. Moreover, we did the 10 km in just 47 minutes without really trying hard which makes the theory: (substantially LESS exercise + proper nutrition = better stamina) somehow palpable. I want it back.
- In winter I felt like I was ready for a relationship. Or at least for thinking about it, not turning down invitations etc. I didn't seek actively for it, but I feel that it is a topic. There was a space in my head for these thoughts. There was confidence. Now the space and confidence are gone again and I really really am scared that the longer I am living without a boyfriend, the harder it will be in the future to find someone.
4. I am pretending I am my very own therapist. (Everyone is.)
I haven't had a therapist for the longest period of time since I got ill and it may be a problem (I don't know, it is probably something for another post), but if I had one, he/she would insert here:
- Recognizing a relapse is first and scary, but most important step to get better, so actually you did a good job (+ me thinking something about how I would love to skip this never-ending first step(s) and how being recovered, being THERE is good job.)
- Not letting yourself slip is worth and necessary even if NOTHING was on your list.
- It is good you think and write about it, but you can rarely think yourself out of a relapse. Go do.
- I may discuss dopamine with you but eat the snack first, ok? There are important molecules in the bread and cheese and tomatoes as well, did you know that?
- Try harder. Rest harder. Try again.
- Considering I am imaginary (and despite you think you know better) you need someone to
kick your asskick anorexia's nonexistent ass more or less professionally with you. Go tell someone in addition to this blog what's going on. Don't pretend you are your own therapist.
I am crazy.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Bad karma
(ED) things haven't been very good lately.
Bad weekend for Europe.
I am pathetic.
On Friday was my graduation and my friend has come thousands of miles just to hug me. I was SO SO so surprised and touched, but somehow sad.
Everyone believes in me and I am disappointing people around me again and again.
I've written long post about relapse, but I don't want to spread bad karma even more, so it will stay in concepts.
I've written long post about relapse, but I don't want to spread bad karma even more, so it will stay in concepts.
I am not able to cry when my brother stares on his plate and doesn't eat more than half of what he should and Mum just sits in front of him and talks silently about all medical consequences his behavior has or will have, using me as an example. It is breaking me in pieces, but I just watch. I cry while listening to 10 years old singing about how they used to rule the world. A friend has send me this videos to cheer me up and I just cry and cry.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
slightly disgusting post about anxiety and nausea
I am back from the minitrip which went ok-ish, althought I don't think I've made it to another round of the interviews (there are still some more candidates to interview this week, so I don't know 100%, but the probability is really tiny). I may write about the trip later, it was basically very tiring and lot of time spent traveling respectively waiting for some kind of transportation, but I have had surprisingly nice weather, visited beatiful botanical garden and did one little hike to the local biggest mountain (just about 1500 m, but given my shoes it was probably my maximum on that day). The interivew itself was bit confusing and something else than I expected, but all in all probably good experience.
But now I need to write about M., something I was neglecting/avoiding/dreading in the last weeks and that is on my mind almost nonstop. The thing is M. is not doing very well. He is eating and he has gained some weight (slower than he was expected in the clinic, but let's blame it on his hyperactive teenage metabolism). He doesn't cheat. He doesn't fight with Mum or doctors (usually). He is "just" struggling so much it's almost impossible to watch it. Some meals are ok-ish, some are bit distressing and some are terrors. Well TERRORS:
1. M. isn't able to eat alone. Someone has to watch or he will get anxious people won't believe him that he has eaten and force him to eat again. Well this may be normal after weeks in clinic with uber-suspicious nurses.
2. Sometimes he has something like full blown anxiety attack. Shaking, sweating, palpitations, restlessness, all inclusive. Moreover he has sometimes really imperative, almost psychotic urges to throw up after a meal. (He hasn't done it yet. Or I hope so.)
3. After such a bad meal, he is absolutely drained. Earlier, he was fighting against the bed rest after meals and was studying like crazy, but I think the resources are gone and in these last weeks he actually just lays in bed in embryonal position with his book closed in the hand and does nothing. Stares.
4. He is still VERY ashamed about all what is happening. Probably still in shock. This illness just threw him against a hard wall made of (ir)reality that noone should experience; so unexpected, it has invaded him with such a force. Where does this force come from? This malicious mind-invasion.
Like some virus or bacteria.
I have had a bad stomach infection just twice in the life I think. It was like some little, but very furious and anxious animal with really sharp claws or teeth or spines (actually it was probably couple of innocent looking single-celled "animals" or even just enveloped DNA/RNA) got into my gastrointestinal tract and was frantically trying to find its way out both upwards and downwards and taking all the food and liquids I consumed with it. And when there was nothing to take, it felt like the animal decided to find a direct way through my stomach. Well it hurt quite a lot. But I could survive pain, the worst thing was nausea. I didn't know what was happening, I knew just I was so sick and something has to happen NOW. I thought just about bathroom/toilet and why the visit to the bathroom hasn't really helped. And how I will clean all that mess I've done (at some point it was not really relevant anymore). Ugh. Why am I writing all that slightly disgusting stuff? I think anxiety is just like nausea (actually they are developementally related). You feel really PHYSICALLY ENDANGERED. As soon as it started, it is very hard/impossible to stop it through willpower. It comes in waves and it makes you feel really powerless.
M.'s anxiety is not showing improving tendency + his therapist (who -all in all- isn't that bad. He just thinks he is mindreader sometimes) has now almost 3 weeks holiday, so that Mum has decided, she is taking M. home and taking her "holiday", so that she can feed/support him. Or at least try it. He is at home since weekend and Mum is surprisingly optimistic. To be honest, I am little bit afraid. The illness has such a grip on him and nobody of us doesn't really understand what is happening. I wish so much I could get sick with gastroenteritis 100 times and M. could be better. But maybe, I am just impatient.
While you are reading it, M., you probably think what I've thought many times:
1. Look what you (such a bad bad person) are doing- forcing your family to watch your so called pain every day, scaring everyone, making them worried and preoccupied with you.
2. LEAVE. ME. ALONE.
My "answers" on your non-questions are:
1. It is our job. Watching someone suffering is not easy, but it is life. And we all are so looking forward to watching you better, to share some happier moments like graduation or simply "normal" days.
2. No. No, we won't. I won't. Nobody deserves to be alone in state like this. I am absolutely positive that you won't let me be alone if I was suffering like you are right now. We can give you privacy, but we can't leave you alone.
Oh. I'm sorry. I probably just wanted to "say", these three weeks will be hard, but hopefully it will bring some results. This post actually doesn't have much of a point.
But does this all have a point???
But now I need to write about M., something I was neglecting/avoiding/dreading in the last weeks and that is on my mind almost nonstop. The thing is M. is not doing very well. He is eating and he has gained some weight (slower than he was expected in the clinic, but let's blame it on his hyperactive teenage metabolism). He doesn't cheat. He doesn't fight with Mum or doctors (usually). He is "just" struggling so much it's almost impossible to watch it. Some meals are ok-ish, some are bit distressing and some are terrors. Well TERRORS:
1. M. isn't able to eat alone. Someone has to watch or he will get anxious people won't believe him that he has eaten and force him to eat again. Well this may be normal after weeks in clinic with uber-suspicious nurses.
2. Sometimes he has something like full blown anxiety attack. Shaking, sweating, palpitations, restlessness, all inclusive. Moreover he has sometimes really imperative, almost psychotic urges to throw up after a meal. (He hasn't done it yet. Or I hope so.)
3. After such a bad meal, he is absolutely drained. Earlier, he was fighting against the bed rest after meals and was studying like crazy, but I think the resources are gone and in these last weeks he actually just lays in bed in embryonal position with his book closed in the hand and does nothing. Stares.
4. He is still VERY ashamed about all what is happening. Probably still in shock. This illness just threw him against a hard wall made of (ir)reality that noone should experience; so unexpected, it has invaded him with such a force. Where does this force come from? This malicious mind-invasion.
Like some virus or bacteria.
I have had a bad stomach infection just twice in the life I think. It was like some little, but very furious and anxious animal with really sharp claws or teeth or spines (actually it was probably couple of innocent looking single-celled "animals" or even just enveloped DNA/RNA) got into my gastrointestinal tract and was frantically trying to find its way out both upwards and downwards and taking all the food and liquids I consumed with it. And when there was nothing to take, it felt like the animal decided to find a direct way through my stomach. Well it hurt quite a lot. But I could survive pain, the worst thing was nausea. I didn't know what was happening, I knew just I was so sick and something has to happen NOW. I thought just about bathroom/toilet and why the visit to the bathroom hasn't really helped. And how I will clean all that mess I've done (at some point it was not really relevant anymore). Ugh. Why am I writing all that slightly disgusting stuff? I think anxiety is just like nausea (actually they are developementally related). You feel really PHYSICALLY ENDANGERED. As soon as it started, it is very hard/impossible to stop it through willpower. It comes in waves and it makes you feel really powerless.
M.'s anxiety is not showing improving tendency + his therapist (who -all in all- isn't that bad. He just thinks he is mindreader sometimes) has now almost 3 weeks holiday, so that Mum has decided, she is taking M. home and taking her "holiday", so that she can feed/support him. Or at least try it. He is at home since weekend and Mum is surprisingly optimistic. To be honest, I am little bit afraid. The illness has such a grip on him and nobody of us doesn't really understand what is happening. I wish so much I could get sick with gastroenteritis 100 times and M. could be better. But maybe, I am just impatient.
While you are reading it, M., you probably think what I've thought many times:
1. Look what you (such a bad bad person) are doing- forcing your family to watch your so called pain every day, scaring everyone, making them worried and preoccupied with you.
2. LEAVE. ME. ALONE.
My "answers" on your non-questions are:
1. It is our job. Watching someone suffering is not easy, but it is life. And we all are so looking forward to watching you better, to share some happier moments like graduation or simply "normal" days.
2. No. No, we won't. I won't. Nobody deserves to be alone in state like this. I am absolutely positive that you won't let me be alone if I was suffering like you are right now. We can give you privacy, but we can't leave you alone.
Oh. I'm sorry. I probably just wanted to "say", these three weeks will be hard, but hopefully it will bring some results. This post actually doesn't have much of a point.
But does this all have a point???
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