Stop...I want to stop.

I can't stop eating. I don't want to.

I don't want to what? Well, I don't want to eat compulsively like this. But I also don't want to stop the comfort that comes from it.

It's a bit like skin picking, a way to zone out, a lack of engagement in my surroundings. Just a simple action of moving hand to mouth & back again. Eat eat eat eat.

I lost nearly 2st a couple of years ago. Most of it is back on. Piled on slowly at first, but the last 1/2 stone was a rapid increase this year.

I'm so unhappy with my weight, yet I can't stop the eating. I can't help myself. I don't mean to buy the bad things, but I end up picking them up thinking I can control it, because in the past I've been able to. But not now. Entire big bars of chocolate are devoured in one sitting. No real enjoyment in them. The night before last I had eaten so much bad food & drunk so much wine I had those unpleasant sick-burps, minor regurgitation, yet still I kept putting things in my mouth.

I play a sport I love. I ADORE it. It's taken over my life over the last 4 years and consumes me; my partner shares in this sport (something I'm so happy about), my friends are all from the community, my holidays are planned around my games or so I can go and watch games abroad, huge amounts of money are spent on the equipment I need (and want!) yet the one thing that will actually make me BETTER at the game, give me even more enjoyment is my weight & fitness being the best it can be.

But I can't stop eating, can't get healthier and thinner and stronger. I can't find the motivation to work out at home & develop my strengths.

Frequently I excuse my lack of motivation; that I'm in a transient place in my life; no stable home, no job, not living with my parter. Not much is on my terms at the moment and that certainly makes it difficult to find the mindset to be positive. But it's a weak excuse.

But then again I ask myself; is it? I'm mentally unwell? I can't help it? Or can I? Should I not just pull myself together and sort it out? But how can I, I'm mentally unwell? Saying that just feeds the fire of the scrounger, the lazy, invisibly ill person. What a vicious cycle.

I'm taking Venlafaxine for my depression and anxiety. Generally I find it helps, I'm less.....random. I'm still low and I'm terribly detached from life and its experiences, but I don't feel like I'm trapped & drowning like I have done before. Just a lot of hopelessness and frustration. But adding to that frustration is the lack of side effects I experience; Venlafaxine is meant to restrict your appetite. So why am I still eating? Or is it that my appetite is gone, but the compulsion to eat is so strong that I'm ignoring it?

Help. Stop....I want to stop.

...and what about failure?

I quit my job this week (note...this is now 3weeks ago). I've been there less than 3 months. I don't have another one to go to.

There's a bit of my brain that's telling me I'm a failure.
No real surprise there.

But remarkably, there a whole lot of my brain that doesn't think that. And I'm curious about that. As a pretty un-posi person, you'd think that quitting a brand new job & a shiny new career opportunity would make me feel pretty crappy.

I still don't know where I'll end up. At the moment I feel like I'm very close to the bottom of a very dark hole. I hope I can find my way out.

Depression explained

This is one of the most incredible descriptions of depression that I have ever seen written down and illustrated.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

Please, please, PLEASE take a few minutes out of your day to read this; whether you suffer from depression or not. There are hundreds of comments on this blog about how accurate the author's description is, about how "they relate" to it. For once it doesn't seem cliched. I relate to it too.

It describes me, right now. This week, this month. Today. But not just today, it's been like this for so long. On and off. Up and down. I searched through my old blog and came up with this; written a little over 3 years ago, trying to express my being:

For all intents and purposes, iHuman looks, acts and behaves like a real person. It can hold down a steady job and be good at it, it walks, talks, eats and drinks like a real person. But iHuman, because it is just AI after all, doesn't quite get it right. A.I. can't feel emotions. It can observe and learn and then attempt to replicate what it sees, but all it can replicate is the visible outer signs that make up emotions; the expressions and physical details that SHOW emotions, but without actually FEELING it. And as such, iHuman merely exists. So in a social setting iHuman struggles & it becomes clear that something is not quite right, because it is in these settings, amongst friends, that emotions are so important.

The parallels between that and Allie's post are obvious to me, at least. These are her words:

Months oozed by, and I gradually came to accept that maybe enjoyment was not a thing I got to feel anymore. I didn't want anyone to know, though. I was still sort of uncomfortable about how bored and detached I felt around other people, and I was still holding out hope that the whole thing would spontaneously work itself out. As long as I could manage to not alienate anyone, everything might be okay!

However, I could no longer rely on genuine emotion to generate facial expressions, and when you have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating your face into shapes that are only approximately the right ones, alienating people is inevitable.

How do we measure success?

I didn't cut myself that night. Maybe that's something to be proud of. Unfortunately I did swallow half a packed of laxatives. Swings & roundabouts.

Laxatives were my answer to the question no-one ever asked.
"Why do you self harm so other people can see it?".

No-one ever asked that. Occasionally someone would ask about the cuts or the scars. Mostly indirect questions; "are you okay?", or a raised eyebrow that betrayed their true thoughts; "attention seeker". Loved ones would plead for me to stop. So I learnt how. They didn't plead for me to get help. They just wanted to stop seeing my pain on the outside.

So I learnt to hide it. I took laxatives.

Of course, that's one easy explanation for it. It's not that straihtforward, it never is. I am overweight. I recall binge-eating as a child, shamefully hiding the evidence. I am gluttonous, greedy. I love food, sweeties, rich things. I have truly terrible self esteem, like so many young women.

Bulimia; what a great excuse to enjoy those things without consequence. What a great way to try and combat my fear about gaining weight, being fat.

Of course, what I've done is give myself a horribly complicated eating disorder to run parallel to my self-injurious behaviour and a really, really warped relationship with food. (glorious food!). I cannot express how much I regret that.

Tonight I went shopping and I chose to buy things, because I was greedy and I knew I could throw them up. Even as I looked at what to purchase, I knew I was condoning my greed and feeding the demons. It's a pretty horrific place to be in. Whilst I know greed isn't the only driving force (because originally it came from a desire to self harm secretly), I can't help feeling ashamed, pathetic, greedy, worthless etc because I can't control my desires and urges.

Desires and urges. That opens up a whole other can of worms. Food isn't my only desire, my only urge. Well, it mostly is now. But sex. Sex used to rival it once. A craving to be desired.

So really. What is success?
Is it that I haven't cut myself for over 2 years? Or is it that I didn't cut myself last week?
Or am I in fact a failure because I abused laxatives? And will do again.
Or am I succeeding because I love my partner and the cravings to be desired and wanted are entirely satisifed by him? Unlike so many other partners, I've remained faithful. Is that success?
There's so much yet to overcome.

Walking a fine line

A note: For any posts that are particularly emotional (and potentially triggering) I'm self-moderating by not posting them as soon as I've written them. I wrote this on 11/04/13.

*** Caution: Trigger Warning ***


I purchased a packet of razor blades this evening.

It's been so long since I cut myself that I can't even remember how long I've been in "recover". I think it's over 2 years. Today was so terrible (at work) that I risk breaking my recovery. That I actively took steps towards lapsing.

I work with addicts; I'm pretty well versed on the "cycle of change" - the simple theory behind dealing with addiction (in fact it works with any behaviour we look to change). Drug addicts often start to test themselves during the "active change" and "maintenance" phases of the cycle, they fall into complacency, or the simply miss their vice. They do things like meet up with an old drug using acquaintance, telling themselves it'll be okay, they're strong enough to say no. Invariably of course, they are not. And they (re)lapse. But that's fine, it's a part of recovery and we learn from our mistakes.

So here I am, sat knowing there is a packet of fresh blades in my bag.

I have a decision to make.

I don't yet know what it'll be.

I don't know if I'll pass my own test.

A matter of health

Here's a fun little list.

• Depression
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Bulimia
• Self Harm
• Anxiety
• Panic Attacks

I am in recovery. Although I like to think I've been in recovery since I first admitted to someone I had a problem. But I did that when I was 15 years old.
And things got a whole lot worse before they started to get better. And then worse. And then better. And then worse again. And so on & so on & so on. Repeat ad nauseam.

Up/Down/Up/Down (and Lo! We have a blog title! This here may, or may not, be a little blog about mental health and well-being)

On being suicidal

This is something I wrote on 15/03/13...I kept it aside to see how I would reflect on it.


Let me come out and say this first of all: I have never tried to kill myself.

For the most part this is a blessing; to me, my family, my loved ones & perhaps even some of the people I have worked with over the years & hopefully helped on their path to change. Although I suspect that last one is just wishful thinking!

There are some ways, however, that this lack of suicidal ideation has not been all that helpful. For someone with an array of mental health diagnosis, one of which is particularly linked with very (self)harmful behaviour, I have never been treated as an in-patient. I have been just a small drain upon the NHS. But on several occasions this has left me feeling side-lined by the health services; not needy enough to get much attention, functioning at too high a level for a mental health sufferer. I've been a patient of the Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs) on just three occasions over 15 years and it felt reluctant on the part of the CMHT each time. Why is this employed, intelligent, reflective & "functioning" individual taking up our time? How dare I!!

But I digress.

Tonight, I'm feeling suicidal.
It's quite a remarkable place to be. I'm lucid, entirely sober and quite rational.
It's quite remarkable to be able to state something so emotive so factually. And almost impossible to state it without gaining drama & attention, despite those being far from the intended outcomes.
I'm not actively trying to kill myself (clearly, as I'm typing these words) but tonight the thought has been in my head and my mind has been scrolling through the options; mentally I picture myself a bit like Tony Stark with his snazzy floating translucent touch-sensitive screen, flicking through morbid images of my own demise.

I can only recall two other occasions where I have felt truly suicidal and feared for my own safety. Firstly, at university. I was far removed from reality, bordering on alcoholic, isolated, unstable & scared. All I can remember from that night are fleeting images; the rich, dark green of a wine bottle, a small mound of oval, white pills I'd carefully extracted from their plastic & foil cases. That was a decade ago and I was in a very different place. I have very little memory of what I went through, how it unfolded and how it came to a close.
The second time was just a few years ago. A time that shares similarities to my current circumstances. I was alarmingly rational, sober, hard completed a long & hard day at work. But felt the need to walk in to the local A&E department and ask to see someone because I feared I would seriously harm myself. I took myself to the hospital because I was so afraid that if I went home I could and probably would end my life. That's a pretty dire state to be in, non? I walked into that place asking for help, asking to be kept safe and I was told that I wasn't that ill, I was told that "you can't be that unwell because you're getting to work & functioning". Those were their exact words. To this day I become livid with rage just thinking about that response.

Again, I digress. This wasn't meant to be an unpleasant and unnecessary trip down memory lane. My intention was to reflect on the strange state of mental health stigma and how we, as sufferers and as loved ones of sufferers, deal with our difficult and intense negative emotions.

A few nights ago I was dealing with absolute despair & I felt like I had nowhere to turn. No-one I could impart this emotion on to.
It felt too difficult and too emotive to share with those that I love the most; my partner or my family. Without even saying the words I could anticipate the burden it would place on them; of concern & worry and even the feeling of betrayal, that someone that they give their love to could reject it in such a way that they feel so unloved, so unhappy.
Feelings of that magnitude and that sensitivity also feel far to personal and weighty to share with friends or strangers. I can't reach out to those that live nearby and I can't comprehend picking up the phone to the Samaritans or similar to release that pressure valve.

Which leaves us (me) in somewhat of a quandary. How do we keep ourselves safe?
When someone is rational and aware that behaviours like drinking a whole bottle of wine,  binge-eating a gluttonous quantity of food, inducing vomiting that leaves petecial hemmorhaging and devouring entire packets of laxatives in one go, are extremely harmful and likely to have alarming short and long-term effects on their health, how does one go about stopping those risky behaviours? Particularly when, despite rationalisation and applied logic & thinking skills, the person continues with this behaviour because it feels like the only option?
I still don't know the answer to this, unfortunately. And one night in question, I did all of those things. I scrolled through my entire phonebook hoping to find just one person I could reach out to & burden just a tiny part of my distress to and came up with nothing. Plenty of people I loved and cared about, but no-one really I felt could or should have to deal with my shit.

A few days further down the line and I'm mentally scrolling through suicide options and rationally considering how realistic it is that I might carry any of these out. Right this second, it's fairly unlikely. But these thoughts keep sneaking up on my whilst I'm not expecting them, whilst my guard is down; playing a computer game, browsing Facebook, on the phone. Moments of absolute clarity that demonstrate how simple it would be. How quickly it would take away all the internal pain and abject misery once and for all. I'd never have to make another decision in my life that I'd regret, that wouldn't pan out how I'd anticipated and left me feeling this troubled. Bliss.

Tonight I'm thankful I do have an outlet. More than one, in fact. This silly little blog. The chime of my phone as an unexpected picture of my family cat appears on screen. A post on my Facebook wall from a long-lost friend just dropping by. A text from the only person that knows all my darkest secrets but only ever tells me I'm amazing.

Ahh yes.

As it turns out, I do have one "safety net friend". He knows my deepest, darkest secrets and thankfully the other night I was able to send him two words; "I'm struggling". He responded and I was able to unburden, via text, a lot of my woes & destructive behaviours and for some reason I knew it wouldn't over-burden him. Far enough removed that he wouldn't panic for my safety or be personally offended that I felt this way.

If even I have someone like that, I'm pretty sure everyone else does to. Don't forget it.

Oh, hi there.

Sometimes, I like to write things.
That hasn't happened for a while.
Or at least it's not happened of my own free will.

I write a lot of crap day-in, day-out at work; sat in front of the computer filling in forms like a trained ape. That was never in the job description. At home I reply to one email after another, start another forum post. Its not that I was ever massively creative with my writing. I'm not a very creative person. But when the mood takes me, my fingers can type away pages of text with minimal amount of cognitive effort.

Reading a few blog posts from inspiring individual reminded me that I'd started a blog once. Once upon a time in my deep, dark past. I dug it up. A year of musings, ramblings. It's a rather alarming collection of entries. An anonymous blog, trying to explore my own mental health during a highly distressing 12 months and within that blog, you'd think I'd manage to pour some honesty on to the pages. I didn't manage.

I look at those words and they're clipped. Half-truths. Alarming due to the lack of honesty within them.

It documents a year I was living with my ex-partner. A relationship that did not succeed; that was filled with hurt and anger, based on my misguided "need" for love. It demonstrates how utterly unable I was to look at my own big picture, to assess and analyse my biggest problems. It shows to me, now, how must I lacked in self-awareness, self-confidence and self-esteem.

I'm not much better these days. But I think I'm better able to say that. That I know I'm not great at these things, but I know I ought to be. I am ready for change.