Not so positive

I cannot do this. 

I can, and I will, but right now I feel as though I cannot do this. 

My positivity has been shaken and it scares me how quickly it disappeared. 

I am angry. and pissed off, and hurt. It feels like I got to a point where I was finally being kind to myself, admitting that I WAS strong, taking myself to therapy to continue to develop, embracing new challenges and trying to 'feel the fear and do it anyway'. I finally felt like something had shifted, that I was even so strong that I could continue my growth and help be strong for others. 

I was logically looking at all the things that made me anxious and making a conscious decision to overcome them, push myself, grow.

As someone said to me last week, I have to not be afraid to be present in my own life if I want to be so present in others. 

Now I am beginning to doubt everything. It's like a big black cloud has settled over me and I feel that old familiar weight bearing down on my shoulders, and yes I do mean metaphoric weight but also a physical one as well, but yes I also do know that shifting that felt physical weight isn't going to rid the metaphorical one. I KNOW THAT. 

People have begun to doubt me, claim that I'm in denial with my recovery, and it makes my head kick off. I over think and worry that they may be right, I know deep down that they aren't but by being second guessed means that it takes away any pride that I have in fighting. I lose my spark and feel dampened and that little voice of 'oh sod it give up, if they still think you're failing just give up'. 

Because even though I do come across strong and hell bent on recovery it is still BLOODY HARD. Yes I may want it 100% and I may make it sound easy but it's not. Its a daily, hourly minute by minute fight against what has been instinctive for so long.

Today I want to give up. I have had my Ethics back and all I can see when I look at it is a page by page document that lays out how I am just not good enough. 

My head is kicking off big time and laughing at me, laughing at the fact that I ever thought i could achieve this. My heart is broken and I feel like a failure. I never believed people when they said I was a perfectionist but that part of me is going insane. What I submitted was laughable, they must of sat and reviewed it and just laughed at me, and I feel like an idiot for that. 

  I even had my married name on one part and my maiden on another (just to add in another embarrassing failure). They also said that,

'In view of your personal disclosure about your recent illness the committee are concerned about your potential vulnerability and personal risk in that the study may potentially create a re-emergence of your illness.'

There will be a day where people will find out about my past and see my strength rather then see my vulnerability. They will see how it has made me stronger rather then this fragile wallflower that needs protecting from the world and herself. 

Right now I feel broken. I feel like every aspect of life is against me. I would like to roll over and give up. My brain is screaming that I cannot do this anymore. I cannot handle the failing and I would rather run away and be broken. 

As much as I'd like to though I know this isn't going to happen, because even now, even now when I feel so shitty, there is about 2% of me that is screaming PROVE THEM WRONG. That is getting PISSED OFF and is getting ready to fight hard and turn this all around. I am stubborn and if someone tells me I can't do something I will do it just to prove I can. That 2% will be get to at least 90% at some point and I will continue, I know I will, and I know this will be a battle I can fight and win. Even if it is out of sheer stubbornness.

But right now, right now, I feel like I am not good enough for anything. 

Right now I feel like I cannot do this.

The only way out is through x

It's surprising how you can go from super positive to super low so quickly, apologizes for that, I think I am a touch run down and emotional,but this is the reality of recovery, you have to embrace the good and bear the bad. 

Right now I have a room full of things I wish I didn't have. I was strong, I didn't run away from my feelings and I faced the inevitably hard goodbye that I have put off for so long, and it was easier then I expected.
With the support of my family I kept my chin up, smiled, walked away and let go. Really let go, and in fact, it was freeing, hard, but freeing! I can finally start to draw a line under that part of my life, and I will, I am.

But even though it went smoothly the Gremlin in my head is giving me hell. I don't know if it's a mixture of all the stress that had built up being over and finally hitting, being over worked and being run down, but my mood seems to of plummeted. The fears that I feel about life are creeping back in and I can feel the negativity swarming around me, attaching themselves to every thought and making me doubt and over analyze.

The gremlin in my head is screaming at me, I am shutting it up and screaming back but sometimes I scream so loud for so long that I lose my voice.

All that I can focus on is the feeling of not being good enough, at anything. Failing. Falling. Inadequacy. Taking up too much space. Being uncomfortable in my body. And the overwhelming sense that I am not enough.

This is backed up by the constant thought that, I have failed at the one thing that we are put on this earth to do, our primary function apart from just living, the thing that we are all looking for, the one thing that gets us through life, our main goal, to love and be loved, because isn't that the purpose of life? To find love, to find someone to go through lives ups and downs with. My mind keeps going to that classic Sami place, the self critical, self hatred, place. Logically I know that it's not solely my fault, in fact I know that more then ever, but my gremlin is latching on to my weakened positivity and screaming at me.

I am glad I was able to walk away, and I await the day that its legally all over, but for now I am going to ride out this emotinal turmoil, continue to trust the process of recovery, and keep telling myself that:

although the world feels overwhelming right now, and I feel like I am not good enough for even the smallest of things, not enough for all of the things I want to do in this life, that I do not need to turn to old habits to prove otherwise. I do not need to block these feelings out because, as hard as they are, they are just that, feelings, and that this low point, this self doubting, this fear and ache will pass, and positivity will come back again. 

The only way out is through.

Right?

Be the change!

I've been trying to write this post for a while now, but I am panicking about it being good enough. Classic Sami.

I am starting to understand myself, notice my triggers, where I struggle, and also where I thrive, yes that's right, I can thrive :) It's like someone has found the light switch in my brain and its illuminated enough to be able to find my way around. 

I am determined to work on the reasons why I turned to anorexia in the first place, and for the first time I am not avoiding or running away. Its hard, bloody hard, and with other areas in my life being so difficult at the moment it's hard to ignore that gremlin that's screaming and tempting you to do what you have always done to manage. 

But that gremlin can take a run and jump, without me attached. 

I am content, I'd even go as far to say that I am happy, and not afraid to admit it, not afraid to mean it, not afraid to embrace it. I am starting to face my problems rather then run away from them, and, as scary as this is, the feeling of strength that come afterwards is so worth it. 

I was reading through my old blog today, the blog I wrote throughout my illness, and it's so sad. I read the words and can almost feel the pain that I was in, yet it feels like it wasn't me, and it makes me glad to not be in the midst of all of that drama, upset and agony anymore. It makes me even more sure that I don't want that life. I once wrote:

  'But then again I 'shouldn't' be a lot of things
I shouldn't be going to bed with a heavy empty heart every night because my husband hates me so much, hates the feel of me 'wasting away' so much that he refuses to sleep in the same bed as me
I shouldn't be crying inside with such hunger because I can't bring myself to just be normal
I shouldn't plan my work shifts, social occasion and appts around my ED
I shouldn't rely on other people to speak up for me
I shouldn't of wasted this time

I shouldn't BE a waste of time, a waste of space, a waste of life
I shouldn't be hurting or letting people own as badly as I am

I am one big shouldn't,
one big pile of flaws that's held together by its need to be flawless

 Its a deep and dark fog that I am in. It's scary how suffocating it becomes when you are searching for your way out. That once comforting, encompassing darkness begins to weigh you down and appear everywhere. You used to be able to control it and now it just engulfs you. It clings to you, your every thought, every move, your every breathe.
It does not linger like a shadow, it is a full body, constant hurricane.'

 I read this and it reminded me of something that was once said to me, that I'm hoping will help others, because we tend to have this trait of blaming ourselves, turning inwards and punishing ourselves for the way we are. 

If you are feeling like one big 'shouldn't' please know that there are no shoulds or shouldn'ts in recovery. You are where you are, you have unfortunately reached that point, its what you do NOW that matters, it's the baby steps you take to escape this hell that matters. 

Stop punishing yourself for your suffering, more punishment will only keep you in it, start FORGIVING yourself and start RESCUING yourself instead. 

Don't punish, adapt and heal. 

 

I am looking towards the future and excited that not only do I not see it involving Anorexia, I also don't want it to. For years I couldn't see a way out and was in this limbo of not wanting to get better but also not wanting to be ill. The fear of the unknown had me convinced that I didn't want a life without my Eating Disorder, it convinced me that a life without it would be out of control, panic ridden, messy and lonely. 

I can tell you that it's the exact opposite. 

 If this is the life that my gremlin made me so fearful of then I am starting to believe that fear can stop good things as well as bad.

 

I am not recovered but I am closer then I have ever been, and I am hell bent on getting there, and I'm hell bent on showing to others that life CAN get better. 

'Be the change you want to see in the world' 

xx

Life and rubbish GP's

My Anorexic brain is not happy right now....because I'm giving it no room to win. 

No room what so ever. 

I have been wondering what to write for a while now, mainly because the situation I was put in the other week still leaves me fuming. 

I had a run in with my GP, who quite clearly is not clued up on Mental Health conditions. 

I went due to people being concerned about me training for the Tough Mudder, when I was in hospital it was something that they told me often, to be wary of any future health concerns due to the stress my body had undergone. I was told countless times that it was amazing how it hadn't packed in in certain areas, because let's face it, it went from normal weight to underweight to a normal weight to an even more drastic underweight to a high weight and now back to a normal weight, and apart from the last change it was all by unhealthy behaviors. I have pushed my body to the point were my heart was ready to pack in and was close to renal failure. It's safe to say it's both fragile and strong and I need to start taking care of it.

So I went to the GP, just to get things checked over and she completley judged me on my size before even talking to me about how I am. She told me that for someone with severe anorexia who was emaciated they wouldn't have the energy to do the Tough Mudder (this is wrong on so many levels), she then looked me up and down and said 

'you don't look THAT unwell though' 

(personally I don't think I look 'unwell' at all as I am at a healthy weight), 

she then went on to say 'well I can't tell you to do it because if you drop down dead that would be my fault, and I can't tell you not to do it because, well, you're going to do it anyway'. 

THEN she said 'to be honest I don't want to get involved so good luck' and let me go on my merry way.

This was all said with a look on her face, and the tone of voice that just screamed 'you are wasting my time, what do you want ME to do about it?'

Now if I wasn't in such a 'fuck this I want recovery head space' that whole conversation would of been extremely triggering. GP's like her are the reason why people end up so ill. When I went to my GP in Bristol before the marathon I was of a similar weight (this is at the start of my training before it dropped so no one panic), but the reason why she was so concerned was because of my behaviors not because of my weight. In her professional opinion she told me that it was more then likely that I would die before I crossed the finish line because of the stress I was putting my body through. She saw past my weight, and saw my eating disorder for what it was at that time, a dangerous mental health condition. This GP knew my history and didn't ask me how I was, if I was engaging in old behaviors (which I'm not, I have my slip ups but no where near what it was), or if I was even still in recovery. 

She saw my healthy weight and assumed I was ok and that is dangerous. 

I am not angry for me because I know that I am ok, I am not letting her judgements affect me because to be brutally honest I'm fed up of being sick. I want a life that doesn't involve triggering doctors or worried friends and family, no thank you, been there done that, I choose life. BUT I'm angry because how many other sufferers has she treated this way? How many other GP's are out there like that? 

How much damage is being done by the professionals that are meant to be helping not harming.

If this sounds familiar, if you're GP is the same please, I beg you, find another one. There ARE good ones out there, ones that see your struggle without judgement and push for help, help you deserve. 

An Eating Disorder can be fatal at any weight, at any stage, for anyone. 

It has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric condition. 

Do not become one of those mortality statistics because a GP wasn't aware of what they were dealing with, there are GPs that will know and will act and will fight with you. Fight for yourself by finding one. 

On a more positive note, after a few wobbles and tantrums last week I decided enough was enough and began to push forward more then I ever have, and life has rewarded me so far. 

At the weekend I went to my managers wedding and for once in my life had the 'normal' social gathering that I've always craved. I decided on impulse to join in with having some of the evening food,  now bare in mind this was CHOICE, I could of easily not of joined in, and also I have a HUGE fear about eating in front of my work friends, in the whole 8 months that I've worked there I never have. 

But I did, and the world didn't stop turning, and everything was ok, and in fact it made the night better, because I was part of it, I was included, I was living. 

Let go

I've been thinking a lot recently about letting things go. 

It's a phrase that holds a lot of meaning for me, to allow yourself to just 'let go'. I will always remember when someone looked up at me at a very crucial part in my recovery and said  

'Sami just let go, it's time to let it go' and it was like all of a sudden I could breathe.

It's hard to let go of things that you have been desperately clinging to for so long, be it due to fear, saftey, habitual, stability, sanity ect but sometimes you have to trust that it's what has to be done. 

I suppose that's where I am at them moment, wanting to just take a deep breathe in, trust, leap and let it go.

I have had a few epiphany moments recently and I feel like I'm all of a sudden I'm starting to see clearer then I ever have before.

 But for some reason it's almost like an undercurrent of positivity, a sense of recovery, yet not exactly the actions to correlate with the feelings.

Yet it's more then just talking the talk and not walking the walk. I'm not just saying all these positive things to seem 'ok' to seem 'better' or further along in recovery then I actually am, I say them because I wholeheartedly mean them.

After having a discussion with a really good friend the other day I took myself away and had a think to myself. The situation I'm in right now could easily lead me to a relapse, and a bad one at that. I realize this, yet, I don't want to. I'm not claiming it's ever a choice, it's not, my last relapse was not a conscious plan that I thought would be 'fun', of course not, it was all consuming and I was, at the time, powerless to it. I'm not explaining this very well, basically, bottom line, each time I've tried to get better for a reason, for my family, husband, DMP course, license to practice, for a new life with my best friend, for a fresh start ect ect. There has always been some kind of reason.

This is the very first time I've ever thought and FELT that I want to recover for ME. 

I find myself saying to myself, 'Im so done with this, I want more, I want a life, I want to move on, I want to be happy, I want to help people, I want to meet someone, I want a family, I want a LIFE' and I do, I really really do. For once I feel like this 'normality' that I crave is within my grasp if I just trust myself and take that leap. 

I never used to even be able to imagine my life without this, it was always that I would just manage, just cope and juggle having a life with an eating disorder, now I know that I want and can have a life without it. I no longer see it as part of me, some form of identity ect in fact it's not something I even consider to be part of who I am anymore.

After hearing all the speculations about Peaches Geldof dying from an Eating Disorder I realised, this could kill anyone at any stage. I've know people at a healthy BMI in recovery that just die because of the stress they have put their bodies through. I don't want that to be me. For some I suppose this is a slow form of suicide, but it isn't for me. I don't want to die from this, I want my life.
I spoke to my mum on the phone when I was going through a rough patch a couple of weeks ago and, selfishly, said to her that I wished Anorexia had just killed me, finished me off the last time because I couldnt cope with the fear of relapse and going through it all again. I was upset but those words shocked me, I don't want to be that girl, the girl that lost the fight, I want to be the girl that fought and won and lived.

I never imagined that my ED would still be a part of my life at 24, I thought it was something I could just forget about when I 'grew up'. I've wasted too much time already and if I continue to be stuck in recovery I will still have this as part of my life when I am in my 30's, 40's, 50's ect

I don't want to be 50 odd and look back and just see a fight with Anorexia. 

I want to look back and see achievements, family, laughter, LIFE. 

I say all of this, and I mean it, trust me I mean it, yet I am still stuck. 

I am not relapsing, but I am not recovering either. I am playing it safe. Playing it scared.

When I moved to Exeter I was recovering, full speed ahead, now I am no where near that in actions, but so much closer in head space. Which, I know, makes no sense.

I am not obsessing like I used to, this doesn't take up all of my head space. It's half and half. When it doesn't come to eating I don't really think about the things I used too (anorexia wise), its not something that has a grip over my day to day life.

I won't say in what ways or how as I don't want to trigger others but all I do know is that I am not acting on my positivity and it's almost like my brain is split in two. 

I suppose this could just be the edge of my journey, one final push to jump over that ledge and into freedom. One final hurrah. Maybe thats where we will all get to, that defining moment where you finally turn your back on the destruction that an ED really brings. 

When you can see so clearly that there is no control, there is no happiness and that it's all just lies, that life holds the real promise and potential. 

I know I have been rambling but if you take anything from this entry please just ask yourself this....

 Do you really want this for the rest of your life? 

Do you really want to wake up in your later years and just see a constant journey through recovery relapse recovery relapse when you could of had life?

Is it worth it?

Life goes by so fast, I've already wasted too much time in this shittyness, have you? 

Lets fight this thing!

So I’ve been secretly having a bit of a relapse. 

There we go I said it, the cat is out of the bag, but neither the cat nor the bag is needed because it stops right here. 

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been out of Exeter and surrounded by family or if I’ve just seen sense but I am not prepared to fall down this rabbit hole again. 

Things have been SO out of control recently that I predictably started using my one and only coping mechanism to get by again. Self-destruction. That way, in my head, nothing and no one can hurt me as much as I hurt myself, therefore if I am already hurting I am invincible. Wrong, but that is how my mind works. 

(Once again its crazy when you realise that an Eating Disorder really doesn’t have much to do with eating in the end)
 

I got wrapped up in the feeling of instability, that nothing in life was stable, people come and go and with it so does happiness and safety. It felt (and still does) that it was one loss after another, so what was the point?

If I had nothing to fight for then I may as well give in to the devil in my head, I didn’t have the energy to fight, I didn’t have the want or motivation. In fact having a small relapse gave me something to focus on other then the shit that was going on. Gave me a way out of dealing with things.  I didn’t have to think about stuff going on in Exeter, or my feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness, the death of my Nan, the final part of my divorce going through, the loneliness, the looming date of my incomplete dissertation, not being able to help people, not being e-bloody-nough…….the list is endless. I know right? Woe is me. 

Now don’t get me wrong this all sounds very thought out and planned. It wasn’t. Its only now upon reflection that I realise what was going on. No one plans to get into such a bad headspace that they turn to self-destruction to cope, no one.  It just happened, because it’s become habitual. I suppose when I first moved to Exeter, yes things were hard, but I was happy, therefore I didn’t need a coping mechanism. Now things are bloody tough and relapsing just happened, it’s the way I’ve coped for so long, turn inwards on myself.

Because of the things I have learnt during my inpatient stays, and because of all the amazing advice and love my friends and family have given me (I hate to name names because you are all amazing but Ella, Alice and Emily especially, you guys have seriously kept me safe, thank you) I can see that I can cope in other ways. 

I DO NOT have to resort to my eating disorder for security. 

I DO NOT have to show that I am struggling on my body, I have a voice and one I can use, one that if I find the right people will be listened to. 

I am turning this around because there is more to life. When I was coming home for the funeral this week I was worried that my family would notice that I had become a touch smaller in size, and it made me sad. I remember the time I came home and my brother said to me ‘Sami you’re looking really good, it’s so nice to not see you for a while then see you looking really well’. Now my brother is a man of few words, hugely sentimental and supportive but just not through words, so this meant a lot to me. In fact those words gave me a hell of a lot more sense of pride then seeing decreasing numbers ever could. It made me sad to think that when my family don't see me for a while they fear what I'm going to look like when I do eventually turn up.

So I have decided that, although it’ll be super uberly hard, I’m getting back on the recovery train.  

I will find other coping mechanisms. 

I will use my voice and speak up. 

I will not give in to the screaming in my head. 

I will fight and fight and fight. 

I DO have things to fight for, and on the days where I convince myself of otherwise, convince myself that my friends and family and the world of DMP would cope without me, then I will remind myself that if I can’t fight for that/them that I have the very basic, simple, thing to fight for. 

Myself. 

Whos with me?

-

I was planning on writing a last blog for EDAW on Sunday, one that involved an optimistic view on how not all GPs were clueless, how I was lucky with mine and you could be lucky with yours if you tried. (Seriously be brave, you can do this)

Bare with me guys that blog is in me, it’s still there waiting to come out but right now my words, heart and soul are all being filled with something else.

Last night my family received some news that I think is still painfully sinking in. We were told that our beloved Nan, Nanny Jean, had passed away.

It’s a surreal feeling knowing that someone you love so dearly is no longer with you, no longer able to talk or move or even give you one of those beautiful smiles.  It is so hard to believe that one-second they were here and the next gone forever.  It is so heart wrenchingly painful that it creates an automatic panic, a panic to preserve and protect all that is left, quick remember, capture her laugh, her smell, her embrace, her presence and bottle it so that the memory lasts forever. Quick before it’s gone…..before you lose it forever……capture it quick…..If only you could.

You sit there speechless searching and searching for the words to say to make things ok, to make things better, less painful, more manageable, and not even for yourself but for those around you. You watch as others that you love dearly fall apart and crumble, knowing, even though it cuts to your core, that there is absolutely nothing you can do.  There is no solution as there is no problem, a problem can be fixed, this is unfixable.

It’s a double wammy of loss and hopelessness.

The funny thing about grief is that when it’s settling in it’s almost like you wear it on you. It’s written all over you. Walking around in public its almost as if you expect people to look at you and just KNOW. The cloud of darkness you carry is so real and so prominent to you that it’s hard to believe that other people can’t see it suffocating you and weighing you down.

RIP Nan. You loved and were loved by so many.