MY SUPPORT

This post is dedicated to my gran, Barbara, who is the most amazing woman. She has generously given up her own time to live temporarily in our home so that I am not alone and have support throughout the day. She has helped me in so many ways and constantly encourages me to live life outside the parameters of my own existence. For this I am eternally grateful. And to all my grandparents, who have been there to pick up the phone at times when I am in need, I love you lots. 

At one of our daily M&S tea breaks

The City of Winchester

WORDS OF WISDOM

Only by acceptance of the past will you alter it's meaning. T.S Eliot

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. William Shakespeare  

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning. F. Scott Fitzgerald

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

One must learn to love oneself with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam. Friedrich Nietzsche 

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. Marcel Proust 

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. Albert Camus

BULIMIA'S HIDDEN POWERS

Now this is going to be a tough one to write about. I can hardly get my head around it. I can hardly even say the word. I want to pretend it doesn't exist. So this might be short..

The reality of bulimia is so physical and traumatic that it makes it particularly challenging to talk about. Whether it is self-induced or due to a virus, one cannot deny that being sick is a terrible experience. For this reason bulimia has acutely grievous connotations and is steeped in stigma, shame and secrecy. Furthermore, it is hard to understand the compulsions that drive this illness as it seems to go against natural human instinct to make oneself sick. Why would anyone assault themselves in such a way? 

However bulimia revolves around the cycle of guilt, shame and self-hatred. For me, bulimia is strongly linked with my own perspective and judgements of myself- which are always that I am inadequate. Purging, then, literally and figuratively gets rid of all that is abject and 'wrong' with me. It is a perverse form of punishment and self-retribution that in fact only reinforces the bad feelings behind the illness, providing further reasons and a catalyst for being sick again. 

So as you can see, as a habit forming illness, bulimia has the potential to hold a tyrannical power over the mind. It can become almost like an addiction that spirals out of control. I hope other sufferers can read and relate to this, and realise that they are not alone. I am on the road to recovery, but there have been slip ups and pitfalls along the way- perhaps with more to come. I try not to believe the diatribe of negative comments belonging to the critic in my head. My aim is always to be well and do the best I can with the awareness I have at the present moment. 

However, if I am honest, there is a part of me that still likes giving in to the temptation to be self-hating rather than act in accordance with my values. It takes an enormous amount of willpower to overcome an opponent as strong and emotionally compelling as bulimia (or any other mental health illness). This is my struggle. 

PSYCHOSIS

Psychosis: noun. a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

I think this is a pertinent and yet somewhat incomplete definition of psychosis- at least in my personal case- which only began this year. 

It has never been something I have understood before or, to be honest, taken much interest in. I previously thought that illnesses such as this only happened to other people. I am sorry to say that in my ignorance I linked psychosis with a diatribe of negative associations, such as madness, delusion and insanity. 

While it is true that during my psychotic episodes these terms appositely describe some of the behaviours that I exhibit, they are conjointly and unjustly laden with prejudicial connotations which leave no space for the compassion and understanding needed to help sufferers with recovery. 

Psychosis does not mean that you are a mad, dangerous or volatile person. As with depression, I cannot adequately put into words the actual perception of this abstract mental state, but I can attempt to illustrate a little of its nature. 

Psychosis hits when one has mentally pierced through the ceiling of reality, only to reach the apex of existential angst which feels like a vast, vacuous and unfathomable blankness. When this happened to me I thought that the world was just a computer game and people were players in it, or that I was possessed and living in my own game. In other words, life was like a waking dream.  

Recently, I have found that walking and nature have had a therapeutic effect on my mind, as well as reminding myself of the things in life I am most grateful for. Unfortunately in my case I also need medication to recover-  in some instances, the power of psychosis and depression is far too overwhelming to face alone. It would be like entering a battle with no weapons or armoury- although finding the correct medication has been a struggle in itself with many unpleasant twists and turns along the way. More on that later..

I am happy to say things seem more settled as of late (which means I have had a couple of stable days). Let's hope that the good feelings continue and that my writing is helping others to understand more about mental illness and how to help others in recovery. 

THE BEGINNING: WHERE I'M AT

I thought I would start by stating the truth, which is that I really resent the state that I'm in. I am all too aware of all the labels, the associations and history of mental illness and the pain and shame of it all. I am not crazy, but I think and act in strange, often extreme and aberrant ways that don't always even make sense to myself. This is not a sudden onset of mental disorderliness that has emerged unprecedented. My mind has been rewired over the years so that old treacherous pathways have become worn and wider- deceptively enticing to walk down- whilst the other side of my brain that enables me to get on with life and function socially has grown into a dense, unexplored and seemingly impenetrable wilderness. 

All this means is that I don't think in quite the same way as other people. Although there are many others like me out there, sometimes it feels like I am the only person in the whole world going through this. And by 'this' I am talking about the complete spectrum of mental health and well-being, beginning with my diagnosis of clinical depression during my formative teenage years, since which my life has consisted of all possible modes of persistent and belligerent self-destruction.

 It is much too cumbersome a task for me to describe to you everything that has happened in all its gloriously drab and dingy details. So, firstly, to simplify, shall we begin with a list?

These diagnostic names all have associated labels and stigmatised ideas attached to them but I must stress that writing or hearing about them is one thing and experiencing them is quite another entirely. My personal experience has included anorexia, bulimia, self-harm, depression, compulsive overeating, body dysmorphia, OCD and psychosis. And wow, what an irksome and rotten old list that is. I wish I could make it all dissipate or archive it inside my brain with a warning notice saying 'DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.'

Now, I also want to make sure that by writing this blog I don't come across as a victim or self-pitying. I don't displace blame on to others for the way I am. It's really just one sour cocktail of genetics mixed with environmental and social factors. I try to be self-accepting in spite of myself, as, for some reason, although I find having compassion for others quite easy, being nice to myself seems to go against all my natural instincts and inclinations. 

Since December 2013 my mental health has experienced a new and most unwelcome drenching in some horrible issues. It feels as though I am walking around some sort of atramental abyss looking for a sign of light or a tunnel to give me some direction or sense of hope.  This descent all began with a trigger whereby my own heightened self-consciousness and critical voice started to obsess about a particular aspect about my appearance, which soon enlarged to gargantuan proportions to the point where I did not want to be alive if this 'defect' in my appearance could not change. My mind went into a broken shut-down mode- a state that words alone cannot  express or give justice to. I do not intend this to sound supercilious or condescending but there really is no way of transposing mental illness into a form of logical understanding. 

Perhaps it is like trying to explain the immense pain of a broken arm or leg to someone who has only ever been bruised and never broken a bone in their body. And, to continue with this little analogy, like broken bones where there is a near infinite spectrum of minor and perilous injuries one can experience (from a broken finger to a broken back), mental health similarly exists on a panoramic and sepulchral spectrum of ailments. Each person will have their own subjective and unique experience of mental well-being, and in my personal case I feel as though I am on a constantly swinging pendulum of extreme highs and lows, always searching for some middle ground to grasp hold of and land on.

Anyway, that is enough for today. I hope that this first post has given you a little understanding of the complications and complexities of mental health and I have not yet lulled you into a state of depression yourself by reading what I have to say..!