Evening all

I have been trying, and failing, to do some freewriting every day as a sanity protector - what normally stops me is that I don't have time. Or that I do have time but am so busy thinking about other things that I forget. It has been useful, when I have done it, but at the same time it means this blog has been somewhat neglected. It's been 2 months to the day since I last wrote.

A lot has been happening. I will try not to make this rambling, but I always do and it never works! Oh dear...

I've been under a lot of stress because of work and money. Ever since my original, amazing, perfect job fell through in the summer, I've felt under pressure to make the money situation come together. That is even more true now that I have decided to go to drama school.

Yes, I've decided to go to drama school. It's going to cost buckets of money, which I don't have and won't manage to raise in time so it'll have to be loans loans and more loans - but you know what? I don't give a fuck. I'm doing it. Because I want to. Because it's about time I took control back over my life and started doing what I *want* and what I *enjoy*, because I'm the only person who can make that happen.

That said, I am now very pressed for time because I need to amass as much money as possible before I leave Russia. It may even be profitable to go home earlier than planned and get a part-time job, because even on minimum wage in the UK, at least I can predict work. Here, you can't. There are no contracts, just a phone-call and a handshake. Usually not even a handshake. Which means if people decide to screw you over - which has happened to me many, many times over the last 6 months - there's nothing you can do about it. So I am at once desperate for work and money, and being messed around by the people who provide it. A double whammy of stress. It's not ok.

But I'm starting to surface from it. I have a lovely month or so up ahead of me, even though it will do nothing to ease the financial situation. Home for Christmas tomorrow, back in Moscow for New Year with friends, about a week of day-trips around the Moscow region with said friends, and before you know it I'll be off for New Zealand on January 15th! Can't believe it's happening already! Can't really believe it's happening at all...! I need to stare at my plane booking to make the message sink in xD

Fortunately, something is going right at the moment, and that's acting. I'm in the middle of The Dumb Waiter, in hands down the most challenging role I've ever played and, frankly, am ever likely to play [paranoid schizophrenic psychopathic hitman, anyone?] - but it's correspondingly rewarding. We gave a little preview/open rehearsal/"reading without scripts" on Sunday, which was disastrous in that we totally messed up the play, but very successful in that the audience enjoyed it! I mean none of them knew the script, they had no idea we fucked up - ah, the beauty of playing Harold Pinter to a Russian audience! ;) It was attended by another English director who had approached me about potentially working with him, but had never seen me act; afterwards he was talking like he'd already cast me. What's more, a professional Russian actor who was also in the audience expressed an interest in working with me - so the three of us (me, him and the director) are going to start Insignificance by Terry Johnson soon. How fucking awesome is that? Another lead role I haven't had to audition for, acting opposite a professional who's even offered to coach me with character building. I am being spoilt rotten!

I'm also sort of tutoring a Russian girl (with very good English) who is applying to drama schools in America and the UK and preparing audition monologues; mostly I'm just making suggestions and including the odd tip here and there, I wouldn't call it teaching. But it is making me realise just how valuable my life experience is with acting. I mean, I already knew that having been through what I have,  I can understand and emulate some very extreme emotions and psychological states that most people would find daunting. It's part of what attaches me to acting so strongly; I feel like I'm able to put all that shit to good use, and I know that it helps me to meet a demand which others might struggle to meet. Of course there are styles and genres that I find hard which "normal" people would find easy, but I don't mind. I'm aware of what my strengths and weaknesses are, and it's ok. But trying to teach someone how to do something really makes you realise how much of it you're doing automatically, and I had no idea. I had no idea that I have such a rich selection of life experience to go at, even though I'm 6 years younger than this girl I'm tutoring. And I really, really appreciate that. Makes teaching almost impossible, because I can't teach her how to have lived my life, but I've come to value how wide an emotional range I have without even trying.

Acting makes me feel whole. I fills in the gaps that trauma has left, and helps me bond with even the worst of memories rather than trying to push them away and pretend they're not there. All I know is: when I'm acting, I'm happy. Not despite the hard times - but *together with* and even *because of* them. And I appreciate happiness just as much as anyone appreciates anything that's been rare for them.

Yes, I've been to hell and back. Yes, I've been right to edge of sanity and stood on the edge peering over into the abyss. Yes, I have huge chunks of memory missing, some of them months long, and I can only imagine now what must have been happening. But I've also had the chance to see some of that in context, and piece together some kind of perspective. And fucking hell, I'm only 22! Sounds like a hell of a life - and it has been, still is, but acting helps me understand. A life like mine, and acting, just seem to go together. Like a 2-piece puzzle. It works. They just slot into each other, they blossom out of one another. And I love it. I just love it.

Perspective

Perspective. I feel I'm in need of some at the moment. I'm getting really stressed out over a class I teach on Saturdays - have one this afternoon - a drama class with the students aged 11-13. I didn't want to do it, but was kind of forced into it because there was nobody else and the guy who runs the school was all like "please can you help us" "everything's going wrong, why is life so difficult sometimes" etc etc. Laying it on thick, in other words. So what was I supposed to do? And anyway, he somehow convinced me that 11-year-olds aren't really children any more, so it would be fine (he knew I didn't want to teach any children's classes, as I had tried one when I first arrived and had to put my foot down straight away not to do any more. What was I thinking? Of course 11-year-olds are children.

Guys, I absolutely hate it. Seriously I hate it. These kids have practically no English whatsoever, which severely limits what I can do with them because most activities you could do with kids that age, they just don't understand. I can't really get them to do speaking activities, because they aren't ready for it linguistically, added to which they are, for the most part, painfully shy and never want to do anything. Just getting them to do an activity is a feat of persuasion. Getting them to understand and do it right is even harder. Just, omg. I hate it. I. Hate. It.

Every week I dread it, I can sort of feel it approaching and I don't want to think about it. I have an adult class beforehand which is overshadowed by the prospect of this kids' class. In a way I feel like I want to just take all the years' classes at once, to get them over with and not have to face them any more. Kind of like exams, you know? You reach a point where you just want to get in there and get it over with.

There's nobody else I can fob it off on, there's no getting out of it. The whole reason I'm doing it is precisely because there is nobody else. So I can't pull out. I don't understand how I'm supposed to maintain this for the entire year. :'(

And yet, really, I *need* to try and keep it in perspective. So there's 1 hour a week of my job that I absolutely despise. If I compare myself to the rest of the population, as a general rule, I'm getting off pretty lightly right? I mean how many people are there doing 9-5 jobs every single day that they hate every hour of? I don't understand how they do it, I really don't.

I suppose what's getting to me isn't just that I don't enjoy it, it's that it makes me feel inadequate. I don't know what to do with these kids, I don't know how to teach them. I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what level I want them to achieve, or what they should be able to do at that age. I just feel shit. Bit of a sore spot, as I'm sure you're all aware. It's upsetting, and it's triggering. It really *really* makes me want to turn back to my eating disorder, because that was always a fairly sure-fire way of distracting myself from feeling shit at other things. Knowing that I was losing weight was somehow a cushion that made other things a little more bearable, and took the focus off them.

So no matter how much perspective I try to gain, it still doesn't seem to change the fact that this 1 bloody hour a week is sticking its finger into some very old wounds that haven't healed yet. And I don't know how to deal with that. How do people handle jobs they hate? I do not understand. Maybe it's because the conclusion they draw from having to do it is not that they must be rubbish. Which is my conclusion. And I can't see how I could draw any other conclusion; I just don't know how to work with children. And they are children, no matter what the boss might say.

The further complication is that he is directing the play I'm in at the moment, and he gave me my role. I don't want to piss him off because I don't want to make rehearsals awkward. I just want him to like me, you know? Silly really. Even though I'm actually annoyed at him for pushing me into teaching this class that I don't want to do. And I'm still annoyed at him for lying to me about how much the drama school pays, which is petty but it's the fact he lied that gets to me. Like he was trying to lure me in or something. Like, dude, there's no need for deceit here. Seriously. It's just going to make me cross with you. And god knows I've been messed around by enough people already over the last few months. >:(

Not entirely sure what the point of this post is. Suppose I just feel the need to explain myself.

OMG, FY

еThis post will hopefully go some way towards balancing out the last post and all its misery.

I met Martin (director/drama school guy) today to have a look at a play; someone else I know, one of my students, said he was going too, so it was going to be an audition of sorts. Audition usually freak the shit out of me but I know Martin and I knew it wasn't going to be me doing a monologue in front of a panel or anything! So, went along.

When I got there, Martin basically told me that he wasn't bothering to audition me, because he'd already cast me in the lead.

Yes, you did read that correctly.

Martin basically told me that he wasn't bothering to audition me, because he'd already cast me in the lead.

=O

As a result: I'M IN A PLAY I'M IN A PLAY I'M IN A PLAY!!!

It's a fucking awesome character as well. I AM SO STOKED I DON'T KNOW IF I WILL SLEEP TONIGHT.

We're doing Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, but with a few twists. There are only 2 characters in the script, two assassins, one of whom has to kill the other at the end. The one who gets killed is going to be played by several different people, who will switch every time there is a 'silence' in the script. The idea is that the other guy, who kills him, is seeing the last 11 people he's murdered, in a kind of going insane way. That's who I'm playing. A crazy, hallucinating assassin. I mean come on, does it get much more fun than that? I always like playing characters who are a bit mad anyway, so this is like, perfect. :)

The most hilarious thing is the reason why I got the lead role with no audition. When I first got to Moscow, I had agreed that I would do a monologue at the English Club partly run by Martin - but had no time to prepare and had to read off the paper, which is always shit. Last week, I was asked to do another one, and this time was able to learn it, rehearse it a bit, etc. Even so, when the performance came, the odds of success were stacked against me. I was performing it in a sports bar with a football match on in the background because they wouldn't turn the TVs or their loudspeakers off, which is off-putting enough as it is, added to which I didn't have the theatre luxury of the audience being invisible in the dark. I could see every single face staring up at me, concentrating on me, watching me. Given I have horrific stage fright, this was not cool. It was an extremely emotional monologue, basically a suicide note, but with so many distractions I just didn't feel I made the connection with the character at all, and was kinda embarrassed that Martin had even seen it.

Turns out, it was that monologue that got me this part. That's why he didn't audition me. I keep learning over and over again that you can never judge how well your own performance went, but always forget it - so here I am, learning it again! Seriously, I genuinely thought it was one of the worst performances I'd ever done. It would seem not everyone thought it was as bad as I did!

Huzzah!

FML

This post is somewhat without reason, I just need to do a bit of a brain-dump of all the things I'm trying to deal with right now.

Depression is always there.
ED is always there.
I've been ill almost this whole week, which a) was shit in itself, and b) cost me well over £500 because I don't get sick leave.
I found out the other day that a childhood friend has been very ill with depression and PTSD. She's not a close friend, but still. Hard news to take.
My flatmate is coming back tomorrow with her now husband, who I don't know. Stranger moving in, yey!
I lost one of my jobs this week.
I also realised that when I get a new visa in November, I can't just get another one like I've already got. I need a work visa, not a business visa. I have no idea how to go about getting one, let alone if the paperwork will come through in time. It will also mean paying up to 40% taxes out of my MA fund.
Getting my current visa was one of the most stressful times of my life. And now I get to go through it all over again. It's going to be both uncertain and expensive, costing money I didn't have back then and I still don't have now.
I'm teaching my worst class today, 11 and 12-year-olds who speak no English and don't want to do drama. There are going to be 6 of them, more than I've ever had before.
And the cherry on the cake?
I just got a text informing me that the 6th child, the newbie, will be bringing his father along because it'll be a test lesson. His father is a cameraman and is going to film it. FILM IT.

Fuck my life. I'm not even kidding. Fuck my life.

Children

Moscow: Week 2, Day 3

I'm having the opposite problem to usual at the moment: too much is happening in between blog posts! In the last week, I've gained a job, lost a job, lost a job, gained a job...and still don't really understand my current employment status... On top of that moods have been up and down all over the place, it's very confusing.

The main job I came out here to do (looking after an 8-year-old boy, though I think for some reason I said he was 7 in my last post) is no longer on: the kid is impossible, and even for the suggested pay I'm not experienced enough to risk taking it. Besides, lessons couldn't take place in the family home as planned, and there wouldn't really be anywhere else to do it... The good news is I've got a different job with a very cute 2-and-a-half-year-old girl, whom I don't have to look after cos her mum is always there, I just have to literally be there and speak English at her. The pay is lower, but the job is manageable, so whatevs!

The other job change has been with the drama school. I was meant to teach adult classes as well as kids' classes, but having had one go with the kids I had to pull out. I'm not really sure why. It's partly how tiring and stressful it is, trying to keep 6 kids occupied doing drama games in a language they can't really speak, giving them instructions they don't understand. I kept checking my watch and thinking 'jesus, has it really only been 5 minutes?'

The other reason is harder to pin down. There's something about being with groups of children, and I don't know why it's only when they're in big groups, that makes me feel...not old, but far far away from childhood. They're so full of energy and enthusiasm, curiosity and happiness. Happiness above all. And I'm so, well, not.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not nearly as miserable as I have been in the past. But being surrounded by children somehow hammers home how serious I've become, how unable to be spontaneous and gleeful. Unable to not give a shit about whether people are watching or judging me. Because I do give a shit, I can't help it.

Even being with Tasya (my new 2-year-old) makes me feel it. In a way she has the opposite effect; being around a child can lighten your heart and remind you of that innocent way of seeing the world, but after a while I find it wears off and I start noticing how my cheeks hurt from smiling, and I can't be bothered to say anything else like it's exciting. Is it just me or do you guys find being with children is like this?

I have been busy this week, but somehow have also had some time to myself. I'm not appreciating it very much because of the stress, and because for reasons not quite known I keep finding myself wanting to burst into tears. (If I'm alone, I do.) Processing the overdose is a slow business, it seems, having started a few weeks ago but been put on hold by the move. Now it's recommencing, and I'm not really sure how to handle it. Crying helps but isn't a solution. Remembering is painful but necessary; I want to make sure it remains a 'normal' memory, as my mind has been known to fuck things up in that regard and I don't want any more blanks or flashbacks.

But as ever, life goes on. And there's no stress can't be battled with fanfiction =P

Moscow: Day 2

Yo y'all! So, here I am, in Moscow. Whod'a thunk?

I've just spent probably the most stressful few weeks of my life trying to get here, battling with bureaucracy and fucking idiots who were acting on my behalf, but not in my interest. Seriously, I was losing faith in the world and its ability to contain people who are either kind or at least vaguely intelligent. And by vaguely intelligent, I mean things like, able to predict that if they don't give me the information I need to fill in my visa application correctly, I probably won't get a visa. Etc.

I couldn't really see any point in blogging because it would have just been a rant at the amount of people trying to screw money and time out of me.  Two banks have had a go at the former, 3 Russian organisations at the latter. Seriously, I'm up to here with it. *indicated point well above head*

But after all that, I made it at last. Flew in on Saturday, and had the evening to settle into my new flat with my flatmate Lena, though not her fiancé Paulus who will also be living with us, because he's currently at home in Lithuania where they're getting married later this month.

We went to the supermarket to pick up a few things, which was a little stressful but not too bad because we mostly agreed on what to buy. We also got a watermelon from the watermelon man outside our building that weighed about as much as a toddler, and was so big it wouldn't fit in the sink so we had to rinse it in the bath. I lol'd.

So yesterday was my first full day. I went to the drama school where I'll be working, and it seems a nice little place. It's got 3 teaching rooms, including one that doubles up as a photography studio, and a wee theatre that surprisingly seats up to 50.

I was halfway through a discussion with Martin (the big English cheese) when I was approached by Natasha (the big Russian cheese) and asked if I'd help them do some advertising on the streets, because yesterday was Moscow's birthday and there were loads of people out and about for the celebrations. She suggested that I do it in costume with them, and I idiotically agreed.... Half an hour later, I'm standing in a crowded park dressed in a bright orange dog costume, handing out flyers. When they said they wanted to draw attention to themselves, I hadn't quite appreciated how much attention they were intending to draw.... At least the kiddies seemed to appreciate me....

Luckily I was saved after about an hour by a potential new pupil coming to audition back at the studio, so Martin and I went back to meet him. Cute enough kid, 7 years old, and seemingly game for this acting malarky. Then I met an older pupil - about my age, I'd say - called Sergei, who was practising a monologue for that night's English Evening at a local bar. I helped him out a bit, very impressed that he had memorised a Shakespearean speech, and then we all went down to the bar to set up. How it seems to work is, this guy Alexei who is a world-class flamenco guitar player (and really is very good) plays his guitar for about half an hour while people interested in speaking English arrive; everyone chats for a while, then Sergei does his piece (I gather there are normally more little performances of that kind); then the other native speakers and I get up on the stage and introduce ourselves before a round of speed-English. Like speed-dating, except you're just speaking English to each other in the 3 minutes you get before the bell rings and you change partners.

I was hesitant to go, not really wanting to spend a lot of time speaking English, but I did get some new Russian friends out of it who are apparently happy to speak Russian with me another time, so all was not lost. Got home at about midnight, had some dinner finally with my flatmate and her best friend Olga who had driven us home, and so to bed. I have to say, for a first day, I don't think I did too badly. 24 hours and I'd already started working and acquired more friends than I could count on my fingers.

Today is day 2: started with a phone call from the mother of the little boy I'm teaching English to, arranging to meet at 12:30. When I rang at 10 the kid was still in bed apparently, so I don't know what kind of school he goes to because normally all Russian schools start on September 1st... Anyway, I'll be off there in a minute. Then a business lunch type thing in the restaurant of the theatre where Martin and I will be working, meeting...oh, I can't remember, some person of significance. Possibly someone looking to join the drama school, possibly someone connected with the melodeclamation performance Martin is doing there in a couple of weeks (which he apparently wants me to stage manage, news to me!)

So, off I pop. La'ers! xxx

*TRIG* Advertising Anger

 

Am I the only person made absolutely furious by these weight loss adverts that came up when I was watching a Russian TV program online? Maybe for some people 48kg is a healthy weight - but frankly, you'd have to be pretty short, because I am admittedly tall but my MINIMUM healthy weight is around 60kg. And as for that one of Amy Winehouse looking skeletal, well, there's no excuse for that. There's just. no. excuse. You can count her bones for Christ's sake! And yes, it is a weightloss advert, not a shocking magazine story about how unhealthy Amy Winehouse had become.

THIS MAKES ME ROAR LIKE A DINOSAUR.

Bye-Bye Venlafaxine

I've been cutting my meds down recently, doing away with the useless ones to leave - hopefully - just a succinct, killer combo of action heroes. Currently on venlafaxine, aripiprozole, quetiapine and buproprion, of which the former 2 have achieved nothing and the latter 2 are very good.

Got the aripiprozole down to a half dose so should be starting to come off that next time I see Mr Psych, and I cut out the venlafaxine completely 4 days ago. Been having some bitch of a withdrawal, constantly feeling like I've just stood up too quickly, nausea, throbbing head, not sleeping, hot flushes and the sweats... But, at least I'm still for the most part capable of functioning, so it can't be too bad. (She says...)

Also been incredibly emotional these last few days, which I put down to withdrawal also; I've just been on the brink of tears half the time, and actually in tears most evenings by the time I'm in bed. It doesn't help that I'm only now starting to process the overdose - it must have been 2 months ago now, and I'm only just comprehending and accepting that it happened. I think at the time I was too numb to deal with it properly; I just carried on as normally as I could trying to get through exams without going mad. Which I didn't manage, admittedly, having to pull out before the end for my own safety, but I think in hindsight I had blinkers on and was focusing so much on just getting from one day to the next that I hadn't the time to look back and reflect. Now I have, and I gotta say, it ain't nice. I understand how and why it happened, and that's helping me come to terms with it, but it's still hard, and very painful.

I don't know the exact date when it happened, so I can't say exactly how long ago it was, but I think that's a good thing. I don't want that date to be forever enshrined as The Day I Tried to Kill Myself, rolling round every year.

Got very frustrated last night, in one of my emotional paddies, at the thought that in terms of my eating disorder, comparing now to this time last year it's barely distinguishable. I was in almost exactly the same place then as I am now, having moved on from the year before that, but no further. I've had to put myself back on a meal plan because since having acid reflux (or whatever it was) my eating has gone out the window and I *need* to get it back on track before Moscow. If I'm to be working with kids, I cannot - and I mean cannot - be exhibiting any disordered behaviours or even attitudes. But it doesn't feel any easier than it was following a plan this time last year; if anything it's harder because I'm not reviewing each week in therapy as I was then. My parents think I'm fine because of a comment I optimistically made when I first got home for the summer, and I haven't the heart to tell them the truth. I just feel like my recovery has stalled and not moved forward this whole year. I've been too distracted and absorbed in basic survival of university to make any real progress. I have times when I can eat normally, yes, but that was the case last year as well, and the point is that those times have not become any more frequent or reliable. Grumble grumble.

The other thing that's hard is I feel I'm becoming separated from my eating disorder, but rather than that being a positive thing, at the moment it's very negative. Thing is, eating disorders are very good company when you're on your own. And I've been on my own for a while. Every time I get close to someone, we end up drifting apart. I'm still in that stage of life where people are moving and doing new things every year or two, so no friendship is going to last in terms of face-to-face contact time. And let's face it, without face-to-face contact time, most friendships weaken. They don't disappear, but they fade drastically. And I've tried so hard these last few years to be open with people, to let them get close to me and push myself out of my comfort zone - and for what? Am I still able to phone up any of those people for support when I'm having a crisis? No. Have we even spoken since the summer began? No. The only person I'm at all close with at the moment is someone I've never met, and I'm sure the reason I feel more secure in that relationship is precisely because it isn't affected by one or both of us changing location - it's all online, and always has been, so there's some kind of durability to it. It's not like university friends whom you lost contact with after your degree, or school friends whom you meet up with occasionally but you're not all that close to despite having known them 11+ years. In this case, you start off separated by a great distance, which means that distance does not pose a problem when either of you move, because you're used to the physical separation. But apart from that one friendship? I'm very much alone right now. There's a huge hole where my eating disorder ought to be, and I don't know how I'm supposed to cope without it. By that I don't mean that my eating disorder is gone, not by any means, but I'm no longer courting it like a lover, or trusting it when I'm in distress. I hate to admit it, but loneliness is fucking hard.

In terms of Moscow, still don't have a job sorted. Got two agencies apparently trying to get me a position, but I've heard nothing for several days and am getting very antsy. It takes at least 17 days to get a business visa, and that's only once you've got the invitation and God only knows how long that takes. I'm leaving in less than 4 weeks, flight booked, accommodation sorted. This is getting very urgent. Probably another reason I've been more emotional than usual, or maybe this is effect rather than cause, stress getting to me more than it would were it not for withdrawal. We'll see. Cracked and e-mailed both agencies today going WHAT'S GOING ON HAVE I GOT A JOB YET WAAAAAHHH. Not in so many words, but that was the jist. Fingers crossed eh...?

This has been a bit of a rant, for which apologies. Love to you all =) xxx

Flats and Jobs - Oh Bugger

Right, so, complications.
I agreed with a friend in Moscow that I would move in with her after her flatmate moved out - the only problem being that the current flatmate was moving out in May, and I wouldn't be arriving until September. No problemo, we thought, she knew someone who might want to come and live the summer with them. Except, it turned out that person didn't want to do that.
So they were left with an empty room and extra rent to pay, and nobody to help them pay it. I reluctantly offered to pay if it came to that, since it's kinda my fault that they can't just get a long-term tenant in; although I feel she should have known this might happen when she agreed to let me move in in September. Nobody's fault, really, but I do feel partially responsible which is why I offered to pay.
For a few weeks I heard nothing, so assumed that all was well and they'd found a flatmate for the summer after all. Messaged her yesterday just checking in, and got a reply today saying no, they haven't found anyone. Someone has been there for July, but that didn't pay for the room being empty in June, and it won't cover August either. Her landlady is now demanding the money.
I'm going to borrow it from my parents and wire it over to her, because I don't see another way out of this. I don't want to leave them hanging by saying "ok get a long-term tenant in" and dropping everything; but at the same time, I'm pissed off that it has come to this. It was so simple when we arranged it, and now everyone's so stressed out over it. She and her boyfriend (the 3rd housemate) have had 2 tiring and stressful months trying to find a summer tenant, and I now can't book flights for New Zealand in January because I can't do that *and* send them rent money. Gargh. And most of all, I'm worried that this is going to tarnish our friendship and make living with them awkward. That's the last thing I want/need. Everything was going so swimmingly between us and now, it's all gone understandably tense.

And then, my wonderful job fell through, and I've got to do another one for admittedly similar pay but considerably harder work - nannying a 7-year-old boy rather than a 12-year-old girl. The family also want me to work until 10pm which I cannot understand, because the kid will surely be in bed long before that, so I'm trying to negotiate getting off at 9. I need evenings for rehearsals, and seeing my Russian friends so I can actually learn some Russian! Bloody hell, why did it suddenly get so difficult.

Tempted to just give up emotionally and see this as yet another example of why I shouldn't get my hopes up about anything. But I can't afford to do that. I need hope right now. I need it. Last time I gave up hope I saw afterwards that it was a mistake, one that I don't want to make again. Must keep going. 

Name Change and Other Developments

Since I'm no longer at Oxford (not possible!!) I think it's time to do away with 'Oxford Blues'. I think I was the only person who got the pun anyway.

Besides, I shall now be blogging about different things. Still depression, still eating disorder recovery, but now in the big wide world rather than the insane, manic bubble that is Oxford University. It was a challenge in itself, but I've survived it, and my life is changing.

On September 1st I'll be flying out to Moscow to start a new life for a year. Yes, I'll be coming back to Britain after that year to do an MA in Interpreting and Translating at Bath (if they'll have me), but I intend to return to Russia when I've done that. It's where the work is, it's where the fun is, it's where the Russian is.

My job that I had set up fell through a few days ago: I was going to be nannying a 12-year-old girl from a family so VIP that the contract stated I wasn't allowed to tell anyone their surname, and teaching her English in preparation for going to Swiss boarding school. Then Family X, as I call them, suddenly decided they only needed a part-time nanny, not full-time as I was going to be. Well, I say full-time; that is, out-of-school hours 4 days a week and one day at the weekend. They would also take me on holiday with them to Italy for two months in the summer and continue to pay me, thank you very much. So I was pretty bummed when they pulled out of the deal, to say the least.

Fortunately, I did have a fall-back, and my boss very generously looked into some alternatives for me too. I shall soon have a Skype interview with a new family, also VIP according to the agency I contacted (called 'Prestige', which tells you all you need to know about their clientele), so we'll see how this pans out. It's basically the same job but with a much younger child, 5 years old, and I have no experience of working with children - eek! They know this perfectly well having seen my CV, but whatevs, employing me is their call. The pay would be £36k (ker-ching!) plus any overtime I worked by going on holiday with them. I know right, tough job but someone's gotta do it? Yeah.

I'm also going to be acting a lot and teaching drama at the Moscow English Drama School, which is a joke because I've never been to drama school. My training goes as far as Drama GCSE (that's age 15 for those outside England). Luckily the school is not training professionals, but just using drama as a way for Russians to improve their English, and allowing expats to socialise in a fun and creative way. Just as well, really, given that I have no technique whatsoever. The only technique (if you can call it that) which I am familiar with is all Stanislavski, having studied him in my theatre module at Oxford, but I'm hardly going to teach his 'system'. There's no such thing and anyway, it was designed for over-emotional Russians, not tight-laced Englishmen. I'm halfway through 'Trusting the Actor' by Brian Astbury, a friend's old drama tutor from East 15; his theory is that, quite the opposite to Russians, English actors need to think less and feel more, and I quite agree. So that will be my goal, despite having a mixed class of compatriots and Muscovites. We'll see how it goes...

On the eating disorder side of things, well, it's mixed. I've had a stomach upset for over a week now, diagnosed today as indigestion (i.e. acid reflux) and basically haven't been able to eat. I've lost not a lot but not an insignificant amount of weight - ED is loving it, recovery brain is banging its head on the table. So very very triggered to keep restricting even when I can eat again, you know how it goes - I'll just lose a bit more and then I'll stop - but I cannot allow myself to fall into that cycle again. Anorexia kills, full stop, and I don't want my parents to have to bury me. So, onwards and upwards.

Farewells

I left Oxford today, for the last time. Can't say I'll miss having to fill and then empty my room every term, but overall, it was quite sad.

It's strange to think how many of those people I'll never see again. And even if I do see them, it'll just be a brief meeting to say hello, and then we'll go our separate ways. It kind of pains me to think about the friends who are staying on at Oxford, and will continue to be friends without me there. They'll bond with each other, and I'll be elsewhere.

This summer will probably be quite a lonely one, but I hope productive in terms of recovery. I've been struggling with food lately, and I need to get on top of it asap. I cannot take my eating disorder to Russia with me. I just can't. But then at the same time, I don't want to take "unnecessary fat" with me either... It's the eternal dilemma. I don't want an eating disorder, but I do want to be thin(ner). Question is, which do I want more?

I've got about 3 good self-help books that I've started, and hopefully will finish over the summer. I've got two months to myself, which hopefully I'll survive and make the most of, rather than wallowing in loneliness. I need this time to heal.

I really find it hard to get my head around the fact that university is over. I'm ready to move on, but still, I'm used to it being my life. I'm used to being a student, not an adult working a proper job! Ok, I'll be going back into education in a year, which is comforting, but still... I'll be sad not to be living the student lifestyle, although I won't miss the work or the pressure or the exams. That, I can do without. And it's good that I have something to go to after the summer, a decent living plan that factors in both work and play. Cannot wait to be acting again, like, seriously cannot wait.

I suppose I'll be kind of reviewing my life over the next few days. Taking stock of the changes. It has yet to sink in that I'm not an Oxford student any more. I might have to change the name, or the tag, of my blog, though I don't quite feel I've escaped the clutches of Oxford yet - probably won't until I've got my results and the degree is well and truly over.

So, a sad day, but one that had to come. And I'm glad it has come. Any more time there would have been too much. I've been through a lot, and learnt a lot, and grown a lot, and now I'm ready to close that chapter of my life.

I hate exams.

That's it, pretty much. I've done 3 so far this week and I'm absolutely exhausted. Which wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have to do 5 more. Have an appointment at the hospital tomorrow which is probably a good thing. It's difficult to tell whether I would be feeling suicidal without exams, but the fact that they're happening now feels like exceptionally bad timing. Like, I'm just not ready to go through something else. I've had to put up with so much, and I feel like I've run out of ability to cope. Suicide has never felt so logical. I read somewhere that suicide isn't a choice - it happens when the things you have to cope with outbalance the ways you have to cope. I feel like I'm in that place right now.

Ok, so technically I'm not supposed to be worrying about what grade I get. But I can't help thinking about it. I can't help thinking "I ought to be getting a 2.i, and everyone is expecting me to" - the more people tell me they think I can do it, the more people I feel I'm at risk of disappointing. I don't want to be reassured I'll get good grades. I want to be reassured that it doesn't matter, because if aiming for a 2.i is making me feel like I want to kill myself, then it clearly isn't worth it. I get why people want to try and tell me they think I'll do well, but that's so not the point. My parents have been texting me wishing me good luck and saying that I know my stuff, and I appreciate the sentiment, but I wish they would understand that it's not about how well I do any more. It's about whether I can survive until 12:30 on June 10th, simple as. And it doesn't look especially likely at the moment. The pressure is too much. And everyone telling me they think I can get a 2.i just increases the pressure, because it obliges me to try and live up to that expectation. And on top of that, it implies that getting a 2.i is important; you'll be happy if you get one, right? No, I'll be fucking happy if I'm still alive by the time results come out. I wish people would stop having expectations of me full stop. I can't handle them. It's like, stop telling me you think I'll be fine and LISTEN to the fact that I'm not. Because I'm not worried about whether I get a 2.i. I'm worried about whether I can survive the pressure to. And that pressure is not relieved by people telling me I'll get it, thereby reinforcing its importance - it's relieved by people saying you know what, fuck results, let's just focus on staying alive. That's the level I'm operating on here. Why is everyone refusing to see that?

Gargh. No wonder suicide is foremost in my mind.

*trig* Overdose.

This is still quite difficult to talk about, but I'm starting to find it weird that nobody knows. I think this is the first time I've put a trigger warning on a post, but there will be some details, so please be sensible about deciding to read this.

So, last week I took an overdose. I have yet to fully understand why, but let's just say exams certainly played their role. One exam in particular which, after doing a practice, it looks like I'm going to flunk. Stupid, eh? Taking an overdose over that. Of course, it wasn't just that. There was also the wonderful *cough* meeting with my psychiatrist where she succeeded in making me feel like I will never be understood by anybody, and hey, how could anyone miss me if they never knew me? Not the first time this has happened - that I've been very misunderstood, and someone has judged by my appearance of being fine rather than me saying I'm not - so everything that has ever made me feel suicidal before resurfaced pretty much all at once. Spent the cycle home trying not to burst into tears, and by the time I got to the relevant junction I had already decided to go home via the chemist and buy as much paracetamol as I could get my hands on.

I had no trouble getting 4 packets, even though the woman at Boots pointed out that I shouldn't take plain paracetamol with a cold medicine that contained it, but quite happily sold both to me once I had assured her that I wouldn't take them together (you have to lol really, don't you). When I got back to my room I tried texting a friend, but to be honest I think it was already too late. My mind was already made up.

I went online to try and find out what a lethal dose would be, and discovered that it's extremely hard to kill yourself with paracetamol - all it will do is fuck up your liver. And I got an e-mail from my dad as I was sitting there, which reminded me of my family and why I shouldn't go through with it. But ultimately, I was feeling like even my family never had and never would understand me, let alone know me, and hey maybe if I took enough I would just die from liver failure. (Apparently, as I discovered later, it's a grim way to die. Prolonged and very painful. Don't even think about it.)

I stopped crying, put on a calm song, and started taking the first packet. When it was finished and I was about to move on to the second, I suppose you could say I had a lightbulb moment. Whatever it was, I realised what the hell I was doing. I tried to call NHS Direct to see if it was worth getting an ambulance out, but all I got was an automated voice telling me I could go to their website for hay fever information, and then giving me a list of possible reasons for calling followed by numbers to press. I hung up, and went straight to 999.

Luckily, the paramedic who came out in his ambulance-car was lovely. He had an app on his iPhone to work out the ratio of paracetamol to my weight, and whether I needed checking over, and decided that I did, just to be safe. Drove me up to the hospital where I had my blood pressure and a heart scan done, and was made to drink charcoal water. Yes, charcoal water. Literally, it's just water with charcoal in. Possibly the foulest thing I have ever had to consume in my life (and bear in mind I've eaten fried caterpillars), meant to line your stomach and/or make you sick. I was sick. It's pretty weird having opaque black liquid coming out of your mouth, a bit sci-fi. That if nothing else has put me off ever overdosing again...

They phoned my mum, and she came down a couple of hours later. It was difficult to see her, but nice to have some company, and she brought some magazines. I'd had nothing to do for 2 hours, having gone down to meet the ambulance in the clothes I was wearing and that was it. Had to have some bloods done 4 hours after coming in, to make sure it wasn't in my system any more, and then I was meant to wait to see their in-house psychiatrist. In the end, having been there for over 9 hours and with no certainty we would be seen any time soon, I discharged myself and promised to go to the other hospital (where I usually go, where my psych is) the next day.

Which I did, and had a very awkward meeting with her where I had to try and explain why seeing her the day before had basically led me to go home and overdose. Fun times, right...

That was last week, and this week I've come home because I don't feel safe in College. It's the stressful atmosphere, the focus on exams (which start on Monday), and the fact that sitting at my desk in my room just makes me think of how I sat there calmly swallowing handfuls of paracetamol. Sigh.

I now seriously doubt I'll do at all well in my exams, because I've done very little revision as a result of this whole crisis, but at least the examiners will be informed of circumstances so they should be bumping my grades up a bit. Never mind. I suppose the nice thing is that everything has been very much put in perspective; exams are now just something I have to do, rather than this massive event upon which my future depends. Almost not having a future kind of does that. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather not have gone through a suicide attempt and just be stressed about exams the same as everyone else, but at least I have less stress to contend with on top of the depression. The fact that I don't have it in me to survive anything else is probably contributing too; my mind knows that exam stress is beyond my capabilities right now, so I just go into denial instead. I really do feel like I've reached the end of the line in terms of what I can cope with; I'm still suicidal and just staying alive is quite enough. Another challenge would simply be beyond me. You guys know it's been one thing after another for about 7 years, and there has to come a point where you just say: that's it, no more.

That's the point I have reached. Everybody please cross your fingers that nothing else happens in the next two weeks before exams are over...

A bit of shit news

Fucking hell, sat in tears. Over something some people might say it frankly a bit trivial. Just got an e-mail from my tutor about the practice exam I did a coupla weeks ago, basically telling me I failed miserably. And if I perform like that in the real exam in 3 weeks? Then I won't get a 2.i.

Now, OK, in the worst case scenario, I get a 2.ii. Provided my other tutor gives me a good reference, then I might still be able to do the MA I want. (Let's not think about what happens if she doesn't give me the reference, or if just a reference isn't enough to compensate for a shit degree in the eyes of Bath University.) But getting a 2.ii is about more than that.

All throughout school, and especially in 6th form when my eating disorder was killing me, the one thing I had to hold onto was my education. I knew that, no matter how much I hated myself, I was not willing to sacrifice my education to some stupid disease. That was my main weapon against the ED. (That, and the fact that I was expecting to be happy at uni, which I've already talked about in previous posts.) It was the same story in 1st year when I put on weight, and was so tempted to go back into the welcoming arms of the ED, but I refused because my education was too precious. I have essentially been working towards this degree ever since I started secondary school. I've spent my whole life knowing I would come to university, and my whole life knowing I would do well. I always have done well - I was a bright student at school and I've come to expect high results from myself. I got great grades at GCSE, and straight As at A-Level, including full marks in some of my papers. And it was all going into the pot ready to get a good degree.

And now? I've come to realise, just now, in the last 20 minutes, that my worst fears have, in fact, come true. The one thing I have spent YEARS fighting against, trying to avoid, is probably about to happen. That, after all the effort I put in to preventing it, my degree has been taken over by my depression, and my eating disorder. That's it. Gone. You don't get a second chance. I have to somehow try and admit, maybe even accept, that what I've been working for what feels like my whole life, has been taken away from me. And I won't ever get it back. If I get a 2.ii, it's not just the MA I have to worry about. I'll have to go my whole life knowing that my chance to truly shine, and show what I'm capable of, just ended up on the scrapheap of fucking "mental health".

Brilliant.

Just a feeling...

So I've been getting this feeling lately. That recovery...isn't really gonna happen for much longer. Like, I'm going to relapse, and *want* to relapse.

Don't get me wrong, I've been doing amazingly well in recovery for a long time now. I've gone months and months without any behaviours, my weight has been healthy and stable for well over 2 months, and I eat pretty much whatever the hell I want.

But it's not sitting comfortably with me.

Somehow, it just all feels fake. Like I'm going through the motions, but deep down, I'm not feeling it. Those thoughts I used to have, that used to protect me; thoughts like 'you need to eat, it's natural' and 'everyone's telling you to eat, so you should'...they just aren't really cutting it right now. In fact, I feel more and more like I don't even care whether it's healthy or natural or not. Like, yes, I know you need to eat to stay alive, but I don't care. I don't. care.

It's kind of frightening, but at the same time, just feels right somehow. I don't understand it. It's as if the momentum that has always kept me propelling forwards into recovery has just switched off. I was always afraid of taking my eating disorder from my teens into the rest of my life, into 'adulthood'. Well, I've already brought the bloody thing to university, I'm graduating in a few months and it's still there. Fucking hell. So it's like I've crossed some kind of threshold - I'm already into what I thought of as adulthood, and the eating disorder hasn't gone away, and maybe that's alright. I'm getting used to it. It doesn't feel as strange as I was expecting it to. It did for a bit, but not any more. It feels ok now, ok to still be ill, ok to still be feeling like this. As though it's a part of me that I can never change.

And I won't say it isn't terrifying to think that I might be stuck with it for the rest of my life. But at the same time...the thought of letting go of it for the rest of my life is pretty terrifying too. I don't understand people who are just happy all the time, in general. I honestly, don't get it at all. Like, how is that possible? How is it possible to be alive and not be suffering? Seriously?

Ok, so I'm starting to experience some little joys here and there, which is great. But I don't feel able to appreciate it, because in the big picture, things are still not ok. And even when they are ok, it feels so foreign to me that it's almost unreal. I don't know how to talk about being ok, because I'm so used to things being bad. I'm used to everything being wrong, and over the past couple of years with therapy and what have you I'm getting quite good at articulating it. But enjoying things? Not a clue. How do you even describe it? Like, I have a review with the eating disorder research team at the hospital, and I'm going to have to tell them that my behaviours aren't as bad as they used to be. How do I do that? I honestly don't know.

Anyway, I'm just rambling here. Not sure what I want to say, or if I'm saying it coherently (unlikely). I suppose the point is, things have been improving...but it feels false. Fake. Like deep down, I'm still exactly the same, and that no amount of improvement will change that. It's not manifesting itself in behaviour at the moment, but who knows how long that will last?

Long Reflections

Things are changing, and it's times like these when I find myself reflecting. On everything that's happened. The absolute mess that's been my life for the last 7 odd years, one catastrophe after another, setback after setback. I'm sitting here listening to the playlist of songs that usually make me cry, but now, I'm listening to them not as a catharsis, but as a way of looking back on the situations that make them so painful to hear.

All starting with the depression that hit me when I was about 13/14. I became truly aware of it at the beginning of Year 10, a few months after I had turned 14, but have an isolated memory of deciding to starve myself to death the summer before. I don't remember anything of the surrounding time, I don't remember being unhappy, but by god I must have been. I totally forgot that incident for a good couple of years, and it sure did disturb me when I remembered about it. I mean, how can you forget something like that?

Well, I know now that my memory got quite good at protecting me. I made a real concerted effort to recover from the depression and the self harm starting with the new year of Year 10, going into 2004. I investigated Buddhism as a system of existing, and kept records of things that made me happy. During the summer that followed I got to know my now best friend, C, and helped her through some difficult issues with her parents. But I hadn't really recovered. That autumn, C phoned me up one night in October and told me that she had self-harmed. I snapped. I fell right back into the habit, blaming myself for C's suffering. Before she knew me she would never have even dreamed of it, so it seemed logical to deduce that it was all my fault. 2005 rolled around, and the beginning of that year was one of the hardest times of my life. January to April is now completely missing from my memory, it's just a big old black hole. I have a few odd memories that I know must come from that time, but I can't place them anywhere within it. I was extremely suicidal, in a way that I'd never been before, and terrified of myself. I was failing to support C in the way that she needed, and I knew I was a hopeless case for her to try and help me.

I went to the GP eventually, and was referred to the local counselling service, which resulted in 2 horrific hours of being laid open on an emotional operating table while a complete stranger pokes around and forces you to reveal your darkest secrets. Needless to say, I lied a lot. Reflexively, in self-defense. After that, I didn't speak face-to-face to anyone about anything for a good 2 years.

During those 2 years, I developed my eating disorder. And suffered in complete silence, for fear of a repeat of anything that happened in those 2 hours at the counselling service. I wasn't able to see people as supportive or friendly, even well-meaning. The never-ending cycle of the eating disorder nearly drove me mad. Losing weight was the only thing that made me feel happy, that gave me a sense of self-worth; but I knew it was a stupid thing to do, and the two sides of my mind were in all-out warfare for the whole of 6th form.

In Year 13, something else came along. A friend of mine who had gone to a different 6th Form suffered a serious bereavement, losing all 3 of her grandparents in as many weeks. She sank into a suicidal depression and would rely on nobody except me. I, of course, was in no fit state to support even myself, let alone anyone else, and the pressure was crushing. I did everything I could, but nothing seemed to make any difference. Having to talk someone out of killing themselves when it's what you want to do yourself, is no small feat. No small trauma. And yet, throughout everything, I had hope. I had something to hold onto.

That hope was university. Freedom at last. Studying nothing but my favourite subject, living independently. I knew that so long as I could survive school, I'd be alright. My main weapon against my eating disorder was the importance of my study, and I stubbornly refused to surrender my grades to a stupid disease. I would finally escape the suffocating existence I had been trapped in ever since the middle of secondary school, following a daily routine I hated and having what felt like no control over my life.

Finally, it came. I shed no few tears at the thought that I had made it: I had survived the worst and made it to university. And then first year happened. I was physically ill for almost the entire year, having screwed my body up completely with the eating disorder, and the course was not what I had signed up for. I was working a 60-hour week doing work that felt pointless, and the depression was ever-present. My hope, my guiding light, had failed me. Betrayed me. Instead of freedom, I had just moved into yet another soul-destroying routine that left me no room to be myself, to breathe. I ended up going completely numb, unable to take the resulting pain.

Over the summer, I began to thaw out. I would find myself crying at stupid things on TV, just because the emotion was coming back and had to surface somehow. A tiny glimmer of hope reignited somewhere in me, because after everything going so horribly wrong, I had another chance. I was moving abroad to Russia, where I could start completely afresh. New house, new host family, new friends, new language, everything.

And guess what? It turned out to be one of the hardest years yet. I was put with a landlady who was verbally abusive and gave me no space to myself, shouting at me especially at meal times - just the time when I needed to be left to myself to cope with food. Xenophobia hit me hard; I was already self-conscious and knowing that anywhere I went I would get stared at for being foreign was something I just did not know how to deal with. I hacked 3 months with that landlady, then finally cracked when I returned from the Christmas holidays at home. The guilt was overwhelming, because I knew how much she needed my rent money, but I just couldn't stay there. My new host family were lovely, and we are still in touch, but really what I needed was to go home to recover. My depression was on full whack, the eating disorder came straight back where it had been under control, and spiralled quickly. I was trapped in a hostile environment that gave me nowhere to escape what was going on in my head. I hated going out because of the unfriendly attention, and I hated being alone because all I could do was dwell on how miserable I was. The weather took a turn for the worse and we didn't even see the sun for pushing 3 months - imagine the slightly low feeling that a grey sky inspires, and then times it by 90. I became claustrophobic and started to have panic attacks daily when I went into the tiny classroom we had been assigned at the local university. It was during that time that I realised about the gap in my memory from 2005, and also when I started to get a few glimpses of it back. Some of the flashbacks were horrific, lasting for hours, even involving visual hallucinations. I broke down completely. The only thing that kept  me even vaguely sane were internet forums where I could connect with people from back home who understood my mental condition and could offer what support they were able.

Now, I tend to think of things that happened pre-Russia as 'before I broke'. I came home a changed person. My eating disorder was nothing like it had ever been, and my weight had dropped significantly. My family found out, and the process of getting treatment started. I was forced to let my university tutors know what was going on, because my depression was affecting my academic performance for the first time in my life. What had changed was hope. Before Russia, I had hope - even after having it crushed so cruelly in first year, it did come back the summer afterwards. But after Russia, it was gone completely. I gave up on hoping for anything. I didn't just lose it - I actively abandoned it. All it had ever done was betray me. I knew that I had to pursue treatment, but had no motivation to carry on or persevere with life. The only reason I've been alive for the last almost two years is that I don't want to hurt anyone by my suicide. If other people weren't affected, and it was entirely down to me, I'd be long gone by now.

Life since then has been a bit of a blur. Things didn't improve even with treatment; none of the medication we tried worked. I started doing CBT for my eating disorder and made some progress, but the depression stayed and was hampering my full recovery.

And then, after all that, after living without hope or happiness - and it doesn't really matter how long for, because any amount of time spent with no hope at all feels an eternity - something happened.

I tried a medication called buproprion, meant to boost my energy and help my concentration. And it did. After a year and a half of trying everything the medical world had to offer, being passed from specialist to specialist, something actually worked. One day it occurred to me that I had been feeling a little better for the last couple of weeks. And what that meant? That things might...might be starting to end. The hideous mess of a life that I've been living since early adolescence might be finally changing, towards something bearable. Something that doesn't mean suffering every day, levels of emotion so extreme that the only way out is to harm myself and get lost in the pain or starve it into numbness.

I feel myself moving towards seeing the last 7 years not as a continuing event, but as a completed event. Having given up on life, and hope, I may just have been proved wrong. Maybe there is light after all.

Approaching the end of my last Hilary term ever

Hey guys :)
So, it's the last week of term, my last ever Easter term at Oxford. I'm not especially weirded out by that, I think I'll be ready to leave Oxford at the end of the year. It's not that I'm sick of it, but I think I will have had enough by the end. 4 years seems about right. Time for a new start.

Had my last ever tutorial last week, which was a massive relief (I hate tutorials, in case you hadn't picked up on that). And then reports yesterday, which wasn't too bad I suppose. Some were better than expected, one was much worse than expected, but what can you do? At least it's over now. Last time I ever have to go through that reports process, where you go into the room with all the tutors sitting there and they read out your reports in front of everybody... D= It's horrific. But don't have to do that ever again!

Of course, the price for all these things I never have to do again, is Finals. Hmm, Finals. That's the reason everything is ending - it's preparation for the massive exams, probably the biggest I've done so far, and probably the biggest I'll ever do.

Frankly, I'm not too stressed about them so far. Tbh, compared to recovery from depression and an eating disorder, Finals look like just a silly little set of exams. xD I'm sure it won't last though... I'm currently in the middle of my European Cinema dissertation, which counts as an exam, so that's pretty stressful, but at least it's a topic that enjoy - I get to write about my favourite Russian director and actor =)

The other thing I'm doing at the moment is a little interpreting job I managed to land myself in at the theatre; there's a Russian company touring The Tempest and none of them speak any English, so the staff at the Oxford theatre needed some help. They've got a technical interpreter who tours with them, but frankly one person isn't enough for a cast and crew that size! It's a pretty good job, especially since it's super hard to get any interpreting work without an MA, so it'll look great on my CV. And, of course, it's always good for my Russian. Plus the cast is ridiculously attractive, which makes it easier to motivate myself xD Lol! (So true though. They are ridiculously attractive.) Except there was one guy I was talking to who was so fit I just forgot how to speak Russian, which was embarrassing (luckily he was very nice about it, haha). And, you know, I like being in theatres, I feel like it's a good place to be even if  I'm not acting. What's nice about this, as opposed to stage managing Troilus and Cressida (which I auditioned for but didn't get) is that I'm not horrendously jealous of the cast, because I never auditioned for this show. So I don't feel like these are all the people who were chosen over me, you know? I'm seeing the show tomorrow night and I'm really excited, it looks from backstage like it must be fab from the audience's POV. There's A LOT of water, lol, the poor actors get very wet indeed. Must make sure I don't sit in the front row or I might get wet too!

Anyway, I should get off Blogger and get on with my dissertation. So knackered though. There were drinks after the show last night, and I was the only person there who spoke both Russian and English so I was much in demand, then I went for cocktails with a friend afterwards and didn't get home til about 12:30. Then managed to forget to take my meds, so I lay awake for about an hour before realising, took them, and then it was another hour before I got to sleep *sigh* Yeah, I woke up at like midday today... Oops. So yes, really must work to make up for sleeping in all morning...

xxx

Things Looking Up...?

Valour

Valour
Doing something you really don't want to do, because it must be done.


I went to the hospital today for my penultimate appointment with my therapist - until the follow-up sessions in a few months, that is. We're reaching that stage in treatment where I just have to go off and do everything I've been taught to do, for the reasons I've been taught to think about. Only one session left, and then I'm on my own. And then, something a bit unexpected happened.

I was telling my therapist about how much of a struggle life has been lately, and how recovery has been especially difficult because I don't really have any motivation to live. The psychiatrist I saw yesterday had told me that now isn't a great time to start any other treatments (depression-related), because the break from ED-specific CBT works best if it's a break from everything. I disagreed with her, but went along with it. Anyway, my therapist asked me what I wanted, and I said I wanted treatment for the depression. The psychiatrist thinks drugs are enough for now, and frankly, I think she's wrong. Not just because I have no faith in medication any more, but because this despair runs deeper than just a low mood. Luckily, my therapist took my need for depression treatment more seriously, and agreed to help me get some.

The trouble is, it's hard to get any kind of therapy for depression when you also have an ED, because therapists think you're outside their speciality and don't want to take you on. So, the upshot is that it'd be easier to get some attention for my depression if I'm not also on an ED course - which meant, basically, that we finished today. We finished today officially, and scrapped the last appointment we were going to have together, so that I can move on to depression treatment.

So that's it. My CBT at the hospital is finished. I'll have those follow-up sessions I mentioned, but that's not for ages. I am, from now, on my own.

And the thing is, I have to keep my eating under control, because if I don't, I won't be able to target the depression so effectively in whatever other therapy I end up getting. In a way, I'm quite glad of that - it's a solid reason to try and eat properly, which I have definitely not been doing for the last few days. When I have no other motivation to recover, that's a good reason. I mean, ok, I'm not very motivated to get depression treatment, I'm just going because I recognise that I can't carry on on my own. But however you slice it, eating sensibly is now a necessity, even more so than it was before.

I honestly have no drive to get better - either from depression or from the ED. I just want the whole world to fuck off and leave me alone. And now, there's going to be a lull where I'm getting no treatment at all. But I've been told what I have to do. And I know I have to do it. That's all. I just have to do it.

Drowning

My head is spinning. I've spent most of this afternoon in bed because of a stomach ache, but I needed the time out anyway.

Saw my psychiatrist earlier today, and told her about what I've been thinking lately. That recovery from my eating disorder is dependent on a desire to live...which right now, I just don't have. In fact I have the exact opposite. How can I convince myself to throw all my effort into recovery - and it does take ALL of your effort - when I don't even want to be here?

Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid. But that's the problem. I want to die, and I can't. I'm trapped. The only way out that I can see, is impossible, because of what it would do to the people I love.

We now reckon that one of the problems underlying my ED is 'low self-esteem'. I can see that the ED doesn't get you anywhere, and I can come up with convincing counter-arguments to its lies, but what I can't convince myself of is that I deserve to get better. That I deserve to be healthy. I just don't believe that. I'm still following my meal plan automatically, but in my mind I'm already in the serious stages of contemplating relapse. But do I want to relapse, after all I've found out about how useless ED is? I don't know. But then, do I want to carry on recovering? I don't know that either.

My brain is melting here. Changing the fundamental beliefs I hold about myself means turning my whole world upside-down. How am I supposed to concentrate on my studies when my world is being turned upside-down?

I've done two more auditions, and got rejected for both. I'm doing one more on Sunday, then calling it quits. I can't take any more disappointment. It's too much on top of what I'm already dealing with. Everything is too much.

It's all too much.

A Mixed Day

So, today has been mixed. Some good things, some bad things.

Obviously the biggest was the Russian Seagull reading this afternoon, which we've been practising for since last term, and finally performed today. It went pretty well, actually; there were a few fudge ups, but that's to be expected, and we did get some laughs in the right places! There was no gunshot at the end, haha, because we'd never rehearsed in the room we performed in, and the cue (for the gunshot) wasn't audible to the person supposed to be doing it... Oh well, everybody knew what was supposed to happen, so it was ok. And we got quite a lot of applause!

The only thing that made me nervous was knowing that the director of the English Seagull, which I auditioned for, was there in the audience - performing again in front of the person who didn't cast you is, let me tell you, not very fun. But it was alright.

The not so good things today included getting back a bad translation (lowest mark in my class, I managed to ascertain through nosiness lol) - although it could have been a lot worse. I knew there were some things I didn't understand, but I hadn't appreciated how much they would bring my mark down. Also, I got a rejection from an audition I did last week - although, to be fair, I was kind of expecting that. It's just kind of sucky, you know? Poo.

Anyway, life goes on, as ever.

I had an appointment yesterday where my therapist told me that w'ere nearing the end of the period where I go every week, and rapidly approaching the time when I'm just left to it for a while. I totally wasn't expecting that. I suppose it didn't help that I didn't know there'd be a period where I was just left to it for ages; I thought you kept going regularly until you felt something like recovered. Apparently not. They give you all the tools you need, then you have to go and use it for weeks and months and then change happens. So that's terrifying. I've only got about 3/4 sessions left, then that's it for ages. I will still be seeing the psychiatrists, who continue to fiddle with my medication, but that's not really therapy per se. It's nice to know I'll still be seeing someone, but it's so so very scary to be thinking I won't be having any actual kind of therapy. But then, I knew recovery would be down to me, I just didn't realise how much that would be the case...

Onwards. And, hopefully, upwards...

Not the best morning ever

Hey guys

Kind of feeling the need to blog right now; it's not been a great day so far. :( I slept in really late - didn't get up until 11:20, having gone to bed past midnight because of Sul Ki Do. And what did I wake up to? A shit dream about arguing with my family and crying over ED. Lovely. A morning wasted and begun with an upset mood.

And what makes it even worse? I open the curtains and the sky is completely overcast. Ok, that sounds like an overreaction to bad weather, but let me explain.

In Russia, we went for 3 months without seeing the sun in the sky because it was literally overcast nonstop for 12 weeks. And not even 'cloudy' skies - we're talking solid grey, no shape, no sense of depth or space, just a big lid on the world. No sun, no moon, no stars. You know how you feel a bit down when the weather's bad? Well, try to imagine that but x 3 months. I can't even explain how awful it was. I got really claustrophobic in the small classroom we had, started having panic attacks every time I went in there (and I'd never had panic attacks before in my life), most probably because going outside didn't feel like going outside. When there's no light in the sky, it feels like you're living underground. It was horrific.

So now whenever I see a sky like that - and luckily, it's not very often in this country - it reminds me of that time. Now, that wasn't the only problem I had at the point obviously, but it sure as hell didn't help. Sometimes when you're depressed, a bit of sunshine is just the thing to lift your mood. Ha. So all in all, one of the lower points of my life. Hence why any reminder of it now is guaranteed to set me back a little. And that's what I wake up to this morning, on top of a morning disappeared down the drain thanks to oversleeping, and a shit dream just before waking! Yey! >:(

Sigh.

It seems I need my chips

Hey all.

So, stuff has happened since New Years. I went away to Wales to stay with family for 5 days last week, and it was...ok, I guess. I mean, I love seeing my family, but food was super hard. Have you ever tried following a weight gain programme in a household full of people who don't bother with lunch and snack on celery? Don't get me wrong, they're perfectly healthy; they're just older and less active and don't need as much food as I'm supposed to be packing away. I had to resort to going off to the bedroom on my own to sit there and eat chocolate. Yuck.

But I managed it, I pretty much followed the programme. With a lot of difficulty and upset, but I managed it. And guess what? My weight has not changed, not even by 0.1kg. This is rather strange, because that's the 3rd week it's been at this exact same weight - strange for two reasons. 1) Even when weight stays the same, it fluctuates up and down a little, so it's very unusual to get the exact same reading 3 weeks in a row. 2) Why am I not gaining weight??

Our hypothesis is that I'm one of those people who just needs to eat more than you think in order to maintain a healthy weight, which came as a bit of a shock to me I have to say. I mean, I've spent so long trying to keep my weight low, I assumed that my metabolism/food needs must be the same as everyone else's. I'm "one of those people who needs to eat their chips" as my therapist put it, lol. Otherwise, how come I've been on what for most people would be a weight gain diet, and not gained any weight?

We're going to stick with the same meal plan for now, but just be aware that I'm currently eating the minimum I need. My appetite will probably increase when I'm doing Sul Ki Do again, because that's 3 sessions a week, 2 hours a session, of very intense exercise. So, we'll see how it goes. I'm still technically on the weight gain diet, it's just that we're not bothering to focus on weight gain any more. Maybe when I'm exercising, I'll be able to eat bigger portions and my weight will start to go up towards where it needs to be.

In other news, I'm drinking whole milk. WHOLE MILK. And eating FULL FAT CREAM CHEESE. These are things I never thought I'd be able to do, ever. But if I'm going to maintain this weight, it's what I need to do.

Go me!

It's 2011, dudes

Happy New Year!

I spent the night at the pub where one of my close friends lives, at the party they hold every year. I got quite tipsy lol!

It was a mixed nights, quite full of ups and downs. The ups mainly involved drunken giggling and grooving to the music, although the DJ was a bit shit so we relied on good songs being requested xD I think I requested about 10!

And I've decided, my theme song for 2011 is going to be Firework by Katy Perry :) Just so you know. It's about generally being awesome and letting all your best qualities show, which I think is what I need to try and do this year!

The downs mainly involved getting over-emotional, probably due to the alcohol; I was quite close to tears for a lot of the night, and once we were in bed I cried for about half an hour. Plus it didn't help that at the beginning, I was the only one from our group of friends - so of course, my friend who lives at the pub knew everyone there, and I knew no-one! That wasn't cool. Luckily my best friend from home showed up and stayed for about an hour, we had a good gossip and a bit of a boogey.

Also, it was fancy dress, and I WENT AS A PIRATE. It was a damn good costume too, if I do say so myself. I had the boots, the frilly shirt, the bandana, the gold earring, the gold tooth even, the hat, the sword, the pistol, the bracelet made out of seashells. I don't have any full-length photos, but here's a little taster:

It was quite difficult to get that photo haha, something of a battle of the hats - every time we got our heads close together, the hats would push each other off our heads! Lolz.

Sooo, how were your New Years? Tell me all!

x