Managing Healing - what do you do?!

Hey everyone.

As you may know I came back from Russia in the beginning of April because I basically couldn't take any more - stress from my job, stress from other people messing me around, and all of that on top of other things I was trying to deal with to begin with. When I went out, I was still recovering from the huge amount of stress that is Oxford - and let's not forget that the end of that term was marked by an overdose - and had then been put through a pretty awful summer of uncertainty and frustration just trying to get to Moscow in the first place. When I got there, I spent the first couple of months starting to process the overdose, which I hadn't done until then, and that was obviously quite tough.

What it comes down to is that I hadn't had a break since my depression started, not a real break, not the kind of break that you leave feeling actually able to face life again. Any of the experiences that have fallen between 2004 and now would have warranted some healing time, but part of what's made it such a struggle is that I never get that chance, and every new trial comes before the weight of the one before has been lifted. I was kinda feeling like a huge Jenga tower - just about upright, but put one more block on the top, or take one out from the middle, and I'll collapse completely. That's what was happening. That's why I had to finally put my foot down and leave.

I know it was the right decision because as soon as I made it, something changed. I decided I was going to leave on a particularly horrible afternoon, and that evening I was going out to an English club. As I stood in the metro watching the train coming down through the tunnel, I suddenly realised that I had no desire to jump in front of it. Without even being consciously aware of it, that's what I had been thinking every time I stood on a metro platform for I don't even know how long. I had never been planning to do it, it's just that the thought always crossed my mind, in the way that when you pass a holiday advert you momentarily picture yourself on that beach. Realising that it had stopped was what alerted me to how fucked up it was.

I've been home for two months, and I really don't know where the time has gone. I wanted to use it for healing, but I don't know how to go about it. I'm torn between wanting to set myself tasks and goals, and feeling that actually the constant need for tasks and goals might be contributing to this mess in the first place. I'm not very good at letting things happen gradually, following their own course, even though they have been. I'm not nearly as depressed as I was, in fact I've been feeling much better; my eating and more importantly my attitude to eating has changed, and those are both massive results. But I was sensing that within weeks of coming back, so what have I done with the time since then?

I think the worry is legitimate because I'm starting a Masters in October and if I'm not ready for, if I'm not healed enough by then, I honestly don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do. But neither do I know how to ensure that the necessary healing happens. Aaaah!

(Not) Busy ... ?

I'm a bit confused by the last month or so. 3 weeks since I left Russia, and while I certainly have been much less stressed, I don't seem to have been less busy. I suppose it doesn't help that in the couple of weeks before I left Moscow I was doing practically nothing, having quit my job, and was worrying that my time at home was going to turn into one of those long drags of never-ending nothingness somehow filled with time killing. There's nothing worse than realising the week has ended and you've done nothing, and you think, what the hell have I been doing for 7 days?! (Well, ok, there are worse things, but within the topic of passing time and its relation to sanity, it's definitely right down there.)

So here's a breakdown of where the last 3 weeks have gone:

Week 1 - Holland. Lovely little holiday visiting my sister en famille, although it was exhausting after a very, very long journey back from Moscow. (38 hours without sleep is bad enough if you're doing nothing, let alone being busy the whole time.)

Week 2 - Had a cold for a few days, which was predictable, actually I'm surprised it took my body that long to get ill! And then I had to learn the 40-page, over-2-hour tour script for the tourguiding company I've joined and will be working for soon. It's a mammoth task, take it from me. I was, or so I thought, being tested on it, so it was quite stressful as well as time-consuming.

Week 3 - Masters interview. Again, took some preparation, mainly trying to remember how to speak French. In the end it went ok, and I should hear within a couple of weeks, but it certainly didn't allow me to just kick back and take a break! And now I have the *actual* test on the tour material this coming Monday, so this weekend isn't a big kick-back either. Sadface :(

I've been keeping a log of pretty much everything I do during the day, and then categorising it with the help of my favourite set of highlighters (stationery love :') ), and it seems that I have actually been mostly doing fun things. There have been educational, productive/constructive, necessary, and therapeutic things, but mostly just "fun". And in fairness, my stress levels have been much lower than you would expect them to be given the job and Masters stuff. But I still just feel like I'm doing nothing! Which I intensely dislike. Need to work out how to move forward from this. Suggestions on postcards. x

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.