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...