It's a good day!

Well yes! Is a good day! Xxx

7ilbs of nope.

I just want to think about today with a 'normal' thought process. I want to think about bubba W's first birthday, and how hectic is was yet touching that so many people wanted to wish him well.

But leaving the house today I knew I'd binged yesterday. I knew I was 7ilb up and hopeless. I knew the ridiculous belly of this uncontrolled glutton would protrude and that my horrid boobs are swollen like my face. And once you are this big you can't be taken seriously, so may as well be free entertainment.

There were some moments: I read to bubba W and the baby bear whilst the grown ups all talked, I managed to grab bubba mumma and give her some love and presents before sitting down.

I sat on the floor by the babies and I could feel the excess of my body flow outward. The button came undone on my dress and folds of flesh dared show themselves .

I felt so ashamed I nearly released tears add I held in the stomach and the fears.

Then bubba W started chewing pens. No bub, can't chew pens on my watch! And then bubba started poking me in the nose. It's difficult to ruminate when there is a small child's razor sharp fingernail up your nostril. Painful,yet at the same time, he was cooing and smiling and being himself and a combo of the two stopped tears from actually falling.

Additionally, as he was sat on my lap, he completely obscured my belly and his loveliness held everyone's attention deflecting it from being stared at for being a nervy bundle of a person.

My body is getting so big. I can't. I won't. Gym habits lapsed, I need my endorphins, I need my muscles to be quick and strong. My body to be lithe and graceful and able to hide in the tiniest of spaces.

I shouldn't have told shed I would gain weight. They just want me gone. Why not just keep it peaceful mentally by getting a bit of this horrible body stuff off me.

It's all just temporary

Ar hyd yr nos

Every

Single

Night

I

Am

Too

Fat

To

Sleep.

Damnthatvoiceinsidemyheaditshoutsolouditwantsmedeadgoddamnthatvoiceinsidemyhead

                                                        

Monday.

FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU TOO.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Memory can only tell us what we were,
in the company of those we loved;

It cannot help us find out what each of us, alone, must now become. We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skin.

But are we really alone?
those who touch our hearts echo in our thoughts and words and we weave these into our life's tapestry.

We are individuals composed of a loom made of our innate individuality and our tapestries are created by threads of experience. Sometimes we share a thread with another, a shared history, narrative, picture, lesson.

But in the end no tapestry is the same as another. Again people are unique, intriguing, but still somehow we leave the world as we enter. Alone into the great beyond.

Yeah. It's late. I can't sleep. I'm off the final sleeping tablets and the black dog lies next to me. That's where all this sanctimonious nonsense comes from.

I've got to sleep eventually? Right?

"Laws of silence don't work....

When something is festering in your memory or your imagination, laws of silence don't work, it's just like shutting a door and locking it on a house on fire in hope of forgetting that the house is burning.

But not facing a fire doesn't put it out.

Silence about a thing just magnifies it.

It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant...."

Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1922

He. Will. Know.

I tried my language of words. It was met with derision. It's time to pack the big guns. After all she'll never leave me. So fuck you and watch how your words hurt. I told you. I warned you. I held you. You hurt me. Over and over. I'm isolated with my twin. We are never apart and we will show you.

That Fickle Thing With Feathers...

I've been lower than low lately and so I think it's time to just pop in probably the poem that is the most valuable to me of all:

346 - Emily Dickinson:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Qol not Gain Improves Life : My opinion proved correct by SCIENCE

http://edbites.com/2014/08/no-escaping-the-eating-improving-quality-of-life-in-anorexia/

One More Week

This time next week, the hope is that I will finally hand in my dissertation/research project. My head aches and my eyes are sore and I think I may be writing the same thing over in loops. The wording of my research has become so familiar that it's starting to look alien. Enough, it's time for something new.

Although earlier today I considered what research needed doing in regard to temporomandibular joint disorders and excessive laryngeal muscle tension. Could SaLT work with Dentistry to identify clients who would benefit from techniques designed to lessen this tension and the symptoms it causes? If TMD can result in restricted jaw movement would this then cause resonance problems when speaking? Do SaLT need to consider liasing with a client's dentist if they present with what appears to be laryngeal tension? Does TMD affect a patient's biofeedback via bone conduction if there is some kind of dysfunction in the temoromandibular joint because it's reaaallllly close to the ear canal? If it's so close to the ear, can TMJ pain be experienced as some kind of ear pain? Is this shit even within the realm of SaLT?

Who fucking knows. I'm not answering these questions, not even if someone pays me (unless it's quite a lot).

Permission granted to hit me with a brick for even CONSIDERING these research questions.

There's an Unexpected Item in my Baggage Area...

Sometimes I forget that I'm blessed with something unusual. All the horror, fear and despair that I've seen and felt in myself and displayed slathered across the faces and in the faces of others has given me a contrast, an access. Deepest sobs are the key to tears of laughter.

Only through experiencing the nightmare can I truly appreciate joy and happiness, confidence and hope.

Sometimes I will just laugh and marvel at the fact that I am still here.

And often the joy is not like that which you might feel at something like the wedding of a relative you adore, the success of a promotion,the conquering of a mountain or journeying on a fantastic holiday (though I'd particularly enjoy that last option!)

It's sudden realisation that the mundane is anything but. That ladybird on a leaf, the feathers on the birds, the fractal fern that mesmerises.The marvel is not just that I am still here, but that we are here, that the whole universe is here. A remarkable and unique set of felicitous conditions aligned the stars and put us all here, together, now.

They say that we all are only borrowing this earth from our children.

It's true, it's not ours to give, we are just another set of tenants!  But these are our lives to live, so I'd like to live in a way that keeps this world just as marvelous as it can be, despite the imperfections us silly humans have caused. And then when the littlies are older they too can sit back and enjoy their tenancy.

So,Please leave this world as you would like to find it. And don't forget to put the bins out.

Minnows

I wish my Dad would just try coming into my house. He's been over to do things like examine the guttering, check fences.

All on the outside of the house.

He doesn't want to come in because of cat hair or dust which might affect his breathing and running.

But he's not allergic to cats. And I bleach, hoover and sweep most days. I groom the cats each day so I can dispose of as many lose kitty hairs as possible.

Now that we get along, it would be strange to have him in my lounge, but also nice. He'd see I have a picture of him and me as a toddler fishing for minnows in the brook of our old home's back garden. We are so absorbed that neither of us noticed mum taking a picture.

I adore the photo.

Dust

Dust if you must.

But wouldn’t it be better,

To paint a picture, or write a letter,

Bake a cake, or plant a seed?

Ponder the difference between want and need.

Dust if you must.

But there is not much time

With rivers to swim and mountains to climb!

Music to hear, and books to read,

Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must.

But the world’s out there

With the sun in your eyes,

the wind in your hair,

A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.

This day will not come round again.

Dust if you must.

But bear in mind,

Old age will come and it’s not kind.

And when you go, and go you must,

You, yourself, will make more dust.

- Rose Milligan

The way out is through.

And You Never Get to Take the Easy Way, And all of this is a Consequence bought on by your own hand.

It hasn’t bothered me since ‘before’

My life has two VERY distict halves, two distinct people. Old Heather and new Heather. Even though they have inhabited the same body, the change is vast. Less strongly so I feel one could separate the old, before Heather in to two parts, pre abuse and epilepsy and post – but the divide is somewhat blurry, wouldn’t it be nice to pin everything on abuse? Nope I was SH before that, I always new I was wrong, dirty, took up too much Somewhat unfortunately (or maybe not?) an explosion in the use of social media didn’t really gather any significant momentum until around 2006. Facebook surfaced around 2004 and really took hold big time 2006.

Before that there was Myspace and um ‘friends reunited’. An MSN messenger, which, incidently was how I got caught out ( I was not one who admitted to it, I was caught in a net pulled from the river and left shocked and gasping on the bank burning without my home).

Luls

There was always the message boards for me to lurk in, and they allowed fo more thoughtful, less instant responses containing meaningful content. Often now on alt facebook, anonymity is compromised and there is instant reply, instant ego stroking, navel gazing and those happy to indulge in this. There are more pictures, more narcicism and an overwhelming amount of wannarexics. But hey.

I digress.

Not sure how I reached that point ( maybe because my everything is nothing and I only understand and process pretty much ANYTHING and filter it into life experience by viewing it through a gauze of rigid anorectic thinking. Anything.)

Before. Before is before inpatient treatment, before includes the 2003 of throwing it all away into a sharp decline. 2003 branching over into 2004. I lived in W. Road with the ex ex boyfriend, the ex of a best friend, the best friend who abandoned me and often a friend of the ex ex who would come to stay.

We drew straws on choice of bedrooms when we moved in – This was completely fair. The short straw was for the downstairs room. I drew that straw.

That straw mayve been the very same one that silently tore me in two. At the time, G the old best friend smoked A LOT of pot, we all drank a lot. The lounge was downstairs. There were a lot of parties and gatherings. I have always had a history of insomnia and between ex ex ‘s snoring and sexual assault and parties, beer and pot at all times of the day and night I started to crack even further. I’d passed my first year exams pretty well despite the ever blossoming adrenaline rush of learning the calorie language, poring over the calorie bibles from wh smith, feeling hedonistically excited when discovering a new snack of lower calorie content.

Then moving back to the city – my sense of being abandoned to live a pathetic non-descript life at the whim of an abusive boyfriend (not that I’dve admitted it for I was too afraid of how I’d live without him: unable to see a future with or without him, stuck in a sickening rut. Yet another reason for learning a language without words, my body started to express what I was unable to say, to afraid to think, to change, I screamed a silent PLEASE LISTEN TO ME and I din’t even know it. I thought I was screaming only about the childhood abuse, but that is not what Im aiming to discuss now) was ameliorated. Finally, I could be like the other girls in first year, I could go to clubs, maybe make some friends. They were all in halls, I’d been stuck in a valley. I was not quite right, stupid, fat ugly, lazy and clingy. Needy. I tried and I sort of made a few acquantences and sort of friended a girl who was a colleague and a student (though not in my dept) she was called C. She had the life I wanted, coveted, would’ve died for almost did for.

But it was not like that. I had the drugs friends, I had the work friends, the city I was born in friends and those who’d moved here. I was everything and anything to everyone. Played all the right games tried on personas like fashions until I lost whatever I should’ve been. Apart from anorexia. My secret darling. Whatever the fashion she never changed. Thank god.

No sleep No sleep. And I couldn’t stop them. I begged for quiet time to do essays and work but I was paralysed. I ran and I ran and I ran. I smoked I drank and worst I had a small bathroom where the scales were and a fondness for laxatives. Jaundiced yellow became the new ‘in’ colour. But it was mine and yeahhhh I totally ‘had a gluten allergy’ (my god the guilt when people bought me gluten free food)

The neighbour. Weird neighbours seem to be inexplicably drawn to me, growing up next to the rich abuser, moving on to the harmless drunk old man who hung his pants on the washing line at night and took out his border collie to talk to the stars and then moving on to J.

J. I still see him but I have absolutely no reaction. Nothing really of note or particular pain. Usually.

You see It was amusing at first. J lived in there with two Jack russells. He sung cliff Richard at night and sometimes posted us chocolate. (he was bipolar and at that time was taking tablets to control schizophrenia). He’d bang on the walls. He got darker. One day the police came around because he’d accused us of stealing his speakers and dvds. Nope. One day I was sat on the front wall (spotty cotton shirt, drainpipe jeans, size 00, orange wool visor, smoking, thin and invincible) and an almighty smash. It hailed glass. From above there was screaming (was it me? I don’t know) he said I’d broken his window and called the police, however it was an upstairs window broken from the inside out so, logic.

At this point I thought police would protect me from this hell.

So I ran and I ran, I collapsed in work and was told I needed to take long term sick leave. Leaving me with more time to run and run and never sleep (there was no lormatazepam or zopiclone in the before) I craved sleep, I prayed for it. Then I had to take leave of absence from uni, more time to run, but the running was getting slower, longer distances on weaker muscles. I was called in to psych more often, it was catching up on me. They were pushing my case up some waiting list or other, how quickly it had gone from uni counselling to the ‘duty of care’ to pass it on to the GP who passed it on to the CMHT who rather sharpishly mostly disgaurded outpatient care and eyed me up an inpatient bed. How very dare they. I would never go to inpatients this fat!

The J situation. He got angrier, stoner friends more impulsive, they argued back and retreated upstairs. Ex was afraid and moved upstairs. I was afraid of what lay in store for me both upstairs and downstairs, but at least if I was on my own downstairs there was unimpeded acces to scales, kitchen, bathroom, books, exercise. Slowly The long distances got shorter, slowly I got angry that my body would not obey. A blanket and a sofa. G thought I was selfish and lazy, I slid down a wall in pain when I heard him say this. Broken some more.

Some kids broke into the house, they stole consoles. Nothing more but this was a further violation, a further smash to the mouth a futher intrusion exposing vulnerable fleshy bits. More drugs to make me keep moving. Uni gym instead of eastenders. Competing against some imaginary self, punishing some semi-imaginary monster who would nevr realise or care.

I was shopping (looking for dark chocolate highlights as it had 38 calories per cup rather than the 40 calories per cup of milk chocolate) and the phone rang. It was G’s girlfriend (also housemate) by this time I did not particularly care for her, but I answered the phone.

Immeadiately knew something very bad was happening. Right. That. Second. I couldn’t understand, I could only hear sounds and strangled words, snot and tears and HELP ME. I told her I was coming right now, I told her to try and slow down and tell me what was happening. He, J, was bashing all the windows around the house, telling her he would kill her. I commanded she hung up and dial 999, she did, I burst into full run and got back to the house before the police.

FUCK. “YOU BITCHES FUCKING DIE”. Brick right through my bedroom window as I watched from just outside.

Not wholly sure of what happened next, certainly the police certainly a statement and certainly surely action – a sectioning under mental health act 1983? No? What?

And so I slept in a room littered with fragments of broken glass and shattered mind. Waking every so often with stomach cramps limping to my bathroom to check the scales had not crept up as I slept. How dare I sleep. I’m guarding this place now.

It’s winter, edging toward spring.

My mind had truly started to shrink and crumble. My memories are a stack of photographs dropped to the floor in a jumble, slowly picked up and pieced together, but time seems to blur, lines begin to blur, moving toward a shut down. Night and day do not exist, only numbers of days of weights of calories. I no longer do, I wait, I move I wait. No one is helping, abandoned and on guard. Tired and wired.

Late afternoon to early evening (wearing a mustard yellow zip up jacket with 3 paul frank animal patches sewn on and my drainpipes my homage to size 00 now hanging from my hip bone clothes hanger) the screaming and chaos started. The door the door. BANG. Fuck was it locked? Those stoner idiots, did they fucking lock it? Fuck, step out of my bedroom prison sanctuary and I’m the first one there.

‘Hello, whats wrong J’ (don’t antagonis don’t antagonise calm this calm this save us all keep us safe)

“WHEN ARE YOU GOING YOU FUCKING BITCH FUCKING LEAVE”

By now the boys were on the stairs and one held the landline phone “GET AWAY WE’LL CALL THE POLICE GET AWAY” (fucking shut up that’s making this shit worse shut up shut up think think think)

“FUCKING LEAVE”

I’m at the door, I locked it, I’m speaking calmly with a quaver to my voice through the little letter box in the oh so inadequate stupid plastic and doubled glazed door.

‘J, we’re leaving soon, we’re leaving in September maybe a bit---‘

“NOT FUCKIND SOON ENOUGH”

And the sky  above me broke into all the pieces of everything that ever was. I cannot remember how it sounded only that I saw and felt. I don’t know who called the police. I can’t remember speaking to the police.

My world crashed. A fist and a brick through the upper pane of the door a finger grazing my scalp, There was blood from somewhere, some how.shatterproof fragments challenging their very purpose filling the gaps in my clothes where my body was not. No body just shrapnel. Broken bits filling the gaps of a life. An explosion. Of everything. White noise, the slow seconds like living in the moments of a car crash. The end of it all.

And then calm. Calm and glass and a cigarette smoked through the circle smashed in that door.

And then we could not live there. And then I was deemed to unwell to even be a person.

I agreed to move back to my parents on the proviso I had my own food cupboard that no one could take from. Mine and mine alone. A jar of pickles and a box of rewards of under 50 cals if I behaved correctly each day.

I have snapshots.

Pretty quickly I got sent to London for a consultation and initial assessment. Not sick enough I decide. A few days later they want me to go, theres a bed ready. No way, can’t they wait? I’ll be 21 in August? I want my birthday to not be in a hospital?

More snapshots.

It’s May. I wake I take tablets I walk walk walk sometimes I go to the library. I walk walk.

I’m back to square one. I flew as a 17 year old fledgling screaming to escape this nest as the next door neighbour, M,slowly and continually abused me working his way up, escalating the madness, I only questioned it at 14, raised it with my mum. I love my mum very very much. We all make mistakes and mis judgements.

M was my new driver, ever pound and ounce screamed LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE and to my mum, my poor mum DO SOMETHING, WHY THE SECRECY and my poor Dad, I din’t know he loved me, we had an unsettled relationship and precious little communication, it was only later I began to understand that a man raised (or left abandoned to fend for himself and his siblings) in the way my dad had been, coupled with a bad job and frustration and explosive anger was completely another entity from a teenaged girl. It’s different now, he still doesn’t know the whole story.

M continued to taunt.

I arranged for a new house and new flatmates ( this is where I met my wifey, she was an extra subletter that we sneaked in to cheapen the rent, thank god something from nothing came). I moved there.

3 weeks left. How could they possibly take me in when Im so fat? But why is my body misbehaving? I need to get stuff done before I die drinkdrugsspendrepeathospital

Hospital. Somehow on that journey I escaped thecar and cut the top of my right arm with a stone to check I was real, that this was happening and fuck me it was happening.

They took my stuff.

They tubed me and set the machine to fat setting and sedated me. They didn’t weigh me first, They would never know my achievement, my all time low, for they would bundle me naked in a paper gown onto that goforsaken scale in the morning after an overnight feed green LED’s winking at me.

I don’t remember anything for a few weeks after that.

************************************************************************

In the house I currently live in there is a small park opposite. There has been an increase in drug use and opportunistic ccrime.

I’m used to the down on their lucks glugging back cider and the teenagers giggling around a pot stick.

But then, and ive never experienced this in the 8 years I’ve lived here, came the heroin addicts. Long story short they had found out that the area was a blindspot for CCTV. A dealer has moved nearby. I was waiting up as b/f D was working late. He got home.

What are those guys doing out there?(one guy, one girl, one dog)

20mins later, blatently shooting up,

Ring 101 (non emergency police) D is on the phone, I’m watching quietly but am not really scared, after all, they can’t see me and im guessing they just want their hit. Bloke crosses stumbles fumbles across the road toward me.

Looks around. Strange.

Locks eyes on D’s car

Nononononononononoononononononono

D on the phone

It’s down to me, I have to save them, I can’t let this happen, fuck fuck

Shout to D

Man jams his grotty fingers into the top of the car window

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck no don’t do it don’t touch my stuff vulnerable stuff don’t touch it or dirty it don’t hurt it

So I BANG BSNG BANG BANG against my glass, knuckle s bruise. He should run off right?

Looks up flings arms out, strides the metre and a half toward the window

My heart is in my throat and I’m going to die, the police are apparently on their way but glass is a false protection and I am just a fleshy bag of human against a man with no fucks left to give

Again

He’s closer so close

Time slows down again in the way it only can do

White noise and I cant put his face in my mind, why?

“ I ONLY GOT THE WRONG FUCKING CAR BITCH PISS OFF FUCK”

That’s it I’ve reached the limit, time to be reduced to a number, but this time a statistic. I only ever was a number anyway.

He turned, he went, he went away.

Police.

They caught the couple, they admitted to being there, thankfully they were so fucked (it took two days and a hospital visit before they could question him at the police station). In the end they were bailed.

Two DCI’s spent a lot of time with me and D. They listened they helped, I lived.

There is also another junkie couple who keep visiting those phoneboxes, weve been told to keep a log, take pictures and send them to the DCI’s. Plain clothes police and PCSO’s regularly patrol.

The investigation is slow, they don’t just want the junkies, they want the dealer, the dealer dealing the hard stuff, likely new to the area.

Somehow I’m in the position where I’m afraid to be in and out of the house in case I draw attention, in case they realise that I’m the one helping the police. How is this happening.

It’s down to me, I’ve got to keep us safe. A pane of glass is nothing. Police can arrive as quick as you like but a fist and a weapon through a window takes a fraction of a second and BAM. That’s you gone. Poof. A headline in the local paper.

And so now I wake up screaming, it had never bothered me since before, but the mental snap shots of J are now pinned onto the insides of my eyelids.

Glass fragments white noise chaos and vulnerability strewn across a life once more.

I can’t even fucking believe it

Lunch break from the dissertation today, gotta get it done because D’s booked us a treat for Friday. Cup of tea, watching the world go by, massaging out the knot in my stomach.

Two kids on bikes ride up and stop (albeit on the otherside of the glass, and my floor is raised so pedestrians heads are usually just below window ledge height). Hmm wonder why they’ve stopped, nothing unusual really.

Car pulls up, kinda shiny really, bit odd. Doesn’t stop the engine. Kid jumps in with some cash. Hops out sans cash and with drugs.

Gobsmacked. Well fuck me, I drug deal has just happened quite literally UNDER MY GOD DAMN NOSE.

Frozen and stunned.

ZAP back to life, fumble with camera shit shit shit didn’t get the number plate or the driver, but an okish picture of the car. And the kids.

Don’t think the kids got hard drugs. But

That could be the new dealer with the hard drugs.

Oh god, I’m on the phone with the DCI. Im informing thepolicewhattthefuckhow.

Dealers are smarter than users. He may know its me and one day I’ll be going to buy milk or I’ll be sitting in my lounge and the window.

Shatterproof becomes a challenge.

Poof.

TBC

The impossible seems possible tonight.

Exams- I passed them. Just the dissertation to go. How do I feel? meh.

What? Am I supposed to be galloping around with joy in my heart? I should be grateful. And I am. I passed, I don't have to go through it again. Dissertation is plodding on at a steady rate, regular work on my transcriptions (unlike the RSI inducing dissertation completed for my BA in Lang and Human Comm, GP - "Well, you'll just have to stop typing for a few days..."... "I DON'T HAVE A FEW DAYS")

The final hours in clinic doing paediatric work with hearing impaired kids is going smoothly and I'm very much reconsidering paeds. Although last week the moment I took off my glasses I got excitedly splattered with bubble mix and spit ( that of a six year old child, not my own, although given the content of this blog I would forgive you for thinking that I was the source of the aforementioned cocktail)... in the nicest kind of way. ish. Kinda standard really, and as I sighed, scrunched my face up and sort of snorted anti viral foam I really felt like I am just being videoed for some kind of TV show. A bit like the Truman Show. I often sort of suspect this......

Been creating reasons to be forward thinking, been cajoling myself into being cheerful. It sort of works and then it crashes. It's hard work. You can't see the fissures in my mental health. I look entirely normal. Normal takes all my effort. I can do it, I can function - it just takes more effort than most to achieve this state (but it's worth the effort), hence the need for quiet alone time, for quiet exhausted tears and long restorative naps.

yeah, anyway,

I took Mr D, my complex counterpart,my boyfriend on a spur of the moment 'date day'. We had an excellent time playing mini golf (I won, yes) we walked through three bays and climbed rugged rock faces. Stared out into the sea, faces salt licked by the wind. And there was a perfect moment where everything was still, all movements could've been paused right there and then in a snapshot and all the pieces of a disjointed mind synchronised and all was as it should be, right where it belongs.

Stillness in the chaos filling up the void. For a moment the circle was complete; Gestalt. The whole moment was so much more than the sum of it's parts.

I tried to breathe in the sunshine, I absorbed the view into my memory and prayed for it to stay anchored there (nearly 10 months sans lormetazepam). Clarity, that's the name for the feeling. There was no fear. 

Maybe you'd like to see this? Well, if you don't, click away or something, otherwise tough shit, you're gonna look anyway, aren't you? I mean you read this so far, now, get yourself a cup of tea and come admire the view with me.

And stop laughing at my pasty legs with the oddly knobbly knees...

So yeah TL:DR nice things happened, there was a beach. All was still for a few hours.

I intended to vent my spleen on the issue of abandonment and the impact of transition. This has been the major theme thrust in my face at SHED meetings. I did not select this topic. Change, transition, abandonment, "Of course you will be sad Heather, it's normal" - Yeah okay... I feel like I am holding my life as a handful of sand and no matter what I do little bits keeping seeping through. This causes a chocking panic, a desperate grasping in the dark just flailing around hoping to grab anything that is still. Very strange. Almost as strange as being weighed (with increasing regularity) and then that causing almighty hell to break lose during appointments. snot. tears. a tantrummy little 30 year old toddler literally throwing shoes and demanding answers to the unanswerable. And how very dare they probe my inner workings and peel back the skin to stare at my feelings in all their fleshy vulnerability when I know that

 it. 
will. 
end. 

because of course, they are therapists and clinicians, not friends - that is the trick to remember. In a way, to them I am just another manilla file in the cabinet, forgettable....dischargeable (hell knows when)

And they will take that precious cargo of my story, my truth, my weakness and doubt and re-package it into a file, with as many questionnaires and tests possible in order to evaluate me for NHS baselines and outcomes. They are kindly and they wish to help, but ultimately they have given me all they can, I have given all I can

and 
there 
is 
nothing
 left
 to
 give.
  
 Therefore I should be spat out of the NHS machine and discharged, but nobody will. Hmm.

 And I let them in knowing all the time that they will leave and so I hold little pieces back, they are mine alone, can't take that from me sorry, you'll only break it by accident.You can't keep all of me in that file. And I'd rather tear my heart out than entrust them with all the pieces, even if they are broken, those pieces are still mine. But that doesn't mean anything at all. But I am trying to believe

And you never get away

    And you never get to take the easy way

    And all of this is a consequence

    Brought on by our own hand

    If you believe in that sort of thing

    And did you ever really find

    When you closed your eyes

    Any place that was still             

    And at peace

    

The Beauty and The Big Come Down.

Yesterday was one of the most perfect days that could have ever been. It was one of my bestest friend's baby boy's naming ceremony (like a christening, only God is not invited to this one).

I don't know how to find the words for something so beautiful that my heart just broke. Baby Boy is so loved. So many people would move mountains and more for him. He will never be lonely with all the love around him.

The little speeches were so full of emotion that it felt like huge waves of feeling just washed over my soul and leaked out my eyes. Baby boy has been born of true love and he embodies all that is good and right with the world. He is hope and wonder, he is innocence and adventure, he is vulnerability and protection. He is another little part of whatever it is that makes me keep dragging myself forward through this headwind. I want to be a support, a friend, a role model and someone to enjoy time with.

Another reason not to give up.

I can't even explain why I love him so very much. I sort of feel guilty, like I don't have the right or something. I can't elucidate it. I have such respect for Baby Boy's Mumma and Dad. They've done so much for me, they are selfless and wonderful. They've overcome so much and worked so hard. They have so many qualities that I aspire to and bloody hell, I really could wax lyrical about them! They are just fabulous. I even feel ok with their hugs. Which is quite something.

I think maybe a picture would be good here.

Planning future adventures/world domination......

So yesterday was beautiful. Haven't laughed so hard SOBER in forever. Met some great people who I hope I get to meet again. Hence the comedown today.

I couldn't get out of bed. I wanted to but my body ached. It was implied I was lazy (lazy = fat and stupid). My heart ached with, guess what, hiraeth. I wish to work toward a little family of my own.

Is it something I can never have?

Today Was Perfect

Today is the greatest
Day I've ever known
Can't live for tomorrow,
Tomorrow's much too long
I'll burn my eyes out
Before I get out 

I wanted more
Than life could ever grant me
Bored by the chore
Of saving face

Today is the greatest
Day I've never known
Can't wait for tomorrow
I might not have that long
I'll tear my heart out
Before I get out

Pink ribbon scars
That never forget
I tried so hard
To cleanse these regrets
My angel wings
Were bruised and restrained
My belly stings

Today is
Today is
Today is
The greatest day


I want to turn you

Today is the greatest
Today is the greatest day
Today is the greatest day
That I have ever really known

Kintsukuroi

It's been more than a while since I have written. I have had my 4th and final year exams.

In the four years I have stumbled my way through:

1 dissertation, 1 viva, 3 presentations, 11 placements, 14 exams, and 17 reports*

Honestly, becoming qualified is not an easy process. And I really think a job will be quite hard to find. Aaaand then there will be the hurdle of Occupational Health.

Once I had a job where I passed the interview and was offered a contract. in August.. but didn't get through Occupational Health until November.... I think it must be hard to take in my medical history and truly desire to recruit me. I know that there are disability discrimination acts, but honestly, in practise for someone with hidden problems, i.e epilepsy and a whole clusterfuck of mental disorders, it can get a bit nasty. People don't believe you. People whisper about you. I'm not so far gone crazy that I think everyone is maliciously gossiping. I just know that has happened to me because I've overheard discussions, been the end of the odd sharp comment or two. You learn to deal with this - you toughen up and cruel words break you less. I shall include some to illustrate:

Professor "You'll never manage;once an Anorexic always an anorexic"

Colleague to Colleague "Just make her fucking eat a mars bar"

Manager "What do you mean you can't come in, you had that seizure yesterday, it's not happening now is it?"

Colleague to colleague (NB: The colleague on the receiving end stuck up for me) " Yeah, but sometimes she's so lazy she just doesn't even do any work" ( go and fucking read up on spoon theory BITCH)

Those are just some of the friendlier things I've heard.

Maybe it won't always be this way. Believe it or not there is still hope.

But still, there is actually no point at all projecting the past on to the future or dwelling in the past.

Gosh, I have had so much happening I don't even know where to start, I guess the beginning would be a good place? Wow. I'm not sure I even know what happened first or what equals the beginning. So in light of that revelation I will just start with the first event I can elucidate :s

1) The Viva

This was a BIG DEAL. For the past four years of my BSc(h) ( I've been an allied healthcare student)

the viva has been the focus of all fear, the brick wall between student and newly qualified practitioner status. No Pass = No Practice. It may be only 20% of a clinical practice module but it is the gateway to employment. So that's slightly terrifying in itself.

The Challenge: You are given the tiniest snifter of a patient's case history and allowed to study that for five minutes. You then are shown 10 minutes of said patient and are then left for 40mins to Assess, Diagnose, Write up a treatment and management plan and a potential prognosis. Rationalise all decisions. It could be ANY SORT of patient. It's not possible to revise every single clinical situation there possibly could ever be. So you must do what you can and pray that fortune favours you.

Fortune didn't favour me!! (Remarkably I DID pass, by the finest of threads, but still a pass)
However, I did laugh out loud when, after a fairly challenging patient, who should be the one to examine me??? Well, that would be the staff member who dislikes me on a very personal level. Sometimes the stars align in your favour, and other times they just don't and aaaaalll you can do is just sit back and roll with the punches.

The world doesn't owe you anything, nobody promised you a fucking rose garden!

2) Seizures and Secrets
I am fairly certain that I am a secret magnet. I can't work out why. But I do not mind this, it seems to help those I care about.
However - some things should not be secrets. Especially not in my family. The secrets almost destroyed us all. Anyway, I have epilepsy and some kind of minor cardio issue and since the age of 12 I had been told I was the only family member this affected. However a few years back my uncle had seizures, then my mother started having the occasional seizure. And then my father rang me up the other day to ask for advice, but for me to not tell my mother about it or my brothers...

    (*I have an extension on the dissertation until August)

The Devils and the Gods; The Living and the Dead.

Quite simply, there's been another loss in the support community. This happens too often. I didn't know Gretchen closely but she was always happy to offer comfort and advice and had a fabulous smile and all around aura of loveliness. I believe she was about to undertake a new course of therapy shortly - too late. I hope Gretchen finds comfort now. Rest with Alice, Jay, Loredana, Katie... (at this point I feel horrific I may have forgotten about someone here.) It terrifies me the way in which the horrors in their heads 'won' - It terrifies me even more when I think about this with great sympathy for Alice who could not fight any more.

I was on the bus home from University, March 2011, and I knew that she'd been missing in the Brecon Beacons, but to see her face looking out of "The Metro" alongside a short paragraph summarising her life, illness and escape from desperation, was disarming.

And I don't know what else to say because all of these words don't change anything.

Please look after each other out there.

Goodnight Gretchen

Resources and Support for those Affected by Eating Disorders - Beat

Samaritans (for anyone in distress or crisis) - Samaritans

Chronic eating disorders are persistent, but they can be ameliorated with the proper support. Reach out. Don't give up hope. Ever.

Take me with you

A Case of pre-viva fever and the "Book of Unsent Letters"

The Viva. Oh Holy Shit the Viva

It'll be fine they say, just like when your clinic superviser asks about your rationale for patient treatment. And there will be strangers in the room, marking you and grilling you. It will be videoed, your report writing assessed. You only get two gos. If you fail the first there is a second go and then BAM.

If it goes wrong twice then no registration with the HPC, no Newly Qualified Practitioner status. No nothing. Do not pass go. Four years of study depends on one hour of stranger grilling.

Needless to say there will be plenty of propranalol use that day. which is Wednesday. 7th May.

                                              FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

It is at this point  I reach for the "Book of Unsent Letters" for advice and recollections in regard to SaLT exam induced madness:

Friday 17th August 2012

Dear Me,

                  Please remember that the audiology resit on August 28th is not as insurmountable as you fearfully imagine. Please don't do that self sabotage thing, y'know, that thing you do where you just think "You can't do it Heather so why are you even trying, you're shit at everything, you only got here through chance and pity". Or rather you listen to that voice. Try and listen to me instead, I'm your realistic, practical, wanting to be a decent adult side, ok? 

Right, got it? Ok, Here's the deal, Audiology is tough yes, but you do stand a decent chance at passing this re-sit, it is possible. Just try to ignore the voice that talks in calories, weight loss and excercise. She can wait, pause her. Force her down a little even if it won't silence her. Just try to concentrate on study.

I know that you are scared that SaLT is beyond your reach, but you are nearly in your 4th and Final year. Don't give up, not now.

I know that the world is a very scary place right now for you. Everything is in the wrong place, everything feels wrong and dizzying and you can't make it feel right. I know you desire your routines because these circumstances are terrifying; brother N emmigrating to Australia, ex boyfriend A trying to get into a relationship with you despite the trauma and also him moving away, this re-sit, the economy and so many other things you fear and don't understand.

And Yes, it's mostly all out of your control. The world just doesn't seem to give you time to catch up with it, or even breathe, does it? And it is in these circumstances that you know the anorexia thrives, preys on your thoughts, feeding.

You CAN limit this. Make it through Audiology, let brother N move to Australia without fear for your health.

And like I always say to you at times like this, finish what you started, even if you mess up, you WILL see this through to the end. You made a promise and you ALWAYS keep a promise. Don't stop. You can't stop.

                                  Complete the motion if you stumble 

We're in this together

so hold on

with strength and love,

Your practical, realistic, logical inner voice.

P.S.

CHOP CHOP. GET TO WORK NOW YOU TOOL. NOW!!!!!!!!

You know the real work is happening when the highlighters are out.....