Catastrophic Car Accident

I’ve just seen a car accident. 

Not first hand, but rather than the disaster of afterwards. 

A pearlescent Fiat 500, once perfect and striking, now just devastating. With skid marks cascading across the road, a wreck, crumpled like a paper bag you may find rolling out of an overflowing bin in the city. The airbags were blown. The dashboard shattered with the windscreen, with shards of blue and white glistening around the debris. The roof lining was falling. As we crept by in our car, it became apparent just how awful it was, with the whole back end charred from a fire eruption from the petrol tank. 

My heart stopped momentarily. 

I think this was the first time a car crash really sank in for me. I’ve seen the ruins before; been in the hours long traffic cues inconveniencing schedules and patience. This was the first time there was no one at the scene. The car was eerily empty, yet full of carnage. There was not an ambulance in sight, already having sped away, just a policeman waiting behind the striking blue accident tape. 

I pray their okay and I’m not religious. 

It’s so poignant that that was a human life, driving as we are today on my way home for 3 nights leave from the hospital. 

I’ll listen out for the news tonight. 

A human life is so precious. All life is so precious. 

We can’t allow ourselves to be destroyed by our own human nature and mental illnesses. We must strive to enjoy all the time that we have. This may seem cheesy, but it was so shaking to see such a mess. And I’m certainly not saying just get over it or that other people have it worse; frankly, as awful as it is I wish that I could have had a physical illness rather than something as life destroying as Anorexia Nervosa, depression and anxiety. I’m just giving you permission: a friendly and completely heartfelt wish for you to be okay darling, whoever is reading. 

My heart is going out to you. 

Old Friends

This was such a beautiful post. You are so fantastic at poetry. Xx

For Emma and Ever

my thighs now brush together like two old friends passing by each other with a faint nod of recognition and nothing more

they have not seen each other in a long time and therefore their interactions are stilted, few, and awkward

when I stand with my feet together like I’m little once again and having my height measured at the doctors they lean a little closer, in greater recognition of the other

slowly but surely they are repairing their relationship, just as the rest of my body is beginning to heal from all the horrendous harm I have caused it

but most days I do not want them to touch; I do not want this friendship to blossom again

sometimes I long for the days when I was able to count my ribs like you might stairs

the times where I looked in the mirror and saw my cheekbones standing…

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My Fitness Life-Destroyer

I have just finally had the courage to delete the app that has ruled over my life day in, day out through long periods for 4 years 😭. Admittedly, I have deleted this app a few times before, always giving in and creeping back to its obsessive and meticulous tracking of every single calorie taken in and every single calorie expended. I’ve recorded every single weight here since my first admission to hospital 2 and a half years ago. 

It’s so awful how a single app can have so much control over a person. How I would choose what I would be allowed to eat or even think about by first researching through here, as Anorexia grew stronger and stronger and tore gaping holes in my functioning brain and in my entire life. 

Anorexia has taken so SO much away from me. Left me screaming and rocking as I claw at my hair and sob. Left me standing, wheezing and trembling with anxiety attacks as my entire life crumbled around me. And all for what? 

This app has done nothing but damage me, and in turn so so many other people out there who I know use it for the wrong reasons. 

I tried to kid myself that I was using it to make sure I had the right amount when I was “recovering”. I wasn’t recovering at all. I was barely getting by on the minimum. Tracking every single thing. Checking. Tracking. Obsessing. Tracking. 

Before I knew it I was exercise obsessed again, falling back into compulsions, skipping one thing and another and colliding and collapsing into a full relapse. 

Now in my second hospital admission I am truly flourishing and it’s something I never ever believed I would be able to do. Anorexia has been, what I so definitely believed, my identity for so long that I physically cannot remember a time without it and that’s agonising. 

I do not want my entire future to be based on this torture. I do not want to shorten my life for the sake of a goal I will never ever achieve. I do not want to miss out on the truly beautiful parts of life, like carrying my own children in my working womb, for the sake of a monstrous mental illness, constantly thinking about how others perceive me. 

I tried constantly to prove to others just how much I was struggling for so long. 2 years out of hospital, putting on a show and lying to myself. Well; not anymore. 

I have tears in my eyes because I really thought that this would never be possible. I have spent hundreds of hours, likely months in total in therapy. I have spent every waking moment in a confused daze, or screaming having full breakdowns, or feeling completely numb for so long that I never believed I’d feel happiness again. I feel happy now. Truly happy. I’m beaming. 

I embrace gaining weight now. 

I am excited for these next few kilos that will allow me to get back to yoga and nourishing my body the way it deserves. 

I can never allow myself to fall back into exercise addiction. I can never allow myself to hurt myself again. 

I am worth so much more. 

Recovery is possible. 

I really honestly believed it never would be, and I even allowed myself to tell myself that I didn’t even want to get better. 

It is possible. 

I’m crying. 

My Mental Illnesses: An Open and Honest Account of my Diagnosis

So linking to my first post 30 Days of Mental Illness Awareness Challenge , this is my first day:

Day One: What is/are your mental illness/es? Explain it a little. 

I have mentioned this a few times I’m sure, but this is my time to be open and honest about it again. Perhaps this will mean that I will reach and influence one more person, and in doing so it’ll be worth it.

There’s something about being so honest that can leave a person feeling raw and vulnerable. I certainly used to hesitate if there was ever a chance for me to make a difference and mention my mental illnesses. I’d be so tempted to, but I just wouldn’t be able to say it for the intense fear of being judged.

That in itself is a major symptom of one of my mental illnesses.

I have been diagnosed with severe Anorexia Nervosa, anxiety (panic and social) and depression as well as self harming and suicidal tendencies which in themselves are not mental illnesses but are certainly linked and worth mentioning.

It’s been a long journey so far; I’ve had depression and anxiety for around 5/6 years and Anorexia for 4 years. I’ve been in recovery since the 27th of September 2013 when I was first forced into hospital, which admittedly has been varying and has led to a bad relapse. I have self harmed since the beginning of my Anorexia, but spent a long time clean. I’m back in recovery now (in inpatient again), but even this varies everyday because the process is so agonisingly long and painful (but SO WORTH IT).

There shouldn’t ever be a reason to be ashamed of fearful of judgement regarding mental illness. As much as I believe it sometimes this wasn’t my fault, I got ill through no fault of my own and there is no quick fix for a disordered mind. It takes time and dedication, and that isn’t my fault. I’m not failing at recovery. I’m not failing at being ill. There is no need for competition because the really frankly the best anorexics are dead (that quote changed my life, it was so blunt but so true).

Be honest, what have you been diagnosed with/struggle with?

Say your name and your diagnosis below. These illnesses certainly don’t define you but they are a major part of you and in learning to accept them and not be ashamed of other people’s judgements is the first step on the way to understanding and managing them better.

30 Day Mental Illness Awareness Challenge

I’ve been in a blogging slump for months now. I’ve either had nothing to post, no ideas, no motivation or absolutely no concentration thanks to this fabulous relapse into the illnesses I’ll mention later in these posts.
But now, here I am in inpatient again, fuelling my body whether I want to or not (because the latter would inevitably lead to sectioning under the Mental Health Act and feeding through an NG tube. ((I feel weird and blunt writing that out but this blog is about raising awareness as much as I can as well. I’ll likely do a post on what it’s like in an eating disorder inpatient). I’m slowly getting my concentration back, I’m slowly gaining my LIFE back as well as of course the weight finally (it was rocky in my first few weeks I must say and I was at a lower weight than my admission weight in the wheelchair for a long time).

Sooooo, after that tangent, I’ll come to the reason why I started this blog post:

Towards the start of beginning this blog I found a “30 Day Mental Illness Awareness Challenge” here and have always wanted to do it. In fact, I’m sure I’ve started it before but gave up.

Well, I think it’s time to start again! I may not post every single day, but it’s certainly a good goal and a good prompt.

Soooo be prepared for the challenge and some regular, open and honest posts from me in the coming weeks.

I’d love it if you could do the challenge with me, or even do a little post or comment relating to one of the prompts. I’d genuinely love to hear from you and find new blogs.

Please let me know if you think it’s a good idea or a good post?? I’m so worried that you’ll all get so bored and not care.

Whirlwind Questions and Disorder

(Potential trigger warning on this as behaviours are mentioned. It isn’t a negative post, I just want you to be careful.)

I get so confused. So completely flustered and confused.

It’s a constant battle between disorder and hazy reality. I’m not even sure what reality is: genuinely. I’ve been drowning in this illness for so long I physically can’t remember a life without it consuming my every thought and action and view.

I’m getting there, I really am, but I felt just the same in my first hospital/inpatient admission, yet here am in my second two years later and even worse than before. From experience and countless hours of every kind of therapy I am able to differentiate a lot of thoughts. I can see disorder at least, even if I can’t always step back from it.

I just have so many questions that no one can truly answer.

Why does it matter? Why is it so all consuming to me that I am severely underweight and am so frail I can not even be allowed to walk for fear I collapse or my heart fails? Why is it that the concept of being “normal” and “healthy” terrifies me? But also why is it that the glimpses of normal thoughts allowing me to desire that only last such a short amount of time?

Why did I get ill in the first place? How did it all spiral so quickly? How is this possibly happening to me: is that REALLY me in the hospital 3 hours away from home sobbing over food in a clinical and staged dining room?

Is any of this real? Do I really exist? Are the other people real? Are they judging me constantly? WHY can’t I truly see myself and does body dysmorohia really exist? I’ll never truly know. Surely I’ll never truly know what I look like because I will never be certain it is not distorted.

I feel myself asking too many questions and my thoughts are judging me even for that. You’ve asked too many questions in a row; your writing is awful. I bet no one reads this post anyway. Why would they? You’re worthless and pathetic and don’t deserve to be listened to… And it goes on, spiralling and accumulating in my head.

I tell myself I hate this illness. I really do. I couldn’t ever explain how truly agonising it is to have, day after day after day in total mental agony (with a hell of a lot of physical complications thrown in too thanks to it). It never goes away. It never feels like it’s changing. At times, even as you cling on to that tiny glimmer of strength and fight back, even if it is just for one meal or one thought countered, sometimes even then the disorder seems to worsen. It comes to the surface, seeping from the crevasse and filling your head with even more poison and manupulative lies.

I see the destruction. Watch as it tears my families hearts apart with pure terror and frustration. I recognise this daily agony that has sometimes brought me to my jutting knees like a wiltering flower SCREAMING and clawing at my very skin as if to to try and tear it out of me…Yet if I feel like this, so desperate for my situation to change and for me to actually be able to live, rather than putting my life on hold and even endangering it as I have done for the past 4 and a half years, why can’t I get rid of it? Why can’t I throw myself into recovery without hesitation? Why can’t I throw myself into the weight gain and embrace myself, treat my damaged and deprived vessel to all that I have avoided for so long? Why, when I feel so dangerously and deeply alone do I continue to push every single person away so that I can hide, trembling with such a debiltating monster in my head?

I’m almost 17 yet in family therapy with week it was decided that I am not even capable enough to prepare my own meals. The main ones have been made for me for months, but now after trialing me making my own breakfasts and snacks whilst being meticulously monitored and observed by my parents, it’s been decided my disorder is too strong to even allow me to do that. It makes me feel so pathetic.

It’s all so confusing. So horribly, painfully confusing and I don’t know where to turn.

Update.

  Hello, blog!

Firstly, many apologies for leaving the blog so abruptly on such a cliff-hanger as to whether I was being admitted to inpatient for the second time. I can gather that you assumed correctly (if you did notice my absence), that I was admitted on the 19th of March.

I have been wanting to do an update for so long, but have always felt so swamped. Swamped with my new schedule of education, meal times, rest times, therapy and family meetings. Swamped with the amount that I am eating now and all of the planning and timing of that, swamped with the feelings and struggles of recovery, but also, gladly, swamped in the sheer amount of things that have happened both bad and GOOD. Things that I never imagined I’d have been able to do just a few months ago, that I now do so regularly.

I’m typing this out on the 7th of May on my first ever two nights home leave! I can’t particularly say how well it will go tomorrow on my first technical 24 hour period at home, but I can certainly hope that it does go well for me, NOT for Anorexia. I have planned it out with the dietician before coming home, as I do each week, stating exactly what I will choose for each meal in order to make up the calories in my meal plan so hopefully there will be zero chances for it to worm it’s way in and ruin the weekend (as it sadly did a few weeks ago, but that is another story).

 

I’m unsure how much to include in this update. I’ll keep things brief, but I will just say that perhaps there is a trigger warning on the post? Please, just be mindful this is an update on my life with Anorexia Nervosa (and indeed other mental illnesses) and that I won’t be going into loads of detail with numbers etc and will be sensitive, but I am still in the early stages of my second inpatient hospital stay.

 

I was admitted 51 days (or 7 and a half weeks) ago to the Evergreen Centre in Middlesbrough for the second time (this is where I was first admitted around 2 and a half years ago, where I stayed for around 6 months before leaving very quickly  in let’s just say difficult and unforeseen circumstances). The centre is nearly 3 hour’s drive each way from where I live (which certainly challenges leaves, and means that a lot of meals are spent travelling, and the amount of time spent at home is often a lot more than I am comfortable with because of the sheer distance). I was admitted in a wheelchair, which I couldn’t believe, and after around a month in it I am now barely out of it. I don’t particularly know why, other than my metabolism RACING into gear again, but I have actually only gained a maximum of around 1.5kg so far after losing for the first few weeks despite genuinely sticking to my meal plan as much as I could and not exercising (at all, which is so incredibly difficult as before I was admitted it was a real problem and addiction). The expected amount that I should have gained in this time is 3.5 to 7kg. My meal programme has just been increased for the 5th time though so, you know, working on it.

 

I’ve been battling so hard since my admission and now I have ever so much more clarity than I can even remember. Being in the depths of a relapse or your original disordered eating/ exercise regimes damage you more than you can ever know. When you are in that moment you are so far from yourself, and so desperately far from well. In the moment, you are so deep in your disorder that you don’t even realise what you are doing to yourself until intervention steps in to literally save your life.

 

(I’m going to have to take a break now. It’s taken me months to actually have the strength to write this post and now my concentration level has reached its peak and I can’t really remember what I am typing.)

 

I’ve came back to this a week later (15th May) and over the last week things have been so incredibly difficult after an admission to the ward (big long story behind this and my past etc that I can’t really bear to explore now). I’ve been in a constant state of panic attacks and sobbing and falling backwards and am now at home, struggling so much with my diet but trying so hard to make it a positive experience.

Inpatient Call

I’m writing this in uncertainty.

Well, my mind is uncertain. Of everything.

The pre admission assessment for my second inpatient stay was on Friday; they called yesterday to reassure me that they were thinking of me and to reassure me that I was not “wasting their time” as I choked out at our meeting. They’re going to call today. Tuesday the 15^th March 2016.

I’m so sure they’ll tell me I’m faking it and wasting their time and turn me away, which would destroy me. But a yes and a definite date for admission would do so simultaneously.

I don’t actually know if I’ll publish this, and if I do it will likely be days or even weeks after the verdict. I’m just super surprised that my faltering brain is allowing me to type, even though it is through confusion and a haze.

That is why I haven’t posted for weeks. Why I barely function in college. Thinking only, constantly about shape, calories and restriction, plotting on how to avoid a set amount of poisonous numbers to further destroy myself and my pointless existence that I so wish wasn’t. I wish that I wasn’t. That I wasn’t ever a thing. And I’m so detached and disorientated, I often convince myself that I’m not real, anyway. That none of this is. That the whole world isn’t really real.

I’m getting dizzy.

I can’t remember anything I’ve said. I can’t remember anything I’ve done. I can’t even remember what the start of this post says. I can’t hear what people are saying, it’s all one long mumbling blur that I nod along to, staring at the floor avoiding all human contact, protecting my eyes from others as anxiety consumes me. Depression has taken over me again. I spend hours curled up, staring, plotting the next meal that I so dread.

My chest is pounding; my arms are tingling. My head is spinning.

I can’t.

“Oh, I Had That Too”: Mental Illnesses

I want to start this with an apology, really on the state of my writing recently. I must hold myself back from constantly apologising, because it’s one of my deep set compulsions stemming from countless core beliefs and therapy is constantly telling me “STOP” (insert little hand up emoji here because it would be very fitting). But I do believe this is called for and justified: my mind is so hazy, so confused and flustered, that I just really can’t focus. I worry that I make no sense, and my sentences take so so long to form as they should. There’s something time consuming and poetic about venting here and writing, but I really need to admit that it takes so much out of me. That I have been wanting to do an update on my Instagram for weeks but just seriously don’t have the energy from failing to fuel my body. I have wanted to write this post for months, but I stare at my laptop with the screen closed firmly, mocking me with its dusted, black emptiness where there should be a projection. (I cannot even open it to play the Sims 3, and you know that’s serious.)

Moving on, if you are still reading, I’m going to go into one of my faaaavourite sayings *sarcasm overload and spontaneous combustion* “Oh, you have *insert major and severe mental illness here*? I had that for a few days/weeks too.”

But did you??? Ok, then. Just, okayyyyyy then.

It’s been happening a lot around me in college, (but now thankfully the main person is not in the class, which frankly means I am completely alone again) but of course it happens ALL the time in society and even on the television this very morning.

It makes my blood boil inside.

Or even, rather, it just makes me fall deeper into my own actual, clinical and highly medicated depression (…and anxiety and severe Anorexia and self-harm to cope with that). Because I know as a scientific and medical FACT that you didn’t.

You had depression for a few days then voluntarily pulled yourself out of it? Allow me to correct you, and it’s going to be blunt: you were slightly sad and you got over it because it was trivial and it didn’t matter and you didn’t have a chemical imbalance in the very structure of your brain.

You had an eating disorder for a few weeks and then just got better and never bothered about food or calories again. As you sit there with your Lucozade and chocolate bar as a snack. (I mean I can’t even go there with this one because I have just gone through way too much and there are people in my college who are my “friends” saying bullshit like this while I am teetering on the edge of a second inpatient admission with my health deteriorating daily, having full, screaming, clawing mental breakdowns at night. And if that makes me selfish so be it, I need to let that slide, because I’m on the brink of tears, or rather full panic attack already. Hmm, Anorexia, you are so poetic and beautiful.)

*takes a few days break from the writing process, and comes back after even more breakdowns (again, how beautiful, “I wish I had Anorexia”)*

You tell me you had anxiety, you used to panic. But were you trembling all over at something so seemingly trivial it made you sick with embarrassment and even more pain? You were dizzy, hyperventilating, feeling so close to passing out as your heart fluttered or palpitated in your aching, convulsing chest? That’s so great you just turned those off! I WISH I COULD.

You had a bit of OCD? Well that’s so fantastic that you just got over your “fear of germs” or you stopped ordering the crayons into the colour of the rainbow. How strong of you.

 

I’m so glad that you decided to just flip that switch and decide not to have a life-consuming mental illness.

Or how about, I AM REALLY NOT.

Because none of you had a chemical imbalance, or mental disease/disorder for a few days. For one nervous moment before something completely rational like a test. For one week’s dieting. For feeling a bit down. For picking at your scabs a few times. For saying you didn’t want to wake up tomorrow because you couldn’t be arsed going to school.

None of you were “depressed” that there wasn’t any of your favourite cereal in the house either.

None of you had a “schizo” mother because she got mad at you.

There’s hundreds of things I could list, so I’m going to round this up for you and end this patronising.

It’s annoying isn’t it?

So how do you think I feel when you tell me that you got over something that consumes my every waking moment, and even my restless, anxious time that I allow myself to sleep between compulsive and dangerous over-exercise and self-harming. When you use something so deadly and destructive to describe your emotions or daily activities. I really can’t stress this enough.

 

Because of someone’s naïve and plain STUPID comments today, just overhearing 2 minutes of their conversation, set me into a major panic attack and breakdown in the middle of college for hours. I’ll treat you to that post when I’m strong enough to do so.

Take time before you make mental illnesses sound so miniscule and unimportant: trivial even.

 

I’d love to hear of your experiences with this: if I get enough of them I will make a post with them on, linking you, so please share below or email me at:

deni.is.gaga@gmail.com

 

(I hope this post was okay at least!)

 

“Don’t Call Me Crazy”

I’ve spoken in the past on this blog about fictional portrayals of mental illness and their glamorising of them, but what about the television programmes broadcast on the television to supposedly raise awareness of the reality of mental illnesses?

This is the last part of my original essay (for which I received full marks for, just by going on a very heartfelt and honest rant in my GCSE English Language coursework).

 

“Don’t Call Me Crazy” was a show created from video footage inside a secure inpatient unit and was originally broadcast on BBC 3. This show followed the lives of adolescents in a psychiatric unit in Manchester; a place for the most severe forms of mental illness, where the patients are a danger to themselves or society.

Showing distraught patients being held down with their face to the floor within the first five minutes, the show certainly did not gloss over any issues surrounding acute mental health care. It went on to show sectioning, tribunals as well as more patients being restrained, which could be somewhat disturbing to watch. I have not personally watched the programme but did a lot of research on the programme to ensure my GCSE resources were all correct. Plus, it down-right pissed me off and I couldn’t originally believe a programme like this would be created.

As someone who has had personal experience of a secure unit that specialised in eating disorders, I am outraged that this programme was broadcast. I am shocked that the health authority has allowed these teenagers to be filmed at their most vulnerable in order to make a programme and achieve a high viewing number. I mean what? I would never have imagined that when my friends in the hospital were being restrained in life-threatening emergencies, a TV crew would be there, shining their cameras and holding their great boom microphones in the way of the nurses who were already really fighting. Would they watch from outside, in the hallway, hearing only the screams as us other patients did for one of our best friends? Or would they be right there in the tiny, enclosed and secure room, adjusting makeup and getting all the gory details of another suicide attempt. Could they really resist the shock factor of such an incident after seeing how mundane and exasperating inpatient units usually are?

I admit the show did have something of a positive aspect to it; showing that even the bubbliest of people can be experiencing unbearable internal distress. It also highlighted the issue of having to wait to be referred to the mental health service, which is a sickeningly long list of sufferers, with only a minority being “fast-tracked” as a matter of urgency.

Those who are not regarded as an emergency are discarded.

To be honest I really need to write a post about this also, but I feel as though really I am a hypocrite after being rushed through as I fought for my life with untreated severe Anorexia Nervosa and self-harm.

There is a common misconception that anybody with an eating disorder must be emaciated, which is what we all too often see in magazines and newspaper articles about them. And I admit again, that when I was first hospitalised I was, and now am again, but this is another topic of genetics and severity of symptoms and circumstances. It is certainly not always the case: really far from it.

The show cleverly portrayed that this is not the case, whilst showing Beth who was struggling severely but did not look to be on the brink of death. Research by B-eat, the leading eating disorders charity, demonstrated that 80% of people with an eating disorder never become underweight.

 

But surely, summing up, having cameras follow around the severely mentally ill is in no way a positive thing. Personally, I find it to be just another hurdle; as inpatient care leaves you isolated from friends and family and indeed the “real world”. I would question who really cared about me after the broadcast of the show; or rather if it were to meet someone mildly famous. Those who were featured in the show began to receive horrible, taunting messages on forms of social media: especially Beth whom I have just mentioned. This would have impacted severely on her recovery from a life-threatening illness. Is that seriously what she needs when she is already so ill she has been locked inside a mental health unit??

People make me sick.