Promises

I promised my GP that I wouldn’t cancel my appointment this week. That I’d come even if I were feeling terrible.

The promise was made as a safety plan of sorts. A couple of weeks ago I overdosed the night before my appointment with her, then used the app to cancel my appointment. I told her. I was honest.

So now I’m to show up this week without fail. There’s also the silent, un-discussed expectation that I won’t self-harm in any way. No cutting, no overdosing or misusing medication.

I’m holding on. Barely.

The eating disorder is screaming at me. ‘Don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t think, don’t feel’. The same negative mantra it’s screamed for half my life. It is getting the better of me. The eating disorder plans feel safe and familiar. I’m falling into the trap of thinking that if I just follow the rules well enough that everything will be okay.

I know following any kind of ED rules is the quickest way to end up in the local emergency department. Dehydration in combination with my medical conditions is a recipe for disaster.

I don’t see a way out right now though. Going with the eating disorder seems safe and comforting. At least it doesn’t involve binge eating and piling on even more weight. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last nine months. Binge eating so often that I’ve depleted all of my savings. I’m broke from this damn eating disorder. At least restricting is cheap. Plus I’ll lose weight. Winning all round, right?

I know I’m making poor choices. It sounds utterly ridiculous, even writing it all out. This is where I’m at though. Completely emotionally exhausted, overwhelmed, struggling, losing any remaining hope.

Advertisement

Trying to Tread Water

I haven’t written a proper post for close to a year.

That’s how long depression has been kicking my butt. Not constantly. There have been light, happy, joyful moments and days sparsely sprinkled amongst the doom. The doom, however, heavily outweighs any lightness and joy.

Tweaking my antidepressant no longer helps. I suffer horrid side effects when I increase the dose. My psychiatrist is hesitant to change medications, but it’s something I’ll be pushing for soon.

Along with the unrelenting depression has come almost all the unhelpful behaviours you could think of. Aside from alcohol or illicit drug use. I rarely drink, and have never used drugs. I have enough going on physically and mentally without adding unknown substances to the mix!

Self-harm. Multiple overdoses. Binge eating. Not eating. Not drinking water.

The same behaviours over, and over in moments of ‘I can’t do this anymore’.

I had an inpatient psych admission a couple of months ago. It was helpful, and I was discharged in a much better space. However… within a month I’d overdosed and self-harmed.

I’m supposed to be journaling when I feel anxious or otherwise not okay. Journaling instead of leaping into unhelpful behaviours. I did. Once. That stirred up something inside. Flashbacks started, and small, scared chatter began inside.

I shut that shit down and dove headfirst, straight into an unhelpful behaviour.

Damn it. Not unhelpful. Self-harm, overdoses, eating disorder behaviours. They all help in some way, otherwise I wouldn’t be using them. They are helpful, but in a very short-term way, and they have unhelpful consequences. They don’t help me longterm.

I feel like I’m drowning. I’m trying to keep my head above water, but I’m struggling to do that. I keep going under, gulping water instead of air, only to rise again, cough up all the water, and start breathing…. before going under.

I don’t know how to fix this, and I don’t know what would help.

Shit Has Hit The Fan

Maybe things aren’t going so well. I keep trying to convince myself that things aren’t so bad, that they could be worse, that nothing is really wrong.

Yet today, when my groceries were delivered, I hurriedly hid alcohol and sharps in my room so if my housemate came home she wouldn’t see them. A few minutes after the delivery driver left my housemate came home. My secrets were hidden. Along with a second carton of diet soft drink, and eating disorder ‘safe’ food.

All are flashing neon warning signs that I’m not okay, and my housemate is well and truly aware of them. I’m scared my housemate will find out and confront me. I’m scared my friends will find out and do the same. I’m scared of where I’m headed.

I’m going around in circles of crippling depression, overwhelming emotions, and destructive behaviours. I’m not proud. I don’t want people to know. I’m desperate to hide these behaviours from friends and family.

Yet with hiding the behaviours comes enormous guilt. Guilt from lying to friends and family about behaviours, about how I really am. Guilt at even the thought of telling any friends or family a watered down version of the truth. Guilt because alcohol abuse runs in my family, and it’s a path I’ve always sworn I wouldn’t go down.

The guilt adds fuel to the fire that’s already burning strongly. I’m desperately clutching at behaviours that slowly destroy me. Healthy coping mechanisms are long gone. I’m trying to hold on, but can see the mess my day-to-day life has become, and have given up. Might as well have another drink, or use another unhelpful behaviour to keep holding on.

Shit has hit the fan.

We need to talk about self-harm

An amazingly powerful video and story were published on the Sydney Morning Herald website about self-harm. Both the video and the story are worth a look, but they do contain images of self-harm scars.

Self-harm is something that’s generally not spoken about. People’s scars are sneakily glanced at when they’re not looking. As someone who’s self-harmed for well over ten years and has visible scars I find this behaviour hurtful. Are you judging me? Are you looking at my scars and writing me off as a crazy lady?

I’m not crazy. I self-harmed when I was unwell, overwhelmed, and trying to stay alive. Self-harm, for me, is about taking the edge off the emotional pain so that I can keep going. Over the years the frequency and severity of my self-harm has decreased, but I still do it.

It’s not attention seeking in a dishonest, manipulative way. Sometimes it is a cry for help. Think about it though – if that person had the skills to cope with overwhelming emotions and seek support from appropriate people in an appropriate way they wouldn’t need to self-harm.

Have some compassion when you see someone with self-harm scarring. Sometimes it’s quite obvious that it’s self-harm – the distinct pattern of the lines from the cutting tool. Sometimes you won’t know it’s self-harm, or a horribly accident that caused the scarring. Be kind – don’t stare, don’t steal sneaky glances.

“I know you hate me.”

“I know you hate me.” That’s what my GP said to me when I saw her last week. I’d asked for a new prescription for one of our medications, and she’d agreed to write it, but with the condition that …