Category Archives: WRITE TO RECOVER
Write to recover.
Second life -Mort tell et tea
* This Borderline poem was written a week before I attempted to take my life (again).I ended up in Critical Care in a coma for 5 days & in ICU for a further 6 days. I was discharged from hospital on the 21st of May 2020 *
Please, make sense of reality.
Use a stream of consciousness
words to vent,
rant,
rave,
A discovery in recovery
Fathom out sense because words are only as good as the interpreter.
Could add literary success to a Gravatar profile in an ebook
Add few drafts poured into that fulminate crunched up chaos.
This doesn’t invoke a feeling of literary success.
Trying
Struggling to convey all words .
Reciprocated words are often misinterpreted
Misheard
Another attempt to convey these words
Perhaps one person will see this array of affray spread its torment defecating the inner spiral case of the
Mind,
It swirls descends these steps in every way.
The moment to call it a day
This draws an outline forever have to have the last say.
Hear me proclaim
This
Is
My
Life.
Don’t want to carry on living this way
Shame lingers
It overstays — the bailiff texts for rent arrears
Read,
What is laid down?
Listen
I’m not done yet.
Hanging by a thread it’s tethered
Seen many days to identify as weathered
Hanging by a thread
This is my life purpose!
Final chance to meet my fate
Waited for this all my life
A mystery date with a severed soul mate.
Taught & tethered & weathered is this rope
To late
convinced
I’m no tight rope walker.
I’ve become my own word stalker
Shoulda, coulda, woulda arrested these rants before my digress
Covert corner
Wait in this hidden corner.
Evidently I’ve learned that survival is innate.
It ain’t easy to digest the days I’m not blessed to eat from a plate.
keep rising up despite a life times worth of trip-ups.
Until I die
One fine day
I’ll face the final exit of my mortality
I’ll know the truth
Either way it’s gonna end up with a body
Fatality.
Subconsciously know why I feel
It’s called humanity
What do I know about that damp dark corner entertaining souls I’ve yet to meEt?
Going to have to wait for a future promising chance we haven’t dreamt of taking yet.
If I lose all memory
Forget those words
soggy, wet, lost to another realm of the bereft
Lest I forget.
I write to recover.
Be happy or die trying.
Simultaneously a resilient species & inconveniently inept
For the doubters..
If it you could see what others do. You have always let doubt confuse your idea of who and what you are capable of.
I have always known you to be beautiful in all ways and I have learnt and felt you loyalty pride and strength of character. We some how picked one another and I drew a good hand.
You are the best kind of romantic and that quality needs to be nurtured and not be exploited by those who don’t understand your story and how you got to the person you are today. There are plenty of people who are not worth the bother, believe me, don’t believe me. I think you know that.
The past is way back over there. These are exciting times. Now,the future. Some of the best years of your life are waiting to be lived. You can afford to be picky. You deserve someone to ‘hug you so hard they will put all your pieces back together’.
Don’t let ass holes or wankers ruin today and the future for you. There is a lesson to be learned from everything we do and experience.
Yes, it is easy to pick out the negatives but on the plus side -you are free, you have been incarcerated, masks has dropped revealed the truth that cannot be covered up any-more, don’t take it personally. You were honest form the beginning. Take pride in that. Hold your head up high.
This is a new page, a fresh book even. You need as much light and love as possible to create the magic you want. You have not wasted time if you have taken some time to do a bit of searching within and decided what to take with you into this day and what discard what has left you high and dry in the past. I read somewhere that the thoughts we think are mantras and a form of prayer.
Be aware of what your thoughts are saying they may just turn into your reality. Take the time to find out what you are wanting from your life.
There is so much out there. There is something so rare about you. Life can be cruel but you have remained gentle and kind and it shows. You are one of the toughest people I know.
Please do not be mistaken that I think you are weak. Far from it. We are making good experiences and only the best people should be allowed to come on that journey, don’t you think?
Don’t shun all people thinking everyone is like the last person you shared your heart with. Don’t harden -don’t clam up. You are able to re define your world on your terms.
Love as much as ever. To love is never a fault. To love the wrong person is easily done when some one is not upfront with you from the beginning or who breaks your trust.
BELIEVE!
Believe that there is magic and you are creating it. Shake off the doubts and smile, glow, be who you are.
There is no fault to be found in you. I I have so much repect for you and admire you.
So many really do BELIEVE! do what must be done so that you can close this door and open to a new day.
The one’s left behind
- a unique take on world suicide prevention day *
Who is this lady? She is elderly, yes.
A grandma,a mother a sister, an aunt, a great grandmother.
I don’t know. I have forgotten. Hang on a minute…
Aaah yes there was this one time that I was sat in her house -plush, ‘propre’ , stylish and I couldn’t sleep.
I kept on getting up to go to the cupboard on the far right of la cuisine that housed all the gigantic Cadbury’s chocolate.
I ate and I ate and I ate some more. I always seemed to be able to eat more.
I didn’t it like it when she bought the dark kind. So bitter. So classy, so not me.
But back to la cuisine.
Footsteps pander lightly behind me. I turn and look around and I look into the eyes of a lady with pure class-sans maquillage. This seems to counter my non- class evolved youthfulness. The lady asks me a question ‘Ca Va?
I’m expected to answer with the same ‘ca va.’ but it is something like 3 am in the morning. Obviously ‘ca va’ is not appropriate for this setting.
I don’t know why I can’t sleep, I confess. I’ve shoved a load of pills down my throat in an effort to be like the one whom I shall refer to as the Manic depressive. The lady sits me down and makes me a Sleepytime tisane – . Good herbal shit. We sit at the kitchen table with our ‘Sleepytime’ tea, I can’t remember what we talked about.
I have a habit of forgetting things, you see. It is so frustrating. I go back to bed feeling cared about. Why didn’t I feel grateful then?
No regrets. Have no regrets. Okay. I try not too. I wish I had paid more attention, then maybe I wouldn’t forget so much.
I can hear her laughter in that loud roomy part of my brain, it’s threatened me it will become a real auditory sound that knocks me sideways with fright turning me into a paranoid wreck.
I have to remember that laugh. She used to laugh at my jokes. She loved me. She told me she loved me all the time.
She also loved another – another woman-my mom. Angelic looking, graceful, naive and I don’t know – wonderful?
This lady helped me out with the angelic-looking lady. Yes, I remember, one poignant night, the angelic-looking manic depressive and I had a vicious fight. I took a braai fork to her neck.
I was fucking going out to drink and get strung out on drugs and Miss Manic Depressive could mope in her stupid illness and fuck right off.
Well, she took that big FU literally. We had this stock of prescription pills that could take our local pharmacy out of business – bad joke- that’s why I rely on comedians for such amusements (Omid Djalili and Gabriel Iglesias being two of my favourites ). Nothing like a next-day hangover and a shrill ringing phone to make me grab a handful of downers.
I’m not ready for the sunshine just yet- maybe not ever. The lady on the other end of the phone wants to know if the manic depressive is okay. Of course, she is ok……
I turn over
…but she isn’t.
She is one tunnel turn away from death. I need some Rohypnol and valium and I need t
hat lady on the end of the phone.
She says she is going to get the next one hour flight from JHB airport to Durban and I need to get the manic depressive to a hospital. I don’t have health insurance. I’m 15 years old.
A cocky shit who obviously knows it all but nevertheless in my narked upstate I somehow manage to get the angelic Manic Depressive a space in a run-down public hospital in Africa – in a- I kid you not – broom closet. Sick people were lying on the floors, covered in congealed blood, in the corridors of this hospital. So I count my blessings that we had some type of room and a bed.
The lady meets me at the hospital. It’s touch and go. We are rooting for survival on this one. Black tar leaks down out through a tube from some part of the manic depressive’s body.
Hours pass.
She is okay- stable.
She is in a coma.
The Lady transfers her to a more upmarket private hospital. She has the master card. We spend the night next few days at the Oyster Box hotel – in a chalet. She takes on me and my two cats. Lilac and Mocha- and we all sleep in the same bed united by our love for the angelic manic depressive one.
We don’t know if she is ever going to walk again. I mean it was an overdose with powerful intent. No, pithy cry for help as some believes a suicide attempt is. The angelic manic depressive has a new name angelic, rapid cycler Bipolar.lady in The other lady is my grandma- as you probably have figured out. We go and see her every week. She broke her hip back in Feb 2015 and can’t walk anymore.
Okay… so that happens with a lot of old people. Yeah, but this lady, my grandma has been stripped of her dignity, identity, memories, and she can’t remember she can’t walk. She is stuck on a loop – every few moments she tries to get up and screams in frustration when she can’t. This lady sitting in the middle is my relationship with someone I love who has Dementia and Alzheimer’s.
I know I’m not writing something fucking profound but she means something to me and her family. She is living a world with no faces, no colour and the world speaks another language to her. How is she meant to interpret all this shit?! People talking.
Loudly?
Other elderly people not moving- crying, shouting, fondling themselves to remember that they too can feel.
My Chronic Anorexia 10 stone self could envy my grandma’s current weight. 5 stone if that. She forgets how to eat. Imagine that?
What type of existence is this?
This is where I get political. Let people die with dignity.
I signed up for the campaign years ago. Who is this lady? She is so much more than she looks. She has had a life people probably can’t even dream up and a life where people would also be horrified how she survived such heartache, ( love is the answer here, folks) but for today we can’t go back into the past too much without forgetting. I don’t want to forget, not today. Those two memories I can hang and frame in the gallery of my mind.
They are mine. No one can take them away from me but Alzheimer’s can. Dementia too.
You know what really makes me sick about all this? When a person with these illnesses die, Alzheimer’s and Dementia don’t take the credit. The diagnosis of death is usually a secondary symptom. How twisted and messed up is that?
Does she remember her husband? Where does she go?
I should have been a Neuroscientist or something. I want to know what is going on in her head and fix it. All clichés but they are my clichés for today. Can you believe people are being diagnosed with these maladies at as young as 25 years of age?
I would rather choose to die than have everything taken from me. Would my Grandma say the same? I wish I had asked her.
Me: ‘So Gran, let’s talk about something so morbid as to how you would like to die.. ‘
I’m putting it out there. Me? I don’t want to suffer and I don’t want to feel pain and I don’t want to not be understood. That is not living that is stuck between two perverse worlds. I want my family to pay the ferryman and for him to take the money and take me along the river Styx to E
lysium and let me die with dignity.
Information on the dying dignity campaign http://www.dignityindying.org.uk
The queen of my mind.
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. Yes, it exposes my vulnerability. I am merely human. I have bad days and good days. This letter is to the so called friend I’ve kept as consul for most of my life.
Dear Anorexia and all the other secondary mental illnesses
I always seem to put this post off. I usually come out with all these things I have to say to you at the wrong times. Like when I am having a bath.
Erm…inappropriate.
Okay, I sought you out. I did.
I begged you to be my friend and you eventually became the only friend I had. I didn’t want to lose everything. So, despite how I felt or how much pain I was in when I hurt myself, I did it. We had a strong bond. Bonds are not easily broken. Not even now, when I don’t want to be friends any more.
I thought you might be a bit more understanding if you understood what you took from me and what I allowed you to take.
You took most of my life experiences and and made me put on a pair of your glasses so that I could only see life through your perspective.I didn’t have strng vision to begin with so I accepted your gift and I still wear them every now and then. I don’t know why you want me to hurt myself,
Life: everything I have ever seen and experienced has been through a filter of your making. You have had the final decision before I get to see anything, so I can then process it and carry on.
You encouraged me to self harm in so many other ways Drugs, cutting, taking chances, impulsive behaviour, getting into trouble. I don’t know if friends should really do that but I only had you. What did I know
You are jealous. I became your reflection..
Your reflection.
I had no life in me for many years. I was an merely a toy- puppet of yours. Attached to strings to dance to your cacophonous melody. Sometimes I still feel you, hear you. Pulling me up. Making me go in a direction I don’t want to go in.
Every interest I had, be it watching a movie or reading or going to a rave and dancing or talking to people to try and make fiends- you stole that from me.
I allowed it. I only see now, how awesome I can be without you. Fucking cool bananas.
You told me I was peculiar , not like other people, special, different.
You did a remarkable job of making me think that no body understood the words, I spoke so I stopped talking. I let your talk for me- everyday, every living moment. Every tick of the clock. Your voice. Sounds so soft to others- barely audible- Invisible. To me it sounds more like a constant shriek in my mind, I feel anything but invisible – I feel I take up too much space.
Figure that one out? I can’t.
I lost my family. People thought I had an ego and thought that I was up my own fucking arse.
I only wanted to like me.
I just wanted to feel good about myself. I thought you could help. If I was attractive to others people would get me and see all my awesome qualities and my true personality. You couldn’t stop at that.
You needed to coerce me into changing one small thing , then another small thing. You helped chip away everything that made me ME until I was lost and abandoned in the dark.
A vacant spot in a vast pool of darkness.A world of black and white. If people tried to talk to me you turned up the white noise. I sat there motionless.
Every person who spoke to me or who tried to be a friend to me -you would whisper they were lying to us, they don’t like us.
Always
be on your guard.
Your motto.
You taught me that. I was and I am still on guard.
You know what?
Fuck this ..I’m not wallowing in the past.
What I really want you to know is I don’t want you in my life at all.
I was wrong and made a mistake.
I know better now.
I have a choice – it is my choice who will be in my life. Yes, you are powerful enough to try and come between everyone I love. I won’t let you.
I won’t.
You want to be friends with my daughter.
NEVER WILL I ALLOW THAT.
I know your true face. There is nothing behind that mask. I rip it off and before I can see the true you you dissolve right before my eyes. You need me more than I need you,mate.
You still try to convince me that our friendship is a blessing – that you give me strength to live.
I’m pretty convinced if I could find the cord that links me to you, I would be brave enough to cut it and I would finally start breathing properly again. I would learn how to breathe again. I would succeed.
How many times am I going to have to evict you from my mind?
Why don’t you get it?
I’m done with trying to kill myself.
You have taught me one thing – I am not at your mercy to live or die. You don’t get to choose because : I. won’t. let. you.
You crept back into my life last year.
So cunning, so sly……
Look at you smirking -so sure, so smug.
Like a snake, you slithered and curled around my whole bod. I remember the familiarity of your touch -cold. Cold means thin. Thin means I’m winning. Your charm nearly disarmed me again.
In what seemed like mere seconds,your entire body had coiled itself around my neck -suffocating me. I nearly lost my mind for you again. A couple more months and I could have been back in hospital.
I’m not some new friend of yours that has to be emaciated to believe I have earned your undying friendship. Today, I live in a body and a mind I have created.
To try and cast you out. Of course you weren’t going anywhere. How naive I still can be after all these years.
Why would you go some where else when you have everything you need in me.
Today,
I am healthy.
You tell me I’m fat.
I’m not fat.
I eat and you tell me to pinch my skin, you tell me to loathe it. You yell at me , telling me to grip at my bones.
You tell me the bones have been lost in my womanly body.
How dare I grow up?
How dare I start having periods again?
How dare I have a child?
how dare I put her first ?
How dare I empower myself……
Now,you listen to me. You can make me cry- you know you can.
You know that every living moment I know you are with me, in me.
You won’t even let me be touched and loved by my own husband to be.
I flinch when he touches me because you have convinced me that my body is wrong.
It has taken four years to get to the place I am with my husband to be. You don’t want me to enjoy being loved.
You don’t like affection.
Affection means a chance to be loved.
Your kind of love is like boiling water and third degree burns – plastic melting and merging with my skin -never letting go ;forever scarred and deformed.
All this to make sure you have me forever. You feed on my thoughts.
Why won’t you let me watch a fucking movie with my partner without making me aware of my body?
You are sick. Contagious. A reoccurring infection.
I don’t want to be sick. I know I can’t just get rid of you. For a time I was able to shut you out and started living.
Oh, what a jealous friend you have been. You plotted and planned – ready for your come back .
Always had to be the one who has to take the lead part.
You can’t have the lead part in my life any more. My life is my stage, I am producer,editor, stage hand, actor, writer, graphics producer , costume designer, light technician . You dear friend have been made redundant.
See ,The terms and conditions of our contract?
See this lighter in my hand? Flame jumps from container to paper – it can’t lick up the paper quick enough.
I’m the one who says what goes in the script and what doesn’t
No, I know you don’t like this. You are laughing in my face. What was that?
I have no confidence,
I’m needy lazy, a failure.
You are right,I’m not fucking perfect. How many times have I nearly died doing your bidding?
I want to be happy.
No, not your idea of happiness.
I want to forget about being aware of how you want me to feel about my body. I want to enjoy each moment away from the knowledge that my body is just there.
Today, I respect my body. You don’t need a mask to cover up the fact you have no idea what that word means.
I had so many things I had in my head …. to say to you…
I feel you still don’t get it.
I know I eat.
I have to eat . Don’t put the guilt trip on me if I feel hungry.
Yes,I do. I love food. There are so many more types of food I want to try and I am still afraid to try . I am learning though.
Every book or film or conversation I have ever had was drowned out by your voice or because I couldn’t stand to hear your voice again , I drugged myself, tried to take my life
– oh so many times.
Yet, I still stand..
You won’t go because you love a challenge. you enjoy the struggle.
How boring would it be for me to just give up.
Oh don’t get me wrong, love.
I have nearly died for you and you happily appeared to allow it. We both know you became my friend because you knew I would fight you.
Still now, twenty odd years later I fight you.
No – you can’t have increasingly lower digits. I have set the bar for what weight I can live with. I’m not going to stop eating if I go over that weight thresh hold. – I will cope. I will get back to my safe weight.
You hate the fact I exercise to keep fit and on track-to focus -to keep me rational – I have found out the secret you have hidden from me for so long.
I’m not going to binge or take laxatives again. It fucking hurts. 100 laxatives a day for how many years. I’m not buying into that abuse any longer.
You are having so much fun with me at this moment. Forever toying…..
The scales have gone up. I should know I’ve only been there with you over 50 fucking times today on that scale. Willing that 1.5 kilo of weight to go down.
I am not having fun.
I am a woman not a child. My spirit is not a new born. You can’t corrupt it like you did all those years ago.
I get periods. There is a lot of ‘I don’t wants’ that comes with the power to create life.
Fluid retention is one of them. You want me to think that these laws of a women’s body don’t apply to me. Your arrogance never fails to catch me off guard.
You want me to think I have lost control…….
I see all this and I hate you with every thought, every emotion, everything.
Yet, you still won’ t go away
You may be having fun but I’m not having fun and I don’t want to play.
You have brought many foes to my door- snuck them in. Bipolar ,a so called personality disorder, the list goes on and on. All free loaders.
Remember when I was at the height of my career? You wouldn’t let me become more successful. It wasn’t your definition of success so you took it from me.
Remember when I tried to better myself and go to college?
You fucked with my head then too.
Yes, I got my degree, eventually. I nearly died getting it.
I nearly died getting my daughter back too.
You like the fighters. The ones that put up a struggle. The more I struggled the more obstacles you put in my way- one of your finest tricks was the abusive relationship act.
I finally see you are indeed a one trick pony.
Well done, a round of applause.
You are not the master of my mind any more.
You are a bully- deranged.
YOU CAN’T HAVE ME!
I’m getting married and you can’t stop that. Yes, I know I’m vulnerable because I need to fit into my wedding dress.
Guess what?
I am going to have another child and I won’t let your stop me. I am going to nourish life, nurture it like I should have done the first time.
I will be free of the medication I take to stop you from having the upper hand all the time . I don’t think you have realised,
the fight you have with me, does not just end with me alone any more. You continue to take me on -you are now taking me and my family on.
You are a threat to my life- no not a pathetic one,but one full of joy and love and respect. You hate it. I don’t know why you won’t allow me to love.
Where did you come from ? and what made you so malicious?
I can’t be your therapist and provider.
Yes, we are back to fighting again;
I don’t need tarot cards to know the ending to this.
I’m winning.
Yes, I am.
You are strong, I will give you that but I have had four years of some kind of freedom from you –
You ,dear friend let your guard down .
Thank you, because you gave me another reason to live and want to be alive. The devil I know or the glimpses of joy I have found in living ?
you lose,
check mate!
I will continue to rise as the queen of my mind and your whole kingdom built on flimsy lies is going to come toppling down.
If you are going to throw a punch – don’t let your guard down.
Practice what you preach.
The neglected child
There are many types of Child Abuse
Emotional Abuse can be hard to spot and is easy to miss the signs.
- humiliating or constantly criticising a child-
When my Mom was in a Domestic Violent Relationship with my ex step father he would constantly tell me I was chubby, too clingy.
- threatening, shouting at a child or calling them names
- making the child the subject of jokes, or using sarcasm to hurt a child
- blaming and scapegoating
My ex -step father would shout at me for wanting to be close to my mom. He would drag me into my bedroom -my mom would stick up for me and she would get the brunt of my tantrums, clinginess, my eating issues.
- making a child perform degrading acts
- not recognising a child’s own individuality or trying to control their lives
- pushing a child too hard or not recognising their limitations
My ex step father’s idea of teaching me how to swim was to grab hold go me, jump into the swimming pool and stay under the water until I thought I would pas out. He would do this as a joke in front of his friends and laugh at me for being so scared. I was 5 years old
- exposing a child to upsetting events or situations, like domestic abuse or drug taking
My ex step father used to beat my mom up regularly because she dared to challenge him for cheating on her constantly ,for getting a 15 year old pregnant. He was always high and there were always parties going on with strange men and women around. I used to try and defend my mom until I became too afraid. I used to barricade myself in my bedroom. I would wait until he came home from work and hide under the bed.
- failing to promote a child’s social development
- not allowing them to have friends
- persistently ignoring them
I felt like my life was irrelevant. I wasn’t worth anything. I remember having an argument with my mom. She was struggling with her Mental health and the abuse. She came home from work when I was 5/6 years old. I was dressed up in her wedding dress and having fun. She screamed at me to get out her room .She was crying, I didn’t want to be away from her. She locked me out of the room because I started to have a tantrum. I went to the kitchen and got a knife out of the drawer and went to her bedroom door and yelled I was going to stab myself if she didn’t open the door. No reply. I heard her crying. I felt alone and that I couldn’t help her.
- being absent
When I felt helpless and angry. I would act out. I would binge on food, wet the bed conrantly and go and sleep with the dogs in the kitchen. I recall one day feeling so worthless and useless that I couldn’t make my mom better or please my ex step father that I packed a suitcase falloff toys and clothes. I needed to get away. I walked down the driveway (to my child self -it looked like I was walking a long way from home), When I reached the end of the driveway I looked left, right, I looked across the road and I thought to myself: What do I do now? I prayed that a car with two nice people would stop and pick me up and take me away from where I was. That didn’t happen. I had to accept my defeat and I walked back up the drive way angry. No body knew I had disappeared and I didn’t get the attention I wanted.
- manipulating a child
Manipulation can be so subtle. I recall a time when my mom had found out about another affair that my ex stepfather had. He turned up from work with a puppy for me. I was over the moon.
- never saying anything kind, expressing positive feelings or congratulating a child on successes
- never showing any emotions in interactions with a child, also known as emotional neglect.
SIGNS OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE IN OLDER CHILDREN
- use language you wouldn’t expect them to know for their age
- act in a way or know about things you wouldn’t expect them to know for their age
- struggle to control their emotions
- have extreme outbursts
- seem isolated from their parents
- lack social skills
- have few or no friends.
EFFECTS OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE
BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS
- wanting attention or becoming clingy
I never wanted to leave my moms side. I refused to go to school. I would have tantrums and do anything to be heard.
- not caring how they act or what happens to them
I became a child who started walking home from school on my own from 5/6 years old. I remember a group of older boys pushing me about and touching my breasts and vagina.
- trying to make people dislike them
I didn’t feel very likeable or good about myself so I pushed people away from me. I didn’t feel Could trust people and even today I will show people the worst parts of me to protect myself.
- developing risky behaviour, like stealing, bullying or running away.
The first time I stole anything was a 5 rand note from my mom so I could buy myself and people in my class sweets at the tuck shop. My ex step father refused to allow me to eat sweets because I was too ‘chubby’. I ran away from home many times as a teenager to get away from my mom when I was a teenager and my Nan and my Dad who refused to acknowledge me. I didn’t want my family to dictate to me. I didn’t want them to tell me they knew what was best for me. I wanted to escape and drugs and being around strange men seemed like the right answer.
EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS
- feeling, expressing and controlling emotions
- lacking confidence or causing anger problems
- finding it difficult to make and maintain healthy relationships later in life
- higher levels of depression and health problems as adults compared to those who experienced other types of child abuse.
MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS
- mental health problems, including depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts
I went on to develop serious mental health issues. I developed social anxiety from a young age. My first suicide attempt was at 12 years old
- eating disorders
I became obsessed with my weight. I couldn’t deal with my weight issues and I started taking diet tablets at the age of 15 years old. I abused cocaine and mandrax and ecstasy -any drug to stop me from thinking about food. I used to demand my mother take me to doctors to prescribe diet pills for me even though I was thin. I had huge problems and I eventually developed Chromic anorexia. I was sectioned twice in the U.K. In 2007 I develop Bradycardia. My BMI was 14. My weight was 39 kilograms. I wanted to die.
I don’t know why I felt the need to cut my legs in my Nan’s kitchen when I was 12/13. I didn’t know how else to express myself. When I lost my virginity to a guy who had left his ex and promised to date me and be with me. The next night his ex, myself and him herein his car and he chose his ex over me. I flipped. I couldn’t deal with the pain, the headache and I cut myself with a bottle neck and became uncontrollable.
- language development
- problems forming healthy relationships.
If you want to help some one who is being abused in all its forms or to help some one who is self harming.
Perhaps I want to..
I want to stop stuffing my mouth with food
To allow the words I swallow tumble out my own truth .
I want my voice not to sound happy
I want it to be happy.
I want to eat meals without guilt.
I don’t want to be over weight.
I want anorexia to stop carving every single slice of edible part until there is nothing but my skeletal soul
Nothing but the debris of littered thoughts
Soiled emotions
Discarded remnants of self love.
I’m screaming
Pleading for just one match to light up my black holed life
The abyss that taunts
Torments
Each moment
Each breath
Every movement
I want to publish a book of my words
One solarity book to place on my bookshelf
I want to feel sexy without thinking that being curvy is criminal.
I want to feel pretty
Confident that I can eat sushi tonight when my daughter has a McDonald’s happy meal.
I’ve scoured the Just Eat.com menu
The thoughts become lairy loud
It becomes easier to take a valium or a drink
Awash myself clean against the accusations
I’m tainted
Impure
My thighs touch
My breasts are disproportionately imperfect
And,
I don’t want to blame it on Some tasteless comment some child made when I was 12 years old.
My collar bones are disappearing
My butt is bigger
Im not disappearing
I’m not smaller
I want a worthwhile exsistance
I want to claim my happiness
Perhaps my words are my winning ticket to recovery .
Perhaps I need to buy enough ink and paper to print off 6 years of documented writings, poems, plays, stories and musings
I want
I want
I want my body to understand what it needs
I need
I need
I need my mind
To understand
What it wants.
Crown me
Own your crown like it is your temple- for the crown you choose to wear will define your silhouette to others and your temple reveals the boundaries that form the foundations of your character.These are my words for today.
Can I have a sugar daddy?
Aaaaaaaaargh! I have been putting off this post for a while. I mean the one guy
You were the first real man I knew not some boy but a real man.
I tell myself I have dealt with the indifference. Yet, as soon as I find a way to make contact again. I let all my pride go and open my heart and soul to you. I do it publicly on social media websites. I end up looking pathetic but I don’t care.
I post things like:
I hope you will forgive me one day so we can build up a better relationship
or I tag you hoping you will comment back.
I am looking after your queen. I won’t let you down.
I comment on those silly quizzes you do that pop up on Facebook, like
WHAT NATIONALITY SHOULD YOU BE? –
ME: You got you look like a Spaniard – haha! funny I got I should be American (silence)
New comment from a friend: I got Portuguese
You to friend : you look Portuguese
I don’t want anything from you . Okay that is a lie. I only want a bit of your time, a few words once a few years.
She warned me not to go there again. I wasn’t prepared to have my heart broken again.Well, not broken but pumping with less voracity than before.
I know I wasn’t the most affable of characters all those years back. I mean what did I know at 12, 15 years old? 24 years old ? Not much.
Yet, that was when you first turned your back on me.
I know I have mental health issues and to you it’s all just,
DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA
A heads up? It’s not been a fucking picnic or tropical island holiday for me either.
Do you ever think about me?
What do you feel when you look at a picture of me? Do you look at pictures of me?
Are you so distant with everyone? We’ve been drunk and stoned together and you are a legend at Karaoke . Over the years, I have seen how you make everyone laugh…
Why don’t you talk to me when I Skype? I know I fall way down the bottom of the hierarchy chain of the many girls in your life.
To have a slice of your heart…
Well, of what is left to give. Is that what it is? You haven’t got any more heart to give?
I don’t want much… a few words, a phone call – no maybe that is too much..
Okay ,what about a teeny tiny interest in my life on social media perhaps… You live so far away and it’s my only source of contact.
Why do you reply to other peoples comments on what you post but not mine?
Why don’t you reply to my emails?
I’m not bad. I’m actually a fucking awesome person. Why can’t the past stay where it is.
Don’t judge me.
I don’t judge you.
I thought I had closed the door on ever having a chance with you again. I opened it again three months ago,, feeling we were in a more equal position. Me being older and you being older – wiser they say..
Never mind, I have googled the meaning for indifference again and read it out loud,to remind myself.
I can’t make you love me or want to contact me. I know you are going through hard times – if you must know-
we all do .
Maybe if you decided to chat properly with me I could make you laugh. We may find out we have more in common than you think.
Done with this post. Finally got it out of my head. I can move on again.
No blame.
Never blame.
I am an adult and I choose to be happy.
I don’t resent you.
I am curious to know you.
I am sure if you let me closer, you would find I actually like you and love you- unconditionally.
But it is cool.
You are over there and I am over here.
Living our lives.
Your blood runs through my veins.
Nothings changed and that is cool too.
Indifference it is then, dad.
These voices
These voices in my head gossip it’s a constant source of bedlam.
They never stop,
They never leave.
Their constant trolling,
There incessant banter
Sparks a hell-raising fire
Until I kick out from cracking up from all of their heckling.
I imagine a dark horse rescues me so I can canter away, breathe in the ocean air.
Keep up this distraction forever.
These voices make me pull at my hair, I see I have a few grey hairs now.
Droopy disproportionate boobs.
I fear the larger breast a whole 2 cup sizes bigger needs to be stabbed, squeezed, cleansed from the infected fat.
If only this would quell these voices in my homely self made asylum.
Perhaps my patients would snap back into reality
Snap out of their various maladies.
Even when my glass house shatters
These voices know I’ll glue back each piece bit by bit in an attempt to make myself better.
These voices know they can always come back.
Rent-free
The foods on me.
Feeding on the folds of my imperfect flaws.
That emotion I can only describe as fatness.
A feeling, a thought, a moment, an eternity, a sense of a loss of control.
It comes and it goes
It takes a second glance
Catches me off guard.
I have to take pictures to believe I am not hallucinating. Pictures lie.
They do and then a second glance and they don’t.
They do and they don’t.
They do and they don’t.
They do and they don’t.
This is what these voices chant.
That fatness comes
That fatness goes with a second glance.
Another thought pulls through for me
One second glance
One more chance to be lucid.
To survive another day
To survive another day
Only for these bastard critters to gorge on my mind.
Make all their fears mine.
These voices, they scream at me.
They yell at me.
They tell me to go away.
Often when I wish to disappear I dissociate
Have a rest
Go on autopilot.
Leave the carnival of freaks to cast me out.
I want to process what I hear, what I watch, what I read, what I see without them humming their filth in my head.
I want to be present
Tune into my world
Reality.
where it truly matters.
I don’t want to miss connecting with my loved ones.
These mouthpieces…
I have nothing left to say.
Last night I called Samaratins
I’ve always been skeptical about accessing services such as Samaratins however since I’ve been actively trying to help myself become mentally well again, I reached out via email to find uot more about Samaratins.org and what services they can offer me – I thought I had to be suicidal to get in touch with them.
I’m currently building up a post crisis plan and contingency plan with the Mental health team – my psychiatrist, my Psychiatrist community nurse and support worker and other services in my community to get back on track. I thought I would share my experience on my website blog. This is how it went.
I emailed Jo ( all volunteers are trained and called Jo) to ask for further information. Jo got back to me to ask me for a bit more background and gave me a link to the samaratins.org website.This is what I had to say.
Hi Daisy
It sounds like you and your CPN are doing great work together.
Samaritans is a 24/7 listening service. We are currently available on the phone, email and by letter. Can I suggest for a more detailed definition of our service you visit our website www.samaritans.org.Is there anything you would like to talk about tonight, is there anything worrying you or is there something you would like to share with us about how you are feeling?
Hi Jo
Erm… well, I have been a long time service user with lengthy inpatient and outpatient stays in the hospital for bipolar, EUPD and chronic anorexia.
I tend to go in a cycle with how I escape from my thoughts and emotions instead of regulating them.
I’m in that place where I’m highly
Motivated to get to the place I was in from 2013- 2017
I achieved more in those few years than in my entire lifetime,
Apart from my career in travel.
I have a lot I want to do with my life and pass on what I’ve found out to help others.
I’ve volunteered my heart out up until 2016 because I was studying my BA at the time. I fought social services, my family and my 9-year-old daughter’s paternal father in court for 16 months. On the 05 may 2015 I addressed the judge myself and she was and is discharged into my care with full parental responsibility & she is a phenomenal child. I can’t believe she is my child.
I was never going to get married nor have children until I hit my 30′ s. Both just seemed ” to happen”. Many traumas and bad relationships, abortion and boom! By the age of 36 married and one 6-year-old.My eating disorder has always been a big problem for me.. I’ve been starving myself or self-medicating for most of my life.
In 2017 my body nor my mind could take on everything I set out to do. I was volunteering 5 days a week 9- 5 pm. I was asked to do my WRAP co-facilitator course to do workshops; I had completed the first year of my MA 60 credits and a post-graduate in the humanities with high merit. I had been married for a year. My gran died a horrible, drawn-out death over 3 days in March 2017. I had to decide to take my aunt off life support because my Mom didn’t know what to do. My aunt died in our arms( at hospital snowed under morphine a few months later). I had to support my mom who is ill at times and be “there” for her.
My weight was getting low and it gave me a huge buzz. It’s the best high ever. No drug compares in my opinion to feel my bones protrude or the scales getting lower or that power I feel.
Unfortunately, I started self-medicating with illicit substances and I ended up doing one of my worst suicide attempts in March 2018. I insisted on carrying on with the final year of my MA. I had split up with my husband ( we are back together), My daughter was more or less living at my mom’s place more than she was in her own home. Most of the time I didn’t want her to see me out of my head, or out of control.
I was a single mom & My mom reported me to social services in 2018 within two weeks and then went to Miami for 5 weeks for a break! I received my lowest mark to date and I decided to end it. My mom had a hunch because that night I didn’t want my daughter at home with me.
Anyway, 9 hours in ICU and my Mom ( who was once part of my daughter’s care support package that I discovered and used as to persuade the judge I could look after my daughter with the help I had my daughter to look after and I carried on self-medicating and I had to go through a core assessment with a social worker’s (alone this time and I reached out my child’s school for support stop my child from being thrown into a highly flawed social care system. Twice in that year. Mom rang them again when my daughter was at her home.I made an appointment with the doctor and I walked to the surgery. My mom was complaining about taxi fare etc.. I was hyper however the doctor ” made” my mom ring social services again. Back to 2018
My psychiatrist said I was in psychosis and I think the only reason he didn’t section me is that… I don’t know. He has known me for 15 years! I had my child to look after… I’m still not sure why he didn’t section. I think my then C.P.N. stuck up for me and I was put onto fortnightly injections to show compliance. The side effects were terrible. My mom took me to the hospital to take another medication to counteract the side effects before leaving to go abroad.
It was a rough couple of years from March up until 2019.
I was self-medicating daily I’ve (never been on heroin, or crack or ketamine.
I was in toxic relationships.
I didn’t care about my weight then. My nose was falling apart and I was losing my daughter to my mom at a fast rate.
I still wasn’t dead!I took a really big overdose in Feb 2020. My former care co-coordinator didn’t think my cries for help were serious. My friend kept me awake on the phone. He wanted to call the ambulance. I begged him not to because of my daughter.
I got back with my husband in early 2019.
We had to get an injunction on a guy I allowed into my life. We weren’t good for one another. I seem to attract men who need me for finances or something…
I need them to be assholes to me to make sure that I can never trust my husband. The one man who has never disrespected me in 9 years and I’ve done a lot of shitty things to him
In May 2020 I had had enough.I had been studying suicide manuals I found on the internet and decided to follow the overdose step by step guide. I ended up in a coma for 5 days and wired to tubes for a further 5 days in ICU.
For 2 months I was on a high. I was self-medicating on my Eating Disorder again. My mom and I have always clashed I was living with her trying to get away from a home with bad energy.
It didn’t work out with my mom and my daughter and my cat and my husband living at our current home. She threw me out in front of my daughter and as an excuse, I don’t know
I became stuck in my old habits. It was that or my eating disorder. My choice. My mom threatened to take me to court over my daughter numerous times for my drug use. I lost a lot of time with her my daughter.
I lost confidence in my mom Abilities again.I was spending crazy amounts and stopped caring again. I have reached out to every service in my area and say I’m too complicated. My issues are too ” complex”.
I asked for a new care coordinator ( June 2020) and she saw me in crisis mode for 2 months. In Sept 2020
I put on 1 kilo ( in my head or physically. I was self-medicating so I had stopped bothering about scales.
That day I did something I haven’t done since I wad 17 years old.
I’m 39 in November. I stabbed my right-hand breast repeatedly and my inner thighs. Then bought 2 scales.
I then tried to jump off a well-known bridge for suicide attempts the same night.
My psychiatrist sent two psychiatrists to assess me to under the mental health act section 2 1981. .I think.
Earlier that day,
I walked out of his office screaming at my psychiatrist to discharge me from the enhanced team for people with severe Mental health input.
What was the point in taking prescribed tablets alone when I have been knocking on every door for DBT and therapy?
I spoke frankly with the assessment team and I wasn’t detained
I had a massive blow out 6weeks ago..
My mom had taken my girl away 1 day after we had discussed a plan and strategy and the boundaries and goalposts were moved according to my mom’s mood and demands. I decided f *** it. I was in a bad way and then I fought my mom for my daughter. I got her CPN involved, school. I told her secrets to my family. I betrayed her because I wanted my baby girl back.
She’s been home with me for just over 2 weeks &our bond is good. She is back into a good routine. I’m loving our bond, her age, her interests and her love.
I’ve thrown me into various therapy apps to get better, recovery apps, happy apps, registered to do volunteering again. I’m writing on my website again.
I’ve added a music blog to my website -it focuses on music artists I find and interview them on their career, creativity and thoughts on Mental health and their own experiences. My next feature is ready to publish by early Nov.
I’ve signed up to do loads of volunteering skill courses – peers mentoring etc…
I’m redoing my WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan
Learning DBT on my own.
. I haven’t used illicit substances for 8 weeks and I am higher than I have ever felt.
I’m starving myself again. I don’t like it, hunger, the dedication it takes. I do like the highs and my BMI is down to 17.1. I was living at a 19 – 20 BMI from 2018 until now…
. I’m happy because I’m investing my time in my family and buying us things. It feels good.I’m mindful of how much I drink because of calories and I can’t drink like I did when I was using. I become ill. I have a protein shake usually 2times a day.
. A few microwaved mushrooms, cucumber( not microwaved) and microwaved onions. And celery and herbal tea to snack on.
I’m very active. I love to keep busy.
Mentally and psychically.That’s a bit about me.
I don’t know what else to say.
I’ve managed to find a charity who let me have 10 zoom conference counselling sessions for survivors of rape, trauma and sexual abuse. My last session ends next Tues I have rescheduled 3 times!
I don’t feel suicidal and haven’t in 3 weeks.I don’t have time to ruminate or think about self-medicating in an illegal way. People don’t leave me alone for too long and at this point, I don’t feel suicidal. I feel insanely high on my Eating disorder I’m on a high because I am making positive changes & I have had to cut out my family to be the mother that she deserves and I deserve to be.
Best Wishes
Daisy
I received a lengthy reply with positive feedback back at 3 a.m. this morning. It was an email that served as a soundboard to affirm what has happened and what I am doing with my life. I found it a positive experience I would urge people to use this service even if they don’t feel suicidal .
Daisy in the willows 