Speaking of Normalcy...

 

I couldn't resist taking a cheeky snap of this mug when I saw it in a shop window.
I'm on holiday in Cornwall; land of smugglers and sea shanties and shipwrecks and ancient tales of hidden pirates' plunder. It's now home to thousands of artists (on account of the beautiful, flat light and the sheer sense of SPACE). 

Cobbled streets, winding lanes, laid back locals and sun soaked flora. The essence of Cornwall. Pints of real ale, Cornish pasties, and fish and chips fresher than any you'd ever find. The streets here are lined with gift shops galore; the type that you bump around, stroking pretty wooden shapes, painted in low tone shades - willow green, dusky pink, dirt track yellow...
It's as far South West as you get in the UK, and the sun sets here last. Days feel long and it's endlessly beautiful. 

I'm on a family holiday. The first for years.

I think we're past thinking we're a nice normal family. With two anorexics, an anxiety disordered mother, a control freak dad and another sister who, believe me, has her own scarring, we're hardly 'normal'. I'm glad we can (sort of) admit it (bar my mother). I'm glad we can (sometimes) laugh about it (almost). But, I remember a time when we couldn't. 

Many years ago, when the values were set differently, when the pride was stronger and the pain - rawer; we were  bound and gagged for fear that someone might see we weren't the "nice, normal family" that popped up, smiling and glossy and beautifully 'normal'.

You might ask the question, 'what is normal?'in an attempt to deny that there's any such thing. 

In my experience, those who deny 'normal' (mother), are either defending their hidden non-normalcy, or, they're just not weird enough. 
If the family is a piece of wood, pain is a plane, relentless at task with which it's charged. And the shape we're in now comes from years of scraping and turning and sanding and smoothing. And we're still very much a rough hewn hunk of wood, but at least we're not still in the denial phase of 'normal'. 
To attempt comparison is ridiculous... yet in some strange way, it's more painful to be at that end of the process. I still bear scars from smothering hands that insisted that we were 'normal'.

It's My Party...

... and I'll cry if I want to.

Okay so No Party and No Tears, but it IS my birthday...
...and whilst it's been nice in many, many ways, I've struggled to keep my smile in place. 
On two unguarded occasions  it slid off my chin, provoking the observation that I looked sad.
It's important to me that they don't think I'm sad today. 
The pain is more painful for those who watch.


My weight moved up by point seven of a kilo last week. 
I can't begin to describe the misery that this small gain has caused, or the battle which has ensued.
Yet, I know I have to kill this Anorexia.
I know it even as I skip manically; as I push my body up on breaking arms; as I reach a breathless forty on my knee - to - elbow jumps, and as I crunch unforgiven coccyx on the hard floor.
I know it as I push each coveted mouthful past guarded lips, willing myself to swallow, to allow, to stay.
Each grind of my teeth, a perfectly synchronised nod and shake. 
A simultaneous, stereophonic yes and no.


In all my wildest nightmares, I never once imagined that my birthday this year would be spent trying to claw my way out of Anorexia.

I hope against all hope that next year, the narrative will be very different.

What It Takes

As with all things in the mental health realm, the DSM IV lists a number of must-haves in order to be a Real Live Anorexic.

If you have been reading here with any regularity (or any memory), you may recall that my sister, who has spent roughly half her life being defeated in her attempts to starve herself to death, was possibly the case on which the DSM criteria is actually BASED.

Okay. Maybe not.
(But she could very well be)

For anyone interested, the DSM states that Anorexia Nervosa is defined by the following four factors:

• Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height: Weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight (85%)

• Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though under weight.

• Disturbance in the way one's body weight or shape are experienced, undue influence of body weight or shape on self evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of the current low body weight.

• Amenorrhea (at least three consecutive cycles) in postmenarchal girls and women. Amenorrhea is defined as periods occurring only following hormone (e.g., estrogen) administration.

Obviously, seventeen years of bearing witness to the horrors of this illness have taught me that in actual fact, the above prerequisites to the label of 'Anorexia Nervosa' are only the very tip of the iceberg.
I could name many more factors.
But that is, perhaps, for another post.

You could be forgiven for thinking that, given the fact I have lost my sister to the horrifying effects of this illness... given that I have raged at it, pleaded with it, cried to it and knelt moaning before its merciless, monstrous darkness... I would be the least likely person in the world to be drawn into its world.
You'd think I would be incapable of drawing others under the agony that wrapped itself around our family.

You'd think.
I thought that too.
Until something, at some point, changed.

Today I am 6 stone 5.

I'm not a proper anorexic... (which is what I wanted to write about when I began this post).

I'm very, very confused because I don't 'fit' in with the notion I had of Anorexia.
I thought that Anorexia had to come easily to those with it.
I thought that I was a 'fake' because I crave chocolate and all I really want to do is eat lovely food.
I think I'm crazy because I hate working out, but i have to, but I hate it, but I have to.... and my HUGE fear is that one day, I won't have the willpower to drive myself to run for miles, climb hundreds of floors, cycle like a maniac, cross train at high intensity, row hard and fast, use the resistance machines, do my floor exercises until I can't move.

Anorexia, if it is anything like this, isn't about suddenly hating food. It's about a spiral of absolute dread that you will lose control of it, even as it controls you.

Warning.

If you could see beyond the iron,

the posion spikes, curling wires

the skin ripped red and white

gashed, gnashed, wept upon

in fury, in agony, in hatred

raw, numb nothing

numb

nothing



You think your kindness

your prayer, your touch

would soothe

would stay

would answer.



Ha!



If you saw beneath my skin

Your lip would curl in the corner

and then twist,

Your tongue screaming in surprise

expecting citrus sweetness

sucking, now curling,

rancid overflow of bitter scorn.

Your hand would scream

scaulded, scabbed, scarred

whipped away, withdrawn

revulsed, repulsed

spattered with acrid pus of greed,

of need.



Inside,

I am putrid

How can truth exist

in such decay?



Stay away

I will infect those

who refuse to stay

on the outside.

I am afraid

that if kindness doesn't kill me,

Me will kill kindness.

Sadness

Careful crimson smile
Hiding sepia sadness
Hot tears streak my soul

In Hiding

I don't know what I should do now
'Cause I've exhausted all I know how
Still all of my efforts, they fail me
Leaving me broken and empty

I can't go on
Half living this life on my own

'Cause I'm hiding behind this smile
And I haven't come out for a while
See, there is this place so empty inside me
I'm hiding behind this smile

There must be someplace warmer than here
'Cause my teeth chatter, and I live in fear
But every attempt I attempt just impails me
Leaving me broken and empty

I can't go on
Half living this life on my own

'Cause I'm hiding behind this smile
And I haven't come out for a while
See, there is this place so empty inside me
I keep hiding behind this smile

'Cause I know I'm not okay, yeah
I know I'm not alright, yeah
I'm hiding behind this smile
Now I haven't come out for a while
See, there is this place so empty inside me
I keep hiding behind this smile

You see there is this place so empty inside me
and I'm hiding behind this smile
Hiding behind this smile

I was going to highlight the relevant bits but I'd have to highlight the whole lot.

Work is my saving grace. My smile is a good mask but it carries me sometimes. But then, I get home, and it all collpases.
There must be somewhere warmer than here.