Update

To my addled, heavy - saddled mind, the increasing pressure to write a blog post has borne a wormish hole through my head and I can't sleep properly until I have, at least, been here and written some words.

I don't even think it matters what they are any more; just so long as I break the silence.

What follows is a week's worth of situations I have seen myself in:

 

I've been scooped and planed and smeared with gel for an ultrasound on my liver, which continues to register stupidly high ALTS in a determined display of disapproval.

I attended a weigh in appointment at the unit, which revealed another small drop in my weight. Again, I was told I was unable to 'do' this and that I needed to be back in the treatment centre. 

Again I refused, knowing that they have no real grounds for threats whilst my weight is above 31.7kg / 5 stone / 69 lb... Today it stands at 34.0kg. I am incredulous (again and again and again) at the way this illness can CONVINCE me that I have put on at least 3 pounds every week. I can even SEE it.

Or not.

I saw The Woman, having completely forgotten to attend last week's session.

She has noted that lately I seem unable to allow myself a 'whole' of anything. I can't allow a whole packet of cereal, a whole apple, a whole sweet, and (judging by a regular pattern of totally unintentional lateness) a 'whole' session of therapy. (She doesn't appear to 'DO' "unintentional". Apparently (assume cynical tone) apparently its all to do with the unconscious mind.

Needless to say, my failure to even show up for a session was duly interpreted in the light of such analytical theory rather than the more truthful fact that I'm fairly malnourished and my brain isn't quite functioning as it should be.

The Woman has continued to be my place of safety.

Today we discussed Something Very Difficult (very briefly). I let it slide across me rather than through me.

We both know it was enough for now.

Tomorrow I am going away for the weekend with two friends.

We've rented a little cottage very cheaply and though I have questioned whether I can possibly enjoy a break from my safe but painful routine, I am now quite excited by the idea that I am doing something 'normal', with normal people, in a normal situation.

Normality is an underrated state, in my opinion.

Words being available, I will make some attempt at relaying just how successful I am in my attempt to join this fleeting dance with something outside of my world of body and battle.

Wish me luck.

Therapy Breaks, Angels and Emails

Despite offering a full English breakfast, Christmas film, popcorn and a Christmas Quiz, we never get a huge amount of kids in on the last day of term. In fact, at particular times of the year our attendance often becomes a real issue.

Government inspectors would like to suggest that somehow the curriculum is at fault and we need to offer "more", although they never specify what it IS that there might be "more" of...). Bottom line is, many of ours are so disaffected that they can't (and didn't) even turn up for a free trip to Alton Towers. We do well to get those who we do.

The kids we DO get in are often either those who might be classed as our more 'phobic' kids, who are too anxious to attend a mainstream secondary school, and those kids for whom home life is just so chaotic that they prefer the safety and security offered by the unit.

(Our very disaffected ones tend to be off mugging people at the first possible opportunity).

I'm digressing.

Over the last 18 months, one of my girls has faced particularly horrendous traumas. As her form tutor, I have had regular sessions with her just to offer support, listening and as much care as is possible within obvious boundaries.

As the last day of term wore on, this student grew increasingly impatient.

Unable to watch the film, she wandered from teacher to teacher, talking about anything and everything. I watched as I sat drawing "Christmassy" things with some of the young people.

I remembered how I had been struck by her reluctance to leave us for the summer... and also how badly her behaviour, her health and her attitude had deteriorated after that 6 week break.

Having a place of safety in the midst of utter turmoil is not just important, it's essential.

It's somewhere familiar, when so often, the world is overwhelming and frightening. It's somewhere predictable, where it's not necessary to walk on egg shells in case something or someone explodes. It's somewhere that nurtures rather than competes with or abuses.

And, perhaps most importantly for a small number, it is a place which will stay safe, stay familiar, stay concerned and stay THERE despite all the railing and kicking and yelling.

(The parallels are obvious...)

For some, coping when the place which holds them together suddenly isn't there for a fortnight (or much longer), is a painful and terrifying concept, which can result in a sense of hopelessness and self destruction.

Before she left, on impulse I ran to fetch the tiny doodle I had been doing.

It was of a small, silver angel.

Pressing it into her hand, I told her that the angel was going to stay with her over the Christmas holiday and that it would bring her back safe and sound.

"Does it matter if t

he angel comes back with me or not?"

(Instinctive reaction = Fear. Will I have to look after it?)

No, I told her. Even if it disappeared, it would still be watching over her and looking after her, but it was a secret. Not everyone had an angel. (And to be fair, a number of the kids would have used it as a roach for a spliff as soon as they got past the front door!!!)

You may well be asking where on earth all this is going... and you'd be right, because I haven't thought it out very well and as a result, it's a very convoluted way of saying something probably quite simple.

In a recent comment, JSS picked up that I had made some progress in being comforted by The Woman's concern before the therapy break.

It occurred to me as I typed the last post, that in some strange way, her insistence that she wrote down her email address (which I did point out was on the Internet) was an angel that she put in my palm. It wasn't about using it, it was about knowing that somehow, although my one place of safety was disappearing from my view, it was still there. It IS still there.

For a person caught in a trap, the knowledge that someone is coming back for them, may offer them enough courage to hang onto life for an extra minute.

For the teenage girl forced to live with someone who ruined her childhood, maybe the thought that an angel hears her cries, is enough to make her feel heard until we can.

And for me, maybe merely having the option of communicating, is enough to remind me that she would still hear me.

Let's hope so.

Free Up Your Mind. Then Let Me Know How You Did It.

It's (not very much) like having the jaw of a steel toothed trap clamped on my bare foot.

It's nightfall in the jungle and I'm faced with the decision to either stay still in the hope that help will come; or to wrench my foot out of the trap (thereby risk bleeding to death) and try to find my own way to help.

Either way I'll probably lose my foot.

Is it more painful to suffer the slings and arrows of my wretched attempts to express some of the incomprehensible stuff I am feeling right now, or is it better to just carry it in silence.

Either way it feels like hell.

I've been lost since the session on Monday.

Faced with her, somewhat glib sounding, recommendation that I "change", I eventually found that I couldn't even be bothered to speak.

What I had been TRYING to do in response to the 'change' suggestion, was to establish HOW exactly, i should go about doing such a thing when, I feel little more than total despair.

"It's not despair", she states. "People in despair don't have the energy to argue"

"Right", I say, simultaneously wondering if I am 'all people' and also thinking (wryly)that she clearly doesn't know that she is talking to someone who can do two and a half hour long cardio workout at the end of a working day, on 4 small tomatoes and some lettuce.

Don't tell me about energy and despair.

So. What do I do, I ask.

How can I change.

"It's not something that you DO"

(and I roll my inner eyes because this is beginning to sound like I'm asking a rather pretentious self styled mytic to tell me what I should do to find a pot of gold)

"It's about freeing up your mind"

Oh GREAT. I AM talking to one of the above. Excuse me? Did you see where my therapist went..?

So.

Freeing up my mind.

That's what I need to do.

Free it from the rigid reign of control.

Who would have thought it were that easy?

Being a teacher, you fast learn the need to be a little creative with your questioning in order to appeal to the understanding of such a range of pupils.

In the hope of getting a more practical, directive type of response I ask,

"If I were you and you were me, what's the first thing you'd do after the session?"

(Please note, in order to "change")

Her helpful response?

"Scream".

Throughout the latter part of the session, that's just what I thought I might do (albeit involuntarily)if I could manage to crawl to my car, but when I did, everything felt a bit unreal and big.

I drove most of the way home, pulled up in a layby, and played a word scramble game on my phone. That's what I do if things get too much.

Chilled to the bone and blank in the pending darkness, I played game after game, absorbed in the obsessive need to beat my point score each time.

I didn't move untiil two hours later.

I'm dreading Friday.

I don't want to go back but I don't want her to think I'm being childish.

Pride probably isn't a great reason to go to therapy.

I've been desperate again today.

Alone in the house again tonight, I ate a small amount and then expelled as much as my gag reflex would allow.

In the last few hours though, I've gone and stuffed it up by eating sweets.

I can't change until I manage to change the desire to be thinner.

HOW do you change a desire THAT strong?

Answers on a postcard...

Bloody Therapy

To The Woman,

This hurts me more than it hurts you.



(I hope you feel it though)

Crashing In (On Me)

Words fly round my head at an alarming speed and yet hardly any of them connect.
The words play childish games, taunting me with their dance then darting away when I try to pin them down.
My thoughts often do that too.

Like a child watching a horror film, Monday saw me sitting in the little house in the woods, hands pressed hard against my eyes in the vain attempt to stem the flow of sobbed tears.
Why?
It's an effort to remember and as I type, I'm trying to get hold of a solid memory...
(5 minute pause)
I can't remember anything other than the sense of absolute despair that had been building silently in me. I had tried to keep it under control; tried to keep it away from The Woman; tried to ignore the feeling that I had been feeling as though I had run out of things to talk about in therapy; as thought there was nothing left for me; as though things would never get better than living with the dull ache of nothingness which sometimes curls me to crisp.


The weekend before had been complicated.
I felt left.

"We'll get you through this", The Woman's words were spoken soothingly but they sawed through the numb layer of post-emotional outburst and, without warning, prompted the unspoken question: 'Through to what? Through to the more 'stable' state of dull pain?'

I didn't make work on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I gave in to the desperate cravings for alcohol. I drank and ate junk. In a frenzied panic I stuck my fingers a far down my throat as I could.
Twelve times.
I'm emetophobic.

Yesterday evening, The Woman shocked me by talking about codes of ethics and professional responsibility.
She wants me to see a psychiatrist.

From seeming not to want to acknowledge my 'illness' (re, eating) to being suddenly deadly serious. Emphasis on DEADly. It's a hell of a leap that she seems to have taken.

'Great', I think. 'NOW she gets concerned'.
Apparently, she DOES take me very seriously.
VERY.

I thought she didn't believe me.
I thought she's been wanting to dump me.

Apparently not.

She says she won't ever dump me. I'll have to be the one to end it.
I don't believe her.
Give it time.

I'm split. Again. Split right through. Not in a balanced way though.

The split is between my knowing that I am ill and my knowing that I am making it all up. It's all in my head. None of this is real.
I'm too big. My body is playing weird tricks on me. I should be smaller. It's re-distributing the weight... Spreading it around so as to make me look larger than I should.

I want to apologise for this inelegant post.
I want to apologise for nearly everything.

The Woman promised that she couldn't contact my doctor unless she thought I was suicidal.
I thought, "thank God I haven't told you more about the way I'm feeling".

OFSTED

It's never ideal when your Wednesday feels like a Friday and your Thursday, a Monday.

As hinted at in my last post, the main reason that the week has felt much longer than the four days it has contained thus far, is that the 'brown letter' (nowadays, 'the brown phonecall') arrived on Monday lunchtime announcing the imminent arrival of an OFSTED inspector. When I say imminent... I mean he would be darkening our doorstep in precisely twenty one hours time.

Twenty one DAYS may offer enough time, twenty one hours however, is barely enough time to get off the toilet after receiving the terrible news.



For the benefit of my sweet blog pal abroadermark, the name OFSTED is to teachers, what the name Voldemort is to Hogwarts.

Sadly, OFSTED, is not just a figment of an incredibly well utilised imagination.


The fear inspiring acronym stands for: Office For Standards in Education. I won't go into it in too much depth because it all becomes slightly political and I'm not really that way inclined! However, whether they are ultimately beneficial or detrimental, the organisation exists and, when inspecting your school, stress and anxiety levels go through the roof and people begin to behave in an extraordinary manner.



I suppose in some ways, OFSTED can bring out the very worst and the very best.

They have the power to close you down if your school or unit fail. And it does happen. Which may well be a good thing in many cases.



Happily, we passed. And not just with a 'satisfactory', but with a 'good'.

My individual lesson received a 'good with outstanding features'.

I was amazed because I had felt it went badly.

I was nervous and felt that my questioning reflected my nerves.

The relief is hard to put into words.

I think it is the first time in eight years that I have considered that perhaps, I judge my teaching too harshly. Perhaps my bosses and colleagues haven't been lying to me all along.



The idea made me want to cut when I first had it. But I didn't.



I have lost weight but tonight I have binged on chocolate and jelly beans. I have two weeks coming up where I won't have to answer to anyone so I will be able to eat or starve as I please.

I can't wait.



I'm so sorry I am behind in reading people's blogs. I hope to catch up this weekend.

I've written a lot more than I meant to but wanted to answer the OFSTED question and I should probably mention therapy, which, at the moment, is quite like as series of very expensive chats. I'm trying to work out whether this is partly her ploy to drop me.

If I thought she wouldn't want to make light of it, I'd tell her how it is for me. Not that I haven't tried, just that I feel that she doesn't want to know it.
It's far easier to concentrate on all things joyful.

Please Sir... Can I Have Some More (Time)?

Four times a week I put myself through a pretty rigorous workout at the gym. Part of my routine is to run at least two miles (for 'run' read 'sprint') on the treadmill.
Being familiar with this torturous piece of equipment, I understand how it has evolved as a common metaphor to denote the state of travelling on a seemingly relentless path or journey, exerting effort yet not really getting anywhere.

MY reason for thinking about treadmills at this moment in time is not however, to illustrate the tedium of routine (although, when it comes to forcing myself to exercise to the point of near collapse, there IS that) but to reinforce my sense of having literally hit the ground running.

As with most people, returning to work after a long summer holiday is a shock to the system.
I hit the ground running last week, and I haven't stopped to even catch my breath since.
It really has been like landing on a treadmill which is already moving at ten miles per hour... Which is a horribly convoluted way of explaining why I haven't been here or on anyone else's blog.
I have burned the candle at both ends only to find that the candle hasn't been long enough.

Talk about mixing metaphors.

So.
A brief update.

With the return of work comes the return of my routine. It has been something of relief, although to describe it as such seems to infer the presence of a somewhat masochistic streak.

My weight, which (to my distress) had gone up (mainly to please my family) has now gone down again. This is largely due to the fact that my folks have been away on a holiday.
They return tomorrow and so, I write with a certain amount of dread at the return of 'the watchers'.

Following a two week break, I had my first therapy session on Monday.
I had no feeling about it as I drove to the little house in the woods. I have barely missed her. Perhaps because I couldn't afford to.

The session seemed to last for at least forever and at one point, I wondered if she had forgotten the time and gone into another session.
Apparently not.
Whilst she has been on holiday I have been utterly self contained and yet, whilst detailing my weekend (part of which was spent being a carer to my - very heavily medicated - sister) I had to stop talking as I was unexpectedly overwhelmed by horrible, strangled tears caught in my throat.
Embarrassed I assured her I was fine and that I hadn't been at all upset about it.
She wondered whether I had been ok because I hadn't allowed myself to experience it until I was back in therapy.
(I wondered whether there was an argument for the fact that I don't feel bad until I have therapy and therefore, the whole thing is actually making me worse).
Hmm.
Something to ponder anyway.

Aside from that, I found myself looking at The Woman's familiar, tan colour shoes (which I'm sure I've never really liked before) and feeling a sudden mixture of relief, familiarity and comfort.
Odd, I know. (I did wonder if I'd gone totally, barking mad)
Guess it shows how much time I must spend looking at her feet! <--- (As I write this observation, I am reminded of a line from one of Byron's poems - possibly 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' - which refers to people walking with their eyes cast down, thinking "thoughts which dare not glow".
Another 'hmmm' moment, perhaps.)

Writing About Therapy.

Aside from the obvious prerequisite that one can actually recall something about a therapy session, I've discovered that writing about therapy makes at least two demands on a person.
The first is that the victim (did I just say 'victim'? Obviously, I meant 'client') is able to find words for what he or she is experiencing or has, in the past, experienced, and the second is that he or she has the guts to engage with some of the things that are being looked at.
Suffice to say, I've not really had much of either lately. More to the point, as a previous post explained, dissociation has made the act of recalling sessions somewhat impossible.

Today I was grateful not to be continuing in the same vein as last Monday's session, which, predictably (some might even say, conveniently) , my little chicken mind can't remember at this very moment in time.
We did however, end up talking about school days and white knuckle bus journeys and terror and little girls who cried in the mirror because they held so much hatred for the image that stared back at them.

We've been talking lately about the parts and, she has also thrown in the term, 'splits'.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of 'splits' (gleaned from a friend and a little bit of surf power) is that they are very similar to parts except that they are formed at a younger age and have to do with the inability to recognise that good and bad can exist alongside each other. So for instance, in my case, I may glorify someone, unable to see the 'bad' that they may have done because a part of me that contains memories of anyhing negative about the person is split off.
I might be SO wrong here. In all honesty, the woman may have explained but I can't remember, let alone get my head around the concept so...

Sometimes I wonder whether therapy is actually unhealthy...

I remember the days when a "split" was a spliced banana draped in velvet chocolate with sprinkles that were bad for my eczema; when "parts" were things like arms and legs and ears, and "dissociation" meant 'to quit hanging about with'... or... actually, a word that wouldn't even have been in my vocabulary.

Okay. I know I would still have been terrified that the mind thing is early onset Alzheimer's, and I know that I would still have been in pain... I know it's not a simple as all that... But still...

Still.

Words Outside My Vocabulary - Need

Need
1. A condition or situation in which something
is required or wanted: crops in need of water; a need for affection.
2.
Something required or wanted; a requisite:
3. Necessity; obligation: There is no need for
you to go.
4. A condition of poverty or misfortune: The family is in dire
need.
v. need·ed, need·ing, needs

Such a small word and yet I can barely bring myself to use it for the weight that it carries.

Since being in therapy, I have realised that I have an almost pathological fear of 'need'.
It's not something I can even bring myself to talk to The Woman about. (Note: dispassionate terminology for 'my therapist'... I have occasionally been tempted to refer to her as She Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken thus likening her in some way to Voldemort (anyone who has read Harry Potter will understand) but that feels a little harsh, even by my standards.

The word "need' is guaranteed to make me want to run a thousand miles. Not because of a desperate desire for weight loss (though there is that) and not because I am passionate about long distance running, but because the concept of need terrifies me beyond all reason.

I've started this post about eight times over the past few months and I've never made it past the third line.
Now I have, my head is a swamp and I know I can't possibly negotiate my way through in one go.
Bear with me. I have problems sticking with these things.

So... Casting my mind into the lifeless swamp of depression that nearly killed me about ten years ago, I have an image of me curled on my bed, hands over my ears chanting, "I won't need anybody or anything. Nothing can touch me".
A strange thing to say admittedly, but at the time, my eyes were unused to having to see in a darkness as black as this one and I had yet to master the art of decompression as I plummeted into depths I had never visited.
Somewhere in this distress, a determination never to need was consolidated.

I learned to hate need, and I learned that if I couldn't completely destroy it, then the most important thing I could do was to pretend that it wasn't there at all.

Need became shameful.
It became something I despised.
It became a cause for utter hopelessness.

A few months into therapy, I became quite desperately worried that therapy was breeding a need in me.
I was terrified of her. Terrified that I was losing control. Terrified that kindness was blunting my spikes. Spikes which were protecting me from needing anyone.

I recall one session a few months ago where The Woman suggested that I might miss therapy / her during a break.
I told her that I wouldn't ever need her, and the minute that I started to, I'd run a mile.

Today she mentioned her upcoming holiday.
And I wondered if it was time to leave or if it's all just in my head.

I don't want to need anyone or anything.
The idea simultaneously repulses, terrifies and enrages me.

There is so so so much more to this, but as I pointed out, I really will be swamped by the swamp if I wade too far out all in one go.