Distortion - The Extent To Which Anorexia Lies

I sit in the shabby hotel conference room, anxious for the guy whose innocent gesture has landed him a bidding price that is far, far higher than anything he can afford. 

Nobody else is bidding and my fingers are twisting themselves into tight, three dimensional infinity symbols. 
"Any advances on..." 
A grey suited, old man, wearing a felt Trilby, half rose and then collapsed in the middle of the room.

"Time... Time..." 

Time for what? 

A melodic voice in the distance

"... that time again..."

I lurch and my breath is caught and it's sudden: The realisation that I'm here, not there. I'm awake. 

Six am, in the half light of Weigh Day, and the Support Worker stands cooing at my door. 

I know I must leave the bathroom door ajar so she can hear me as I pee.

It's a long time since this felt like an indignity. 

I stumble down the corridor into the glare of the clinic room. Somehow I manage to keep shading my eyes as I peel off my nightwear.

The scales confirm weight gain.

I fight my way through a cloud of sleep - laden mist to calculate just how much.

I do, and I am not devastated. 

Perhaps I'm getting better. 

Perhaps I'm just too tired.

I pretend I'm still asleep as I crawl back into bed.

Miraculously it works. Until 7.45 when the alarm pips me back into reality.

Even as I write the word 'reality' here, I debate whether to use inverted commas, because actually, within minutes, the distortions conjured by this illness can transform your mind from a Ferris wheel, to a drop spindle for your thoughts. 

At six o'clock in the morning, I knew exactly how much weight I'd put on in the three days since my last weigh in. Approximately one and a half hours later, during which time I had done nothing but sleep, I awoke convinced that at least three days worth of weight had suddenly piled on and, were I to stand on the scales again, they would read quite differently. 

Just to make it clear: in this moment, I was utterly convinced that my body had withheld weight until one minute AFTER I stood on the scales, at which point, it suddenly and spontaneously added the pounds / kilograms that it had been hiding. 

Yes. 
These are the lengths that Anorexia will go to in order to keep its victim ensnared.  

And this is only one of the many distortions its capable of.

The fact that the mind can do this in a period of time when there has been no food intake, perhaps you can imagine the outstanding strength of some of the convictions that an Anorexic has after eating, the sheer havoc wrecked by having food in the body.

Although everyone has a different experience, I am often overwhelmed by the physical sensation of fat layering itself onto the backs of my legs and my thighs. At any given point in the day, I will suddenly be aware of this thickening of my body. I swear, I can FEEL it. I've been told this isn't possible, and yet, it's always someone who hasn't HAD the experience that tells me. Perhaps you have to have experienced feeding your skeleton, putting flesh onto bone, to feel it. 
Or perhaps it really is another of the distortion of reality... which is a frightening thought because, how will I ever know what's real and what is, in essence, a figment of the imagination. Like a phantom limb, the fat clumps on my body. I feel it and, I SEE it. 

And yet, as I do my calculations, I briefly think of the previous nights' anxiety; the conviction that I must have put on a least a kilogram (that's two point two pounds). 
I hadn't.

Can I really feel POINT three of a kilogram? 
Really?

The ugly truth is that part of my reality is almost certainly distorted.
My truth is not THE truth. 

Every Picture...

... tells a story, right?

Right.

Seeing as I am having great difficulty in communicating some of the ways in which my head is dealing with the treatment here in the unit, I figured that perhaps I could use some pictures. 
Cop out?
Perhaps. But at least it's something; and something is better than nothing. 



When I came into this treatment centre, my sister (the anorexic one) sent me this bracelet. If you look closely, you'll see that the simple piece of thread is tied to a charm depicting a little bird. 
I haven't taken it off since I put it on. For me, the bird is representative of hope and freedom.

I think one of the hardest things in recovery is holding on to hope. Right now, despite my weight being up to 40.1 kilograms, I can't ever imagine being about to shake this illness off. 

But I have to hope.
I need it in my spinal fluid. I literally need it to strengthen my backbone. 
I need it to give me the strength to keep going. 
I need it like the world needs a horizon. My world needs a horizon. I think it's a need that every human being has. 
Trouble begins when the horizon isn't visible.

Hope Is A Thing With Feathers

If life is a ragged nail, chipped and broken by the most menial of tasks, poetry is a glass file, reshaping and smoothing... 

American poet, Emily Dickinson is one of the most well known writers of the nineteenth century. 

All too familiar with the alternating pain and numbness of depression, and the paradoxical feelings of safety and loneliness which come from isolation, she poured her thoughts into poem after poem and, famously, a vast number of letters.

In what I consider to be one of her most beautiful verses, she uses a bird as a metaphor for hope. The poem reflects the simple innocence of hope, making the point that whilst it may appear as fragile as filigree, hope can endure extremes, harsh storms and the most bitter winds.

I made this poster for my room here in the unit. 

I look at it morning and night, every time I feel that hope may have perished...

I pray for Dickinson's words to be true for me.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers 

BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Hope?

I'm Still Here...

... Still in the hospital.
... Still battling.
...Still wanting recovery
and...
Still finding communication very, very difficult.

However...
I am currently weighing in at 38.8kgs and my BMI is now above 15.
Although I am finding weight restoration almost unbearable, I am finding that eating the food itself is less frightening.
I even enjoy it.

I want to begin writing about the recovery process and I want to use my experiences to benefit others in some way and yet, I still have so, so far to go.

Tomorrow I get to go home for one night after twelve long weeks... Or is that thirteen?

I think it will feel like heaven, and yet, I am scared I'm gonna mess it up.

If you're still reading here, 

you are more faithful than I am deserving, and show more loyalty than this blog warrants!

It's an Inpatient's Life

I began the following post on Day 10 of treatment.
I am completing it on Day... Thirty five..?
What am I still doing here?
I wish I knew.

Day 10

Ten Days after admission and I am just getting past the numbed haze of the first few days as an inpatient in an Eating Disorders Unit. I want to be positive and strong and cheerful but in reality, there are few words to describe the abject misery of the long, closely monitored, periods of 'enforced rest', that characterise the treatment of undernourished patients.

As a newbie, I have been placed on 'Level One Obs', a nursing term meaning a patient must be 'checked on' every fifteen minutes.

Words fail to describe the torture that accompanies the lack of sleep these 'checks' entail.

Prone to insomnia, I think I managed two hours last night. Sleeping medication has been prescribed but I am loathed to use it every night, meaning that I am cultivating an unhealthy dread of long, 'every other night,' shifts. Tossing and turning, I sweat on a rubberised, wipeclean hospital mattress, under a rubberised, wipeclean, hospital duvet, tortured by unspent energy and the cruel whisperings of the relentless Anorexic voice.

I get up and shower in the wet room, cursing the ever growing pool of lather which collects around the plastic drain. I hope to be on time for the discretionary extra glass of water that is allowed in a narrow, fifteen minute window, in the mornings.

Outside the clinic room door, a queue of barely rested, skeletal patients in varying states of undress, forms. A small plastic punnet of pills is pushed across the trolley. I swallow the seven tablets in two gulps. At least this is the chance for a bit more water. (Restricted fluids is part of the treatment and they swear that what we are allocated is 'enough').

Thankfully, this is as close to One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest as this place gets.

Breakfast is at 8.30 and comes with juice, but if you complete your meal within the allocated half hour, you are allowed an 'extra' water, tea or coffee.

Two minutes over and you're fucked.

At the table, I cast my eyes around, looking to smile encouragingly at my comrades who sit, eyes cast down, pushing tiny forkfulls of fattening foods into fear filled mouths.

Cheek bones clench painfully, accentuating the grooves around their mouths as they chew on branflakes and then toast.

I haven't eaten toast for about three years.

As a carbohydrate, it terrifies me.

Day 35

I was thought I'd be here for four weeks.

Come Thursday, it'll be five.

Last thursday I reached a BMI of 14.1 and weighed five stone 8 pounds. It feels like such a lot.

I've had time to get to know the ropes a little, although, it doesn't make them any less painful to climb.

I won't continue with a blow by blow account of the days here... Suffice to say that, when you are assessed and deemed  'cognitively well enough', you are allowed to join certain 'groups' which take place twice a day, both an hour long.

Days are structured around the three meals and three snacks. Each of these is followed by a period of 'enforced rest', during which time we have pulse rates, blood pressure, temperature and sats done.

I can't fault the care here. The team are outstanding, though there are many times when I would gladly escape their attentive listening and their constant presense.

The worst thing about this place (aside from the obvious and the ensuing weight gain) is the complete lack of privacy.

The doors to the bedrooms have little windows and staff patrol the corridor at regular intervals, day and night.

I am currently allowed out for two, 'unaccompanied' 5 minute walks.

You can imagine the pace of these.

Twice a week we are woken at six for weigh in. I'm usually the first because I've been awake for hours, sweating on the rubberised hospital matress, which still makes me boil in my own skin despite the fact I have a blanket and two sheets seperating the rubber and my body.

We're spared little dignity as a member of staff stands outside the slightly opened bathroom door, waiting to listen to us pee so they know that the figure on the scales is a reflection of our 'true' weight.

No room for stagefright.

No room for cheating either, as we strip down to bras and knickers to stand on the scales.

Mondays also entail enduring one of an assortment of unhelpfully similar acronyms; a CPM.

Daunting to even the most seasoned of inmates, this requires that you sit before a selection of senior team members who feedback on your progress, sanction (or not) each of the three requests you are allowed to submit for consideration, and discuss the efficacy of your mealplan.

Mondays are rarely dryeyed days for the majority of patients.

I have all that to look forward to in the morning.

My stomach churns as I type, unable to digest the huge portion of ice cream and rhubarb crumble, unable to face the numerical realisation of my inevitable weight gain, and unable to face the impending bowl of bran flakes that lies in wait for me at nine thirty this evening.

An Announcement

Being as my BMI is now below 13, I have been referred for inpatient treatment.

I go for assessment on Tuesday, admission on Thursday.

Anorexia is a thief like no other.

It steals my holiday. My choices. My words. My mind. My relationships. My chances. My sleep. My health. My bones.

And that's not even the half of it.

I'm numb and very, very tired.

Resolution

Eyes cast down, twisting a strand. of hair, my fingertips approach the keyboard in small, shuffling steps. 
 Guilty child.


"Ridiculous!", I tut. 
'It's a blog! 
There's no pressure to write!
I have no obligation to it! 
It's just a stupid piece of cyberspace! 
Not using the space does not qualify as 'neglect'!'


... And yet, I feel guilty for not observing the discipline that is attempting to write creatively, or at the very least, honestly.


So I make a very dubious resolution, to surf less and type more. 


No doubt time will show just HOW dubious that is! 


And no doubt, my fingers will continue their shuffling steps! 

Oh Blogger Where Art Thou?

I've been eaten up by starvation.


Oh! The irony!

Feet

Happy Feet...

....

UNhappy Feet

Chilled Out Feet

We Sell Emotions - !

My folks recently came back from a trip to beautiful Tuscany; a celebration of forty years of their marriage.
I was amused to see a bag which used English (as places here use other languages to add to their 'classy' appeal).

It's the stuff of Dahl or Blyton!


As a very young kid I devoured Enid Blyton's 'Faraway Tree'. Something about the concept of selling emotions rushes me back to the bright and magical lands that appeared at the top of the tree... Bustling market stalls run by wizened old men and sprightly gnomes selling swirling magic potions and, perhaps, emotions.
Funny. I detested all fairy stories and as a rule, still avoid the entire Fantasy / Sci fi genre like the plague. 


Anyway.


How much for a couple of pounds of peace, two punnets of hopefulness and a slice of joy?

Tree trunks and Easter Eggony

What follows is a post I began writing a couple of weeks ago and then couldn't muster the energy to complete it. 
I'm returning because I wanted to finish but again, I find my mind can't produce the words I need...


**********************************************************
It's probably not quite accurate to say, 'I'm scared of myself...' 
More that I'm scared of the Anorexia that has taken up residence within me. I'm scared of the power that it has; the unyielding grip on a part of my brain; the power of a tumultuous ocean over a small vessel.


'Where is my anchor?' I ask myself as I type.
Good question.


I rarely refer to my faith in my writing. I'm not sure why, because spirituality is a central part of me. It runs right through my core, which would explain why it is that every time I have tried to walk away from it, all I've really done is walk around it, as if its the trunk of a huge tree which is wide enough to fit twenty of me in it. 
As I walk around it, the trunk appears to be different, hence I don't recognise it as the very same faith that runs through me, strong and woody. 


Easter, the trunk of the Christian faith, is a time of major celebration. For the Anorexic though, it is the equivalent misery of Lent's forty days rolled into one huge,  thick walled, Green and Blacks' finest milk chocolate egg! 
The eggs appear everywhere. 
Seductive to the starved flesh. It's like a tiny torture! 


 ***********************************************************


A few weeks later and I'm calmer. 
I'm still working. Building up to three full days a week. Exhausting. 
My weight isn't moving up but the desire to live is stronger.


Today I choose life.


I just have to actually choose to DO life. Not just conceptualise, theorise, spiritualise... I have to make it physical. 


"Easier said than done", springs to mind. 

Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow...

... I'll write something.

Today...

... tears.

And I'm sorry that I can't feel stronger. I choose to be positive and to smile and to keep cheerful, and yet, alone, I dissolve. Head in hands. Desperation trickling through my, apparently, 'skeletal' body.


I was informed yesterday that I'm 1 kilo off being admitted. I can't have that. Not when I've just begun a phased return to work... not when it'll cost me my job... not when I want to do this so, so badly.


So why then, when I just have to put on a few pounds, am I battling the urge to exercise?


It's madness this illness. A bulging, black mass somewhere in the brain. It seeps and creeps and pushes into spaces, forcing itself against walls of reason and clarity.

Time...

... flies.


I have been trying to write here for days now but I have felt wordless. 


I've also been exhausted because I have started back at work.


It's a trial... in every sense as it turns out.


I'm not sure I can cope with the anxiety it is provoking.


And there is no TIME.