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.

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.

Autumn - The Side Effects

A Post In Pieces

Again and again I stare into a murky pool of muddled metaphor and ill fitting adjectives in an attempt to find something powerful enough to describe the chaos of trying to recover from Anorexia Nervosa.

Plucking tangled fronds of slime gripped sentences that have no visible beginnings or ends... Dark words that, lifted lightwards, slide and slip heavily back into mud, resisting context and order.
Somewhere, there's a likeness between this 'independent' agony of being unable to adequately express the agony, and the quandary of being desperate to recover whilst being unable to physically complete the actions necessary for recovery to take place.
Re-feeding... This 'process' a mouth-less creature, starved to its skeleton, placed before a piece of fresh, tender meat. Driven mad by the hunger, its endless pacing surrounds the meal, carving circles in the earth.

I hold a license to eat but find my mouth has been stitched up.

Enough metaphors. 
I did warn you...


For those interested, these are the facts:

• Although I'm not in the unit anymore, I attend fortnightly reviews / weigh ins with the head consultant, a fantastically dedicated man with whom I have a very good rapport. 

• The aim is to move my weight up by following a strict meal plan. 

• The consultant's recommendation is that I return to the unit. I steadfastly refuse to do this. If you had to sit in a circle and discuss how you feel about your weight day in, day out for over nineteen weeks, so would you.

• I am managing to maintain a steady weight, although at 34.6kgs, it is still very low.

• My current BMI is 14.1.

• My ALT levels continue to be much higher than they should be. Doctors are monitoring it carefully. The nurse at my local surgery does weekly ECGs and takes enough of my blood for us to consider each other as friends. 

• I had planned to return to work at the beginning of next half term. Occupational Health, my consultant and my bosses have told me this will not be possible.

Importantly, I continue to see The Woman. 

The little house in the woods is my safest place and she is a worn piece of warm, brown leather with all the woody comfort smells of autumn fog and fir and fires.

She has been the one constant in the chaos, and although my financial situation reduces my time with her to once a week, this feels plenty enough balm for a mind  addled from trying to win a battle which bleeds deeply, no matter which side wins.  

I keep reading my flashcards (see Recovery Resources page). 

The mantras are clear and loud at the start of each day but seem to wane as the hours pass. Towards the evening, I can barely hear a whisper.

It appears that the coherence and volume of these positive statements, corresponds with the amount of food I have inside me.

Paint For Peace

I CHOOSE LIFE

Hitting Critical.

So.

I've been found out.

Big time.

The unit I have been attending for treatment for the last four weeks demand regular ECGs and blood tests.

Although I have been complying with their re feeding stuff when I'm there, outside of the unit I have been over compensating to such a great extent that this week I weighed less than when I started.

I have been cheating their scales very well up until a spot weigh on Friday.

At about half past seven on Wednesday evening I missed a call from a doctor who left a message asking me to phone back to confirm that I was being followed up by the ED unit.

My most recent ECG showed that my pulse was under 40.

I know my weight has been under 5 stone for some time and has dropped significantly.

I have been informed that if my weight does not increase this weekend then more energy will be packed into me during the day and I may well face hospitalisation.

The terror of the situation has driven me to eat like I haven't eaten for a long time. And yes, the food is lovely but the torture and the panic and pain

of re-feeding is almost overwhelming.

The pain of the swelling in my hands woke me at five thirty this morning.

My feet are purple.

My body aches.

I am drained beyond belief.

Shattered.

Until now, I have managed to maintain such composure within the group.

They value my support but I have not been able to be truly honest with them or accept any real support from them.

The Woman suggests that this is all defence, denial even.

I know she is right.

I have never been so grateful for her.

Clocks go forward tonight and, one hour earlier, tomorrow

brings the fresh prospect of sunshine and an endless stream of food to make me feel more swollen, bloated and out of control.

I have been strapped into a rollercoaster which has jerked forward unsteadily and set off to a slow roll.

The screeching and grinding of the steel on the old metal tracks is drowning out my shouts as I try to tell them I want to get off.

Please.

Please.

Excuse me?

Can you stop it..? Please. I need to get off. I changed my mind I want to get off stop Please PLEASE LET ME OFF.

The Difficulty Of Getting Something Down...

... is partly due to my inability to find words apt enough to describe the way I feel. This is compounded and made considerably more difficult by the fact that the feelings surrounding the food issues which occupy my mind much of the time, are not only in constant conflict with one another, but also shift precariously from a mode of total freeze over, to a frenetic clamoring of overwhelming proportions and volume.

Add to this the tide of lethargy that ebbs away at the desire to even attempt to find a voice, and the contrasting sense of compulsion to never sit still (thus burning calories almost constantly) and you have the ingredients for a pretty hit and miss blog.

Due to a binge session which my body won't allow me to purge, no matter how far my fingers get down my throat, I am battling the urge to just tear my stomach open and pull the food out by some twisted, self performed C-section type thing...

Nice.

I am, as of next week, beginning a program of re-feeding at a new Eating Disorders Unit.

The terror I feel is pretty much indescribable, but the backlash against the inevitable weight gain has been drastic.

I never knew my weight could drop so fast once past a certain weight.

I now fall into the "critical" category with a BMI that puts me at very high risk.

With a body that is so weak and painful, I find it almost unbelievable that I STILL fear gaining weight... I don't know if I will ever understand how on earth my thinking has become SO WARPED, so disillusioned, that death seems to be the ever-so-slightly preferable option over watching the numbers on the scales increase.

At this point though, understanding hardly matters and in reality, the agony of my family is my greatest concern.

A part of me is looking for recovery, still trying to cling to hope, desperate for balance and normality.

I've bought SELF HELP books on eating disorders for goodness sakes.

I'm not a self help book person. In fact, generally, the trite, over simplified advice given in them, kills me... that or the fact that an equal number of books which profess to improve you, your life, relationships, memory, income, confidence, whatever, are written by people who learned to write alliterative lists of rehashed proverbs.

Moving on.

Reflecting today, I realised that this blog is less and less 'A Journey Through Therapy' and has (excuse the pun) been devoured by my eating disorder.

It seems that, for the time being, it will now centre around the struggles of 'recovery' (albeit, merely a notional reality for me).

With all this in mind, I apologise to anyone who has been misled with regards to the content herein.

I have considered starting another, more appropriately titled space, but realised one blog was hard enough to manage. The Woman still wants to see me weekly, if this is possible and so I will still be charting aspects of what goes on in The Little House In The Woods.

I guess in some ways, I will be examining the effects of both CBT and psychoanalytic therapy and just how effective and useful they are for me, and perhaps, for others in similar situations.

Halt

It never fails to shock when you wake up in the morning to find death sitting on the side of your bed, waiting for its subliminal whisperings to wake you.

Refusing to so much as glance at the intruder, I got up and went through my Sunday 'to do' list.

Number one, buy salad stuff for lunches... Number two, bake brownies for colleagues' birthdays tomorrow... Number three, mark kids' work... Number four, gym... Number five...

Still ignoring the cloak of darkness, I shower and find my way downstairs, chattering about Jamie Oliver and brightly listing ingredients, envisioning birthday brownies in cheery homemade boxes, red with white polka dots.

It'll be alright, I tell myself. Just keep moving. It'll pass.

Two days later, as I sit in the doctors' surgery, I wonder if it would have somehow all been okay if I'd made it to Tescos to buy what I needed.

"Back in a bit", I said, trying to ignore the back breaking heaviness and the winter chill as I grab my bag.

I never made it to the front door.

Instead, I half crawled up the stairs into my bedroom, where I sank down against the radiator, slumped in a dazed stupor wondering if there was anyone in the world who I could call to for help.

I didn't realise I couldn't move until I tried when I heard mum coming upstairs. neither did I realise that I was crying quite uncontrollably.

I've since been signed off work for a month (which I won't take) and had a week off work.

Unusually (for me), rather than the time off being detrimental, it has actually helped and I am feeling better than I did.

My folks (my poor folks) have been amazingly supportive, desperately worried and willing support me in almost anything that I think might help.

In desperate depression, I scoured the web looking for a hotel I could stay in just to get a break. The darkness worsened as my inability to make any decisions left me feeling increasingly despondent and hopeless. I figured that I would probably just spend the whole time binging and purging anyway.

I've ended up booking a week in a sort of retreat centre that I stumbled upon.

I have no idea how it will be, or whether I'll last the week. I leave tomorrow.

Certainly, last week, I was far too unwell to go anywhere.

There's no internet where I'm going so I will have to rely on my phone to check here or to post anything.

It's a risk, in some ways... I don't feel as though I am 'safe' with myself at the moment. Tonight's TWO binge and purge sessions show that.

The Woman was very concerned when I saw her last Monday.

She made me go to the doctor (saying that if I didn't, SHE would). She also gave me her mobile and made me communicate things during the week.

I was terrified by this new step.

This morning’s appointment with the Eating Disorders team was terrifying but I won't go into it at the moment. Suffice to say, they expect me to start full time treatment with them when they get up and running at the end of February.

I fought a surge of hysteria as they told me about eating two meals a day under their supervision.

I can't imagine being able to.

After this, The Woman was a warm blanket.

Halt

Alanis Eat Yer Heart Out

"Isn't it ironic"...

...Alanis appears to state rather than question, which is probably just as well given that her definition of 'irony' sometimes (some lines) seems to be a little dubious (at best).

Semantic inaccuracies aside, she has an incredible voice (and tons of attitude) but the reason why I quote h

er right now, is

that I hear that line playing in my mind as I contemplate posting that today, the mind - cloaking darkness that has more or less disabled me since Saturday, was shot through with a narrow laser beam somewhere high above me.

And I've been like a drowning body who, in the last swelling, slipping moments, finds an air hole in the thick ceiling of ice above.

I haven't even been to work.

Can you imagine? Because I can't.

Today I walked around Ikea buying plates and bowls and other pointless porcelain vessels.

I want to move to my own place.

And all the time the Alanis song was playing.

My ray of light beamed from the numbers on the scales.

Isn't it ironic.

The lower I go, the higher I get.

And, I'm walking around Ikea investing in a future that I am doing my damnedest to end before it has the chance to begin.

Now, Alanis?

THAT'S irony

Therapy - The Return

Somehow, the monster had fallen asleep in the overlooked shadows of the cave.

And the cave, in it's way, had forgotten the echoes of it's clawing and shrieking; forgotten even the heavy thuds of the desperate turning as it tore deeper at the gashes of its matted flesh.

The cave fast forgot and its rock surface smoothed soft.

In the Friday floodlight, the cave prayed for dimmer light as the monster stirred.

"You're censoring a lot", said The Woman - (not a question, you'll notice).

I nod dumbly. Then I jest, "Just taking it easy".

Really though, I'm afraid to wake something up.

Need.

My worst enemy.

Need breeds need.

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.

New Year

If I had less alcoholic tendencies, I'd have stood a better chance of enjoying the first day of 2011. Sadly though, in characteristic pathetic and humiliating style, I was unable to withstand the temptation of hitting the bottle too hard at a party last night.

My body is not a happy one.

I suppose it could be seen as a fitting way to end a year where my mind and my body have been in almost constant conflict. A year of internal chaos.

Perhaps the battle can be added to the fact that I'm 1) very hungover and 2) half bloody starved, as possible reasons for why I begin this year feeling too weak to even get up today.

Unspoken words lie like bricks inside me. To actually write them would be exhausting.

Therapy breaks often leave me in a sort of blogging limbo, although this one hasn't been too bad.

I was comforted that the woman didn't seem to want to leave me. She even made sure I had her email, although I think she knew I'd never use it.

Boundaries keep me safe, even if they also keep me in isolation.

I feel as though I should probably have all sorts of resolutions but in all honesty, I feel too tired and, rather embarrassingly, too hopeless.

It's been tough enough resisting the urge to entitle this post: Same Shit, Different Year.

(Does anyone else remember that trend where nearly every cynical, smart ass person they knew had a tshirt which declared 'Same shit, different day'? )

Therapy Today

Here's my session in words I can only just manage.

Arms and legs crossed.

My leg is twitching restlessly (angrily?)

She is "disappointed" to see me in this space after a positive Friday session where, having starved for a week, I was on a high.

I am worried by the word she uses.

Desperation claws at my insides, screaming that she will never understand.

She asks what I will do when the purging is no longer enough.

I tell her I will begin draining the blood from my body.

She tells me that my body will replenish it.

I don't mention that I am picturing my femoral artery.

I try to resist the urge to look at the clock as she talks.

Her words are like little woodpeckers on the side of my head.

Christmas?

She wants me to think about Christmas?

Did I not explain that two days without work leaves me reaching for death? What will stand between us for two WEEKS?

She reminds me that she won't be able to see me on my birthday (which she is not aware of) and I wonder if it is significant that it's the only day she has had to cancel.

That's all I can say for now.

Just To Say...

Mostly at a loss for words, I haven't been here much lately, and although a part of me has longed to express something, I confess that I have sought the freedom of release in mediums less healthy than language.

However, so as not to completely abandon my blog, I am stopping by to throw a few words at it before I attempt sleep tonight.

What follows is a list of whatever pops into my head in the next few minutes. Bear with me. It's late, I'm tired and my head is a bit all over the place after a very mixed weekend.

1. I managed to join old housemates for a night on Saturday. We sang, danced on the sofa, took photos, went to a Moroccan, drank Mojitos (and some horrible purple concoction involving Vodka and Curacao), laughed and reminisced. I felt loved, lonely, terrified, happy and accepted.
2. Therapy has been just as much of a mixed bag. On Friday The Woman asked me if I needed to get to a hospital. She was worried and I knew why. I think i might have been worried too but I don't remember.
3. My binge and purge sessions have become more frequent and more violent.
4. Despite my general "avoid-like-the-plague" maxim regarding hospitals, I recently ended up in A&E because my weight got too low and my heart didn't like it. It gave me a fright... I also ended up in A&E with a colleague and her daughter, who had taken an OD. (Did I mention those things here before?
5. I have been spending a bit of time with a couple who I used to know a lifetime ago. They have been painfully kind to me and I am struggling to accept anything that they offer. I'm very confused and very upset about this but I won't say more than that at the moment.
6. I have been thinking about God and how I can ever really be a Christian.
7. I've discovered that Tesco Finest Turkey breast steaks have less calories than a hell of a lot of other foods and because it's 'meat', it looks as though I am eating a little more normally, thus making other people happy.
8. I will acknowledge here (for the first time) that I do think my drinking is a tiny bit of a problem sometimes.
9. I have organised a lot of stuff which has gone well at work lately. It's been nothing short of pure joy seeing the kids get a kick out of doing some of the activities and actually feeling a sense of belonging and worth.
10. I'm tired and tomorrow is another gym day. Sigh.

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...

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.

Very Hungry, Very Harrassed and Vaguely Hysterical

I'll be brief.

If you are one who is not acquainted with the fear-inspiring acronym 'OFSTED', then you might not understand why I simultaneously battled urges to laugh, cry and crap when I was told at midday that we were being inspected tomorrow.
My lesson will be hit.

Food. A pear, an apple, some lettuce, 5 baby tomatoes and... an endless chain of chocolates and boiled sweets. I could cry. It comes after a fairly restrained weekend where I worked out so hard on both days).
I ALWAYS have to go and sabotage my own efforts.

My dad appears to be so disgusted with my "serious illness" that he has barely spoken to me since Friday. Although I have no right, I feel hurt.

(Did I just admit that?)

Therapy. I really just wanted to get back to work for the evening.
We talked about something which has disappeared into the grey. All I can remember is sitting and wondering how I could change the subject without her realising. (Cos you've got to be clever to get away with something like that with a therapist).

Oh. And we talked about how an ED can stop you (one) going mad. And how a psychotic, perverted teenager, who I am teaching at the moment, suddenly (and completely randomly) said a word that made my blood run cold.
An unusual historical name that my (ill, and, quite possibly equally psychotic and... I don't want to say 'perverted' because she's not... Not in a sexual way anyway) sister had a strange obsession with.

Bed. I changed my bed earlier, figuring that if it's gonna be a sleepless night, it might as well be a sleepless night in clean sheets.
How's that for forward planning.

Maybe tomorrow won't come?

I HAVE taught a few arsonists in the past... It's possible that in the event of tomorrow, the unit I work in might be less of a building than it was..? Perhaps?

Perhaps not.