Can cats get anorexia?

Winston (my cat) is currently perched on the end of my bed, at half one in the morning staring at himself in the mirror. He has been doing so for at least ten minutes. Unflinching. Just staring. And I cant help but notice the sullen, contemplative look on his face. I am concerned that I may have passed on my insecurities to him. I tell him every day what a pretty boy he is. But he’s staring in that mirror looking very distressed by his reflection. Like he’s saying ‘Mum, am I fat?’ Perhaps he is cat-orexic. He is not a big eater, so its really hard to tell. I should stop weighing myself infront of him. I did have to shoo him away from my green tea this morning. I thought he was just being curious but perhaps he was trying to speed up his metabolism with it. And Oliver did have to rescue him from behind the fridge yesterday. He got all the way down there by falling, then was too wide to fit back up the gap. Or perhaps he is still self conscious about that scar on his nose. I mean, he shouldnt worry. He’s the skinny one. Florence is the Chublet out of the two of them. She’s the little fatty, he is the sleek and athletic cat. Not that I have favorites. Even if I did have favourites, it would most likely be Winston I favoured. He causes me very little trouble. He is quiet and content, he likes cuddles and kisses, has never ever had a toilet accident, is very neat and tidy and requires little discipline. Its HER who causes the drama. Always destroying the toys and worming her chubby backside under the floorboards . Not to mention the toilet training I endured with her. He neednt be jealous, because she is far more hassle than she is worth. Besides, she is undeniably the fatty out of the two. Not that Florence should lose weight. She’s very cute, fat suits her. She’d be hideous if she were thin.

Oh, he’s stopped now. It appears if there was a problem….it was merely a teenage phase and he has moved on. Good, I have bigger things to contend with right now. Like finishing a book on Banksy and shopping for a new iphone case online….Not to mention uploading pictures of my trip to feed the ducks onto my Tumblr account. Ive taken to feeding ducks. Its become my new theraputic exersize. Which is funny, because i was scared of ducks. But Ive overcome that now. We have put our differences aside, and I take them a loaf of wholemeal bread three times a week. I get a bit funny about it though, because I want to make sure everybody gets some, and get very upset if I miss one. Or if I throw a handfull, and a seagull steals it. I do not care for sea gulls. I may have found peace with the ducks, but seagulls are out of the question.

I think Im becoming one of those crazy animal loving people. I even have this sailor guy I met leaning over the ship edge on his way to Dubai to take pictures of whales for me. Because Im sure he has nothing better to do with his time. He seems happy to oblige. I always attract military men. I have no idea why. I consider it my contribution to supporting the armed forces.

Sigh

Sometimes…I think I am crazy. Really crazy

Bye bye uni. Hello real world

So I officially survived university. And now, it’s all over. I actually cannot believe it. My last exam was today. Didn’t study for it, didn’t care about it and left two hours early. But still, I went at least . Stupid really to have exams after the dissertation. I felt like my diss had taken every ounce of my soul, and left me with nothing to give! Haha.
Exam was cognitive neuroscience. Honestly, who cares about that stuff?!
I hate cog neuro. The only fun part is the word fusiform gyrus. Tee hee hee. I don’t even know why it’s funny.
Really proud of my disso though. Felt like I had actually put my heart into it, and I worked so hard on it. And it ended up having far more positive conclusions that I’d planned for.
I now have the panic. The panic of having no future direction. Not knowing where I am going, what I am doing. How I’m paying the bills!? I need to get a job. I have three, but I need a proper one. In mental health, in helping , in support. Need to fulfil my morbid lust for misery and solving the worlds problems with bracelet making and playdough. It’s never been a good thing for me to have too much spare time, and I’m all out of projects. Must remain focussed and busy and content. Must not lose new lease of life in a pit of self destruction induced by boredom.
Life is still good, and I still like breathing. Pretty sure I’m setting a whole new record for myself here. But I’m definitely not complaining

Xoxo

Dissertation MADNESS

The Study Hell I Am Living In

Last 36 hours of dissertation and I have been steered into crazy land. I have been in the same clothes for two days, (theyr not even mine either,m I stole them from Olivers washing pile when I got out the shower) with my hair in a greasy ponytail and sudacream slapped over my face. I look like an absolute tramp.  My living room has been transformed into a makeshift library. There are pens and notes and screwed up balls of discarded ideas littered everywhere. The damn cats keep stealing things and running off with them, and I am at such a level of stress that I have lost my voice from screaming at the pair of them to JUST FUCKING BEHAVE THEMSELVES BEFORE I FREAK THE FUCK OUT. They remain  nonchalant and uncaring, and continue to chew my fountain pens and shred my notebooks.

Oliver wont interact with me, as he says I have turned into a crazy person. I have that horrible thing where your brain is so mushy you cant remember the simplest of words. I have to keep writing scrawled noted to myself because I forget one sentance while writing the one before it. There are notes on paper, in books, on post-its and on my hands. I have analysed my five participants so intently that I feel like a fucking mind reader.

I think I may have inhaled too much highlighter fluid. And it has sent me quite mad.

I only take breaks from my crazy typing to chill out on Tumblr. Where I just got a lovely trail of abuse from some anon. Im so glad that people feel the need to take time out of their day to tell me what an ugly slag I am. I wish I had the time to give a fuck. Its a shame I dont. Its also a shame for them that Laura has such a way with words. Imma let her deal with it, and just bash on with my FAR MORE IMPORTANT LIFE EVENTS.

Whats that?! Katie focusing on the task in hand instead of getting worked up about something else because stress scares me and depression is a comfort? Ignoring whats not important and concetrating on the immediate requirements of my life!?

Clearly the real Katie has been abducted by aliens and I am some intruder sent in her place to complete this DAMNED DISSERTATION.

Six litres of diet coke today alone. Less than 36 hours before the big hand in, and I am no where near ready to finish.

I can so do this. I can do this. This is totally possible. Bring it ONNNNNN.

FML.

Normality

Im still normal. What the fuck?! Even though Im stressed with uni, and other general life goings-on, and even though not everything in my life is particularly positive every day…Im just kind of getting on with it.

This still feels strange. But I remain a content, happy little bunny.

I think this may be it.

I think Im in a good place, and I think I may remain here.

Fucking hell.

Some services should be praised

The further into this dissertation I get, and the more I analyse my interviews, the happier it makes me. Stressful and complicated as this process is, its making me more hopeful for the future.

We often focus on what is going wrong in the world of mental health. What is lacking, what there is not enough of, what is not being done, and what needs are not being fulfilled. My Aunt R always says that half the battle in helping people in mental health settings is convincing them you actually want  to, and that you are not the enemy.

But my honours project is showing me that there is movement in the services for self harm. There is potential. There are people doing good, and trying to improve things. Im really proud of the services I know of. They are doing a great job, and they are growing and accessing the people who need them.

I just wanted to say something positive about movements in services right now. Because there is so much criticism, and so many people condemning them for what they are getting wrong. They are not all getting it wrong. Some of them are getting it exactly right. There are people out there who can do amazing things, and trying to do so. They should get more credit. Im totally in awe of what some people are managing to do.

Im done. Oliver has left the towels hung up wrong in the bathroom and its driving me crazy (there is a system for towel arrangement in the bathroom. He chooses to ignore it. I suspect because he has a penis and is therefor incapable of appreciating the art of colour co-ordination and general laundry aesthetics) and I also have to go and text Bumbles some abuse for destroying the hotpants she borrowed from me last weekend. Note to self, attach crashmat to Bumbles backside before you lend her anything and get her drunk. I jokes, I love her. She makes me smile

Walking the bridge instead of jumping off it,

Im not blogging so much at the moment. At least not anything with much meaning to it, even though I have lots I wants to rant about. I think because Im having to write so much elsewhere, when I do find time to blog, I dont want to write anymore. Instead I spend all my time on Tumblr. Im obsessed! Its so addictive. I used to have another account, but it wasnt particularly cheerful/healthy. My new one is all happy and kittens and quotes and stuff. It makes me smile. It also probably makes me a bit of a sadcase. But Hey, everyones doing it. Its like the new facebook. And better.

I’m still over thinking the fact that I’m doing well mentally at the moment. Yeah, Yeah, I know I should just be pleased and get on with it. But I can’t. Besides, if you analyze it, you can learn from it, and it might help me stay this way.

I was thinking that before, it always felt like I was on a tightrope, trying to keep my balance, trying not to look down. I couldn’t ever stand straight or just stop to catch my breath, because I was too busy trying not to fall, which I always did anyway. Then I’d have to climb back on, and try again, never really getting anywhere, just waiting for the next fall.

But now I’m not on a tightrope. Another pathetically cheesy analogy, but now it feels more like a bridge or something. Still not firm ground, still suspended over what-might-happen, still a little apprehensive about the potential for falling. But it’s not so hard to balance, and I can walk a bit safer.

It does feel good. It really really does. Now that I’ve realised its happened, and that I hadn’t even seen it coming, there’s this sense of relief, and this nice calmness. I’m a little apprehensive, nervous that I could still fall, and that there will always be that risk. It means that if I do feel a little wobbly one day then I over analyze that too, and I start worrying that the fall has come, and it’s all going to cave in on me, and my little period of rest will be over, and everything will fall apart and…You get the message.

This is when I tend to get a little reality check courtesy of T, who informs me that I am freaking out over nothing, and that if I continue to over-think it then I am going to stick myself into a self fulfilling prophecy where I actually do become ill, simply because I expect to, and allow myself to become wrapped back up in a world I have the power to avoid, simply because stability unnerves me.  I don’t like hearing it, but I trust her judgement, she knows me far too well.

So yeah, for now I think I’m just trying to balance. Accepting that I will always have the fear of falling creeping up on me, and that the risk will always be there. But that I also am capable of managing it, and that I have been doing so for some time without even knowing I was doing it.

Other people had noticed. Apparantly. I seem more ‘with it’ according to a few friends.

How am I here\? How did this happen? What did I do right? Did I even do something right? Or did things just fall into place the way they were supposed to? I need to know if this is for real. If I can trust it, or if it’s going to be a matter of time before I’m back there. In a black hole of my own making. Writhing around in my misery, feeling like I have sucked all of the feelings out of the world and taken them inside me, leaving the rest of the planet cold and grey, while I’m bursting full of emotional turmoil. I want to stay rational. I like that I don’t feel crazy, or need to die.

Mostly, I like that I feel I achieved this. The pills didn’t fix it. None of the therapy fixed it. I did. Though not alone. I had beautiful people come into my life, and share what I needed to learn. And I grew from it, and somehow I found my way. I just don’t want to find out this is a false sense of security that isn’t going to last. But I dont think I feel like it is false. It feels real.

I think I’m starting to accept where I’m at. But I feel like I need to remember how I got here, so that I can stay here, and if I do fall, I can find my way back. Like I’m in Hansel and Gretel and I have to find a way to leave a breadcrumb trail through the forest to make it easier to get home if something derails me.

Life isnt so bad

Feeling pretty content today. Mostly because I am finally home from work, and just managed to catch the shops to get my Diet Coke. My addiction is growing; I think I’m hitting five litres of the stuff a day. Which is not good, since I’m allergic to it, and am now suffering the mother of all headaches.

I’m really easy to please these days. Oliver finally donated his navy blue trackie bottoms to my pyjama pile. This makes me very happy, and I genuinely believe I am the comfiest girl alive right now. I’ve had my beady, thieving little eyes on these cottons for ages.

The day was also productive. I’m exactly half way through my word count for my dissertation. Finally. All my transcribing has been done for weeks, and since Im done with my literary review and method section, I can start to analyze my participants. Joy oh joy.

So yeah, my little wobble during the week turned out to be nothing. Probably a compilation of several nasty hangovers, some related drunken regrets, some testing situations and academic stress. It would appear I am still ‘stable’ afterall.

I got a parcel from my dad today. The first one he has ever sent me. He usually doesn’t even send me a birthday card…never has. But he sent me a parcel?! Spontaneously out of the blue!?

It was a Zumba home set. You know the kit with all the DVD’s and the equipment. Toning sticks and stuff. There was a voucher in it too, for a salad at Harvey Nichols. It’s a joke, he knows I’m losing weight, and thought that if the zumba didn’t work; I could at least get a salad. I hate the food in Harvey Nichols and always have, but I guess it was funny. He also sent me a handwritten note, which was my favourite part of the parcel. He should have saved himself the seventy quid on the zumba stuff and just sent me the note. It didn’t say anything sentimental, or of particular meaning. It was just nice to know he had taken three minutes out of his life to write something on paper to send me. Old Katie would have been hysterical over this. Given my father’s preoccupation with my weight, and the fact this is the only time in my life I’ve been what he may consider ‘fat’. But new Katie is far more rational. The gift wasn’t an insult. It wasn’t a cryptic message from him telling me I need to lose more weight. It was just a nice gesture.

I actually spoke to him the other day and he asked how the weightless was going. He said that his girlfriend suggested Zumba classes, and he thought maybe that would be good for me, because it’s a lot of weight I want to lose and it’s important to tone up at the same time since otherwise, a big weight loss can leave you with saggy skin and stretch marks (I already have far worse stretch marks than my sister who actually just had a baby. To make matters worse, her body was a size 4, the baby was huge, and I , the infertile older sister still have worse stretch marks) He said that since I did so much dance training when I was little, maybe Zumba would be a good way to exercise. I said there was no way I could go to the classes, because I’m too ashamed of my size, but that I did really like the idea. My confidence got much better last year when I started using the gym, but lately I’ve done most of my working out at home because I just feel too big and embarrassed to be seen exercising in public. I like the sound of Zumba but am too paranoid that people will stare at me, and think ‘who is that fat girl kidding!?’ I’m sure I’m far from the biggest girl who ever did Zumba. I know I am because I’m at 150 lbs, and my friend L is 210lbs and she loves zumba. I’m just not confident enough at this size.

Anywaaaaay, that’s why he sent the present,. So I could do Zumba, but at home. It probably seems ridiculous, but it made my day that he would think of me like that, and do something so nice for me. You know, think of a resolution to help me do something I wanted to do, but couldn’t because something was holding me back. Behave like a father, some might say.

I know from his note that it was really his girlfriend who went to the trouble, and whose idea it was. But he must have cared enough to go along with it. And I accept that it’s not likely that my dad has changed. I’m not going to get my hopes up and think that he will. Just going to take it for what it was. A nice thing.

I just finished reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. Seriously think everyone in the world should read this book. I got so engrossed in it that it was literally finished in two hour long sittings. It is amazing. It mentioned ‘being sane in insane places’ which is my favourite psychology study ever, and he really rips into the DSM. Which is my favourite sport. In case no one had noticed, I personally think we should gather up all the copies of the DSM and burn them. Stupid book.

I’ve always liked Jon Ronson, but I didn’t know he has a third book too. Them and Us or something? I’m going to have to get it now. But my bank balance just rejected my Kindle purchase. Bastards.

Anyway, the Psychopath Test has given me lots of interesting conversations with people today, but I will blog about them tomorrow or something. I have to go watch The Sarah Millican Show. I love that show. My favourite bit coincidentally is where she talks to her dad every week. Her dad is so lovely. Meh.

xoxo

I hate how I let other people hate me

I feel much more in control of so many aspects of my life now than I did this time last year. When it comes to triggers, I can just deal with things better. I can avoid a lot of things that I know would set me off, and even if they do come round, I think I’m better at coping. Like, even if I can’t avoid the trigger, I can avoid the thought process that used to lead me to cut.

The annoying thing is that I still have no control over how other people behave. And for one particular aspect of my life that involves other people’s behaviour, I have no control whatsoever over how they behave, and very little control over whether I let it affect me or not.

I haven’t wanted to cut myself for a very long time. But tonight, I felt that urge for a split second for this very reason, and its fucking shit that it can still creep up on you. I suppose it is the same for any kind of coping mechanism. Someone who has been an alcoholic, but not drank for a year, will still have the urge to drink when a certain stressor comes up.

So, I’m trying to just get on with my life/evening, but it bothers me that people can still get to me in this way.

I’m not a perfect person. I’m not even always a very nice person. I can be horrible. I can say mean things, and I can judge people. But I don’t do it as a sport. Some people do.

You know what kinds of people piss me off? The kind who believes that they are so superior, and so perfect that they can put everyone else down. The kind who believes this to be true, but really, deep down, they know they are not perfect, or above you. They actually know deep down that they are so insecure, and so self deprecating that they have to put others down to make themselves feel better.

The denial is so massive, that they have to continually and relentlessly insult and demoralise everyone around them so they don’t have to face how little they really think of themselves.

I’m not perfect. But there are certain people in your life who you shouldn’t want to hurt. You shouldn’t want to put them down, or make them feel so low that they would be tempted to hack at their own skin. There are people you are supposed to support and love and cherish no matter what their faults are. Particularly when that person does nothing to you, other than try their fucking hardest to make you happy, so that you might not be so intent on being horrible to them.

I don’t go out of my way to make people feel bad about themselves, even when that is how they behave towards me. No No. I sit around like a fucking doormat, doing anything, saying anything, giving anything and accepting any way I am treated, in the hope that at some point they won’t will realise that I’m a good person and I don’t deserve it.

The idea that someone would be entertained by going through my facebook putting me down and slagging me off to an audience of other people astounds me. The idea that putting me down and slagging me off for things I am already self conscious about just makes me sick. When someone has no confidence, there is no need to kick them when they are down.

For me, making someone feel better about themselves makes me feel happy. It’s a shame that for other people, they seem to get more joy from intentionally stabbing at your self esteem even more makes them feel good about themselves.

What bothers me even more, is how I let it bother me. It drives me insane that I can know deep down I don’t deserve it, and have done nothing to make it acceptable. I hate that I can be so stable, and so in control, and that it can be so impacted by someone elses pathetic need to put me down and keep  me there, when I don’t understand what they get out of it.

---

 

Scared of dying.

I get these horrible feelings sometimes. It’s really hard to explain. They get triggered off by natural disaster type things.

It started when I was six. And at school, we were studying the city of Pompeii, and how it was completely immersed by molten lava when the volcano exploded, and how all the people died. They showed us these movies and pictures about how the whole city was still there, but buried under the ash.

It really affected me. The teacher called my parents to come take me home, because I got myself in such a state over it. I wouldn’t speak, and just sat there wide eyed and crying. I was only six, and it was the very first time Id had any knowledge of such a big thing having happened, and it was all so overwhelming to me. My dad came to get me from school. And I suppose understandably, he just found it all amusing, and laughed at me for being so silly. But he didn’t think it was so funny that night, when I couldn’t go to sleep, and he had to stay up with me. My mother was really angry about the whole affair and kept shouting at me to snap out of it. I still wouldn’t speak, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the horrible images in my head. I suppose he thought it would be a good idea to try and educate me. So he tried to teach me about volcanoes. Bad move. He starts telling me all about how Arthur’s seat in Edinburgh is a volcano, which promptly set me off again.

I got really sick following that. I used to take migraines as a kid, and after that school day, I was in bed vomiting with a crushing headache for a week.

When I got older, it obviously wasn’t so bad. And I actually love history. But the big events always have a horrible effect on my thinking. Like most people, I have a morbid curiosity for all the tragic events that happened. But it does not do me well to think about them. They send me loopy.

The next one was Auschwitz, then the Romanov family murders and the whole Anastasia thing. Then the black plague. I get all morbid and obsessed with them, and they fascinate me, and I always wanted to know about them, but then if I actually thought about them too much, Id start getting all weird and …affected. I get this impending sense of doom, and this horrible crushing anxiety, like the world is going to end any minute. I can’t get the images of it all out of my head, and I start imagining that it’s going to happen again, or my head decides that it can feel the trauma of it even though it has nothing to do with me, or my life time.

Maybe it’s to do with being a generally anxiety ridden person. Or maybe I’m just that self absorbed that I can’t think about anything without imagining it’s happening to me at the time.

I generally now avoid taking any interest in big tragic events or natural disasters. Oliver is really into that kind of thing. Hurricanes and such. I shut off when he starts garbling on about it. And I usually busy myself with the washing up if he has the news on. I don’t like the news. It’s so selfish, but I just don’t want to hear it. I want to be in denial. The world is horrible, and I don’t want to picture it. Having said that I have an unhealthy appetite for documentaries (another nerdy habit of mine that very few people are allowed to know about) but not ones that are about the really big world tragedies. It’s the idea of all that loss of life. It’s the concept of all that death. All those people dying at once. Knowing that death was coming, and not being able to stop it. It starts me wondering how I will die, and when and whether I will know about it and whether it will be quick or slow, or painful and what comes after. The idea of nothingness, of not existing.

So the whole titanic anniversary is not serving me well. I hate watching the movie. I don’t actually hate the movie, just watching it. Once I’ve seen it, I can’t stop thinking about it, and all the people, and their stories, and the feelings they would have had and the thoughts that went through their minds. Oliver and my sister are going to see it in 3D tomorrow and there is no convincing me to go. Though I despise the cinema anyway, and only go at the start of a new relationship when it seems to be the one thing or whatever. Why is that anyway? The cinema is like the most ridiculous date I’ve ever heard of… Yet they all insist on taking you.
Titanic would be a no go. I have a rigid fear of boats/ships/open water that started because of that film. And I ain’t about to rekindle with the roots of my phobia.

But being the stupid, curious person that I am. I did watch the BBC special on it, where they went down to the wreck and showed you footage of the ship on the sea bed. What an idiot.

So when the anxiety kicked in, and the weird panic began, I realised something pretty good about it. If I’m sat here in a bubble of doom, overwhelmed by such a mass of death and tragedy, and am so scared about it all……at least that means that for now…death scares me again. I’m overwhelmed by death again. The idea of dying, and of having no control over the fact I’m going to ultimately die, means that it’s not something I want and crave. It something that terrifies me. And that is normal behaviour people! Normal response to the idea of dying. Fear and panic. Wooooo!

I’m not suicidal in the least. When I have been in the past, I walk calmly into traffic laden roads just to see if I’ll get knocked down, and I like the feeling of being inches away from a rushing car as it races past me, just barely missing me. I collect little bunches of pills and medications as a safety net. I stare into railway lines for an hour, just wondering…. I like walking home down the dark alleys and open empty fields on purpose, in the hope that some mad man will stab me to death. When theres no suicidal ideation, the idea that i no longer have control over how im going to die is terrifying.

Now I’m scared of it again. Anxiety has returned and I am officially a normal breathing human being who is filled with dread and panic at the thought of my demise.

Still, think I will curl up and watch the Parent Trap before I go to bed. Because its light and happy and reminds me of how me and my little sister would watch it eight times in a row from the top bunk in our bedroom, and quote it word for word, fighting over who was being which twin. She always wanted to be Annie, which was a pain, because she couldn’t even do an English accent. Actually she couldn’t do an American one either, but never mind.

Katie

xoxo

I think Ive been okay for a while and not realized…

Okay, so I know I’m really bad for over-analyzing things. And I know it’s bad. And I know it’s my downfall…

(Why is my kitten carting one of my Bambi socks around the house in her mouth!?)

So yeeeaaah, I know that you shouldn’t over think things. But I reckon sometimes you have to.

I felt really down yesterday. Just for a little while. I was fine all day. I actually had a semi-good day. And then a nice walk to work in the sun, over this hill I like in town. And I got away from work early, and had an equally nice walk home, pausing to take a multitude of photos. Then I got home…and BOOM. Downer.

Didn’t quite know where it had come from. I’d had a less that pleasant conversation with my family, and handed in an abomination of an essay that has no hope in hell of passing. I saw one of my best friends from school who I was anorexic ‘with’. (I know that sounds weird, but I very much do mean ‘with’ in the sense that we did it together, and fuelled it for each other, competing, sharing tips etc for years) Anyways, there I am at 150 lbs of sheer LARD, and she looks so painfully thin that you can almost see through her. I know anorexia when I see it, and I’m not usually shocked by it. But she really is at that stage where she can’t possibly keep breathing/walking/living for much longer. You know that stage where it’s going to be any day now that her heart gives in, or she passes out and is tube fed? Yeah. So it wasn’t nice to see her like that, and I wished things could have been better for her.

But I also felt that horrible, guilty, irrational shame that I hadn’t quite done ‘as well’ as she had. I mean in reality, we both had equally disgusting childhoods, and were evidently both pretty messed up little girls when we got involved in it all. Yet we are both at Uni writing our dissertations, so I guess something must have gone right. But that of course is not enough for me. I should have been looking at her (as mean as this sounds) and thinking, ‘’well thank fuck I got out of that, and thank fuck I didn’t end up like her’’ (don’t judge me).

But I didn’t. She looks like she is about to die of malnutrition, and I felt ashamed of myself for being so large. We were fiercely competitive about our weightless. We would even throw up together. And I always had this sick satisfaction that I was always winning. She could never quite get as small as me. And I loved it.

I guess now…she won.

Anywaaaaaaay. So I felt a little shit when I got home. Bit down in the dumps. Probably mostly because I didn’t like the feelings Id had and felt a bad person for them. But then I started thinking, about when the last time Id felt….properly out of control depressed/suicidal/off the rails.

It’s so weird. I hadn’t realised how long that had been. Usually I have always had an ‘episode’ or a ‘funny turn’ or whatever I should call it. It’s not like they were rare.  There was always a recent sequence of suicidal ideation fuelled crazy turns not far off into the past.

But I don’t know when the last time I wanted to kill myself was. Ahh wait yes, December. Still!? December is like….three full months ago. What the hell?

So this is mind blowing. No? I’ve obviously not been skipping through the woods with a smile plastered on my chops for months. I’ve had ups and downs. I’ve had little crying sessions in the bath, and I’ve had big smiles.

But I haven’t had that out of control downward spiral that I became so accustomed to.  I haven’t gotten to that sort of…peak where there’s no going back and you can’t stop yourself, and there’s no way out, and it’s never going to get better and you need to just die to escape it all.

When I realised that I actually felt a bit better. I got home last night, and felt that twinge in my brain…where you feel something shift and you just know it’s coming on, and suddenly realised that it had been a long time since that had happened. And it’s been rather peaceful without it. So it can quite frankly fuck the fuck off.

I just wonder why?  Not content with it until I know why it’s been so long. It could be that I’ve done a lot of positive little things this year? Finally doing something about my weight, taking those big steps back from people, whose impact on my life is just plain negative, finding some sort of distant peace with a few family members etc. Then I did that talk thing for the self harm awareness event.

Also, I’m wondering if coming off all my medication has made a difference. Withdrawing remains the single worst experience I’ve ever put my body through. I get so fucked off when I see articles etc that claim ‘antidepressants are not addictive, so don’t worry’. Oh really!? Oh fucking reeeaaaallly!? Well I tell you what, YOU try coming off them. Cos when you are sweating, crying, puking and clawing at your skin for two weeks, curled up in dark corners, fainting and have electric shock feelings in your brain and can’t remember how to turn the kettle on, or open your shampoo…..that kind of sounds like addiction to me? No?

Fannies.

Anyway. I can’t diss them for everyone. I’m not entirely against them. But they are hugely over prescribed, and people should be taken off them at a safe level. Not left on them for years, when they don’t appear to be making anything better. And Benzo’s should also be more carefully managed. That withdrawal was torture.

Having said that, I haven’t experienced any bad effects since. I haven’t turned ‘more crazy’ without the pills I ‘so badly needed to function’. If anything, my mental health has improved. I feel more in control of it. There are not chemicals being chucked in my brain, so my mood is my own.

I don’t know, I think it’s been one of the best choices I ever made.

Something appears to be working anyway. J