I finally escaped the house with my camera for a few hours this weekend. I had forgotten how good that felt, even if it was cold – winter is settling in – and a bit miserable, though that fitted my mood perfectly. Here are a couple of shots I took. They also seem to fit how I’m feeling.
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I recently discovered the talents of an Aboriginal singer who is blind. He’s amazing. Here’s one of my favourite songs and you can learn more about him here.
I’ve written a few times about the Food Thing (starting here, with lots more here). In a bid to start addressing this, I saw a dietician this week. My therapist wants to tackle it physically as well as psychologically. I didn’t want to go, but I did. My therapist thinks this is great progress. I’m not so sure.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to be honest with the dietician about my f***ed up relationship with food. She said and did a couple of things that made me clam up and retreat. My walls went up… BIG TIME.
So the person who went to the dietician’s appointment was a different version of me: a not-quite-honest version; the person who fronts banks and the like; the person who deals with things totally objectively as if she’s talking about another person.
Certainly not the person who writes this blog. And certainly not the person who has been so brutally honest with you, and with her therapist, about the Food Thing.
If I had DID I might describe this person as “Management”. She steps in sometimes when the “real” me can’t deal with things. I haven’t seen her for a long time, though – not since I started therapy. It was quite odd to see her again.
My therapist is just about having kittens that I was able to talk to someone about the Food Thing – and its close cousins the Weight Thing and the Body Image Thing – even if I wasn’t honest. Not entirely. The other me stepped in and spoke objectively about things I eat, but wasn’t entirely honest about the binge eating and other stupid behaviours.
The whole experience was kinda triggering. Being weighed. Talking about weight. Talking about foods (some of which are triggering as well). To her credit the dietician suggested a couple of easy things that I’ll try, but none of it was fun – I cried all the way home and then pigged out on chocolate when I got here – but the therapist thinks it’s great progress.
From my perspective my biggest achievement was in not wigging out when I had to drive through the tunnel that runs under the river here (the bridge at the other end was another matter, but that’s another story for another time).
As most of you know I’ve been having a rough time lately. As if the work situation isn’t enough, I am possibly/probably heading for another round of gynae surgery before Christmas (unexpectedly but not emergently) and have scratched/smashed two cars in two weeks. Sigh.
I’ve found myself turning to time honoured strategies… in particular, The Food Thing.
I hate to admit it but I have been binge eating quite a lot lately. The worst episode for a while was last week. I got sick. Quite sick. So sick that it took me a couple of days to recover. And then I turned to another time honoured strategy: not eating anything at all.
I have been trying to think about why I do this… if there are any triggers or any clues about what’s coming. I think there are. I know that as soon as work gets stressful, I start craving chocolate. And when I get upset or anxious, I just want to run. And when I can’t run, I eat. Even when I can run, I still crave food. Not just chocolate. Any food. Anything at all.
Sometimes I’m not even aware of what I’m doing… not until afterwards when I can see the mess, or when I’m suffering the consequences.
I know this can’t go on. For one thing it just generates more self loathing. Not to mention the potential weight gain that is itself a giant trigger. A ridiculously vicious circle.
I talked to my therapist about it this week. I foolishly gave her permission to tie me down and bludgeon me into talking about it. For some reason the stupid little leprechaun who lives in my head thought this was a good idea. Now I’m not so sure.
I came away with one side of my head screaming, “I HATE MY THERAPIST” and the other side saying, “No you don’t. She’s just trying to help.” In the cool light of day I realise she is just trying to help. It’s just incredibly hard and incredibly shame-inducing dealing with all this.
Sigh.
I saw my therapist yesterday. It helped – sort of. I still feel like a mess, and have been in tears for much of this week. My therapist says it’s better to let the tears out. I guess, but it’s hard now that my mother has helped me bottle them up again.
I told my therapist the good news about seeing something positive in my toes and my eyes. She looked like she thought I was a bit weird. At least until she asked me what was wrong with my eyes before? When I told her, she just looked at me with such sadness and said, “Oh, Kerro.” So now I feel bad for upsetting her. Doh.
I came away from the session craving junk food. This sometimes happens, and more often happens when I’m at work and things turn stressful. I don’t always give in, but I did yesterday, albeit unconsciously. I ate…and I ate…and I ate…and then I ate cream cake until I was sick. Binge binge binge. It’s been a while since I’ve done that. And of course this is more heroin for the inner critic. (Yes, I am deliberately glossing over this.)
This Food Thing and the endless tears lead me to think that something’s not quite right. I’m perhaps not ready to face it, but I am sick of this pain and the dark clouds that are following me about. Perhaps, to use David’s analogy, I’m trying to walk again before the latest round of toxic infection has been dealt with? My therapist says I need to cut myself some slack after the time away with my mother. I guess.
In other news, I had another Pilates session today. And again I received a barrage of PTSD related information and tips from the Instructor. I came away stressed and upset – mostly upset with myself for not telling this woman to shut up. She’s one of those people who could talk under water, and it’s downright annoying. Not to mention that I generally don’t want to hear what she’s saying. Yak yak yak. Incessant banter about her own traumas and her own experiences with PTSD and all the varied things that have and haven’t helped her and all the people she’s met who have PTSD and who she’s rescued helped. That’s all fine, but I can’t deal with all that as well as my own mess. I did a better job this week of letting her yakking just float off into the ether but it still affected me.
David was right when he said that she needs to “stay in her own space”. I don’t need this. I see that now. Yes I experienced trauma and yes, I have PTSD, but I need to heal in my own way. I know that my healing needs to include something for my body as well as my mind – and Pilates will help with that – but I don’t want to have breakfast with her. I don’t want to write a book with her. And I don’t want to go to her retreat in Bali. The best thing she can do for me is focus on Pilates. Pilates will be good, but only if it doesn’t come with all this mess. I feel mean saying that, but I really need to set this boundary or she’ll do me in.
I’m guessing that putting on weight is triggering for me or something. I went shopping today and the sight of myself in the fitting room mirrors made me feel sick. I was truly repulsed. I felt I didn’t deserve anything, let alone anything good or nice. I certainly didn’t deserve to look good.
I guess this comes from my parents (and particularly my father) who spent many years laughing at me or mocking me or telling me off for how much I weighed. He’s even done that to me as an adult. I remember a few years ago not having seen him for a few weeks. His first comment to me wasn’t ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’ or any other greeting; it was, “you’ve put on weight”.
Those comments, and the sight of myself in the mirrors, make me want to crawl into a dark hole for a very long time. This is the inner critic’s utopia.
In other news I was offered – or sort of offered – another job yesterday through a former colleague. It sounds good – really good. If I were willing to go “freelance” I could start tomorrow (a salaried position may take a little longer). “Freelance” would be great as I could pick and choose my work, work more flexibly, work on the good projects (or the money spinners) and leave the rest.
Trouble is I have never been a risk taker so think I’m probably destined to indentured servitude for a while longer yet.
This is long, I’m sorry, but it’s been a big weekend and I’ve got a lot to process.
My father turned 90 yesterday. My mother organised a party. I was dreading it. Dreading my father being critical and nasty to me, or humiliating me in front of everyone (a familiar experience, but hurtful even after all these years). I was also dreading seeing people I haven’t seen in a long time, and them quizzing me about my life (or lack thereof) – my endless embarrassment about not being married, not having children, etc etc etc. And I was dreading meeting my other half-sister.
My therapist said I shouldn’t go, but I didn’t have the heart to disappoint my mother. In all, it wasn’t as nearly as bad as I anticipated.
The day didn’t start off great, with my father being his usual critical, horrible self but once his guests arrived, and he was the centre of attention, everything settled down. The day ended up quite well…good even. My father enjoyed himself and, were he anyone else, I’d say that’s all that matters. But, my father being my father, I don’t really care if he enjoyed himself or not. There is part of me who does care, but I don’t see why I should.
I spent most of the day hiding in the kitchen or playing hostess, but it was nice to catch up with a couple of family friends I haven’t seen for a long time. B – who is a lovely, gentle man. He has always been kind and was one of the few people who looked out for me when I was a kid and my father was going off. Back then I wished B was my father. He’s not, but I am grateful to him for his kindness.
And E, who is also a lovely lovely man. He and his parents were in the displaced persons camp with my father in Europe, and came to Australia on the same ship. Unfortunately he took it upon himself to make a speech, but it was ok. I “checked out” quite a bit, but the bits I heard were mostly about those very ancient times, with very little eulogising, so they weren’t really that traumatising.
Even meeting my other half-sister and her husband wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. We didn’t get a chance to talk that much, but her husband spoke to me a few times. He seemed nice. He said that he and my half-sister are grateful that I found it in my heart to share my father with them (their words, not mine). I didn’t really know what to say. All I could think was, “my god, if only you knew…” but thankfully when any of those moments came up I was able to make a quick escape to the kitchen and relative safety.
My father went beyond himself afterwards and thanked my mother for the party. She said he’d been an obnoxious a$$ all week. Rationally I know that this doesn’t make up for his bad behaviour – that a single thank you, a nanosecond of gratitude, can never make up for the decades of abusive shyte he’s meted out against my mother and me. But there’s still a little kid inside who thinks “omg, I did something right. Everything is ok now.” I don’t even know where this comes from, because rationally I know I can never please him and he will never be happy with anything. But for some reason that little kid, the little girl who could never do anything right even though she tried and tried and tried again… for some reason she hears everything he says, and responds in the same way she always has.
This might sound silly, but I’ll confess that I woke up this morning hoping that my father had died overnight now that he’s reached this grand milestone. He didn’t, but perhaps this will enable him to start (and finish) checking out. (Don’t even suggest that it’ll give him the zest he needs to reach 100 or I will personally come out there into the blogosphere and whollop you!! LOL) I still feel bad wishing him dead like this, even though I know I shouldn’t. I should go back to my therapist’s little mantras: “Just because he’s a sperm donor doesn’t mean he’s a good father” and “You owe him NOTHING.”
I survived the party. More than survived, I even came away with a few things I am proud of:
(I’ll admit that the inner critic piped up with some commentary about, “who are you important to?” but I chose not to listen. Just turned the music up and kept going.) I nearly abandoned my quest to complete NaBloPoMo today. The pressure to deliver a post every day is quite hard, almost intolerable some days really. But, here I am, and seeing this as an opportunity to just download for a bit, so please excuse the ramble.
I’ve had an odd day, really. Another day of hauling myself out of bed, crying because I have to go to work, and draaaaaging myself into the office where my boss saw fit to bite my head off – again, for the sixth time in as many days.
Since admitting to myself that I don’t like my job I’ve found going into work twice as hard. I don’t know why I complain about this job. It’s a good job. Good people, interesting work, good salary etc. So, what’s wrong with it? Or what’s wrong with me that I don’t like it?
I realise now that my loathing for the job isn’t about me. Well, it is about me, but not about me in the sense of me being weak and pathetic and useless and incompetent. It’s about me in what I almost think could be a good way. I’m changing. I’m different to who I was twelve months ago. I’m looking for different things. I’m no longer willing to put up with the cr@p. And I might even be finding the courage to do things that I have wanted to do for a very, VERY long time.
I saw a job advertised this weekend that interests me. I even mustered the courage to pick up the phone and make some inquiries. Sometimes I don’t know who I am when I do that stuff. Seems so “grown up” and not like the me I’ve been for the last year or so. Hard to explain.
I am also moving house this week and starting to lose sleep over it. Tossing, turning, tossing, turning. I just keep reminding myself that this is one of the most stressful events in life… and that this too shall pass. That no decision like this is irreversible. If I do end up hating the new place (which I don’t think I will), then I can always move. Ok, expensive decision, but there’s still choice here.
I got a call from my lawyer this afternoon to say there’s a problem with settlement. Aaarrrggghhh!!! Of course, my anxiety went from 0 to 1,000 in about half a nanosecond and I spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone trying to sort out this mess and stop my lawyer from sending a very lawyerly letter to the other party. I think it’s sorted now (thank all implausible deities)… or could be sorted. Keep your fingers crossed.
Anyway, by the time I got to therapy I was a jittering mess. Thankfully my therapist was able to calm me enough to proceed with the session, so we talked about the work thing. She was impressed – impressed that I’m finally nutting through some of this, and VERY impressed that I rang the CEO to discuss the job. The little kid in me who constantly craves approval is doing a great big happy dance right now. 
Given I’m moving house, I haven’t wanted therapy to be too icky the last couple of weeks, so I kept things mostly light. Or light-ish. I did do one brave thing. Or two, may be. Neither of which I want to acknowledge. Just want to run and hide under the doona (that’s a quilt/duvet for those of you in the northern hemisphere). I’ve wanted to weigh myself for awhile – at least since the Food Thing started taking over again, and the Body Image and the Weight Things started haunting me – but I’ve been too gutless to do this on my own. I knew the scales would reveal bad news, and I knew that would upset me. So I did what I partly consider a brave thing, and partly consider just weird and stoopid… I took my scales into my therapist’s office. She didn’t bat an eyelid of course, but I felt like a doofus.
The main reason I took the scales in was so that she could support me when I got the bad news, and stop me tail-spinning into the dark place with which many of us are all too familiar. It worked. There was bad news, but not too much tail spinning (even when she did ask for the number on the scales). Thank you, T.
Enough rambling for today… it’s late, I’m tired, I’ll pick up more tomorrow.
I’m a little over a week into the new anti-depressants and already I feel different. I felt different on the second day. Admittedly this could be taking up the new meds, ditching the old ones, both of these things or none of them. Initially I felt a bit weird, and super anxious, but mostly those symptoms have been manageable.
The impact on the Food Thing is bigger than I ever imagined. By Day 2 I was feeling less like a walrus. By Day 6 my appetite seemed less: I was no longer starving constantly and I could no longer shovel mountains of food into my body. Now I do actually feel sick when I do, and my body does ask me to stop. Wow. I can even discern when I’m actually hungry or not, and when I’m eating for emotional reasons, versus life sustaining ones.
Of course, noticing these things and actually doing something about them are two different things, but I guess the noticing is the first step?
Unfortunately the kilos I’ve gained haven’t magically fallen off. I’m still the fat kid – inside and out – but feel less like an overstretched balloon. I’m starting to feel less that something foreign is taking over my body over which I have no control…and more that perhaps there’s a way back to eating properly now.
There’s a Latin expression “post hoc ergo propter hoc”* – after it therefore because of it. Feeling less like a walrus; less like an over-stretched balloon, I can only conclude that the evil anti-depressants were indeed evil.
Of course, it’s only been a few days, and I’m still eating a fair quantity of cr@p, but time will tell. My therapist did say she thought I looked to be carrying less fluid. I am honestly praying to all implausible deities that I can get this under control. It’s hard enough being inside my head at the best of times, let alone when the Food Thing is totally out of control.
I’m going to leave the Food Thing alone for a while now. It’s been incredibly difficult sharing all this… but also very reassuring to know that I’m not alone. Thank you to everyone for your love and support.
* Ok, I admit it. I’ve never studied Latin. I learnt this on The West Wing!
The Food Thing has been spiralling out of control for the last couple of months. When I first mentioned it to my therapist, she suggested I keep a food diary. I did that for a few days, but it led to a rather serious meltdown, so I stopped. I just couldn’t cope with my disgustingness staring back at me in black and white every day. Of course, being unable to be “good” and complete my “homework” lead to a whole lot more self-flagellation, but that’s another tale for another time.
I put all that food/diet stuff in the last post in the hope that it would spur me into action, because looking at the food diary, on an average day I was (am) eating something like:
Breakfast: Rice flakes with soy milk or muesli (doing ok so far)
Rest of the day (in a bizarre lunch-dinner-snack all rolled into one endless graze):
Either a ham and salad sandwich – eaten at about 4pm – and very little else; or… two bread rolls with vegemite and cheese; a meat pie or sausage roll or a big pile of fat from a take away food joint; donuts (usually four, large ones, with icing and sometimes with jam); chocolate (about 250g); perhaps a packet of biscuits … I don’t need to go on. You get the picture.
Some days there are cravings, just as my friend Tampalama described:
“a child who is constantly pulling at your sleeve or tapping you on the shoulder, saying, ‘Hey. Hey. Hey. Look at me. Pay attention to me. Hey. Hey.’”
The secret pull of the something doughy, the chocolate, the salt or the … whatever.
But some days I go to the supermarket with a list of healthy foods to buy, and come home with a bag full of crap. Most days I’m not even sure how the crap got into the bag, and all the good food got left behind. Sometimes I go to the supermarket and allow myself one treat… but then stop at the bakery on the way home and buy a pile of stuff I had no intention of buying. Often I get home and wonder what the hell I’m doing.
Sometimes I even manage to bring the healthy foods home with me, but they sit in the fridge until they go off, and then I throw them out. I feel so guilty about all that waste. I could feed a small African country on the amount of food I’ve thrown away lately.
I have a strange ritual about supermarkets. There are five different ones within about a 5 to 10 minute drive of my place. I have to go to a different one each time. I’m not entirely sure why, but think it’s possibly because I go most days and if I’m buying crap, I don’t want the check out kid to recognise me from the day before. Silly, huh?
Do I have an eating disorder? May be. Possibly. My therapist doesn’t think so, but I’ll confess I’ve never told her the full truth about my eating. She thinks I’m just being hard on myself or, at worst, merely have a f***ed up relationship with food. She thinks that if I get back to the gym, I’ll start eating properly and start feeling better… which will lead to more eating properly and more feeling better. She might be right, but at the moment I can barely leave the house I’m so repulsed at my appearance, let alone go to the gym!
As my therapy has progressed I’ve started to become more aware of the triggers for the Food Thing. Over and above being generally emotionally wrecked, that is; although these triggers are usually a precursor to emotional wreckage anyway. Things like seeing my father, having a tough therapy session, a stressful day at work. Basically any situation in which I feel I need support (but still don’t know how to get it or how to support or nurture myself).
Perhaps I just hit the nail on the head? Perhaps learning to nurture myself, rather than punishing myself for all of life’s ills will help me get the Food Thing under control again? Perhaps all I need to do is find other ways to nurture myself after these stressful events (and get back to planning my meals a bit more so I’m not tempted to grab something nasty)?
I have a few things I find nurturing, But seriously, these aren’t nearly as satisfying as food after a day with my father, a gruelling therapy session or a whacky day at work.
I confessed to my therapist that I was gaining weight and contemplating ditching the anti-depressants. She wasn’t pleased. When it comes down to it, I think I’d rather be suicidal than fat – how dumb is that?
My therapist suggested I talk to my doctor, so I did. I took a positive step and went to the doc. She was very supportive and seemed to understand that I was freaking out about the Weight Thing. She suggested appetite suppressants but you can’t take those with anti-depressants, so we’re trying a new anti-depressant instead. She was wonderfully encouraging; she said that if this doesn’t work then there’ll be something else we can try. “We’ll find the solution,” she said. So good of her and seriously not the reaction I was expecting. Just doing something makes me feel a little better, but we’ll see how long it lasts.
