In a Single Decade

You see ghosts. You hear voices. Everywhere you go the air is a mass of whispers around you. Panoramic stories unfold inside your head. These things are attributed to creativity and a good imagination. You use them to write stories that win praise from teachers and parents and friends. You win prizes. You pass exams. You are a success.

You grow older. You leave school and then college. You see ghosts. You hear voices. Those stories are still growing inside your head but you are too exhausted to write them down. They terrify you. They keep you awake at night. You are referred to a consultant psychiatrist. You are hospitalized and medicated. These things are attributed to a psychiatric disorder. There are no more exams to pass. You are a failure.

Going to See GP

…today.  Feel guilty about taking up so much of his time but how much more time and money would I take up if I were permanently institutionalised as certain people probably think I should be?  Self esteem bottomed out.  Am thinking of raising money for plastic surgery.  It is 5.21 am and I feel as though I am the only person left in the universe.  There’s a voice in my head telling me to ‘end it.  end it now because it will only get worse.’  and my medication, like the postal service, seems to have stopped working and there are no union leaders to negotiate with.  what’s going on with me isn’t fear, it isn’t anxiety; it is abject terror.

Currently browsing this site.  And this site.  What equipment would I need for DIY liposuction?  Pretty heavy duty painkillers that don’t knock you out, a chainsaw?  This makes me terrified about how I am going to be treated by the mental health professionals if I gain any more weight (I am already a heffalump and that’s not an exaggeration.  I feel myself moving, displacing air, occupying too much space.  Heavy.  I’d rather die than be fat, I used to say.  Well, I’m fat now.).

A little bird told me
That jumping is easy
That falling is fun
Right until you hit the sidewalk
Shivering and stunned

Swan Dive, Ani Difranco

For a minute there it must feel like flying.

They used to say, ‘Anorexics are pitied, binge-eaters are scorned, bulimics are simply ignored.’

Guess that’s still a truism even after all these years.

‘You say I’m really an ugly girl.’

Tori Amos

Hierarchy of Needs

I love the way that even among the marginalized there is a hierarchy.

What’s that all about?

Is it ’cause I is ugly?

I’m so tired.  Curl up and sleep.  Deep.  Never wake up.

And I didn’t choose anorexia/bulimia/schizoaffective disorder. I did not stop for them, they stopped for me.

Now the drugs don’t work · They just make you worse · But I know I’ll see your face again ·

Am I hopeless at everything I do?

Mental illness in a sentence: The universe is not your friend.

Did that do?  Was it good enough  for you?

Addendum: I went to L’s place for dinner on Friday and told her about ordering meds from over the net and she went and told my mother.  I don’t know whether to feel betrayed or flattered that someone would take the trouble to do such a thing.  Mother (a psych nurse) said that I should agree to into hospital to wean myself off them.  Unlike most people I hate being in hospital.  As soon as I arrive I am planning my escape.  In my area they are quite heavy handed.  The last time I ‘absconded’ they sent the police around to my flat.  I was bundled in a van and dumped at the doors of the hospital like an unwanted parcel.  The police, however, were for the most part professional and courteous.  I don’t think returning escapees from mental asylums is a task they enjoy.  And I can’t say I blame them.

Stolen From ASE-D

‘I don’t understand how I can be so unimportant.  I want to believe that I deserve a chance, it is the rest of the world that seems to tell me I do not.

I know a lot of people here complain about weights and numbers and sizes and calories and foods and spoiler this and spoiler that but honestly those things do not trigger me at all.

The unequal distribution of love is my one and only trigger.  Always has been and always will be.  I don’t care if you post that you weigh 22 pounds.  I don’t care if you shop in the infant section.  I don’t care if you’ve eaten nothing but celery for 19 months.  What bothers me is when someone cares about you, or is willing to help you, or when you have an opportunity and squander it, when you get some form of love and act like it is nothing worth having.’

How can I expect people to empathise with me or indeed me with them when I don’t even feel as though I have a right to inhabit this planet. My weird combination of illnesses means that I will never be fully understood.  What then is the point of it all?  What is the point of even trying?  I can’t get past this wall I have built around myself.  I am a prisoner in my own skin.  Ugly and worthless.  ‘You don’t belong here,’ says the voice in my head.  ‘And you never will.’

Voices II

 

I awake in the middle of the night, my heart pounding, my skin damp and I am cold, so cold. I did not know, until now, how much they hated us. I did not know (or maybe I did but just could not bring myself to acknowledge it) how much they fear us. We are dangerous, you see. We hurt people. It must be true because the media says it is. The truth is that, if I thought I were about to harm others, I would stop myself by harming myself. I read the headlines churned out by the tabloid press day after day and I am afraid. It is an indescribable fear, one that threatens to choke the very breath out of me.

They provide fuel to the voices deep with me that tell me that I am grotesque, fat, an abomination, a witch. That all manner of pain should be inflicted upon me, that I am evil, that I should be burnt at the stake. Some of these voices filter through the shield that the medication provides, a little like missiles penetrating the Reagan/Bush Starwars project. They sneak in like lilliputian secret agents. They infiltrate my brain despite every effort I have made to keep them out. And I hate them. I would kill them stone dead if I could.

The use of medication is a scattergun approach. They subdue the majority of these unwanted alien voices but the more devious, those that appear with beautiful and seductive words on their lips (I owe a debt to Primo Levi for that) slip through.  And I hate to anthropomorphize these voices but I can think of no other way to convey their power to a wider audience. They can be overwhelmingly persuasive. So I throw open the door and admit them.

At first those voices – those undercover agents that have infiltrated my mind – are quiet, considerate houseguests but soon benevolence morphs into belligerence and they bleed into what is left of my mind and my inner world is now occupied territory and the cycle repeats itself.  And I am afraid.  I am so afraid.

Voices

At first the voice was a benign, comforting presence but, as time passed, it became menacing and malevolent. Her own weapon had turned against her. A crazed dog who turns on its mistress when it is in pain. Gemma did not feel as though this voice was a part of her. It was an intruder embedded in her head. A parasite feeding off her thoughts and feelings. At first she welcomed it, embraced it, nurtured it. At first it had kept her alive. Now it was trying to kill her. A daemon behind the scenes, one that was visible only to her. A puppeteer pulling on her strings.