self pity Friday, Oct 16 2009

A while back a drunken colleague informed me that his life had been way worse than mine. I let it pass. Who’s to judge? And anyway, up until that point, I hadn’t considered my life to have been that bad.

Then I thought about it.

Not that bad?

I suffered the humiliations of undiagnosed bipolar disorder, thinking all the while that my manic bursts were a personality flaw, proof that I couldn’t control myself.

Plunging into sudden, unbearable depressions which went undiagnosed (and untreated) for years.

Misdiagnosed bipolar disorder. A head so full of horror that self-injury was a parasuicidal act; a desperate measure that saved my life.

The craziness got so bad that I tried to drown it with alcohol, that failing cut myself to the bone. JUST TO MAKE IT STOP

I have had so many sutures I lost count. I have been sutured without anaesthetic to ‘teach me a lesson’. I have been called an attention seeker and made to wait in the A&E for up to 10hrs whilst they dealt with all the ‘genuine’ patients (in one case I lost so much blood whilst in the waiting room they had to ‘waste’ an infusion on me).

I have kept my weight low enough for long enough to not have periods. I have osteoporosis.

I have had on/off anorexia for years and been hospitalised for it. At a BMI of 18 I am desperately uncomfortable in my own body. At 17 I still feel fat. At 16 I feel fat and weak. At 15 I get suicidal but can still squeeze the fat on my sides and thighs.

I have spent one and a half of the last ten years in hospital.

I have been sectioned.

I have near-drowned in the guilt of what this all does to my kind and wonderful parents.

I have been repeatedly told to ‘tone down’ my behaviour at, before, or after social functions.

I shovel down tablets in an attempt to keep myself in check. Sometimes I miss one by mistake and that’s enough for my mind to shoot up and away like a firework. Sometimes I take all my tablets when I’m supposed to and I still get miserable or high. Usually, I am told this is because I didn’t take all my tablets when I was supposed to.

I spend the larger part of my life high on adrenaline, in fear of doing or saying something I shouldn’t. The anxiety is blended with shame at those things I have done, or perceive myself to have done.

Consequently the smallest reprimand is a hurricane blow. I know, I KNOW! I did it all wrong, I’m a bad person…

There are moments of joy. And they are sweeter for the fact that they have bubbled up through all the chaos. The late afternoon sunlight striking a tumbling leaf; a day spent with a loved one. A view of the sea as the tide comes in. A view of the sea as the tide goes out.

And yes, the hypomania can be sweet too. Or too sweet. The mind briefly more focused. The world more agreeable. The wit tripping blithely off the tongue. But that, unlike the memories of the pure sweet, un-mania-tainted days, is fleeting. There is no normalcy after hypomania. Either it climbs into the dizzying, crazy, wonderful, terrifying heights of mania or plunges into the depths of despair (made worse by the shaming memories of acts committed under the influence).

My colleague and I are both under 30. His life stretches into the future with promise. Mine? I will spend the rest of my life battling a disease, the horrors of which are incomprehensible to others. I know what lies ahead.

But I have made it this far.

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nobody forgives mania Tuesday, Oct 13 2009

I am so profoundly alone with myself and my pain.

My response to a friend’s death was 5 weeks of mania. Now I’ve come down and I feel like the most awful person in the world.

Who goes manic in response to death?

The consequences of the mania are beginning to show themselves. I had a door slammed in my face this morning for asking someone in the next office a question. People make excuses not to come out with me. Those are the same people who enjoyed hanging with someone in the early stages of mania, but then got bored of it. Or it got a bit too much for them.

I have had enough of being me. There is always something wrong with me. My body is falling apart and my mind is in pieces.

I’m through.

69:20

I just want to walk away from everything. Leave the deadlines, the part-time friends. Walk away.

In the end you can’t rely on anyone else apart from your Mum and Dad. No one gives enough of a shit to hack it when the going gets tough.

69:20

I have had enough.

If it wasn’t for my parents I would take every tablet in the house and just quit.

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Hypomania Friday, Oct 2 2009

The throwing up thing turned out to be a one off. I’m now happily settled (hah!) back into a routine of eating enough to maintain my weight (current BMI 17.3) but not enough to gain. It means I can run again!

This is A GOOD THING.

I’ve been going a little nuts lately so the running is absolutely vital. The shrink and my GP have decided that I’m now hypomanic and increased my meds. This, combined with the mild mania, is having an interesting effect on alcohol, or rather alcohol’s effect on me…

I really need to not drink right now. The student union is certainly to be avoided – the clue is in the name: my students might be in there! Being drunk and mad is not appropriate for a TA.

It strikes me that the more fun I appear to be having, the less fun it actually is. I guess that’s quite a sane response.

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Anorexia Yo-Yo Tuesday, Sep 22 2009

My weblog silence (just before previous meds post) was related to a sudden, concerted effort to eat enough to be  a good runner again. I gained weight YUK. My bmi crept up over 18 YUK YUK YUK. And my stomach began to look inflated.

Then guess what? I panicked. I started cutting back a little at the weekend. Then on Monday promised myself that I would just have cereal in the morning and boiled rice in the evening. I was working late so went to get the rice from the Chinese take away. I got stressed and confused by the menu. By the prices and the need to spend more than £5 to pay on a debit card. They were standing, looking at me looking at the menu. I picked and unpicked for 15 minutes. By this time the two Chinese ladies had started taking it in turns to stand, patiently, waiting for my order. Finally I opted for something I liked but couldn’t possibly eat. Chow Mein noodles. I paid, flushed at the scene I had caused and scuttled back to the office. The noodles sat on my desk, sweating in their plastic box. I opened it and ate the noodles, one at a time. I was suddenly calm. Then without a second thought I went and threw it all up.

This is not something I normally do. It is not something I wish to start doing. It’s a waste of money, it’s a form of gluttony, it’s unhealthy… what the feck is wrong with me?

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The drugs don’t work Tuesday, Sep 22 2009

I was wondering how many different drugs I’ve been on since my first diagnosis. I think it’s 12, or possibly 13. I can’t remember if I did ever take risperidone…

Prozac

Trazadone

Olanzapine

Citalopram

Diazepam

Temazepam

Lorazepam

Escitalopram

Efexor XL

Seroquel

Sodium Valproate

Risperidone?

Zopiclone

Prozac was the first med and it sent me a bit mental. That’s when the antipsychotics got introduced… Then the hypomania evolved into mania, or should I say Mania since it does take over the individual completely? You’ve got to wonder what would’ve happened if they’d put me on the current meds (escitalopram and sodium valproate) from the beginning.

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apathetic kinda pain Monday, Sep 7 2009

Once, in a moment of intense fear, I pressed a razor hard into my forearm and tugged it through the flesh. I watched, suddenly detached, as my blood burst skywards.

Someone was screaming, while I watched. Or someone was crying. Or it was me, watching and screaming and crying. The spinning, crazy, awful, out-of-control world had come to an abrupt stop. Then there was bustling, and warm, wet, red towels, and men in over-sized hi-viz coats, and a siren. Then I slipped blissfully into unconsciousness.

No real pain, at the time. It came afterwards in sudden, hot waves like atomic shame.

The pain of hunger is so different. In some ways worse. Your brain circles around it like wolves around a lamb. Repeatedly poking at it, salt in a wound. You just can’t leave it alone.

It wakes you suddenly in the night, gnawing at your insides – a dull ache. Sometimes the pain is sharper, stronger and only a hot water bottle can soothe you back to sleep.

Or you get those sudden sharp catches in your chest which set your heart racing in fear.

But most of the time, it’s an apathetic kind of pain: it’s there, it hurts, but you’re too damned tired to do anything about it.

Pain is a strange thing, I believe that mental and physical pain are not so far apart as we are led to believe. When I cut myself I was making a choice (sometimes) to turn mental pain, which I couldn’t grasp, into a physical pain which would ease and go away. The pain of starvation is a middle road between the two: you ease – or numb – the mental pain by putting yourself in a state of constant, mild pain and distraction. Life becomes less real and easier to live in.

We spend our lives avoiding pain. In fact, I was reading the stories of  eccedentesiat’s plastic surgery (to remove SI scars), and decided that I probably didn’t want to go through the same thing myself, however much I want those blasted scars gone. They are my biggest regret but I doubt I would have made it through the bouts of bipolar alive if I hadn’t occasionally done the pain switch…

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jellied legs Friday, Sep 4 2009

Really struggled on my run today. Only 4.2 miles but I felt really weak for the last 2. I had a watered-down energy drink with me (60 cals total) but it made little difference.

The run was only 350 cals… why am I feeling so rubbish? I had a lettuce, tomato and sweetcorn salad with 40g tuna last night, bran flakes this morning and a 300 cal sandwich at lunch, so where was the fuel for my run?? I get that I use up calories through the day anyway (basal metabolic rate) but I don’t see why a pretty substantial daily intake can’t fuel my running instead of turning itself into fat.

Anyway, I got freaked out and had a 65 cal instant soup and an apple when I got back. I suck.

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Anorexia Maths Thursday, Sep 3 2009

I have an excel spreadsheet full of numbers. I calculate my basal metabolic rate (BMR) on a daily basis (weight dependent), I count the calories I consume and the extra calories burnt from vigorous exercise. They go in the spreadsheet and I make sure that the final number (calories consumed – bmr – exercise calories) is in the negative. Usually negative to the tune of +1,000 cals per day.

It has been for some time now, but after the initial weight drop my weight loss has been minimal. I’ve been feeling pretty weak, a bit miserable and lacking in concentration but my bmi is still higher than basic maths suggests it should be.

My current BMR is 1250, and I’m doing at least an hour of cardio a day…

I want to be thin but not sick.

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‘men don’t want skinny girls’ Tuesday, Sep 1 2009

I’ve been told this dozens of times. Men prefer girls with curves. Great. Good for them. The gross assumption here is that anorexic women are starving themselves to look good for men.

Right.

This suggests both a level of control we don’t have and a level of arrogance amongst men that is frankly unwarranted.

I don’t give a feck what men think about my body. This isn’t about vanity, and it’s not about sex.

Next time a guy tells me he would be more interested in me if I was rounder I’m gonna tell him girls prefer guys with three balls.

Some anorexics don’t want to look good for guys – it’s part of that holding on to childhood thing – and for those that do, the opinion of some guy holds less power than the drive of her disease.

When I was in hospital one of the girls there admitted that she was scared of sex. Anorexia was one way of avoiding it.

So men don’t want skinny girls (how many would turn down a catwalk model if she smiled their way)? Fine, I don’t want a guy with a higher body fat percentage than me. We don’t all get what we want.

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glycogen and weight fluctations Monday, Aug 31 2009

I think I’ve figured out how I can appear to gain weight whilst consuming fewer calories than I burn… The realisation struck when, after a 1,500 cal cardio work out, I lost all the apparently-gained weight overnight.

Whilst my body was remaining the same (fitting clothes the same), the scale was reading an extended plateau and then a shocking 2.5lb increase. I think the difference is in the amount of stored glycogen. Glycogen is the energy source stored in muscles that you draw on when you do endurance sport. Because I had worked out for over 2hrs without topping it up with energy gels (as I’d do in a marathon) I had used it all up. By this morning I was down 3lbs on yesterday.

Consequently the use of weight as the sole assessment of the physical body is not sufficient.

I guess this is how the Atkins Diet works. It gradually starves the body of glycogen (which is made from carbohydrates), forcing it to use fat stores. So not only does it lead to a reduction in muscle mass but also a greater apparent weightloss. This means that the dieter gets trapped into Atkins because the second they eat carbs the body grabs them to refuel the empty glycogen stores. They step on the scales the next day and see a huge increase despite the fact that their body won’t have gained an inch. The fuel is in the muscles, not sitting around as fat. Consequently they stop eating carbs, use up the glycogen and ‘magically’ lose weight. That has got to be the stupidest diet I have ever heard of.

I might not consume enough calories but I do try to eat a balanced diet.

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