Today is an accumulation for the past three I'd say...I started feeling this way on Friday. It started as just an odd sensation of unease. Today it blossomed into a full blown desire for my 'old life'. Not that which I've had for the past two years but prior to Jan 2010. The past two years were a direct highway to death. Prior to that I felt more in control and I want that back. I had strict routines that I had to follow to feel 'safe' but they weren't so intrusive were they? Maybe that question should be posed to my family as they watched me the closest.
I think my negative mind has glamorized that time of my life to an extent. I maintained a level of medical stability for greater periods of time than more recently. My life was basically focussed on the future attempts to weight restroe in a safe environment but whenever that opportunity came up there was always some reason why I didn't follow through. It was never the 'right time' of course.
There was also an almost permanent feeling of being high, and not so much from the medication that has sedated me for the past couple of years although meds did play a role...it was the high of starvation and emptiness. It was the high of exercising til exhaustion and then pushing for those '5 more minutes'. There was an acutal satisfaction with the number on the scale dropping by the day...of course the weight was never low enough but it was with excitement that I ventured lower and pushed myself harder with no particular goal in mind, aside from hoping to starve myself to death.... hmmm...that just removed all glamour from my mind. That was the ultimate goal...to eliminate myself.
But it was during that time, approximately the first 3 years after my initial hospitalization as an adult where I felt the closest to perfection. I was pure and clean or could make myself that way if I needed to. I was in control (and SO not at the same time), predictable, everything had a structure. I could smile even when I was screaming inside for someone to save me. I lost that ability...to fake it. I have good memories from that time with friends and even by myself, my senses were so heightened.
The past two years I remember very few specifics. I do know facts of the terrible loneliness and isolation I felt. I remember hours of debating about whether I should present to emergency and the humiliation that accompanied that. I remember walking into walls and falling multiple times a day as my legs would just give out. Lying in a black fog on the floor of any given room unable to move, clutching my phone but scared to call for help and feeling so underserving.
I do remember clearly the day I gave up earlier in 2011. I remember lining up the meds that would finally end it all and after having held onto my 'easiest' way out for nearly two years and swallowing down my fate. And I remember in vague detail the next 36 hours approximately and the despair that overwhelmed me that I hadn't been 'effective'. I couldn't even succeed at dying.
Hmm...writing all this out has helped remove the glamour I had in my head. I know that what I had at that time 3-5 years ago was not control, it was not life and if I ever tried to have that again it would escalate and most definitely kill me this time.
So, now I am feeling that I don't want that but that it is sort of my fate. Much hopelessness and fear that after being so patient and trying so hard that this experience will again end in my failure.
On that topic, I present a great reason why I have left so many programs/had myself kicked out/AMA off medicine and psych....there is a greater fear in me of attempting to get well and failing than there is of staying sick and dying.
At this point, I hold on for other people. When I want to give up, I put myself in my family's shoes and imagine watching my sister/daughter/cousin struggle with this and although I do not place equal value on myself as I would on any of my family I have accepted that that is a very subjective view of myself and am trying hard to believe that I have as much of a right to a full and satisfying life as any other being.
I also imagine my team back home that refused to give up on me even when I acted like I hated them for it, all the while silently thanking my lucky stars that they would catch me when I fell...over and over. And I hold on for them. If they believe in me, if they refused to give up on me and saw me through my very worst, the least I can do is try...and try again...and try again. So I do.
On that note, I am off to make a delightful snack of papaya and sesame snaps, cozy up with my blanket and watch some Grey's before heading to bed and preparing for the arrival of Monday.
My family arrives in 10 days!!!!! YAY
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