Welcome to Oblivion

Welcome to oblivion.
Where panic starts to settle in.
And I'm afraid of everything.
I lost my head again.

Welcome to oblivion.
Where my whole life is caving in.
And I can't stand who I am.
I think I'm losing it. - Madina Lake

It's so cold in my kitchen I can see my own breath and I can barely feel my fingers to type. I feel so out of it today, I feel almost drunk because things just keep happening and I feel so zoned out that I'll be having a conversation and then realise that I've missed about 5 minutes and have no idea what we're even talking about. I feel like I can't remember what it was like to have energy, and like lifting my arms and legs is so much effort.

Yesterday I didn't want to eat anything, but I knew if I tried that I'd end up b/p, so I decided that instead I would do a really good work out and then eat a bit, and in the end I had an apple, a banana and a spring roll. I weighed myself this morning and I'm exactly what I was before the weekend, which isn't too bad seeing as I had a really bad weekend, but I always, always wish it would be lower. I know I'm going to end up eating more today, just because I actually have things I need to do and I literally cannot move off the sofa, so I'm going to try and just have a few small things so I don't feel starving and hopefully just full enough to keep away a binge.

I just found out about an hour ago that my bf is moving to dayshift from Monday, and I know that all of me should be happy because we get to spend more time together, but there's still a part of me, the ED part of me, that is worried that I wont be able to be so disordered as easily. I'm worried that I'll have to stop pretending that everything is normal and that I'm really struggling again. I know that I am, but right now I'm not in a place where I want admit it to anyone else in case they try and help me or make me get help. I'm scared that I feel like I don't want help, and I'm scared that a complete relapse feels not very far away, and I feel like I'm trapped between knowing that I need to try and stop this now and also wanting to let myself get sick again.

Failure

I feel utterly heartbroken today. I woke up this morning and for the first time in a very long time I had such a bad urge to cut. I've felt like such a failure this weekend. I drank a lot, and ate waaaaay too much and I feel like I completely wasted the weekend to food and drink and now it's Monday and I feel sad and lost and fat. My first thought after wanting to cut was was that I wanted to fast all week. I feel like I need to punish myself for doing so badly this weekend and I want to hurt myself in so many ways. I feel like I don't deserve to have food, but I also feel like I don't deserve to be thin because I'm such a fuck up. And I'm not thin. But I just want to starve until I waste away.

Everythings changing at the moment, in some ways it feels like everythings changing too quickly, but at the same time I feel like it's not changing quickly enough. After 6 years of working a night shift, my bf is going to be moving back onto dayshift at some point in the next month. It could be at the same place he is now, which means he'll be taking a pay cut and we wont be able to do certain things anymore because we wont have enough money, but we will have a lot more time to spend together, or he'll be moving to another company which is a much longer commute so we wouldn't get to spend so much time together, but it's more money so we'd be able to do more things when we did have the time together. Ugh, it's such a hard decision to make, there are so many pros and cons to both, but I just want him to do what will make him happier on a day to day basis. As much as the money would be nice, I don't know if he'd be happy doing that 3 hour round commute, and I'd much rather he be happy. The only thing I'm worried about is, as always, eating disorder related. At the moment I'm in the house on my own in the evenings from 4pm til midnight, and that means my disordered eating can run completely free. During the day I'm busy doing things, and I've never eaten much during the day anyway, so I can get away with it, but when I'm on my own in the evenings I can fast/restrict if I want, I can binge and purge, I can over exercise, and I can do it all in a completely comfortable environment. Now he's going to be at home in the evenings, that's going to become really difficult. I wont be able to get away with not eating anything all night, or going to the shop and buying binge food and coming home and binging and purging.

I want to lose weight more than anything right now, I got so close to my original goal weight, and as soon as I got within reach of it, I decided that that weight was far too fat, and I've pushed it an extra 12lbs lower. I feel like whenever I get within reach of a goal, I change the boundaries so it's out of reach again, so that I constantly feel like I'm not achieveing anything so I am therefore constantly being a failiure.

I still feel so sad about all the things that happened at the end of last year, but I feel like now everyone's just assumed that I've got over it, and every time I bring it up to anyone who knows about it, they change the subject. But I'm really struggling and I still feel so utterly devastated by it. I want my baby back. I still want to wake up and for it all to have been a bad dream. I want it to stop hurting everytime I see a happy couple with a baby or a pregnant woman. I want to stop waking up in the middle of the night after dreaming that I was having a baby and crying myself back to sleep. I want to stop feeling like I want to punish my own body for not being able to grow and nourish my baby.

I wanted to fast today, but I also really want to binge so bloody badly because I feel so sad and so shit. I feel like I'm too weak to do anything right. I just want all of these thoughts to stop.

I'm so tired, so so tired. I've been hyper all day and now I'm just craaaaaashed. I had so much to get done today and I had a hospital appointment. I was so annoyed at myself because I was convinced my appointment was 2pm but when I checked this morning it was 3:30pm so that threw off my whole days plan by an hour and a half and I reaaaally don't cope so well when my plans change at the last minute, and I was kicking myself for not double checking what time it was. I did ok though, and I got my work done. I haven't really mentioned it before but my passion is cake decorating, and I know some people who know about my eating disorder think it's weird that I enjoy baking and cake decorating so much, but for me it's such a big creative outlet for me, and I find it so relaxing, and I actually very rarely want to binge when I'm baking (except on the batter but I try and wash everything as soon as I've used it so I'm not tempted). I'm going to college too to study professional bakery and its so much fun! It's hard work and making industrial size batches of bread, seriously does feel like a work out! I also think its a control thing too, because if I'm making a cake for someone, I know that they're going to be eating cake and I'm not, and that makes the eating disordered bit of me happy.

I walked about 6 miles today. I was going to take the bus, but I wanted to save money and get some exercise in so I walked to the hospital and back. I hadn't eaten anything, and when I got back I told myself that I'd have to weigh myself and I was only allowed to eat if I was under a certain number ( my weight has been bouncing up and down recently). Anyway, I was 2lbs less than that limit, so I let myself have some tuna. I want to eat again though and I don't know what to have, again I can feel a binge coming on so I want to feed my body a little bit more so that I can reduce that feeling without going over the top.

I've been so clumsy today, I dropped my phone in the hospital and it flew into loads of pieces in the waiting room, I dropped a bag I was carrying twice, and I just keep walking into things and tripping over things. I know I get like this when I've not had enough to eat and my brain isn't working properly. I need to start making a concious effort to be more on top of things. I'm in college EARLY on Fridays and I'm doing things with sharp knives right from the start so I definitely need to try and not be clumsy tomorrow.

I'm really looking forward to the weekend, me and my mum are having a girly night in tomorrow, and then a bunch of us are going out for pay day drinks on Saturday, I don't want to get too drunk but I know everyone wants a really messy one and Dave's not going and I always feel so socially anxious when I'm not with him on nights out and sometimes I know that I drink too much to overcompensate. But I really don't want to do that.

Anyway, I'm tired and I'm up early so I think it's bed time. Nighty night.

Binge.

As I write this I'm bingeing on left over pasta bake. I knew it was in the fridge and I wasn't going to eat it, but I'm sooooooo hungry. I caught myself in such a bad frame of mind and I'm writing this in a desperate attempt to slow down my brain and my actions. I need to take a really deep breath and realise that I'm not thinking/acting rationally. I need to stop reaching for the fork, and the food. This will pass, this will pass. The thoughts will ease and my thinking will slow. Each time I stop typing, I can feel the panic and urgency start rapidly rising in my chest again, but I just need to keep typing until it stops. Just breathe slowly, in and out. This will pass. This will pass.

I hate feeling so out of control when I eat. It makes me think I've overeaten when I haven't. I hate these thoughts. I hate them. This is going to be a bad night, and I dont know what I can do to stop it. I'm on my own for the next three hours, I honestly don't think I can hold off these feelings until then.

Overwhelmed

I woke up in a good mood today, it's my first day off work and I had so many plans and things that I wanted to do. I knew that my bf had loads of things he needed to do too before work so I woke him up so he didn't sleep all day (he works nights). I know last night he was feeling kinda down about stuff, and this morning everything just seemed to be magnified. Sometimes I think we're took similar for our own good. He kept saying about how he felt like a failure because he hated his job and other parts of his life, but he's too afraid of putting any effort into anything that might make life better because he's too scared of failing. MAN do I know how this feels, but he's more stubborn than me, whenever I'm feeling like this with a bit of help I can usually drag myself out of it, but I know tjat it's easier for me now because I've found what it is that I want to do and I can throw myself into that. He can't seem to ever be able to get himself out of a rut once he's in one though, and I know he's really depressed but he refuses to go and speak to a doctor or anyone about it because, again, he sees that as a failure that he can't rule his own mind and sort out his own life. I've tried talking to him, but he often closes himself off emotionally and doesn't tell me how he's really feeling, and he wont take his own advice. He tells me I should go and get help whenever I'm in a state and yet he wont even accept that he's in a similar, probably worse position mentally and he wont even consider getting help. I know that it's hard to accept that you have a problem, and I just want to help him but I don't know how I can help.

This back and forth went on for a good hour and a half and in the end we realised we just weren't getting anywhere, and I was in such a bad mood by this point. I know I shouldn't let myself get dragged down but it's pretty much impossible as I'm already feeling pretty shaky mentally myself. I decided to try and get the day back on track by starting to do the things I had planned, first on the agenda was washing, and then cleaning the house. Forty five minutes later and I was having a pretty bad panic attack. I'd started trying to tidy the house up a bit and literally everywhere I looked there was just crap, and I'd move some crap, and there'd be more crap. Everywhere needed properly cleaning and everything needed completely taking out, cleaning and then putting back in. I just kept walking from room to room getting more and more worked up as I went. The last few months I know the house was falling into a state of disrepair but I knew that I simply didn't have time to do anything about it, but now I'm off work, those thoughts have jumped to the forefront of my mind and I feel like such an uttery failure for not having a pristine house, and for not being able to make it pristine all at once. I feel more overwhelmed than ever and that is the complete opposite of why I gave up work, because I still feel like I don't have enough time to do everything I need to, and I instantly feel like I'm failing at everything. Even as I sit here writing this, my mind is racing with all the things that I feel like I should be doing. This isn't what I wanted, I wanted to find a place where I could concentrate completely on my studies and developing my skills, and I already feel like because I'm not 'working' anymore, then I have no excuse for my house not to be perfect. I know that all this is completely facile, and that the house is just what I'm channelling much stronger feelings into, but I feel like I'm really not coping. I just wish I could chill the fuck out, I'm so sick and tired of feeling anxious and on edge all the fricking time. I hate the person I've become. I don't want to be like this anymore.

I just don't want to be me anymore.

Honesty.

As I said in my last post, I wanted to make a video about this, but I still can't get my webcam working, so I've decided to write about it instead. I think doing it this way will probably help me to be more honest, and that's really what I need right now.

I know why I'm struggling so much. I can see the cause and the effect, I know why it's happened now, and I even know why it's manifested itself in the eating disorder side of things rather than any of my other self destructive behaviours. The last ten years have really taught me to know myself and to analyse what's going on in my own head, and why I behave in certain ways (I started self harming when I was 12, and abusing alcohol when I was 15, as well as the ED that started when I was 14). I know the whys and thr hows, and in therapy I even wrote (and laminated!) a list of early warning signs and coping mechanisms, but right now I just don't want to put any of them into practice.

So, here it all is, honestly and without any sugar coating.

In May 2011, me and my bf decided to start trying for a baby. I've always wanted kids, and we were both in a place in our lives where we wanted to make that step, we were settled and happy and we wanted to bring another life into the world. I'd been in a healthy place in my body and mind for quite some months. We talked and figured things out a lot before we even started trying, and when we did I was so excited and felt like everything was finally falling into place. Long story short, but by October, nothing had happened, we'd been trying and trying and every month I was just getting big fat negatives. I knew that I had other health issues (which I'll go into in another post) that may have been hampering things, but I'd been seeing my consultant regularly and he'd given my the green light when we started trying that everything should be fine. The negatives were getting hard to take and I was starting to get worried that we wouldn't be able to conceive naturally as I'd had a long time when I was severely underweight where my reproductive system just wasn't working at all.

On my birthday in the middle of October, my bf proposed to me. I was over the moon, I'd always wanted to get married, and it all felt so right. We, again, talked a lot about what to do next, and we decided that we would stop trying for now, and concentrate on getting married, so it was easier on us both to stop getting negatives, and also to give my body some more time to adjust to the medication I was on and give it more time to settle so it would be easier to conceive. A week later, I found out I was pregnant.

We were both so, so happy. It was everything I'd ever wanted, we were engaged and having a baby!! At this time I was also so busy, I was working full time in the evenings and I was going to college too and my stress levels were pretty high, and with the added strain of being pregnant as well, I was so tired all the time. I didn't panic though, I decided to 100% concentrate on being healthy for my baby.

A month later, on the day of my first antenatal appointment, I started getting pains, which got steadily worse, and then that was accompnied by bleeding. Fortunately, where I live, there is a specific women's hospital only about a mile away, and I ended up in there emergency room and after hours of waiting, severe pain and distress, I was told that I was having a miscarriage. The next three days were probably the worst of my life, I was in and out of the hospital, I had my blood drawn 11 times, I was sent for a scan to check it was ectopic, and all of this time at the hospital I was surrounded by happy, healthy pregnant women who were coming out from having their scans done, waving their little pictures around. It was completely and uttery mentally, physically and emotionally devastating.

I took a week off work and when I went back it was the run up to Christmas and I decided to concentrate on that. Just focus on having such a lovely Christmas time, and for the most part, this distraction worked, but that's all it was. I hadn't dealt with any of it. Two days after Christmas my bf and I had a serious talk about what we should do next. I knew he'd not been happy for a while, but he's such a closed book sometimes and after much coaxing he eventually told me that he didn't want to get married, and that he'd only proposed because he 'panicked'. I assume he felt guilty for not being able to give me the baby that I wanted, and decided that proposing was the next best thing. He also said that he wanted to just go and have fun again,  spend some time not having any responsibilities and deciding what he wanted to do with his life. Normally, I would support this desire completely, I've always wanted him to talk to me more, and also to find what he's really passionate about and chase his dreams, but the timing was just so bad, and I was utterly devastated. He said he felt lost in our relationship and needed to find who he was again. In only a couple of weeks I'd gone from having everything I'd ever wanted, having a baby, being engaged, just being so happy, to having what felt like absolutely nothing. It'd all just been taken away so fast and I didn't even have time to process.

I didn't feel like I wanted to put any of my coping mechanisms into place. I wanted to fall apart, I wanted to melt down, I didn't want anyones help, I just wanted to be on my own and mourn my baby, and to wallow in my own sadness. Of course that's when the eating disordered part of me piped up again. It felt so comforting to have something familiar again, almost something that felt like it was looking after me. It knew me, and I knew it, there's was no pretence there and it felt like I was striking back up a relationship with a friend I'd not seen in years, but who I knew inside out. It was easy and it was safe. The concious part of my brain even thought, I've spent the last 8 weeks nourishing my body, being as healthy as I could, and now I don't need to, now I can be as unhealthy and destructive as I like and it doesn't matter, I don't matter. I felt like such a failure, I couldn't even look after my own baby before it was born, what kind of mother would I have been.

Since then I've been declining slowly more and more into my disordered way of thinking. I've not really tried to fight it. I quit work because I couldn't cope with college and work, and I just didn't care anymore, and some part of me regrets it for being such a failure for not being able to do both, another part of me knows that its for the best so I can concentrate on doing what I really want in life, and a big part of me is excited to finish so that I can have more time to put into my disordered ways. I'm scared of that part. And I'm scared of what's coming next. I wish I had people to talk to.

Distraction!

Arghhh, I really wanted to make a youtube video but I cant seem to get my webcam to work, even though it's in my laptop it said it was being used elsewhere :-S weird but I'm too tired to try and work out what's wrong. I'm basically just desperately trying to stop myself from bingeing, I've done okish today but the bf is on overtime until 4am and I finished at midnight so now I'm just sat in the house on my own knowing that I just want to stuff myself until I stop feeling everything and it all just becomes a blur.

I'm so tired, I wish I could just go to bed but I just cant bring myself to do it. I want to work out but I'm so tired I can barely move and that automatically makes me feel like a failure, that little voice in my head telling me I'm worthless, disgusting and fat for not even being able to drag my lazy arse up and work out. I just really want a bit of peace. It's so fricking cold too, and I really need to save money so I'm trying not to put the heating on too much, and it's like minus 3. Totally just going to get into bed with all my clothes on in a minute. Probably be the best move tbh!

Night x

A lovely weekend.

I've had an absolutely lovely weekend, the weather was (and still is) absolutely gorgeous.As I said in my last post, me and the bf went to stay in a hotel on the docks just to get away and chill out for the night. It was lovely, we got there about half 3 and we'd paid a bit extra for a room with a view of the Mersey and so we lay on the bed and watched the sun go down over the river and all the pretty lights start to come on. We also had an excellent view of the Liver building. Even though I've lived in Liverpool for 6 years now, I still going and looking at it like a tourist, there's so many beautiful buildings and places if you just stop and look for a minute. Some of it is overwhelmingly beautiful.

We chilled out in the room for a bit, just watching tv and taking advantage of the facilities, and then we got dressed and decided to go out and treat ourselves so we went to a rather expensive cocktail bar called Alma de Cuba. I've never been before but they had the most amazing concotions, and I treated myself to two, even though I did feel a bit fuzzy headed afterwards. It was lovely to just relax and not have to worry about anything, and I tried desperately to hold onto that feeling when we went for dinner, but the anxiety started to creep in. Overall I think I did pretty well to keep things under control.

The night at the hotel wasn't completely anxiety free also unfortunately. I have no idea why anyone would think it was a good idea, but in the bathroom there was this long wet room which at one end had an amazing rainfall shower (I want one!) but at the other end had a full length mirror. I was pretty horrified and it was so hard to just enjoy the lovely shower, although fortunately the mirror did mist up pretty quickly. The whole room seemed to be so full of mirrors though, probably to make it look bigger but I counted six mirrors in the room, 3 of which were full length. I hate looking at myself at the best of times, and I feel like I've put on so much weight recently, so it felt pretty horrible, but for the most part I managed to avoid catching a look at myself when I wasn't expecting it.

Overall, I did love, love, love this weekend. It was so relaxing, and it was so cold and crisp and lovely. It's below freezing but its crystal clear, I love the weather when it's like this. It's back to reality today, BUT it's my last week in work this week!!! It's really scary, but I know that it'll give me sooooo much more time to focus on myself, and to work so hard on all the things I want to do, to get a little closer to my dream.

On the way to the hotel, smiling weirdly!

 

View from the window as the sun is going down.

Mersey and the Liver building.

Me and the bf watching the sunset, aaawwwww :-)

Lovely sky!

This was meant to be a picture of the room but I was very excited!

Nervous habits, and can I have a day off? Please?

I wish I didn't have nervous habits. It's Saturday evening and I'm sat here on the sofa, feet up on the bf's lap, listening to Placebo, in my pjs and generally just feeling so relaxed, and I'm still picking the shit out of my thumbs, and I don't even know why. I started picking the skin around my fingers and thumbs when I was quite young, probably about 9 or 10. I'd pick them til they bled and even if I put plasters on them, I'd pick the plasters off.

It started as a nervous habit that would calm me down before I went to school, or when I was in uncomfortable situationsand no matter how hard I try, I've not been able to kick the habit for the last 12 or so years. I've managed to get it down to just the thumbs, but I still pick them until they bleed. My bf hates it, and he's tried to help me stop, be so far nothing works. I work with my hands all day so I don't even know when I get chance to do it. It's got to the point where I don't even realise I'm doing it anymore, so it's almost impossible to stop, and a big part of me doesn't want to. It still calms me down, I just wish I didn't do it all the time.

We're going to stay in a hotel tomorrow night, just in town to get away from being in the house and to chill out in luxury for a few hours. I can't wait, I need to just forget about everything and kick back for a little bit. I'm tired of everything being a struggle all the time, so I'm going to try and shove all the crap to the back of my mind for a while and enjoy myself. Some part of me already knows this wont work, and what is more likely to happen is that I'll end up having some sort of emotional melt down, I feel like they're coming every few days at the moment, I'm desperately trying to deal with everything, but it's so difficult, and I just don't even have the time to try and come to terms with everything that has happened recently. I need to talk to someone not involved, maybe I should go back to therapy, but I don't want to have to start again with all that, plus there's always such a long waiting list. I wish I had closer friends, I wish I found it easier to make friends, I wish I wasn't so socially awkward and anxiety ridden all the fricking time. Ugh, this post is turning into such a scattered one, but my mind feels so scattered. I need a break, a holiday or something, I need to find a healthier way of dealing with how much the last few month's events have hurt me rather than slipping back into my eating disorder. It feels too easy, but I know how hard it is to claw my way out of it again. I'm just so tired of fighting everything every single day. I just want a day off, just one day. Please?

A long day.

Ugh, food. Food, food, food. I hate that it's everything, it's absolutely fucking everything. As I sit here I'm watching Masterchef, I've made food for myself which I've picked apart and is sitting next to me on the sofa, I know that there's so many things that in the kitchen that if I cave even for a second I'm going to end up shoving in my face.

I was doing well, I was doing so well. I'd lost weight, and I didn't even mean to, I'd just been so busy working and going to college and trying to set up a business and maintaining a relationship, friendship, family commitments, it was just so much and I felt like I was eating a lot but the weight just dropped off. At first when I realised how much my weight had dropped it triggered something within me and the old feelings flared up, I thought 'I haven't even been trying, how much weight could I lose if I actually tried!'. This was just before Christmas and for a few weeks I starved and I dropped, and then it was the holidays and I caved. It's a stressful food time for everyone, and even more so now I was having a tough time, and I totally and completely caved. Food, food, food. I told myself it's just be a few days over Christmas, but now its January 13th and I still cant stop. I cant stop shoving food into my face, and I feel like such a fucking fat bitch. I keep trying on these shorts and jeans that I hadn't been able to fit into for years before this last weight drop, and they still fit fine, and yet I still feel MASSIVE. What the hell is wrong with my brain? Why is it incapable of rational thinking?

Today has been so long, not as long as it usually would be though. I was in college 9am til 4pm and literally did not have a break. Ironically I'm doing baking and cake decoration (that's a whooooole other post with how that ties into my ED) and Fridays are always just hectic on college. We make produce for the bakery shop downstairs and its just crazy to get all the bread and cakes out on time, and then I had to go work on written assigments over my lunch break, and then it was 3 hours of cake decoration in the afternoon. Usually I'd have to go straight from college to work for a 7 hour shift that finishes at midnight, but I'd booked today off and I'm sooooooo glad I did! I'm exhausted, I feel like I just didn't get a break over Christmas to reco-operate from all of the shit things that happened at the end of last year (again, another post) and I just want a break.

Tonight has been nice just having the house to myself, my bf is at work until midnight, but I'm still sooooo looking forward to him coming home and we can start our weekend, also, I dont binge when he's in the house so that's a big plus, I can eat without feeling guilty. We're getting away just for the night this weekend which I'm very much looking forward to. I think we both need it!