It’s hard to find a structure that contains as many dimensions as the human mind, that reflects the connections and contexts and conundrums….but there is a method to my madness.
Finding Melissa is loosely structured around 6 key themes or, in WordPress speak, categories. Within each of the categories are a number of tags (to your right, in the clever cloud thing). These, as you would imagine, are the sub sections within each of the categories.
Most of the categories / tags are what they say on the tin; but, because it can get confusing, here’s a whistlestop tour:
Losing Melissa is about taking the wrong road and losing your sense of self. It looks at the causes of eating disorders, the features that seem to contribute to eating disorders (psychiatric stereo-typing; self esteem; perfectionism,growing up), and the physical and emotional journey into an eating disorder.
Lost is an exposé of life with anorexia, bulimia – and a whole host of associated conditions (addiction, OCD, depression, isolation). There’s also a little more specific focus on eating disorders (food, body image, control); what living with an eating disorder feels like; and, the emotional struggle involved in trying to get over an eating disorder.
Being Human, puts the personal sections into the wider picture of human evolution and behaviour. Its the connections between my head and the wider world; an exploration of how people seem to work (perception and belief, gender) – and how that relates to emotional health. It covers lots of things that touch lots of people today and yesterday and maybe tomorrow; and uses poetry and prose to try and make sense of things that are hard to make sense of.
‘In Context’ brings together the theoretical bit and what’s going on today. It’s about society (photoshopping and super-stressing)and culture (hypochondria and supermarket consumerism) and what’s happening in the news – and how this impacts on eating disorders and emotional health. It’s an exploration of what it feels like to be growing up today – and relevant to anyone.
Getting Better is about recovery. It’s the practical things that made a difference (friends and family,cognitive exercises, learning how to eat, treatment); and the emotional journey that recovery involves (change, letting go).
Finding Melissa is the silver lining. It’s the things that I’m doing to find out who I am and who I want to be. It draws on my passion, literature; and what it feels like to find yourself – and your voice.
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Emily Dickinson
Eating disorders are clearly at the heart of this site and it would be great, as Emily Dickinson so eloquently put it, to stop one heart from breaking; however, if that’s too much to hope for, I think I’ve covered a fair amount of ground and made a few interesting points…
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my experiences, it’s that human beings may behave differently and experience diversely – but they tend to feel along similar lines. And, if my literary evidence stacks up, they’ve been feeling along similar lines for a very very long time.
