Archive for the ‘Difficult Feelings’ Category

The “I don’t care” voice

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

I am starting a new job on Wednesday. It’s the first time I’ve gone into a new job without the eating disorder to lean on. It was, I am beginning to recognise, a big part of my defence against the world and so I feel rather exposed venturing out on my own. If it all goes wrong, I will have nothing to make me feel better and nothing else to blame.

It is a little hard to acknowledge these thoughts.

I’ve been digging around rather uncomfortably to see if I can find out what they mean…only I already know the answer. They mean that I have to stop pretending that I don’t care.
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The Flipside of Fear

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

This is a blurt post.

There’s stuff going on in my head that I can’t quite seem to work out. Passing snippets that have paired themselves off without quite explaining the pairing, and insights that still remain partially hidden. There is one common thread. It is the word fear.

Fear.

I’m scared.

Belly scared. Paralysed scared. Scared silly….yet not quite sure of the source (there’s so many); nor, if I’m honest, of the emotion (it’s just what I always feel).
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Existential Depression? Another Piece of the Puzzle

Monday, June 14th, 2010

I have been trying, for years, to make sense of my illness. To gain some sort of understanding of why and where it all began. It has been like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle when you’re not quite sure what the end image is, nor when the next piece will come.

Most of them have emerged during my recovery. It was hard, before then, to see beyond the food. Now, I follow the clashes, and the discussion and the flashes of insight; and the puzzle is coming steadily along.

I no longer expect it to be completed.
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Envy, Jealousy, the Eating Disorder, and Me

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

I have known, for a while now, that I am going to have to write about jealousy at some point. I have started, multiple times, in the past year, and then abandoned the attempts in frustration as the words splutter out with no resolution; and, amidst the debris, I can not find what I am trying to say.

Jealousy is something that I struggle with on an almost daily basis. A cruel and angry emotion that starts in the pit of my stomach; winds its way around the object – and then shoots back to me again.

Envy is closely aligned, yet more crippling. It is ingrained and slow-moving, and I often get them confused.

Her job is more interesting than my job; his flat is bigger than my flat; where they live is better than where I live; blonde hair has far more allure that brunette; if only I was as clever – or as beautiful – or as popular – or as slim, as her.

One complaint leads to the next and the poison oozes, insidiously, until everything’s tainted.

For as long as I can remember, I have been like this.
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Not Cool Enough

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

There are a few people who make me feel like I’m not quite cool enough; and I have been trying, desperately, to work out whether the problem is them – or me.

At 30, I should be beyond these schoolgirl considerations. They smack of whispering at the back of classrooms and popularity ratings and things that you would have hoped I’d grown out of…only the hurt is still as sharp and the insecurity, as gnawing.

It is frustrating that, whilst they’re getting on with life, I am still struggling to wrestle back a little self respect and reassure myself that their opinion is not the only thing that counts.
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On Rejection

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

There was something going around twitter last week about rejection.

I can’t get it out of my mind.

It has struck a sensitive chord that I am almost too scared to write about; and, because the chord is exposed, a wall’s gone up and now I can’t see what’s going on behind.

According to this article, rejection is like a physical pain. Whether you care about who’s rejecting you or they’re hidden behind a computer screen, the hurt is the same –

A twisting in the gut and a bowing of the shoulders and a sinking of the head and the unbearable feeling of shame. Or that’s the imprint that remains for me.

A few weeks ago, I had my own little example.
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Stitched On Smiles

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Pull your socks up and put a smile on your face and be grateful for everything you’ve got, because what will people think when you’re walking around looking miserable.

This time, I don’t really care what people think and I can’t quite muster up the enthusiasm to pull up my socks. They will only slide back down again. I am tired of playing games. I appreciate that I might not be great company; but if you give me time to sort my head out, then I’ll probably get there in the end –

It’s when you trample over my feelings or sweep them under the carpet that we’re heading for disaster.
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Life – and Death

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

I stopped believing in an afterlife around the time I realised I was far more likely to end up in hell – than in heaven.

We’ve got an eye on death from the moment we start developing a consciousness.

It’s bound up in how we behave, and what we believe and how we live our lives –

There’s no escaping the subject – it’s just how we approach it that determines where the emphasis is.

Thinking about death can either ruin your life – or make it- and, after an evening contemplating the subject with Mark Vernon at the School of Life(!), I’ve decided that I’m going for the latter
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“We perished, each alone”

Friday, July 17th, 2009

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;

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The Dark Side

Monday, June 15th, 2009

My head is tuned in to minor thirds. It resonates with clashing chords. It connects, on some fundamental and physical level, with melancholy despair, with violent lyrics.

There’s a certain type of song that sounds like my eating disorder feels; that mirrors the despair and the desperation of my anorexia; taps into the violence and anger of my bulimia; and provokes an almost physical reaction – a stunned recognition – followed by an overpowering sense of sadness and pain.

I had an epiphany on the way to work one morning. Somewhere between St Albans and Hatfield, when Amy Winehouse had reduced me to tears, I realised what my response was all about.

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All Alone

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

“’We perished, each alone.’” – Virigina Woolf

Maybe isolation is so scary because it’s the closest that we get to death – while we’re still alive. Maybe it’s so horrific and terrifying because it’s the delicate difference between life – with other people – and death – when we’re on our own.

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