February 2016

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DAYS IN A HOSPITAL BED

9 Feb 2016

Lying in a hospital bed, staring at the roof, has come as a blessing in disguise. I have been able to lie in bed and zone out without feeling bad about not working. My boss has told me that if she sees me at work in the next two weeks, she’ll fire me. (She takes on a fierce, motherly tone when her artists get ill or suffer.)

Hour after hour I drift between a clear mind (like I have now), and the drugged mist I descend into whenever the nurse injects that chemical magic into my IV. I don’t even ask what she’s giving me, I assume it’s for the pain. My banana bag drips, drips where it hangs, and the hallway buzzes with the rustle of nurse uniforms and heartbeat monitors. I sleep with oxygen in my nose and five blankets wrapped around me. I’m so cold I had to ask Brooke to go ‘steal’ some extra for me.

I haven’t been in the hospital since I was ten, having my adenoids out. I always thought if I ended up in a hospital bed again, it would be because of the anorexia. I’ve feared being force fed and force admitted. Sometimes the narrow focus of science to fight the arch-enemy – Death – leads to more damage than anything. The last thing I need to be treated with is force. My anorexia is a symptom of abuse. Do they imagine stuffing tubes down my throat and making decisions for me will help me? No. They consider their job done when they’ve kept my heart beating, but hardly care that it’s broken.

I’ve feared losing even more control over my life, my body, by having medical personnel force survival on me, when what I want is life and healing. That scenario, of being admitted for anorexia, has existed like a pending nightmare in my mind. I’m so glad that is not the reason I’m here now. Instead I feel like I’ve escaped the world. Just for a bit.

My lungs are crackling like fireworks when I breathe, and get enough air is hard even with the oxygen. My limbs hurts, and so does my head from all the coughing. My stomach has stopped aching and the sharp pangs are gone, but I think that’s due to the drug cocktail and not evidence of full recovery. It was explained to me that the lining of my stomach has eroded away in parts, and that is causing me to vomit blood. They’re allowing the lining to heal before I can eat solid foods again. What a relief.

I wondered to myself if the stomach issue is a result of anorexia or my years of suffering from bulimia. I didn’t ask.

The doctor on call this morning checked in on me, and pointed out the lack of nutrients in my blood and my weight being on the ‘low side’. I told him I’d been stressed and overworked lately, and just forgotten to eat. I’m glad he didn’t ask a direct question or push the matter too much. He just made a few jots in my chart and moved on.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a room shared only with one/two other people. Hospital rooms can tend to be crowded in England, where beds are lined up like sardines in some wards, offering little privacy or peace. And I’ll never understand why they wake you up at 6am to give you a pill which helps you sleep.

The head nurse wanted to take my laptop away today, saying that I needed to rest and not worry about work. (She assumes I’m working when I’m on it.) But I insisted so strongly that I keep it that she let me. Being able to go on Pinterest, listen to music, read the news, or blog is helping me stay sane. They still haven’t let me know when I can go home, but that’s ok.

When I was checked in to the hospital on Friday, they asked who they could contact as my next of kin. Brooke handled it well and explained I was estranged from my family. Estranged. Like I had some petty fight with a family member, or we just ‘drifted apart’. Like I was some black sheep who’d gone off on my own to ‘find myself’, instead of escaped for my life from a house that could never be a home. I wish I had somebody. Somebody who was family.

Song of the day: Mi, by Nils Frahm

One day at a time.

Aria |

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WHAT HAPPENED ON FRIDAY

8 Feb 2016

Sorry it’s been a few days since I wrote last. But a lot of stuff happened since last Thursday. On Friday, following the end of my water fast, I started to feel really unwell. At first I thought it was introducing food back to my stomach that was causing the nausea and dizziness. And I developed a pretty bad chesty cough too. But by the time I got home that afternoon, I started to think it was something else.

I could hardly climb the stairs to my flat. My head was pounding, I was shivering, and my stomach hurt. Also I was terribly out of breath and my lungs are wheezing as I inhaled. By the second flight of stairs I’d vomited. By the third, I was crawling on my hands and knees to get to my door, the world spinning around me.

Once inside my flat, I dialled for my friend, Brooke. She’s one of the only people who knows about my anorexia, and I knew I needed help. I don’t even remember what I said to her when she picked up, but twenty minutes later she was kneeling next to me in my flat as I was hurling on the floor. Ten minutes later, when I vomited blood, she called for the ambulance. After that I blacked out.

Turns out I had an acute form of pneumonia, (that was the cough and breathing problems), and acute Gastritis and a Gastric Rupture (the bloody vomit). Those, coupled with low blood sugar, low blood pressure, and being weakened from the fast, lead to me collapsing. My immune system was very weak, and my electrolyte balance poor.

I’m still in the hospital. I’m on a drip, antibiotics, and am on oxygen for the pneumonia. Also meds for my stomach lining, as well as strict instructions not to eat anything solid for a while. Brooke stops by every day with flowers and magazines. I appreciate having her here. We hadn’t spoken much recently, but this experience has brought us closer. She has been very comforting, and helped get the medical staff off my back about my under-weight. I know Brooke doesn’t approve of my eating disorder, but she also understands that being nagged to eat won’t help me.

I’ve finally been well enough to sit up in bed and use my laptop to blog and zone out online. The pictures are some Brooke took of me while I was ‘out’. She brought my camera, toiletries, and even painted my nails this morning.

I feel exhausted. And the morphine they had me on during the first two nights has left me so foggy. Well, at least there is no food here to tempt me. Hospital food. Yuck.

Will write again soon. One day at a time.

Aria |

 

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WATER FAST AND SHAKING HANDS

4 Feb 2016

My water fast is over. My skin has become clear, my face has lost water weight, and I’ve lost 5 kg. I’m feeling proud of myself for the accomplishment. But by the fourth morning, I was feeling really weak and my hands were shaking.

One of my fav outfits

This morning I had lemon water to start me off, and then had a smoothie consisting of 1 apple, 5 grapes, and a cup of almond milk. This is just to ease my stomach into eating again. Last time I fasted, I gulped down food when it was done, and threw it all back up again because my stomach couldn’t handle it.

It’s been good to have a weekend. Although I need my job to keep busy and keep my mind off food, I started to get so tired half-way into the fast that I could hardly make myself focus on a conversation, let alone my work. Being at home, I’ve just been able to zone out in my flat. Sleep, watch a movie, have a bath, do my nails, sleep some more. I will reach my goal weight of 60kg by December. I will.

Today I’ll go for a run in the park, and then out for tea in my favourite cafe just down the street. They have the best elderflower tea there I’ve ever tasted. And I’ll wear one of my favourite outfits. Also, as a reward for fasting, and a treat, I’m thinking of buying myself a rabbit. There’s more than enough room in the flat, and Bagheera needs a friend.

One day at a time.

Aria |

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MOCKING A PAIN YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND

3 Feb 2016

Third day of the water fast. Today has been the hardest day I’ve had in a long time. And funnily enough, it has very little to do with starving.

I woke up at 4 am, unable to fall back asleep. My body was tired, but my mind was busy talking to itself; pulling up every shred of anxious, stressful, accusing thought in my head and screaming it all at once. I tried to settle back down, but it wouldn’t have it. Instead I lay in bed and let the darkness take me.

I am overwhelmed by everything. Every thing. All the things I haven’t done but should have, all the things I fail at, fall short of. Someone might say I am expecting too much of myself, or even that I wrongly believe that others expect too much of me. But whether or not the monstrous waves of expectations I feel (both from myself and others) is accurate or not, it is not a failure at perfection that I am kicking myself over. No. It’s the fact that even the smallest task seems impossibly strenuous. It may seem strange to someone who hasn’t experience this, but for those who have gone through a single day of real depression or true exhaustion may know what I’m talking about.

On days like this, the thought of having to brush my teeth can actually bring me to tears. Because, although a tiny thing, my tank is completely empty. Bone dry. Being asked to do the smallest thing, though it demands only a drop of energy or engagement, then becomes torture. You can only imagine what the thought of going to work, or meeting a conflict head on, or entering a stressful situation can feel like. It feels like drowning. It feels like running a marathon while you have the flu. It feels like bleeding out on the floor and then being asked to do a maths test in a burning building.

That’s how the morning was. I just wanted to die. I wanted any relief from the pain and exhaustion I was feeling. My mind went to the scissors in the kitchen.

Many people don’t understand self harm. Cutting seems weak and mad to them. Cutting and self harm, however, makes more medical sense than a lot of people know. Cutting releasing endorphins, and adrenaline and other chemicals. It is a different kind of pain and sensation to distract from a mental pain. Also, for those who feel numbed or suffocated by trauma or mental anguish, the physical pain and sensory stimuli can be sobering, and make one be more present in the ‘now’, or feel more real.

I can’t fully explain it, but I know that at the heights of mental and emotional pain, cutting helps me. It is a momentary relief, a brief distraction. I think it really scares people because they’re more at ease with a hidden, invisible symptom. Cutting is just a small physical manifestation of an internal anguish. But they’d rather not see it so black and white. Also, cutting is assumed to be the mark of someone who has given up or who wishes to die. Although this may be true in some cases, cutting is rarely the action someone will take to make that happen. It’s, on the contrary, a survival mechanism. Not a step towards destruction. I don’t cut because I’m trying to kill myself. I cut because I’m fighting so hard to stay alive.

I sat on my bed, watching the tiny stripes of blood, and feeling a bit discharged. Just for a bit. I also felt shivery from not eating.

There are many who mock cutting, but to them I’d say: Don’t mock a pain you haven’t

My cat, Bagheera

felt. It’s not an attention-seeking stunt. It’s not a show, or a sign of insanity. Most cutters go to great lengths to hide their cuts from others. After all, it’s a very vulnerable, deeply personal thing – a small physical manifestation of their inner pain. And even if someone did do it for attention – isn’t that a cry for help that ought not to be met with mockery or be made light of?

I remember the first time I cut myself. It was 13 years old. My mother found out and told my father. I don’t know why she did that. I never could trust her with anything. When he found out, he called me into his office and said: “What’s this all about? What is it – do you want attention? Come on. Stop being so dramatic.” And then he laughed. I felt like someone was pointing at my weakest point and laughing at it. That created a deeper scar in me than any blade ever could.

This morning the cutting helped me slightly, and I managed to go back to sleep for a bit. Bagheera purred next to me, warming my back. By the time the sun was up, I drew myself a warming bath, decked out with candles, flowers, nail varnish to do my nails, and something good to read. I just need to get through today. That’s what I keep telling myself. Just a day. Don’t take the week or the month or the year in a lump and try to swallow it. Just a tiny crumb of a day. Just survive.

The absolute worst thing about today is that I had to see people. I felt so hideous, so ugly and disgusting and horrendous that I wanted to shrink up and die. I didn’t want anyone to see me. I wanted to avoid everyone. I just want to be alone until I’m skinny, until I stop feeling like this. Until I am acceptable.

It may sound strange, but sometimes I forget that I’ve been in pain for years. As if that wouldn’t take a toll. As if that wouldn’t affect the strongest person. As if I could get away from that with no scars of effects or aftermath.

The bath did me good. I zoned out, reading, letting the warm water engulf me. It was a small pleasure in an ocean of pain. I also allowed myself a cup of green tea. After the bath, I got ready and took the underground to work. I was careful to wear a long-sleeved jumper to hide my cuts. I managed to get through the day with minimal contact, and pretended to be immersed in my work. I really was. The paint strokes felt like the strokes of an oar – with each pull, I took my boat further away from land. Soon it was just a pin prick in the distance, slowly engulfed by the fog of creative thought and numbness. I am very glad that I have painting.

By the time I got home in the afternoon I was spent. My energy was very low, as I dragged myself up the stairs. I felt weak and my hands were shaking. Once in my flat, I was too tired to cry, too tired to sit on a chair, too tired to think or lift up my phone, or even be. I just lay in my bed and inwardly sobbed.

Some days are simply hell. And all I know how to do is drag myself through them.

Song of the day: Burden, by Foy Vance

One day at a time.

Aria |,

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SLIMMER

2 Feb 2016

Second day of water fasting. It’s been harder today than it was yesterday. Yesterday I managed to stay so busy, and even went out jogging. I nearly forgot I was fasting until an hour before bed time. And by then I could just go to bed early to mute the hunger. But today I woke up hungry from the morning (which is rare for me).

But, as a looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I felt that deep satisfaction at seeing my stomach flatter than it’s been in a while. I looked pale but slimmer already. (Water fasting has quick results). My skin is even clearing up, to the point where I didn’t feel the need to wear any make-up to work.

I indulged in an aromatic bath this morning, which warmed me up and relaxed me. Before I went to work, I put on some of my favourite clothes. Grey sweater, black skinny trousers, snake skin vans, black nail varnish. I’ll generally opt for a minimalist/chic look, although I can appreciate a vast array of fashion styles.

Since it wasn’t raining, I chose to bike to work. (I don’t own a car since it’s just easier to depend on public transport in the city. And a lot cheaper.) On my way into the city, I popped by the Columbia Road Flower Market in London. I treat myself with magazines and flowers when I’m fasting to avoid the temptation of treating myself with food.

Instead of creating a vacuum, I’m replacing the pleasure of eating with something else. I ended up getting myself some white peonies. I was surprised they even had them in February. White peonies are my favourite flowers, followed by a close second: white magnolias. They’ll look amazing in the flat. And when they start to wilt, I’ll pick off the petals and use them in my bath. (I’ve done that with roses before, and it’s amazing.)

Right now I’m sitting on a park bench. I went out for my lunch break so as to avoid questions of why I’m not eating, or risk being asked to join my co-workers in eating out. One of the benefits of working around other artists, is that most of them are introverted and in their own heads most of the workday. That minimises the small talk and makes it easier to go unscrutinised than, say, if I worked in an average admin office.

Something interesting did happen yesterday, just after I brushed my teeth in the evening. Ron, my ex, called me. I was about to say he called me out of the blue, but we did run into each other at a mutual friend’s party in January. He was drunk and acting like an idiot at the party, and I didn’t take his flirtation seriously because he was drunk. I’d felt pretty down after I saw him at the party, especially after he made some harsh remarks about my weight. I was still surprised when I saw his name flashing on my phone screen, and I hesitated to pick up. In the end I did.

He was sober this time and said very little apart from “Hi” and “I really want to see you”. I pressed him to get to the point, not at all wanting to see him. Rob ended up blurting out that he’d broken up with his girlfriend. His girlfriend, Stacey, is the girl he ended up leaving me for. They’d been together before he met me, and we broke up because I could clearly see he was still hung up on her. I didn’t really know what to say. I ended up just listening as best I could, and saying as little as possible.

Against my better judgement, I agreed to meet on Friday. He said he just needed to talk and needed a friend. He’s not my friend, but he apparently feels I am his. I wish I hadn’t said yes to meeting him, but I’ll get it over with on Friday and then be done with it.

I was asked by a blogger if I take any supplements while water fasting. I don’t. The reason is that I want to give my body a complete break – nothing apart from lemon water in the morning to get the digestion going. I wouldn’t recommend fasting indefinitely without supplements, as your nails, hair, skin etc will suffer from this. But if it’s just for three days like I’m doing, it’s fine.

My song of the day: Electric Love, by Børns

One day at a time.

Aria |

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NAGGING

1 Feb 2016

A new month has begun, and I’m on the first of my three day water fast. This morning I’ve already had 1 litre of water, of which there was a glass of lemon water. I’ll be having lemon

Warm water with lemon for breakfast

water in the mornings, but nothing apart from that. The lemon will help with digestion, alkalisation of the body, and keeping my skin clear and hormones balanced.

Based on past experience, water fasting, or any form of fasting, can make me feel quite ill. Not so much because I’m not eating, but because the detox effects are clearing out toxins from the body. This can cause symptoms like head aches, joint aches, bowel problems, skin problems, nausea, etc. But after the worst is cleared out, I never regret doing it.

The results are usually amazing. I loose weight (a lot of it water weight), get better skin, a clearer mind, a flatter stomach, clearer eyes, and a general thinning of the face and body.
It helps to keep busy during fasting, so I’ve chained myself to my work bench at the art studio for the coming week. I aim to finish my painting, and start sketching the outlines of a new piece of work.

Last week my boss informed me that my last piece sold for £535. She was really pleased

Tools of the trade

with that, considering as well it was small in size. Generally I get 75% of the earnings for my paintings, while the art studio and the gallery get the rest. It’s a pretty good deal.

My friend, Ginny, has asked me out to lunch today. She’s one of those friends I need to watch out for when it comes to my eating. She keeps a close eye on me, often asking me if I’ve eaten, and why I look so skinny, and if she needs to force-feed me.

Ginny is very motherly, and I know she does it out of concern. But she can also be rather controlling and overbearing. I try to take her nagging with a twist of humour. I only hope she’ll keep off my back today, because I’m not in the mood to fight her. Then again, she did get engaged a week ago (which I’m assuming is what she wants to talk about). So she’ll hopefully be more preoccupied with her ring than my waist.

And I’ve set a weight goal for myself. By December 2016 I have to have reached my ideal weight – 50kg. This needs to happen, and I won’t accept excuses from myself. Not that I think I’ll have any trouble with that; I’m loosing my appetite more and more.

As a treat for myself, I bought the latest O Comely magazine on my way to work, and a flowers for the flat. Love this mag, and flowers. This evening I will have a bath, light candles, and read O Comely in peace.

Song of the day: The Wisp Sings, by Winter Aid

One day at a time.

Aria |

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