Saturday, 29 June 2013

My Dietary Intake Got Worse

[note: may be triggering]

This is going to a be a depressing post but hey ho; it's not all sunshine and smiles.
So, when I was about fifteen and at High School I realised that food was optional; I didn't have to finish my lunch and I didn't even have to eat any. Then I begun using it as a coping mechanism to make myself invisible. I became underweight and was bullied mercilessly by people who I thought were my friends calling me a 'bag of bones' and a 'skeleton.' Then I went on to College and continued starving and begun exercising; a friend and I would jump the fence at lunch time and go for a jog instead of eating. Things seemed to peter out but I never really ate properly after that, I'd skip meals all the time. My Mum worked fulltime after my mental health deteriorated so she'd be gone before I'd woke up so that would be breakfast out the window then I'd get up at lunch time and sometimes I'd eat, Mum wouldn't be back 'til half six, seven o'clock in the evening so I'd sometimes lie and say I'd ate dinner already.
I can't remember the first time I made myself sick. I remember a friend at High School trying to teach me how to do it so I could get sent home but I chickened out.

Anyway, I remember losing a lot of weight at some point, long before I came here, and my CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse) said that it seemed that if I wasn't overdosing or cutting then I was self-harming through controlling my dietary intake.
Since I've been at this hospital, I've had a few episodes of purging (making myself sick) and not really eating but they've dwindled out without much fuss. A few 1:1's here and there with a mood diary thrown in. Now though, I don't know. It feels different somehow.
It started when I was physically poorly and I was in the local medical hospital from Monday 'til Thursday and during that time (without meaning to) I had two meals. It was because I was so poorly, knocked out from painkillers and sedatives and feeling nauseous too. But it stuck. I liked how much weight I'd lost when I got back (3kg in 10days). It carried on. Annie made it carry on.
Annie's one of the voices I hear, the worst one. At mealtimes, she began getting even louder than usual and calling me fat etc and telling me I didn't deserve to eat. At first, I fought her and ate but then she got even louder and I'd have to purge. Now, I'm barely eating and when I do, I'm still having to purge. A few days ago, I'd been physically poorly two days before it and I was asking to go to the local supermarket but the staff wouldn't let me, they said they wanted a day of me being physically fine. So I went to my bathroom and vomited. Why should they get all the control over my life?

Today, it felt like I lost more control. I can usually tell myself 'I'll just vomit three times then I'll stop' but today, I kept going until it was bile and even then, I only stopped because I left my room to go and take some meds. I ended up crying because it felt like I'd lost control and the nurse told me not to worry, reassured me that the meal plan she was putting together would help. Would be the answer. I tried explaining to her that the more I feel pressured to eat, the less I'll eat but she said that now I was asking her not to do the meal plan, she was even more concerned and determined to do it.
I cried in Reflection when I tried to explain that even though people think they're supporting me (the staff keep bugging me to eat and offering to sit with me at mealtimes), I still feel so alone. No one else can hear what I hear. No one else feels this way. I'm alone. And the worst part is, I don't think my Mum can understand or accept all of this. So after she hung up on me... Well, I've never felt so alone. All I want to do is curl in a ball with a ton of paracetamol and end it. I feel so low and lonely. But I can't. I have to get through it. I haven't a choice right now; yet another reason for me to purge.