Over my head

Grrr. Angry right now.

Discovered that my father in law called my mother (who lives in another country) to tell her that he is concerned about my weight. Oh Jesus. I have lost a little weight but nothing that most people would notice. I work in a healthcare profession so I understand what is safe and what isn’t safe better than most people. I am not in an unsafe state with my weight.

I am also an adult- a real life grown-up. I also have a very anxious mother.

So you can imagine my anger to discover that this concerned conversation was going on behind my back. Em, could you just have spoken to me about it?

So my mother had “the talk” with me when I went home this weekend. She agreed, after seeing me with her own eyes that although slim I did not look “dangerously thin”. She told me that she had a dream that she was at my funeral. Oh God. This is the kind of anxiety-overdrive thing that I like to protect my mother from by not making concerned phonecalls to her. I do this because I am an adult and I can take other people’s feelings into consideration.

BTW I am 30 years old. Come on. So will have to have some kind of uncomfortable conversation with my father in law about this. Cringe.

What is it about weight that people feel is public property to discuss. Weight loss signifies an emotional problem, a disorder, a crises. Weight gain signifies laziness, letting yourself go. 

Starting to understand what pregnant women feel like- privacy is gone.

I am sure that this can all be explained by parents need to “be parents”. Even when their children are grown ups, who have jobs, own their own houses, are married, have children of their own, they see them as their little one.

A note on eating and not-eating

Feeling quite good today, and have done for the last three days. 🙂  This is good. Progress? Notably am thinking a lot about the future and feeling positive about it. This is a big change and a welcome one.

Of course now that  am feeling a bit better the guilt about being off work on sick leave intensifies. I shouldn’t really be sitting here on a Monday morning while my colleagues are busting their asses. My therapist says I should stop trying to take responsibility for my work team and take some responsibility for my health and my recovery.

She’s on to me. Obviously she is a trained professional in the ways of the mind and therefore has figured out that I will respond well to this challenge. So, instead of sick leave being something nice and kind that I should do to my frazzled brain it is something that I SHOULD do, in fact, have responsibility to do. This speaks to the girl guide inside. She’s got me.

Have started on 150mg of Effexor. Apparently the 75mg, although a bastard for the dizziness, was quite a piddly dose so I am now on the 150. The tablets look a bit like something you would worm a dog with but it’s what’s inside that counts.

Now here’s the funny thing, I haven’t been dizzy at all since I doubled the dose. Result. I think it’s because it is a slow release tablet. I’m impressed.

I also feel a little bit high. Chitty chatty bouncy high. However this is not something I am going to complain about, given the circumstances.

So much better is my dizziness that on Saturday I succeeded in that challenge to the dizzy and off- balance- bikram yoga. 38 degree room. Changing postures frequently. Mirrors and scantily clad bodies all around. It’s probably not the best environment for an anorexic depressed woman with hypotension. But I stuck it out and didn’t feel dizzy once!

Ok we need to tackle that word anorexia. I’m not going to go into too much because it’s a bit exhausting. Here are some truths about my eating disorder:

1. I have a long term relationship with bulimia, it’s an on-off thing. It’s a bit like this bad-guy boyfriend who you know is bad for you but every now and then you run back and then beat yourself up about the next day.

2. I ruminate a lot about what I am eating, my size, how fit I am, comparing myself etc. See above.

3. I have been feeling depressed for about 7 months now and part of that is a loss of appetite…a loss of will to look after myself, and at its worst points, a desire to diminish. I can’t describe it a better way other than to say I wanted to decrease. To take up less space. To fade a little away from things. A response to not wanting to cope anymore.

4. Now if you jumble all three points together you get where I am now. My mood is a bit better in that I am now trying to get better, move towards something. But the eating disorder still serves a purpose. Remember that I am still the person who has had a disordered approach to food, but now I have discovered within myself a capacity to deny. To restrict. To be skinny. To be fair, I was never overweight- always slim. But now I am skinny. The smallest size in the shop. There is a dark obsession with that. Something that makes my eyes gleam. A coveted thing. I am fiercely protective over this and will not give it up.

On a knife edge again then. Between safe and dodgy. Healthy and sliding downhill. What if life gets tough again. What if depression and anxiety come back with a vengeance.

Not out of the woods yet.