I'm putting myself back on anti-depressants (Fluoxetine).
I watched The Iron Lady last night and there were about two 10 minute intervals in which I did not cry. Throughout the rest of the film I just sobbed manically, tears dripping off my cheeks.
I'm raw these days. It's like there's no flesh on me, just touch me and you go straight to the nerve. Everything hurts and everything makes me cry.
I sobbed all the way through The Iron Lady because it reminded me of my own mother - or how she will be in a few years. The film perfectly depicted the heartbreak of losing a husband - God knows I have no idea what it feels like, and yet I cry my eyes out for my Mum - am sitting here crying my eyes out for her now.
And that was it really. The old, deep-seated inability to deal with death and loss and grief. My mother who lost a husband and has only known pain and heartache since, who is getting more and more fragile and frail by the day. And what can I do except give her a kiss as I pass by in my angry little hurricane, trying desperately to make something of myself for her.
I caused my mum unnecessary anguish by being ill, I trampled on her broken heart. What good do my tears do now?
And still, over four years since I started, I still cough up the contents of my stomach, it still rules me, it still takes everything I have.
Last Monday in my treatment session my therapist decided to try something new to establish the roots of my self-destructive perfectionism. She made me close my eyes and go back to my childhood and talk her through everything I remembered and had felt. It was the single most heart-wrenching thing I have ever had to do. Those memories of my childhood remain locked down far away where I can't remember them for a reason. I cried solidly for the full session as she forced me back to the happiness I had felt in my Dad's arms as a little girl, the loneliness as he drifted away, as my Mum went to work, as the home crumbled around me, to the day when I came home and found him dead, to the days when my Mum cried in agony on the sofa in her empty world. And there was the little girl in the middle. Desperate to achieve, to be noticed, to be loved, to be praised. Desperate to be perfect.
I remained haunted for days after this session, continually having flashbacks as I walked into my living room, seeing the little girl playing on the carpet, or the bedroom upstairs where I had found him laid across the bed, the telephone where I had called my Mum, the door I had run out of in fear and confusion.
I went back to school the next day and never felt another thing.
All the grief that pours of out of me now has been pent up for fifteen years.
I am desperately trying to make it in my career. Am yet I struggle to concentrate; all day at weekends, stuck in this house of sadness. I looked back to when I was a teenager. I worked constantly, getting the best grades at school was the most important thing to me and I dedicated my whole life and all my spare time to working to achieve that. What changed?
I started feeling. I started reading poetry, I started engaging with my feelings and emotions. I started crying and thinking and philosophising. And then everything fell apart. I couldn't concentrate though the intense pain and sadness that I had not allowed myself to feel for so many years. When I was a teenager I felt nothing. I was incredibly unhappy, but I never cried, never wallowed in my pity. I blocked it all off. I buried myself in my schoolwork. I felt nothing.
So I want to go back on the pills that help me feel nothing. I'm sick of feeling pain, I'm sick of crying. I'm sick of it. I want to be cold and empty. I want to plug myself into my studies and feel nothing to distract me.
Here's a girl that made it :
http://daisyisdisappearing.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/road.html
I'm sick of thinking and feeling, I'm sick of being sick.
I am never going to be anything while my eating disorder identifies me more than anything else.
I am just so exhausted from feeling so much.
I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
I watched The Iron Lady last night and there were about two 10 minute intervals in which I did not cry. Throughout the rest of the film I just sobbed manically, tears dripping off my cheeks.
I'm raw these days. It's like there's no flesh on me, just touch me and you go straight to the nerve. Everything hurts and everything makes me cry.
I sobbed all the way through The Iron Lady because it reminded me of my own mother - or how she will be in a few years. The film perfectly depicted the heartbreak of losing a husband - God knows I have no idea what it feels like, and yet I cry my eyes out for my Mum - am sitting here crying my eyes out for her now.
And that was it really. The old, deep-seated inability to deal with death and loss and grief. My mother who lost a husband and has only known pain and heartache since, who is getting more and more fragile and frail by the day. And what can I do except give her a kiss as I pass by in my angry little hurricane, trying desperately to make something of myself for her.
I caused my mum unnecessary anguish by being ill, I trampled on her broken heart. What good do my tears do now?
And still, over four years since I started, I still cough up the contents of my stomach, it still rules me, it still takes everything I have.
Last Monday in my treatment session my therapist decided to try something new to establish the roots of my self-destructive perfectionism. She made me close my eyes and go back to my childhood and talk her through everything I remembered and had felt. It was the single most heart-wrenching thing I have ever had to do. Those memories of my childhood remain locked down far away where I can't remember them for a reason. I cried solidly for the full session as she forced me back to the happiness I had felt in my Dad's arms as a little girl, the loneliness as he drifted away, as my Mum went to work, as the home crumbled around me, to the day when I came home and found him dead, to the days when my Mum cried in agony on the sofa in her empty world. And there was the little girl in the middle. Desperate to achieve, to be noticed, to be loved, to be praised. Desperate to be perfect.
I remained haunted for days after this session, continually having flashbacks as I walked into my living room, seeing the little girl playing on the carpet, or the bedroom upstairs where I had found him laid across the bed, the telephone where I had called my Mum, the door I had run out of in fear and confusion.
I went back to school the next day and never felt another thing.
All the grief that pours of out of me now has been pent up for fifteen years.
I am desperately trying to make it in my career. Am yet I struggle to concentrate; all day at weekends, stuck in this house of sadness. I looked back to when I was a teenager. I worked constantly, getting the best grades at school was the most important thing to me and I dedicated my whole life and all my spare time to working to achieve that. What changed?
I started feeling. I started reading poetry, I started engaging with my feelings and emotions. I started crying and thinking and philosophising. And then everything fell apart. I couldn't concentrate though the intense pain and sadness that I had not allowed myself to feel for so many years. When I was a teenager I felt nothing. I was incredibly unhappy, but I never cried, never wallowed in my pity. I blocked it all off. I buried myself in my schoolwork. I felt nothing.
So I want to go back on the pills that help me feel nothing. I'm sick of feeling pain, I'm sick of crying. I'm sick of it. I want to be cold and empty. I want to plug myself into my studies and feel nothing to distract me.
Here's a girl that made it :
http://daisyisdisappearing.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/road.html
I'm sick of thinking and feeling, I'm sick of being sick.
I am never going to be anything while my eating disorder identifies me more than anything else.
I am just so exhausted from feeling so much.
I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
your mum will be prime minister?
ReplyDeleteThe country's in real trouble if that's the case.
ReplyDeletei have kind of recovered, too, and i have gotten used to living with my BMI of 18 but sometimes i miss the times when every desire could be narrowed down to one single grand issue. I find life overwhelming but not in a good way, as i liked overwhelming, but this is more an overwhelming infinitely fragmented multitude of banalities i seem to have to deal with now, within which i am scared to turn into the same banality and miss to be a least weird. but these meds(SSRIs)have taken more of me than the ED, if i look back on it now. but i can understand, as i find them ever so often ever so tempting. i still think you are amazing the way you are and i know your perspective is a different one. Ok i am rambling (SRYSRYSRY) but no matter everyone believes how happy this would make you - Don't ever try to be average. And no matter what therapists want us to believe - for us there is never an easy way. In no aspect of life and I am afraid there never will be.
ReplyDeletexxx
I know the feeling love. I've been on and off of anti-depressants for years now (most recently prozac). I ultimately ended up going off of it last month because I began to get exercise intolerance. All I can say is that I think meds are a healthy, acceptable way to block out the pain if you aren't ready to confront it yet. It is PERFECTLY okay to not be ready. But someday I hope you will be able to heal. Love you my beautiful girl
ReplyDeletei know it's hard, dreadfully so but I have every faith in you. these are the sort of things, we are going to have to deal with for the rest of our lives, but there can be a time when it get better. you have to fighter, but fuck i know you're a fighter! you DESERVE too be happy, not numb, you deserve to wake up and smile. maybe you don't need to smile because you're happy, you just need to smile because for that second in time you know you're not sad any more. i believe in you, i believe in all of us. we can and will get better. good luck Ophelia, there is a brighter day <3
ReplyDeleteWow - I didn't expect to hear from you again, after my months of disappearance. It's definitely good to be back.. for support, for everything. So thanks :)
ReplyDeleteYou sound like you are blaming yourself for the possible pain you may have caused your mom... I feel the same. I probably shattered her into pieces when she saw my wrist 3 years ago. I stopped a while back, but I still feel bad for her.
And yes, I always want to eat by myself. I don't like it when people comment on how little I eat, or how they've never seen me eat, etc. I especially hate late dinners with a group - rather be in a gym..
I first started The Bell Jar during a summer in high school and stopped halfway through, not being able to connect to Esther's experience at all. A few years later, while I read the book before taking anti-depressants, I completely understood what Esther meant. For people who haven't experienced depression first hand (or have but are far removed from that dark time for a while), depression and its seriousness is incomprehensible. I remember the time I sat numbly on the floor of my room on Christmas Eve, the time I was on the public transportation in Shanghai with my mom, when the tears would not stop. I had no control over them or the horrid thoughts that consumed my mind.
ReplyDeleteIf your life has gotten so out of control that anti-depressants are the only answer to coping, then there's nothing wrong with doing what you need to. I'm sure you know yourself well enough to make the best decision with regards to meds. I've been on Cymbalta for over a year now. It's amazing that a daily 60 mg of serotonin reuptake inhibitor could restore me to my normal functioning self. I hope you leave that dark place soon.
I can relate and I hate how there's no stopping time. It just moves on and doesn't care what it leaves behind, or leads to. Everyone will grow old and die, the rest means nothing.
ReplyDelete/ Avy
http://MyMotherFuckedMickJagger.blogspot.com
♥
I was so happy to see your comment. You have no idea just how much I miss your posts. I devour them. Darling, I'm so sorry about Theo, I want for him to come to his senses and wife you up. One day I pray there will be a man in your life who is perfect and treats you like the amazing and strong angel you are. And keep the emotions coming.
ReplyDeleteHealing.
Much love!