Maximun Over-drive Part III

The thoughts started..

From Thursday onwards, I kept on thinking about how much I still had to do..before getting my life back on track..

I have to keep up this blog, I have to do more scrap-booking, I have sort out my journal and make a book on my travels, I have to sort out where I want to be, I have to decide if I'm going back to work or not, I have to decide if I'm going to keep my place back in Breda or not, I have put my name down for a course, I have to write a book, I have to start doing yoga again.. I couldn't stop thinking about how much I still have to do before I get better again, AND I have to be able to eat properly and feel fine about it, I have to start seeing the real me.. and then everyday I would wake up and ask myself.. Would I be able to go to work today? The answer is always: yes. This feeds Anna enormously.. because I'm feeling fine and Friday for the first time in months, I ran up the stairs so I'm better and I shouldn't be here. I'm just invading everyones space, using my family just to eat and I need to leave, I need my own space because I'm nearly 26 and haven't done anything with my life. Time is slipping away, and it's nearly Christmas and I told myself at the beginning of all this, that I was going to be better by Christmas, so that's 6 more weeks. I should be able to do that. I need to live again, because I'm doing nothing here. If I don't have a date in mind as to by when I want to get out of here, then everything will go all wrong, I'll get into trouble at work, I'll have to pay back all the money, I won't have any savings, I'll have to do things I don't want to do to get back on track, so I can travel again..cause that's all I really want to do....
wow..

That's only a part of it..all this keeps me from sleeping. I shouldn't need it, it's only to fill a few hours and not to rest, because all I'm doing day-in day-out is sitting around, so I shouldn't need 8 hours at night.

Yesterday I sat with Diann, spilling out everything, at high speed.. and I couldn't get my head around all these things I still have to do. It was awful. I thought I was doing so well. But I wasn't at all. It breaks my heart to do this to myself. I hate myself so much for it. I don't know why I do it. I push myself constantly. I'm doing it again, right now, and breaking down....spinning, tears, dizziness, headaches..

I couldn't shake the thoughts and I was just so confused. I felt so fine, so why have the passed two days been so awful? Why do I feel like a ****? I turned my back on everything last week. I didn't do the things I've been doing everyday, to keep myself going steady. I haven't been writing down, everything I've been eating. I haven't been taking a card from the deck each morning. I didn't feel the need to. I thought I was doing so strong without doing those things.

The pressure from the outside world just makes it so much harder for me to see that I'm not there yet. The only person who makes me see how things really are, is Diann. Whenever I'm having good days, this is projected by my mood. Everyone around me picks up on my good mood and they, unintentionally, pull me up into the real world, where things are happening and where they can witness me feeling good and feeling happy and getting stronger and enjoying food. It's reassuring for them to see. It gives them hope and I don't want to take that away from them. So I don't resist it, because it can feel fine for me and for them. But then I don't want to act as if I'm stronger or weaker than I am. I don't want to act as if I'm better or worse than I am. I don't want to act as if I'm happier or sadder than I am. But I don't think I'm pushing, because they accept me, with all the uneasiness and pain Anna can cause.

Without myself seeing where I am, Diann can see it and she brings me back to basics, which is what I need. Because if I ignore the basic issues that are going on, I'm getting ahead of myself and pressurizing myself and trying to get better when really I'm not. If I were to feel so strong and not go to see her anymore, I'd convince myself that I'm eating well and that I'm better when I actually wouldn't be totally recovered which would only make me prone to a relapse in the future.

I can't believe how much of kick in the teeth it was, again, to realize yesterday that I'm still not there yet. Once I had calmed down, we talked about how it was for Mam to have me here at home. This has also been an issue playing on my mind, but I was never able to deal with it because there was too much other **** going on, so I blocked it out. Mam knows that I feel I'm burdening them and that I feel I'm using them, just to get better and that I feel awful that I'll be leaving again after all that they've done for me. I know Mam wouldn't want me to be anywhere else in the world, other than here in Arklow, to get through this, I know.. even though I've always been independent, I couldn't get through this alone, and that's exactly how I'd be, if I were to be anywhere else and recovering from anorexia. I don't have kids, so I don't understand what it's like seeing your child go through something like this, but if it comes close to how awful it would be to see my Mam, my sisters or family going through something as destroying as this, then I could probably only try to imagine. Again, it's about unconditional love. You want that person who isn't well, as close as possible to you, just to see with your own eyes that everything will eventually be alright.

Mam said yesterday that she can see more and more sparks of Niamh coming back. She can see the light at the end of the tunnel..and Diann quickly added: "it's the CHANNEL tunnel..so a long one.." Mam said this and knows full well that it can hurt, but it needs to be said. Mam knows me better than anyone else, and she knows that I can take those remarks, maybe not straight away but once the remarks sink I can see that it's good. So she doesn't hold back and she doesn't feel bad and I'm grateful for that. It's a dose of reality that can drive me insane but that will also keep me sane at the same time. Mam, thankfully, knows not to feel guilty if she says the wrong thing because she knows it nothing personal on my behalf and nothing personal on her behalf.

Thinking I'm better when I'm not.. that's a true sign of still having a problem.. But I'm aware of it, that there still is a problem, and when I become unaware (like last week) then Diann puts me back in my place. I suppose it's like getting over any addiction. First of all you ignore that there's a problem, when everybody else can see it. Then you own up. Then you go to therapy, which makes a certain amount of time become a roller-coaster ride. It's the therapy that keeps everything fresh, it keeps the illness fresh, the causes of it fresh and the "medicine" fresh. If I'm to be honest, I've been thinking so much about when the time will come that I won't need weekly therapy anymore. That in itself has been causing pressure.

If I were to stop the therapy, it would be like an alcoholic convincing themselves there's no longer any need to go to AA meetings. They, for some reason, think they are recovered and that they can live their lives by themselves without anybody else's help. That's probably how I've been thinking as well, last week.
Another example..an alcoholic thinking they can have one drink without it becoming 2 and 3 and still be fine and stay strong. That would be like me, at this moment in time, thinking I could skip a meal, and keep it at that, without it becoming 2 meals or 3.. Just like an alcoholic..one drink becomes 2 and 3...

I don't where this has come from.. I suppose it keeps me focused, because at the end of the day, obsessive-compulsive behaviour expressed through either alcohol, drugs or food causing self-destruction needs therapy.. and as Diann said to me yesterday.. "Niamh, you'll know when it's time and you'll know when you're recovered, you'll recognize the feeling again of physically and mentally being able to concur the world and learning to trust yourself and your feelings will show you when the time is right..You can't predict what's going to happen and when it's going to happen and you have no control over how things will happen. This process it's STILL all about the here and now and right now, it's not the time for you to venture out in to the world, but you're alive, you're living, you're safe and you're here where you need to be.."

How muddled and confused can someone's head be.. I don't know, all I know is, I have to take a step back again..