A 30th Birthday Party

Wednesday morning. It's 4 days since I've been on, the longest I've gone without writing. I haven't had the time or the energy, so I left it. Saturday morning was my last up-date, so I'd best pick up where I left off.

Saturday I ended up writing for around 3 hours. I totally over did it. I didn't really want to stop, I still had so much more, but I couldn't so any more. I forced myself to come from behind the computer. I needed to rest. So it was around 2 in the afternoon and I went back to bed. It was the day of Naomi's 30th birthday party, the initial reason I came to Holland for the weekend. So I needed to be rested and feeling good and I wanted to be up for the party. We were planning on leaving Orla's at around half 6. So I still had enough hours to lie in bed and do nothing.

I lay in bed, for 2 or 3 hours. I started to feel awful and more and more tired, the longer I lay there. I wanted to eat some lunch, but I couldn't stomach anything other than 2 slices of toast. I started to feel flu-ish.. you know the aches and pains, hot and cold, sore skin and stabs of pains in the head. The thought of food just turned my stomach aswell making me want to vomit. It got worse as the afternoon progressed. Orla had been vomiting on Wednesday night and couldn't really eat on Thursday, Arno had it on Friday night. I wasn't too sure if I had picked it up or not. But I knew I wasn't well. The only thing I wanted to do on Saturday afternoon was keep myself under the blanket away from the world, people and anything that required energy. But on the other hand, I knew I had to pick myself up out of it, and start preparing myself for the party AND I needed to eat.

It was nearing dinnertime and Orla wanted to cook something for me. But the thoughts of food just made me feel so sick. I wasn't sure whether or not to tell Orla that I was feeling so s***. For a number of reasons.. To start with, I'm not used to constantly needing to explain how I'm doing and feeling. It feels almost alien for me to say outloud what the thought of food does to me and to say outloud that I'm really not well. Another reason is that anybody who were to hear somebody recovering from anorexia to say that the thought of food is making them feel queasy, would think it's just a lame excuse not to eat. I know that's what Orla thought and I know that's what anybody else who were to hear me say it, would think as well. But I told her anyhow and instantly knew I shouldn't have. She wanted me to eat, so I had some potatoe and a sausage. But I didn't do it for me, I did it for her.. It took so much effort to eat the meal, in my mental haziness and wanting to vomit too. I don't care what anybody thinks, but I wasn't mentally making myself feel ill from food..
I heard myself say the words to Orla, and knew that I wouldn't speak of the subject for the rest of the weekend, and I didn't.

I needed to get ready for the party, and the longer it took, the closer I came to not going. I was producing a constant river of tears and for ages I lay on the floor curled up just crying and crying and trying to make up my mind whether or not I should go. I knew if everyone had gone to the party and I would have stayed at home alone, I would have hated myself and I wouldn't have rested or slept for feeling like a failure. I knew I needed to at least try. Maybe it would be okay. If I didn't try I would never know. And, at the end of the day, it WAS the whole reason I went to Holland in the first place.

I had to coax myself every step of the way and remind myself over and over again, that I'm safe, that there's nothing that can go wrong, that there are so many people around me who are taking care of me, that the world isn't going to stop turning and that I'm allowed to enjoy myself. There's nobody judging and everything will be okay. It was like an extra long mantra.. repeating it constantly. It what I needed to get me through.

We left the house at half six and if Arno hadn't have been in the room when I was putting on my coat, I would have broke down and told Orla to go without me. But I pushed myself out the door and into the car, which was probably the hardest part of the night. I knew there was no turning back and I knew I could be doing myself more bad than good and I didn't know what the night was going to bring.. I was so scared.

The drive to Sandra's was an hour and a half, where we were meeting before going to Naomi's and where we were all staying that night. Emma and Marcel were already there, when we arrived. We headed to Naomi's and the party started around 9.

It was so hard and again I was nervous and terrified. Seeing so many people I hadn't seen since the end of June, all in the space of an hour, was too much. I couldn't make eye-contact with anybody, or else I would have cried. When everyone asked me how I was, I didn't think about what to say but I answered that I was fine, because I didn't want to break down. All the people that I had to be polite to.. so many.. How was I supposed to mingle? I wasn't capable. I felt like there was like I was in this glass cage stopping me from talking properly to anybody other than close family. It scared the hell out of me, the fact that I might be left sitting on my own and a "stranger" might come up to talk to me. Or that I might be sitting on my own and people would think I was weird and stare and see that there was something massively wrong with me.

I didn't want to feel so emotional but there was nothing I could do to stop myself from feeling so bad. I thought that if I wasn't feeling guilty then surely I'd let myself have fun. But the pressure I was feeling, mentally, was huge. It was too big for me to be able to remove it, no matter how hard I tried. I felt so bad and so uptight and so out of place. After a half an hour I wanted to leave. But of course I didn't. I hoped the barrier would rise the more I pushed through it, but it didn't. It stayed there and I kept putting on the front, kept the fake smile on my face and didn't think about how awful I was doing and feeling. The minute somebody left my side and I was left with my own thoughts, I could feel bad things were bubbling. So the more I listened and gave my all to chat as normally as I could about nothing in particular, the longer I was able to stick it out.

There was lots of rose wine and food. I told myself the whole day, that I can have a glass and I have food if I want. Nothing bad was gonna happen. But the state my head in, just one glass of wine would have brought the barriers crashing down and I would have been in floods of tears the rest of the night. I couldn't afford to ruin the "good" I was doing by keeping everything in. I wasn't tempted by the food, because it just made me feel queasy again. I had 2 of my supplement drinks and even they made me feel sick afterwards. I had to sit still and let them go down for the sickly feeling to go away.. Not that I was doing any moving anyhow..
If I wouldn't have felt ill and would have tried some of the food, I would have been challenging myself while not being mentally able to deal with it, so feeling sickly or not, I wouldn't have tried any of the food. And to be honest, there's only so far I was able to push myself in such a short space of time. I sometimes had to remind myself that I'm only human..

It frustrated me so much that I wasn't able to let go. I sat on the same stool all night, Emma made sure I had tea in my cup.. yeah, that's right.. TEA... How bad is that, when I was perfectly willing to drink rose but just not able.. O well.. I survived until 2 in the morning. 3 or 4 people had come up to me, and suggested I go for lie down upstairs. Of course my initial reaction was no way, I can stick it out. I wasn't going to be told what to do, but 2 minutes later I did anyhow.. Still not making eye-contact while admitting that I wanted to scream, cry and sleep the night away.

I went to be for 2 hours. I lay there and lay there. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't cry, I couldn't think. Just nothing. But that was fine. At 4 o'clock Emma came to tell me we were going back to Sandra's. I was pleased because all I wanted was peace and sleep, even though I hardly slept a wink once I was in bed in Sandra's house, but that's besides the point.

My body hadn't been exposed to that amount of noise and that amount of people, in so long that it was probably only normal that I couldn't deal with it properly. Eileen's party last weekend, was totally different. There was noise, but it was music in a large hall. It was 70 people spread out and just dancing around. I never knew the sound of people or the sound of music would have such different effects on me. Eileen's party was close to home as well. I didn't have to make a long journey, I didn't have different food, I wasn't feeling sick, flu-ish queasy and it wasn't like a big "reveal" either.

I had said my goodbyes to everyone, and to Trish and Ed too, who are going back to Australia next week. It was so great to see everyone again, but it was just too much to deal with, all in the one night. I wasn't able to show my enthusiasm, even thought it was in there somewhere. I'm glad I didn't stay at home in Orla's, all alone, because I would have been feeling twice as bad I reckon, for missing out on the party. If I wouldn't have gone, I wouldn't have known how I would have dealt with it. So it's fine. I have no regrets whatsoever.

I had worries, however, that I ruined the party by sitting there, with a face on me like a wet weekend. But then I would only talk myself into a muddle and create problems where there weren't any (I hope) so I had to let those thoughts go.

All in all, Saturday was an enormous "adventure"..maybe too big, but I literally gave it my all. I honestly can't remember the last time I'd had such a bad day and that I felt mentally so distraught. It made me see the difference and the intensity of the anorexia. It was frightening as well as a learning curve.. and there was more going on that day, but again, there's only so much I can deal with..