Singing to distract and survive

It is what it says on the tin! Singing again to provide some release and some kind of outlet rather than self destruction..........

Scrambled eggs, my heads a shed

Good morning little ones, embarrassed myself greatly yesterday infront of legal people while trying to make decisions about the children.

I'm sat here wondering why the hell can I not behave like a 'normal' person when I get upset and emotional. Why do I turn into a monster? I start hyperventilating and feel the urge to literally run off and scream like a banshee in public. I feel the need to go to the nearest bridge or danger zone and put myself in a situation that has been ruining my life and has got me to this place in the first place.

Then my mother says about I need to learn how to not throw a 'hissy fit' and I then have to explain it's not about behaving in laymens terms.....or keeping my nose clean. It's about emotional regulation. That's one thing I do know. However I've not quite mastered it yet. To an extent i have but I have the occasions when I am so distressed I cannot manage it. And yesterday in the court room with my ex husband was one of those times. I was taken over by 'it'

Totally unreasonable, blubbering mess whos not rational and literally only focusing on one thing.

But today I'm going to try unpick all of this bit by bit.

Peace, calm, love and breathing.


x

Music and Recovering

When I spent alot of time in inpatient units just after I'd had Reuben I started singing quite a lot again to help me. 1 as a distraction and 2 because when you can't exercise or are on bed rest it's something that you can actually do. I'm crap at arts and crafts and have to be in the mood for them. But music and singing is something I've always done. So the other day I had a session with my care-co and we started doing and OT piece of work and I was talking to her about the fact I nearly went to stage school and always did performing arts etc at school. Something I loved to do and succeeded in it but I hit a crossroads where it was stage school (mum was ready to send me off to London) or skating. I chose skating as it was what my heart was fully into.
Facing a time at the moment where I'm trying to find myself again I started singing again the other day and plucked up the courage to do a video yesterday. The song is so meaningful to me because of the lyrics and I sang it to all 3 children while they were in my tummy and when they arrived.

It really helped me and I'm going to start moving on with it and carrying on. Here's the first of many (i hope).

Snowballs

I'm writing this post in the hope that it makes me feel a bit better. Things have been ok hence I've not had time to write for a while. I've been busy with friends and distracting myself and actually using my distress tolerance skills. I've found it's helped me......

But since three days ago I've been teetering on the other side of the recovery mountain in the not so helpful realms. I had a really positive meeting on the Friday and felt like I was ready to tackle this new adventure of recovery. I did an online thing with www.recoverywarriors.com last week and found it so helpful to engage my brain into what recovery was all about to me. Friday happened and I turned up (along with 3 other appts I didn't think I'd show up too last week) and it was actually ok. So I thought this is actually ok and it's going to be hard but I can see where I'm going, I have an amazing care-co/care team and I'm lucky on that front that it's helped stabilise me. And then after going out for a drink with some of the girls I hit rock bottom. Sundays are scary biscuits anyway because I don't see the kids at the moment but I was in bed feeling sorry for myself by 6pm. Rookie error!

I think why when you feel one minute that you've got a grip on things and maybe they're going to be ok does it turn round, slap you in the face and then snowball. It's like the gift that keeps on giving, you feel no matter what you do like you have that lump in your throat and no other desire but to sleep forever.

I want to hide away from the world, I want to not face up to anything like I used too. But I know then that the snowball gets bigger and bigger. I have woken up this morning and thought, I need to get a grip here. Lastnight wasn't good and I acted out for the first time in ages (apart from purging etc)  and I feel like I've let myself down this morning. But instead of snowballing and not making the recovery wise choices I could actually choose to fight still. I'm not saying it's easy, far from it but fighting is surely less painful than living a life of shit and misery!

So today I'm going to fight, I'll write tommorow and let you know how I got on. I'm going to be practical here and use my recovery tools and choose to feel better, not let it snowball into a situation where I'm less of a happy bunny.

And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom. -Anais Nin

If there's one thing......

“If there’s one thing that I may tell you,
Let it be: You are your home,
Your body is the only house
That you will ever truly own,
Maybe it’s got some broken windows,
And there are tear-stains on the floors,
Maybe you lock the things you wish you weren’t
Behind its many doors,
But there is wisdom on its bookshelves
And a laugh to light the rooms,
There’s a vase upon the table
Where the love you’ve grown all blooms,
Dreams sit on the mantelpiece
Next to kindness and your trust,

Where you use them all so often
They have no time to collect dust,
So please don’t look at mansions 
With that envy in your eyes
There’s more that makes a home
Than its appearance or its size
Your body is your shelter
So you deserve to love it all,
Don’t let the world stand round outside
And tell you how to paint your walls,
How lucky that you have somewhere
To protect you from the night,
And if there are cracks left from the past?
well then they just let in more light”

Make the decision....Everyday (take 2)

I've recently hit another rut with therapy and recovery. I've been given an amazing opportunity to get well with the psychotherapy and a great community team, but I've been delaying the process by avoiding therapy (happens alot when I don't want to look at the situation/what's going on, and it's taken me a while to admit that).

Today I put my big girl pants on and went to therapy, and it actually made me realise a few things. We spoke about many things - How I was angry after last session and went skating/exercised to get rid of the anger/avoid it. Which I shouldn't be doing as it leads me onto all sorts of other routes of self destruction, plus my body is now haggered (thanks to my avoidance techniques). One of the things we spoke about was the metaphor of me abusing myself constantly as a repeat of what was going on when I was a child. We have spoken about this before, bit dark for my liking on a Weds afternoon but it reminded me that maybe it's not the way to keep going, it's not the best to continue to not look after myself. And this is really hard, because I feel something we touched upon is right. That by me been so poorly at the moment it shows my ex, and family/those around me that I'm totally not ok with the situation, and I'm seething about what has happened. But admitting that today feels ok. I know that if I start to let go of my behaviours that I will be ok.

We said it's like there's a mafia in my body, and the mafia is giving me orders to keep me 'safe' and unfortunately those orders are abusive and destructive. It's the mafia that tells me if I don't drink water that I'll be lighter, and that will be ok......it's the mafia that as soon as I start to get a bit better, tells me I'm doing the wrong thing and that I need to retract all my good work. This really helped me. I think I need to start stepping out of the bubble and deciding is this situation/decision helpful for me and the munchkins, and maybe it's time to be selfish and say no to anything that's not good for me. I've been here before though recently so standing up to this mafia is a constant decision and a long battle.

So for once, therapy didn't really make me boil over. And I'm glad I stood up to the mafia and went (my internal mafia, not my therapist).

Mwah x

Bumps in the road....bumpety bump bump.

Thinking this might be more of a rant for me rather than be helpful for anyone else, I apologise in advance!

I've spoken in therapy about how I am going to deal with bumps in the road.......this is after failing to maintain my recovery after my marriage broke down and the children went with my husband because of my mahoosive relapse. In the past I had learnt to deal with everyday challenges, sometimes even savouring the achievement I had from getting over them. Some nights when the children had gone to bed, or during the day I'd ring my ex hubby and be ecstatic about the day that I'd faced a fear food, or managed to keep my cool during the school run and turn it into a fun experience (a bit like Mary Poppins really).

I started to tolerate these bumps when we got our nanny when I had Hugo. Pregnancy with Hugo was massively hard, I appreciated been pregnant however it didn't make it any easier. When we got our nanny it was like a weight had been lifted. I started to feel a bit easier about things and she helped massively. I owe alot to her and love her for loving my babies like her own.

Anyway, the tolerance of day to day life built up and last Feb (2017), I found myself been in a place of recovery that I hadn't been in for many many years....maybe even never. I was happy with myself, happy with my little family and life was better for us all. I'm not saying it was perfect but it was a lot better. Unfortunatley in June events unfolded that lead to this crumbling. And I'm wondering how I managed the bumps in the road over the year and before that.

Well I think my mum and sister have helped with the bumps, they've been my output. My care team, crisis, therapy....everyone have helped with the bumps that have occurred daily that I haven't been able to 'handle' at the time. It's nearly a year on and yesterday I had one of the biggest meltdowns for a few months.....over weight gain after a freaking drip the other week.

But if I try and zone in to the rational side of what's helped me in the past I stumbled over an analogy that someone in an inpatient ED unit explained to me once. Along with the recovery work I used to do daily to get me to a happy place last year I think harnessing on to this today will help me massively. I'm just going to accept the weight gain, as my sister said last night when I rang up to be comforted in my sorry state.....'Too right, about bloody time'. Thanks Lolly!

So here is the grasp of the analogy;

It's like been colour blind. If you're colour blind and you see orange, you think it's orange because you see it but you know it's colour blind and therefore have to trust others to tell you what it is really. It's the same with anorexia....part of the anorexia is distortion, just like been colour blind. 
One thing you can be sure of is if you see a colour you can't change it but you can trust others and accept it.

My diagnosis is anorexia, I may not see anything when I look in the mirror but a fat sausage but I need to accept that this is distortion (which is part of the diagnosis)! It's knowing that what I see is messed up. All the illness does is lie. Anorexia doesn't and will never tell me the truth.

xxxxxxx

Reading that gives me peace inside and I do realise what I've overcome in the last year. Maybe I could celebrate this weight gain and think that's the first hurdle and carry on.........

Weight restoration is life restoration. It's my babies and me, singing in the car on the school run to Little Mix (yes I know all the words as do the kids)!