Mental illnes and trying to cope. Fighting Anorexia everyday. Sinking into depression all the time.

I was Anorexic, technically my mindset still is, just not my body weight.

I wish every day to be super skinny again.  To see my bones, to hurt when I sit, to fit into kids clothes.  God I miss that so much.  I hate what I look like now, to have a shower is a chore and I despise this body.  I get so angry and depressed just having to move, I am so angry that I am not skinny anymore.  That is how I feel everyday, and it is damn hard to get going.  This body is mine and I cannot escape it.  I have to use it, and I have to deal with it.  

I didn't beat Anorexia, I just pushed it down low.  Most days I don't eat much.  I certainly hate eating meals, I hate the feeling of food in my stomach.  I still get angry at it.  I continue to take laxatives because that is just me.  Where I used to take over 30 a day I am down to 11.  That is a positive, and that's all I can do most days, accept the little positives, even though most people would not think 11 laxatives a day is good, in my situation it is.  

I wish I could just have a normal relationship with food.  I hate it so much, I dread any meal time.  I will not eat in public for fear of being judged.  My mind is a prison, and to anyone who wishes to be Anorexic I say DON'T!  Thirty years of hell I have endured, I think back on all the times I could've eaten and I didn't.  I went to Italy, and I could not bring myself to eat their food.  I regret that, so much.  I'd love to sit down in a restaurant in Italy and shove pasta in my mouth, just as a screw you to Anorexia.  

That was (and is) me.  I truly believed I was fat, I had to take these photos everyday to make sure I hadn't just exploded with fat.  About a week after this was taken I got a vomiting bug, it was bad, the whole house got it.  While laying on the bathroom floor vomiting every 11 minutes all I could think about was how much I was going to weigh the next day.  That was when I dived in to the 30 kilograms.  BMI was under 11.  I was riding high, I have many pictures of being that skinny but none are suitable for this blog.  

I had kids, they couldn't save me from myself.  The doctors couldn't help.  To get into an Eating disorder Clinic in Australia is virtually impossible.  I got to the stage where they said they wouldn't take me I was too underweight.  Psychologists didn't help, psychiatrists, family, getting two turtles and also getting a Pugalier puppy.  None of it helped.  How could this cute little ball of cuddles not help???  Why could I not get the demons out of my head???  Why, because I was the demon.  I still am.  All the voices were mine, me.  How can I shut my own head up?  Pills???  Antidepressants, they helped with the suicidal ideation, which I had because I was sooo hungry, and I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to eat.  Death was better than the hell I was in.

To be clear I have had severe anxiety my whole life.  I could barely talk to anyone, hated going to shops and I still to this day, I have days where I just cannot bear going out if there's a chance I will have to talk.  I was never diagnosed because I never really told anyone.  I mean people knew that I was "shy", but I thought all the voices in my head telling me how dreadful I am, how they're all laughing at me....... were normal.  I just thought I was weak because I couldn't control them.  Then the darkness of depression hit me hard.  Suicidal thoughts every day, in every situation.  Depression is nothing.  It's emptiness, it's lonely, it's a hole.  Throw anxiety in there and I do not know how I survived to be honest.  I remember being acutely aware of my space in this world from a young age, and I mean young.  Around 7 years I remember not wanting to try and squeeze through these two poles that my friend had just gone through, because I didn't want her to think of me as fat if I got stuck.  It just got worse from there and I just shut down.  

Enough sad talk, because I have in a way beat Anorexia.  

How did I do it?  If I were to be honest I would say in all honesty my plan was to gain weight, let my brain explode and go insane and I would finally get the courage the end it all.  In the midst of my cunning plan I discovered painting.  

I had tried painting before, and I sucked.  I still wanted to do it though.

I started small, with copic pens and graphite.  I actually felt something nice about myself for a moment in time.  While I was colouring or painting I didn't think about my weight either.  Of course after I had finished the painting I became so depressed that moving was hard.  I began to look for You Tube tutorials.  I found Painting with Jane...................

This was my attempt at one of her tutorials.  Nope, just nope.  I gave up for a bit.  I began to get so angry I wanted to hurt.  Why couldn't I do it like Jane could?

I began punching the brick wall, I just wanted to feel something, like when I drew pictures.  I wanted this goddamn emptiness to go away.  

So I tried Jane again.

Small, not blended at all, I could go through the list of bad things I see, but at that point in time, I felt that fleeting feeling again.  It was nice.  I had done something.  Maybe, just maybe if I ate a little bit then I might be able to focus on painting more.  I slowly tried that theory.

I wasn't amazingly happy with this, I am more into the....... even right now I cannot think properly, I've barely eaten all day and the word I am looking for eludes me.  Photorealism, that is the word!!  Took me five minutes to think of that and now I have a headache but I got there. 

I am overly critical of everything I do, so I can see every minute mistake on my paintings, and I get so angry.  I hate that part of me, nothing I do will ever be good enough.  Joy, it is something that I can say I've never truly felt.  I fake it, or I used to.  Now I couldn't be bothered.  I walk along like a zombie most days, trying to laugh and play with my kids, but all I think about is painting and resin.  If it wasn't that it would be fat, fat fat.  Always fat.

This is actually helpful to write about, it is hard to explain, but I might do a few of these.  Even if no one reads it, even if the whole world reads it.  I'm messed up, I'm depressed majorly, Anxious, recovering Anorexic who still wishes for the disease back, I'm obsessive compulsive and a few more things I could throw in there, but then this blog would never end.

I am going to do some more blogs on mental health, tips I have, things that are normal and just how I deal.  This is part of my life, actually it is my whole life.  Fighting, not fighting, just being and giving in some days to the overwhelming darkness.  

Today I can say has been a hard day for me, I finally put all the pieces together of something that has been happening to my body since about May.  Turns out I am allergic to resin.  The burning and itching and stinging I am feeling today is not fun.  All I can think about though is pouring a beach canvas in resin.  Finishing my stuff I had started.  

Now, bam, one of the two things I use to control my ED voices is flying away from me.  I can't even bring myself to paint today.  Then anxiety comes in and says, "what if you never paint again".  Panic ensues, then that sneaky little voice in the back of my head slithers forward like a snake and reminds me how good I feel when I lose weight.  That will fix everything.  Right now I am still fighting, sadly and slowly, and hopefully I won't give up.  Because life is kind of worth it.  Maybe not today, but tomorrow could be a better day.  I hope.

I will do another blog soon about mental illness, when I feel ready to share more.  I hope you, whoever you are, get something from knowing that we are all messed up in some way.

Have a great week, embrace your art, and yourself, or your Pug.

 

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