Personal blog

Some thoughts

I've been thinking a bit about the way I used to be. Since maybe the age of 13 I've been stuck in a cycle of sleep deprivation, starvation and self-hatered and now, nearly 20, for the first time I managed to break out of it. And it honestly makes me so sad that I had to go through that. I get a good 8-9 hours of sleep these days and when I don't I'm DRAINED - so to think that I used to go months on 3-5 hours is haunting. But I got used to it. I was used to starving and being exhausted all the time and somehow still managed to function. I was a kid though, I shouldn't have been in that place. But I was and I was alone. Partly I did that to myself, I kept myself in that situation by rarely reaching out but what's important is the why I didn't reach out. Because the few times I did it was either ignored, mocked or used against me. That still happens from time to time but when I was younger I couldn't protect myself from it like I can now.

Weight is a fucking curse

Starting this off: I couldn't admit to myself that I have an eating disorder for as long as I've had it. Never really brought it up with any professionals because well - in my eyes I didn't have a problem. But I did lose some weight and when people noticed I brought up how I was so busy I basically forgot to eat or how when my depression got worse I lost my apetite. Half of it was true, the other was me counting calories and beating myself up when going over what was maybe a third of my actual recommended intake. I lost weight and hell, I liked it. I felt good about myself it wasn't even that other people pointed it out I got addicted to my own approval.

My grandmother saw me for the first time in 6 months and the very first thing she said to me were about how skinny I got. She then brought it up at least two more times, both of which were in front of different people, making me feel like I was getting ridiculed in front of and by my own family. The more she repeated I should gain weight, the more my brain insisted I should starve. I hate it. I hate myself for not even saying anything to it, I usually just stare at the ground.

My starving habits are really horrible too, I can admit that now. The worst part is that I like the way that it feels, I've gotten so used to it that the pain is so familiar it doesn't bother me too much. I even seek it out sometimes, like, how am I supposed to know I'm hungry if it doesn't hurt? There's also this feeling of cleanliness that I get with it. If I starve I'll stay pretty and clean and I feel gross after eating. I can barely bring half of this stuff up with people, I don't know who, I always try to test the waters by bringing up only some of the topic but I haven't been met with a reaction that would invite me to dive in deeper. Therapy, sure, but I still feel ashamed of all this sometimes.

There are just things that I have a hard time bringing up, this being one of those. Partially I feel so cruel saying these words, even thinking them. I would never treat another person like this, never, I never want to make anyone feel badly about the way they look or their body. Hell, I love bigger bodies on other people so why is it so hard to swallow the idea of mine gaining a bit? Is it some standard I've set for myself? Expectations that only I have? I'm not sure. But it hurts no matter what I do with it.

The fear of getting worse

This might be a bit niche but it's something I've been thinking about. As someone who has been dealing with mental illness for years now I can tell you it's an uphill battle a lot of the times. People will tell you that healing isn't linear and whatnot - it still sucks when you inevitably stumble a bit. And those stumbles terrify me. After getting professional help I feel like this "fear of getting worse" only intensified. Like I should feel better now and I honestly do but when I have a bad day or just a slight decline I feel so judged by everyone, especially my family. It sometimes feels like they don't even believe I got better in the first place and they're just waiting for me to screw things up so-to-say. And at this point I'm not sure if I'm scared of the actual bad days or how I will be percieved by others during them.

It makes me feel angry, oddly self-righteous as well. I'm just weirdly haunted by the idea of failing. I have been feeling this pressure on me for a while now and it sucks that I can't even exist these days without feeling like I'm either messing everything up or I'm going to sometime in the near future.

It's been really hard for me to pull myself together and I sometimes still don't feel 100% well, that's probably impossible anyway, and I don't need people pointing out how often I fell back into the same patterns. I want to be good, I really do, I think I put a lot of work in that everyday and I just wish people appreciated it without waiting for me to slip again.