Something feels different this time.

Hi, everyone -

It's been a long while since I've updated this blog; a lot has happened since, but here I am - still here, still alive in the world. I have a lot to tell you, but I'm going to make the focus of this entry the journal entry I want to share with you, and I'll come back tomorrow and the next day and fill you in on the rest.
Those of you who know me know that I have suffered with this illness - the eating disorder, both Anorexia and Bulimia, as well as the Depression - chronically. It has been chronic, it has been severe, and the prognosis was not good. I am not the only person who had come to believe that I could not get better; I expected death, by the eating disorder or, more likely I thought, suicide.
I want to get to bed soon-ish because I am currently in treatment at the Partial level of care (you go during the day but sleep somewhere else) and have to wake up freakishly early to get there on time, but basically, the purpose of this particular blog entry is this: I want people to know that recovery is possible, even when you've given up on yourself. Even for the "Chronic", the hopeless. No matter how long you've been suffering and/or how bad it's been, something can shift, and it can happen when you least expect it. This entry may be missing some things, as I'm in a hurry, but I promise not to ditch the blog again; I want to share what I'm doing with others, particularly those who feel desperately hopeless, and I'll come back and fill you all in. So here's the entry I wrote in my personal journal just over an hour ago:

"Holy hell, I just spent the last three hours actually with other people, talking and engaging...with one of my roommates, M____, and another girl in Program, M____, who came over. SO out of character for me: every day I come back to the apartment, shut my door, and watch Netflix until I can fall asleep. I have grown to be afraid of actually interacting with others, and I never told anyone that I'm well aware that this 'routine' is isolation and based out of fear and anxiety, because I didn't want to have to change. But tonight M____ and I were walking back to the apartment together from where the Van drops us off, and we were talking, and it was fun...so I had a cigarette with her on our balcony. And we grew more and more honest and vulnerable with one another, and I grew progressively more and more comfortable, so I stayed. I became internally anxious when she told me M____ was coming over; I didn't know her well. But I decided to give her a chance. I told them I'd have to go call my parents and shower soon because I wanted an 'out' - but I stayed, and I wound up staying for hours, until it was getting late (considering how early I wake up) and I had to tear myself away to go actually shower. Generally I'd immediately watch Netflix after a shower (and it should be noted that my showering on a regular basis is not only major progress but incredibly recent), but I thought it would be good for me to journal. I'll probably watch a little of my show or read before bed, but tonight I'm choosing to veer away from my rigidity and routine - and to let that be okay.
My progress amazes me. It's incredible. It took ten months in treatment for it to become noticeable, measurable progress, but lately it's been one miracle after another - obvious things, and so fast. I have never done my laundry on a regular basis. I have gone months without doing laundry. I became so used to not doing it that I became afraid, in a weird way, to do it - I'd occasionally have thoughts about it, but not doing it was so much easier, safer, and more normal to me. I have done my laundry not once but twice in the last week, and I've come to discover that it just isn't that big of a deal. Not only does it take VERY little time, but doing it helps me to feel empowered, proud, and more confident that my recovery may actually last this time. This time may actually be different. For most people on this planet, doing their laundry is not groundbreaking: but I have lived with myself for over 25 years now, and I know what a big deal it is for me. It IS groundbreaking, for me, and it's a sign that something is honestly changing. For months now I've been trying every day to get myself to do it, but each time I'd tell myself: "Come on now...you know you're never actually going to."
And so I never did.
Today, I do my laundry. And that makes me brave.
Tonight I looked at my heavy body in the mirror, naked, after the shower; and I told myself that I was beautiful. What I am doing right now, and the ways in which I am changing, is a miracle.
I don't often go into the details with people about the severity of the behaviors I used or of the medical complications I suffered as a result because I don't want to 'trigger' anyone (people with eating disorders are often triggered by such things when in their illness), and because today I am not proud. But that I am alive is mindblowing. My body has suffered from sixteen YEARS of abuse - and I did not have a "mild" or "moderate" eating disorder. I have been in critical positions medically over, and over, and over - and I WANTED to die, because I was so desperately, despairingly anguished and hopeless, that I would not see a doctor or go to the emergency room - knowing that I was critically ill physically. I hoped that it would kill me. The miracle of my survival, of my body's resilience, felt like punishment - a curse. I would be up at some ungodly hour when everyone else was asleep because I could NEVER sleep, crying because I was alive.
For the first nine months or so of my treatment here at Eating Recovery Center, not much was different as far as my mental state was concerned. I spent every single therapy session with my beautiful therapist - and this was three times a week for nine months - talking about the depth of my hopelessness. My despair. How I wished things could be different - and I honestly did - but that I knew that things could not and would not change for me.
...and then, things did. Things began to change, after over a decade and a half, so slowly at first that I didn't notice. And then still so slowly, I thought I was imagining it. Then STILL so slowly, and it felt so impossible still, that I was too afraid to trust that it could be legitimate.
Very, very recently, I began to notice that something had definitely changed, and I slowly allowed myself to begin to believe that the small shifts I saw and felt in myself might be real. And I was scared, I was terrified, that by daring and pushing myself to believe in myself, and to allow myself to begin to have hope, that I was setting myself up to feel shattered. I had wanted things to change - I had been praying for the ability to experience hope - for years, and it felt like it was so unrealistic and unlikely and impossible that I could ever actually REALLY feel hope that I felt by believing it was real, I was almost being mean to myself.
It still scares me on some level, to allow myself to trust that these changes could last. But oh boy, I do let myself feel hope. And - I'll say it - even JOY. And confidence, empowerment, PRIDE. Yes, in MYSELF.
I also feel uncertain, and I feel afraid, and nervous. I feel suspicious. I am by no means, in NO way, overly confident.
Both are possible at the same time.
I have no clue what my future will bring. I'm utterly in the dark about what that will look like. I have a very deep understanding of the fact that it is extremely likely that I will relapse again. It's actually probably more likely, considering the history, than not.
But I allow myself this much: something feels different. I suspect that the outcome may be different this time.
It feels amazing.
Don't get me wrong - on occasion I have thoughts like: "Who are you kidding?"
But I have retorts. I choose not to indulge those thoughts.
There was a time in my life when I didn't have a choice."

That's all, for tonight. I'll be back. Love, peace, hope to you all <3

Sofia

What does Depression feel like? : Part 2

My days go like this:
I wake up. The depression is a tiny seed again, something manageable. I brew coffee, I feed the cat, I feed myself. I am currently unemployed and not in school, so the content of the day - and whether I have plans - is entirely dependent on the availability of the few people I have in my life.
I make sure to get out every day. On many days, I have appointments - therapist, dietitian, psychiatrist, doctor...they help sometimes, but always temporarily when I'm in a depression.
I try to give my cat the attention he deserves and I do my best to connect with other humans. I have learned that this is vital for my mental health and my will to be alive. My relationships are my highest value, and they are the reason I choose to stay alive, even when my brain turns on me.
Which it always does by nightfall, when I'm in a depressive episode, as I currently am. That seed grows into a worm, and then a tumor until it takes up almost all of the space inside of me. Sometimes I can't cry - that's how it was for years. Lately sometimes it feels like crying is all I CAN do.
I curl into the fetal position on my couch with my computer and cell phone visible and within reach on the coffee table, hoping to hear from someone. Sometimes I reach out myself, but I rarely communicate what demons are overtaking me. They have no names and the majority of the time there is no rhyme or reason to them. They simply come; roaches in my skull.
Tonight I was brave. I dragged myself into the shower, holding onto the curtain for support, and somehow managed to get dressed and drive to the only open coffee shop in my neighborhood at this hour. That's where I am now. I am waiting to feel tired enough to go home, type this up, and (hopefully) fall asleep within a few hours.
Because as though the depression weren't agonizing enough on its own, it is often accompanied by unresolvable insomnia. For many chronic insomniacs the sleeping meds stop working as they develop a tolerance, as I apparently have, yet again. Add that to the mental checklist of things to tell my psychiatrist next week.
Years of depression have dulled my ability to hope. Years of treatment have somewhat revived it, but when I am depressed I also become incredibly irritable at times, which makes it very difficult to Stay Positive.
I have, like many who struggle with mental illness, read endlessly about it. I have read that Resilience is the difference - to oversimplify things - between those who Make It Though and those who don't. My personal experience, though, has shown that even some of the most resilient people I have known lose their lives to mental illness in some form or other. My best friend joined their ranks in July, and I have many friends whose lives I fear for.
When you have been sick for as long as you can remember, you know (and love) a lot of very sick people, which is further depressing. My personal belief is that this does not mean a person should stop loving or caring for their also sick friends - but perhaps, as I have to decided, to not make any more as much as is possible, and to attempt to make some healthy friends as well. I'm lucky. I have a few.
But most of the people in my life that I love, value, respect, and trust are extraordinarily busy.
The harsh truth is that people don't always have time for you - even when you need them the most. Your mental illness is not their responsibility. This is not to say that they can't or shouldn't love, care for, and support you - or that you don't deserve it - it just means that at the end of the day it's you and yourself and your demons, whenever they may choose to show up.
There's a sense of injustice. For me at least. I am a good person and I know it. Andrew Solomon stated in his TED Talk on Depression (see the previous blog entry) that "Our needs are our greatest assets. It turns out I've learned to give all the things I need."
I love that and it rings loud and clear and close to home. I am the person who will show up for you when you need someone but can't ask. I am intuitive in that way.
And this comes from my intimacy with my own unmet needs.
In the car on the way here I recalled something stupid I said to someone whose opinion I highly value over a YEAR ago and I flinched and my entire body tensed. This is not uncommon in depression - obsession and rumination over insignificant past interactions. I've had enough therapy that I quickly remind myself that I am powerless over the past, that I am human, and that the other person probably doesn't even remember it.
So how to wrap this up? I haven't expressed even a fraction of what I hoped to, but I guess this will have to suffice for the moment.
Part 2 of "What does Depression feel like?" is complete, and I am going home to type this up soon.
Thank you for your time,
Sofia