Thursday, 19 December 2019

tub of lard

i was called 'tub of lard' daily growing up, i mean it was usually pronounced 'tubbalard' a bit like teletubby friend, but i knew exactly what the sentiment was behind it.

now i'm 24 and i'm lardiest tub i have ever been. it's difficult as both someone who used to be pretty bloody bulimic and as a woman, sat on a psychiatric ward, on medications that twist the chemicals in my body into yogic level pretzels. 

i gained a lot of weight rapidly in recent months thanks to severe neglect of myself, heavy duty psychiatric medications and a level of sitting on my arse that could be compared to the activity levels of someone hiding from nuclear war in a bomb shelter. they'd probably be more active to be fair.

it seems to be this undocumented taboo with severe mental illness and the fact it can make you quite fucking fat.

so i'm here saying hi, i'm fat and we can talk about it.

i recently bought a load of new clothes, some in september, some a couple of days ago. the ones i bought in september tear if i sit down in them and honestly the size 20 bright yellow jeans i just tried on also strained a fair amount under the weight of 112kg of stretch marks, bones, muscle, flub and body hair.

in two years i have gained 32kg of extra me. not all of it was bad, but it's getting a bit undeniable now that i have to order from the plus size section of websites. at the peak of my battle with bulimia i weighed less than half of what i do now with a bmi sitting on the cusp of underweight.

it has, however, gotten to the point where i sweat doing anything, my body creates some very interesting odours from the hidden inner chub and my once impressive jaw line that created lots of edgy selfies is long gone.

i rack my brain to think how the bloody hell i pull it back. once upon a time i was teen dream supreme of the starvation team and now i think more about nandos than i do about sex ...that's probably normal though. 

first step, i guess, is to shit this problem out on to everybody else

bare all, declare all and then devour all. 

i developed a new technique recently for giving a shit less about what people think, it was developed whilst sat on the toilet trying to piss whilst being watched (and often looked dead in the eye). 

sit up straight, inhale, exhale and piss. if you can piss on the first try it counts as success,  however even on the second round there is still room for applause. 

so right now i'm pissing, pissing out my thoughts into the toilet bowl of the internet. 

1. stop the judgement
2. share the problem
3. order sweeteners off of amazon along with a cute children's plate set and pretend the problem is sorted.
4. actually do the thing.

i guess my ideas as such on how to tackle my weight aren't really the issue. i'm sure in my years of eating disorder i can retrieve plenty of weight loss tricks. however, the issue is deeper than sweeteners and drinking more fluid.


i'm not angry at myself for having gained weight. my compassionate, wise mind knows better. this year has been unspeakably difficult, that paired with the physical restrictions of being under section; a mobility limiting disability and the actual comfort of eating when there's bugger all else to feel excited about is pretty understandable.

i see a lot of people in my situation and it wouldn't be fair to judge them, so i apply that logic to myself.

i'm not going to start a 2020 'new year, new me' campaign of codswallop, it's too cliche and i don't do cliche. i do authentic.

so i'm going to be here, quietly working on the dynamics of this all and sharing my thoughts as i go. nobody really gives a toss what i'm eating, but maybe i can achieve something else by informing people, acknowledging people and being judgement free.




Monday, 16 December 2019

It's been about a year since I last posted. A lot has happened in that time, many terrible things unspeakable because the pain is still too raw.

Currently I'm in a specialist personality disorder unit, week 5 into the programme. It's difficult. It feels fucking dark.

The reality of living with people as traumatised as myself, if not more, is hard. It's hard to see so many people hurting. 

Most people seem quite attached to the ward, I don't feel that at all. I feel out on a limb, like I'm drowning but someone has thrown me a rescue rope but they can't pull me in.

I've been having a lot more dissociative seizures as of recent. It seems I don't dissociate anymore without my body starting to seize up and intrusive thoughts crowd in to the empty space. 

This place is meant to be my saviour, right now, I resent it. I resent it so hard I keep bringing up the reality of me leaving at my 6 week CPA. The CPA is meant to address whether I am ready to commit to the programme.

I want to.

I just don't want the 1:1 observation, no leave and no independence or freedom. I want to be able to prove to people that I can do well, but at the moment they don't trust me and that lack of trust drives me further into myself, into my illness.

More than anything I just want to be back home in Brighton with the beach beside me, the gales messing up my hair and my fish tank placed cathartically in front of the sofa. 

I just want a life. That's all I came here for, I didn't come here to be misunderstood, distrusted and spied on at any given time. It's wearing me down completely. 

At the moment I feel painfully secular, as if there's no one to talk to. I feel painfully misunderstood and undermined when I do voice my opinions. I want it to work, but I don't want it like this.