Whatever this is

[positivelysomewhere]

I am so tired. I don't even know if I have the energy to write right now, but I will try. It seems more productive than overeating, which is guaranteed just to make me feel worse.

I live in a big, cosmopolitan and frequently overwhelming city. My family live in another hemisphere, 16,513.91 kilometres away. I moved here on my own two years ago -- not because of a burning desire for travel and adventure but because I was so blinded and numbed by pain that I thought I would at least try to see some cool stuff before I died.

I have since realised that, for my own emotional and physical health, I have to return home. Every day, my pain and sadness etch themselves more deeply in lines across my face. My parents are visiting in August. I really don't know if I can hold on here 'til then.

Last night, I had the worst binge I have had in months. The night before that, the second-worst. I ate two Snickers bars, several rows of white chocolate, crisps, Pringles, dried figs, fried chicken and chips, a chicken wrap, a brownie, lots of crystallised ginger and an entire breadstick. What is the French word for breadstick? Baguette! Of course. Thanks, brain. An entire baguette.

To state the obvious, binge-eating is not without consequences. I have never before had a double chin, but I am developing one now.

Did I mention I was tired?

---

I have OCD. My kind is colloquially known as "pure" OCD because it is "purely" thought-based. Not for me compulsive hand-washing or checking behaviours; instead, I will torture myself with ugly, vicious thoughts almost all day, every day.

I don't know where my OCD ends and my CPTSD begins. I have been dealing with the former and potentially the latter for eight years. Eight years of my precious, fleeting life. Eight years.

The scariest thing about my condition is how it has affected my ability to empathise with other people. I care but, in a lot of ways, I can't really feel it any more. I hate having to admit that. My OCD needles at me. Do I really care? Or do I just know that I should? What is real and what is not? What do I really feel?

I am shellshocked and numb, yet I am angry. I have no one to anger at; nobody did this to me. My anger goes nowhere.

I am shipwrecked. I am washed up on a shore, battered beyond belief and unable to raise my head. The gentle waves lap over my feet. The sun beats down. There is sand in my mouth.

Sometimes I fear that I am ruined.

[Dutch Uncle]

Congratulations on starting your recovery journal.    In my experience it has been a very helpful tool for recovery.

And thank you for sharing. 

[positivelysomewhere]

Thank you so much, Dutch Uncle. I'm glad to hear that. Here's to healing!

[positivelysomewhere]

About 10 minutes ago, I was angry. My emotions were a stormy, roiling sea. Waves were raging and and crashing behind my eyes. Drawing back to gather force and weight, building, surging and launching themselves upon me, pouring over me, walloping me, engulfing me. I was drenched. Saturated.

The feeling brought to mind the battle scene at the end of The Little Mermaid. So I watched it on YouTube. Oddly enough, I now feel better. Calmer.

Funny.

Again, I seem to have washed up on the shore. The waves lap at my feet as my chest gently rises and falls. The breeze is light, caressing the palms and cooling my damp skin. The earth breathes; the sun shines.

The older I get, the more I realise that, sometimes, there is nothing to be said. Sh---y situations are what they are. We plaster our injuries and those of others with platitudes like Band-Aids on a stab wound. Words that aim to give us crumbs of comfort but feel so empty and inadequate. What's the point?

I'm a singer, and a good one. A very good one. I don't care how that sounds. It is a fact, and enough people have told me so. I am very effing good. With training and practice, I could be magnificent. My voice is one of the most valuable and important things I have, if not the most important.

But I can't use it in front of other people. I can't take to the skies and soar when other people are watching me. I am shackled by my hang-ups. My voice is too big and it means too much to me. I care too much. So I watch as others succeed where I do not. More kindling for a blazing, bitter fire.

What is the point of being a singer if you cannot share your gift with other people?

What is the point?

What will I do?

[On the edge of hope]

Positivelysomewhere,
Hello. I am glad that you are writing here. If you would not have, I, for one, would have continued to believe that I was alone in needing to sing, but being unable to do it in front of other people.
Blown away from what you shared.
My social skills are not good...sorry in advance. You wrote feeling shipwrecked. I just wanted to chime in that up until a couple of years ago, I felt that way for so so many years. I share this with wonder... I never thought that that feeling would ever go away. But it has. I thought I was ruined, too. But through the love of people with hearts of light, I found out that it's not so.
You write wonderfully, too.

Joining in on congratulating you on starting a Recovery Journal. 

[Sienna]

Oh my gosh, what an amazing expression ate recovery journal!
I feel the same way about singing.
Maybe i feel it is too precious to be destroyed by others- if that were to happen.
i have also been told that i have a good voice- never been told anything bad about it.
i also feel anger about not being able to share it, to not be able to feel the buzz of perhaps, others enjoying it as maybe as much as i do.
When i sing, i feel like i am soaring, but smoking is recking my voice. I feel anger when others can sing, and when my x used to want me to sing, and i had to say no when inside i desperately wish i could.
just wanted to say that i relate, and I'm glad I'm not alone in ways..i felt ashamed until reading this, for lifetime about my hidden secretive anger at others being able to share their singing.

[positivelysomewhere]

Thank you so, so much, On the edge of hope! Thank you for your lovely words. I'm so glad that you no longer feel shipwrecked. That's really wonderful. And it gives me hope

And you're a singer too!  I think singers' anxiety is probably extremely common. But I'm sure we can conquer it. Do you perform at all? I suspect it's just a matter of chipping away at the block of fear. I'm trying!

Again, thank you 

[positivelysomewhere]

Hi, Sienna!

Another singer  There are a few of us about, it seems! I'm sorry that you feel frustrated too. It's so difficult when anxiety gets in the way of something that we love.

My bitterness and envy certainly aren't things I'm proud of, but I figure this is the place to let it all out! Thank you again for saying hello, and I wish you very well in your own journey 

[Sienna]

Hey! 
Yes, its amazing isn't it, that there are a few of us!
I think that its because we are perhaps creative, and expression ate, and singing and music help us to do that.
Thanks for understanding, i know you understand on a personal level, about the anxiety getting in the way of doing something we love, and how frustrating that is.

I don't feel proud either of my bitterness or envy,...but i do have compassion now for it.
I guess we need to grieve whenever we are ready, our losses and place that bitterness onto the right people.

I really wish you well in your recovery journey too! Very much. 

[Boatsetsailrose]

Dear positively somewhere
How lovely you write - the poetic and ways you express ...

I relate to so much you share - binge eating, pure ocd and lack of feeling the care for others ...
It just got me thinking - of course experiencing all the issues i do is going to have any impact on feeling for others - tired, drained and pre occupation take me away from intimacy --
Starting to learn self compassion this past few difficult weeks - it's a new skill and doesn't come to me to do it that often - but still it's come as a gift born out of desperation -
Self beating comes so easy ...
Yep and the pure obsession - gee yes I identify with that --
I wanted to share with you that I have found relief from the binge eating through 12 step programme - it's so good to not be using the food to harm myself -- it is possible to find a healthy relationship with food with the right support --
I hear your pain when you speak of bingeing - I know that pain --

[positivelysomewhere]

What to say, what to say. Where to start.

I continue to overeat sporadically -- sometimes out of anger; sometimes out of defiance; sometimes out of desperation. I am gaining more and more weight and the panic compels me to eat. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

Today I woke up on a friend's couch, where I had slept after her party last night. I breakfasted on two small pieces of chocolate cake, as I was hungry, my friend was asleep, and it was on the coffee table in front of me. That was fine. Perhaps not ideal from a nutritional point of view, but fine. I'm allowed to eat cake. She and I later went out for a nice brunch. She's an amazing woman. Kind and funny and so so smart. Switched-on and bright and witty. She's passionate about things in a way that I don't know if I am any more... but that might just be the OCD again. The doubting disease doing its work. Anyway, she's a new friend and she's great. I admire her. Over a smoked salmon breakfast and an egg sandwich, we spoke openly and honestly about our lives. She told me her boyfriend has OCD too, and suffers from intrusive thoughts -- like me. Boy oh boy, can I understand that, and I told her so. It's funny to be honest with friends and talk about my condition and my struggles while at the same time feeling that I'm lying. Feeling that I'm doing an amazing job of convincing everyone that I'm worthy and good, like them, while I know the truth -- that I am obviously bad. I've been playing this role for a long time and I excel at it. I deserve every god damn acting award there is.

What a hellish disease it is that I have.

Anyway, I came home and retreated to my room, where I proceeded to overeat. Half a bag of M&Ms, A block of white chocolate. Garlic bread, wedges and the majority of a pizza. Here we go again. 

My room has, yet again, descended into disarray. My bed is unmade and there are piles of clothes around -- most of which no longer fit my slowly but markedly expanding waistline. I hate the mess but I do not have the energy to clean.

I think my new med - mirtazapine - is draining me and also increasing my appetite... neither of which are side effects I'm willing to put up with. And so I'm fairly sure I'm going to make an appointment with my doc and tell him I want to go off medication. I want to rediscover myself without synthesised serotonin and hormones flooding my system every day upon the swallowing of a tablet. I wonder what it would be like to be unmedicated for the first time in about four years. I want to find out. I wonder what my doctor will say.

I can't honestly say I'm not afraid of what might happen, because I am. I feel OK these days, for the most part -- is it wise to mess around with that? But it's my body. My choice. If I find I am not coping, I can go back on the drugs. I just want to see.

One of the reasons I overeat is because I feel on some level that I no longer deserve my naturally slender figure. How can I possibly deserve it when my empathy is so deadened that half the time I can't connect with it any more? How can I deserve to look and feel good when I hear about drowning refugees on the news and not really feel moved? How scary it is to write that. I overeat in the hope that someone will notice, but nobody does. I'm skywriting HELP in enormous letters but everyone is looking the other way. Or they're looking but they're not comprehending the oversized wispy shapes as an actual word.

I feel dumbstruck when I think about how big an impact my trauma has actually had on me. I don't think about it often but the truth is like a rotting carcass that a cat dragged in and left to reek in the corner. I try to ignore it for the most part but, when I finally steel myself to look, I am horrified. Aghast.

I have started to develop feelings for a friend. We talk online but have never met. We live in different cities and he has a partner but he cares about me, as friends do. He too is lonely and we respond to the loneliness in each other. The crush is just silliness but when I'm alone I imagine him kissing me, holding me and clinging to me. Loving me. Loving me as I know he never will. Loving me as I have not been loved for a very, very, very long time. 

I will endure. I will endure as I have endured everything else. I will go to work on Tuesday and pretend that everything is cool. I will buy yet bigger knickers. I will see my crestfallen, sallow, chubby and tired face in the mirror every day and try not to mind that I look so sad. I will continue because I must.

Readers, forgive me for not responding promptly and addressing you all individually straight away... please know that I appreciate your companionship on this rocky path that we walk. Thank you all