Art Journalling

I've been doing a lot of art journalling recently - I've found that it has helped me to process some difficult emotions that at the time were too extreme to talk or even think about. I generally draw like this when I'm in a very animated state, either feeling extremely bad (feeling unable to speak, read, with very strong urges to hurt myself) or at the other end of the spectrum, feeling very excitable and sped up, talking too fast (I don't really know how to explain that). In both cases I think it helps me manage the emotions without causing damage. It gives me the same emotional release I got from self harm, is the best way to describe it. At the time I don't understand what I'm drawing or why, but when I look back at it later on it is interesting to see how what I've drawn is incredibly related to the struggles I'm going through and the particular thoughts I'm having which were previously too hard to think about.

Here are some recent pages from my journals :)

Don't read, might trigger

My girlfriend can't make her mind up as to whether we're going to break up or stay together.
I am just letting myself get comfortable.
Just beginning to let myself feel safe again, and then the carpet is pulled from under my feet.
I'm terrified. Our break-up was the worst two weeks of my life. I was intensely suicidal, constantly. Couldn't deal with the slightest thing. Was absolutely hopeless and I can safely say I have never felt that bad. I was so illogical, and I feel that slipping back now this unsteadiness, this fear is back. I message her something, I do something, and then I get back to myself and I think, who did that? Why did I say that? Why have you fucked things up, again?

Because I always do.
I'm destined to.
I've always been told that I can't do a fucking thing right and it's true.

I really, well and truly, hate myself. I've been slipping slightly this week and this has really made me take the plunge. I can't see the point in holding out much longer. ED voice is pretty constant, although in a way that makes me feel like a total failure. As if there's anything wrong with me, as if I'm ill. I'm just an attention-seeking fuck up who insists on ruining everyone else's lives as well as her own. Can't talk to anyone.

*could trigger*

I went today to a funeral of a family friend.
A wonderful, caring, gentle, generous, beautiful woman.

She sadly gave up her fight against depression and took her life on the 7th of this month.
It is such a sad loss.
She was so wise, and so talented, and so inspirational.
A truly lovely, lovely person.

I try to believe there is always hope. I do believe she had more to give and more to get from life. But I am so glad she is able to rest now.
Of all the people who deserve peace...

We buried her today surrounded by beautiful woodland.
The wind blew through the trees for her.
The sun was setting as we walked back up the hill.
And all through the ceremony everyone cried, smiled, and laughed...
Feeling grateful for the gifts she gave us while she still could be here.

I am reminded that there is so much love in the world.
And so much beauty.

Caroline used to say that it could be too early, but it it never too late...
(She was a bit of a scatterbrain and never on time).
And while it is too late to save her now, it isn't too late for us to take something good from something so awful, and really try to live this awful, beautiful life.

"There were many talents you possessed that I wished myself to have

But the way your eyes would gloss over, well I never envied that

And I doubt you'll ever come back now from wherever it is you are

'Cause you never understood what we loved you for...

...But I'll try to breathe in meaning, dig deep through every gasp of air

'Cause I know you did the same thing for as long as you could bear."

Drink up baby, stay up all night

With the things you could do

You won't but you might

The potential you'll be that you'll never see

The promises you'll only make

Drink up with me now

And forget all about the pressure of days

Do what I say and I'll make you okay

And drive them away

The images stuck in your head

The people you've been before

That you don't want around anymore

That push and shove and won't bend to your will

I'll keep them still

Drink up baby, look at the stars

I'll kiss you again between the bars

Where I'm seeing you there with your hands in the air

Waiting to finally be caught

Drink up one more time and I'll make you mine

Keep you apart, deep in my heart

Separate from the rest, where I like you the best

And keep the things you forgot

The people you've been before

That you don't want around any more

That push and shove and won't bend to your will

I'll keep them still

(Elliott Smith)

Uni

I leave for uni in 2 weeks now and it still doesn't feel real at all.
I'm not really excited, exactly, but I'm not dreading it as much as I was.
I am trying to get through this massive pile of reading but not doing very well, which doesn't bode very well for the term ahead...
I've also had massive drama about paying for accommodation that I won't go into, but rest assured, it's very irritating and very stressful.
All this, plus my friends leaving and hearing some news about my dad, is surprisingly not affecting me that much.
I've had some slip-ups, and I have been triggered, but they really do feel like slip-ups, an odd-one-out, and not just giving in to thoughts that are constantly there...
Food is still stressing me out, though. I can never decide what to have, if it's healthy enough, if it's too much, too little, has too much fat, too much salt...
I'm not obsessive, but I'm constantly worrying.
It makes me miss the 'rules' of my behaviours, but I'm trying to remember they never simplify anything... I just feel like I'm treading water at the deep end at the minute.

Hopefully I will feel a bit more balanced once I get to uni and get settled in, but I have a feeling this won't be as easy as it currently is for long... I'm worried about having an en-suite, looking after my own budget, having no one looking over my shoulder... I don't want to be ill; I don't want to waste my time with it, but to be honest there's nothing I want to do instead. And I worry that I'm leaving so much behind here that when I actually get to uni there'll be even less to try for.

Still... I am trying to remember what I am looking forward to, and focus on the positives... The beautiful place I'll be living, for example. :) I'm clutching at straws more than I think I should be, but I'm trying. I figure there'll be time enough for worrying later.

Overwhelmed

I am so overwhelmed at the moment.

I think it's pretty reasonable; I'm moving away (leaving all my favourite people behind), my mum's selling the house, I have a LOT of work to do I haven't even nearly got through yet. To be honest I might be more worried if I wasn't stressed at the minute ;)
Still, I'm having trouble dealing with the repercussions of that stress, which is to say, huge mood swings.
It takes the littlest thing to set me off and make me feel really terrible. I can go from feeling fine to having very bleak thoughts in a matter of seconds. I'm snapping and getting upset with my family, my girlfriend, for the silliest reasons. At the same time, in the last few days I've had some of the best moods I've had in a long time. As in, not just fine, but really really good. Which is worrying in itself, because we all know that after the high comes the inevitable fall...
In short, I am just feeling too much, and I don't really know how to deal with that.

It came to me that maybe, apart from the obvious stress and anxiety, this might have something to do with the fact I'm not really using behaviours at the minute. That's not to say I'm eating perfectly or behaving perfectly, but for the most part I'm not consciously restricting, or binging and purging.
When people say that things are harder because I'm 'fighting', I normally challenge that a lot.
I find it very hard to believe I'm challenging my eating disorder in any way.
My eating just 'is', so I feel bad taking the 'compliment', if that makes sense.
However the last few days I have been more triggered than I have been in a while, and part of that I think is me just wanting to 'feel' less. To stop having to think about this hard stuff and focus on something much more simple (sarcastic laugh here).
As Marya Hornbacher says (and sorry, I will stop abusing her quotes at some point ;) ), "Life is so muted when you have an eating disorder -- and that's the point. If you don't like life, you can turn it down and have your own little sadomasochistic affair with yourself."
It is so tempting right now.

But I know that eating disordered behaviours come with their own complications, and whatever good things you can find to say about them, they certainly don't simplify emotional matters. I am trying to just push on through as best as I can and cope with these feelings as they come, because this can't last forever (*crosses fingers*)

*May Trigger*

This is going to be very hard to write.
But just now I don't feel like talking about it, or posting about it.
I feel I know what people will say, and I understand that they are right. I am just working these things through in my head and they are very painful, and very new, and very difficult.
This doesn't mean to say I don't appreciate the people that will talk to me endlessly when I need to. I do, and I could never express how grateful I am...

On Wednesday night my friends and I got together some things were talked about that have been covered over so far.
My best friend told me something that happened to her that was very hard to hear.
It happened at a time when I was supposed to meet her.
We had a few misunderstandings, uncharged mobiles, missed texts, crossed paths, but didn't see each other...
She was furious after it happened. I was terrified I was about to lose a friend; I knew something was wrong but I didn't know what. I was scared, too, that I had broken the friendship between my then-friend-now-girlfriend and my best friend, which was the most beautiful friendship I have ever been lucky enough to experience.
Luckily, this horrific experience didn't stand in the way of our friendships for long. Of course, I understand now why she pushed as away so much. She didn't tell me until yesterday - and I think this is over a year now - because she didn't want me to feel guilty.
I understand that and I love her for it. Only a person with a heart as beautiful as hers could put herself second when she was in a place I can't even imagine. When she told me how it affected her it was like a knife through the heart. I love her so much, and I would do anything now to go back and change what happened. To be able to hold her hand and tell her how beautiful she was in the weeks and months that followed.
This isn't to say I feel guilty. I am deeply saddened, but I can't blame myself for it as much as I wish I could have changed it. The one at fault wasn't her - as she believed - but someone else.

I am shocked, over and over again, by the capacity some people have to hurt. I don't want to believe there are bad people in the world, but time and time again I am shown that there are.
I can't understand it. One thing I am proud of in myself is my capacity to forgive, but I am shocked by the amount of anger I feel towards this person.

What that night has shown me though, through my friend, her incredible, inspirational strength; her love, and the love I feel for her, and her boyfriend; how wonderful and kind he is and how grateful I am they have each other, is that there are good people in the world. They are worth finding and once you have been lucky enough to find them they are most definitely worth holding onto.

I realise how many beautiful, wonderful people I have around me, the people I have found and continue to find, and I feel so lucky. I can't believe that they seem to like me and to love me as much as I love them. But something we talked about that night really resounded with me, and that I feel is represented with this quote -

"Know you are the person your loved ones think you are."

That is a message I am having to tell myself over and over. When I feel disgusting, when I feel worthless, like nothing... That is what I have to say to myself (and something I believe everyone should tell themselves). That the wonderful people who surround you do so for a reason.

This blow has been a hard one, and it has brought up some things that have happened to me that I have realised in the last few days I have pretended to deal with and pushed under the carpet, and not dealt with at all. It is painful. But it is a new kind of sadness; it is more like a transformation, a metamorphosis. I know now that I want to look at this time as a period of change. I don't want to look back on what happened to me and continue to blame and hate myself. More than hatred, or sadness, or fear, I feel a huge amount of love. And that I believe can only be a good thing.