Too Frustrated to Write a Title

I was hoping to write a positive post today. I'm one full month clean. Go me! I've barely thought about hurting myself since I've come home from the hospital, and there haven't even been any close calls. But I'm slipping. It's like I've spent this whole week running downhill as fast as I can to hit rock bottom again.

It's this damn job. Not my new job, the one that I love. The one that leaves me fulfilled and hopeful. It's being a fucking freelance writer. Despite what you may have seen in the movies, it is not a glamorous day. I don't sip espresso and spew creativity. I write bullshit that I am paid pennies for. I sit in the same room for about 22 hours a day. I have a 10 foot radius that I eat all three meals in, work in, relax in, and perform daily chores in. I lose all momentum to write what I enjoy after spending a day writing shit that I don't. Being a freelance writer is actually making me despise my home and my passion.

In order to make this a profitable business for myself, I have to be at 100% every single day. I can't be tired or have a slow day or take a paid vacation. If I don't work, I don't get paid. If I don't work with boundless energy, efficiently  and up to a dozen people's standards, I get paid shit. Let's not forget that there are days that I am more than ready to write a novel, but no one has any work for me to do. Again, I don't get paid. And then I pace, stare at bill due dates, cry, check my email every 3 minutes hoping someone has sent me an order, hate myself, scour Craig's List for gigs, panic.

This is not the job for someone with bipolar less than one month out of a mental hospital. How the hell am I supposed to be at 100% every day? The stress is getting to me. I'm letting Boyfriend down. I'm letting myself down. I'm proving to everyone that I can't do it. I can't be normal.

So this week, I have been waking up every day dreading what is to come. I sit in front of the computer and feel the hot tears swelling up. But I'm afraid to let them drop because I've been doing so well. But I'm afraid to admit that I'm burnt out and scared.

I have the energy to fight back now.

I am always afraid that people will think I "chose" to become anorexic so that I would be thin and beautiful. Maybe they will think I starved myself for the attention and darkly glamorous life. I even thought maybe people would accuse me of lying because someone my size could never be anorexic. I could lie and say that I've never heard these things in the 5 years since being diagnosed. One bitch did. She mocked me when I was at my lowest and called me fat when it was in remission. Even though no one with a moral compass or smidge of sensitivity ever said anything negative, that one still keeps me from wanting to talk about it. 

Well, this goes out to that one bitch. 

It is because of people like her that there is a stigma. 

If anorexia was a choice I made to become beautiful, I clearly did something wrong. Anorexia didn't turn me into a waif-like movie star with a narrow waist, big boobs, and luxurious hair. I was a skeleton with bones. And bad hair. And brittle nails. And dull skin. No amount of hot oil treatments, manicures, or makeup could fix the way I looked. But that wasn't the point. The point was that there will still an ounce of fat on the outer part of my left thigh, and I had to get rid of it. That ounce of fat stood between me and my desire to be completely clean, totally empty of anything that was bad in me, mentally or physically.

If I did it for the attention, why did I isolate myself when it was at its worst? That is how I lost all attention. After canceling on friends for months, they stopped calling. I didn't have the energy to make new friends. Or the time. I had a lot of calorie counting, exercising, and pretending to be functional at school to do. I didn't want attention because doing things with people who weren't crazy meant that they would try to get me to eat or ask me why I've lost weight or gossip about me after I left. It was easier to stay holed up in my apartment staring at my books.

And as for anorexia being glamorous? A bony butt that hurts if you have to sit for more than 15 minutes isn't glamorous. Going to sleep every night mentally planning how to not go over your 300 calorie limit for the next day isn't glamorous. Exercising at 2 in the morning because you woke up from a nightmare that you ate a piece of what used to be your favorite cake isn't glamorous. None of it is.

The last accusation: that I couldn't be anorexic because I wasn't skinny enough. That is kinda the nature of the illness in action right there. Anorexia makes you think you're fat when you're not, and deliberately calling someone who has this illness "fat" is like handing someone who is suicidal a loaded gun. I was almost 40 pounds underweight, and I still thought I was fat. I was terrified of other people thinking so too. Obviously, anorexia had a pretty firm hold on my body and mind. But even if I wasn't grossly thin, even I was a "healthy" weight, who is an outsider, with no professional right to diagnose or personal right to comment, to judge what mental illness I may or may not have? 

No one can truly understand what this illness is like unless they have gone through it, but as a society, we should have enough sensitivity to the issue to allow those who suffer from it to feel comfortable sharing their experience, asking for help, and healing without judgment.

I am stronger than the stigma.

I knew I wanted to start this blog as an effort to end the stigma surrounding mental illness, but I did not realize how much that stigma has held me back. It has been less than 24 hours since my first post. Not even a dozen people have seen it. But I am already wondering who knows about my mental illnesses now.

When most people start their blogs, they forcibly drag everyone they know in front of a computer and strap them down to read and comment and "like" and share. They check their stats hourly in hopes that it went viral and is being turned into a 3D movie by next Christmas.

Two friends and Boyfriend know this blog exists. 
And only Boyfriend knew about my mental illnesses before reading it.

My Fears

1. What if a future employer discriminates me for my mental illnesses after seeing this?
2. What if someone who doesn't like me uses them against me?
3. What if friends stop hanging out with me or treat me differently when they find out?
4. What if Boyfriend's family sees this and worries that I'm dragging him down?
5. What if I do not help a single person with this blog, and all I've done is broadcast my own "faults"?

If I stop now, I'm letting the stigma win. And that is all the motivation I need to keep on writing.

Armed with my laptop and passion to end the stigma, I will push those fears aside (with a little help from my Zoloft and Lithium) to tell my story.