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.

Mad as a Hatter and Just as Sane

Maybe I cut my wrist one too many times. Maybe I talked about the relief I would get from killing myself a little bit too freely. Maybe I realized that it's not fair to make my friends and family responsible for protecting me from myself.

The truth is, I'm not safe by myself anymore, and I know it. Every time I am left to my own devices for more than 10 minutes, there is a damn good chance that I will be hunting down something sharp or challenging my garden of pill bottles to a staring contest. Even when I am not alone, a breakdown can strike with a snap of the monster's fingers. And it's happening more and more often.

So I need to leave. In less than five hours, I will be going with Dad to admit myself into a residential program at the hospital. For real this time.

This may be one of the first times I have set out to write a blog post and had no words. It's not a case of writer's block or being unmotivated. It's that I feel frozen in this space and time. A numbness beyond the lithium and seroquel and lamictal. A natural, self-protecting numbness against my fear of the unknown and leaving my not-so-safe comfort zone.

I can't picture leaving my home and moving into my room at the mental hospital. I can't picture not using Pinterest, TV, my blankets, and cleaning as distractions against my monsters when I am alone all day. I can't picture not using razors and calories to fight them off when distractions fail. I can't picture having coping mechanisms that are healthy and actually effective. I can't picture having to trust someone with my life besides Boyfriend.

This numbness will disappear in a few hours. I bet I'll start getting nervous after I take a shower and start picking out an outfit that suits the day, the day I admit that I am too crazy to live in the real world. It will really kick in on the car ride over when the reality of the situation sets in. Racing heart, sweaty palms, winking monsters. By the time I am left alone at my new home, my fucked up head will be spinning with a fight or flight reaction that will likely result in some sort of unwanted sedation.

I don't know if I will be there for a few weeks, a month or two. A part of me still feels like this is a bad dream. I am never leaving my home. But I also feel like this is my last day ever to sit on my couch, cuddle with my cat, sleep in my bed, write at my desk, look out my window, cook for Boyfriend. Make my own decisions. When I think about these things, I don't understand how everything I could need in the world isn't right here at my fingertips. Everyone and everything I love is outside those hospital walls. I will be locked inside, separated from them. How will that help? How will that not make things worse?

I guess I just have to let go for a little while. Open myself up to the possibility that this might be what's best. That I just might walk out of there healthier and happier than I have ever felt. Instead of adding some reinforced steel to my guarded walls, I should cut out a window to see the great opportunity that may be in front of me. I don't want to and I don't have to live the rest of my life this fucked up. And maybe, just maybe, I really do want my life to last longer than I think.

Most likely, this hope will disappear when time starts moving again. But at least I will be leaving my written record of the fact that there was hope in admitting myself to the hospital. I won't be able to reread this when I am there, but maybe someone else will. Maybe someone else who is struggling will read my other posts illustrating how horribly fucked I am in the head and think that if someone as crazy as me can take this step, then so can they.

Ok, now let's do this shit. See you in a month.

Reasons Not to Go

A few short hours ago, I had the brilliant idea that going to a free meditation class could be my first step to recovering by myself from whatever it is that's killing me. And then I remembered that going down the street to pop into CVS real quick is terrifying enough for me to convince myself to abandon my need for whatever drug store item I was considering.

I was an idiot for thinking I was capable of this.

Here's a list of what weaseled its way into my head during the 10 minute shower I took to prepare for the adventure out:

1. It's focus is on using meditation to break out of addiction thoughts. I'm not an addict, per say.
2. The first time I should go should be to attend a "normal" class so I can get used to it.
3. I took a pill. I may not be safe to drive later.
4. Driving scares the fuck out of me, so I would have to take another pill to calm me down again, but then I wouldn't be able to drive anyways. Vicious circle.
5. Driving is even worse at night.
6. That feeling of hopefulness I had earlier has faded. 
7. Again, my hopelessness is even worse at night.
8. It is too freaking cold to leave the house.
9. The place is relatively far away
10. I would have to get gas. I loathe getting gas.
11. I will feel guilty spending money on that gas because I make so little.
12. What do you wear to meditate?
13. Maybe this will be the night that I actually do something fun or for myself.
14. Since this is my last night by myself, I will probably be put into some sort of treatment by Monday. I should try to enjoy my freedom or remind myself why I need the help I will be getting.
15. I can meditate at home. I won't, but I could if I wanted to.

"I'm still alive, but I'm barely breathing."

I've been sitting here with a blank page in front of me for hours. I desperately want to let out all the destructive emotions and fears that are crippling me mentally and physically. But I can't. Maybe I'm finally afraid of people seeing what a mess I am through this blog. This was supposed to be an outlet for me to express myself while simultaneously assisting others in their journey through mental illness. I failed. Zoloft and Coffee has been nothing but a display of my weakness. 

I am more lost than I have ever been. Here's the cliff note version my day: 

"Healthy breakfast. Coffee! I'm going to learn yoga and meditation to reach inner peace. Master it now. Click off TV. Volume up on racing thoughts. Fuck, blood? Ok, that happened. At least now my head's clear. Back to the computer for answers. Why am I lying down? Cry. Cry. Throw something. Cry. I hate myself. 'Girlfriend, take one of your pills.' Shit, I slept all afternoon. I'm so fucking fat. But I'm calm. Computer for answers! There are no answers. There are no words. Sleep or wine?"

People keep telling me to chill out, get over it, that it gets better. Bullshit like that. Half the time I cling to those lies out of necessity to keep myself out of the mental hospital and in the world. The other half, I sober up enough to see the ominous reality that this isn't something I can snap out of. I need more help than this computer can give me, more than I am willing to branch out to seek.

Next time I have a little bit of hope mixed with a manic explosion, I'm coming here. Instead of heading to Google, WebMD, HealthyPlace, and AltMedWorld only to be disappointed in the fact no one says that I can get better without leaving my home or taking pills, I will write. I know I can't solve this myself, but bare minimum, I should be able to breath.

I don't Measure Up

Ironically, I thought anorexia was like a friend that helped me keep my sanity. I wanted to starve myself to the point where my brain couldn't infiltrate my daily life with its madness. I thought it was working to keep the racing thoughts and depressing mantras at bay. I thought I was in control.

Holy shit, was I wrong.

This "friend" wasn't helping me at all. Instead of giving me back the control I needed, the anorexia was taking over my brain to kill my body while constantly lying to me. Even though I would watch the numbers on my scale drop and had to wear clothes from the children's department, I somehow believed I was getting fatter. I was constantly cold, passed out on a regular basis, started losing hair, and developed a heart condition, but refused to accept that this was anorexia's fault. 

No amount of therapy appointments or visits to the doctor or regaining consciousness on the floor could convince me that the anorexia I needed  to calm my mind was killing me. But a two minute friendly battle during a girl's night could.

The details leading up to the life-changing moment are fuzzy. I think we were arguing about who would look better in a certain dress or skirt. She told me she would totally wear it, if she didn't have such thunder thighs. I told her she was crazy and that I would kill for legs like hers. Mine were too squishy. Her mouth dropped. She grabbed a tape measure, and proved to me once and for all that my legs were thinner than hers. By a lot. 

For her, that was the end. She won the argument, and we went back to whatever trivial thing we had been doing that got us on the topic of dresses in the first place.

It was far from over. I put on a good show for the rest of the evening, acting like I wasn't completely distracted and scared out of my fucking mind. When I was alone again, all hell broke loose. I grabbed the measuring tape and went wild. 

The microwave is smaller than the stove, right? Yes. 

Is my cat bigger than the pillow? No, I didn't think so. 

My toothbrush is skinnier than my hairbrush. Yup, I knew that.

Is my arm bigger than the table leg? What the fuck.

Full on panic. Why was I able to see everything else for what it really was, but I couldn't do the same for my own body?! I spent hours measuring and recording results and remeasuring and crying in a ball on the floor and redoing the experiments with another tape measure. I couldn't make sense of what was happening without admitting that I was crazy. I was determined to prove that I wasn't wrong, that the anorexia hadn't betrayed me. But she had.

I realized, with anger, fear, resentment, and defeat, I couldn't trust my brain anymore. If I was going to get better, if I was going to stay alive and actually start living, I needed to learn to trust other people to tell me what was best. More importantly, I needed them to tell me what was real.

Even after this epiphany, I didn't go down easily. I dropped out of treatment, I relapsed, I skipped meals and lied to loved ones. But eventually,  I learned I had to stand up for myself against anorexia. And I needed help  from sources stronger than me to do that.

I still have days that I cry because I think I'm fat. I won't wear certain types of clothes because I don't think they flatter my "strange" shape. Some of that is just being a self-conscious girl. A little part of it is the anorexia that still lives in the back of my mind, buried under coping mechanisms, years of healing, acceptance, and desire to move forward.