Go With the Flow

Wow, never thought I'd see the day I was back on tumblr. I just need a space to write these things down and I'm not a fan of the old fashioned pen and paper anymore, not since my privacy was broken.

I'm in a weird place. I think I'm both physically and mentally ill, but using the physical illness to mask the mental illness. I know I have got some bowel issues going on, but they'd probably be a lot better if I was eating properly and not purging my food all the time. I think my depression is rearing its ugly head again, but it's not as bad as it has been.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about life and relationships and mum. A lot of thinking about mum.

I've been missing mum so much these past two or so months. I think being physically ill was hard because usually (if she was sober) she would give me the comfort I needed and look after me. I had a big cry about it last month, but then I remembered that even if she was able to look after me, she'd probably be drunk again in a matter of days. I know this is the best thing for me, but its agonising to think of her alone around Christmas. I don't want to be the reason she kills herself. But then I have to remind myself that if she wants me back in her life she knows exactly what to do, I'm not asking her to climb fucking Everest, just get the help she needs and stop lying to everyone.

Deep down I've accepted that this is forever, that she's not going to get better. Which is heartbreaking because she's already missed so many important things in my life and will inevitably miss more.

I'm seeing somebody new and while it's all cute and lovely I just can't seem to let go and get excited about it. I told her about mum the other night and she had a much better reaction than my ex, but I'm just not feeling that connection or butterfly feeling? Maybe I'm looking at my last relationship with rose tinted glasses because I've been missing her. Even though I know she made an incredibly hard time in my life even harder. Even though I know I was so miserable and we were fundamentally incompatible. I'm not an idiot, it never would have been happily ever after, but at least there was some sort of spark there?? I think maybe because this new girl is quite different personality wise I'm finding it harder to completely be myself. She's also very self conscious and self deprecating which is difficult. I try to support her but sometimes it's really frustrating spending time with someone who constantly puts themselves down.

In all honesty I think about my ex a lot, but I think it's because she's now tied into the feelings about losing my mum again. (Disclaimer: mum's not dead, just drunk all the time and unable to be there for me.) I was dealing with feelings of abandonment from my mum while also feeling like I wasn't good enough/cared about in my relationship at the time. It was hard. I went through a really emotionally draining few months and the support was never really there in the relationship. I felt guilty for having feelings, like I was bringing the mood down. I'm not calling her a bad person, I know how difficult it can be to deal with my shitty trash fire of a life. I think maybe she just wasn't ready for a relationship, or maybe she didn't want to be in one with me but felt guilty for leaving while everything was going to shit. In hindsight I wish I had broken up with her when I first thought about it, because it would have been easier. But I think I was terrified of how it would feel to go through a breakup while also dealing with so much other loss. In the end I got mad when I felt forgotten/abandoned and I guess she didn't want to deal with that anymore. Half of me doesn't blame her and half of me wishes she would have just talked to me and told me if it was difficult for her too. I took on all the blame initially, thinking it was all my fault for acting so emotional all the time.

I don't miss the romance even, because there wasn't much anyway. I just miss the stupid chats and that shared sense of humour. I keep forgetting and wanting to tell her funny things or tag her in ridiculous memes. Ok, and maybe sometimes I miss that weird little look she had whenever she'd glance sideways at you and her eyes went a bit wonky.

But I know how miserable I was when I was constantly questioning my worth and worrying about how it would affect her if I talked about my feelings. Meg is so open with her feelings and it's refreshing, but I'm just so not used to moving this fast and it's kind of scary. It's very mushy and romancey and I haven't been like that since I was 16.

Also I think I need to go back to therapy asap, because the purging is getting a little crazy. It's not about just food anymore, it's about seeing the blood in my vomit and knowing I'm really hurting myself. I know I shouldn't want to see blood in my vomit. I know how dangerous it is, the doctor has told me. But I think it's a twisted form of self harm at this point. I get to bleed without causing visible scars. As I'm writing this I know I'm going to finish and go to the bathroom immediately to puke til I see the blood. I don't know what they're going to find when they do the endoscopy in January...but I'm almost excited to see how bad it is?? Christ that is so fucked up.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

The good news is that I pulled myself together over Christmas and stayed relatively happy for about four weeks. 

The bad news is that after those four weeks ended, so did my medication, and I’ve stumbled back a few steps in terms of recovery. Aside from lack of meds, we can also blame this behaviour on my oh-so-wonderful mother and her oh-so-wonderful addiction. 

I wasn’t delusional last semester, I knew she was still drinking on a regular basis, but I was far away from it and had my own shit to deal with. It was a lot easier to ignore. Unfortunately, going home meant I had to face it head on, and that’s something I’ve never coped very well with. 

She made it 5 days. 5 measly days of having me home before she drank two bottles of wine and forced me back into the torment of living with an alcoholic. The next night it was a bottle of vodka, which she drank while responsible for a six year old and a two year old for the evening. The next morning I did a sweep of her usual hiding spots, and surprise surprise, found the bottles in a suitcase under her bed. 

I knew the next part of this story by heart, it comes in 12 easy steps (how’s that for irony?)

Text Jane with shaking hands and eyes blurred by tears, ask her what to do.

Confront your mother with the empty bottles. 

Listen to the “those have been there for weeks” story and the “do you really think I would be so irresponsible” tale. Feel the anger at her lies boil inside you.

Pack your bags, call your father, move back to his house.

Spend hours on the phone to your aunt scrutinising every detail of the past week to see what the trigger was, if there even was one. Talk about her lies and deceit and how you're so finished and are never talking to her again.

Stay awake all night replaying past incidents in your head. The most popular ones include: the ruined birthday party, the car crash, the police at the door, all the times you almost lost her, and the time she told you that she wishes you were dead.

Spend the next few days ignoring every phone call and text message. Block her number. Cry. 

Feel empowered that you can manage life without her, tell yourself that all she does is bring you down.

Start waking up in the middle of the night, terrified that she could be dead and nobody would know because you’ve all abandoned her. 

Get Jane to phone her to make sure she’s still alive.

Riddled with guilt, accept her phone call and listen to a heartfelt apology where she promises to stop drinking for good and begs you to move back in.

Go and live with her again, repeat cycle. 

This is pretty much how I live my life at home. You don’t have to be a genius to know that it does not contribute in any way to good mental health.

It’s at the point where I sit awake at night and try to prepare myself for her death. I sometimes wonder if it would be better for everybody involved if she had succeeded in one of her many suicide attempts. Of course it would have been awful at the time, but in time it would have become easier to cope with. This thought makes me cry because I feel like a terrible daughter, and all I want to do is hug her and beg her to stay alive.

When she’s sober, she’s the best mother I could ask for, and I think that’s the hardest part to cope with. If she was awful all the time, it would be easy to hate her and cut her out of my life, but she’s not.

I’ve been contemplating attending a CoA meeting in Salisbury, but the thought of it frightens me. I don’t know how comfortable I feel about telling all of this to a group of total strangers (says the girl pouring her heart out on Tumblr.) I believe it would help, but the scariest part is taking the step, going there alone, sitting down and telling my story. 

The first month or so of uni was amazing. I felt better than I had in years, maybe better than I'd ever been. I was so happy with my new flatmates and friends, I loved my course, and I was treating my mind and body with a respect that I'd never shown myself before. In retrospect, that should have been a warning sign. The higher I was, the further I had to fall. 

Now, I've never been great at identifying when I'm in a dark place. For me, it has to get really bad before I acknowledge it. I tend to assume that because I'm still functioning at some very low level, I must be okay. I tell myself 'I'm just being lazy' and 'I'll snap out of it tomorrow and be fine.' However, if you wake up one day and realise you haven't been to uni in 3 weeks, and you've been locked in your bedroom for 4 days straight, you've got to acknowledge that something is wrong. 

I can't tell you what triggered it. Maybe it was the novelty of uni wearing off, maybe it was a spiteful comment about my figure, maybe it was feelings about the incident in the summer surfacing again. I would say the most likely cause was two conflicting essay deadlines (one of which I still haven't done) but it never boils down to just one thing, does it? Either way, I've regressed back to my old habits of isolating myself from things which trigger me. 

I'm making small steps to getting on top of things again, like setting up meetings with my tutors and actually telling people I'm struggling, instead of expecting them to work it out (I know, how revolutionary.) While sending out emails or having conversations might not seem like a big deal, those were huge accomplishments for depressed Shannon, ones that definitely deserve a bar of chocolate and a cup of tea.