I Am Ready...XXX...Warning ED and Self Harm Triggers...XXX

XXX ....Warning Possible Eating Disorder and Self Harm Triggers....XXX




     I don't know how to be healthy. How to grieve healthily. How to live a healthy lifestyle... I have no experience with letting go in healthy way.

    I was never taught what healthy looks like.

   My whole life has been surrounded by mental illness, overcoming obstacles, tearing down walls, building bridges that lead nowhere, and hurting myself.

   I never cut myself or used razor blades for my pain. I starved myself. I binge ate until I was so full I wanted to vomit. I avoided things that I knew I didn't want to deal with. I made excuses to be stuck, miserable, and broken. No, I never felt the razor's edge but I self harmed in different ways, every single time life got to be too much for me. When things were too real. When I didn't know what to do.

   My family taught me many things about life. Secrets keep you sick. Life is unfair. Real love is patient and kind. Food is a drug and so is starving yourself. Pain is not to be dealt with but stuffed away like a rotting corpse in a broken down suitcase. Ignore the smell, ignore the facts, act like nothing has happened.

   My family has always been unhealthy. Some used drugs to cope, some used alcohol, but we all  have used food. We all binge eat. We all cover our sins with sugar and marinade our anguish with fat. We eat for the sugar high. We eat for the taste. We eat to feel less empty. We eat to pretend we aren't sad. There is no will power here,only excuses to cover up the pain. To the extremes we are obese, to the opposite some of us also became anorexic. Or in my case, I bounced back and forth and am now trying to be something I have never been....healthy.

     It is very hard to be something you don't recognize. I realized after losing my Grandmother, that I am lost at sea and if I don't figure out quickly how to swim I am going to drown.

     I spent a month on the sofa grieving and watching mind numbing amounts of netflix. I spent the next month crying myself to sleep, being angry, being morose. It changed nothing. She is still dead and making myself sicker is not going to bring her back.

    Out of desperation to do something with my grief, I started working out. I started eating right, or as best as I can. I am not always perfect but I allow no excuses for myself. I spent way too much of my life doing that.

    I am remaining positive. as hard as it is to do so. Yesterday, I was diagnosed with a heart disease that comes with my diabetes.  I could have binge ate to stuff my fears. I could have made excuses not to exercise. I could have allowed myself to become overwhelmed.

    Instead, for the first time in my life, I remained truly hopeful. It might be reversible or the very least it can be helped by me getting healthier. I am not deterred. If I can spend 37 years of my life  putting all of my effort into being unhealthy I can certainly put in that same amount of effort into becoming the person I want to be.

     I am proud of who I am in many ways. I am strong. I am kind. I am good. I am a warrior of my own mind. But I also want to be brave. I want to be able to stare the things I fear the most in the eye and do them anyway.

    So this is me, trying to be brave, staring my diabetes and heart disease in the eye. This is me, disavowing any and all excuses. This is me, finally understanding that being mentally healthy goes hand in hand with being physically healthy and I am ready. I am finally ready to be...whatever healthy is.




Neurotic Nelly

UnValidated...

" Sometimes the people around you won't understand your journey. They don't need to, it's not for them." -Anonymous

         Deflected. That is what it feels like when someone makes excuses to not sympathize with how you are feeling. I get irritated when someone assumes that because I am upset about something, that it is because of my mental illness. As if, I am not allowed to have true feelings unless it is related to my OCD. Like somehow my OCD means that I can not truthfully be angry or hurt. It matters not what has transpired during my day or what situation I am facing. Crying or showing otherwise perfectly normal emotional responses to something is thrown back in my face because, surely it is my mental illness's fault and not because I am truly upset over something. It can't be because I had a shitty day. It has to be because I have OCD. And since I do have OCD, my feelings are just overreactions. My diagnosis has fundamentally colored the way I am perceived. And I am apparently perceived as someone who can not feel unless my mental illness is dictating it.

I know it may be hard to believe, but just like everyone else I am a human being. And being a human means that on occasion, I actually have human feelings. And they can be trampled on or hurt. (Go figure.)

         Few things hurt  more than when I am discussing my feelings on something and someone's response to it, is that I need to get back on my medicine. (I have medication resistant OCD). I don't think it is meant to be insulting on purpose but it is insulting all the same.  What you may be saying is that I am really passionate about whatever we are talking about or that I am really upset, but what I hear is the soft click of the door of communication as it closes tightly shut behind me. What I hear is that you do not care about my feelings. What I hear is that you can not get on my level and understand where I am coming from. What I hear is that my opinion is not important and my feelings are annoying and should be kept to myself, lest I bother anyone else with them. You may not know it, but these few simple words have effectively swept my emotions under the heavily stained, moth eaten carpet that everyone has trampled and wiped their dirt covered feet on.  It pushes my feelings away and crushes them down. Leaving me to feel misunderstood, extremely frustrated, unbelievably isolated, a tad bit devastated, and just plain sad. No one likes to feel ignored or swept aside and it is no different for those of us that suffer from mental illness.

       
       Even when I was on medication, if I had a moment when I was struggling or upset with something that had nothing to do with my mental illness at all, I would be asked, "Did you take your meds today?"

       I wanted to scream,"What the hell does my medication have to do with the validation of how I am feeling? Is it not possible for you to see me as a whole person? To see me as someone who is hurting? What does it matter even if it is my mental illness making me feel this way, are my emotions any less important? Any less valid? Do I not still feel them just as deeply? Why are my emotions ignored and overlooked and dismissed just because I suffer?"

I want to yell these things, but I usually end up just ending the conversation. Because once my feelings have been rebuffed by someone, I have a very hard time trusting that someone with them again.

        I can not begin to tell you how incredibly hurtful the medication question is. If you really think about it, it is more of a statement rather than a question. It says you are judging me. It says, albeit subtly and well hidden, that I don't have a right to have feelings let alone express them because they clearly aren't real. It implies that no one that has mental illness has any real emotions. They are a figment of our fractured minds and therefore do not need to be validated or listened to. They are immediately suspect and mistrusted. They are almost always looked at with a wary eye and a half closed ear.


        I mean yes, sometimes my mental illness affects my mood or causes me to react a certain way. But that is not every single time I feel an emotion. When someone has been a complete asshat to me and it hurts my feelings, I get pissed. I do not get pissed because I have OCD. I get pissed because someone has been a complete asshat to me and has hurt my feelings. I should not have to explain that. I should not have to validate that to someone else. I have a right to feel the way I feel about things.

 We are not emotional zombies. We are people.


       Asking me if I have taken my pills when I am upset makes me feel like I have to constantly validate my feelings when I feel them. It makes me start to feel as if I am not trustworthy of my own emotions. Like somehow, I am defunct and incapable. That my feelings are not important on the basis that I am mentally ill and because of that, those feelings have no merit.  Your feelings count and are treated as such. So should ours.  There shouldn't be this overwhelming need to explain why we aren't faking it or not overreacting. There should be no long drawn out explanation we have to give every time we are upset by something. Our feelings matter and they are very real to us. That should be more than good enough for everyone else.

         Somehow people with mental illness are always asked to defend how they feel about something and I hate that. I hate that I have to feel like my emotions are not my own and it is okay for them to be sterilized and whitewashed over simply because I have OCD.  My feelings are not a old barn door that needs to be reclaimed and painted over. They are not grimy bed linens that need to be washed clean with bleach. They are not distasteful and something to look down upon. They are simply feelings. Not something to be scrubbed away or sanitized.  Being told I need to water down my emotions when I am hurting is total bullshit and I vehemently resent it.

We are not exempt from feeling things. We are no different than anyone else.

            I am not asking you to understand every single thing we feel. We don't expect that from you. What I am asking is that you be compassionate. That you be kind. That you listen without ridicule or judgement. That you offer support just as we do you when you are upset or hurting. That is all I want. That is all any of us want. It really isn't that complicated. We just want to be heard. We just want to not have our feelings glossed over, ignored, omitted, or have them remain unvalidated. No one deserves to remain unvalidated.

You wouldn't like if we treated you like your views and emotions were pointless, so please don't do that to us either,

Neurotic Nelly