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

The Mosaic

Me and my Grandmother

These are pictures of me before. Before the ticking time bomb of OCD was activated. Before the sleeping giant of my mental illness was awakened. There is nothing in these pictures to suggest that I would become mentally ill. They are just pictures of a happy go lucky two or three year old. A normal goofy, playful, hyper child. Normal appearances and normal things that children do. This is before. Before the smiling became a grimace of anxiety and fear. Before the intrusive thoughts. Before the washing my hands til they cracked and bled. Before the irrational fears of being poisoned or health obsessions. Before I knew that bad things can and do happen to good people. Before all of that I had a normal life. I wish I could remember what that was like but unfortunately, all I have of that time is smiling pictures and stories told to me by my grandmother and mother. I have no recollection of that time except tiny blurry visions of certain things. A favorite toy, a dress I liked, tiny blurbs of memories that sometimes are so convoluted they make no sense. Not uncommon as I have fuzzy memories all the way back to when I was two and a lot of people don't remember everything back that far. I wish I remembered more of it. It might be nice to know what normal is like.

                                                             My mother and me


Then again, why dwell on something that is no longer vital in one's life? I used to have problems looking at these pictures of me. I would silently grieve for a me I never got to know. A healthy well me. It took time to learn to let go. I was never going to be truly normal anyway, my OCD is genetic. Fantasy is nice but I live in the real world and the world is me now. The person I have grown into. The me that is strong, kind, and yes sick.

Finding myself is sometimes like trying to build a mosaic out of broken pottery. A puzzle where I try to make the pieces fit and to create a picture. Place the broken pieces with the whole ones. Lay the smooth edged pieces next to the jagged and sharps bits. It is time consuming and sometimes highly frustrating. Luckily, I am a crafty person. I do occasionally run out of grout and mortar. That is when I take the time to rest and look at what I have created so far. Building myself up and taking it back down. It is my life and I can create any mosaic I want to.

                                                        My grandmother and me 2013


I have been blessed enough to have help in that department. My mother and Grandmother are two of my greatest supporters. When others didn't understand or simply walked away they remained my constant. They have always made sure that I knew that I was not broken. That I was not all that my mind tried to tell me that I was. I have learned a lot having a mental illness for thirty years. In truth, I learn more everyday. You are never old to stop learning new things about yourself or the world around you. Everyday is a new day. Some of them will be horrible. Some of them will be neither good or bad. Some of them....some of them are terrific days. Those are the days I look forward to. That's not to say I don't have days where I am completely annoyed with myself. That is not say I don't have days with soul shattering grief and worry. That is not to say I am cured or recovered. Sometimes I wash too much. Sometimes I want to put my fingers in my ears and scream to drown out the intrusive thoughts. Sometimes I will sit on the couch and a wave of eviscerating guilt will wash over me and I have know idea why. Was it something I did that my brain deems as wrong? Was is something I said that may of hurt someone else's feelings? Was it an intrusive horrid thought that I have now forgotten but the feeling of dread has still lingered? It happens.

                                                      Mom and me on our birthday 2013

I guess if I have anything to say about being mentally ill it is that life is hard. There are struggles and hardships. That pictures of smiling people never show the bad times. Truthfully, who takes pictures of the bad times when you look like hell and feel like you have been through the wringer? Maybe some, but not most of us. However, I think smiling pictures are a good thing. It shows that there were times when we were happy. That we can be happy again. That we are at least worth the try. That we are important no matter how hard our minds try to tell us otherwise. That people depend on us. That we are loved. That we are unique and beautiful.  That we are strong. That whether we know it or not we are all crafting our own mosaics of our lives with the pieces of ourselves. Broken, whole, sad, happy, shattered, healing, jagged, and smooth pieces of our lives that make us who we are. The only real decision is what picture do we want to make them into as we glue them in place.

I think I would like mine to be a sunflower.......
Neurotic Nelly