Food For Thought...

Dear Nobody,

What's in the picture (below) is what I generally think. Why? Put simply because I Hate My Body.

Why? Because it has caused me nothing but trouble my entire life and I absolutely resent the hell out of it. The pain and the suffering it has caused me has felt like it as no end. And you know what the end result has been?I've abused it back. To the point where it cannot stand me anymore, either.

Like Stephen Fry has also said, it seems like a pointless entity. It's there just to carry my head. Life would probably be better of my head just lived in a jar, like that Star Trek guy in Futurama.

The endless years of pain and suffering it has caused me seems to know no end or boundaries. It still remains now. Only I, myself, have now made it worse. The list of its malfunctions is long...

- Depression (brain chemicals that don't work)
- Worn disc(s) in the spine
- Chronic backache (see above)
- Occasional right-hand partial paralysis (thanks to above and horse-riding accident)
- Chronic asthma
- Whooping Cough (that was really fun)
- Allergies to too many things
- Intolerances & allergies to foods
- Eczema
- Hayfever
- Blisters on hands
- Agonising "IBS"
- A weak chest: Getting really bad chest infections that take many weeks/months to disappear


It's also been through anorexia, bulimia, suffered self-harm with sharp things, and now it's rather overweight. This is due to a lot of things:

My eating disorders over so many years has clearly screwed up my body's digestive ability and common sense, it's clearly in permanent starvation-mode (is there a way to run that off?), and I still hardly ever eat. But what I do eat is usually rather bad for me. And thanks to my once-anorexic obsession with abusing exercise, I am now very scared of it in case I go back to there again.

So, how does a former serious Anorexic (and bulimic) manage to get overweight? Well, firstly read above. Secondly, it's the same abuse you give yourself with anorexia, only in reverse. But it's still punishment via food.
That, and being big also means I'm not
Super-skinny, proving I'm no longer anorexic. Not in body, anyway. My mind, though, definitely still is - and that's what also still scares me.

The bottom-line is that I resent - Hate - my physical body, and I therefore resent actually feeding it (anything), nourishing it, taking care of it, giving it some decent TLC, or exercising it. Because this is a two-way street, surely? And it's never seemed to have even tried to look after me. I tried to take care of it, but it just let me down beyond belief. Why should I try to look after it now after its behaved like that?

I do see my mind as a different entity and existence to the rest of me. Maybe because my mind works and the rest of me doesn't. I'm cerebral and academic - prefer books, writing and creating music to running around like a loon. I'm not active, and don't really use my body. I'm never tired unless my mind is exhausted. It doesn't matter what my body is doing. And I generally don't particularly care what that is, either.

I'm still struggling on how to resolve this. It's got to be for me to be okay... In the end. It doesn't happen overnight. In fact, it's so far been 19 years in the making. That's a long time. So it somehow needs to be resolved. The answer to the statements - "I Hate My Body" and "I'm Scared Of Food & Exercise" has to exist somewhere, and somehow I have to find it.

I may no longer crave to be super-thin. But I do want to be just plain healthy - both of psyche and body. I wish I craved it in the same way I once craved anorexia. It would happen a lot faster then.


From
Me x

Nocturnal Hyper-(Brain)-Activity

Wide awake with ideas at 2:30am. I hate it, how my brain starts rattling around when it's supposed to be sleeping. The moment I know I'm supposed to be settling down to sleep, it's like the motor suddenly gets turned on in my head and it starts rumbling to life.

I always get more ideas for writing - whether it's books or music. Currently it's books - I'm going through characterisation and the driving point of the "Glass Bubble" (formally "Star Attraction") effort. I still can't work out if I know the reason for the book - for the story to be told. Hopefully that will come, eventually. But the main girl - my Lisa - is starting to form as a clear picture in my head now. It's the first time thats really happened with her, and I'm going that's a good sign of progress.

I'd like to be able to do the same for My girl in Rumour In The Truth. I think Rachel has potential - but she definitely needs to be more "real" in my head. She's barely an idea right now, even though I've written a (not do great) book for her. But she's a but list in there - I'll have to revisit her when I've got to know her better.

I hope I'll manage to go to sleep soon tonight, but I fear I won't. It's like I'm afraid I'm going to miss something in my head - or forget an important thought or good idea. I've put a few in my BlackBerry memo pad already.

2:45am - finally feeling sleepy.

Here's hoping...

And Now For Something A Bit Personal...

I am exhausted, I can't think, I feel like hiding under the bed and never coming back out again, and I feel like crying until I'm dehydrated. It all means only one thing... The Dark Prince grinning evil fangs, calling "I'm back!"...

It's always great when the dark cloud of heartbreak and misery descends upon my heart and turns my head to mush. It's like a party of lost souls gathering to take the piss out of me and throw me into a pit of self-doubt, exhaustion and, frankly, exasperation.

Twenty years of this black monster living in my head has made me an old cynic. I understand it, and resent it. But I think I've managed to learn to accept it. I accept it for what it is - just another illness that I have to make my life difficult, to make me that little bit "different", and another kick in the butt from a body that hadn't been anywhere near up to scratch since my age hit double-figures.

I'm proud I now control it of my own free will, despite the long and arduous battle to keep the demon on its leash in a corner, muzzled and pouting at me from afar. Despite too many years of being pill-dependant - and using other very, very bad methods of trying to deal with the ruin and aftermath of its rioting in my life and head - I am now fairly in control of it, and learning all the time how to be better at doing so.

Writing stories, diaries, and music has long been part of of it. Another saving grace has also been lighthearted or completely farcical comedies to remind me how to laugh. The hardest part was learning how to want to live, though. After twenty years of attempting to destroy yourself, and feeling too worthless to even breathe, it's hard to start convincing yourself you're even worth saving. It wasn't too long ago I finally got there. Then I started to learn how become the master of the demon and wrestled it into it's corner of my own free will and strength. And it's through my own will I keep it there.

Even though there are times like now, where it tries to break free of its chains, taking on the image of the Dark Prince and grinning like the Devil itself at me, waiting to take me back to Hell, I now have the strength, the self-preservation and and courage of my own convictions - belief in myself - to look it back in the eye and say the immortal words I have loved since I was a child from my favourite movie.

You Have No Power Over Me.

Sickness & Sleeplessness

Dear Nobody,

Can't sleep. It's 2am and although utterly exhausted I somehow can't give up my will to sleep and hoping that this will help.

I've been quite ill with a rather irritating virus these last few days, and last night being New Years Eve I barely managed to make it past midnight, I felt so bad with it. It's possible the illness is slowly going away, but it seems to have left the inability to relax and settle in its wake (not that I'm really capable of that anyway) and after feeling utter shite for days, I am totally exhausted. So why can't I bloody sleep?

Strangely, having started to put myself out their on this "page" now, I feel that sense of sleep coming on. Maybe I've bored myself to sleep with my own ramblings... It's certainly a consideration. Of course it could also be the occupation if doing something instead of being frustrated. The second option sounds better...

Have also managed to become addicted to Downton Abbey in my illness - a fantastic TV series that has distracted me no end tonight from feeling utterly rubbish all day, after I exhausted the last two episodes of the BBC's new production of Great Expectations (Gillian Anderson stole the show there - absolutely brilliant!). Have been watching it whilst writing/ rewriting Lisa's story (previously titled "Star Attraction" and questionably renamed "The Girl In The Glass Bubble" (in the hope of creating/ starting to create a decent re-write).

Hoping can now go to sleep and that I've been freed from the annoying compulsion of insomnia. Crossing fingers and closing eyes...



From
Me x