This post has been a process of several weeks, every time I felt something and I had strength to write, I set down and I wrote a part. It has few layers and it might not make a perfect sense. But it has all been about discovering "who am I and where am I at" ..
I am writing this for myself, for a purpose of reflecting on my current state of mind, monitoring my mental health condition, but this post is also for you out there, who suffer, to let you know, that five years later you might be able to function and be able to look into yourself and be curious about the true you. Peel another layer and as much as the journey to the core of your being is painful as beautiful and liberating it is.
Its my random feeling. There is much more to that, but I will write more detailed when I have strength to go into the depth. Now am I just so exhausted.
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I set down to write the post several times now and I draft my thoughts but I don't feel like posting it because it just isn't that ripe yet so i leave it. Some time next day or in few days I come back to it thinking I will finish it off and I read it through and I just don't feel like that anymore...which I guess It is a good sign because my drama just isn't "big enough" for sharing , it doesn't stick around, I over come it quickly and somehow it feels like I would offend all of you who suffer so much you can't even breathe normally with my day-to-day struggles on this "bulimia=suffering blog" ... yet I don't know if I have got myself together enough yet to say something inspiring..
Well, after 5 years of intensive recovery I seem to be able to get on top my crazy mind most of the time. Sometimes it takes a day to get on top of it, sometimes a week, two weeks, several weeks, even months, but at the end I manage to let go.
I have sorted out my health (more or less) I have sorted out my diet, I don't vomit and I don't binge, I don't mind myself most of the time, I don't think I am the fattest and the ugliest any more, I socialize more now - still very particular when it comes to people, not fond of random folks - I recognize my anxiety and work with it regularly, recognize my emotions and can go deep enough to find the roots of those emotions, can meditate easier, can understand my past and my now, believe that my life is my business and I hold all the cards, I stopped blaming my parents for my struggling, I thank bulimia for what I know now, I love my husband for who he is and not only for how he makes me feel and for what he can do for me anymore, I rely on myself, I love food and can handle fears around it that still arise time to time, I now know I don't die straight away if I sweat - although still struggle with this one - , I take daily showers, I care about what I put in my body and on my body, I like walking in the forest and I am very mindful about Mother Earth, I love Mother Earth and I pick up trash whenever I can, I got myself into bikini (not in public yet though), I got less harsh with myself around my yoga practice, I surf, I find ocean very spiritual (I was terrified of it before) , I hate less, I laugh more, I express myself through art more, I became to be (very!) honest, I don't lie anymore, I don't steal anymore, I spend more and more time present , I have goals and hopes, I think of the future and it excites me (that one is my far favorite), I wish to have my own child, I am less selfish, I can say "you look great", I don't aspire to be super skinny anymore in fact I became to really like curves, I take good care of my mental health, I became friend with my mom and dad and my brother, I am a good friend (to those close to me, still a bitchy about those who I don't really like), I can take care of a cat, I make love to my husband, I am more faithful, less lost, I sleep better, I recognize my triggers, I am very honest with myself to myself about myself, I can look into the mirror and ......... say nothing, I like my face and my style half of the time, I am more in touch with a reality, I can distinguish between right and wrong and truth and illusion most of the time, I now know I don't die If i eat more sometimes, I allow myself to eat junk food when I crave it, I listen to my body, I take care of myself when I am sick most of the time..
That's a few things I kind of got on top of over the five years, slowly but steadily. Sometimes I still struggle with these but most of the time am all good. I have been progressing, but what i still really suck at are relationships.
I am an absolute failure when it comes to relationships with people...
I have five genuine friends that I have gained over the past two years (in first three years of rehab I lost all the people, either because I annoyed them or because they annoyed hell out of me) that I love genuinely for who they are and not for what they can do for me. I also trust their love. For them I can be selfless, I am a good friend. Time spent with them doesn't feel like a waste of my time, instead they inspire me and they fill me up with love.
But there are those particular women out there who trigger hell out of me....
those women are all very organized and particular, follow a set schedule day in day out, they exercise three times a week on set days and they do Pilates on the odd days, they have a set "family day" and a "hiking day" and a "baking day" and a resting day" .... they leave nothing to coincidence , everything is set and planned and always the same. They all act in a same way, their character is bitchy, because they are scared of the entire would, they dress safely, they ware jeans and their homes are set up as, well .... set up.
They share a lot of mannerism and they are very predictable, they share no emotions with anyone but one best friend from childhood or a brother/sister. My husband calls them 'Boring' I call them 'perfect' because they are everything that I am not and they kill me every time I come across them.
They are everything my father ever expected of me.
So every time I come across to one of chicks like this, a little Natasa inside me wakes up feeling like a failure all over again, because I never turned out to be this way and I made my father and mother suffer more than they deserve.
However, I got to learn that that is just a voice and an old pain.
I would NEVER change my life for "that kind of life" and most of the time I agree with my husband, they live a pretty boring lives. It is not coincidence that I am where I am. No! I worked my butt off to be where I am now and to be who I am now. I was to hell and back fighting for my purpose, fighting for my life, fighting for my place under the sun.
But,even in a good state of mind as I maintain now I can't let go of the "not-real desire" to be one of them.
I glorify them, I admire them, I plan my schedule the way their schedules are.... Every Monday I schedule exercise on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Walk or jog on Tuesday and Thursday, hiking and baking day on Saturday, cleaning and resting day on Sunday.... then, next thing I realize is -- surprise surprise , Its Thursday! I forgot about Monday's exercise and walking/jogging Tuesday and there I am, feeling like a complete idiot not being able to keep up with such a simple schedule and THEY are. Failure!!
It seems like I will never learn....
But then one day, just like 10 million times before, I went into my body to feel the pain caused by this "need" to be just like "them" .... and after a massive melt down and a serious crying I had my "aha moment"
But I am not "them". I am not "her" I am not "she" ... I am "me". And "me" is all I have got.
I don't like hiking and I don't like exercising and I don't like my life to be scheduled and I am not organized and I don't like jeans, and I don't like my home to be just set up, and I don't like baking on Saturdays, and I don't like waking up at 7am for no reason and stay up until 11pm just because that is what adults do.
This sort of epiphany moment was a beginning of something painful yet beautiful ---
Painful realization that I have NO fucking clue of WHO I am, and what do I want and need and how does MY day run. I set up my entire day with the fake image in my head -> perfection, that is created entirely by my voices and based on what "the voices" think "me should look like" and based on that made up persona my agenda gets set up....
morning Yoga every day, evening yoga 3 times a week, morning meditation every day, going into body on Monday and Thursday, Sunday alternately, walk 4-5pm etc
But I am not that kind of a hard core yogi and I am not that kind of a hard core meditate-or and I dont like this kind of a structure and I can't and refuse to keep up with the scheduled week....
I even fake write in my calendar, because since I aspire to be super organized that requires a calendar diary so I got myself one, but because I can't function with one, I fill it out at the end of the day or the next day pretending my day was very organized and busy. But 'me" doesn't do it....... the "persona in my head" does it ...The made up persona. Everything I think about, do, create, read, google etc I do based on what I supposedly like as "that persona" ....
Now who am I?
What does "the real me" want to read, create, do, think about ...??
Well, I am yet to learn that..
But it is a painful process because as I am aware of "ME" and "I-made up persona" I am more rational. And more rational I am, more I refuse to live that fake life, and more I refuse to live a fake life the more I wish to get to know myself, and the more I wish to get to know myself, the louder I shout back at my voices, saying literally "I am me, and nobody else. And me is all I got. Me doesn't like exercising, me is not her. Leave me alone!!!"
Tand the more i shout the wilder my voices get. ...
The good old "you are fat. You are getting fat. don't eat because you will get fat. you are stupid. of low intelligence. boring. lame. disgusting. worthless. not creative. worst that anyone. unsuccessful. uninteresting. not unique. if you don't set up a schedule you will become nothing. be like everyone else. run. jog. exercise. get a flat stomach. etc" is in my face all the time. Makes me cry.
This morning I set up my breakfast and got two pieces of toast on my plate and the voices yelled "you fat bitch don't eat two pieces you will be fat. you will survive with only one. " I cut one piece in half and ate one and half. Jono said something to me and I snapped. I was a bitch to him. Then I broke down. and I cried and I cried that I am me, and nobody else and that I can't live the way voices want me to, because that is not me. I wan't to live my own life and not someone else's life it is so hard to keep up with all the restrictions and limitations and expectations my voices have for me. I can't and I don't want to!! I cried my soul out first thing in the morning.
But I see the progress. And that is the beautiful part. For the first time in my entire life I am fighting for "ME" ... not for myself in a term of surviving physical dying. That was a good fight that I won. But fighting for "me" ... for who I really am and for what really interests me. I want to get to know myself. Without my voices. Process is very, very painful, but I can feel the Earth move. I can feel the movement. It excites me. At the same time, it seems like I fell behind with my recovery progress because the voices are brutal again, and being in the middle of this mess it is hard to tell which way am I going to.... Is this the pain before I "become a butterfly" or is this the pain before I drift further back?
Well I tell you that -- I REFUSE to fall behind!
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