I'm 'home', aka in Ciren with dad and Emmy.
Emmy has changed a bit. She seems less self-centred (well, a little bit!), more energetic (she's so damn busy! At the moment her main thing is getting work at all the nearest festivals), and just... different. As she's sortof a child i guess i'm seeing her grow up a chunk each time i see her every few weeks/months; dad says it's like how it was when i was tiny - each time he came home after being away for a few days i'd look and seem different.
 
Tomorrow i'm having dental surgery. Two wisdom teeth, big chunks of gum and scar tissue (thanks bulimia), all coming out, under general anaesthetic. Can't say i'm looking forward to it lol.

I had my hair cut today. It's the second hairdressers i've ever been to. Before i was 5 i think my mum cut my hair. Then from 5-9 when i lived in Dorset it was a combination of my mum and a visit-at-home hairdresser. And from age 9 until today i've always gone to the same hairdressers, always with my mum or dad.
As a result of this i am SO ignorant about hair. Until recently i didn't know what "perm", "wax", and a whole load of terms you probably take for granted meant. Today i got a bob without reallllllllly knowing what a bob is. It looks good though so that's okay! 

Following on from this where i wondered if i still had depression, i'm now wondering if i have an ED or anxiety disorder. I have pretty debilitating food and weight issues, but i wouldn't call them a full-blown eating disorder at the moment, i'm not really engaging in any eating disorder 'methods'. As for anxiety disorder i'm not having panic attacks, not particularly debilitated - mainly because i'm not exposing myself to much that would challenge me. Part of this is practice and exposure - things like travelling across the country by trains would have made me so terribly anxious once, but today (though i found it stressful) i was okay. And lastly, i'm not self-harming.
Maybe i'm "in remission" from mental illness. They're all there, but sat in the background, ready to bubble up as soon as my guard is down or i stretch too far.

On the train today just as i was coming into Glos i finished the book i was reading - The Best Day of my Life. I'm very proud because i've been working on it for ages and ages, months actually. It wasn't a really good book but it did make me think. Some peoples best day of their life (it's a compilation of descriptions written by celebrities of the best day of their lives) were so mundane which contrasted with incredible achievements - eg picking potatoes in an allotment vs reaching the summit of Mount Everest. I've realised happiness isn't about huge conventional achievements. Some peoples achievements can seem pretty small - some of the things i've achieved that i'm really proud of aren't really that special; eg yesterday i asked a stranger a question - that's a big thing for me. Going to university, getting high qualifications, climbing a 'career ladder', earning lots of money - i'm not sure they fulfil you, even though it's drilled into you that that is what you're 'meant' to do (well, 16 years in full-time education tells you that anyway). 
One guy in the book, an MP, wrote that having an ordinary life is a failure of attitude as opposed to a failure of life. I strongly disagree. Who's he to judge a person like that?! There is nothing wrong with having an ordinary life, it's not a failure of life OR attitude. Some people don't lead ordinary lives and achieve immense things, but it's not a good thing - think of Hitler! Some people experience such horrific disadvantages in life that leading an 'ordinary life' is bliss and a fantastic achievement on their part.

Yesterday Simon and I climbed the hill, stopping at almost every bench (thanks to my exhaustion). We walked around the cathedral. On the east side there's a tiny little building, almost a hut, built in the same materials as the cathedral. I'd always wondered what was in it. We saw a maintenance guy open its little door and do something inside - there was a big rumbling noise and the ground beneath our feet shook. I went over and asked what was in the hut. It turns out it's a giant pump that brings underground water up pipes on the outside of the cathedral into the roof for if there's a fire.
We walked round the south side and we saw some rare birds that are living in the roof - peregrine falcons.

Then we went to the castle. We walked around the top of the walls overlooking the city in all directions. We climbed the observation tower (it was added in the victorian times for astrology and to look out for escaped prisoners, and during world war II it was used for watching for fires) which was amazing. We saw the Roman well. And the best-preserved remaining Magna Carta. And we went in the prison and looked in the cells, and saw where prisoners used to be hung.
It was fascinating. I love how Lincoln is absolutely steeped in history.

 

My benefit application appears to have gone through!! Well, one of them, the ESA. Of course i won't trust it to be done until some money lands in my bank account, but it looks good.

I'm not sure about this 'depression' thing. Depression is so vague as a label, and in its presentation. It's not like my anxiety and eating disorders which are more tangible (i think that's the word).
I have a suspicion that the anti-depressants have taken effect (which i bloody well think they should considering i'm on TWICE the drug companies recommended highest dose..) to an extent.
My doctor is somewhat sceptical over whether i have depression on the basis that i'm 'not sad'. Because i'm not sad, i'm not down, i don't feel depressed in the mood sense. In fact i'm verging on happy most days, although a bit miffed that i have this THING labelled 'depression' getting in the way of me living my life. Like, how can you have a mood disorder without having anything wrong with your mood??

According to the DSM i still have depression, but only just (i fit 5 of the symptoms listed as criteria, which is the minimum). I have:
(2) markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day
(4) insomnia or hypersomnia
(5) psychomotor agitation or retardation 
(6) fatigue or loss of energy
(8) diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness 
It's almost like physically and mentally i'm very depressed, but emotionally i'm not at all.
If i move away from the DSM it looks even less like depression. The descriptions of depression that books and websites have don't match it at all, for example on NHS Direct (which i trust more than other websites) it says "those who are depressed have a constant feeling of sadness; they do not enjoy anything" - not at all true for me.

When i was at college my symptoms were extreme but were far out of the norm when it comes to depression and anxiety disorders. I was self-harming, thinking about suicide constantly, attempting suicide, crying continuously, in incredible emotional despair... but according to the DSM i was far far from depressed.

Maybe right now i'm getting better? Maybe at college i was getting better, but i put too much pressure on myself? How can i know? And if i start exposing myself to stress (my no. 1 depression trigger), what will happen now?
I really dislike my label of 'depression'. It's so vague and misleading.

 

This weekend i stayed at Simons parents house with Simon. Simon graduated college on friday and now has to live at home (40 miles away!), and he's really nervous of the whole job-hunting thing. On friday evening we went for dinner with Simons sister and her fiance which was nice, i like them.
 
We were pretty lazy this weekend. We watched lots of TV including an episode of Stephen Fry in America!!! Plus we saw him on Top Gear. He's lost 6st in 6 months and it's shocking how much it's aged him - his hair is much greyer and thinner. SF in America seems really good, i wish i could watch more. I'm trying to convert Simon to be a Stephen Fry lover like me.
We also went in the hot-tub. And i went on a Wii for the first time. My favourite thing was Guitar Hero, mainly cos i knew i'd be quite good at it!

Today we went into town and i spent too much money! £34 on 2 CDs, 4 DVDs, a dress and 2 crop-top-style bras... which i guess is not that bad?! I have fallen in love with Cex (shop that buys/sells second hand DVDs and CDs). Simon and I also hardcore-browsed Waterstones - we like to look at the covers of the books and just look around.

Facebook vs LJ is fascinating. 20 of my LJ friends are also my friends on facebook, all of those 20 have mental health issues, 18 specifically EDs.
For me there's always a huge discrepency between my real life and what i'm really feeling, and the public front i put out to the world (eg via facebook). It's very interesting for me to see how others deal with the similar discrepency. Some don't manage it - a couple are so socially isolated that they avoid facebook and can't bare to have their photo there. One girl is emaciated from her anorexia and she has photos up, so there's not much in the way of secrets there, everyone must know. But the rest of us have a public front that seems carefree and cheerful, some so much so that i find it hard to believe it's the same person.
Sometimes i get this desperate longing to break down this front and put everything on facebook, completely over-share, stop hiding it all. No secrets, no lies, no front. Sometimes i dip my toe into the waters of honesty/oversharing, and i feel slightly panicky because i don't know what anyones reaction will be. Quite often i get this longing to write an honest facebook status about what's really on my mind. And i love the concept of writing a note where i just tell everyone what's happened/happening. I'm so sick of this life veiled in shame. I'm an incredibly honest person, i want to be open about this.
I don't know what exactly it is that's stopping me. Some people seem incredibly open. I saw a comment on a friends status talking about her bulimia. A guy i know wrote in a meme about taking prozac. I guess it's a huge combination of factors - emotions are personal, the shame (not only for myself, but others too), the stigma, the fact that lots of people simply would not want to know. I guess the difference between mental illness and physical illness is how mental illness is full of emotions and is deeply personal, and usually you don't share emotions (well, Brits don't anyway!). Physical illness is somewhat detached from you, so you can talk about it like it's a seperate entity. Meanwhile mental illness is sortof part of you, and the only way you can seperate yourself is by using stark labels like "depression" or "bulimia", but those labels are umbrellas for such a huge range of experiences (mostly very personal) and so upon hearing a label someone would probably condure their own idea of your condition (for example if someone hears i have "depression" they assume i'm sad and down. In fact i'm rarely sad or down).

My overall conclusion however, is that i spend way too much time on facebook.

Yesterday Simon and I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Yay for Orange Wednesdays getting us BOGOF tickets, and for Somerfields having 4 for £1 on kids sweets we can smuggle in). The first Transformers film was very good. Action type of films are not my kinda thing, but i did like the first Transformers anyway because of the humour in it and the good storyline. But this one.....nah. It was good, but they tried too hard. There was farrrrr too long action scenes - action scenes in movies are SO good now that i don't think they can get any better, so all they can do to outdo the last is just make them (tediously) longer. The first film built up by being a mystery as to what was going on but in this one there was no mystery so it was into action/fighting very quickly, and it went on for agggggges. And they made it really complicated too - it's supposedly a kids film but Si and I were just lost by the end. It did have some very funny bits though - some of the characters are amazing. 

As usual i'm a bit pissed off with the media (well, more specifically, the Daily Mail... as per usual). Apparently girls kissing girls is a 'disturbing trend'. Yes really. I thought we lived in the 21st century where homophobic bollocks like this wouldn't make it to the mainstream media, but no. This is all the fault of Katy Perry, Madonna and Britney, and Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson apparently... because teenage girls don't do anything wrong (like kiss girls, get anorexia, etc) unless celebrities encourage them, doncha know??! And, just to top it off, "such behaviour can compromise both their dignity and self-respect". Yes, really, you did just read that.

Today Simon and I went to the Laughing Buddha chinese buffet. I love chinese buffets. Though the trouble with buffets is i try and eat as much as possible to make it good value, and then end up going overboard. I did well today though - 2 1/2 plates of main course and then 2 bowls of dessert, enough that i was stuffed but not so much so i was sick. There's 3 chinese buffets in Lincoln; this one has the nicest tasting food, but i like the others because they have more veggie options.  
We went today to kindof celebrate the end of Simons time in Lincoln (i say kindof because we don't like the whole him-going-away-and-us-being-apart part of it all). Tomorrow he has his prize-giving, and the next day he's evicted from his room. 

Simon's asleep next to me and it's terribly cute. 

Enemy 1: Hair removal cream. I made the mistake of putting it on my armpits. Bad BAD idea. Not only was it completely ineffective but i had a horrible reaction to it and it burned for hours. Too painful to shave or put on deodorant. And the weird smell of it lingers so much. Two showers and a deodorant application later and my armpits still smell of it and it's still inflamed.

Enemy 2: My laptops power cable. It's got to the stage that it only works if i bend it sharply in a particular way. And if i leave my laptop for a while it will sometimes just disconnect itself and run out the battery.

Enemy 3: Heat. Something about heat makes me feel really unwell - faint, nauseous, weak, shaky. I often faint or collapse in the heat. I used to have to take sick days from work if it was hot which then looked dodgy like i was pulling a sicky to hang out in the garden with a glass of Pimms. Plus there's the normal reactions to it that i don't like - sunburn (if in the sun), sweating, feeling lethargic, not being able to concentrate, irritability, the general discomfort.
My poor reaction to heat really effects my life sometimes. There's lots of jobs in the summer i just couldn't do - work in a shop with no air-con for example, work outside (lots of my friends in recession desperation have resorted to strawberry picking as a summer job - that's my idea of hell), working wearing thick dark clothes, etc. And spending time in a hot country isn't good, unless i have plenty of access to drinks, clean toilets, shade, rest-time and air-con buildings. India really wasn't good for that. Turkey i got by okay, but it was tough. Mississippi was alright because everywhere had hardcore air-con. I'd love to go travelling some day but i really don't know if i'd cope in the hotter countries, makes me dissapointed.

It's 27 degrees C and humid. Yanks and Aussies and other non-Brits will probably snort at my lack of hardcoreness, but i don't care - it's too hot and it's horrible.

I've just done some stuff with my support worker. Had an interview for voluntary work and that was an epic FAIL. The interviewer goes "i've got 300 agencies registered with us" and then a few seconds later "i can't see anything suitable for you, they all want someone who's outgoing, sociable and has people skills and teamwork skills". Well great, thanks. I don't really need reminding that i have inferior social skills to a slug.   
Then we phoned the DWP to ask where the hell has my application for ESA got to (it's been 6 weeks). I was on hold for half an hour. And then when I finally got through the advisor spoke to me really slowly like i'm thick, told me i "just have to be patient" (which is easy for her to say when she's not the one who's got only a month until she's officially homeless thanks to the failings of the DWP), and then goes "you have to send us sick notes from your doctor for us to give you the payments!" as though that's blindingly obvious and that i'm stupid to have not guessed this out of thin air for myself.

I've got bruises everywhere. I've even got one under my armpit FFS, god knows how that got there. People keep asking what happened to me, especially in relation to my punch-induced bruise which is huge. I would cover them all up but it's too hot to wear trousers and long sleeves (did i mention it's really fucking hot??!). I barely slept the past couple of nights because i've been in so much pain from the bruises on my arms (i sleep on my side - i tried my front but that squashed my boobs, and then my back and then i couldn't breathe thanks to the remnants of the cold/swine/flu/whatever).  

Productivity!!! Simon and I have tidied and cleaned my room and a load of stuff is in the laundry. I feel horribly ill and knackered but it's worth it. We're probably going to do a little hand-washing later too.
I feel so much better for having got this done.

I saw my doctor earlier and yet again brought up the exhaustion/hypersomnia/etc. Of course i went through the normal "well you're probably not eating enough", "your iron's low", "it's stress", and "maybe it's the severity of your depression?", all of which i'm unsure of because i'm eating enough (enough to maintain my weight and keep all my bloods perfect, except the iron), i've had anaemia soooo much worse than this multiple times before, i'm barely stressed at all because i put all my effort into having zilch stress (and i didn't have an energy lack this bad at the times when really shit stuff happened and when i had dozens of panic attacks), and i don't consider my depression to be that bad (i'm not suicidal, i'm not self-destructive, i wouldn't describe myself as unhappy, apart from unhappy with my situation). 
We've discussed the possibility of it being Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). She wouldn't want to diagnose it because of my depression and ED history which are very possible causes of the exhaustion, but it's going to be brought up with the psychiatrist. We talked about its causes and symptoms and it sounds a lot like it. A lot of its symptoms are ones that i've had but have been vaguely put under my psychiatric labels. It often co-exists with depression and other mental health problems. The possible causal factors - wow. One particular one is viral infections - it was a while after developing depression and days after being diagnosed with it that i was rushed into hospital with a cold that had turned into a severe chest infection. It was after that chest infection that this exhaustion started.
I feel like we're onto something here.

Everything seems overwhelmingly dirty. It's an OCD thing. I can't even begin to tackle it because there's too much, and trying to clean something makes something else worse. For example i want to dust my shelves - i have to take everything off the shelves, put them down on something else (which will be 'dirty'), and then when i put them back on the cleaned shelf the 'dirt' from the objects will transfer back onto the shelf.
Most of this 'dirt' and 'germs' are somewhat imagined anyway. I know however much i clean it won't be good enough. 

Despite my dirt neurosis i do need to do a lot of cleaning and tidying both in my room and around the flat. And i need to do some laundry, change my bedclothes. Get a hair-cut, re-dye the stupid blonde bits. Get more meds. See the doctor for various things. Get an eye test. Try make progress on the housing/money front. 
Unfortunately lacking the energy/money/drive to do most of those though.

I'm really falling behind with day-to-day self-care. Everything from the simple having-a-shower to full-on cleaning my room. I hate to admit this because simple things like having a shower should NOT be a big deal. I'm so exhausted and slowed that things seem to take so much longer than they ever used to. Psychs ask me what i do each day and it's quite simple really - it's made up of washing, dressing, housework-like stuff, eating, my daily walk, excessive sleeping, time on LJ/facebook, hanging out with Simon.... and basically nothing else, there's no time for anything else. They expect that i'm bored and that's contributing to my 'depression', but i'm never bored because i've got too much to do. I have all these things i want to add to my life - more reading, exercise, clubs, work, etc, but i just don't know where to fit them in, i don't have spare time. 
I don't understand why it's like this. Why have i got so little energy, why am i so sleepy, why does it take me a million years to do anything??? I don't know anyone like this. It's frustrating. I'll tell psychiatrists this and they'll nod sagely, and write it down as though this is completely expected and normal. And if i tell anyone else (CPNs, therapists, etc) they get kindof angry, trying to suggest that it's my fault i'm like this (like i'm choosing to nap because i'm bored, not because i'm drowsy and too exhausted to stand anymore), maybe because i'm just not trying hard enough or not eating enough or because i haven't been insistent enough of doctors to check that there's nothing physically wrong with me.
Maybe this whole 'depression' thing is a load of bullshit and actually i have something physically wrong making me like this.

Feel a bit better today.

Been hanging out with Simon, Beckie and Frank a lot.
Today Beckie introduced us to Cex. I don't believe it didn't exist!! Cheap CDs, cheap DVDs, loads of them!! I'm going to write a list of all the music and films i want and go through the entire basement of Cex looking for them.

We saw 4 snakes at Riseholme today. I stroked one of the big ones.

You're probably as bored as me of the talk about Michael Jackson, so sorry, but my turn. I never had a strong opinion about him, not really into his music. But i was fascinated by him because of the suggestions of him having AN and BDD, which looks pretty likely to me (and if it were AN that would be a possible explanation for his cause of death). 
I try not to feel too sad about celebrities dying because it distorts our perspective - people die every day, horrible things happen all the time. All the media attention on MJs death distracts us from other bad things in the world like the awful scenes in Iran. But MJs death did touch me, as did Jade Goodys, just because they were familiar. They both had cancer, they were both parents who died young. My sadness is for MJ and JGs kids who are just so young to deal with something as big as the death of a parent.

I forgot to mention yesterday that i saw my CPN and we actually got on. I think it's because i tried really hard to make it work, made sure i didn't sit in a sulky silence or be too monosyllabic. One thing we talked about was why my depression wasn't going away despite various things tried to combat it and we talked about the possibility that it's been compounded by grief. Like because of my family not being emotionally open and not having a healthy conventional way of dealing with my grief i've got the depression instead, or something like that. It does feel a lot like i'm stuck as my 18-year-old self and haven't moved on, i'm still fighting the same battles. She asked straight-out if i wanted to marry Simon and i was like WWOOAAHH, but as a question for a couple who are 21 and 25 it's not that weird. I have friends who are married and have kids, but that concept seems alien to me because i feel like a child still, like i'm stuck as that teenager. It's weird.   

I'm reading a tacky real-life story about people with weird eating issues:
There's one guy who only eats food that's triangular - pizza, dorritos, samosas etc. He retches each time he tries putting something non-triangular in his mouth. And having something cut into triangles in front of him doesn't work either.
There's a woman who has a phobia of ketchup. She can't be in the same room as a bottle, and if she's at a restaurant she has to hide it behind the menu.
And there's a woman who has a phobia of mushrooms and can't even have them in her house, or eat them chopped up tiny. She thinks it might have stemmed from being stung by a jellyfish when she was little. 

I find these fascinating, and wonder about the links between them and 'normal' eating disorders, like what's similar. Selective Eating Disorder seems to sit in between this kindof phobia ^ and 'normal' EDs.

Rather unwell.
Flu, cold, swine flu, whatever. It's not nice. Got the shakes and the aches.
Hot chocolate and biscuits. Tacky magazines (the real life ones with "zomg my husband ate my daughter, puked her eyeballs out and fed them to me in a pie!!!!11" and "zomg i gained 13 stone in one day because i had a huge tumour in my foot!!!!11" and somesuch in them). Bed.

Yesterday was a lovely busy day. Miraculously i was on the go with no rest from 10am straight through to midnight, no naps or anything. And it was hot and sunny and now i'm a very slight browny-pink colour as opposed to my default white.

We went to the Lincs Show (an agricultural show) and saw a load of animals and stuff. Sheep, a parrot, a tortoise, donkeys, owls, birds, rabbits, hens, a tarantula, a slimy frog, snakes, piglets, goats, cows and puppies to be precise. We also had posh afternoon tea in a marquee with Simons parents and some solicitors - red carpet, canapes, chandelier, flat-screen TVs for the adverts, people in suits. Little scary for someone like me who looks and acts like a tramp, especially after being out hanging around sheep and stuff all day - mud, sweat, windswept hair!

Back home Simon and I made a huge toad-in-the-hole. Simon actually ate all vegetarian food yesterday, he has quite a liking for good quality vegetarian sausages.

And in the evening we went to the cinema to see 'The Hangover' which was SO funny, loved it.

Photos of course...

There's swine flu here. It's on the ward where Simons sister works (she's a nurse). The officials are keeping quiet about it though so it's not hit the news.
Interesting.

It is SO hot. So so so hot. I'm determined not to complain about it though, because i do appreciate the sunshine.

But now for some real complaining - F*CKING MAINTENANCE CHARGES ON THIS BLOODY FLAT!! There'c charges for the rooms - £30 for the blu-tac marks on my walls, etc. And then communal charges, like the dirty oven and grime in the bathroom and crap like that. I and my remaining flatmate could do a cheap cleanup all by ourselves and save everyone a little money off the extortionate charge, or we could leave it all filthy and have us all charged a slightly larger extortionate amount.
We're even being charged for the removal of peoples stuff in the kitchen FFS.
*Burrows head under pillow*

Some friends are back again and it's fun. Been hanging out with Simon, Beckie, Kate and Frank. Last night we thought it was a good idea to make an art installation in the stairwell, adopt a snail, take a crab for a walk on a string, dance in the street, feed the swans 30p bread, post the crab through the letterbox of Greggs (the bakers)... not sure why. Twas fun.

I'm probably going to be assigned somewhere to live tomorrow. That will be a relief. I want to just move and have my benefits sorted just so it's not hanging over me anymore, so i can concentrate on everything else.

Next week i've got an appointment with the volunteer office so i can take on some voluntary work. I know this is a good idea and it will probably be a positive healthy thing for me to do, but man am i nervous! Visiting lonely elderly people in hospital was suggested as a possibility and that idea scares the crap out of me. I'm so incredibly socially awkward.

Stuff to do when accomodation/money sorted:
- start voluntary work
- find a part-time job
- join the library
- get a bike(?)
- join a gym or find some way to do good exercise

Also:
- work out therapy options
- (when stable) get working on social anxiety self-help
- do photography

And maybe:
- see about joining a canoe/kayak group/class/club
- learn first aid

I'm also thinking that on a day-to-day basis i should always:
- go for a walk
- listen to at least one track of music
- look up something art-related
- do a small piece of artwork

I like this article.

I've been trying to moan about everything in the world BUT myself today, but now i give up. I feel so fucking shit.

My energy levels have been slowly dropping over the past year-and-a-bit, but in the past couple of months it's sped up, and in the past 2-3 weeks it's taken a total nose-dive. It's abysmal. Today i've not had a shower yet because i haven't the energy to stand up that long. I did the washing up sat on a stool. I tried going for a walk but had to go from bench to bench. In the past couple of months i've been completely reliant on Simon taking me to the supermarkets, and i don't know what i'm going to do for food when he's gone cos it's not like i can afford taxis.
My weight has dropped significantly too. My favourite jeans and shorts are far too big.

I haven't had exhaustion like this for 2 1/2 years. Back then i had a similar level of depression (though with grief mixed in), my ED was significantly worse, and i was not quite as anaemic. I don't know what's gone wrong this time - is it the ED, the depression, the anaemia my digestion (it did seem to be getting a little better, but today my abdomen has swollen up with stabbing pains), or some combination of them? 
I'm pretty scared actually. Well i'm scared most of the time of all this shit, but otherwise-healthy 21-year-olds shouldn't be like this. I wasn't going to go to the doctor until monday (when they might have my test results), but now i'm thinking maybe i should go earlier? Or am i overreacting?

To top it off i'm so bloody lonely. All my friends have gone to Alton Towers today; i didn't get an invite. I wish i wasn't so socially retarded.
Beckie is packing to go, Simon only has a couple of weeks... i'm going to be so fucking alone.