I’m becoming more and more obsessed with my appearance. I lie awake for hours planning what to wear the next day and wonder what shoes will work with a certain skirt. But I know it’s all pointless. I don’t really care what I look like any more. I’ve cut all my hair off, I’ve got horrible skin and I’m covered in lumpy purple scars. Ooh, can you say bombshell?
I think it’s a distraction. If I have to think about getting dressed tomorrow morning then I don’t need to focus on how much of a mess of my life I’ve made today. It’s confusing though, and it’s also bringing back some latent food issues. I find myself thinking about calories counting or wondering about binging. I REALLY don’t want to get back into that again. I’ve already had my time where I lost loads of weight over a summer when my mum went away. I ate nothing. I restricted heavily for months and then at the height of the problem I ate nothing but sugar free gum and Pepsi max for over a week. I was light headed and empty and it felt fabulous but it could never last.
Since going to university I thought I had pretty much dealt with it. I didn’t exactly eat healthily but I didn’t binge either and more importantly I DIDN’T WORRY about it. That is the biggest sign of recovery I think.
I was lucky. My eating problems were a part of my mental illness, I’m reluctant to call them a fad but it was only a year or so and I sort of got over it naturally.
Oh, I’d forgotten, the pills I mentioned in yesterday’s whinge are still in my handbag. I didn’t take them. I don’t really know what came over me. Last night I was ever so morbid. I was picturing my mum updated her facebook status with something like …is sad that @Rachel O’Keeffe has died. That would be an interesting way to tell the family anyway. I thought about maybe popping a few tonight. NOT in an ‘oh please kill me, my life is so awful’ way, I’m not especially suicidal at present but I do still feel bizarrely numb. You’d think, coming out of a deep depression, to feel nothing for a while would be a relief but in actual fact it just makes me anxious.
I need to sort out various appointments soon. My eyes need testing, these glasses are over three years old and I’m getting headaches so I think it’s time or an upgrade. I also need to go to the doctors. I’ve been on the duloxetine for about 6 weeks now and overall I’m happy with it. It doesn’t make me shake like citalopram and I only feel sick sometimes. But I am getting more and more anxious and the moment, I got a sharp pain in my stomach last night and thought I’d eaten something weird but then I realised that it was anxiety making me want to throw up. My sleeping problems are rearing their ugly heads again. ‘What sleeping problems?’ I hear you cry. It’s partly that I’ve got into a bad cycle which means I can’t get to sleep until 4am meaning it’s difficult to wake before 3pm. I have worked out that I naturally sleep for about 11 hours. This is fine, in theory. I don’t have a job and I’m not doing anything else with my pathetic life so I might as well sleep. BUT it means when I do have to get things done, I’m groggy and incompetent. I’ve tried staying up all one night and then going to bed at 10pm, really tired so I can sleep straight away, but then the sleep deficit of the previous night means I’ll be zonked out until 1 or 2pm the next afternoon and so the cycle begins again!
I don’t know if there’s anything the doc can do about this but in an ideal world I’ve love some sleeping pills that I can take at 7 or 8 and I’ll sleep right through but still be up by 9. And maybe a new antidepressant, these low moods are worrying me. Buying tablets with the intention of overdose is not healthy state of mind to be in.
I haven’t mentioned the saga of my struggle with the DWP yet now have I? Well, the Department for Work and Pensions sorts out benefits claims. I put through an initial claim on June 15th 2010 and am still waiting. I’ve sent doctors notes, medical certificates and now I’m waiting for Joe, my old college principle to send me a letter confirming that I am not currently in education so I can send that off as well. Apparently, due to the incompetent bitch (sorry, I really am angry about this, I’ve been broke for months) who took my details originally, it was still on record that I was a student and would therefore be receiving the relevant loans and grants. Unfortunately this is not true and I am skinter than a skint thing on a skint day wearing a skint hat and skint clothes holding up a sight saying I am a skint thing on a skint day…etc.
I shall keep you informed as to the outcome of my latest wrestle with both the NHS and the DWP.
I do worry though about others who are trying to claim. Luckily I have a brilliant mother who I am living with. She feeds me and occasionally buys me stuff. I get the odd babysitting gig and sometimes my Nan gives me a tenner so I can buy fags. I am not so hard done by. But what about the people who can’t live with their mum’s and don’t have someone to cook them dinner? The bureaucracy I’ve encountered in trying to get some money surely exists for them as well. I’d be on the streets by now with the amount of time it takes from claiming to them even telling you why you’ve not been given anything yet.
Shush now Rachel, I hear you say. That’s enough whinging for today. I quite agree. I hope you have a lovely evening and don’t die or anything. I’m going to try and fall asleep before 4am because I’ve got to take my little sister to the dentist tomorrow and the appointment is at 9.30am. I’m dreading the alarm clock already.
Life on the Borderline 