It's been almost two years.

Two years since I got on the trains and tubes and walked my way through leafy London neighborhoods, passing that large imposing church, passing a few homes which I knew were covert women's shelters. I knew this because I would see the women come and go from them, looking over their shoulders and drawing their hair over bruised faces, hoping that they wouldn't run into the person they were running from. I would pass that house with the massive rose bush growing over the wall, and pass the house that had an Edwardian desk rotting in the driveway, slowly fading over time.

I would make my way to the house with the wisteria arbor. I would ring the doorbell. I would wait until someone opened the door, where I'd then get a whiff of spicy oils and Indian scents. The house was inhabited by doctors and specialists who worked from home. I was far from the only patient who went there.

Up one flight of stairs, then another, then another. We were in the eaves of the house, a converted loft. It was his home for the most part, a Spartan place with a large leather couch and a small balcony overlooking the homes in the area. There were candles, often, and books on subjects nearly too touchy-feely for me. My therapist was a specialist in psycosynthesis. I used to make fun, but I think his approach was the only one I could've responded to.

It's been 12 years since I stopped my OCD behaviour.

It's been 8 years since I stopped my eating disorders.

Both of them are control triggers, things I do when there are parts of my life that I am not in control of. Like the self-harm, they are things my subconscious triggers when it is flailing (although the self-harm - like suicide - are well and truly off the menu. Forever.). It is me telling myself, however mistakenly, that I am in charge. I make choices, these choices put me in the driver's seat.

The eating disorders always worked the same. I would start to feel fat. I would start to feel revolting. I would want to watch every little thing I ate. I used every anorexia trick in the book - ensuring I burnt off as many (preferably more) calories than I took in. Throwing food away so that I wouldn't eat it, because if there's anything bigger than my fear of being out of control it's my fear of germs. Brushing my teeth repeatedly. Eating cereal dry and without milk so it would expand in my stomach with fewer calories. And most of all, I would hear a voice in the back of my head. A snack, a low voice, one that was almost always hypnotic to me.

"You'll feel so much better if you don't."

That's all the voice ever said. Ever.

And I obeyed it every single time. If I heard the voice, I immediately stopped eating, I immediately walked away, I immediately resisted.

The OCD was done in obsession mostly, rather than compulsion. I had to do things 5 times. Just 5. If I did something 6 times I had to start all over again. Lock the door 5 times - lock, unlock, lock, unlock, lock. Check my contacts 5 times. Touch all the burners of the stove 5 times each to make sure they were off. I would even drive to work, turn around halfway, and come home just to check everything all over again. If I touched something with one finger I had to touch it with all of them in the exact same way. If I messed that up then it would be another pattern to introduce.

It consumed me.

I went to therapy and got all better.

Then a few days ago I had to literally sit on my hands to keep myself from driving home and checking the stove 5 times. I had to do it. I even broke into a sweat. 5 times, I had to check the stove 5 times, I had to do it now. I didn't let myself, I told myself that if the house burned down at least the babies were at nursery, Angus was away, and the pets could escape.

And last week the snake came back. "You'll feel so much better if you don't." I've been eating but I haven't wanted to. I want to stop eating. I want to diet uncontrollably. I feel fat. I want to stop eating. I have to take laxatives occasionally, as the digestive system doesn't work so well post-pregnancy. I have to take three tablets at once, courtesy of all of those years of binging and purging. I haven't yet heard the voice urging me to take the whole box, it does no good if you take the whole box, go on and swallow them all, but I know it can come. It may come.

I am so sick and fucking tired of being crazy.

I haven't told anyone but Angus that I am beginning to fail because I am so embarrassed. I write on this blog about the things I have been trying to overcome, the things I have overcome, and perhaps all of it is just big talk. I'm sliding back downhill and I feel so ashamed about it that it's hard to write it all down.

Almost two years ago I stopped seeing my therapist.

Yesterday, despite money being tight, despite him not being covered by insurance, despite him being a 4 hour journey to and fro, I reached out to him again. On the phone his voice was guarded at first as I awkwardly tried to do basic salutations, my insecurities covering the mouthpiece of the phone like a layer of melted caramel. When I finally revealed myself his voice opened like the door of an old friend who always has the kettle on for you. He remembered me. My insecurity had me worried that he wouldn't. Stupid thing to worry about, really, when your therapist tells you that in his entire career he's never met anyone with a more unstable background.

He asks me about my babies right away. I tell him they're fine. I tell him that I really like them. I more than just love them - I like them. I want to convey down the line of the phone that I am the luckiest person in the world because I get to be their mother.

But it's because I am their mother that I need more help. I have to make myself right so that I can always make sure I am right for them. The cycles stop here, lifetimes of mental matriarches can and must come to an end. I will do absolutely anything - therapy, medication, wear polyester, walk through fire - to make sure that my children never know mental illness.

Not like their mother did.

I go back to my therapist on the 8th of April, in the evening, for a double session.

I think I wasn't finished baking yet and I need to go back into the oven again.

-H.

* lyrics from Sia's "Breathe Me", which is the song I almost always listened to as I went to that house in the suburbs.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:40 AM | Comments (35) | Add Comment
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