HfC day 22: keeping me

In previous blog entries for the challenge, I've mentioned the difficulty that arises from feeling that anorexia is inextricable from my identity. I don't want to write a long post for this one, partly because it is something that's particularly pertinent to my experience of the ED and therefore something that I feel uneasy about sharing too widely. So instead, here are a few random thoughts:

• When I was in therapy for the first time, pretty solidly from April 1999 to Sept 2001, one of the really important issues that we dealt with was the fixed idea I had that people only recognised me because I had very long hair, I was skinny and I always came top in exams at school and won the form prize. I didn't really have any concept of a sense of self beyond that. The amount of identity that I gained from exams is very clear from the fact that the descent into crisis (described in the previous blog entry) happened in the year after I left school. Without school and exams to define me, who am I? The answer seemed to lie in the skinny bit: I'd been restricting my eating for the past 8 years or so in order to maintain that shape (which stood for lots of things: childhood, vulnerability, control, disgust at my own body). Once the school bit of identity had ended, there was more room for the anorexic bit to take over. My therapist was really proud of me when I had my hair cut at the beginning of 2000, because it was a sign that I realised I was an entity separate from the parts that had been so important. 
• It's not a coincidence that lots of people with EDs have low self esteem. Problems with self esteem are indicative of a lack of self identity and the ED can provide that. I've heard a psychologist refer to an evidence base suggesting that this is more acute with anorexia because, bizarrely, it is "desirable", whereas it's more common for people with BN or BED to hate the diagnosis and not want it to be part of them.
• In hospital last year, some friends made me a poster with a drawing of me and lots of words to describe me. The caption was Linda ≠ anorexia. I stuck it up on my bedroom wall.
• Finally, last year when I refused to participate in body image group, I set myself a project. I made a sketch book in which I used old photographs to draw images of myself from babyhood to the present. The process of drawing helped me to see aspects of my quiddity - my me-ness - that are noticeable at all ages and, crucially, at all body sizes. Indeed, it also pointed to something that a wise dietitian once told me: she said that when she first saw me in the summer of 2003 when I'd been admitted to hospital and was very poorly, I was a shadow, who sat curled up hiding in the hood of my sweater. She couldn't detect a personality at all. But then, as refeeding happened, she said it was like a butterfly coming from the cocoon, and she grew to understand why lots of the nurses and medical staff remembered me from previous admissions and had said nice things about me. 

The inextricability of where ED stops and where I begin is still a big problem for me. But writing this blog entry has reminded me that, for others at least, being Linda is not synonymous with being anorexic.

HfC day 21 (a day late) Healers with Heart

I didn't get round to blogging yesterday; however, I did pluck up courage to share this month's challenge with my FB friends... and got an amazing response. In addition to more visitors to the blog than had ever been on one day before (by about a factor of 10), friends wrote some really touching comments on my FB post and a few even sent messages, which were incredibly powerful and made me feel very loved. Given that the idea of sharing on FB was terrifying to me - because writing about my feelings and then allowing people I know the chance to read about them feels a lot like running naked through a big party of all my family and friends - I was overwhelmed by the encouragement.

However, I don't want to miss yesterday's prompt because, having previously included a letter to Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation Trust, who completely failed to act as "healers" to me, let alone "healers with heart", I want to balance the scales by mentioning the professionals that have helped me.

I was first referred to the ED team at what is now Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust way back in 1998. My first meeting was with an inexperienced young doctor and I'll admit to finding it traumatic. It was the first time I'd had a psychiatric assessment (I don't remember being assessed like that by the psychiatrist I was under when I was 11). I didn't want anything to do with the service and was cross because she advised against me going off to uni. She was, of course, right that it was not a good idea for me to go at that time, as I realised when I visited a friend in London a few weeks later and couldn't walk unaided down the street. 6 or 8 weeks after that first meeting, things had reached a crisis point. I received a letter one morning saying that the next appt with the ED team had had to be postponed. This threw me into sheer panic: the thought that someone might be able to help me had been my focus and I couldn't cope with another few weeks of how my life was at that stage. My dad took me to the GP surgery. The very young female GP who saw me (a definite healer with heart) cancelled all her other appts for that morning and rang through to Dr Robertson, the lead consultant in the ED team. I think it was a Friday and he said he would see me on the Monday. He advised her on how to keep me safe over the weekend... basically, she kept popping round to the house with Diazepam.

That Monday, I went back to QEPH outpatient dept with both parents. I remember very clearly when Dr Robertson came out into the waiting area, he came straight over to me and said 'you must be Linda'. I had no idea how he knew who I was, but looking back, I suppose I probably looked like someone who was very poorly with anorexia. He spoke to me for a while. I don't remember any of that conversation. Then my parents came in too. He told us that he felt I should go into hospital asap. Unfortunately, he had no free beds on the Reed unit so said he would arrange an NHS-funded bed at the local Priory clinic. We went home with a prescription for temazepam (because I was refusing to let myself sleep - thinking that sleep was lazy) to wait for a phone call with more instructions.

On the Weds, a girl on the Reed unit discharged herself so I was offered her bed rather than the Priory one. Funnily enough, back then the unit was very fixed on its admission days so I had to wait till Monday to go in; nowadays Dr R brings people in as soon as there's a bed and they agree because of the tendency for people to try to lose a bit more while waiting. For me, going in straight away would have saved me a scar on my forehead: I wouldn't let myself sleep even with temazepam and I cut my head open falling down the stairs in the early hours of the morning, attempting to go downstairs and keep busy. Over the phone, A&E advised my mother not to bring me in because they'd have to admit me to a general psych ward and the on-call psychiatrist thought it would be better for me if I could stay at home until going into the Reed. My poor mum (another healer with heart) had to sleep across the doorway to my room for the next few nights to stop me trying to wander again.

I was really poorly when I was admitted to the hospital. I couldn't see it at the time and thought I was too big to be there. I told the person admitting me that it was 'just like when I was the biggest baby in the special care baby unit'. Some of the people from that admission are still there, even though the service is now housed in a new hospital building and the unit has a different name. Dr R, my psychologist, some of the nursing assistants. The NAs that I'm thinking of seem to have infinite capacity to care. They know us at our worst and yet continue to believe in us and continue to encourage everyone to keep going.

It's probably a bit trite to say that I believe BSMHFT saved my life but I think they probably have. On at least 3 occasions. Amongst ourselves, my friends and I can often moan about individual aspects of the service: what is the point of morning support group? why do they keep employing Dr Thingummybob? agency staff should not be allowed to do dining room support... especially if they are going to answer their phone while in there, or stare, or make strange comments.

But beyond the complaints, there is a service that continues to help people and, unlike CPFT, it does not give up on anyone. Within the service there are individuals that to whom I wish I could articulate how strongly I appreciate the things that they have done for me. Some things are big; others might just be a squeeze of my shoulder as I walked out of the dining room after a really hard meal. Through that, they show that they aren't just showing up to pick up a wage but that their hearts are present with them, and with us as we attempt to get better.

Sound of Silence - part 2

I wrote my response to today's prompt after midnight last night. So it was essentially written in a liminal space between yesterday and today...
But reading the prompt's title, The Sound of Silence, so late at night has meant that the song inside my head today has been Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence. This reminded me of another Simon and Garfunkel song that has always resonated with me because it partly manages to articulate something about the way that my anorexia has functioned for me. The anorexia creates the 'walls, a fortress deep and mighty'. Walls that protect. Walls that isolate. Walls that provide me with safety from the pain of emotions and of experiencing the real world.

I've built walls, 
A fortress deep and mighty, 
That none may penetrate. 
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain. 
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain. 
I am a rock, 
I am an island. 
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/i+am+a+rock_20124809.html ] 
Don't talk of love, 
But I've heard the words before; 
It's sleeping in my memory. 
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. 
If I never loved I never would have cried. 
I am a rock, 
I am an island. 

At the worst times, the thought of someone penetrating the walls, of trespassing on my island, is terrifying.  But so is the thought of being trapped in the loneliness of illness forever.
One particular line that speaks to my situation is that 'I have my books/ And my poetry to protect me'. There have been many times when I've used my love of books to authenticate some of my need to restrict myself from other enjoyment. I went for about 6 years without watching television and a similar amount of time unable to allow myself to sit with my family in the sitting room. I suppose it was about isolation. And about the control of not permitting myself certain simple pleasures.

I have my books 
And my poetry to protect me; 
I am shielded in my armor, 
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. 
I touch no one and no one touches me. 
I am a rock, 
I am an island. 

The song's final couplet is paradoxically truth and a lie... Anorexia does numb the pain for a while but as long as pain exists, we know we have to face it sometime. And maybe we do need to cry.

And a rock feels no pain; 
And an island never cries.

I've felt myself retreating a bit this week. I've been choosing alone. As I write this, I guess I know that I have to fight the urge to build walls, to become an island. Anorexia's armour may feel safe but it endangers us: our health, our relationships, our lives.

(all lyrics cited are copyright Paul Simon. And if you don't own a Simon and Garfunkel album, you should really buy one. They are amazing)

HfC day 20: the sound of silence

This prompt is weirdly apt for me because I wanted to write something about the silence here for the past few days. I've missed out on several days of the challenge consecutively. And it's hard to explain why, because admitting publicly to low moods and feeling emotionally fragile is terrifying. (I do see that I have actually admitted it in that last sentence). How many times when asked 'how are you?' do I/ we say 'fine, thanks' even when fine is far from the truth? I even did it at my last GP appointment; my GP seemed so thrilled that I was fine that I was then unable to tell him how I had been struggling with feeling very low and worthless.
Maybe the difficulties that have prevented me from writing, alongside the realisation that it feels impossible to admit how things really are, point to something about the functionality of EDs: if societal pressures make it difficult to talk about sadness, mental pain, emotional distress, the "obvious" option is to turn that pain inwards even more and to make it tangible in ED symptoms. For one thing that an emaciated body achieves is to communicate distress. When spoken communication has failed, our bodies can graphically illustrate the extremity of our sadness.
Indeed, one of the conversations that I've had with others who've been through treatment with me is that when refeeding has made our bodies look "normal", people assume that everything is ok. For some recovering/ed anorexics, I hope that is true. But for many of us, treating the body is one part of a picture that rarely happens exactly simultaneously with sorting out all the thoughts and crap inside our heads. Someone with a BMI over 20 can be hurting inside as much as someone whose BMI causes doctors to write bed rest plans.

When it's properly 20th May (as opposed to nearly 1am on the 20th before I've actually finished with the 19th), I will try to write the post that I'd planned in my head - I've been wondering why I have not shared my participation in this challenge with all my Facebook friends. Most of them are aware about my ED because I have never tried to hide my experiences. But I think I'm scared of letting them read the very personal thoughts and details of things that have happened...

HfC day 16 Fat is not a feeling...

This prompt made me laugh because, about a year ago, there was a big to do in the ED unit where I was receiving treatment. Two nurses had started a body image group (compulsory part of the group programme). The trouble was that neither of them had experience of running this group ... and it's the group that tends to cause the most anxiety and distress among patients. I stated outright that I would not attend, having previously had very bad experience of such groups but after the first session, all my friends came out fuming.

The session was based on the very same statement as this prompt. But when the girls (and all the patients on the unit at that time were female) offered their thoughts on alternative feelings in a brainstorm, the nurses claimed that things like 'guilt', 'fear', 'disgust', etc, were not feelings. Apparently they'd read a book that stated that there are only 4 human feelings. Therefore, they wanted everyone to fit their emotional experience onto one of the 4 feelings that are "correct". I think we can all agree that fat isn't a feeling, even though feelings of fat are incredibly real when one is experiencing them. But to tell people that they aren't experiencing guilt or fear or self-disgust because those aren't "correct" feelings is bizarre, to say the least.

I spoke to a psychologist about it to try to get to the bottom of this '4 feelings' theory. He said that perhaps it was a correlation of a few different bits of psychological research. Generally, he said, there are something like 6 or 7 accepted "feelings" and it's usually possible to plot all the variations and distinctions of individual emotion onto one of those 6 or 7 basic notions. And there's also something complicated going on with how we distinguish between a 'feeling' and an 'emotion'.

I'm not sure where this post is going, except to say that the following week, that incarnation of the body image group ended in acrimony with a rather large argument between the facilitators and the patients. And that, obviously, it is a crucial step in the long recovery process when you realise that very real feelings about your body are, in fact, the way that your brain is coping with very real feelings and emotions about other things, especially when those things are simply too painful to cope with.

My difficulty has always been that I can grasp the intellectual concepts behind theories of illness. I understand it all perfectly on an intellectual level. The problem is in the disparity between intellectual knowledge and emotional belief. One of my uni supervisors (who is a very wise man) talked about this in relation to affective piety in the medieval period, i.e. that sitting through a dramatic version of the Crucifixion can shift someone from understanding the Christian story in theory, as an interesting story in a book, to a place where they believe emotionally in the pain of the sacrifice.

We all have to keep trying to move towards truly believing that fat feelings aren't true, simultaneously attempting to find other ways to cope with the real emotions that we experience.

HfC day 15

I want to write today. But I've seen the topic and I can't. I really really can't.

The prompt is to 'write a letter to little me'. Maybe I'm so stuck on the topic because I hate myself for the things I've done to her. Photos of tiny little me show a happy bright child. But even in primary school, all the self-doubt and anxiety was there, and my first hospitalisation came just after my 11th birthday. I hurt inside for that little girl and don't know how to forgive myself for it all.

Here she is. I want for her (or me - little me and me now) to be able to smile like that again and to be free from the pain of negative and self-destructive thoughts.

HfC day 12: blogger's choice

I skipped yesterday so had considered using that topic for today. But I've actually now had an idea of my own so I no longer need to cheat!

Once again, this may be long and rambling. It will also give me the chance to post a knitting project (the main focus of my blog until this month) and to talk about something that simultaneously is and is not about my ED.

I started ballet at the age of 2 and studied it seriously until I was 18. I hate it when people denigrate ballet for being the 'cause' of anorexia or other EDs because it's so reductive to claim that such complex mental illnesses can be attributed to a single thing. I'm not denying that ballet had an effect on the way that I view my body. I can clearly remember being just 3 and seeing other girls with their tummies sticking out and being glad that mine did not (and promising to myself that I wouldn't let it). Or being 7 and wishing I was wearing tights because the sight of my naked thighs was too ugly for me.

But giving up eating when I was 10 had nothing to do with those feelings. It was about sadness, loneliness, wanting to escape from the world. By not eating, I was able to stay at home, cocooned away from the scariness of school (until, of course, I ended up stuck in hospital and unable to go home).

Throughout all of this, I have loved ballet. I love the way that my body can make shapes and express feelings. So starting ballet again, in an adult class, this February has allowed me to 'reclaim' it as something that is *not* about being thin, but instead, it's about loving being in my body, even if only for the duration of the class. Because as I achieve a developpe or work through a port de bras in the centre, I am fully there, within my body and controlling it as it creates the shapes and steps in the various exercises - and that control has nothing to do with food or starvation or other ED behaviours.

So now for the knitting part! I've nearly finished a wraparound cardigan that I've made for myself (and that's another good step in valuing myself enough to knit for me rather than for friends and their babies, or for charity). Here is a photo from earlier today:

HfC day 10: words, words, words

The blog challenge today is to think up five words associated with the ED and five words associated with recovery. For help with this one, I asked some friends who have been supporting one another in recovery. Here's an edited version of our conversation:

Me: Today's blog challenge is a list of words. I'm no good at picking individual words so wondered if anyone could help me out! we need 5 words that describe EDs and 5 that describe recovery:
"Only Words?
Choose ten words; five of which relate to your experience of eating disorders and five of which relate to your recovery. What does each of these words mean to you? Why are they important to you? What part have they played in your illness and recovery?"

• • 
    Friend 1: Here are my initial thoughts; I've just listed what comes to mind.
    

    EDs: darkness, emptiness, loneliness, helplessness, confusion, despair, fear, guilt
    Recovery: hope, light, opportunity, belief, friendship, love, growth, determination, self-worth, value, courage, 'daring to be daring'.
  • 
    

     i might add "doubt" to recovery. Cause there's always that voice at the back of your head making you doubt whether you can - or should - recover.
  • Friend 2: The recovery words are hard, because I guess some of them are just our hopes rather than experiences...
    freedom?
    strength
    future
    (adding to Friend 1's of course!)
  • 
    

     Me: I love this! Thank you both because this helps. Maybe our list for EDs should include a few words that remind us how hard it is to escape from - e.g. comfort, safety, identity, control???
  • Friend 2: good idea, because it's almost like you have to not look at it in a judgmental way, but how it makes us feel at the time... although I think for me, it is still fear, panic, failure...
    
  • Friend 1: yes definitely. Security, predictability, uniqueness, restraint.
  • 
    

So there are more than 5 of each but I didn't want to cut any out because this thread of comments has all been enlightening to me and each word is a valid part of someone's experience and possibly may reflect my own experience in a way that I'm not able fully to recognise in the words that come immediately to my mind.

• • 
    

HfC day 9: on being different

Today's task asks us to examine what it means to be different. I think I began to look at that when I blogged about men and EDs, because, to me, it's all about individuality, identity, quiddity.

There is a big paradox because anorexia often functions as a way of gaining or solidifying identity when one's sense of self feels too fragile and it is hard to believe that self could continue to exist without it. Yet it also makes one known as an illness, which smoothes out differences and ends up making every person just another patient or just another statistic.

Funnily enough (and somehow related to this point in a way that I'm struggling to define), I've said to people before that, in some ways, it's easier to be "me" when I've been in hospital .... because everyone has the illness and we therefore get to know one another in a deeper way than ever seems possible elsewhere. It's as though the anorexia isn't the barrier that it usually is, stopping me from being fully me. And so I've been able to make wonderful friends, people whose lives may have been entirely different or spookily similar to mine, but who've known me and loved me through some of our (shared) toughest times.

I'm finding it hard to connect all the thoughts that I've had on this topic. There are two other things that have been on my mind today about difference and individuality. One was after seeing a lady in Sainsbury's. Over the winter, I saw her walking up and down the very long roads into our nearest town, practically every time I was driving past. And that made my heart hurt because I could sense her struggle and I wanted to reach out and tell her that she didn't need to walk and that the layers of clothes and gloves and the hat she was wearing weren't going to keep her warm enough because her fragile body needed to be warm inside and resting. I hadn't seen her for a few weeks until today. The sight of her made me immediately tearful. And I know, deep down, that it's partly because even though she and I are very different and at different stages in the illness, I felt recognition with her. We were in the same aisle, examining the backs of similar products, clearly both hoping that the numbers and words on the packet would give us the magic permission we needed to put the item in our trolley. So crying for her was like crying for me. I'm not sure whether it's for me now, or for me at times in the past, or for that big fear that we (me and all my friends) can only always been a thin line away from being horribly, visibly poorly. I wanted to run away at the same time as wanting to hug her and take her to hospital.

The other thing was the birth of a baby whose mother is connected to me via married relatives. This little girl has arrived in the world with a future ahead of her, an identity that has yet to be formed. At a recent Christening, the minister said that one of the reasons that people love babies is that they represent opportunity and the future because life has not yet had a chance to hurt them. Once we have lived through the disappointments, betrayal, sadness and tedium of a few decades on earth, it becomes increasingly hard to believe that our future can hold anything different from the present. But the hope that this minister gave me was that our futures remain as open as a newborn baby. Just because we have been damaged by the past does not mean that we cannot be "reborn" or repaired to dream dreams and experience new things in the years to come. The danger with eating disorders is that often medical professionals give up hope, perhaps labelling someone as SEED and offering "management" rather than "treatment". It's therefore beholden on those of us who've got that label to continue to hope for ourselves and to carry on believing that we have an unwritten future that can offer us health and happiness.

HfC day 8: a picture is worth ...

.... 1000 words

This weekend, my aunt brought over some photos that my great aunt (who recently died) had taken. My mum joked that she'd like to have this picture enlarged because it shows me voluntarily reaching for a sausage roll!

Even though we both giggled about that, I think the photo does represent something about recovery. Having been restrictive in my eating since the age of 10, it's hard for me to remember a time when I freely chose food based on what I wanted at that moment. This photo, taken on my 5th birthday in my Mr Men themed party with a hedgehog chocolate button cake, is proof that I had an identity that was not contingent on restriction. I can see me (as in me the person, the self) in that picture, so I can believe that, once, being me was not all about denying myself food. And the flip side of that is the possibility that I can be me in the future without anorexia forcing me to deny myself the pleasure of the different textures and tastes of various foods.

HfC day 7: everyone's an individual

Today's challenge is about men with EDs. It's definitely true that there are stereotypes that exist about EDs. One in particular is that anorexia affects mostly middle class white girls who are academic overachieving perfectionists. And some people with anorexia may fit that stereotype (apparently: I couldn't possibly comment!); however, just as I've met girls and women from a diverse range of socio-economic, educational and cultural backgrounds who have anorexia, bulimia, BED or EDNOS, I've also met men and boys with anorexia. None of them can be neatly fit into any stereotype.

I knew a teenage boy who was still studying for his A Levels and overcome with the pressure. I hope that he is doing well now.

I got to know a lovely man who was transferred to the ED unit from the older adult ward after they realised that the nature of his eating problems meant that they could not meet his needs. He'd been a sailor and called a spade a bloody shovel. In community meeting, he asked if the kitchen could send up egg on toast for breakfast because he'd never been a cereal eater and wasn't about to start then. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for the rest of us who were quaking with fear at the thought of eggs at breakfast), the kitchen wasn't equipped to deal with making poached eggs on a mass catering scale. I hope that John has recovered and been able to enjoy his later years without the shadow of his eating disorder.

A man in his 40s has been a service user at the same ED unit as me for the past decade. I genuinely wish for his home situation to change to give him a better chance of recovery.

I'm still friends with a man I met back in the late 1990s at the old REED unit. He's now in his 50s and happily lives in a nearby town with his partner and gorgeous cats. He's a funny man with a great sense of humour and passionate beliefs about politics and animal welfare. This man always has time to support friends, writing letters and sending text messages, even when he's struggling a lot with his own health. I want for him to be well and for his future to emerge as one without anorexia. He has so much to give the world and anorexia tries so hard to take it away.

In truth, I wish similar things for all the people I've met through my own anorexia, even those who are difficult to like and even harder to share a hospital ward with. Today's focus is men, because they are often overlooked .... but the point I'd like everyone to take away is that eating disorders affect individuals, i.e. none of us can be tucked away into statistics or diagnostic criteria. We're all people, we're all different. And we all, including this blogger, need to discover that our identity, our self, our quiddity is enough and is not contingent on the existence of the eating disorder within us.

HfC day 6: a letter to a medical professional.

Today's challenge is fairly easy for me; I just have to copy and paste from an email I wrote to Tom Dening, medical director of Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation Trust (responsible for mental health care in Cambridgeshire), and Dr Jane Shapleske, consultant psychiatrist for eating disorders at CPFT. I still get angry about the failure of CPFT to respond to my frequent requests for help, so am glad to copy this in a public place.

Dear Dr Dening and Dr Shapleske,

I remain very distressed and angry about the failure of CPFT to offer
me adequate support during the three and a half years I spent as a
client of your services. My most specific disappointment is with the
eating disorder service. Below is the text of a contribution I made to
the Guardian readers' panel on Mental Health Services. My contribution
was published today, but constraints of space mean that it was edited
into a much milder piece that fails sufficiently to convey my anger
about CPFT. So I wish you to read both the published piece
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/03/mental-health-support-peoples-panel)
and my original writing.

[Submission to the Guardian]

My anorexia has been with me since 1989. I was admitted to hospital
that November just after my 11th birthday, having given up eating as
part of a part physical, part psychological illness that had prevented
me from going to school for several months. While anorexia nervosa was
mentioned as a possible diagnosis, I was treated mainly for M.E., and
left with lingering eating difficulties that remained part of the way
in which I experienced every day as I progressed through school. But
it was after my A Levels that the anorexia manifested itself in a way
that could no longer be ignored. Instead of starting university after
my gap year, I was admitted to a specialist NHS eating disorder unit.
This multi-disciplinary team in Birmingham were responsible for my
medical care for most of the next nine years, even when I went away to
study at Cambridge, first as an undergraduate and then during my MPhil
year. By this time, I'd had 3 inpatient admissions and when, in the
second term of my PhD, I had to enter the hospital for a 4th, the
consultant suggested that the help that they were able to give me
during university holidays was no longer sufficient and he would be
happier referring me to the Cambridgeshire services so that I could
get more regular support from specialist professionals.
Thus began three and a half years of living alone, working for a PhD
and suffering very severely from my anorexia because Cambs EDS were
not willing to treat me, the general psychiatry teams had no resources
to treat people with anorexia and my GP could only offer help from
within the limitations of her surgery: 10-20 minutes every 3 weeks or
so. For most of 2009 and 2010, I was desperate for help, yet pushed
from one professional to another, rejected again and again by the EDS
who were (in the words of one counsellor I saw) 'prejudiced by the
amount of treatment received in Birmingham, none of which has ever
worked'. The same counsellor called me 'an anorexic with no hope of
getting better' during one of our meetings back in early 2008 when the
Cambs service had picked up the referral from my previous doctor.
In December last year, I was on the verge of [giving up completely]. I had no
hope of getting better (it's amazing how labels people give to you can
stick in your head...), no hope that anyone would even see me to talk,
and no hope that this misery would end unless I ended it myself. The
only thing that stopped me was the thought of my dog finding me and
being afraid and alone.
A week later, I had an appointment with my old consultant in
Birmingham and was admitted to the ED unit here on 30th December.
Unfortunately I was so ill by this stage that [edited because the whole world doesn't need to know the details of that horrible time].
Today is June 1st. Since those dark days in December, I became a
voluntary patient at the hospital when my section was eventually
lifted, attended my PhD graduation (and forced the medics to change my
title to Dr on my notes!) and today got the keys to a flat where my
dog and I can live when I'm discharged later this month.
I'd heard the words 'postcode lottery' many times before 2007; it only
made sense to me when I had to live in Cambridge for my work but was
unable to gain any support there. Literally having to move 90 miles to
access treatment has been a massive wrench. I'm much better now and
hope that I can maintain this progress as an outpatient, but having
moved from Cambridge, I am faced with very few prospects for
employment. It turns out that doctorates in medieval literature are
not a huge draw in the current job market. I'd believed that I'd be as
free as my contemporaries to apply for jobs in other towns and cities
but the past four years have convinced me that, until mental health
provision is universally good, I have to stay here.

HfC blogger challenge day 4

The task today is to make slogans for EDs and for recovery. I'm not feeling very inspired in terms of slogans. I'd probably make a useless advertising copywriter.

Instead, the duality of the ED and recovery can perhaps be illustrated in something I once wrote about how I see anorexia as a box. It is simultaneously a safe space, like little Midge's soft igloo that she sits inside, which functions as a retreat from the scariness and sadness of the world.

But that safety comes at a price: it's isolating; it's restrictive; it means that I've never allowed anyone to get close enough to me for me to know love or to have my own children. Retreating into the safety of her igloo leaves Midge a spectator to life in our house rather than a participant, just as I feel as though I witness everyone else's life without ever truly being able to experience the rawness of waking up each morning and truly living. 

Recovery would mean being brave enough to step outside ... and stay there. The most positive way of looking at the past would be to say that each time that I've been into hospital and progressed through refeeding and rehab, I've grown a bit more used to being out of my safe space. And I have to keep taking those steps until, one day, the outside world is a safe place too.

HfC day 3: mascot

Wow. A mascot! I've never thought of one before and, at the moment, the only mascots I can think of are those slightly strange Olympic creatures with one eyes and space-age bodies.

A mascot for recovery needs to encompass love: loving me as I am now, but loving me enough to want me to be free from illness.

I suppose, for me, my dogs are my mascots. They give an unconditional love that makes me begin to see that, perhaps, I'm not entirely worthless: if these guys love me so much, there must be something loveable about me. But they need me to be well and I owe it to them to try to be strong enough for them, and strong enough never to have to leave them alone while I'm in hospital. They need a "mummy" who can feed herself as well as she feeds them and who values herself as much as they value her.

Introducing my beloved mascots, Benji (top) and Midge:

Top Ten Reasons to Fight For Recovery

Hungry for Change May blog challenge: day 2.

It's actually really hard to come up with reasons for recovery. I think that this is because it feels impossible to separate out anorexia from my identity, because it's been part of me since I was a little girl. So when I hear the word 'recovery', my mind tends to shout at me 'but then you might stop being you!'

Yet I know that life can be better, that I don't want always to feel this sad and that I want my future to include "normal" things like children, a family, fulfilling work, and that anorexia, as safe and insulating as it may feel, prevents those things from happening. So I'm going to find some reasons ...

1. My dogs: they can't come into hospital with me and can't understand separation; it's better for them if I never have to be hospitalised again.
2. My family: only if my mind isn't obsessed with food, weight and shape can I fully be a member of my family and part of everything.
3. The future: the idea of a future without change is a desolate one; for a future that I can want to be alive for, I have to opt for recovery.

There are more. But this is a hard list to write and without resorting to trite truisms or clichés, this is all I can include for now.

I write about Eating Disorders because:

Hungry for Change May Challenge: day 1

I write about EDs because? well, because it's my life. The first time I gave up eating was before my 11th birthday. Since then, I've seen life through the lens of anorexia. It hasn't stopped me achieving things. I got my degrees and my PhD from Cambridge. I have 2 dogs that I love beyond words. I love to sing. But I don't know how to be me without anorexia... Writing is an expression of self and so, how can I not write about EDs?

This is my first attempt to blog about it, but I've been writing about EDs, about being me, about life inside the safe, confining, isolating box of anorexia for years. I'm scared of letting other people read my writing, but I hope that, by doing so, someone might understand a bit more or someone else might feel a bit less alone.

Hungry for Change Blogger Challenge

On Facebook, I just noticed that Eating Disorder campaign group 'Hungry for Change' have a blog challenge for May. The idea is to write an ED-related post for each of the 31 days in May on themes suggested by HfC. I can't guarantee that I will do so every day; after all, my blogging regularity is hardly stellar. However, I will try to remember to update as often I can because I firmly believe that openness about EDs is an important way to reduce stigma and to help other people speak out.

midge and sausage

Pooling disaster

In July, I cast on Summit for my mum because (a) I'd seen the pattern in Knitty earlier this year and decided that I wanted to knit it and (b) I'd just got a job lot of lovely sock yarn in her colours (she's a summer). I haven't picked it up since mid-August and have knitted various other things in the meantime. You see, I'd put a lot of effort into this scarf and had come to realise that I pretty much hated the way it looked with the yarn I'd chosen. Tonight, I'm biting the bullet and frogging it. Am going to use the yarn for the Coquille shawl instead; from the pattern, it looks like it's designed for a variegated yarn.

over a year??

I knew I hadn't blogged in a while but it's a surprise that it's been over a year. What's happened in that year? quite a few knitting projects including some for the Winter Ravelympics 2010. I've also submitted my phd dissertation and continued to spend most of my time being the devoted servant of Prince Benji. He's been poorly recently ... which has caused me a lot of anxiety but has obviously been worse for him as he's had to have several IVs, an operation and lots of medication.

Currently on the needles is... a jumper for Prince Benji. Obviously.

In other news, I'm incredibly overexcited about the new series of Strictly Come Dancing. Having started ballroom lessons in February, I now feel, probably erroneously, that I have a greater understanding of how the judging works.

10 rows to go!

Photo 162
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

will I stay awake long enough to complete it tonight?

Knit a poem

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

The Poetry Society is celebrating its centenary with a knitted poem and I was one of many knitters who responded to a call for participants. My letter is a W and is well underway. We've got an active group over on Ravelry and the whole thing is proving to be very enjoyable...

... apart, that is, from my letter. I don't do intarsia. I don't like having all the dangling bits of yarn behind the work; I seem to spend more time detangling the yarn than actually knitting. Plus I managed to decide I'd misread the chart, frog several rows and redo it backwards, realise I was right the first time and have to do it all over again. Then just in case enough things hadn't already happened to this project, my new Knitpicks needle snapped. The lovely customer service person at Getknitted is going to send me a new needle when they have 3.5mm tips back in stock. Meanwhile, I've been carrying on with the letter using the remaining half of the Knitpicks needle with one 3.25mm straight needle and one 4 mm circular. Hopefully this means that the gauge will work out.

But goodness me, this W has been a saga! considering the number of years I've been knitting, I'd have imagined that I could have managed a 12 inch square without this much drama.

For more information about the project, including photos of completed letters from knitters with less numpty-ish tendencies than me, visit the poetry society website.

Hoodie

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

It's so nearly finished.... but there seem to be about a zillion yarn ends to weave in and I HATE weaving in yarn ends.

Baby hoodie

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

I haven't posted for months. But I have been knitting. A friend had a baby at the beginning of May so I made him a baby Yoda cardigan and am now on the hood part of the striped hooded top from Debbie Bliss's Baby Cashmerino book. I'm using ordinary DK baby yarns (i.e. ones I can afford rather than the cashmerino) and it seems to be working out really nicely.

Fingers crossed xx

Another doggy jumper

Photo 44
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

The arrival of Benji B. Barack has curtailed my knitting activities, as has the new university term and all sorts of other things.
But I'm persevering with a stripy jumper for Ben; I'm on the very last stage now but the instructions on how to finish off are incredibly confusing: picking up 91 stitches from around the sides of the back piece and knitting several rows of rib; doing something similar with the front piece; then knitting across the two sets of stitches left on stitch holders (front and back pieces) to make a little polo collar.

Hmmmmm. If I ever work out how to do it, I'll post a pic.

Off topic but a crucial blogging plea

I'm publicizing one of the candidates for Best UK Blog in the Weblog Awards, partly because the blog is doing an excellent service for creative types in Birmingham, partly because it's run by a friend of a friend, and partly because the main competitor in this category is a woman whose views (as aired on Radio 4's Moral Maze and in her journalism for papers including the Daily Mail and the Spectator) are anathema to me. All support would be welcome before voting closes on Tuesday.

Your help is needed! Created in Birmingham has been nominated for Best UK Blog 2008 in the 2008 Weblog Awards (http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-uk-blog/). Your support would mean that a truly worthy blog gets the recognition it deserves for its work to promote the fantastic creative talent and related activities in Birmingham.

Voting takes just a couple of seconds – visithttp://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-uk-blog/and vote for Created in Birmingham. You can vote once every 24 hours per computer. Voting closes at 10pm GMT on Tuesday 13th January.

Please forward this email to any friends, colleagues or contacts! Thank you - your support is very much appreciated.

dog sweater

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

With the help of Ravelry, I've found an easy dog sweater pattern and cast on, but using very large needles, double strands of aran and adapting the pattern accordingly. Ben is coming to live with me soon and he's a little thing, so will need to be kept warm.

I don't have much knitting information to blog about, since I'm in the middle of a multi-work-in-progress slough. So, instead, here is a photo taken by Tekla that she has kindly allowed me to share with you because it's so gorgeous :-)

Finally an FO

Photo 145
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

This is the first thing I've finished in a while, partly because it's taken me a long time to knit. It's looooooooooooong.
It took up a whole 500g skein of aran.
Now I'm trying to make an angel for my great aunt for next Thursday. Wish me luck.

ribbed shrug

ribbed shrug
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

I've been knitting Erika Knight's Ribbed Shrug for what seems like ages. However, the end is in sight. It's nearly reached the point where I'll change to the different ribbing for the second cuff.
It's quite a fun knit and requires no mental energy!

baby shrug

baby shrug
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

The baby shrug is finished at last. It doesn't really fit Pudsey bear but that's irrelevant because he won't be the one who has to wear it! The shrug will shortly be united with its new owner, a baby named Georgina.

wrist warmers gone wrong

wrist warmers gone wrong
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

I'd based this pattern on one from the new Vogue Holiday knits for 2008. My tension/gauge was correct. But I think these fingerless gloves were designed for people with bigger bones than me. I think I'll have to frog back. again. sigh.

Wol

Photo 124
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

This funny looking Owl (whose name, of course, is Wol) was my second attempt at a crocheted animal/bird, and a bit of a disaster. However, MummyB was very happy to receive it yesterday when she called in on the way to Norwich.

Finished!

Photo 122
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

I've even worn it twice as a shrug. The ribbon version is beyond me at the moment. I need some brain power first.

Blocking versatility

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

As a fully paid-up member of the lazy knitters club, I'm a stranger to blocking. For some reason I decided that I should have a go with my versatility: the effort spent on those cables needed to be rewarded with some extra care. The trouble is... that the versatility is taller than me, and I don't have a piece of towel long enough to pin it onto, and nor do I have sufficient pins to get it properly rectangular. It also made my house smell of wet wool. Ughety ugh.

I hope that the result in the morning will be worth all this effort!

In the meantime, I've started a baby shrug for a family friend's new arrival.

Versatility again!

Photo 107
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

all it needs now is the buttons and ribbons but having spent several weeks on this, I must admit to being simultaneously delighted with the finished project and with the prospect of casting on a new, different pattern!

Two and a half repeats in

Two and a half repeats in
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

and I think it's still looking nice :-)

LeTonBeau (the Ravelry name of the pattern's designer) has invited me to join the Versatility KAL on Rav. There are about 4 shared projects on there, including one which is not only complete but completed in crochet!

blobs

Versatility
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

Versatility update: I had to pull a few rows back because the original pattern omitted the bobbles in the written instructions for row 23. But I've redone it and completed row 10 of the repeat.
My worries about this pattern being too complicated for my concentration span have been mostly unfounded; I'm enjoying it.

versatility

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

It's growing. And I've even been ploughing on with the cable section. So far, no disasters.
fingers crossed....

Proving my versatility?

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

Someone on Ravelry posted to say that the new Knitty has been launched for "fall 2008". Unable to resist the lure of free patterns but very conscious of my limited budget, I decided to see if there was something I could knit using existing stash. MummyB recently bought me some huge skeins (400g) of Aran and even though the pattern 'versatility' calls for 'bulky' (the equivalent of chunky in English), my tension square worked out perfectly with aran and 7mm needles.

It's not a tricky pattern in terms of technique but it does require concentration because each line is different. I'm using the written instructions rather than the chart because writing makes far more sense to me than diagrams.

Who knows whether I'll have the perseverance to keep going when I reach the cable stage?

Crocheting

Photo 56
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

My first crochet animal is nearly finished (all done apart from one or two loose threads that need to be tucked away). I used Monica Rodriguez' Small Bob pattern but with different yarn, different eyes, and many many attempts at the sewing up because it took a long time before I was happy with him. He looked like an Alsatian to start with, then a Jack Russell and only now do I think that he is starting to resemble a Boston :-)

Bit of post-Ravelympics silliness

post-felting
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

I improvised a bag in crochet... quite cool for me to do because a) I don't crochet and b) I don't improvise!

Well my Junie B project also involved some impro so maybe my horizons are expanding :-)
With the scrap of the Anchor Filz It wool, I made a little felted headband for Junie B. It's in a nice floppy bow on her head now.

Junie B having a sleep

Junie B having a sleep
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

Junie B definitely needed a nap after the exertions to get the blanket finished for the Ravelympic deadline of the Beijing closing ceremony. We managed it (actually, I managed it; she sat nearby, looking helpful).

The blanket really pushed me to the edge of my knitting tolerance because there was such a lot of it. And it seemed to go on forever and ever.

Today, as a complete change, I've been freeform creating a crochet bag, which I hope to felt eventually.

Hmmm. I'm going to have to post Junie B off to her new Mommy soon. Or I'll be too attached to say goodbye!

Junie B Jones...

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

... needs a beauty shop guy. I think that before I post her to her new Mommy, I'll have to get the scissors out to try to curb the wild excesses of her mane. I'm fairly pleased with the way she looks overall and am glad that I had a go at experimenting with creating her clothes to be taken on and off.

That's my first Ravelympics project completed (for Team Cambridge). The blanket for Team Bob is going OK but I had to admit to finding it rather dull because it's a lot of the same, round and round, just making it big enough to be blanket shaped.

the end is nigh

Photo 32
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

I've finally reached the decrease section. Am now hoping that a) I have enough yarn to complete without needing to buy a 5th (£7.95) skein and b) that I can cast off before the Ravelympics start tomorrow at 1pm BST!

another skein

clapotis
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

I decided that to make this worth knitting, I wanted it to be as long as my favourite pashmina and my lovely Eritrean scarf. So I went to Sew Creative yesterday for a fourth skein of the Noro. Afterwards, as I was knitting and then winding my new skein onto the existing ball, a fellow twenty-something stopped by my table in Borders to find out where I'd bought the yarn. I felt rather chuffed to be an advert for my favourite LYS !!

The dropped stitch part of this pattern is rather addictive; I love reaching each row 8 of the 12 row repeat just so I can pull some more stitches out and add to the wavey texture.

getting longer

clapotis
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

look it's still growing. I must admit that having to repeat the same pattern over and over is testing my limited attention span. It's a very easy knit and possibly not challenging enough to keep me as interested in it as I was when I started.

love at first knit

clapotis day 3
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

I <3 Noro. I <3 clapotis.

In fact, perhaps in future, I'll only ever knit clapotises in Noro ;-)

Clapotis day 2

Clapotis day 2
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

OK. I see now why everyone loves Noro !

This is silk garden lite and I have to decide whether I'm going to need another skein to complete this clapotis. I've tried applying the 'rule of 5' but still feel unsure.

at LAST

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Originally uploaded by LindyB28

considering how much fun the actual circle part of this was to knit, the arms have taken me a disproportionate amount of time to complete. I'm blaming it partly on the fact I've actually got some work done in the past week or two, partly on attempting to be sociable while having visitors to stay and partly to being under the weather and not feeling more in the mood for a nap than a knit.
But I do love it. The yarn is so soft (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and Rowan Aran) that the whole cardi seems almost shiny with cuddliness.

Pinwheel sleeve number one

Pinwheel and big wool
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

Picking up the stitches to knit the sleeve was remarkably easy. I have cheated a bit though because the instructions for the icord cast off unravelled my brain. if I'm feeling brave when the sleeves are done, I *may* unpick the existing cast off and have a go at the icord.

bloggety blog

A friend of mine set up a blog yesterday. You can find it at mirror of fools

She's planning a serious nerdy blog. So when she asked about putting me on her blogroll, I pointed out that this is a very dull knitting blog which isn't going to add any intellectual interest to her readers ;-)

On the knitting front, pinwheel is coming along nicely but I didn't get a chance to knit for over 24 hours yesterday because of a trip to Leeds for the Medieval Congress. I gave my paper, my powerpoint worked properly and got to speak to some of the historians from Cambridge. Quite why we only ever have chance to chat when we're in Leeds is one of those perennial questions, probably doomed never to be answered.

Pinwheel

Pinwheel
Originally uploaded by LindyB28

Yesterday I started a Pinwheel sweater in aran. It's a chance to try out my new Knit Picks Harmony needles. I'm using 3x5mm circular needles for this ; I don't own any DPNs but happen to have three 5mm circs so it made sense to use all three. I love the pattern so far; it's like instant gratification because it looks pretty so quickly!!