When you know it in your knower...
There are no words to describe the pain this illness causes. Heartbroken doesn’t even come close. Last week another life was stolen far too soon. So many hopes and dreams all crushed by one vicious illness that is still so, so misunderstood. But that’s what mental illness does best – it steals; hopes, lives, futures. It nearly stole mine too, before I found Orri.
To get up and keep going takes courage; courage that I’m fortunate enough to be surrounded by each week. For me it’s rarely found in the big loud actions, but more often in the quiet, overlooked ones. It’s in those day-to-day actions, reactions and interactions; the small decisions only really known to oneself.
For me showing up to work this week, that took courage. “Work? ‘courageous’… that’s a bit of a stretch isn’t it Mima”. But actually no, no it’s not. Maintaining a job whilst contending against any mental illness can at times be utterly debilitating. I can only talk from my experience of battling Anorexia over the past seven years and my struggle as I try to reclaim my life from the grips of it. It’s relentless and what’s more it’s silently so. Trying to go about a normal life whilst contending against an illness so intent on stealing any ounce of self-belief, hope and life is absolutely exhausting. And pretending to have it all together, that’s even more so.
Earlier this week I had to stop myself from falling into my all too familiar comparison spiral; friends with new jobs, new flats, new relationships. Such success at life whilst I struggle to maintain my recovery alongside a part-time role. That familiar voice piped up again, ‘see, you absolute failure’. I entertained it for a good hour or so, berating myself for every past, current and future ‘failure’, with Anorexia chipping in to help confirm. But later that evening as I wrote my diary having gone to work, my perspective had shifted. Perspective – that’s another aspect Anorexia tries to diminish.
As I sat and wrote I asked myself what success really means to me? I managed to bring myself back to reality, my reality, that right now recovery remains a full time job. I reminded myself of the times I’ve tried to bypass this bit, a pattern I could easily repeat, I know I do that bit well - making it look all shiny on the outside even when it feels so far from within. But that requires a hefty dollop of denial and comes at a considerable cost, and as I was reminded of in my session earlier this week I’ve come too far to turn back now, ‘you know it in your knower’, irritating that. I hate it when she’s right and I know it. I do now know it in my knower though and that makes running from or denying my reality far, far harder. But you know what is even harder? Maintaining an existence dependent on Anorexia for the rest of my days. That shit steals lives and I’m not having it steal mine.
