Drawing Battlelines

I was a bit taken aback by some of the strong reactions I received from my last post. I hope you do not think that I am trying to dramatize my life, that I get some cheap 'thrill' out of making my situation sound shocking. That is not why I write this blog. In fact, I'm always surprised to realise that people are actually reading it! Often the hurt or confusion in my mind feels so hopeless, like a solid mass pressing down on the part of me that tries to be rational, that I have to write it out to feel any release from it. .

Several people have expressed doubts that I will recover because I am "doing it for my PhD" and not for me. I realise that it does look as though I am obsessed with getting back onto my course against all costs, and not focused on becoming 'truly well'. But I would like to clarify a few things here. I KNOW that there is EVERY reason to get better and none to stay like this! For health, for vitality, for life! To get better would be to have the energy to do the things I want to do, to travel, to walk in the mountains, to love and care for my family and friends with a furious vigour! To get better would mean that I wasn't a burden and a source of worry for others, especially my mother - a thought which kills me inside. To get better is to be able to give glory to and serve the God I believe in. No one wants me to stay like this. Not even me.

But on my own, thinking only of myself, I can't act. I can't "do it for me" because I don't know what "me" is. I don't feel like a "young woman" - I always struggle to remember (and really believe!) how old I am. In my mind, I place myself in a vague miasma between my childhood and teenage years; in many respects, that is what my body is. But more than that, I don't even feel like a proper person, an entity with valid thoughts and ambitions that can be counted among others. I feel like a void, a dead space of selfish, black, self-consumed thoughts. I feel like the scum under a person's shoe. To think of all the opportunities I have which are denied to so many and look how ungrateful I am...I am nothing.

But I must have a stubborn streak, to exercise the negative self-will day by day that keeps me here. However, I can use it if I feel that something I hold dear will be taken from me. I suppose part of me takes the love of my family for granted - I know they would support me even if I fail again, though it would disappoint them naturally. If I don't make my targets though, I will lose the PhD. End of. And I can't live with myself, in any job, if I knew I had the chance to earn a doctorate, to dedicate part of my life to my own research project, but threw it all away because of an illness in my head! So in a sense, "doing it for my PhD", IS to do it for myself. This illness has taken so much from me - I need to draw a line where it cannot cross. And that line will be my PhD because the ultimatum has been set - meet the grade or lose it forever. It seems that stark choices like this are the only thing that can shock me into action. Whether I see the extra food I eat and the rest days from the gym as being the ticket back to university, the source of health and nourishment or a means to stop people worrying...what does it matter as long as I DO it? True happiness can come later, I have to get physically better first!

Yesterday, I met a wise friend who is in a similar situation to me who kindly listened to my  disjointed outpourings with great patience. We talked figures, looked over diet plans, compared tactics. I realised that I have only four months left to do what took me the best part of a year when I had to put on weight to get back to my undergraduate degree. I really don't know if I can do it. So many times in the past I have underestimated just HOW MUCH food it takes to gain weight at this level! And yet I am in aguish at the thought of even having an extra quarter of an avocado for lunch.

Because that is where I am going to start - bulking up my lunches a little. At the moment, I tend to have a big salad with a fillet of white fish or a bit of avocado. Plenty of vitamins and nutrients but not many calories! So, I am going for some "bigger hitters" - oily fish, a WHOLE avocado, maybe a bit of cheese...But I am sure it will take more than this.

I will go back to University. And when I graduate, there's going to be one epic party - and you're invited!