Changing myself and the world

On one hand, I wrote this today:

“March 10, 2012

Disgusted with waist size increase ___ and only ___ weight loss.  Just so gross.  Legs are disgusting.  So ashamed of my fat chubby face.  I feel dead inside.”

Here in my blog, I tell it like it is, and this is what I wrote, like it or not.  This is how I live my life from day to day.  I can and will change this but right now, this is the reality of what I live with and right now these are my feelings.

On the other hand, I am making some very positive changes in my life.  I decided to change therapists.  I have an excellent therapist for whom I have a lot of admiration but this is not working.  I went sharply downhill when I started seeing her (the end of November 2010, right after National Novel Writing Month) and life has been shit this whole time.

My feelings are mixed about the future of therapy.  Quitting entirely is the route I had originally thought I would go, but decided to try someone else.  I have decided, though, not to drag things on and on with my current therapist and to end as quickly as possible.  Of course I have no one lined up to replace her next week but as of today am sending out e-mails, and will be phoning people Monday.   I am taking advantage of free introductory sessions.  I am looking into anything out of the ordinary.  One of these is acupuncture.  I am contacting a couple of nutritionists as well, but I am not interested in nutritionists who talk out of textbooks and prescribe traditional “meal plans” that I am supposed to follow like a mindless robot that has no brain.  I am flat out doing away with these weekly “weight-checks” and will no longer tolerate this outright humiliation.  I have tried 12-step four times.  I have mixed feelings about it all.  Just mixed.  I will look into it and will also look into Smart Recovery and get a bunch of books on different approaches.  I have a list of books I want to read.

I am anything but a mindless robot with no brain.

I now see through my T’s reasoning in getting me hooked up with DMH.  It was not for the purpose of “help” like I had originally thought.  My T was actually thinking ahead and in her mind (so I speculate) thinking that if I had DMH, it would be easier on the paperwork to force me to give up my apartment and move into a group home!  This would mean losing Puzzle!  Right now, actually, during Thursday’s session, she again threatened that if I starve myself again, she’d send me to the state hospital.   DMH involvement makes it a lot easier for this hospital admission to take place.  This was her plan all along!  Oh my god!  Now I’m stuck with this useless, irresponsible DMH person who is a complete appendage to me, and an “easy in” to the state hospital system.  Oh, shit.

Positive:  My contact person at Chipmunkapublishing has written to me to tell me that he’ll be sending me a big file, the proof of my paperback, on Tuesday.  I’m sure he’ll be e-mailing me with more information on this as well.  I was so pleased to meet him when I was in London in November.

Positive: After a lengthy search, I finally found a decent deal on plane tix to London in July.  I booked flight and lodgings both and will again be seeing my publisher.

I will be flat out broke and in serious debt for a long time.  It will get paid off.  It will get paid off.  It will get paid off.  And debt cannot harm me physically so long as I have a roof over my head and food on the table.  I do have low-income housing and I do have food stamps and there are food pantries.

I have a lot to do today.  I feel positive. I am looking toward the future.  My eyes are placed on my head in such a way that they face forward, not back, always looking in the direction that my body is headed.  I think this is telling me something.

 

Step by Step on Saturday Night

Weird things are happening that I’m not sure I want to get into.  I’ve been looking up my meds and side effects and such and will soon make a decision about tonight…which ones I will leave out…it’s not like I want to stop meds altogether but being on meds is scary to me right now….

I am finally free of the sickness I had.  Or at least I don’t seem to have a fever anymore or diarrhea.  But the edema remains.  My legs look awful.  My ankles are round and my legs are stocky but my stomach is a little flatter.   No one has to see my ugly legs.  I keep them covered.  Still, they make me feel horrible about myself.

I stopped diet soda days ago.  Tomorrow, no caffeine.   I wrote that down.

I read today about the impact of Karen Carpenter’s death.  Just a short article.  What struck me was that the article mentioned that when Karen was found dead, she was lying naked right next to her clothes wardrobe.

I have been reading one heck of a lot about dead bodies and ways that people die lately.  Unusual deaths and controversial deaths.  Suicides and why people commit suicide.  Lotsa You-Tubes.  There are whole websites on the topic of death and its varieties.

Humans disappoint me.  It has been one thing after another.

On Thursday, my publisher wrote that he is going to contact me this coming week regarding my paperback, and we will be getting it out in the new year.  That is not too long away.

That is not too long away.  It will be cold tonight.  Tomorrow is Sunday.

This Hunger Is Secret Paperback News

I am happy to say that as of just now, I have sent the file of This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness to Will Kettle at Chipmunkapublishing in London.  Will has been patiently waiting for this file for a long, long time.  I had hoped to have it ready before my trip, but I was in too much of a rush.  I got the file done two days ago and today was able to do the last five minutes of this and that on it and sent it off just a moment ago.

It is now 11pm in London and Will is most likely asleep or watching the telly or doing anything but checking his work e-mail.

I am very proud of the work I did on this book.  It was a hard book to write.  It was tough the whole way through.  This Hunger Is Secret is my master’s thesis.  Doing graduate school was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  This memoir is representative of that work…and beyond.  The toughest semester was my final semester at school, when my eating disorder really began to take hold on me.  I worked so, so hard on my thesis, poured everything I had into it.  I lived at the library during the day, and then brought my work home with me and worked more on my thesis into the night.  I remember sometimes I had pages of my thesis all over my living room, chapters lined up in different orders, then changing my mind and re-ordering pages and pages.  I remember lying in bed and then coming upon an idea just as I was falling asleep, hopping out of bed and scribbling it down.  And I was starving myself the whole time.

Everything was electrical and exciting and magical then.  And you know, traveling to London last month brought back some of that electricity and excitement and magic to my life…as it does now.   On Tuesday I threw aside everything and delved into the file and got it done.  I must have made a zillion decisions about punctuation that day.  Technicalities….at the last minute, the file refused to attach (of course).  No, it did not go corrupt, and yes, I had it backed up in a zillion places.

I guess Christmastime is a time for magic and excitement and electricity and sparkles and snowflakes, too.  I have a Christmas tree now.  I bought it for eight bucks at CVS.  I haven’t had a Christmas tree for years.  I trekked to the Stop&Shop for it, thinking they would have a good selection, but it turned out that the CVS next door had just what I wanted.  This one is eighteen inches high and has its own lights.  The tree is a little lopsided but I am a Jew so I can’t complain.   The whole time I was lugging it home via the shortcut over the Charles River on the footpath where I probably shouldn’t have been cuz it was already very dark out, I was telling myself I would need to beat my heart very hard next Yom Kippur and attone for the sin of having shamelessly bought a Christmas tree and trafficked it over the Charles River, and erected it in my home, and then placed upon said tree an ornament from my church–yes, church not synagogue.  The ornament is round and white and upon it is a drawing of the First Parish Church of Watertown that a member of the congregation drew.  That is my Christmas tree.  Dad would have my head.

The Christmas tree, with its new ornament, is a tree that a week ago, or a month ago, or a year or two years ago I could never have predicted would be standing where it is now.  A year ago today I was preparing for my first 5k race.  Doing the race was an incredible accomplishment but immediately after I crashed.  What followed was 2011 and it has been a hellish year.  Two years ago I was about to enter treatment at the ED hospital for the first time.  I made the call to the admitting department on the day of my fifty-second birthday.  They told me to get packing.  I will keep this Christmas tree up until my fifty-fourth birthday in the beginning of January.  Then I think it will be good and ready to be taken down.  Meanwhile, it lights up the room nicely at night so I don’t have to leave a light on while I sleep.

An open letter to my T, my blog, and the world

I need to make this writing a priority this morning over a number of other activities because I need to get this off my chest.  It does not take priority over certain things that are vastly more important.  I have walked Puzzle.  I need to make sure she can get groomed tomorrow.  So I need to stop writing at some point and remember to call Pooch Palace to get her scheduled.  Hygiene–hers and mine: essential…but today I haven’t showered yet and writing takes precedence.  I’ll make time to brush my teeth again.  My hair…yeah, I gotta do something with this mop before I go to therapy.

I need to say some things.  I need to be straight with my T about certain things.  About a week ago I realized that I don’t have much time left on this planet.  I thought about things realistically and figured that my 54th birthday is in January and I’ll probably make it to that, but the chances of making it to 55 are next to nil.  My body won’t hold out.  I see the statistics and it’s amazing that I’m still alive.  The statistics are different depending on the source, but by far the majority of patients who end up with anorexia nervosa don’t make a full recovery.  A small portion do.  Many do, and deal with it for the rest of their lives.  A portion die.  A portion suffer a great deal for the rest of their lives.  A portion commit suicide by other means.  And so on.  The younger you get it, the worse your chances are.  The longer you’ve had it, the worse your chances are.  And so on.  You can interpret the data a number of ways but it’s a fatal illness no matter how you look at it and no matter how you look at it, it’s clear that this illness is the most lethal mental illness.

Dear T: The truth is that I want you to just go along with this.  Quit trying to stop me and quit trying to change me and quit your assumption that I am trying in any way to get better and change and grow.  It is useless.  I gave up on myself.  Just let me die and keep me company.  A week ago I decided to self-starve because I have no will to live.  I am not trying to make myself die I am just trying to lose weight.  If I die I don’t care.

Okay, I’m tired now and I’ll take a t0-minute nap and come back.

I’ve been permanently sleepy for a couple of days now.  Back.

As you know, I get these breakthrough binges (you I’m sure are bored of hearing about this) and I have binged a few times but get right back to starving and continuing to lose weight.  I don’t think I lost anything over the weekend and I haven’t been able to get anything like an accurate reading with a belly full of food.

I have had a couple of instances of drinking high amounts of zero-calorie liquid (water or zero-calorie sports drink, occasionally diet soda) very quickly and then peeing it all out.  I can’t seem to stop myself when I do this.  I’m not trying to hurt myself.  It is automatic.  Maybe I am just thirsty.  I drink to the point of physical discomfort.  I looked up on the Internet how much you have to drink to get a serious problem and I’m reasonably sure I’m not in the danger zone.  When this happens, my pee is bubbly afterward.

I believe the last couple of times that I binged, my food wouldn’t go down my throat.  It got caught there.  I got some water and pushed it down with the water.  I found that I was able to stuff food down faster than ever.  At 53? weird.  Maybe I’m just remembering wrong.   I have some junk food in the apartment right now that I should probably get rid of.

For a while, when I binged, it “showed.”  Oh, no, when I binge it shows anyway.  Duh.  Stomach and intestine overload.  I have heard that your stomach or intestines can burst from this.  A doctor once told me that this was the truth but I looked it up and there have been cases. Of course you don’t survive that at my age.  When I say that it showed, I meant that my ankles and legs and entire body swelled up.  As of sometime yesterday, this stopped happening.  They’re fine.  My torso is huge and full of food but the rest of me looks normal.  I have to wait until I poop it all out.

Okay, back to life.  But the body changes again.  I am making all kinds of spelling errors and am falling asleep…again.   Something’s horribly wrong that I have to sleep all the time.  Another ten-minute nap and I’ll be back.

I woke up two minutes before the alarm.

I sleep…I don’t sleep…well, duh…I play with food and it messes real bad with sleep.  Real bad.  Serves me right.

I don’t know why I do all the stuff I do but I can’t make it stop.  Losing weight…it is just ridiculous.

My DMH person seems to think everything’s hunky-dory with me.  Whatever.  It’s her job to make sure people shower and get to their appointments and fill their prescriptions.  I don’t think they have people with anorexia in their program much.   I dress with my shirt right-side out and she looks at me and figures I’m fine.  ADL’s.  That’s “Activities of Daily Living,” meaning, again, showering, taking meds, brushing teeth, getting to your job, cleaning the house, laundry, paying your bills, taking public transportation…I do everything but one: eat.  A big one.  I guess that one’s a given for most of her people.  And sleep.

I don’t even sleep responsibly anymore.  Night blends into day which blends into night.  All a blur.

There are things going on that are very good right now and I thought I’d mention them.  My relationship with Frank.  My relationship with L.  Puzzle.  Puzzle’s walks.   Puzzle’s walks have been a little crazy and driven because I think about death while I’m walking her.  I enjoy myself anyway.  I keep my appointments and that’s a good thing.  Church is just a fabulous addition to my life.  Absolutely a fantastic thing I’m doing.  I’m going to print out what I wrote yesterday and bring it into today’s session.

Okay, here’s another thing I haven’t made public but I will.  I ran it by my T Friday and she feels it’s a very positive step I’m doing to help myself.  I’m taking a trip to London to attend a seminar my publisher is putting on for its writers.  The trip will be in a month.  I can’t believe I’m doing this.  It will give me a sense of purpose and I don’t want a sense of purpose but it’s weird because at the same time I really want to meet my publisher and get to work with him, and I assume get to meet the other folks at the publishing house as well.   I won’t be gone long.  I made the plane reservations and hotel and am all signed up.

This was in fact very difficult to do.  My bank decided that whatever transaction I did was suspicious activity, and shut down my credit card after I made each purchase.  This started with the transaction with my publisher, because it was a UK transaction.  My bank doesn’t take chances.  I appreciate this.

I have been spending the month of October working on my outline for November’s National Novel Writing Month.  National Novel Writing Month probably won’t happen for me because of this trip.  I’ll be gone for four days but it’s going to zap much of my energy for November.  It was a sacrifice I had to make.  I will still create the outline.  Why?  I’m excited about the book.  I think Nano is doing another Nano later in the year.  Nano got so big that they do one in a month other than November now.  So I’ll have another opportunity maybe.  I haven’t talked much about this outline.  I will.

I’ve run out of energy and there’s more I wanted to say.   Later.

This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness to come out in paperback this year

My memoir, This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness will be coming out in paperback sometime this year.  You will be able to order it from Amazon or a variety of online booksellers, from your local bookstore, or from Chipmunkapublishers.   It is now available in e-book form only, downloadable as a .pdf from Chipmunkapubishers.com or wirelessly for the Amazon Kindle.  (See my sidebar on how to acquire the e-book.)

Once the paperback comes out, I plan to do a bit of publicizing.  I plan to contact the local papers.  I will also send an “update” about myself and what I’ve been doing to the alumni publications of three colleges I’ve attended (Bennington, Emerson, and Goddard) which would include the mention of my memoir.  I’m going to look around at other ways that I can publicize.  I wanted to wait until there was something tangible that people could hold, an actual paper book, before starting to let the world know that I exist.

Check out my website www.juliegreene.name for excerpts from the book and more information about it.

Excerpts from This Hunger Is Secret pubished online

Quay Journal has published two excerpts from This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness.

Here’s the link:

http://www.quayjournal.org/

Quay Journal also comes out in hard copy.

The first excerpt, “2008/1997/Going Back” is the epilogue.  It makes me cry every time I read it, for reasons I can never put a finger on.  The second is an excerpt from my chapter, “Locker #47.”  Why the chapter is called this…well, you’ll have to read the book!  This excerpt was actually my graduation reading!

Meanwhile, when I submitted these chapters, it was well before the book was published.  There were changes and edits I made in the rewrites.  I tried to catch them all.  Apologies if I did not.  As you know, I have been very ill.

Here’s the link to the publisher’s website where you can purchase my book:

http://chipmunkapublishing.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1709

You may purchase it in e-book form now, or wait for the paperback to come out.

About Chipmunkapublishing (my publisher)

Chipmunkapublishing is the Mental Health Publisher.  Their mental health books give a voice to writers with mental illness around the world. Most of their mental health books are written by people with mental health issues. They also give a voice to family members of people with mental health issues and other disabilities. Titles include autobiographies/memoirs, fiction, poetry, anthologies, stories written by carers, self help books, academic works and much more.

Chipmunkapublishers is a unique social enterprise focused on publishing both factual and creative literature. They  want to reduce the humiliation that people with “mental illness” feel. Chipmunkapublishers gives people with mental illness a voice so that they can have the opportunity and positive mindset to lead better lives and hopefully full recoveries. Do not let your children grow up not understanding people with mental health issues. Let’s improve society so that mental health artists can empower people with mental health issues and be equal in society. Then they can shape their future and help others.

Chipmunkapublishers works with the government, health services, the media, mental health organisations, charities and private businesses to successfully publish and promote literature that brings a positive attitude towards mental health issues. Chipmunkapublishing aims to break down the stigma on mental illness once and for all.

Chipmunkapublishing gratefully acknowledges the support of Arts Council England.

Chipmunkapublishing is creating a new genre of literature to empower the service user and break down the last taboo.

Adding value to people with mental illness helps economies. Enabling them to empower themselves saves lives. That means that by logging on now and purchasing their books or donating, you may have just been able to save a life. Support the humanitarian rights of the “mentally ill” and you will save the lives of people today and even future generations.

–from www.chipmunka.com

You can access my book, This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness at Chipmunka’s website here.

Note: This information can be accessed at one of my regular “pages” (off to the right near the top of the page) anytime.

I’ve made some changes to www.juliegreene.name – check it out!

I’ve made some changes to www.juliegreene.name!  I want to make more.  Mostly, I updated the pages, stating that the book was currently available, and provided more links to the Chipmunka website where you can download the book.  It was a lot of work to do this.  Here’s the book download link again:

http://chipmunkapublishing.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1709

Have a nice day!

Excerpt from This Hunger Is Secret – Book Available Now!

This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness is available now!  It has been published!

To download the book in .pdf form, click here.  The paperback will be coming out in May 2011.

Here’s an excerpt. Read about my funny parents here:

Family Therapy

“Julie’s not right with herself,” my mother put it during our first family session with Diana.  I’d been at Crossroads Day Treatment for about a month.

Diana asked, “Mrs. Greene, could you clarify?”

My mother waved her arms around dramatically.  “She doesn’t like herself, that’s all!”

“Erna,” said my father, “let the therapist talk.”

My mother went on, “Julie screams at us!  Throws things!  She raids the cookie bin when nobody’s around!”  My mother set her arms back into her lap and said quietly, “You know, I’ve had to lock up the hermit cookies, giant oatmeal-raisin cookies, and lemon squares in the liquor cabinet to keep her from eating them all!”

My father said, “What’s with all this eating, anyway?  Why can’t she just stop it?  Erna lets us each have one or two cookies with dinner, that’s all.”

“And they’re not allowed cookies until after their fruit!”  My mother crossed her arms emphatically.

“It’s a rule in our family.”

Diana interjected, “Mr. and Mrs. Greene, you both seem very–”

“We’re not angry,” my mother wailed, “we’re just concerned!”  She threw her arms in the air. “She doesn’t get any exercise!  She’s getting to be a fattie!”

“Exercise is very important!”

“And she drinks coffee all day long!  Coffee!  Bad for you!”

My father cleared his throat.  “Since she left school and moved in with us, she’s completely abandoned her studies.”

My mother said, “She hasn’t touched a piece of  music  composition paper–“

“–or her trumpet.”  My parents nodded in agreement.

“Julie,” demanded my father, “when are you going to quit smoking?”  He turned to Diana, who had already held her hands out in a “T”–“time out.”  He ignored her.  “And she’s friends with this Irene!”

“My God!  Irene!”

“Irene’s not a proper girl.  Uneducated.”

“Irene’s not a good influence on Julie,” said my mother, her hands on her hips.  “She smokes!  My God!”

“Very bad influence!”

“Julie says Irene is a light smoker, but–”

“Smoking is smoking, dammit!”

There was a pause, and then Diana said, “There is no reason to raise our voices here, Mr. Greene.”

”No, and I don’t think she’s Jewish, either,” my father muttered.

“Julie’s old enough to choose her own friends,” said my mother.  “Why Irene?”

My father said, “Why can’t she be friends with Sandra Bach, who used to come here to Crossroads?  Sandra studies at Brandeis University, and she goes to our Temple–”

“Alan, we can’t choose Julie’s friends for her, can we?”

“And if we don’t?” my father said loudly.  “Look what happened to–”

“Phil and Ned are adults Alan!”

“They’re dating shiksas!”

I had long since buried my face in my hands.  At last, Diana turned to me and said, “Julie, what would you like to say to your parents?”

I shook my head, and did not look up.

“Julie, you have this opportunity,” said Diana.  “What would you like to tell them?”

“Nothing,” I said.  “Nothing at all.”

**************

To download This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness in .pdf form click here.

THIS HUNGER IS SECRET is now available!

Click here to download the .pdf file!  You can download it RIGHT NOW!

This Hunger Is Secret: My Journeys Through Mental Illness and Wellness will be available in paperback form in about nine months.

The publisher is Chipmunkapublishing.  Their website is www.chipmunka.com