Letting go

I surprised myself two days ago.  I was lying on the acupuncture table with needles in me when suddenly I said to my acupuncturist that I was going to let go, that is, let go of the exes in my life.  I can let go of my ex-therapist and all ex-therapists that were complete negative influences, because I no longer have to deal with them.  I can let go of all the hospitals, nurses, doctors, and abusive mental health situations, cuz I’m not going back there (if I can help it) and will not have to endure such atrocity again.  Mostly, I can let go of my ex-friends.  What a blessing.  Just not think about them.  They are not part of my life anymore, meaning that I can stop dwelling on their hatred and ignorance and move forward without them.  I should have done this ages ago.

That is not to say I won’t write about this stuff in a more general manner.  Sure, informed consent is vital.  I am against forced treatment in almost all cases.  I have never known ECT to work for anyone.   I won’t take psych meds but I don’t mind if you take them…and I hope you are informed about your treatment, too.  I am sick of being taken with a grain of salt because of my psychiatric label, and I’m tired of being kept at a very long arm’s length because people are scared to get too involved.  Yes, I know this is happening, I see the walls.  It can get lonely in here.

My NEW case manager said that people with eating disorders lose friends.  Losing friends just as universal an experience for people with ED as it is for people with schizophrenia. Eating disorders scare people just like cancer scares people.

Eating disorders strike differently than schizophrenia.  To others, people with schizophrenia may appear to become ill very suddenly, suddenly act bizarre, suddenly end up in the hospital, or suddenly try (or succeed) in killing themselves.  So losing friends can be very obvious and dramatic.  Poof!  You’re gone.  You’re a freak so you’re out of my life.  There is often so much focus and panic around the patient on the part of those that do stick around that this “dumping” may at first go unnoticed.  Suddenly, it’s all about treatment or lack thereof.

And then, reality hits: no one’s there anymore.  In my case, when I was first hospitalized and then got out, I came home to discover I no longer had the network of support that I had before I went in.  (Never mind the eating disorder, which wasn’t being treated or recognized.)

Last night something super radical dawned on me: You know whom I can trust most?  Other people with eating disorders, “recovered” or not.  This is where the understanding is.  This is where the true knowledge is.  I went to my first support group meeting a couple of days ago specifically for folks like me, never mind the qualifications for this group.  There was no gray area.  These folks had  serious eating disorders, not merely disordered eating or “food issues” or a “weight problem.”

Looking back, there was only one instance when I’ve been completely rejected by another person with an eating disorder.  She assumed that I was just like her and her attitude was, “I can do it, so can you!  Rah rah!” and when I failed to meet these expectations and er timeline, she rejected me.  It wasn’t her fault, I just don’t think she had the disorder very long and her initial attempts at treatment were successful.  This is only speculation on my part as to her motives.  It was decades ago and doesn’t matter anymore, especially since what happened was atypical.  Another person with an eating disorder dumped me quite dramatically in 1984 when she found out I tried to kill myself.  A lot of people can’t handle something like that.  I guess it’s some kind of deficiency, inability to admit there are a lot of very ugly sides of life that can’t and shouldn’t be denied, sanitized, swept under the rug, or ignored.

Just like shit.   Shit is a human experience.  If it ends up in the wrong place, you gotta clean up the mess, and no matter what, it’s gonna stink for a while.

There are some excellent suicide prevention organizations that are working on the political front to stop all this hush-hush about suicide.  One organization points out that murder crimes are widely publicized, but suicide is kept hidden.  A family will even lie that a member has died this way, or lie about the “real” reason someone ended up hospitalized.  Some religions consider suicide a sin, and won’t do the same type of funeral.  They won’t mourn the same way.  Some will even go so far as to state that this person has gone to hell, though I haven’t heard this much lately.

What has the person really died of?  The victim died of despair, depression, poverty, frustration, delusion.  Perhaps it was a command hallucination, but generally, the person knows what they are doing and is oriented okay…as well oriented as you can be considering you’re doing something that can’t be reversed and you will exist no more.  I feel that in no way should suicide be condemned.  A person who is deeply depressed and does suicide has in fact died of a symptom of depression.  Let’s take morality out of the picture.  When you get desperate and perhaps cornered, you do what you have to do to survive, even if it means taking the step to end your life.   This may sound completely contradictory, because suicide means you haven’t survived…but you do live on, actually.  Your history will always be there.

I do not mean to say that if you’re thinking about suicide, you should go ahead and do it.  Hardly.  Chances are, what you’re going through is very, very temporary.  I’ll bet you’ll be surprised at how quickly life turns around, if you give it a chance.  You’ll be surprised at exactly how it turns around.  I’d suggest putting off the suicide act just one more day, or one more hour, if a day seems too long.  I know cuz I’ve been there.  No one has been exactly where you’ve been and no one feels what you feel, not exactly, cuz no one can get into your head, and no one has a right to claim that they can read your mind.  But many people have been in similar situations that have caused them to choose death over life.  So in that sense, you are not alone.

So when I share with others with ED’s, including some of you readers, I am sharing with folks who understand.  That’s pretty cool, when you think about it.   I truly believe that we are all different.  I love diversity.  It bugs me when someone claims they are exactly like me, cuz they aren’t, or when someone denies my uniqueness.  We are all unique.

If you are suffering, know that while there are others who suffer greatly,  some do struggle more than others.  I have one brother who struggles more than the other does.  The one who struggles less plainly admits it.  This has nothing to do with your worth as a person.  You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all.

If we are to measure it by something measurable, such as money, it’s plain to see that some have more money than others.  It’s a fact.  I’d venture to say that regardless of quantity of money, some have more happiness than others.  No, it’s not a moral or religious issue.  Missing the bus is not a moral issue either.  A lot of the time, it means you were just unlucky.

If I look at things this way, the way my life turned out, the fact that life has been so tragic and sad and the fact that I have to work a little harder than others to survive seems so much more bearable.  I can just accept it.  It doesn’t mean I’m weak or a sinner or any less of a person.  Quite a bit of it was genetics and I had no choice from Day One.  The part that’s wrong and immoral is the way that I am treated because I have a psychiatric label.

But as yesterday demonstrated (see yesterday’s entry) it’s all about presentation.  I can be articulate.  I can be self-assured and self-confident.  I can do this, and at the same time, because I am upright and proud, freely admit that I have a disability, a psychiatric disability.  I can state that not only am I not ashamed, but proud to have been brave enough to write, and continue to write about my unusual experiences.  No one is exactly like me or you or anyone else.  I can make meaning out of my experiences, and in so doing, make my experiences universal.

And so in stating this, I am proud to say that I will be “signing off” my paperback during the second week of July.  I am proud to say that I will not be signing off via e-mail, but in Canary Wharf, London, at my publisher’s office in his presence.  This means that at last, you can hold my words in your hand.  I can even sign the book.  The e-book text will be replaced with what I’ve got in the paperback, same text with the embarrassing glitches gone.  I’ll let you know as soon as this occurs.  I’m not sure how it will coincide with the paperback release.

I found out all that on Thursday, the same day that I lay on the acupuncture table and decided to let go of the bullshit in my life.   The more I think about it, the more solid it all becomes.  Being an asshole was a trap.  I wasn’t therapized out of that trap, I wasn’t lectured out of it or dragged out of it or medicated out of it.  The fact that I knew I was being rude didn’t change anything even though I enjoy my good manners.  The problem was that it felt darned good to get revenge or plan revenge.  It’s addicting.

I felt so validated when our group leader verified that people with eating disorders don’t do their eating disorders to control and manipulate others.  They don’t do it to jerk around their partners, friends, families, and coworkers.  My thought is that others react and feel manipulated and that is their feelings.  I did not put these feelings into their heads.  If they choose to condemn me for something that they think is my responsibility, then they need to take a good look at what’s deep inside.

Deep inside everyone is some damn ugly stuff.  We look at someone who is suffering and deep down, wish they would suffer more.  What I learned from writing fiction is that the more my main character is up against, the better.  Fiction writers talk about giving their characters a hard time.   Readers love to read about struggle, whether fact or fiction.  Otherwise, there is no plot and no interest and the narrative usually goes nowhere.  Some people enjoy violence, guts, and gore.  Some people find this stuff quite satisfying.  Some enjoy a good horror book, while others enjoy a more subtle violence.

The reasons why society rejects people who live on the fringe is because of the ugliness in people.  I have to accept that this ugliness is just as much a part of our minds as shit is to the human experience.  I dare anyone to  outlaw shit.  I think we’d be in a bit of trouble if that happened.

Meanwhile, may your toilet never clog.  It’s just plain inconvenient when it does.   And if you have to get rid of the toilet, for godsakes, replace it.  Like I said, shit has to go somewhere, and it might as well go where it belongs.