Post-Stalker Quandry

Did I say quandry?

I meant "darkest pits of hell I just want to die because nothing is safe and what is the point in continuing I feel so disgusting I wish I could scrub this off me" despair.

The blackness descends again and again and again and nothing can lift it because there is nothing left that can give me any hope. 

This blog gave me hope. 

And now its gone.

And I am thrown between wanting desperately to be able to write my story in complete honesty so that one day my kids will know that mamma did everything possible to be a good mamma and when she fucked it up, this is why.  So that other people who are dealing everyday with the same fuckingshitsonofabitch nightmare of crazy that I deal with might have some microscopic sense of relief that they are not alone. So that when I write, what I write is on record, and I am therefore more accountable for my actions than if I wrote in seclusion.  Relapse is easier if the whole intertweebs dont know about it.

(Whole intertweebs. That is, all 10 of you.)

But, you know, evil narcissistic stalker.

How can I write anything about my children knowing that the crazy bitch I want to shield my children from is reading it all? After all, if I wanted her to have updates, I would be sending them to her. Which I am not. Because she is a psycho. An "under-the radar psycho" one of my friends called her, for on the outside she looks completely normal. But she's not.

What is the point in continuing to write when my voice has to be censored to protect my little family from unwanted intrusions?  What I write loses its meaning, loses its power and loses its ability to help anyone, myself most of all.

So I wonder and I feel sick to my stomach and I'm climbing back into bed and I dont know what to do because its all fucked up and all those painful moments of 3 years ago come flooding back and I rage and I know its about to get a whole lot worse because, hello, dosage increase tomorrow.

Advice, anyone? Because I am in no way capable of thinking clearly about this.

Dear Stalker (or, why you can fuck off now you crazy bitch)

Really, I should watch what I say, for it will surely come and bite me on the ass. A 24 hour turnaround is rather sudden ass-biting though.

I made a comment an another blog yesterday, about how I didnt care who read my blog because I didnt care what people thought.  This is true. I dont give a rats ass what you think of me. 

I *do* care, however, when someone I have deliberately and with good reason removed from my life somehow finds (or is given the address of - and I'm looking at you, other in-law family members) this blog and reads it. Silently. Like a stalker. With intent.

She's even reading it right now.  Yes, she is. Peering in through the windows from the bushes. Getting ready to phone me in a muffled voice and say "I know what you did last summer".

My mother in law.

In her narcissistic self-righteous wisdom, she decided 3 years ago that it was perfectly acceptable to take my children away from me, without my permission (I was begging you not to, do you remember that Anne?) and against my husbands express desires (he said only if I was completely ok with it, remember?)  And then, then, she refused to acknowledge that she had done anything wrong whatsoever. There was nothing to be discussed, nothing apologised for. 

After many attempts at resolution and much pain, we cut her out of our lives, out of our childrens lives, to protect ourselves from someone who didnt care about anyone but herself, didnt care how much hurt she caused others.  We have had no contact for 3 years, apart from unwanted cards arriving. Token jestures. The worst kind.

Today, an email arrives for my husband. "I've been reading Sharon's blog. Want to talk?"

My husband doesnt read my blog.   What the fuck makes you think its ok for YOU, of all people, to read it?

How long has this been going on, Anne? Have you gone through all the archives? Did you enjoy reading the bits about my cerivcal mucus when I was trying to conceive? What about Ella's birth story? Did it make you stop and think you could have been more supportive at the time?   Did you smirk to yourself when I was in hospital, detoxing from alcohol? Have your suspicions about my being an unfit mother, an unstable crazy woman, been confirmed by my ordeal on various medications for my "mental illness"? 

Did you read the bits about suicidal ideation and think letting me know via your son that you are reading this would push me over the edge?  Give you a window of opportunity? Are you salivating at the thought of a divorce? 

Does violating a person make you proud, make you feel good about yourself?  Because that is what you have done, as sure as a Peeping Tom violates the person they prey upon. Did you used to read your children's' diaries too? Open their mail?

You have violated me.  Again.  You took my children and now you have taken away the one thing in my life that was safe and good. 

Never again can I write in this blog, this sanctuary from the mess of my life, and be safe from the people who wish to do me harm. Maybe that is exactly what you want.

What possessed you to go down this road and read something that you know damn well I would never give you permission to read? What have you hoped to gain? That your son would suddenly forget everything you did and come back to the dysfunctional fold? 

ITS NOT GOING TO FUCKING HAPPEN.

You have gained nothing from your disclosure. You merely confirmed what we already knew about you. You will never get what you want. Never.

I might have a mental illness, but I'm not crazy.

Eating Your Self

When I was a kid, I was tall and skinny. My long legs meant I could run faster than any of the other kids and hence always won the 100m races at school.   My only body-image issues were related to the size of my boobs (bloody small) and my nose (big)

As I got older, my body changed shape, as it does when you're female, but I was essentially still tall and thin. The boobs and the nose stubbornly refused to change at all, sadly

I fluctuated somewhere around size 12-14 for all of my adult life.

Then at 32 my life imploded.  A Restraining Order to get my violent ex out of my house was followed a few days later by a sexual assault courtesy of two "friends."

What my traumatised brain did was amazing, truly amazing. Never underestimate the ability of your brain to fuck you over.

While everything around my in my life was out of control, my brain decided there was something it could control, and that was what went into my mouth. Or rather, what didn't. This was all totally subconscious. It wasn't until years later that I realised what I had actually done.

I didn't eat. If I felt hungry I had a cigarette. (I was smoking a pack of 25 36mg cigarettes a day) I drank alcohol, but not a huge amount. I took crystal meth. I took ecstasy. I smoked marijuana. (I am really not expecting to ever work again, obviously.)

When I was at home, which wasn't often, I would drink Multi-V Juice and eat an English muffin with raspberry jam and cream. That was it. That was all I could afford to buy, since my drug bill was so high each week.

In about 2 months I went from a healthy 70kg down to 56kg. From a Size 14 to a size 8.  

I didn't realise what was happening to my body until I had been at that game for about 7 months. I looked in the mirror, and I saw, really saw, what had happened.

The collar bones jutting out. The ribs clearly visible. My wrists, bony. My hips...god my hips...and my pelvis clearly visible, I looked like someone from a POW camp.

This realisation came at the same time as my creditors raised their hands and demanded their money; the money I had spent on drugs instead of giving to them. So instantly, the lifestyle had to change. I had to work. I got hungry and couldn't just smoke it away, I actually had to eat.

Two months later I met my husband. I look at photos from then and I am appalled at my appearance.  I still own a skirt that I purchased the day I met MonkeyBoy. I hold it up to myself now and cannot fathom the mind that thought it was ok for me to fit into that skirt.

What I think happened is this: I never looked at myself and thought I was fat, so it never occurred to me that I had an eating disorder. I never threw up my food, so I never had an eating disorder.  And I didn't strive to be like the waif-thin models that were - and sadly 10 years later still are - everywhere.

But there are more ways to have a disorder than just Bulimia and Anorexia. It doesn't just have to be about not wanting to be fat. And I want you, dear reader, to understand that. If I had known that, or others had known that, maybe there would have been some sort of intervention sooner, before it had serious health consequences.

There are more than just two ways to kill yourself by not eating.

****

My daughter is 3 this week. I already talk to her and my 5 year old son about these images, and describe the women as unhealthy, and how the images have been changed to make them look very different.

We have to start talking to our children about these things when they are so young to get the positive messages cemented in their subconscious so they never ever look at magazines images like these and think they are normal. So that they are happy with how their own bodies look.

What their brains do after that, god knows.  I hope their brains are kinder to them than mine was to me.