'Depression' was what I was diagnosed with on the visit to the doctor in January 1998. It seems such a vague concept, which is probably why employers still don't like to acknowledge it as an illness for which one might need time off. Is it just sadness? Not feeling right about the world? Suicidal thoughts?
It seems to be a tidal phenomenon. I was mildly affected by a regular tide for much of the time, but there were occasional tidal waves of sadness, tsunamis of utter suicidal despair. Most of the time, I lived my daily life in a sort of haze, not really feeling anything, numbing myself to the world around me.
Occasionally, I would be hit by higher tides, lasting from a few days to a few weeks. At these times I would continuously imagine stabbing myself, cutting, dying. Any little thing I did wrong I would mentally put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. These tides would fade again, leaving me bruised and thinner. Sometimes during these times I would achieve an extra numbness, protected by a very quick, easily inflamed temper. I was like a bomb, sitting there waiting for someone or something to provoke me. I would become stricter about eating, completely lacking in appetite. Sometimes it would lift by itself. Other times it led to explosions.
I had acute explosions and chronic implosions. Usually these would happen in succession. A period of explosion, curling up on the floor, screaming, hardly able to breathe, completely drowned by an emotional pain that is beyond explanation. The whole body is gripped by tension, limbs thrashing or held painfully still. Every single barrier that I had kept up during the numb times would suddenly crash down and I would just sink beneath the waves. It was then that I came closest to a panicked suicide attempt. In vague attempts to stop the pain I would cut myself repeatedly. It would let out a little of the agony, but no means enough.
Gaining back a modicum of control took me into 'implosion'. I became utterly still except for tiny jerky movements. I would cut, calmly, as if I was cutting up a tomato. My muscles seized up, and moving difficult. I slipped into another place, muttering, not quite aware of what I was doing. People who saw me in that state guided me like I was some shuffling person, taking the knife, broken glass or whatever away from me. Although I bled profusely, I never felt the pain at all. I slipped beyond all sensation in a way that is terrifying even now. In a dream world, only able to hear the voice in my head whispering and whispering.
Often during these phases, part of me always held back. A supremely rational voices, looking on as if watching the enactment of some scene from a play - Hamlet, probably. As Anatole France says, the reasonable conversation of the mad is the frightening side. Sometimes I could talk about it with a rational, calm attitude that made me doubt my own insanity. I'm not really mad, I thought, I'm just playing. In truth, I don't think I was. I was a child again, trying to deal with feelings that had plagued me all my life. I had never found an 'adult' way of coping. As a very young child I had thought about suicide a lot. In a calm, rational way. I was so used to the idea of picturing myself dying that it has never really occurred to me that this might not be 'normal'.
So anorexia was my way of dealing with internal pain. I hated that my pain was apparently invisible. Illnesses are obvious - physical symptoms. My symptoms weren't physical. So I had to make them physical. I remember at an appallingly young age standing in front of myself and conducting the conversations I have included on the section on the inside of the anorexic mind. I was plagued by both self-hate and a maddening, suffocating depression that refused to leave me alone.
Anorexia was my outlet. I think it is the same for many conditions. An eating disorder serves so many purposes to someone with mental health problems. It is a physical manifestation of pain, for a start. You want people to know you are suffering, and at the same time you want to disappear. Anorexia serves that purpose. So does bulimia and all eating disorders. It also gives you a form of suicide. In truth I think when we are suicidal, we are trying to kill the pain inside, not necessarily our whole selves. It gies you a physical voice: 'help me!' your body says. You can channel all your self-hate and need to control the pain into an obsession with food. You become so absorbed in the ritual of the eating disorder that it blocks out the underlying issues. Often to the point where you forget what those issues were in the first place. I had the advantage of also channelling this force into my studies, which I believe is why I never became as thin as some others. But it's there, nonetheless.The pain doesn't go away though, and there are still the implosions and explosions of emotional agony to be dealt with. During the spells of chronic implosion, I stopped eating. I lost my appetite. Even when I 'allowed' myself to eat I often stopped during preparation and just gave up. At times I forgot how to eat. How to put a fork in my mouth. I just wasn't interested. I can plot my depressives phases from times when I lost a lot of weight. It would happen during exams, prolonged periods of loneliness, etc.
Sometimes the pain overwhelmed the blocks of anorexia. Big explosion. Cutting, banging my head on the wall, screaming, crying, flinging things around the room. I trashed my room at my parents house a couple of times, these being the only times my parents really responded to my utter dejection. Most of the time I channelled it into anger, probably in the same way as most teenagers. Testing your existence, perhaps. Trying to get a reaction.
So what does all this rambling talk mean? Well, it is an attempt to convey the internal processes of a sufferer. We all have our own motivations for these things, but one thing is that these aren't communicated well to those around us. We lack the ability to stand there and say we feel miserable - it's not enough. We need a physical sign. Cuts, weight loss, suicide... all signs. Often misinterpreted. Mental health problems tear families apart, destroy relationships from these misinterpretations. Whatever the sufferer does, it is important to remember that these are not acts of malice directed at others, but the expression of an internal problem, or problems, that need love and support to treat and resolve.
