The plan for this post was to write about my day – going into town, getting my meds, something simple.
But I’m sat here dealing with the consequences of everything I did today, and somehow it’s turned into something much bigger. It’s made me spiral into thinking about the way I treat myself, and my body, and how we’ve always felt like sworn enemies.
Punishing my body for existing the way it does has become so automatic that sometimes I don’t even notice I’m doing it. Not until I’m sat there crying, while it tries – through pain – to tell me that something isn’t right.
I would never treat anyone the way I treat myself. It’s not even possible.
If someone I loved was in pain, I’d sit with them. I’d try to understand. I’d want to protect them from feeling worse. But when it comes to me, something flips. I push, I ignore, I override everything my body is telling me, and then I’m left dealing with the aftermath.
Something has to change. But I don’t know how to accept that this is the body I have because I’ve realised that I hate my body.
Getting My Meds
I am in a cluster headache episode, and when I am in one, exertion, being too hot, strong smells, and some types of food all trigger more excruciating attacks. I’ve written about my full cluster headache experience before in another post, but I know what makes them worse, and there’s not a lot that makes them any less painful aside from caffeine and oxygen.
They last for 6–8 weeks. I feel very lucky if they last less than that, but it’s not often that they do. Twice a year, for a total of 3–4 months, I am just trying to survive the most pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. Everything needs to get put on hold. Bare minimum is all I should manage. It’s survival mode.
They mostly occur at night, but shadow headaches and sudden dizzy spells, happen all day. It gets worse if I do anything, like going to get my meds at Boots.
I try to do some things anyway, because life can’t just stop for 3–4 months every year and because I get angry that I get limited by own body. So I went to town because I needed to pick up my meds. My entire mental health would fall apart if I didn’t go and get them, so it’s in my best interests to do it, even if it causes a cluster attack. I also don’t like my son being responsible for things related to my health so I had to get them.
I also still try to do some things because I need something to hold on to when I’m having the worst pain of my life at 4am, when no one else is around. I thought after getting my meds I could meet my son and we could have Starbucks together so I’d think of that when the inevitable night time horror of the full attacks occur. First, I had to get through the gauntlet that is collecting medication from Boots.
My cluster attacks from exertion tend to hit when I stop moving, so I’ve had plenty of them while standing in the queue in Boots. This episode, I also have sudden dizziness before the pain kicks in, so I almost fell into a display as my body suddenly felt like I was on a boat in rough seas. Everything tilted, and I fell to the right like my whole world had shifted.
Well, that’s just great.
Anyway, I got myself upright and stood as quiet as possible in the queue, rocking back and forth on my feet as the cluster attack peaked. Luckily, they aren’t as full force in the day, but I was still really angry about it.
Angry that getting my meds is now even more difficult than it already is.
I beat myself up, thinking how ridiculous that is. How broken I am. I was there getting meds for my mental health, because it feels like none of my body works the way it’s supposed to. Clusters come with sudden bursts of anger as a side effect, and I guess I was directing it at myself.
I thankfully got my meds and tried to shake the thoughts away. I tried to focus on meeting my son, as planned.
While I was waiting for him, I drifted between shop windows, half browsing, half just going through the motions. I felt completely out of it, like I was watching myself do it from somewhere else. I was still really angry that my body is my body.
My son tracked me down via GPS – I hadn’t even noticed my phone buzzing in my bag – and when he found me, I felt better instantly. He was so happy and I was happy for him. We headed straight for Starbucks. I was thinking that four shots of espresso would really help with my shadow headache and the painful echoes from the attack in Boots.
But that’s where I would make a big mistake.
The Starbucks Drink That Caused All Of This
I walked into Starbucks happy to see our favourite barista. I just wanted my favourite drink.
My favourite drink causes blood sugar mayhem. Every single time I’ve had this drink, I’ve had high blood sugar followed by a really bad crash.
It shouldn’t cause this much drama. It’s probably one of Starbucks’ least offensive flavoured drinks in terms of blood sugar – it’s just an oat shaken espresso. It’s not like it’s some cursed TikTok order with 20 extra spoons of sugar. That would make sense. This doesn’t.
But I wanted it.
I’ve worked hard in ED recovery. I shouldn’t have to restrict things I want anymore. Everyone says restriction is bad, that I should have unconditional permission to have whatever I want. It’s not fair. I’m dealing with cluster headaches – surely the least my body could do is let me have this drink. I’ll just hope it won’t betray me. It might not, after all. Maybe it wont happen because I think it wont happen. That’s everything I told myself so I could order it. So I did.
At first, everything was great. It tasted so good. It was ice cold, which really helped cool me down because I was so hot, and my shadows are always worse when I’m hot. After a while, the caffeine started working for the pain, and I was able to focus on my son, who’d had a brilliant day at the cinema seeing a film he loved.
He gave me a present – a little badge that said “Friend to pigeons” – so I immediately put it on my bag. Everything felt a bit better. Until it didn’t.
I was halfway home when I started to feel really ill. Severe nausea. Shaking. Anxiety. Dread. I knew what that meant. I got in and tested my blood sugar: 3.0 mmol. Great. Hypoglycaemia.
I focused on correcting it – fast carbs first, then a high-protein meal – but it was really difficult to eat because I still felt so sick. The shadows from walking home, combined with the caffeine already wearing off, got worse. So I was sat there in a complete mess – pain from the clusters, pain from the injury I’d picked up yesterday, nausea and post crash flu like symptoms and all of it made worse by the same pattern again.
Trying to fight my body instead of listen to it.
And then I just started crying. Partly out of blood sugar swings making my mood atrocious and partly because this isn’t new. This is a pattern I’ve been repeating for years.
I Think I Hate My Body
With others, I have a lot of outward patience. I’ll consider that I’m wrong before I assume someone else is. I’m only loud when I know I’m right – I’ve usually Googled it or asked someone first. I’m not outwardly angry at people, even when I probably should be. I am however forever angry and loud about governments, systems, or general injustice especially where human rights are concerned. I direct my anger where it actually matters.
I also have no interest in controlling other people. My son and I have a wonderful relationship, and I’ve never been interested in controlling him. I value people’s autonomy, and I’ve tried to instil that in him from the day he was born. Your body and your life are yours. No one gets to tell you what you should do with either – not even me.
How I treat myself? I am very angry. And very controlling. I treat myself the exact same way my mother treated me – and, well, everyone. I went no contact with her to be free of it, only to realise that the way I talk to myself is exactly the same as how she spoke to me and everyone around me who I loved most in the world.
I’ve worked really hard over the years, with therapy and medication, to like myself. And I do. I think I’ve been a good mum. I like how quickly I learn things, and how many hobbies and interests I’ve had. I love how passionate I get about certain subjects and the way I am so excited when anything has to do with the Universe.
I like that I am intelligent within certain strict parameters but definitely not so much if I am not interested in it. I find that hilarious. I can describe Loop Quantum Gravity, but how does my Mac that I use everyday work? I have no idea.
I’ve always tried to be a good person despite everything I’ve been through. I’ve broken the trauma cycle with my son. Raising him is the best thing I’ve ever done. It makes me feel like I was put on this planet to have this relationship with him. I felt that way about my best friend, WeeGee too. Everything might be shit, but I met her because of it.
My body, though? It’s hard to find anything good to say about it, because I hate it.
It feels broken. It doesn’t function the way it should. It’s in excruciating pain twice a year, with other pain in between. It’s chronically fatigued. My blood sugar swings. My mental health is all over the place. And I’ve punished it in a variety of ways over the years:
Not eating.
Eating too much.
Pushing through pain, illnesses and causing chronic injuries.
Eating things I know will mess up my blood sugar so badly I feel like I might collapse.
Not taking painkillers so I can feel the full extent of the pain.
Doing things I know will trigger a cluster attack during an episode.
Cleaning my house through an intercostal muscle strain and slipping rib flare, turning something that should heal into chronic severe pain that lasts for months.
Not ever allowing myself to stay in bed or even slow down when I am depressed.
I feel like my body deserves the pain all of this.
And then, ironically, people turn around and say how strong I am for continuing to do things despite the amount of pain I’m in. Or they deny I’m in that pain at all, because I “shouldn’t be able to” do what I’m doing. No one has ever considered the third option. That I’m not coping. That I’m punishing myself for having this body.
I had pleurisy once and still carried on doing everything. Someone told me I couldn’t possibly have it, because I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. A doctor literally diagnosed me – but apparently that doesn’t count. I guess they just can’t fathom that someone would do that to themselves if they were actually that ill.
Which leads right back to the Starbucks drink.
The Long-Standing Self-Hating Issue
I’ve always had blood sugar issues, I passed out many times in school and each time after lunch, but they became more consistent and severe after I turned 35.
Before 35, I could risk things like Domino’s pizza. It was a coin flip whether anything would happen, so I’d often take that risk. After 35, every single time I had it, I’d get high and low blood sugar, and it would be difficult to get it back under control. I’d crash badly, and it was hard work just to get it back above 4 mmol.
Even when I was in hospital for something else, they struggled to stabilise it. I ended up downing several dextrose packets along with sandwiches. I felt horrendous and it kept crashing anyway. The doctor thought the monitors were broken and kept getting different ones only for it to read the same result.
I also noticed I couldn’t tolerate oatmeal anymore, sugary drinks, and the worst offender – beans and cheese on toast. Worse, if I set it off once, it would react to everything I eat after it.
But at the time I was in recovery from my eating disorder and had been for years. And I felt really angry at my body for “doing this to me.” Everyone online sells recovery as unconditional permission to eat anything, at any time. And I felt so frustrated that I’d worked so hard, and still didn’t get that. It wasn’t fair. I was falsely advertised a recovery my body just couldn’t achieve.
So every single day, I kept eating foods I knew affected me this way. Because “restriction is wrong.” Medical professionals also did not help, they all swore this was my ED talking despite being in recovery. With no help, I started to hate food, and hate my body even more for always feeling ill. It was one of many reasons I relapsed, and why I’m now sat here in recovery again.
My blood sugar is reactive, so if I don’t eat much – like when I relapse into an ED – I don’t have the same issues. I could eat beans on toast every single day and not spike to 14 mmol. The proof I’m in recovery is that I have blood sugar problems and that I cannot eat what I want. I didn’t even get low blood sugar in the worst parts of my ED. So I knew, this time in recovery, to stay in recovery something had to change. And I have changed things.
I’ve worked SO HARD through trial and error on my own and found ways to manage it – so much so that I can now eat around 200g of carbs a day without daily blood sugar swings. I eat high protein. I don’t eat carbs on their own unless it’s after dinner. I also eat 30-35g fibre a day. But there are still some foods that are just off limits, because nothing I do helps.
Beans on toast.
Domino’s pizza and other fast food.
And my favourite Starbucks drink.
I’ve learnt in this recovery that, for me, restriction is recovery.
Recovery For Me Is Restriction
If I’m not constantly feeling like absolute garbage from blood sugar swings, I actually like food. I like how my body feels. I feel more like my body and I are a team. My mood is more stable – as it can be for having Bipolar and being in perimenopause. I even have days where I feel like I inhabit my body, instead of it being me versus my body – which is something I’ve never had in my life before.
So why did I have the Starbucks drink today knowing all of this? Because I was angry at my body again.
Angry that I’m in so much pain from cluster headaches. Angry that I can’t even deal with a season change without everything falling apart. Angry that I just got over gastritis from taking iron tablets of all things and then immediately landed in a cluster episode. Angry that a simple Starbucks drink causes so much drama. Angry that I can’t just get my meds.
It’s not just food. I’ve been angry at it in other ways too – hence why I’m sat here with an injury, and had the worst cluster attacks of my life last night. Because I tried to push through everything yesterday as well and suffered another intercostal muscle strain. Because it’s not fair. I should be able to do what I want. But that thinking is what keeps hurting me.
I shouldn’t just restrict the foods that cause these blood sugar swings – the ones that make me hate food and my body. I should also restrict the ways I hurt myself for having an incurable condition I have no control over.
My dad had cluster headaches too. I had so much empathy for him. I saw how much pain he was in. I always tried to help him even when I was little. If he had done what I do to myself, I would have been so worried about him. I would have been asking why he’s doing that to himself. Why he’s not resting. Why he’s not taking it easy when he’s already dealing with so much.
But for myself? No. I punish myself instead. Because that’s what comes almost automatic to me.
My anger is also grief – for having to live with a condition that causes this much pain and the blood sugar issues that stop me from eating the food I like most. But grief, something I learned through losing my best friend, is only softened by love. I got so angry when I dealt with the grief of losing her. It’s another reason for my relapse.
Love for yourself and outward expressions of love are some of the ways that I now feel her lovingly again. Instead of just sadness or anger that she’s gone.
While loving my body feels like somewhere far off, something abstract and too big to reach… right now, I can try to stop hating it. I can start to treat myself the way I would treat anyone else living with these conditions.
And to start, it’s something simple that I’ll continue to find difficult because doing the opposite feels automatic.
Not ordering that drink at Starbucks and restricting foods that cause a rollercoaster. Letting myself rest during a cluster episode instead of fighting through it. Not focusing on everything I can’t do, can’t eat, or everything that’s been interrupted… but on what I can do. The food that actually feels comforting, even joyful and connects me to my body. The moments I still get to have that my best friend didn’t. The life I get to have while watching my son make one for himself.
Because this is the body I have. And for the first time in my life, I think I’m ready to at least try to stop fighting it. This is, after all, what my best friend always wanted for me.
Couldn’t find an appropriate song for this post, so here’s one I was listening to while writing this and crying.
Absurd Universe 