I woke up feeling absolutely TRASHED this morning.
I had planned to do some drawing but since I’m currently tied to the sofa by the sheer gravity of feeling like I’ve been runover by the Brexit bus, I thought I’d write a little catch-up post instead.
After all, one of the reasons I am absolutely TRASHED is that I woke up with a cluster headache, I had night sweats all night, I’m still anaemic and I did a bit too much yesterday.
But, yesterday also included Starbucks, a bear hat and challenging my anxiety.
Day 10 of My Iron Man Era
Today is day 10 of taking prescribed iron and It’s still going surprisingly okay. My stomach is currently still gastritis-free. I keep expecting it to change after the horror that was taking iron a year ago, and thankfully, it just… hasn’t. It’s still a bit sore but hasn’t affected my eating at all.
In fact, since I’ve been taking iron I’ve been REALLY hungry.
It reminds me of early recovery. It’s been quite difficult because I’m eating quite a bit extra compared to before I started taking it. However, my weight hasn’t actually changed at all, and it’s been over 10 days. Even though my weight hasn’t responded like it did before to eating this much, eating more still makes me really nervous.
I don’t plan for the extra food, either. I eat my usual amount, and then my hunger lets me know, very intrusively that, THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH FOOD. So I end up eating a bunch of extra snacks on top.
I keep expecting the hunger to go away, or at least be less intense because I ate extra the day before, but then I wake up the next day to the same higher level of hunger.
Corrupted Clippy – what I call my ED – isn’t helping either,
“YOU ATE EXTRA YESTERDAY. You can’t eat EXTRA AGAIN today!!”
So I plan to eat what I usually eat, and then, via daydreaming about everything in the Asda hot counter – specifically the sausage baps with buns that have been soaking up fat from the sausages sitting there for a period of time – I inevitably end up eating Biscoff biscuits, a small spoon of peanut butter, a couple of chocolate coated pistachios, or whatever else I see at the time.
One thing I’ve realised through this entire recovery, though, that the intensity of my perceived hunger has NOTHING to do with how much energy that solves it.
Ten minutes ago I wanted the entire contents of the Asda hot counter but apparently these few snacks were enough to cancel the emergency and for me to feel good again.
By the way, I’m still honouring my hunger. I eat a few biscuits, wait a bit, and if it wasn’t enough – which it hasn’t been lately – I eat more. I repeat that until I feel good and comfortable and stop thinking about food.
My brain then becomes fixated with the thing I was trying to do before being rudely interrupted by the absolute exaggerating goblin that is my appetite.
So I guess I’m just taking each hungry day as it comes and trying not to let Corrupted Clippy – what I call my ED – get to me too much about it. Actually, being able to eat more, along with taking iron has actually started to help a little bit. I noticed it yesterday when I had to go to town to pick up my meds.
The Drama Free Meds and the Starbucks For One
I had to get my meds, and for once, it went off without a hitch. I turned up, queued up, and they were there waiting for me. After all the med drama I’ve been dealing with for MONTHS it felt MIRACULOUS. Also it felt miraculous that I wasn’t feeling half dead in the queue from getting there.
To celebrate, I decided to go to Starbucks and sit in there by myself with a coffee. My son was at home, exhausted from his day out at the cinema the previous day, so he wasn’t able to come with me.
Just the thought of it gave me significant anxiety. I can’t remember the last time I went and had coffee by myself, but it’s been YEARS. My son has been doing that himself a lot lately, and I felt inspired by him to do the same.
When I got to the counter I was so anxious that I fumbling over my words and it was as if I’d forgotten the entire English language. The Starbucks barista was really nice about it, though.
Then I sat in there all lonesome, while drinking my Iced Americano. I didn’t stay too long because I constantly had the “I NEED TO ESCAPE” anxiety but I did manage to take some reference photos for art and still stayed until I drank all of it.
Mission complete:- Go to Starbucks on my todd.
I felt proud of myself.
Art Helps Me SO MUCH
Doing art again has helped me in more ways than one. Not just making me want to override my anxiety in pursuit of the perfect Starbucks lighting, but in other ways too..
I have been thinking about much more connected I feel to my identity.
I’ve had thoughts of wanting to get my hair done at a hairdresser’s. I haven’t been to a hairdresser’s since before my best friend died six years ago. I’ve just been hacking at it myself. I didn’t see “the point”. Hair just grows again, may as well do it myself.
I also bought navy nail varnish because I haven’t done my nails for ages either. I can’t really do them at the moment because of my cluster headaches. I did try the other day, and it didn’t go particularly well because it triggered very painful attacks. But that level of wanting to do it by risking an attack reminded me of, well, being me. That is TOTALLY a me thing, risk it for shiny nails.
I also bought a Winnie the Pooh hat. Winter hats are definitely a large part of my identity, and for some perculiar reason they make my body dysmorphia bearable. I have absolutely no clue why. The secret to dealing with my body dysmorphia is apparently a beanie.
It’s specifically beanies, too. Baseball caps do not work. Although I don’t know how specific this phenomenon is because, as a Welsh person, I have not yet found any reason to buy or wear a cowboy hat.
My soul must be an artist. Because without it, I did feel soulless. Now it just feels like I’ve remembered who I used to be.
The Cluster Episode Mood Shenanigans
Despite having a really good day yesterday at Starbucks, and thinking about how much more connected I’ve felt to my identity, this cluster episode has been doing an absolute number on my mood.
Every evening, before the attacks even start, my mood will do one of two things as part of the prodrome.
Either I fall down a sudden pit of being upset and almost depressed with an attack of the “WHATS THE POINT OF ANYTHING I DO OR HAVE EVER DONE”.
OR I get really angry and have really irritability.
This mood change lasts all night long, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. It has been exhausting, and it’s so jarring.
Yesterday during the day, I was feeling all bouncy from my day out. Then the evening arrived and my brain started going off about how blogging is pointless, art is pointless, all the effort I’ve put into being able to do art again is pointless, and how I should just give up everything because I’m shit at everything I do.
Having had such a good day really helped, though. Despite the fact that exertion makes my attacks worse, I had very recent evidence why none of the shit my brain was spouting was true. I still got upset and cried about it.
Crying is TERRIBLE in a cluster episode. My eye is already badly affected, so when I cry it feels like I’m cutting onions it is SO painful.
The attacks were then really bad and woke me up in the night. Then I had nightmares and perimenopause night sweats, and combined with yesterday’s activity having caused me to run out of spoons, I eventually woke up with another cluster attack to start my day. This is why I currently feel absolutely TRASHED and chained to the sofa by the sheer weight of ALL THINGS.
However, my mood is currently better – until this evening, anyway – so I thought I’d write this before that happens and prove my brain wrong about blogging being pointless because I am utterly shit at it. The point is, I like blogging and that is enough reason to blog.
Alternatively, instead of being sad again tonight, I might get RIDICULOUSLY angry about the fakeness of Instagram AGAIN:
“EVERYONE quite rightly goes off about AI slop. But no one has EVER been concerned about human slop. The majority of which doesn’t even sound human anymore. It’s just SCRIPTS people follow. I often can’t tell accounts apart from each other”.
And I will feel like this is some sort of DIRE emergency facing society that needs to be SOLVED RIGHT NOW.
That’s the weirdest part. These ARE my normal irritations, but dialled up to over 9000. Worse, it just feels like me instead of a symptom of impending cluster doom. I really feel that angry.
My evening mood is currently being controlled by a random number generator basically. And instead of getting a legendary weapon from grinding through this episode, I get Instagram annoyances or attacks of WHAT IS THE POINT.
The things I do in the day time are very important to prove all of this wrong. So I’m really glad I’ve done art, and blogged, and gone to Starbucks this week.
This song has been my ear worm ALL WEEK. My brain keeps playing it over and over.
Absurd Universe 