Fast Falling Lows

The lows. As much as you know they are coming as you enjoy the high, they somehow still manage to hit me like a ton of bricks. The lows manage to cut off my anchors to basic joy and make everything feel bleak again. It doesn't matter that I knew at some point they were going to shut down my party of happiness and inner calm, what surprised me was where they came from. The lows hide in the family, but more so for me, they hide in people doing things, basic things like going out to meet up and planning a quick getaway with friends. Even though I had a productive week, and have a somewhat busy week ahead the monster claiming you aren't doing enough, and your not worthy of friends comes raging back to the surface. The lows know how to tell you all the things that make doing anything in life seem not worth it, even sleeping. Low creates this zone in between zombie and alive, its when you can binge watch lots of television but not remember a single thing you've seen. It will make sleep seem like the worst thing in the world as why would you want a tomorrow?? The lows are writing this themselves, you'd think they'd want better representation but they seem to enjoy the sorrows.

Listening to the Voices

Not all voices are bad, some are like street signs in life, evaluate and continue on. Not all voices in your head are bad. Sometimes the voice that tells you "it's too much, your overwhelmed" is a helpful voice. Finding the voice, and distinguishing it from the sick voice can be hard. Sometimes the thought can be processed on your own and sometimes bouncing it off a friend helps clarify the voice. The first urge is to get rid of the uncomfortable voice, as it makes you feel like your drowning in quicksand. Once you allow yourself to be swallowed in deep enough in the sticky brown sand; then you start the process and actually work through the uncomfortable feeling. Rather than running away, the panic sent by the sick voice actually starts to subside. Then the voice takes you on a journey you don't think you can survive; the lack of air in the tunnel of quicksand starts a spiral of panic. A voice shouts survival dreams reverberating through the darkness, Bouncing off the glacial tears freezing on my face. The dreams look like fireflies of fairy lights creating a map out to the mountain range of dreams. The voices are options to reroute and find your way back to your trail of truth in life.

Finishing A Safe Space

Rehab, when you start, doesn't feel like a safe place. The hospital feels foreign and the schedule forced. Lots of faces, names, and rules. I felt bad feeling out of place, and for having a hard time as I voluntarily put myself there. I'm also just notoriously bad at first impressions and connecting with people. The first night didn't really bother me, but while I felt comfortable in my room on my own, sitting in the shared spaces with lots of other adults freaked me out. The dining room was the worst, it was absolutely the antithesis of a safe space. We sat around different groups of tables, eating mostly similar food for 40 minutes at every meal.  One of the biggest issues of an eating disorder is eating with others, as its usually you don't eat alone or you eat way too much. The tension in the dining room is constant, each person has their own demons they're fighting, depending on peoples personalities and where they are on their journey they try to help others. Over two months, the dining room didn't become my favorite spot, and not a constant safe space, but more times than not, most of the time I spent in the dining room, I felt I was in a safe space. An internal safe space doesn't mean emotions don't exist, it means you recognize the emotions and have enough space to let them be or choose to process them. A safe space doesn't have to be forever, contrary to how we are raised and the thoughts we are led to believe that safety is forever. It takes growing up and living in safe places and moments, to learn from them when they are there but to not freak out when they disappear rather use the energy you gained in the safe space to create and find the next safe space.

The Uncontrollable Shakes

The shakes, some people might associate them with drug withdrawal, for me its a side effect of my disability. The side might be a good term for it although it alternates, the shakes are very indecisive. They come and go as they please; they mostly just alternate jumping from leg to the other leg. They have convinced my sick voice that it's healthy, and a good way to get through eating regular meals. I have come to love and loathe the shakes, they have gotten me out of really boring college classes, but have also made me leave training early; making me feel like I failed or rather my body failed me.
Now some might think that uncontrollable shakes leading to body failure is extreme, I mean my heart and lungs work perfectly fine. What people seem to forget is that brains are a major organ, and yes I'm not having seizures or in a coma, there is a rather large and life bothering issue.
One of the biggest issue with the shakes is that they are mostly invisible in the beginning, so when I wake up and put my feet on the ground,y'know whatcha do in the morning, my breath catches as my feet hit the ground and I start to try and stand up, the uncertainty, or if my body will stay upright or, if I'm just going to collapse on the floor. Yes, I'm sure I'm far from the only person who deals with uncertainty, but how much does the average person deal with before they have brushed their teeth?? It is a huge part of the hardship of accepting your own body when you're not sure when you can trust it. It's not as if I wake up to memos from my body letting me know which parts are going to work when. (By the way, if there are any scientists coming up with something like this, I volunteer as tribute.) Till then I'll just have to shake with the shakes and ride the earthquakes of my body.

Oceans of Routine

Routine, the monotony of it. The repetitiveness of the oar dipping in the water. The bounce of the ball, the screech of rubber tires. The shake of my legs, some people think its annoying, I used to as well; now its what calms me down in most situations. Routine outside helps keep me afloat in the whirlpool that is my mind. Routine is my anchor in chaos.
When the waters agitate and the chains get ripped from the core, leaving me floating and thrashing towards the surface of the unknown; I don't know how to reroute and follow my dreams to another path. My dreams lose hold of their core, leading to distorted visions of the future. It is not always a huge internal storm that knots the chains in unbreakable bonds of confusion it can be one small thought that wiggles through the boards of certainty stirring up sleeping monsters.
The question is if you can find new chains to bond with the old and find a new galaxy to dream your way through the ocean of uncertainty.

Giving up on Yourself

It's an interesting idea; giving up on yourself. Everyone usually assumes that means you want to kill yourself, to me it can mean that but for me, it is more so punishing my entire body for actions of parts of my body. When I refuse to eat or binge from physical pain, I'm not removing the physical pain just making my mind travel, to where it's out of control in a place I feel more comfortable with. Most of the time the constant physical pain leads to the simple yet harmful place of giving up on moving my body. The dream of wanting to compete and push myself and my body to the absolute limit; dismantles itself daily the more times I wake up in constant pain that no one and no tests can explain why.
It's hard to dream when slowly every single rope connected to an anchor of my dreams that keep me flying in the right direction gets sautered; leaving nothing but shreds in its wake. The ocean stirs into whirlpools, sending any ideas spraying in the wind leaving you drowning in the eye of silence.

The Cycle of Acceptance

 While feelings come and go, I thought that once I had "accepted" myself, my disability (the only things I thought I had left to accept) I would be done needing to accept things in life and I could go on conquering the world. Turns out life does NOT work that way. Acceptance and change are like magnets that have the same charge, the closer you try to push them together the farther apart they reach. This phenomenon leads to feeling like you never move on in life as you hit upon the same issues. 

You have hit the same feelings in a different setting, like hitting the same point on a spiral just one level up, with new tools and self-understanding can lead you to create a new level of acceptance. That's not a simple action to take, and it will feel like you are getting nowhere, but you have to be willing to be in that uncomfortable state of taking the ground out from underneath yourself in order to dig deeper and build new or better foundations on which to continue your life. Digging up old skeletons on unbalanced feet is never easy but, with the new tools you have acquired in between the previous dealing with the issues gives you a better chance at creating longer lasting foundations this time around.