Right now my life is seemingly perfect. I have achieved my dream of getting into medical school... I made it to second year and I am getting higher than average grades in all my exams. This week i start my placements so i'll be on wards doing actual doctorly stuff rather than just sitting in a lecture theatre learning about cells.
I have the worlds BEST mum. i know lots of people would say that about their mum,but honestly mine is THE best, EVER. she is the most supportive woman i know, she has been through a lot herself, a lot of which is MY FAULT, yet she is always there for me and seems to love me unconditionally.
There are 2 reasons i want to be free of this ED: to succeed in my dream of being a doctor, and for my mum.
Anyway, point being my life right now is amazing, so why am i such a mess?
Well, my past is a complete and utter...well basically, the friend who knows me best (the one i spoke of in background to me post, who ive been best friends with since 3) says ive gone through so much that a film should be made of my life. i remember her saying that when i was 10. even more has happened since then.
here is a brief summary:
I am adopted. Not your standard abandoned in a basket on church steps adoption, but the full bang of social services strolling in and whipping me away from my far below par birth mother. I went through a lot as a baby. Someone asks me what my earliest memory is? It is something i will never say outloud to anyone. And the memory i pretend is my first is still shocking for people who arent blase about it like me.
My birthmother had violent boyfriends. I saw a lot of stuff as a consequence, and suffered it.
My birthfather was in prison for drugs.
I was in and out of care, bandied between foster homes (theyre not the safe places they get portrayed to be either).
I was adopted when i was 3, having already seen more shit than most people see in their lives.
It was a contested adoption ie not my birthparents choice. So what happens? I get kidnapped from the courthouse where the adoption is going through. By my birthmothers violent boyfriend. Great.
Then lifes cosy for a bit. Except i forgot to mention i had a brother. A psycho one. He was older than me and didnt adjust to being adopted. He was angry, that anger got taken out on me.
He did lots of things. I will never tell anyone exactly what.
Long story short social services took him away and put him in a school for psychos. I had a couple of ok years trying to get over all the shit that had happened.
Then when he reached 18 he 'unadopted' himself, and thats when it got bad again.
He told my birthfamily where i lived, where i went to school, who my friends were. My friends got harrassed, they were spotted in nearby towns. I became afraid to leave my house, afraid to go anywhere alone. I had to move house, move school,change phone numbers.
Ive cut the story very short, leaving out the stuff that actually happened, but that is a brief overview and im sure you can fill in the gaps yourselves.
When the referal to chmt in summer took so long, my mum organised for me to see a counsellor who specialised in adoption and eating disorders. This woman was sweet enough, for a counsellor, but the second time i went she guessed exactly why i am the way i am. So i will never go back to see her.
It is weird... she did all the usual guesses: is it for control? does it make you feel safe? do you want to never grow up? do you hate the attention of men and want to make yourself as afeminine as possible?
we explored all those avenues, and she latched on to my relationships with men.
how im closer to my mum than my dad.
how ive had boyfriends but ive treated them badly,often on purpose,because i push men away when they get too close and i begin to feel threatened or whatever.
how i view the relationships my friends have with men/dads/brothers/boyfriends etc.
how i responded differently to female/male teachers.
etc. a lot of it was complete bull but she obviously thought she was onto something.
then in our second meeting she just came out with this 'thing'. this theory, about what had happened to me in my past, and that she had guessed it and she wasnt surprised i am the way i am now,that now she has guessed itll be easy to talk about it.
i denied it and got indignant/angry through my tears and told her under no circumstances could she ever suggest such a thing again, and that i wouldnt be coming back.
its weird because all my life ive wanted to get help about it,wondered how to tell someone,whether if talking about it would help,but the way she just came out with it,just guessed it,as if my past experiences are written on my forehead,having only been chatting to me for 1 hour about things so unrelated...now i know i will never be able to get over it with anyone elses help, and so it is back to my ED. it is my way of coping. i know that. i dont need anyone else to tell me so.
yet on a day to day basis i dont think about the thing that caused my ED originally. if i dont fast i feel like i cant cope, but not that i cant cope with my past, that i cant cope with whatever small thing happens that day. so its like the ED started as a coping mechanism to block out my past, and its worked, but now it impacts everything, because without it, i have nothing. if i eat, my world falls apart.
No comments:
Post a Comment