Moving on...

Last week I went back to Glasgow, a city that is so much more than just a city to me.

I was an inpatient in Glasgow hospital for over two years, and those two years were probably the hardest two of my life. Whilst being admitted for my anorexia, they were the only hospital that I’ve been in that took the time to give me the therapy to deal with the core roots of my illness. The process of doing so was excruciating. It was painful, it was mentally exhausting and challenging, and my admission there was filled with more ups and downs than the Himalayas.

Going back to a place that held so much, brought up a lot more than I had thought it would. At first, anxiety. Trepidation as I boarded the plane, the journey that I’ve made a number of times. Landing back in the pouring rain and freezing cold was unsurprising.  The first conversation with a fellow Scot was when I tried to pay for the bus from the airport, and was kindly told ‘don’t worry about it petal’ from the bus driver. At that moment, I felt a warmth of a city where the people are just so damn kind. I felt, in a weird way, like I was home. Whilst my hospital admission was beyond difficult, I cannot deny the love I had for the city of Glasgow, the friendly manner of the Scot’s, the conversation you can have with just about anyone you can see, the relaxed pace of life (compared to the hustle and bustle of London!).

After drying off in a costa coffee, warming up over a much needed cup of tea, apart from the tiredness of the day hitting me like a truck, I felt proud. I decided to go and buy a donut the size of my head and celebrate the fact I was back, but I was back and winning at recovery.

The second day I met with some of the most wonderful souls that I had the fortune to meet in the most unfortunate circumstances. I think it’s not fully understood the relationship you build up with other patients when in hospital. Being trapped in the most unlikely of situations, with my friends and family over 300 miles away, the other girls in the ward became my family. seeing their faces again after two years apart… I could’ve cried! Another celebratory donut, a heck of a lot of cuddles; I felt strong.

I saw many of my friends I wanted to when we were away. One involved going back to the hospital I was in. I think in the 3 hours that we were there, I felt every emotion under the sun. anxiety, excitement, fear. Seeing the physical building that houses two years of turbulence hit me hard, and I guess this is where I reach the purpose of this post…

 

It consistently surprises me how difficult moving on is. After leaving the ward that day, it felt like a flame had been relit in my mind. Its been 5 days now, and the last three I have spent in tears. It’s hit me surprisingly hard, and for the first time in a long long time, I haven’t known how to manage it. When difficulties have arisen across the years, I’ve become a pro at identifying them and talking about them. Talking for me feels like taken a wound up spring and releasing it; I feel like I can breathe again. But this time, I cant. Partially because I don’t have the words to describe what I went through there, and partially because I know no one else will understand. Two years of your life is along time, especially when every single day there held so much.

I guess this leads me to writing this; a way of non-directly communicating the tornado in my head at the moment. I don’t want to talk to anyone directly about it, because I find the phrase ‘I get what you mean’ feels like someone has stabbed me in the throat. No, you don’t. you will never understand, and that’s because I will never be able to explain. Even if I did have the words, I wouldn’t know where to start arranging them into a coherent order.

The last 5 days my brain has managed to reopen the majority of the tabs I had closed; leaving me feeling somewhat vulnerable. Every situation I can actually remember has resurfaced, but feels like its playing on an open loop. Moving on from what I have hasn’t come as I thought. Right now, its leaving me feeling confused, misunderstood and sad. I had put my admission far enough behind me, to the point I barely thought about it. I certainly didn’t think about the details of what happened there… The last week this has all re-emerged.

Maybe its taught me that; sometimes you think you have healed from something that, in fact, you haven’t, but this is okay. When I was transferred down south, my brain was in so much turbulence adjusting to the change that I maybe haven’t even stopped to think that I need to talk about what I went through up there. Maybe I’ve not found the right person to talk it through with, maybe I’ve not found the words to use. Maybe now is not the right time to be thinking about any of this, but in fact its been powerful enough to realise that I wasn’t as healed as I thought I was. Whilst I know I am moving on from my illness, I hadn’t taken into account that sometimes the trauma of getting better needs to have as much attention as the illness itself.

Moving on is sometimes simple, not easy but simple. Sometimes its messy and painful, sometimes no one else will ever understand what you went through, and that hurts. Sometimes moving on feels like going backwards, like the resurfacing of everything you thought you had buried. Sometimes moving on is a reminder of the distance you still need to go…

Maybe that is okay. For me, for now, I will go back to taking it day by day. I will get my journal and try to figure out my thoughts and feelings, taking time for them to unravel themselves into a formulation that makes more sense to me again.

What I want to say to anyone else is, give yourself that time. Healing is messy, and it isn’t as clear cut as it sometimes seems. Be gentle with yourselves.

Fi xxx