Living at an 8

Mr. Patmore: "Eight. It's always eight." 

Cristina: *Thinking he's a wimp, that it's impossible for anyone to always be at an 8* 

"Oh. It looked like you had some relief..."

Mr. Patmore: "I've spent seven years.

I've seen 39 doctors.

I've tried every kind of painkiller and nothing helps.

I've had doctors tell me it's my imagination...

...that I'm crazy.

Called me a drug addict.

My wife died last year.

After spending years carting me around to doctor after doctor, test after test, she died.

She was my best friend.

She was my favorite person in the...

And she died.

But I couldn't feel it.

I couldn't feel that pain because I was so completely occupied with this one."

An 8. Out of 10, this patient on Grey's Anatomy lived at a pain level of 8. At the end of the episode...

Cristina runs into Meredith, her best friend's therapist's office. Meredith, whose father left, whose mother died and had attempted suicide in front of her as a child, and was never able to show her love.

Cristina to therapist: *Bursts into room* "She lives her life on an eight.

Her pain. On any given day, she lives at an eight, and [her boyfriend] doesn't get that."

That was it. That was something I wanted people to understand that they just didn't. I used to think I was a wimp. That everyone went through the same stuff and just handled it with grace, but it wasn't that way. In Taylor Swift's recording session of the album Folklore, they talked about how people with mental illness try their hardest every day to get to a better place, and even their best would still feel crappy for most people. 

I don't live at an 8 anymore. But sometimes I do. 

When things were at their worst, I lived at an 8. It was a couple years of a solid 8. 

This last year has been more up and down, but I knew I had to use this title after something that happened a few weeks ago, bringing me back to a 10 for a while, that simmered to an 8 for a couple weeks. I was in so much pain, it was one of those times I didn't even feel like I could drive without causing an accident.

I usually go to my aunt's house when I'm feeling dark because being around my cousins keeps me focused on them, but I was in an unusual place where I couldn't. I couldn't fathom not being engulfed in what was happening and what it brought up inside of me, that I couldn't be around even them. No children. It's not like I could've explained it. 

I couldn't explain it to anyone really. There were so many layers. I was alone in it again. 

My friend sent me an instagram message telling me that bad days pass, to which I responded 

"It doesn't feel like it will ever not feel this horrible."

She reminded me, "It feels that way until it doesn't anymore❤️"

It was the greatest piece of wisdom that I tend to forget when it gets that bad. I had to carry that somewhere, but I didn't know if I would get out of this one. It just felt like the last straw.

And honestly, I said no to God. I didn't believe that God would be able to make someone like me, for reasons I won't get into in this post. And that if he did, he was against me. I've never not believed in God or who he is, fully. Not ever. But this time I did for a couple weeks straight.  I'm just not right. Something about my wiring. How people were designed for relationships and I was not. Specifics about my diagnoses and brain and things about me that chemically can't change. Situations I might always get in. 

I want to be important. I want to make a difference. I want my life and mind and soul to mean something. 

Where I am right now isn't always at an 8, but I also can't stand it. It's so beautiful so briefly, until it isn't. It goes like this: 

I feel life and possibility vibrating through my veins for only 5 minutes -

And then

I can't not want to be dead for only 5 minutes.

For 5-10 minutes I feel like the world is my oyster, I'm on top of it, I'm capable of everything and feel heaps of joy inside of me. 

Then like clockwork, almost impossibly, it plummets. Everything is dark and intense, loud, intrusive, pulsating, heeding me dysfunctional. Sometimes sitting down silently holding onto my head while time passes, sometimes pacing like a maniac and talking to myself. Sometimes I make worse decisions. In the past it's taken me to worse places. 

If I'm in public, if it's not too bad, I can only seem a little bit disassociated. I can seem out of it, and be floating above whatever is happening around me, but still smile, or if it's really bad just stay quiet and maybe just fidget more than usual. 

I'm not too good at hiding my wounds, I don't try too hard either. 

These changes literally can happen every 5-10 minutes throughout my whole day.

The going back and forth is exhausting and miserable. 

The worst can always be triggered.

The prospect of that, living with that knowing, doesn't feel worth it. The "every 5 minutes" shift. It's not worth knowing what can be triggered at any given moment that brings the horrible back. 

I had a patient say her pain was at an 8 today. She acted completely fine. I believed her. That's how women who live at an 8 often seem. 

I don't get how everyone can just not wear their pain on their sleeves. I really don't know how the world keeps it in. Our spirits need to be seen. They're screaming for it. 

Or maybe some people are more naturally seen? I'm not sure. 

Halloween is a terrifying holiday for someone with an eating disorder. What made it special this year was that I celebrated it with friends I've made over the last few years of my life. All by myself, my own real friends.

I always look forward to Halloween and dread it. I LOVE Halloween candy. 

But I HATE what it does to my head. 

It's funny because with everything that's happened over the last few weeks, when I was talking to my psychiatrist I wanted to explain why the voices were so loud and why my mental illness was so prominent, and the only thing that came out of my mouth was

"My weight"

…

It was bizarre. I couldn't create other words, I was speechless besides the word "weight," because that's all my head would tell me to speak. 

I told her, "I know it's not that, there's so much, it's just all that can come out of my mouth right now." 

How is that?? Why is that?

So many different things going on and that's it. My eating disorder takes over.

This is what the world allowed me to care about. What sexism allowed me to care about. With the irrelevant idea of what the world tells a woman's body it needs to look like and that's all we can focus on, that's all I was allowed to articulate this morning. 

And I just wonder every day if we could articulate more relevant or real things, what would happen. 

I don't really want to talk about any of this, but I have been missing in action for a little while and I wanted to check in. 

I'm not in my worst place, I think this is just where I am. I don't think over the last 7 years I've been consistently much better at any point. 

Those 5-10 minutes of feeling okay drive me almost crazier than the 5-10 minutes of not. 

I'm still getting up every day and putting one foot in front of the other when I can. 

I know I'm not the only person in the world.

Calm and peace seem like an idol at the moment, but maybe if I keep fighting I'll get a piece of it. 

I'll talk to you in a couple weeks. Sending love your way. ❤️

I took this picture at a 10