I need help

Yesterdays entry has really fucked me up frankly.  What I wanted to be a remembering of the good times and the Golden age (through rose tinted glass of course!) has actually opened up a void in my heart.  Those who I wanted to remember fondly are now an aching gap of what once was.  I know I cant go back but I can't find anything to go on and create new memories with.  this hurts so much.  Part of me wants to rejoice but part of me is hurting so badly.  I keep thinking that I am going to start crying and then somehow it goes away again.  I wish I could just cry it out and get on with it again.

Work is helping mask the feelings during the day, I can always find something to keep me occupied at this time of year, even the basic day-to-day is a lot to be getting on with at the moment.

I think I have kind of had a revelation on something as I was googling around the web this evening.  Something that I often do is simply google what is going on in my head when I am bored, and this time I think it actually came up with something useful.  A week or so back I decided, frankly from no-where that I was going to cut down on what I drink.  I wouldn't say I have a problem with alcohol but I do drink regularly.  The guide might be 3-4 units per day, but probably not 5-6 days a week!  So anyway, I cut down, and after a couple of weird moments when I would have normally reached for a beer, I have go to a point where it feels normal not to drink in an evening.  That is incidental in a way, but kind of prophetic in relation to what I found tonight.

As I was sitting here, a while back, feeling pretty crappy frankly, I began to feel like used to when I cut.  That's a long way back and was only a couple of times anyhow.  BUT, the feeling was there.  This time, the first thing into my mind was food.  To eat.  (I'll come back to this train of though in a moment).  So I simply googled "can over eating be self harm?" and suddenly the one question that I've never asked cracked open a whole realisation.  Yes it can - and is - used as a form of self harm, it has it's own specific disorders associated with it.

Coming back to the train of thought about wanting to eat to deal with the pain.  That was what happened when I was younger and back in that situation.  Then, and more recently, I analysed that as food being an escape and a way of making things feel better - but it wasn't, the fact that it made me feel guilty, emotionally pained and made me overweight MADE IT A PHYSICAL FORM OF SELF HARM.  That's a serious light going on in my head.  Whenever I have tried to tackle myself on this and tried to self-help I have always approached it from the angle of comfort eating in response to emotional trauma or distress, in seek of emotional comfort.  Now I can see that it wasn't - I was looking to punish myself, destroy myself further.  The self image that was so weak anyway was being used to punish myself even further.  The fact that I hate being overweight, despite the carefully constructed subterfuge,  meant that I was punishing myself by increasing this.  I'm not going to go into details in this entry about the start, the bullying, the abuse - yes, with hindsight and in todays climate it would be termed abuse - but it is interesting how the punishments have changed.  Back then it was chocolate bars and sweet things, bought covertly on the way home, and (with hind sight) eaten on the part of the way home that was close enough to be considered safe territory.  Over time it has evolved into savoury, fatty foods - pizza, peanuts (any nuts in fact) cheeses and, in a non-addicted way, alcohol - specifically beer and cider.

And that brings things nearly full circle - what did I decide to force myself to cut down on recently?  That's right - beer and cider.  What have I done with my natural routine at work the last couple of weeks?  My lunch break is now so late that I do not want to eat in the evening and I have deliberately run the fridge out of food so that I CANNOT eat.  So this was what?  An anticipation of the fact that I was going to end up like this, craving to eat in response to how I feel?  Hardly?!  I don't think my grasp of my own psychology is that great.

But anyway, I now discover that this problem that I describe has a medical name - Binge Eating Disorder / Compulsive Eating Disorder.  From the little that I have read so far, the symptoms and emotional conditions seem to fit with me pretty much exactly.  The fact that I seem to be using it as a form of self-harm seems to fit too.  The question is what can I do now?  I seem to have some new information that helps me understand my situation a little better, but  how can I use it to improve my situation?  One thing that I have learned already is that the NHS have no acceptance of this and no treatment plan in place.  Private web sites are talking about psychological treatment and cognitive behavioural therapy - this sounds like some serious stuff and I cant grasp that.  I really am not ready to admit that I need that kind of help.  So that leaves self help - I've tried that before, but before I think Iw as trying to teal with something that I didn't have, so will I be more successful trying this - if it is actually my problem?

When I list our what I want from life - I mean REALLY want, not frivolous consumer goods and pointless short term things, things that would make my life complete, the answer / excuse that I throw back at myself is that I can't achieve, they haven't happened because I am fat.  I do not deserve them, because I am fat.  I have such a low self image of the 'real' me that I cannot find value for these to happen.  How do I deal with that?  HOW?

I have this nice, neat little construct that goes to work, fronts up to the world on the social occasions that I cannot avoid, and is all that is generally positive in what I portray.  then there is the person inside, insecure, looking for love and acceptance, painfully shy, with a very low self worth.  The outer shell isn't fake as such, it is made up out of parts of me, but the person that I really want to have the confidence to let out is the person inside.  I'm not gay, but I feel like I am in the closet.  Some how I have to out myself as a self hating person who suffers from an eating disorder.  I need someone to really love and support me, but I hate myself too much to allow that to happen, even to believe that I could find someone who could anyway.  And even if they did, I think I am so messed up right now that it would be very easy for me to mistake kindness and end up looking for something more that isn't there.

So that's the mess.

Father, in Jesus name, please give me the strength to get out of this mess somehow.

Christmas is just around the corner

So Christmas is nearly here.  Frankly I'm too tired for it to register really.  Totally cream crackered.  The last couple of days at work haven't been heaving but just the constant level of everything and the stress of trying to keep on top of it all.

We had the staff meal the other night and that was a good opportunity to let my hair down.  Now that I live locally and I don't have to drive I can actually have a drink without having to count units.  Only problem was trying to keep my mind (and eyes) in the right place.  Really not easy - why does it have to be this difficult?

Anyway, I've just about  reached my limit for energy right now.  If I am being honest I am not really in the mood for tomorrow night (invited out for the evening) but I guess I will be fine once I am actually there and things are going on.  I really don't want to go out con Christmas day though.  I just want to be at home and sleep.  I know that I have to go and see the remains of the family but I am not sure that I really want to.. One thing that I have learned about myself is that I can be really quite unsociable when I reach a certain point of tiredness.  Im not the most outgoing person at the best of times but there are certain things that just make me want to shut up shop and head inwards.  It's probably best to force myself not to but it feels like the instinctive thing to do.

Right now all I really want from Christmas is a long time in my own bed, a nice meal and a bottle of wine.  Don't thing much of that is on the cards really.  Frankly I hate the idea of going away at Christmas.  Used to hat it as a child, still hate it now.

I remember when I was really young, like four or five, I used to spend Christmas up at my Grand parents house in Oxford.  We used to travel up on Christmas eve.  Once we got there I would go out into the large garden, looking for twigs to help start the log fire for the evening, or possibly up onto Shotover Hill into the woods.  Once the fire was lit we were all in the main living room area and I remember it being warm and cosy.  Eventually at night I was packed off to bed.  Mum and Dad would eventually follow.  I would then be woken up again by them leaving for midnight mass, falling asleep for a while, and then being woken by them coming back again.  The room I used to stay in was a strange one, it had thin, rectangular fanlight windows along one wall, almost at roof level, and the first I knew of them coming back was seeing the car headlights glance through them.  At that point I just remember waking up on Christmas day, usually to the sound and smell of food being prepared.  Grandpa and I used to check through the fine ashes to look for embers from the night before and use these to relight the fire - I don't know how that started, probably my curiosity, but it became a sort of ritual.  At that point, everything revolved around the living room and the kitchen area, usually with me being accused of getting in the way.  There were usually other family members, Aunts, Uncles coming by after Church, never a quiet moment.  At the time it felt like an upheaval.  Now it seems like the golden age, representing everything that I wish Christmas could still be for me, and bringing a tear to my eye when I fondly remember those who have passed.  Infact, there's hardly any of the family left at all.

I know that the Lord must call us all home eventually, and those who are called should be remembered fondly and not mourned but this is really getting to me right now.  I can remember exactly how it was, how the people were back then, the way I want to remember them, and for all the fond memories, I cant help but cry because they are gone.

Good times

OK, so there's been much that has happened over the last couple of weeks.  the incidental stuff is that work is going well, business has picked up and there is a small supply of stock on the items that people want so we can actually sell stuff.  I've ordered a new iMac and that is due to ship in the next couple of days so the music studio will be back up and running with some new hardware.

The parting gift from the old setup was finished a couple of days ago and frankly its its a song that Ive been wanting to write for so long.  Ive had a crack at it  a couple of times and not really got anywhere with it but now I have some real progress and a finished article.  Its a Gospel House track, a preacher style sermon split into two verses, set over a tradition house sound.  Quite simple in many respects but done with passion and sincerity.  The inspiration came from a couple of sources.  I listen to a fair amount of Gospel House music anyway, I'm a big fan of DJ Revelation and the style of music he plays.  I also remember a song called "The Prophet" by CJ Bolland - that was far more tongue in cheek and almost a parody of evangelical preaching, I liked the style but wanted to 'play it straight' with what I feel.

Any how, it feels good to have done it and got it out there,  I just wish and pray that there is some more of this kind of stuff inside me, that just maybe, this could be a calling and I can do something with it.

I have often thought that if I could ever be so bold as to make a deal with God, I would ask that I was able to sing as well as write and produce, and in exchange I would use this talent only to His glory.  It doesn't work like that, and I am happy with what I have, but if the opportunity arose...

Anyway, other than that - I have the day off work today so I will be putting up the Christmas Tree and tinsel and then I have a friend coming down to stay tomorrow night and Wednesday as I am off work again.  After that the days off are all used up for a while and the mad patch begins.  I love it but it is pretty tiring.

On another matter, I still have some feelings towards someone that I wish I could shift.  Nothing will come from them, nothing can come form them, not least because they have a partner and further more, with a 10 year age gap between us, I'd feel like a dirty old man if I made the first move.  Age is nothing, I know, there was a decade between Mum and Dad and they would still be together now, had she not been taken from us.  However, when an older man is with a younger woman...  I just wouldn't ever want to be accused of taking advantage.

Anyway, it cant happen for various reasons, I just wish I didn't find them so attractive, I just wish I didn't 'get them' on a personal level.  It would just be easier if there was an off switch.