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Epilogue – Putting on the oxygen mask
Summary: After John talked to Mrs Hudson he found a support group in an online community for family and friends of people with eating disorders. These are his posts there.
Notes: This is the epilogue to Eating us alive, again. It's John’s place to vent. Everything is written with love, even though it contains self-pity, martyr tendencies, utter frustration and refusal to understand eating disorders and people suffering from it. It’s still strongly self-censured – let’s face it, he lives with Sherlock and can’t really trust his privacy.
Once again a huge thanks and all my love to Laura and M, without them this series wouldn't be what it is.
And I'm very proud of the HTML-code I've produced for this
20th March (16:02)
Hi.
I’m new here, so this is my introduction. My name is (not really) Hamish and I (really) live in London. I’m a former army doctor, was in Afghanistan in 09/10, and now I do locum work where I’m needed and/or wanted. For various reasons a more permanent solution has never been an option.
I live with a man (going to call him S) who suffers from an eating disorder. He hasn’t been properly diagnosed, because he refuses, but since I’m a doctor I know the medical term is “That bloody thing with damn tendencies”. It could also be anorexia nervosa with bulimic tendencies, but I’m not in a position to tell.
He has been struggling with this since forever, I think, he doesn’t want to tell me and I’ve stopped asking. This is the second time we’re going through it together, we had a little more than two good years in between. He has been purging since September, using emetics – idiot! – but it all started last December. So we’ve been at this for a while now.
That has to do for today.
Dr H.
12th April (19:24)
I’ve been reading here a lot since I last posted and the welcome you all gave me was overwhelming. Thank you so much, I don’t really know what to say.
Neither of us can really handle this right now, I suppose that’s why I’m here. He’s purging a lot right now, not binging for all I know, just restricting and purging. He keeps hydrated (I keep him hydrated), but that is all. I try telling myself that it’s at least something, but it’s really nothing.
He didn’t purge at all before he met me – hurray for me, right? He didn’t want me to worry after I’d found out about his (at the time) latent eating disorder. So he ate when he didn’t want to and ended up purging. If anyone knows how to get rid of that guilt, please….
Dr H.
14th April (09:28)
I hate the bathroom. It’s the worst part of the flat. If I didn’t hate the room so much because of what I know happens there I’d love the shower. The shower is amazing. It’s going to sound stupid, but in the shower I can pretend that I’m not crying. I know I can’t hide my crying from myself, but I have this idea that if I can’t feel the tears on my cheeks, it’s not really crying.
The fact that S can’t hear me is just pure bonus.
Dr H.
10th May (10:06)
He won’t let me touch him anymore. He has never been keen on me touching his stomach or his hips (and he’s ticklish on the inside of his knees, so that’s always off limits), but now he doesn’t even let me take his hand or stroke his hair.
So I can’t hold him, but he’s scared of the dark and he can’t sleep. I used to hold him until he fell asleep. It made him relax (made me relax). Now he lies next to me, night after night, and I can’t get him to sleep.
Any tips?
Dr H.
EDIT: No, he’s not scared of the dark when he’s not not-okay.
Edited: 10th May 12:41
17th May (21:12)
I’m having a bad day. He’s having an even worse one. I can’t help him, he won’t let me.
We fight constantly, about everything that isn’t his ED because I would probably need to put a bullet through my head if I yelled at him about that. We fight about bills, about his work, about my work, about his violin playing and about my choice of tea. It’s about taking out the trash, leaving things lying around, our friends…. We stand on opposite sides of the room and yell at each other until one of us loses breath and leaves.
We’re both so frustrated and we both know it, but the things I say…. I want to hurt him so bad and I can see that I succeed. I think he wants to hurt me just as much. Hurt me so that I give up and just leave him alone and the truth is, I want to do that. When we argue, I really want to leave and never, ever see him again. At those times I think that no S would mean no problems.
Then I remember that without him, I would probably have put that bullet through my head already. No S would also mean no me. At that realisation I always hate myself and that’s why I’m writing now. I think. We fought about toilet paper today.
I hate us both.
Dr H.
25th May (10:17)
I hate food. I hate the human need for it. I hate every single calorie in the entire world. Except the ones S eats and the ones he keeps down. Those calories I love. Did you know that there are about 60-65 calories in an orange? That’s if you eat a whole one. He never does.
I’ve been having real trouble eating for a while. It’s not as bad as last time when I actually stuck my fingers down my throat, but bad enough for S to notice. Some days ago he told me that I’ve lost a lot of weight but that’s a normal side-effect to not eating, I suppose. He more or less told me to stop being an idiot and all I wish is to be able to tell him the same.
I know my hang-ups aren’t the same as his hang-ups, but I just feel that if I can shape up and eat properly even though I don’t want to, if I can stop being an idiot, why can’t he?
Dr H.
1st June (20:51)
Deleted post
1st June (21:19)
Fuck…. I didn’t mean that.
2nd June (03:41)
I can’t sleep, I feel sick. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. Who says something like that?
He’s going to die. He doesn’t even drink properly right now. If he doesn’t stop this, he’s going to die and I can’t stand seeing him like this. I can’t watch him slowly kill himself this way. I don’t think he wants to die, but I’m not sure he wants to live either.
We had a discussion – or argument – last time, where I accused him of committing the slowest suicide in history and he made it perfectly clear that if he wanted to kill himself he knew of more efficient ways. I’m so scared he’s going to prove it, that he’ll wake up one day and overdoes because he can’t stand what we have right now.
He’s a former addict (I use the term ‘former’ very loosely) and I suspect the drug use and the ED comes from the same place. If that’s the case, what will stop him from changing from one to the other? The worst part is, sometimes I wish he would, because I know how to deal with ODs but clearly not with EDs.
I really don’t want him to die, I didn’t mean it.
Dr H.
5th June (19:32)
Thank you. For the comments and the mails and the support. I don’t even know how to start.
Thank you so, so much.
Dr H.
13th June (13:37)
I’ve seen some of you telling stories about your ED:ers eating rituals, so I thought I’d share how S eats oranges. I had never seen him eat an orange before November, but now I think we might be the biggest consumers of oranges in England.
He takes four or five at the time, peels all of them with meticulous precision (everything in his life is done that way, it’s impressing and unnerving at the same time) and then he takes three pieces from each orange, lining them up in a straight line. After that he eats every second piece (starting from the left) before eating the rest of them.
The rest of the five oranges he leaves for me and frankly, I would be happy if I never saw another orange in my life! I’m that tired of them! At least it’s not bananas, I hate bananas. If anyone knows what to do with three oranges or so, please tell me.
He leaves the peels everywhere, so you know, anyone out there with kids who knows how to make him pick up after himself…I’d take advice on that too.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, the ‘lullabies’ works, I read scientific research articles to him until he falls asleep.
Dr H.
2nd July (18:36)
Inspired by Sai28’s story I suggested to S that he should come with me to do some grocery shopping. The look he gave me….
I think I can count on my left hand the times S has done the groceries since we moved in together and I’ve been more than a little annoyed by his laziness. After re-reading your story Sai, I’ve started to wonder if the ED is why though. Never imagined supermarkets could be scary, but maybe they can? I know I still struggle with some things from my time in Afghanistan (sounds mostly). I don’t want to place him in a situation where he can have a panic attack.
Should I bring it up again?
Dr H.
7th July (09:30)
I feel isolated. It’s my own fault, but I can’t seem to talk to my friends anymore. Their lives are filled with, well, life; love and work and children and cars that won’t start and holiday plans and football and that new little restaurant at the corner. My life is filled with calorie counts and hiding food (we both do it, it’s pathetic) and obsessive cleaning of the bathroom floor and night terrors and betrayal and guilt.
I hate lying to them, so I just avoid them instead.
Dr H.
15th July (11:05)
Does it help to know why?
Sometimes it feels like if I just knew the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ everything would be better. That I could help. That I could, I don’t know, heal it? Knowing the reason he started to purge (me!) didn’t really lead to anything, but I still want to know it all. Everything.
Don’t I have the right to know why we live in this hell?
Dr H.
21st July (09:47)
Yesterday we fought about socks; his socks, which he spreads all over the flat. We stood in the kitchen and yelled at each other for almost an hour, I think, before I threw a mug on the floor and he left.
At around 3 I woke up when S crept in under my covers and held me and allowed me to hold him back. It’s strange how happy it made me; it’s the best sleep I’ve had for weeks.
I just wanted to share something happy for a change.
Dr H.
3rd August (20:07)
This is a conversation we have once every third month or so, when I feel brave:
Me: How about seeking some professional help?
S: Like your therapist?
Me: Not my therapist, but someone who has experience with EDs.
S: No.
Today though, it went like this.
Me: How about seeking some professional help?
S: Like your therapist?
Me: Not my therapist, but someone who has experience with EDs.
S: You’re the only help I need.
It just dumbfounded me completely; I still haven’t recovered. I don’t believe him, I don’t believe I can provide all the help he needs, but I think he believes it. The trust is just overwhelming, not to mention frightening. I wish I could be enough for him, but I don’t think I can.
He’s a manipulative bastard though, he really is, and he knows a comment like this will shut me up for weeks. When the emotional roller-coaster stops, I’ll just have to try again. Right?
On a similar note, I’m flattered by all the questions you guys have been sending my way and I’ll get around to answer them, I will, but I’m not really the right person to ask. There are far better – and more objective! – doctors than me out there. When it comes to this I’m just as lost as you are, believe me, so don’t take what I say as medical advice (except the importance of hydration). Your advice is just as good (or even better) than mine.
Dr H.
5th August (18:50)
Do you pretend that you have normal lives sometimes? That life doesn’t revolve round food or calories or any of it? We do.
S curls up beside me on the sofa with a package of salty crackers and two mugs of tea, wrapping his blanket around us. It’s like becoming a child again, building a house of pillows and blankets and hide from a world that doesn’t understand. Then we tell stories about our life from before we met. I talk about my time at uni and Afghanistan, S shares stories about his work and the – to me as an outsider – strange traditions of his public school.
Sometimes, when we sit there, I forget the reality we live in and we’re honestly happy under the blanket, I think. It’s such an easy trick (highly recommended). It’s the illusion of a normality we never experience when S is well, but I actually enjoy it. Is it terrible to say that I’ve missed it from the last time around?
Dr H.
29th August (15:21)
He just took a second bowl of soup! The soup isn’t all that amazing – tomato soup, he used milk instead of cream, too much garlic – but that really isn’t the point. Last time he had seconds…I can’t even remember when that was. Probably sometime before the purging started.
Speaking of, I don’t think I’ve told you guys, I haven’t caught him doing that in a while and he says he doesn’t anymore. Am I a complete fool to trust him? Has he just become much better at hiding from me? I mean, I do still go to work for most parts of the day – god knows we need my income since he’s not fully capable to work (he’ll kill me in my sleep if he reads this).
I’m so happy that I can’t be happy because I’m scared, does that make sense? I’m so happy right now that I’m afraid for the moment reality will hit and it all just crashes down again. Because it’s going to be completely horrible. The higher you rise, the harder you fall, right?
I hate hope.
This was all very incoherent…. I think.
Dr H.
18th September (20:06)
Did anyone see the story about EDs on the news just now? They talked about how the average age for girls with EDs (they mentioned AN and BN and misspelled nervosa) has gone down. Then it went on like it always does with beauty ideals and pressure and all of that.
I hate that simplified version of the truth. ED has taken over my life, but that description of reality doesn’t describe the one I’m living in. Even though I don’t know why S struggles with this, I’m fairly sure it’s not because he thinks he’s fat or ugly. Nor is he a teenage girl! He is a soon-to-be middle age man and he’s fighting so hard and this constant labelling it as a young girls’ problem doesn’t make it easier!
I threw the remote at the telly by the way. That’s how grown up I am.
Dr H.
EDIT: I didn’t mean to offend anyone, I’m sorry. I know that the picture they draw is the reality for a majority. I’m just saying it’s frustrated to have this one-dimensional view of it.
Edited: 19th August 09:31
25th September (19:02)
I talked to our landlady today, she is the sweetest woman and the one who suggested I’d seek some help for myself. She sends her love and so do I.
I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Dr H.
13th October (17:05)
We had a talk last night. Few things prompt a conversation as much as finding someone on the bathroom floor, though I think S spends more time on floors in general than the normal British adult. I don’t really know what to do about the conversation, I feel so strange about it.
I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to write a summary of it that makes sense, it just doesn’t work. I don’t know what to say. He said he’s getting better, but he also said he doesn’t want to because he’s afraid I’ll stop caring about him.
How can he think that? He’s supposed to be the most brilliant man I know. I’m so angry with him! I’m even angrier with me for making him believe something like that. Honestly, I don’t know if I want to hit him or hug him. I feel so stupid for not realising it even though I’m aware that I couldn’t possibly have known.
Despite all of this, I feel relieved. At ease. He talked to me, he said he was getting better and he gave me a problem to fix. I have no idea what I’m talking about. Quite frankly, I might still be in shock.
Just as a side note, I’m too old for spending most of the night on the bathroom floor. Actually, I don’t think anyone can be young enough to sit on a tile floor for eight hours. It’s just insane to spend that much time on a tile floor, on any floor for that matter.
That’s my professional opinion!
Dr H.
27th October (18:49)
We went grocery shopping yesterday!
He complained the entire way there – no exaggeration – that it was boring and he refused to go inside when we got there. We had an absurd discussion where I promised that he didn’t have to touch anything and that I wouldn’t let anything hurt him, he said something about inane objects couldn’t hurt him and I ended up comparing groceries with bullets to make a point I’m sure wasn’t worth making.
I wanted to tell him that it was okay to be afraid of inane objects because they can hurt you, but I think I told him groceries could come flying at him at great speed and kill him. Is that very bad? It made him go inside though, probably to shut me up before I said something worse.
I read the shopping list to him and told him to just follow me and we’d be done soon. He told me that if I’d dragged him there, he was going to pick the tea because I, apparently, can’t and that he’d meet me at the checkout. I thought he was trying to prove something, but he left and we met up at the checkout. He was exhausted, it was only 15 minutes (20 minutes tops), but he was drained and he went to bed as soon as we got home. Still, I think he was satisfied. And proud – I’m proud.
He came out around 7 p.m. and we made breakfast for dinner! With eggs and bacon and beans and toast and the tea he had picked out. He didn’t touch the bacon, but he ate the rest.
Dr H.
7th November (19:51)
I don’t know what we are to each other anymore. I don’t mean that as a bad thing, it’s just how it is.
Dr H.
20th January (15:47)
S did something stupid today. I don’t mean ED-stupid, but something completely moronic! Not going to tell you what he did – you wouldn’t believe it anyway. It was one of those times when I just wanted to snap his neck.
The problem is, I can’t be mad. I want to be mad. I want to be so angry and yell at him. I haven’t been this angry with him for months, probably not even a year. I haven’t allowed myself to be this angry with him and every time I manage to get mad at him for this (stupid, stupid, stupid) thing I realise that I can be angry with him again and that makes me happy.
My happiness is ruining my anger and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Dr H.
16th February (18:35)
I ran into a friend today. It was great, haven’t seen her in a while (my fault more than hers, I suppose). She asked how everything was and I said that everything was fine, because, you know, you’re supposed to say that.
Then, when I got home, I realised that everything actually is fine.
We’re fine.
He’s fine or at least getting there.
I think we made it.
Dr H.
Notes: This is the epilogue to Eating us alive, again. It's John’s place to vent. Everything is written with love, even though it contains self-pity, martyr tendencies, utter frustration and refusal to understand eating disorders and people suffering from it. It’s still strongly self-censured – let’s face it, he lives with Sherlock and can’t really trust his privacy.
Once again a huge thanks and all my love to Laura and M, without them this series wouldn't be what it is.
And I'm very proud of the HTML-code I've produced for this
20th March (16:02)
Hi.
I’m new here, so this is my introduction. My name is (not really) Hamish and I (really) live in London. I’m a former army doctor, was in Afghanistan in 09/10, and now I do locum work where I’m needed and/or wanted. For various reasons a more permanent solution has never been an option.
I live with a man (going to call him S) who suffers from an eating disorder. He hasn’t been properly diagnosed, because he refuses, but since I’m a doctor I know the medical term is “That bloody thing with damn tendencies”. It could also be anorexia nervosa with bulimic tendencies, but I’m not in a position to tell.
He has been struggling with this since forever, I think, he doesn’t want to tell me and I’ve stopped asking. This is the second time we’re going through it together, we had a little more than two good years in between. He has been purging since September, using emetics – idiot! – but it all started last December. So we’ve been at this for a while now.
That has to do for today.
Dr H.
36 comments
12th April (19:24)
I’ve been reading here a lot since I last posted and the welcome you all gave me was overwhelming. Thank you so much, I don’t really know what to say.
Neither of us can really handle this right now, I suppose that’s why I’m here. He’s purging a lot right now, not binging for all I know, just restricting and purging. He keeps hydrated (I keep him hydrated), but that is all. I try telling myself that it’s at least something, but it’s really nothing.
He didn’t purge at all before he met me – hurray for me, right? He didn’t want me to worry after I’d found out about his (at the time) latent eating disorder. So he ate when he didn’t want to and ended up purging. If anyone knows how to get rid of that guilt, please….
Dr H.
17 comments
14th April (09:28)
I hate the bathroom. It’s the worst part of the flat. If I didn’t hate the room so much because of what I know happens there I’d love the shower. The shower is amazing. It’s going to sound stupid, but in the shower I can pretend that I’m not crying. I know I can’t hide my crying from myself, but I have this idea that if I can’t feel the tears on my cheeks, it’s not really crying.
The fact that S can’t hear me is just pure bonus.
Dr H.
5 comments
10th May (10:06)
He won’t let me touch him anymore. He has never been keen on me touching his stomach or his hips (and he’s ticklish on the inside of his knees, so that’s always off limits), but now he doesn’t even let me take his hand or stroke his hair.
So I can’t hold him, but he’s scared of the dark and he can’t sleep. I used to hold him until he fell asleep. It made him relax (made me relax). Now he lies next to me, night after night, and I can’t get him to sleep.
Any tips?
Dr H.
EDIT: No, he’s not scared of the dark when he’s not not-okay.
Edited: 10th May 12:41
49 comments
17th May (21:12)
I’m having a bad day. He’s having an even worse one. I can’t help him, he won’t let me.
We fight constantly, about everything that isn’t his ED because I would probably need to put a bullet through my head if I yelled at him about that. We fight about bills, about his work, about my work, about his violin playing and about my choice of tea. It’s about taking out the trash, leaving things lying around, our friends…. We stand on opposite sides of the room and yell at each other until one of us loses breath and leaves.
We’re both so frustrated and we both know it, but the things I say…. I want to hurt him so bad and I can see that I succeed. I think he wants to hurt me just as much. Hurt me so that I give up and just leave him alone and the truth is, I want to do that. When we argue, I really want to leave and never, ever see him again. At those times I think that no S would mean no problems.
Then I remember that without him, I would probably have put that bullet through my head already. No S would also mean no me. At that realisation I always hate myself and that’s why I’m writing now. I think. We fought about toilet paper today.
I hate us both.
Dr H.
51 comments
25th May (10:17)
I hate food. I hate the human need for it. I hate every single calorie in the entire world. Except the ones S eats and the ones he keeps down. Those calories I love. Did you know that there are about 60-65 calories in an orange? That’s if you eat a whole one. He never does.
I’ve been having real trouble eating for a while. It’s not as bad as last time when I actually stuck my fingers down my throat, but bad enough for S to notice. Some days ago he told me that I’ve lost a lot of weight but that’s a normal side-effect to not eating, I suppose. He more or less told me to stop being an idiot and all I wish is to be able to tell him the same.
I know my hang-ups aren’t the same as his hang-ups, but I just feel that if I can shape up and eat properly even though I don’t want to, if I can stop being an idiot, why can’t he?
Dr H.
22 comments
1st June (20:51)
Deleted post
1st June (21:19)
Fuck…. I didn’t mean that.
16 comments
2nd June (03:41)
I can’t sleep, I feel sick. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. Who says something like that?
He’s going to die. He doesn’t even drink properly right now. If he doesn’t stop this, he’s going to die and I can’t stand seeing him like this. I can’t watch him slowly kill himself this way. I don’t think he wants to die, but I’m not sure he wants to live either.
We had a discussion – or argument – last time, where I accused him of committing the slowest suicide in history and he made it perfectly clear that if he wanted to kill himself he knew of more efficient ways. I’m so scared he’s going to prove it, that he’ll wake up one day and overdoes because he can’t stand what we have right now.
He’s a former addict (I use the term ‘former’ very loosely) and I suspect the drug use and the ED comes from the same place. If that’s the case, what will stop him from changing from one to the other? The worst part is, sometimes I wish he would, because I know how to deal with ODs but clearly not with EDs.
I really don’t want him to die, I didn’t mean it.
Dr H.
92 comments
5th June (19:32)
Thank you. For the comments and the mails and the support. I don’t even know how to start.
Thank you so, so much.
Dr H.
47 comments
13th June (13:37)
I’ve seen some of you telling stories about your ED:ers eating rituals, so I thought I’d share how S eats oranges. I had never seen him eat an orange before November, but now I think we might be the biggest consumers of oranges in England.
He takes four or five at the time, peels all of them with meticulous precision (everything in his life is done that way, it’s impressing and unnerving at the same time) and then he takes three pieces from each orange, lining them up in a straight line. After that he eats every second piece (starting from the left) before eating the rest of them.
The rest of the five oranges he leaves for me and frankly, I would be happy if I never saw another orange in my life! I’m that tired of them! At least it’s not bananas, I hate bananas. If anyone knows what to do with three oranges or so, please tell me.
He leaves the peels everywhere, so you know, anyone out there with kids who knows how to make him pick up after himself…I’d take advice on that too.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, the ‘lullabies’ works, I read scientific research articles to him until he falls asleep.
Dr H.
18 comments
2nd July (18:36)
Inspired by Sai28’s story I suggested to S that he should come with me to do some grocery shopping. The look he gave me….
I think I can count on my left hand the times S has done the groceries since we moved in together and I’ve been more than a little annoyed by his laziness. After re-reading your story Sai, I’ve started to wonder if the ED is why though. Never imagined supermarkets could be scary, but maybe they can? I know I still struggle with some things from my time in Afghanistan (sounds mostly). I don’t want to place him in a situation where he can have a panic attack.
Should I bring it up again?
Dr H.
38 comments
7th July (09:30)
I feel isolated. It’s my own fault, but I can’t seem to talk to my friends anymore. Their lives are filled with, well, life; love and work and children and cars that won’t start and holiday plans and football and that new little restaurant at the corner. My life is filled with calorie counts and hiding food (we both do it, it’s pathetic) and obsessive cleaning of the bathroom floor and night terrors and betrayal and guilt.
I hate lying to them, so I just avoid them instead.
Dr H.
14 comments
15th July (11:05)
Does it help to know why?
Sometimes it feels like if I just knew the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ everything would be better. That I could help. That I could, I don’t know, heal it? Knowing the reason he started to purge (me!) didn’t really lead to anything, but I still want to know it all. Everything.
Don’t I have the right to know why we live in this hell?
Dr H.
19 comments
21st July (09:47)
Yesterday we fought about socks; his socks, which he spreads all over the flat. We stood in the kitchen and yelled at each other for almost an hour, I think, before I threw a mug on the floor and he left.
At around 3 I woke up when S crept in under my covers and held me and allowed me to hold him back. It’s strange how happy it made me; it’s the best sleep I’ve had for weeks.
I just wanted to share something happy for a change.
Dr H.
19 comments
3rd August (20:07)
This is a conversation we have once every third month or so, when I feel brave:
Me: How about seeking some professional help?
S: Like your therapist?
Me: Not my therapist, but someone who has experience with EDs.
S: No.
Today though, it went like this.
Me: How about seeking some professional help?
S: Like your therapist?
Me: Not my therapist, but someone who has experience with EDs.
S: You’re the only help I need.
It just dumbfounded me completely; I still haven’t recovered. I don’t believe him, I don’t believe I can provide all the help he needs, but I think he believes it. The trust is just overwhelming, not to mention frightening. I wish I could be enough for him, but I don’t think I can.
He’s a manipulative bastard though, he really is, and he knows a comment like this will shut me up for weeks. When the emotional roller-coaster stops, I’ll just have to try again. Right?
On a similar note, I’m flattered by all the questions you guys have been sending my way and I’ll get around to answer them, I will, but I’m not really the right person to ask. There are far better – and more objective! – doctors than me out there. When it comes to this I’m just as lost as you are, believe me, so don’t take what I say as medical advice (except the importance of hydration). Your advice is just as good (or even better) than mine.
Dr H.
20 comments
5th August (18:50)
Do you pretend that you have normal lives sometimes? That life doesn’t revolve round food or calories or any of it? We do.
S curls up beside me on the sofa with a package of salty crackers and two mugs of tea, wrapping his blanket around us. It’s like becoming a child again, building a house of pillows and blankets and hide from a world that doesn’t understand. Then we tell stories about our life from before we met. I talk about my time at uni and Afghanistan, S shares stories about his work and the – to me as an outsider – strange traditions of his public school.
Sometimes, when we sit there, I forget the reality we live in and we’re honestly happy under the blanket, I think. It’s such an easy trick (highly recommended). It’s the illusion of a normality we never experience when S is well, but I actually enjoy it. Is it terrible to say that I’ve missed it from the last time around?
Dr H.
42 comments
29th August (15:21)
He just took a second bowl of soup! The soup isn’t all that amazing – tomato soup, he used milk instead of cream, too much garlic – but that really isn’t the point. Last time he had seconds…I can’t even remember when that was. Probably sometime before the purging started.
Speaking of, I don’t think I’ve told you guys, I haven’t caught him doing that in a while and he says he doesn’t anymore. Am I a complete fool to trust him? Has he just become much better at hiding from me? I mean, I do still go to work for most parts of the day – god knows we need my income since he’s not fully capable to work (he’ll kill me in my sleep if he reads this).
I’m so happy that I can’t be happy because I’m scared, does that make sense? I’m so happy right now that I’m afraid for the moment reality will hit and it all just crashes down again. Because it’s going to be completely horrible. The higher you rise, the harder you fall, right?
I hate hope.
This was all very incoherent…. I think.
Dr H.
23 comments
18th September (20:06)
Did anyone see the story about EDs on the news just now? They talked about how the average age for girls with EDs (they mentioned AN and BN and misspelled nervosa) has gone down. Then it went on like it always does with beauty ideals and pressure and all of that.
I hate that simplified version of the truth. ED has taken over my life, but that description of reality doesn’t describe the one I’m living in. Even though I don’t know why S struggles with this, I’m fairly sure it’s not because he thinks he’s fat or ugly. Nor is he a teenage girl! He is a soon-to-be middle age man and he’s fighting so hard and this constant labelling it as a young girls’ problem doesn’t make it easier!
I threw the remote at the telly by the way. That’s how grown up I am.
Dr H.
EDIT: I didn’t mean to offend anyone, I’m sorry. I know that the picture they draw is the reality for a majority. I’m just saying it’s frustrated to have this one-dimensional view of it.
Edited: 19th August 09:31
137 comments
25th September (19:02)
I talked to our landlady today, she is the sweetest woman and the one who suggested I’d seek some help for myself. She sends her love and so do I.
I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Dr H.
14 comments
13th October (17:05)
We had a talk last night. Few things prompt a conversation as much as finding someone on the bathroom floor, though I think S spends more time on floors in general than the normal British adult. I don’t really know what to do about the conversation, I feel so strange about it.
I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to write a summary of it that makes sense, it just doesn’t work. I don’t know what to say. He said he’s getting better, but he also said he doesn’t want to because he’s afraid I’ll stop caring about him.
How can he think that? He’s supposed to be the most brilliant man I know. I’m so angry with him! I’m even angrier with me for making him believe something like that. Honestly, I don’t know if I want to hit him or hug him. I feel so stupid for not realising it even though I’m aware that I couldn’t possibly have known.
Despite all of this, I feel relieved. At ease. He talked to me, he said he was getting better and he gave me a problem to fix. I have no idea what I’m talking about. Quite frankly, I might still be in shock.
Just as a side note, I’m too old for spending most of the night on the bathroom floor. Actually, I don’t think anyone can be young enough to sit on a tile floor for eight hours. It’s just insane to spend that much time on a tile floor, on any floor for that matter.
That’s my professional opinion!
Dr H.
45 comments
27th October (18:49)
We went grocery shopping yesterday!
He complained the entire way there – no exaggeration – that it was boring and he refused to go inside when we got there. We had an absurd discussion where I promised that he didn’t have to touch anything and that I wouldn’t let anything hurt him, he said something about inane objects couldn’t hurt him and I ended up comparing groceries with bullets to make a point I’m sure wasn’t worth making.
I wanted to tell him that it was okay to be afraid of inane objects because they can hurt you, but I think I told him groceries could come flying at him at great speed and kill him. Is that very bad? It made him go inside though, probably to shut me up before I said something worse.
I read the shopping list to him and told him to just follow me and we’d be done soon. He told me that if I’d dragged him there, he was going to pick the tea because I, apparently, can’t and that he’d meet me at the checkout. I thought he was trying to prove something, but he left and we met up at the checkout. He was exhausted, it was only 15 minutes (20 minutes tops), but he was drained and he went to bed as soon as we got home. Still, I think he was satisfied. And proud – I’m proud.
He came out around 7 p.m. and we made breakfast for dinner! With eggs and bacon and beans and toast and the tea he had picked out. He didn’t touch the bacon, but he ate the rest.
Dr H.
31 comments
7th November (19:51)
I don’t know what we are to each other anymore. I don’t mean that as a bad thing, it’s just how it is.
Dr H.
65 comments
20th January (15:47)
S did something stupid today. I don’t mean ED-stupid, but something completely moronic! Not going to tell you what he did – you wouldn’t believe it anyway. It was one of those times when I just wanted to snap his neck.
The problem is, I can’t be mad. I want to be mad. I want to be so angry and yell at him. I haven’t been this angry with him for months, probably not even a year. I haven’t allowed myself to be this angry with him and every time I manage to get mad at him for this (stupid, stupid, stupid) thing I realise that I can be angry with him again and that makes me happy.
My happiness is ruining my anger and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Dr H.
14 comments
16th February (18:35)
I ran into a friend today. It was great, haven’t seen her in a while (my fault more than hers, I suppose). She asked how everything was and I said that everything was fine, because, you know, you’re supposed to say that.
Then, when I got home, I realised that everything actually is fine.
We’re fine.
He’s fine or at least getting there.
I think we made it.
Dr H.
89 comments
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I really like that we're seeing all of this from John's perspective. And that you've clearly shown how ED affects not just the individual, but everyone they are close to. That sense of helplessness and guilt and fear of hope and anger is so well-explored throughout this series. And so is the sense of love and trust between these two men. Me, I have my shippy glasses firmly in place ('cause that's how I roll), but even if it's platonic, they obviously love each other very much.
I'm happy you posted this epilog. It's good to see John getting some support (thank you, Mrs. Hudson!). That's a crucial part of him being able to maintain his own sanity and well-being. He needed to have a place where he could vent and ask questions and just connect with people who are in the same position that he is. I'm sure that went a long way toward getting both of them through this particular downturn.
Anyway, I have nattered on too much, but I just want to say again how much I love this series!
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And thank you for sharing. It’s hard every time someone say they relate, because I don’t want anyone to live like this but at the same time it makes the world a little bit less alone. Whatever Sherlock might claim, alone does not protect you!
I think that’s what the epilogue is about, John recognising that he can’t do it alone, that they can’t. (Well, that and to stop me from doing every entry in that forum to a chapter ;) )I don’t doubt for a second that his opportunity to vent and talk about it is how he managed to stand by Sherlock this time. Actually don’t know how he managed the last time, but I suppose Sherlock never got as bad or maybe because it was a shorter period of time.
The John POV came very natural when I moved away from the prompt fill last time, it was an easier approach and I don’t think I could write Sherlock’s side of it in a convincing way. I just know this topic from the outside and not the inside. I still thought it was important to show that John has problems of his own (that are not ED-related) and that Sherlock doesn’t forget this and that they take care of each other.
Love your shipping glasses and encourage the use of them! :) I wrote it as
puregen, but it was harder this time than the last and the line got very blurred in my head at the end. Not even John knows what they are to each other anymore, so how could I? ;)Apparently I found a way to respond ;) and it became a lot of it! Again, thank you so much for all the nice and wonderful things you said! It means the world.
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