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So during this time, as I would make my way once every one or two days into the kitchen to eat a single piece of buttered toast, I would often notice one particular wall. when walking down the hallway, at the far end is a wall…you could barely call it a wall, really. more of a semi-wall, a half-ling, who’s existence served merely to separate, to some degree, the living room and the kitchen. It was one of those awkward spaces in a house which exist purely as a side effect of all the other things which have purpose.
I ‘d long ago stuck a couple of those cheap plastic hooks on it for my keys, and it served as a space to remove and leave one’s shoes when entering the home. Beyond that, it was little more than a dank corner, an afterthought where neglect goes to hide. Below the key-hooks had been scuffed from years of keys being removed and replaced, and along the baseboard had been similarly scuffed from years of shoes being removed a little to energetically and gently marking the wall. But just as water erodes a stone, so do these subtle imperfections compound over time. and every time I walked down that hallway, I’d begun noticing them more and more.
Occasionally whilst waiting for the toaster I’d gently probe the dents and scuffs with my finger…..wasn’t too deep….could probably fill that with a little mud….wasn’t too scuffed…a good scrubbing…maybe even a lick of paint….i could probably do that….it’s not like it’s a BIG wall…I bet I can handle a little mud…a little paint…
Now, it doesn’t sound like much, but this was in and of itself new to me. “I could” “I can” Phrases until now largely unknown to my inner-dialogue. and they hadn’t come from any self-help books, mirror faced mantras, or any conscious effort at all. They’d simply emerged, organically, of their own accord.
As the days passed and my body began to repair itself, something else also began. At first it was a curiosity, gradually congealing into eagerness, then into quiet anticipation and finally metastizising into full-blown excitement.
This was the next step, my next measurable progress. I was going to fix the wall.
A couple of weeks had by now passed, and though I was still a bit shaky, and quick to become fatigued, the second I felt even momentarily capable I got dressed and bundled myself into the car, straight to the hardware store. There I bought and primers and brushes and mud and sandpaper, arms full and eyes glimmering I struggled to the car, determined. I was going to fix the wall. And so I did – I plastered the dents, and waited a day for it to dry, each time i entered the kitchen walking over to the wall to see the progress of it’s drying, the quality of my approach. Eventually I sanded and primed the repairs, then I took a bit of chipped paint back to the hardware store and hurriedly matched the paint, I bought fresh painters tape and rollers, even a fit-for-purpose handled bucket for the cutting in. the wall, perhaps spanning just over a meter in length, took me 3 days. “but that’s ok” I’d told myself “I’m learning” “just like the walks – the more I do the better I’ll get. “it doesn’t have to all be done at once – things happens in stages” Once again, these thoughts hadn’t been imposed, they weren’t some trite attempt at “positive self-talk”, they were just….organic, natural, a learned behaviour repeating itself.
Looking back to that sunny day, covered in paint and tape and plasterers mud…..was perhaps the most hopeful I’ve ever been.
I was doing.
Something had changed during those 2 weeks on the antibiotics, some….evil had been purged from me, a darkness expelled – I hadn’t made the connection yet, but the shift was undeniably evident. I was thinking clearer, I was experiencing happiness, actual happiness, for the first time in my life. Not the dizzying escape of intoxication masquerading as joy that I was used to, but genuine fulfilment. And of course, the addict in me couldn’t just….stop there. The wall itself meets in the corner with the back door, which had been similarly neglected over the decades. “it’d look silly to have one perfect wall next to this grungy old door….in fact the contrast makes the door look worse“ And so of course I removed the fixtures, taped it up….and rejuvenated it as well. …but that door was met by another wall…which then lead to the pantry doors…which then led down the hallway….
A month later I found myself, one gorgeous sunny day, standing in my completely empty bedroom, covered in paint and sweat and putty. I’d stripped everything out of it, patched, plastered, sanded the walls, torn down and thrown out the old curtains and lamp, sold the old dresser and side-table…it was day 3 of the full room renovation and what was once the darkly sinister theatre in which my active decay had played out, was now more of an active construction site, filled with sun and air and hope and fresh paint. And surprsingly, I couldn’t have been happier.
It reached a point where on one trip to a hardware store on the other side of town – on a quest for a specific piece of equipment – I found myself sitting in my beat up old car, no air-conditioning, engine whining in distress, steering wheel gently trembling, music playing out of a cheap bluetooth speaker haphazardly jammed in the open glove-box….stuck in totally stationary traffic. 2 minutes became 5, became 10…. But the sky was so blue. The sun was so warm. And the breeze so cool and fresh. Around me, people visibly lamented their predicament….but me? As I peacefully lay back against my headrest, dreamily watching the clouds drifting gently through that crisp blue sky, the bluest blue I’d ever seen, I smiled – not just on my face, but in the very depths of my soul – and throughout my entire being, like a blinding sunrise. And for the first time in my entire life, in all my nearly 40 years….I felt a deep, honest, raw and absolute – Joy. I was outside everything was so beautiful, and I was a part of it now. I was doing things I was capable of doing thingsnow – I had energy, and discipline, and control. I was a person now. A real person!
as has been established, thing were certanily improving. not perfect, but improving. Diet, Sleep and Exercise were all doing their bit, enabled initially by the profound impact of the correct medication.
but not everything can go right all the time, can it? It started with a slight pain on the exterior of my left ear, which worsened over coming days. Eventually it was some ungodly hour of the morning and I was writhing about in bed consumed by an exquisite agony.
The first round of antibiotics seemed to do the trick, and after a just over a week I surmised that I was healed, and this had just been a minor hiccup.
Then…my right ear developed a similar pain. Terrified of a repeat of the suffering I’d just endured, I immediately returned to the doctor, and another course of antibiotics was started. and sure enough, -just- before it started to get as bad as the last time, it began to subside and clear up. it’d been nearly a month now that I’d been knocked around with infections and antibiotics, I’d lost ground with my progress, all 3 pillars of progress, diet, sleep & exercise had been negatively impacted, and I was determined to get back to the progress I had been making. In fact, I was -terrified- that this disruption may halt my progress entirely, that if I didn’t push forward NOW I may end up trapped again, locked in that bed staring at that ceiling, begging whatever deity would care to listen for an escape from my misery, for the sweet embrace of the abyss. And so I pushed forward, hard, I grit my teeth and tried to regain all lost ground. Walking every single day, eating whole foods, every single day, sleeping 9 hours, every single day, stacking one day after another, after another. But it didn’t last long. The Infection returned with a furious vengeance, this time in both ears. Hesitant to put me back on antibiotics but with little choice, as I sat clutching at my skull like it were breaking open, close to tears in her office, my doctor prescribed another script. The first day passed…then the second and the third….but there was no improvement, in fact, it was somehow getting worse. The infection had become resistant to the antibiotics…. Like some kind of hateful parasite it had evolved, and was determined to kill me. I’d barely slept for days, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t rest even a moment for the agony constantly screaming through my head like a powerful engine fuelled entirely by hate.
So my doctor, concerned that the infection had become or would very soon become osteomyelitis, and was eating away the delicate bones in my ear…prescribed 2 dangerously powerful antibiotics. Fluoroquinolones. There is currently a class-action lawsuit in the US regarding their side effects, them being linked to severe musculoskeletal side effects, including disabling tendonitis and Achilles tendon ruptures affecting the limbs. For 2 weeks, every 4 hours I would rise and take a combination of these various pills before collapsing back into an exhausted, struggling heap beneath my blankets. I could barely eat during this time, and wasn’t permitted even milk or coffee whilst taking them, lest their impact be lessened.
This regime of medications absolutely wiped me out, in more ways than one. In fact, they weren’t just wiping me out in a metaphorical sense, they were also wiping out my Micro-Biome, in a biological sense. The tiny yet crucial gut-bacteria which have a surprisingly profound impact on the rest of the body were being completely irradicated. it was a tummy holocaust. And it was here, and this complete annihilation of my existing gut biome, that I discovered something so crucial as to be life-altering. Not just it’s profound importance on wellbeing – but the deep, all-encompassing impact that my micro-biome had been having on my life.
As all of these changes to my medications, sleep, diet, alcohol consumption and more were taking place, there was one constant amongst it all, and that was my persistence in going for walks.
Only now, my walks had become more like hikes. When I first started my recovery, I remember barely managing a 700m walk.
I’d had to learn about sunburn, and portable hydration. I’d pushed through the embarrassment I’d felt wearing shorts, and being seen walking, sweating, gasping for breath and found a confidence. Albeit hidden beneath my hat, glasses, and earphones, my walking gear had become a sort of costume, a suit of armor that I could comfortably hide beneath, whilst exploring the seemingly foreign outside world.
And I kept fighting and sweating and learning, and in time those 700m had become 3km which became 5km… I contracted covid, and lost a great deal of my progress…but once recovered I persisted.
And so after a step back to 3km, they quickly became 5km once again, which then became 6km, became 7km…
I suffered a couple of injuries, and so there were a couple of days where I found myself limping, dragging my injured leg furiously through gritted teeth and pouring rain… But this was to me, the foundation upon which I was rebuilding the rest of my life.
Walking had also provided me somewhere to ‘put’ my anxiety. In the past, when I was experiencing large emotional responses I found it difficult to endure, I’d immediately and without hesitation race to the nearest source of alcohol, and bury myself in intoxication. However now that I had the option of walking, I found that I could suit up in my protective armor, grab my water bottle, and walk the anxiety out. I had somewhere to channel that nervous energy, and I had a…sort of time out from the world. I had an hour or more to just…be with my thoughts, to sort through the clutter that had accumulated in my mind, and if any thoughts were particularily frustrating, or distressing, I could just pick up the pace and ‘walk it out’. I found that I could charge up a steep incline at a swift pace, and it created in away a similar sense of the self flagellation I got from drinking. It could feel, in a way, destructive, however it was inevitably quite the opposite. The more I walked, the fitter I became. and, even better, muscles when exercised release “happy chemicals”, primarily endorphins, which are natural mood boosters and pain relievers, and also myokines which can act as natural antidepressants. So I was inadvertently carving for myself the time to have this medititive space with myself, to sort through the chaos of my often obsessional thinking. To touch on hopes and fears, regrets and goals, or just sort through the miasma of every day life. and should those thoughts create a sense of stress or worry, I found myself picking up the pace, giving the anxiety and stress a place to be channeled, in a way that had the familiarity of the self-flagelative behaviour I was used to, whilst my muscles in response released their own brand of anti-depressants produced in response to the physical stress of exercise.
It had become an invaluable resource in being able to reduce the noise in my head, which had in turn profoundly reduced my need to self medicate with intoxicants, and that of course has a feedback effect of further reducing the noise….reducing the need….I’d inadvertently created a positive feedback loop, a form of meditative escape where negative emotional responses where channeled into physical activity which in turn produced positive neurochemistry.
Holy Fuck.
And so 7km became 8km, became 9km, then 10km. I’d changed my route entirely by now, no longer wandering through the quiet suburban streets, I’d begun venturing much further out, exploring the local gardens, touring local cemeteries, venturing into bushland and eventually, I’d decided to take on a hike up to the summit of a nearby mountain range.
And though daunting, and despite the persistent incline, I’d made it. In fact all in all it came in at 9km, a tremendous distance further than the 700m I had started out on all those months ago. And it had all been just one foot in front of the other, a mantra I’d repeated to myself when I found myself struggling, just keep walking, just one more step, one foot in front of the other.
And, whilst on one of my walks, reflecting on the progress I’d made, I’d eventually realised it was that approach I’d taken to the other aspects of my life as well. Waking up, I’d turned my alarm back 30 minutes, become comfortable waking at that time, then turned them back 30 minutes more, if 30 minutes proved too much, 15 minutes would do…. all I really needed was just one more step, it didn’t have to be huge. It just had to be one more step. It didn’t have to be perfect. It just had to be progress. and sometimes, progress was just….not going backwards. sometimes, just standing fast in the new space I’d created for myself, was all the progress I could manage, and it was important to remember, that was progress all the same.
And with my diet, it started with just a teaspoon of capsicum shredded infinitesimally small, hidden amongst a large bolognese. and then 2 teaspoons. and then 3. and then cut into slightly not so small pieces. and then, some space to get comfortable, to stand still in the growth, to give myself some space to acclimatize…. and then 4 teaspoons.
And with my drinking. It was just one less drink, and then the next time, just one less drink than last time. and this week, just one more sober day.
It had all come down to one thing, one philosophy one action. Just one foot in front of the other. Just one step. Just progress, not perfection. No matter how small.
And I found that I’d begun utilizing a form of the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy is often predominant in individuals who’ve foudn themselves the target of a pyramid scheme, it’s a phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial. and though abadonment would no have been more beneficial in my case, it was still a great many aspects of myself which I had already invested heavily in. Not all at once. And in some cases, not even entirely meaning to. The sleep had been a happy accident of the medication, which I’d leaned into. The drinking had been disrupting my capacity to lose weight, and maintain a regular walking schedule. I didn’t just wake up one day and say I’m going to stop drinking entirely, and start hiking mountains, and fix my life long dietary problems, and lose weight, and start waking up earlier than I ever have before. the very idea of that would’ve been so daunting, I never coould’ve imagined myself achieving it. but by focusing on just the one goal, just…going for a walk every day, just putting one foot in front of the other, and when I turned to reflect upon my progress, I could see all those steps had added up to the achievements I never could’ve imagined myself undertaking, let alone simultaneously. Once I made the decision to start walking, a number of other things had seemingly fallen into place around me. That’s not to say that it didn’t take effort, and a modicum of discipline. Some days I hated the idea of going for a walk so much, I could have sworn I’d just give in, but if I did nothing else, I told myself, I’d just go for a walk. That’s all I had to do, I told myself. Just go for a walk. It mention this because it all of this progress wasn’t just the result of a happy accident that I’d lucked into. When I was deep in my depression, searching for answers in the experiences of others, I hated stories like that, it was like someone celebrating winning the lottery as their own personal success. Walking had for me however, been the precursor to it all, and upon it I’d built the foundations for all these other aspects of my life in which I was making progress gradual, yet steady progress. and the progress kept me motivated, even just a little bit of progress, was progress all the same. even if I wasn’t going fast, I was at least going in the right direction. Progress felt good.
In fact, I’d become somewhat comfortable on my walks. Hidden under my cap, behind my sunglasses, buried in the parasocial chatter of podcasts or regular beats of music, I’d found a rhythm, a familiarity, a comfort. I’d even occasionally pause my headphones, so that I could listen instead to all the strange new birds singing to the afternoon sun.
As has been alluded to, I’ve struggled with substance abuse since I was 12 years old. There was a point in my twenties when I knew, with absolute certainty, that I had been intoxicated in some shape or form for over 10 years.
Alcohol hadn’t really been a huge issue for my until my late teens, before that I preferred to use drugs to regulate destroy myself, and quieten the perpetual screaming in my head.
But I eventually took to alcohol like it was a challenge to be beaten. Like some sort of competition I could somehow win. Looking back, it’ was evident to me that it was a form of self harm, an act of total self-destruction fueled by self loathing and an ever present yearning for the abyss.
There was a time when I would keep a bottle of Jim Beam by my bed, and would scarcely open my eyes before having taken a significant swig to try and numb the suffering of consciousness.
After many years of this sort of deliquency, I was, unsurprisingly, rushed to hospital in an ambulance. I hadn’t been able to keep down food or even water in days, vomiting blood and bile as I clawed my way across the floor to the bathtub, a suitably large receptacle for the onslaught of decay violently forcing itself out of my face. The penetrating pain in my stomach was unbelievable, like I had been and was continuing to be stabbed. And there was a thought in my head… “This is finally it”
I was admitted, run through a CT-Scan, hooked up to an IV. Eventually a doctor ripped back a curtain angrily, to give me my diagnosis.
I had Stomach Ulcers. But that seemingly wasn’t all, I still remember his words, the disappointment in his voice and the disdain for me on his face to this day.
He’d told me that he was the head of Gastroenterology, had been for a great many years, and that he had come to see me personally.
He’d reached out to sarcastically shake my hand, and said…
“You’ve reduced your stomach to a mass of heaving flesh which no longer resembles an organ. Well done kiddo.”
Before giving me a long, cold stare, shaking his head, and marching away. Even the Doctor hated me, I’d thought. And I honestly couldn’t blame him.
I was subsequently hospitalized for a number of months, nil by mouth, delivered nutrients intravenously, and often had large silver bags with giant red biohazard symbols hanging from my IV as they attempted to kill the bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, which causes stomach ulcers, and rebuild what was left of my stomach.
Upon the night of my eventual release, I had evidently learned nothing. Returning home, still ravaged by addiction, pictured, I sit drinking and popping pills, the peripheral intravenous catheter’s for the IV’s still present in my arms.
Somewhere, a video exists of me finally removing them over a bathroom sink, and squeezing a surprising amount of deeply coloured, thick, almost jelly like blood from my exhausted veins.
So, when I say that I drank too much, I can assure you, I mean exactly that.
When this journey I’m chronicling for you, this walk out of depression began, though my alcoholism had subsided somewhat since those hedonistic days, it was still significant enough to have a profound impact upon my life, my health, and my psychological wellbeing.
I only really drank every second day at this point, and whilst not to the debaucherous levels of excess of the past, still it would be considered by most rational persons as too much.
But, if I was going to lose weight, if I was going to chase this betterment I’d been experiencing, if I was going to do everything I could not to end up trapped again in my bed, waiting to die, I had to reduce my alcohol consumption even further.
I couldn’t miss days of walking because I was too hungover, I couldn’t afford the extra carbs and calories while struggling to lose weight, I couldn’t risk a day spent in languishing sickly in bed…because what if became 2 days? then 3? or more? I was terrified of ending up back there, and I used that terror as motivation to keep chipping away at my addictions.
From the tracking of my morning wakefulness I already had a tool at my disposal I could use, so I created a habit tracker for both my alcohol consumption, and for my sober days.
I downloaded another simple app, just a simple counter app, so that I could tap my phone each time I had a drink, and the total number of drinks could then be recorded into my habit tracker at the end of the day.
Having this data available to me and visualized was a huge help, it created accountability, it wasn’t just “too much” to drink or “I don’t know, lots” or even “not too bad I guess, I’ve been worse…” It was a definitive number by which to gauge my decline, or my progress. In a way it also served to ‘Gamify’ my goal of reducing alcohol intake. I had learned that having data for comparisons, for gauging progress, for the dopamine derived from logging a good day, was tantamount to my success.
I found myself, for the first time ever, hesitating before getting another drink….I didn’t want to add one more to the ticker, I didn’t want to log another big night of drinking…and some days I didn’t even want to miss the opportunity to tick my “Sober Day” tracker, and feel the minor sense of pride…of progress, as I went to bed.
And so, over the course of a year I gradually reduced my alcohol intake, drink by drink, day by day, week by week, month by month, chipping away at the reliance I had, crawling not desperately across a bathroom floor covered in vomit and blood, but instead out of a metaphorical hole that addiction and substance abuse had dragged me into.
It should be noted, that I felt it too. Alcohol is a depressant, and it has a profound impact on one’s physical and psychological wellbeing. I found I was having more good days, more energy. And having my goal of walking every day meant that when it came to that time of an afternoon when my body began furiously craving beer and bourbon, distraction and familiarity, I had something else I could do which not only negated the idea of drinking that day, but also gave me a sense of achievement, and another rung of progress to affix to the ladder I was building, to climb my way out of the chasm I’d found myself in.
I wasn’t perfect by any means, as pictured above. But it wasn’t about perfection. It wasn’t about suddenly stopping, entirely and forever. It was just about progress. Just one less drink. Just one more sober day. Just one more positive afternoon.
ARFID, or Avoidant Restricted Food Intake Disorder is a relatively recent eating disorder diagnosis introduced in just 2013. Personally I can’t help but feel it would have helped me a great deal had the term existed far earlier, as my childhood and teen years were often filled with the cries of “stop being so fussy!” as people dismissed my eating disorder as a choice, a mere preference.
It wasn’t until my early teens that I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, with compulsions, amongst other things, surrounding food. And it wouldn’t be until my early thirties that I received a diagnosis for ARFID.
In fact, ARFID was a large contributing factor into why I was expelled from school. When I was seemingly deemed a ‘lost cause’ and shipped off to boarding school, one primary struggle I faced was that I couldn’t eat any of the food. I would go days and days at a time without so much as a crumb to eat, the starvation lashing at me each and every day, making it a near impossibility to so much as think, let alone function day to day. Certainly this is not ideal for anyone, however perhaps least of all a growing pre-teen boy.
I’d eventually learned that the year 12’s had a desire for a pharmaceutical drug known as “dexamphetamine” or “dexies” for short. Dexamphetamine is, as the name suggests, an amphetamine prescribed to individuals with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD), a few of which we had in my dorm, and the Year 12’s used it to remain awake and focused for their studies.
So….I’d identified on one hand, a Supply, and on the other, a Demand. If I could act as a bridge between the two, I could scrape some profits off the sales…and have access to food! So, the ADD students would ‘cheek’ their meds, and outside the medical bay pass them to me. I would build a supply each day from numerous students, and then take the pills to the year 12’s, where I’d sell them at a markup. I’d pay off the ADD students for the meds they gave me, and keep a portion of the money for myself. Just enough to buy a single hotdog each day, now my only source of nourishment. But nourishment all the same.
What with many of the students requiring medication now going totally unmedicated, and another cohort of the school now hopped up on amphetamines, chaos spread through the halls. Amongst the flying fists and pubescent screams, I sat alone, quietly eating, savoring my only meal of the day.
Eventually, when it was discovered that I was the destabilizing force causing chaos within the school, I was swiftly expelled for ‘Dealing Drugs on School Premises’. I didn’t quite understand the implications of what I’d been doing at the time, I was just trying desperately not to starve, and as I was being admonished that was all I could say, my sole and honest defense…. “I just needed something to eat” and shouted in my face came the familiar reply “We give you plenty of food, you’re just spoiled and rotten, being fussy isn’t an excuse!“
Even later in life, when I was a homeless 12 year old orphan, I couldn’t eat the food occasionally handed out by the food-vans or well meaning Hare Krishna, which only served to increase the suffering of my enduring starvation.
I mention these things because I hope they serve to demonstrate the seriousness of ARFID as an eating disorder, and that it is far more impactful on an individuals life than merely “being fussy”.
To that end, with my weight out of control and my depression tearing apart the very fabric of my being, it was tantamount that I do what I could to alter my diet, to reduce the fattening garbage I was eating and introduce greater nutrients into my body.
I began by introducing small portions into a bolognese, where it was easy to hide. Dicing a meager teaspoon of capsicum into miniscule, barely visible shreds. Once I was able to digest that meal, the next I would increase the portion size, this time, two teaspoons hidden in the bolognese, then three. Then I would increase how finely I’d diced the capsicum, only marginally larger shreds, however enough to consider it progress. Little by little, meal by meal, I introduced greater portions into my diet, until I no longer gagged through every meal at the mere thought of it’s invisible presence on my fork. I did it first with red capsicum, then green capsicum, then carrot, then spinach….it took months, but eventually I could make a meal consisting of all of the above ingredients, in regular sizes and portions.
“Like a real person” I thought.
The addition of these ingredients alone has opened up many a new recipe which I can incorporate into my regime, with greater nutrient and fiber intake. Though I’m still struggling to incorporate new ingredients into my cooking, I’ve found that I am able to branch out a great deal more now, and try a variety of foods without having to dissect each portion to identify each and every possible contaminant.
Having these foods in my diet has allowed me greater energy, my body a greater range of tools to balance neurochemicals, and has definitely contributed to a much healthier micro-biome, something which I am utterly convinced has a deeply profound impact on one’s general and importantly, psychological wellbeing.
Once again, it may not seem like much….but it is progress.
I’ve battled with sleep for many years, another aspect of my damaged self to which I had applied a dizzying array of medications, light therapies, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, with no improvement whatsoever. I grew up as a young 12 year old boy, living on the streets it was important to keep alert during the long, cold nights, when it was imperative one remain awake so as not to become vulnerable and thus a victim.
Sleep, was as such, the enemy, and the battle would lead one from coffees, to “No-Doz” Caffiene Pills and from their to the depths of more serious substance abuse in order to endure.
As such, Night becomes Day, as it’s safer to remain awake and on the move at night, dodging the seemingly infinite potential for danger. So one learns instead to sleep during the day, somewhere in sight of others. Somewhere where it is less likely for the raggedy men, stinking of booze and stale piss, to find a sleeping child alone in the dark.
As a result, the idea that sleep could only be safely achieved during the day had attached itself to my PTSD, and firmly embedded itself into my psyche for decades thereafter.
As I’ve touched upon elsewhere, one of the positive effects of the medication regiment I’d begun was that I was beginning to be able to sleep at night, and even wake up before the afternoon had already made it’s mark on the day. An eventuality we hadn’t planned for, an eventuality that was unheard of for me, an eventuality that was incredibly welcome.
This was already a new experience, and gave me options for not just interacting with the world at a more reasonable hour, but for having the time in which to do so. I liked this, so I wanted to see if I could expand upon it. I’d begun waking at around 11am, and once this pattern had been established I enacted my plan, and set my next alarm for 10:30am. But I’d need to keep track of my progress, to know if it was working, so I had a look around and eventually settled on an elegantly simple habit tracking app. Loop Habit Tracker. I set my goal, to wake up 30 minutes earlier, at or before 10:30am, and each day I did I would mark it in my tracker app.
Being aware of importance of light for regulating the circadian rythm, and what was quickly becoming a fear of getting ‘stuck’ in bed again, I would then be sure to rise almost immediately, and sit on the patio with a coffee, letting the sun rest upon my eyes, and signal to my body clock “This is when we wake up”.
I also found that being awake so early (for me) meant there was a lot of day to experience. and so I began opening the curtains, and instead of hiding away inside, letting the light, and the world, in.
I now had time to do things, and light to do them in, so I would open up and go about tasks. I’d do laundry, take out bins, go to the store to do the groceries instead of having them delivered, and of course, go for my walks. I was awake during the day, I had the time and light to do things…and so I did them. As the weeks went on, I kept establishing a new normal time for waking up…and then reducing that time by 30 minutes. 10:30 became 10 became 9:30 became 9. and the longer my days became, the more I had to find to fill them. I also worked on developing healthier sleep hygiene, I started going to bed at a certain time, I set aside soft, comfortable clothes just for sleeping in, I reduced the light around my home from 8pm onward, and set an alarm to take my medication at the same time each night. After a few weeks, I was regularly going to bed at 9, sleep at about 11:30, and regularly waking up at 9. This may seem an absurd point of progress to most people, but for me it was totally unheard of, it was entirely new to me. Even the morning sun, the way it sat in the sky and soaked through the trees was foreign to me. It was like being a part of an alien world, and I was still coming to terms with how to function in this new reality.
As has been stated in “Chapter 1”, my initial motivation had been weight loss. I’d become not just miserable, but fat and miserable, which I had deemed unacceptable.
You could be a miserably suicidal, alcoholic mess…but you’d at least look the part doing it. I at least wanted to look how I felt, in an active state of decay. I wanted needed to look in the mirror and see the person I was used to, the person I felt. A stark shadow of a man, comprised entirely of ribs and collar bones, a sliver of pale flesh stretched menacingly over a pile of jarring bones. Merely a couple of missed meals away from the endless night.
But I’d never really been to a gym before, I wouldn’t even know how to go about it, let alone be able to afford it, and on top of that I was sure my social anxiety wouldn’t allow it regardless. So really, as I saw it, I had one option.
I would go for a walk. Every day. Outside.
So I put on my black boots and my black skinny jeans, and out into the world I went. My first walk, I did 700m. and I was proud. But I couldn’t just walk around the block in silence like that, I hated silence, it let the screaming in….I’d felt rushed to get home, to get inside, to get safe, to hide from the noise in my head with the noise of anything else….. So, I went to the store and bought some headphones. And the next walk, I was able to go further…I managed 1km.
Right! I’d learned that I could listen to podcasts or music while I walked….and it would take some of the urgency out of walking in silence, allowing me to walk further. I felt like a caveman discovering fire.
So again, for the next few days I walked, and eventually I’d made it 1.5…then 2 whole kilometres. and again, another new experience….for the first time in decades….I’d become sunburned.
Having been largely nocturnal for most of my life, and even then essentially a recluse, exposure to the sun had been minimal, if not largely non-existent. My Doctor often urged me to spend ‘just 5 minutes’ in the sun, waving bloodtest results and my worrying vitamin D deficiency at me whilst patiently and gently chastising me. I was so pale, that in the light of a full moon, I glowed, iridescent, like some kind of hideous deep sea fish under a spotlight. So I dug feverishly through my crowded wardrobe, and eventually came across an old cap, purchased at a service station 15 years prior. So hat and headphones equipped, out I went. And 2 km became 2.5km.
I began incorporating the local pub into my walk, so that I could stop and have a drink of water…but it didn’t quite fit in with the route I was trying to develop, I was for some reason embarrassed to be seen out walking, sweating and puffing and panting….and the temptation to just stop for the day and start drinking was…overwhelming…. But….I thought, I’d occasionally seen other people milling about on the streets when I was walking…and they often had water bottles…. Aha! I could take some water with me. So off to the store I went again, and I purchased myself a water bottle. One with a little handle I could easily hold in 2 fingers, and a little cap I could close over the mouthpiece, so as not to aggravate my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder’s ‘Contamination’ fears.
What a game changer, I thought, being able to sip water while I was walking… How luxurious! It seemingly made a huge difference as well, coupled with the headphones and my cap it had once again taken some more urgency from and brought more comfort to, my walks. They were no longer a race to find noise, or hydration, or shade…they were becoming sustainable, they were becoming an outing.
But I’d begun to get blisters, and I was so hot in my denim jeans, and sweating so much it was interminable….at one point so offensive as to be unnatural. “This can’t be right” I’d thought, “I must have unknowingly pissed myself?…can that happen?” So I needed an outfit, something suitable, some kind of…walking clothes.
So off to the store I went, yet again…and I bought some shorts, and some singlets and some shoes I could walk in.
Getting dressed in my new outfit for the first time, I felt, to be frank, like a bit of a dick. Like an imposter. Like a kid playing at “Man who goes for walks” Like an alien desperately failing to blend in…. Like I had an unconvincing sign over my head to deceive people…. “I am a very real and normal person” it read, in bright neon letters, convincing no one.
But, as I kept saying to myself on my walks, the hateful mantra I kept shouting at myself internally to spur me forward… “I. Will. Be. Thin.“ As I stood in the mirror looking at myself in my stupid little shorts, my goofy new sneakers, my tattered old hat with my silly little water bottle, I felt incredibly out of place, unfamiliar, embarrassed at the very sight of me. And I felt like everyone who would see me outside would think just that… “look at this idiot” “what a fuckin’ nerd” “oh who does he think he’s kidding?” but I also saw something else in the mirror. I saw a fat man. “Would you rather look like a bit of a dick for an hour a day, or be fat forever?” I asked myself. “I. Will. Be. Thin.” echoed my endless self-loathing. And so, before I left, I added one more item to my outfit. A pair of sunglasses. At least this way, I reasoned, I could hide the shame in my eyes from anyone who saw me.
And so back out I went. even hiding under my hat, and behind my sunglasses, I felt naked. I felt vulnerable. I felt exposed…. But to hell with them! “I Will Be Thin” whispered my inner demons.
Mianserin didn’t cure my depression, but it turned the volume down on the overwhelming noise inside of my head. It at the very least gave me enough space to breathe, and importantly, get out of bed. Like a drowning man in a room filled with water…I’d been given an inch of air, into which I could raise my gasping face, and take a breath. It was in no uncertain terms, a lifeline.
It had been the first medication to have such a profound effect, and the first to not come with some horrendous side effects.
Some had made me literally shit myself with nausea, “How is this supposed to help with my anxiety?” I’d asked my psych “If I am forever one surprise sneeze away from horrifically shitting myself?” Others had completely turned out the lights, rendering me some kind of living corpse, an empty zombie like creature incapable of even the most rudimentary tasks.
The Mianserin however had just….turned down the noise a bit, the deafening, unwavering screaming in my head which at every waking moment caused unspeakable pain, and propelled me to end my life. Considering the plethora of medications I’d trialed and the myriad of side effects I’d experienced….just this minor reduction in volume was as I’ve described…nothing short of life changing.
Having found even a modicum of relief via the new medication, I quickly met with my psychiatrist, and we began increasing the dose, hoping to increase it’s effectiveness. We increased to about 80mg, however found that whilst it was indeed effective, we started seeing side effects, being increased lethargy and intense fatigue. I found myself having about 4 hours of time in which to function, before I would fall asleep wherever I was sitting. So we levelled out at about 60mg, which was at the higher end of dosages. (Mianserin max dose is a recommended 90mg and a definitive, absolutely no more than 120mg dose) When things become difficult, I will extend to 80mg, however for no more than 2 days in a row lest the side effects begin to negate any benefit.
As a result of PTSD, I’d also struggled a great deal with sleep, and seeing as we’d discontinued the olanzapine, we introduced a 5mg dose of melatonin. The combination of the sedative effects of the Mianserin and the melatonin caused something I’d never really experienced before.
I began being able to sleep at night. Previously I’d never been able to sleep at night, only once the sun began to rise did I feel able to sleep. But the combination of these medications allowed me to wake up before noon. Something I hadn’t experienced since I was a young boy. It was at first…bewildering. I found myself entranced by the morning sun, I’d never really seen the sun at this angle before. It was, to me, like a whole new world. Furthermore, I now had a whole day to fill. Where before I would have hidden inside, curtains drawn, staring into my phone and scrolling endlessly, trying to find the next 30 second video to distract me from my suffering. I lived 30 second video to 30 second video, desperately trying to fill the silence in my home, and quieten the agonizing screaming in my head.
Yet now I had a whole day to fill, a new world called ‘morning’ to explore, and the ability to leave my bed. It was new, it was frightening, it was bewildering….but it was good. It was a start. And I’d need to learn how to function in this new reality before anything else.
With the medication keeping the volume at a still loud, but at least somewhat tolerable level, I had the breathing room I needed to do the work, and make the progress I needed.
As stated, it certainly wasn’t a silver bullet, I was still actively miserable, but I could at least get out of bed. I found that I had to have podcasts playing on my phone and with me at all times, so that I could focus on their voices and not the endless screaming torment in my head….but I could get out of bed. However small…This was progress.
As the title of this archive suggests, I’ve suffered from depression for most, if not all of my life. My first suicide attempt was at 8 years old, and things only seemed to get worse form there. After the failure of my last long term relationship, I’d fallen deep into the depths of alcoholism, and my life had begun deteriorating to the point that I was essentially bed bound. I would awaken, have a panic attack, violently lament the fact I had not died in my sleep, and then proceed to suffer until the mental exhaustion permitted me once again to sleep my unwanted life away.
During much of my life, starting at the age of 3, I’ve also been in therapy and on and off various medications. This chapter begins with the commencement of a new medication, Olanzapine.
Olanzapine is a rather heavy Anti-Psychotic medication, and I was trialing it as it seemed to help me stay asleep, a common struggle for those afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And although only minimally, numb my moods.
Unfortunately, Olanzapine also has a 3-fold effect on weight gain.
It has a tendency to ‘numb’ the stomach, meaning that one no longer receives the signal to say “Hey! I’m Full!”. For this reason, over-eating whilst on the medication is common.
It causes metabolic disturbances, insulin resistance, and a decrease in fat oxidation.
It’s increases the patients appetite.
For these 3 reasons, amongst others like my alcohol abuse and sedentary existence, I gained a -significant- amount of weight of the 1-2 years I was taking the medication, Something in the order of 20+ Kilos. I’d never been overweight before, if anything I’d always been alarmingly underweight.
As is understandable, this weight gain troubled me greatly. Not only was I miserable…now I was fatand miserable.
This, to me, was unacceptable. It was a new level of decay I’d never experienced, one that I could not internally romanticize, and for someone so plagued by self-loathing any reflective surface had now become a torturous event.
Something had to change. So I met with my psychiatrist, and we developed a plan to taper off the Olanzapine, and onto an older, more depression focused medication, Mianserin.
