Ughtober

I logged into this account in December 2021 and found this, unfinished. 

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My bloody laptop bloody broke. Speaking of which, I am. And thus it remains, unrepaired. Or, as I'm told the embuggerment is irreparable, unreplaced. Which is not especially convenient: my therapist is unavailable for a few weeks, and I'd hoped blogging would help bridge that gap - and it's not quite the same on a telefonino.

I've barely blogged in the last few years, post dead parents, and I fear I've lost what little knack I had. But, unlike my sexual violence blog, there's no audience in mind here, no message to impart, so. I'll just write.

It's October. Ughtober I should perhaps call it: both parents' birthdays (16th and 24th) and then their wedding anniversary (25th). The days between feel in limbo. Almost as though I should be in rent, black clothes, not allowed to smile until the 26th, on which day I must spring back, perky and delightful, just in time for my boyfriend's birthday on the 27th. As I said: ugh.

And god I'm tired. Because I have a chronic illness? Because being sad takes it out of one? Because I treat myself like a detainee of the American government, kept perpetually sleep deprived? Yes. All of that. And everything else.

Joshy will be 18 in eight weeks time. (An adult, technically. When I became his mother, I was still a child, technically.) Yesterday we finally reached a conclusion in the absolute *saga* of Will This Kid Accept The Offer Of A Partial Restart To His A-Levels, Or Stubbornly Persist In Ruining His Life? And mercifully it was the former. He's continuing the second year of one subject, restarting another in the first year, and ditching his third subject for another entirely. Which will hopefully result in better grades, and give him more time and less pressure to work on his mental health. It's not entirely a done deal, however. There'll be a progress review in five weeks to ensure he's a) caught up on everything for all three subjects, and b) achieving 95% attendance. Both of these require significant parental prodding. Which I don't feel capable of right now. How to pull it out of the bag?

I mean, step one is definitely sleep.

Another blog?!

I originally set up this blog (over a year ago) thinking I would use it to explore my relationship with food, and with my body. The name is from "eating disorder not otherwise specified" (EDNOS) - that is, disordered eating which does not neatly fit the criteria for anorexia, bullimia, or binge eating disorder*. At the time of writing, I am looking back over almost two decades of bingeing and purging, bingeing and not purging, and periodic starving. I am currently at my fattest ever. And that's not ok.

The silent partner in this relationship is my mother. My anorexic mother, who killed herself earlier this year. For a long time, I have known that there is work I must do on this messy jumble of bodies, food, and mental health**. On being the fat daughter of an anorexic mother. But now it's work that I must do alone. I'm seeing a clinical psychologist, for an assessment, in a few weeks. We shall see.

So, I may write about that here. But I also may write about various other topics Not Otherwise Specified. I'm thinking a lot about the nature of love, at the moment. Being single for the first time since I was 16 gives one a new perspective! And I think I might find it useful to dump bits from Facebook on here, so that I can find them in the future. Or maybe I'll post this, and then never anything again. 

I am hugely doubtful that this will ever be read by anyone but myself, but should you exist, reader, please do say hello!

*Also, as I blog about sexual violence - and now, additionally, about grief  - I thought it could be on matters "not otherwise specified".

**I once told a therapist that I felt there was so much tied up in the relationship between myself, my body, and my mother. And the therapist rolled her eyes. And we never spoke about that again.