A lot of people told me that now was the perfect time to “reinvent” myself. I didn’t realise what that kind of meant till now.

In some ways, I am grateful for this rather horrid experience. It cut myself back to a quivering mess and now I’m picking up the pieces and sorting it out.

I find it hilarious that I’m a lot more sane to figure out why I do the things I do and make an attempt to stop it.

My detox is progressing, and I’ve cut back a further 5mg of my dose bringing me down to just 25mg of Paroxetine. And man, do I feel it.

Though I am much more lucid now then when I first got onto 25mg, my sleeping and eating patterns have been absolutely shot to hell. Despite the fact that I go to work on a regular basis which improved my sleeping habits, I am royally screwed up with the inability to sleep between midnight and dawn. I’m barely eating in a way that encourages me to fall back to bad habits of starvation and feeling guilty for eating.

As a fairly logical person, I sometimes shake my head and think that I’m a complete moron for thinking like an anorexic. If my kids at Thieu Nhi pulled this stunt I’d talk them straight out of it. And as a logical person, I second guess whether or not I’m actually mentally ill because I have the ability to reason sensibily. And then I do something like stab myself with my tailor’s awl.

Sorting through the mess that is my life, I’m rather pleased with some of the things that have come out. Though I am still very insecure and rarely venture out,I’m happy to be hanging out my friends and take an easy but steady course with my life. I feel more like a teenager now than I did when I was growing up! Developing adult habits like learning how to stick to a beauty routine, really fine tuning my ‘look’, and tenatively reaching out to new relationships with almost an abashed shyness rather than a tornado. Learning about my values and feeling like I’m on the edge of something completely mindblowing.

I feel some inner workings of my brain have changed. I’m much less angry for a start. I don’t exert as much pressure on myself because I think about what I can handle before doing it. I feel like I’m a nicer person as a result from the experience because I’ve had to learn a degree of tolerance and patience to handle myself and situations that arose. And by surrounding myself with fantastic, sensitive and supportive people, I’m slowly reasserting the person I really want to be. And cutting out bad influences has been really important, so I can remember that I shouldn’t settle for anything less.

Recently having refurnished my bedroom, I’m making an effort to keep it tidy and as An remarked, it felt like the chapter of my childhood has closed. I took down the reminders of my exes, not because everyone said I should, but because I was ready to. Alex and I have finally managed to get along, and I value that a lot – and I’m going to keep our friendship alive, not be reminded of a time that was awkward and painful. I took down the poster Eric bought for me all those years ago and filed his photo away. I realised that the photo no longer reminded me of those happy times, but highlighted exactly how unhappy I was and how castigated I felt as a failure. Everytime I think of Eric, I am merely reminded of the harsh words when it ended and his behaviour since then hasn’t exactly redeemed them.

I am getting ready to face the future. I’m still uncertain but I feel better about taking those baby steps forward. As Blaikie pointed out to me, there may be no point in living, but until I have reached the limit of what I can experience, there is no point to death either.

Categories: Archived

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