take better care of myself

I have led a harmful life for a couple of years now. Things I’ve done have been destructive to my inner peace – that part some might call the soul or spirit. I’ve caused distress and misery with my actions, luckily mostly to myself only, but my mother has had her (unfair) share of my foolishness as well, unfortunately. I’m not at peace with myself, yet, and I never will be if I continue living like this, I seem to have a habit of choosing a destructive action after another, and I always feel absolutely horrible and useless afterwards.

There are moments of serenity and clarity, though, so I know this is something achievable, I can do it. It’s a matter of willpower and getting my act together. I have so much to live for, so many things and people to be grateful for, so I honestly cannot understand why I keep treating myself in such a neglectful way.

I want – no, need – my mind to be a peaceful place where I can retreat when necessary, and not this jumble of disoriented thoughts that it is at the moment. I don’t know how to go about this, though. Perhaps the first step is to make a resolution to myself: I will sort this out, I will achieve a more peaceful lifestyle and with that, happiness. And yes, I must. And I will.

This week has been quite agonising physically, I had horrible stomach aches throughout the week and nothing seemed to help. I even went to see a nurse at my workplace, and she gave me some painkillers but those didn’t help at all, either. I have an appointment to see a doctor on Tuesday, but I think I have lactose intolerance. I haven’t consumed any dairy products today and I feel fine, whereas yesterday I accidentally ate bread, and one of the ingredients was milk -> burning stomach ache.

I know lactose intolerance isn’t rare, in many countries the majority of adults are lactose intolerant, but in Finland only about 18% of the adult(?) population has this condition (can I say condition?). What makes this a little ironic, is that I absolutely love milk and I used to drink it a lot every day. But if the answer to those horrible stomach aches is leaving out milk and other dairy products, then I’m perfectly fine with that. And there are a lot of lactose free products I can switch to, although they are of course a bit pricier…

This isn’t such a big thing but if I really turn out to be lactose intolerant (I hope the doctor does some tests to confirm this!), it’s going to have a big impact on my life, especially if I can’t consume dairy products at all. I don’t see this as a hindrance, however, rather than an exciting new opportunity to tweak my diet (and if dairy products are a complete no-no, I can’t eat milk chocolate anymore -> thinner me and my skin is happy, wohoo!) to better.

I guess I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, perhaps this is something else completely. I guess I’ll know more after Tuesday… at least I hope so.

The good thing is, I’ve learnt to floss every day, which is something I thought I’d never do. I used to hate flossing and now I quite like it, funny huh? My exercise routine is still non-existent, I never seem to have the time or then I’m too tired to do anything. I also kind of forgot this one, as well as trying to drink one litre of water each day, I never remember to do that!

Then one more serious thing: I should go see an osteopath, because my posture is really bad and I should probably do something about it while I still (hopefully) can. It shouldn’t be that difficult, to book an appointment, especially since my uncle is an osteopath, so I could probably get the first treatment free of charge!

I’ve started to eat very little lately, falling back to my old habits, it seems. It has been a long time since I last ate a proper meal, I only eat bread, yogurt and fruit these days, and I’m unable to break the circle, it’s too mesmerising. I’ve done this before and I know where it will lead in the end and still I choose to do this. It’s hard to explain why, I’m not sure if I even know myself.

These are not promises, because I know that if I made resolutions like these, I wouldn’t keep them in the end. So I’ll just keep these as things I’ll try to accomplish this year, in order to feel and live healthier. :)

• learn to floss
• eat more fruit
• drink more water daily
• better my posture
• get clearer skin
• go outside more
• do some exercising even semi-regularly
• eat less sweets

Drinking and smoking I don’t need to worry about, as both cravings are pretty much gone now – I’m good at going cold turkey, and without even trying!

And if I get really excited, I might even try finding myself a hobby!

I think I’m working too much. I can feel my stress level rising, and I can see I’m getting more paranoid and anxious day by day. I start questioning my worth, my efforts, everything I do at work, I’m starting to think nobody really likes me at work (they just can’t say it because, well, we’d still have to work together), I fear people think I’m lazy and stupid and scatterbrained, and it’s getting harder and harder not to take customers’ mean comments personally. I know they’re not saying the things they say because it’s me who’s listening, and it’s not my fault customers so often forget that we shop assistants are human as well and we do make mistakes too. It’s not my fault if I don’t know everything yet, there’s always something new to be learnt every day – I’m sorry if it happens to be so that I cannot fully answer to a customer’s questions, but at least I’m willing to find out. I’m doing my best, apparently it just isn’t good enough.

I’ve had problems with nerves before, I’m prone to depression. I should know better by now and not burn myself out again. If I continue like this for long, it will be the same story all over again, but I do not want to lose this job. I love it, I just fear I’m not good enough to be doing it. This is tearing me apart, my self-worth hasn’t been this low in ages. And nobody can see that at work because I always seem so cheerful and happy there.

...but I completely broke down just now. I can’t even remember the last time I had cried (this much at least). Well, the happiness and contentment had lasted surprisingly long, things were bound to take an uglier turn at some point. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this. For anything, really.

I swear, I’ll never drink alcohol again, I’ll become a teetotaller. ...until the next time I go out with a friend, it always goes like that. This horrible headache is crippling me, I can’t do anything, grr. But that’s what you get when you first abstain from alcohol for a month or two and then drink as much as I did last night. Ugh. And I liked those sober days and weeks (months), drinking really isn’t that much fun in the end, and the morning after is definitely horrible.

Gaagaagaagaa.

Feeling better today, hopefully yesterday was the worst I have to go through this time, I really wouldn’t want to get sick now (or ever, to think about it, but that’s probably not possible). Anyway, I went to this… occupational health check ^{(idk, what’s ‘työterveystarkastus’ in English? :D)} today and it seems my haemoglobin is quite below the average and I don’t get enough iron. It was expected, seeing as I’m a vegetarian and all, but bleh, now I have to start an iron regimen and bohoo it seems like too much work (although in reality it isn’t, I’m just lazy :D). I think I should start eating more vitamins, too, to ensure I get all the minerals etc. my body needs to function properly.

...dying. I’ll be glad if I don’t spend my whole weekend tucked up in bed, because right now it rather looks like it. I still have two work days left this week, how on earth am I going to survive those, when breathing is hard, I keep coughing every five minutes and my nose is running. I don’t think I have a fever though, so that’s something, I guess. Still, this sucks so bad I can’t even begin to describe my feelings, stupid flu.

This will be gruesome. I don’t think it’s a good idea to even write this here, where so many people can read it. It’s my personal thing, my problem, but what does it matter in the end. I’ve got not secrets (except from the people closest to me), I can talk about this here, where I am anonymous to a certain point (even though people can see my face and what I look like).

I’ve had issues with food as long as I can remember. My memory doesn’t go very far, maybe I’ve blocked these things out of my head, I’m not sure. The whole three years in high school went like this: I didn’t eat at school, I’d go on for days by eating nothing but bread, twice a day and that’s it. I loved the feeling of hunger, it made me feel as if I had accomplished something. I’m 158 cm tall and my lowest weight has been around 48 kgs, which doesn’t sound that bad now that I look at it, but I was really thin. I just couldn’t see it. I usually only ate a real meal on weekends when I couldn’t escape it. It seemed to be working fine, I was losing weight and my performance at school didn’t suffer – hey, I even aced my matriculation exams.

I got out of this vicious circle last year, I just decided it wasn’t worth it, I should enjoy life more. It had been years since I had last eaten candy, for instance. I started eating more, I gained a bit of weight, it didn’t matter. I was happy. I enjoyed life more, it wasn’t dominated by food and the fear of getting fat anymore.

I re-lapsed this month. I stopped eating (not altogether, just that I didn’t eat that “one proper meal a day”), wanted to get thinner again. I call it abusing, I’m torturing myself. I don’t deserve it, no-one does, still I keep on doing it. What’s my excuse? At least I do it to myself and not others. Still, I’m a human too and no human (or animal) should ever have to go through any kind of abusing, be it physical or mental or both. A while ago I realised I was happier when I still ate properly. I was happier, I said it to myself, and it didn’t help. A part of me thinks I deserve all this. That I need to be punished for being me, for being here, for being alive, for everything, even for the things I haven’t done.

It’s all about control with food, look at anorexics, bulimics, over-eaters etc. Control, the first ones have too much of it, the latter one too little, but it’s still about control. And food dominates their life. Food is the essence of their existence, as paradoxic as it sounds. Food is my obsession, but not in a good sense. I hated food when I was younger. If I had had the chance, I would have stopped eating altogether. Same with sleep, I hated sleeping (now I love it though). My relationship with food is so fucked up (pardon my language) that I fear I might never be able to say I’ve fully recovered and gotten over it. That I can promise I’ll never lapse again.

What made me do this to myself again? I had to punish myself for my thoughts, they were stupid, unrealistic and this was the only way. I can’t cut myself, I can’t stand the pain, I can’t hurt myself in a way that leaves marks. So I starve myself. I’ve gotten very weak this month, I’m tired and cold all the time, I haven’t but slept this week, I have no energy to do anything. And alcohol, it affects me too much, little is enough to get me completely drunk, so much that I forget everything around me. I was so out of it yesterday, anything could have happened to me. Anything. I didn’t intend it to go like that, I wasn’t trying to get in to that condition. I did, however, and in the worst case I could be dead. Or at least raped and alone somewhere in Helsinki.

I was lucky, damn lucky, but things could have gone differently. I hope I will never, never forget yesterday, as painful as it is to think about it. I did so many stupid things I didn’t even know I was capable of doing them. This was a lesson I needed to learn, maybe this was the shake I’ve been waiting for, the thing to open my eyes. I don’t want to be that fucked up princess I was yesterday, the pitiful girl with no money and no means to get back home. I was just so lucky to run into a person who cared and had the time to help. Such people are getting scarce today. I’ll never forget that.

I have to turn my life upside down now. I need to re-evaluate everything. I thought I had done that already, apparently not. This has never been diagnosed, but I fear I might be a bit manic-depressive and I’m afraid of myself. I fear I might one day do something to myself, either when I’m deeply depressed or a bit manic. But of course I could be wrong. I usually am. I’m not acute enough to get help. So I choose to suffer alone. I try to be a balanced person, and it always works for a while and then I lapse. I turn into a burden. I am a burden. And an idiot.

I never wanted it to go like this.

I know this entry doesn’t really belong under this goal but aggh, I’m so aggravated I don’t care that much. It sucks to be ill. :( I just came back from the health centre and a lot good that did to me, too. I was told to call there back on Friday (to get some results) and until then I should just ‘take pain killers and avoid too much exercise’ ...well no shit? Funny I didn’t think of that, huh. My throat is so sore that it aches whenever I try to swallow and I can’t really get down anything but liquid-ish (:D) food. And you know what’s the best part? I’ve been ill since Sunday and it seems I’ll have to wait at least till Friday before I’ll (hopefully) get any real medicine. Oh oh, and I think I slept about 4 hours last night so I’m cranky and tired and damn uncomfortable.

Okay, rant over.