June 23rd - blog 2 - umm...what's bigger than 'leaps and bounds'...?

Well guys, I’m exhausted. And I feel rightfully exhausted. I’m not exhausted in the lecturing sense wherein there is nothing left inside me and I feel the need to criticise the time I woke up, the way I slept, the activity and energy I have put into each day and the amount of food I have put into myself during it. I’m not the exhausted which leads to self-criticism and a vow to alter behaviour. I am fundamentally correctly exhausted.

And that does mean that I have been high octane for the last few days. Throughout this illness – since last Thursday – and its recovery, I have had to fight and the switch-off hasn’t been established within me until today. When I had the most amazing time with Mum. Her energy was slightly weakened through her illness. This was not the ego weakness which she feels talks about in terms of self-doubt and self-depreciation and that she moans because of. Nor was it the emotional ‘weakness’ which is just a dip in frequency which is temporary, necessary and will pass. It was a literal slow down and withdrawal of her actual strength – on a whole body level. This wasn’t a bad thing as such, just her retreating within her for a day or so to patch her holes in order to be strong once more.

But in her dip, I didn’t need to behave the way I have always behaved around her. And in not having to behave the way I have always behaved I began to question quite why I’ve always behaved in that way. And subconsciously, unconsciously, automatically and swiftly, I suddenly changed yet again. My life has historically been total need vs. total self-sufficiency. Mum has been caught up in that cycle of extremes of dependency and requirement because of our intertwined relationship. I saw yesterday how strength had emerged in my aloneness – because I wasn’t answerable to someone I was dependent on. And that is it, you see. If you’re dependent on someone you have to meet their criteria. It was the problem with David – to remain dependent on his energy I had to compromise myself. And ultimately I just took myself yesterday and ate what my body could cope with, with little ‘Mum’s voice’ in my head totally silenced by the vulnerability potentially present in the digestion which I live with which meant that if I was whole-hog transforming the way I ate, I had no boundaries of calorific intake which I had to guarantee. I was left alone to cope alone and in my way – and by God did I cope.

And then today – my default setting with Mum is an enormous attempt to be perfect. I’m dependent on her, I have to meet her expectations and criteria. More than that I have to not let her emotions dictate how I speak or feel, I have to remain neutral and also be the woman who has delayed conversations until ‘later’ when in actual fact I have moved, and so in fact have the situations themselves. I have felt the pressure to be the eater, it is her that has kept me alive because I have had to prove to her that I wasn’t suicidal. It is because of her that I dealt with any issues I did have at the start of this process – because I see her as so angelic that I aspire to being as pure as I feel her energy to be. And I am not naïve, she is not perfect, but she is a perfect her and that is beautiful. And she has desperately wanted me to live. You know what, I could depend on her and ask her for anything providing I fought and attempted to survive. Somewhere symbiotically yesterday she showed I couldn’t always just rely on her and so I stood up for myself and became totally independent – the recipe writing was dictating to Mum how I wanted to fight – and she was jolly well going to help me do it!

Seriously, though, in her weakened energy I felt as if I didn’t need to be so high octane in my meeting her ‘healthy’ needs for me (every calorie for her etc.). As I switched my own energy down to match how much of her expectations I needed to defend myself from and how many of her questions I needed to have the answers for…I suddenly realised that there was no need for me whatsoever to be attempting to a) defend myself against her, b) answer any of her questions or c) heal in the way she has recommended or dictated, or whatever (not that she has, I stress – this is all my interpretation of her innocent, desperate wish for me to be well – not entirely selfless but entirely for me in the same degree as it is for her…)

And I’m never going to do it again, I can sense it. It is not about meeting criteria of anyone’s – imagined or real – dieticians, doctors or Mum. Ironically I ate every single mouthful of my Chicken Sandwich and Prune Yoghurt tonight – despite imagining and expecting that I would attempt to evade at least a crust or a piece of chicken, at least a scraping of yoghurt. But actually I genuinely wanted it all – and I want to keep it a secret. Because it wasn’t something I did just to say I did it. It was every calorie for myself, to be my girl – in my way, because my body wanted it and not because my ego wanted to be well – either for the recognition that that brings or for the repayment it would give to Mum. It was nothing to do with any reward except the physical strength it would give – no praise, no compliment, no tick-box on a diet sheet and no sense of achievement. Just a sense of completion.

And now I feel as if I know the value of being apart from Mum. Firstly – we would never have learnt all that is contained in this email without it, nor would I have learnt how much my heart yearns for her – and don’t get me wrong it absolutely does. I value her because I cannot be with her 24/7 but I want to be with her 24/7 so I can respond to as and when we are working and as and when we are jarring. And I can express how much I love her better over the phone – I use my words, from my heart. At least that’s the way its always been – together we can jar and I only have one way of expressing which is dictated by her. Yet today I felt different, I didn’t feel like I was another strong adult of a friend-like status with her (so long my aspired to hierarchical level with her). Nor did I feel like her baby who was being held, comforted, nurtured and mothered by her (so long the way in which I have felt most comfortable and supported). I was her daughter today. Not strong or needy, not knowing or ignorant – we were correct, in the right relationship hierarchically and discussing not trying to answer questions for one another. We were perfect. And I love her enormously. And I hope that one day soon we will be allowed to be together once more, living harmoniously and proportionately – her by far the larger, the more impact, the more beautiful, the stronger and the more expressively confident and outspoken. And yet me – I pick the jewellery that allows her to wear pretty things, I choose the outfits that make her feel good enough to be confident and attract such comments. And I’m well – so she doesn’t have to hide any longer inside her cave of worry and concern for me and paranoia over what people may think/say about me and how they might hurt me. When she does not have to defend me any longer – which I think is now but I’m probably sensing this prematurely – we will be together again. Mutually supportive, working together, always holding on and staying strong. But not fighting because we’re not drowning, merely floating, in perfect ratio where we belong.