transient vs long-term: redefining friendships as a grown-up

Over the last couple of days, I’ve had the chance to reconnect with some friends I haven’t seen in a while. With my oldest friends, there’s rarely any awkwardness to stumble over, even if it’s been years since we last caught up. We had time to speak about friendships – and the extra value we’ve started to place on our closest pals as we approach our mid-twenties.

This last year has felt quite a transient one, friendship-wise, with some of my closest friends moving geographically further away, and some of the friends I saw every day turning out to be less reliable than I thought. I’ve started to realise that perhaps, in some circumstances, I’ve set myself up for disappointment by expecting more of people than I should have. Some of the friendships that I’d valued the most last year, for example, I’ve had to re-evaluate this year – asking myself, do I mean as much to this person as they do to me?

On Saturday, I met up with my friend Josie, who has been one of my closest friends since we met in high school, aged eleven. Our friendship has spanned over a decade, and she is one of my most trusted and valued friends. Meeting up with her made me think about the other friendships I formed in high school, and how most of the people I used to be so close to in those pivotal teenage years I no longer keep in contact with. I think the reason behind that is probably because so many of my teenage friendships were based around convenience. I was put in classes, year groups, after school clubs – and if I didn’t get on with at least some of the people I had to see every day, I would have really struggled.

So I picked my friends based on who I liked best from the people that I was stuck with – as harsh as that might sound. And some of those people, the ones I had a real connection with, like Josie, have stayed in my life since we left school and parted ways. Josie and I only really see each other once or twice a year, now (sometimes not even that much – adult life is busier than we’d anticipated it being), but every time we meet, we pick up where we left off. There is no awkwardness to stumble over, no small-talk to tiptoe around; the love is just there.

Even though I’d come to this realisation about my younger self’s friendships, I’ve noticed that I’ve fallen into similar scenarios in adult life. Sometimes, the genuine connection with people you see every day is just there, and sometimes… Sometimes, I think I’ve forced friendships that might have been better off as passing acquaintances. I think I’m learning that I’m someone who is quite eager to make meaningful connections with people — and this means I often find myself committing my time and energy to one-sided friendships. It’s time I learnt that not every person who comes into my life is meant to stay. Sometimes, people are just there to teach you something about yourself (or vice versa) that you can take on with you into the next stage of your life.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been asking myself questions whenever I feel a friendship might be a little one-sided, problematic or, frankly, not really a friendship at all. Being able to analyse my motives and emotions towards certain situations is a skill I’m still developing, but one I’m proud of. I’ve found it helpful to ask myself these three questions.

What does their friendship mean to you?

Sometimes, I can go months and months thinking I’m really close with someone. We see each other most of the time circumstantially, so their friendship is convenient to me. We seem to care about each other an equal amount. Sometimes I find their views and opinions problematic – but they’re always there for me. Then, I’m out of the city for a few weeks. That time passes, and I don’t think about that person once. Chances are, they aren’t thinking about me, either. Our friendship certainly served a purpose, and we were there to be each other’s crutch when we needed it the most – but perhaps neither of us was as invested in our relationship as we thought we were.

What does your friendship mean to them?

Are you just a placeholder for when their other friends are busy? Don’t let people use your friendship to pass the time. Do they just see you as a colleague, whereas you thought they were a really good friend? Sometimes it’s hard to recognise that you might only play a small part in someone’s life – someone who has turned out to be quite a big part of yours. Reevaluating friendships like this can often feel like going through several painful break-ups at once, but it’s necessary. It’s unfair for you to be pouring time and love and affection into someone’s life that doesn’t recognise or give back the energy you’re putting in.

How easy is it to maintain this friendship?

So many of the people I consider closest to me are the ones that I don’t have to speak to every day. The ones that, when we meet up, regardless of how long it’s been, nothing seems to have changed between us. I feel that the best friendships are the one’s that are relatively low-maintenance. I don’t want to have an argument because it’s been a week and I’ve forgotten to message. I don’t want to feel like I’ve been a terrible mate because I didn’t have time to meet you for a drink this month. I want to feel there’s mutual love and respect between us, even after we’ve grown up and into better versions of ourselves.

Friendships, in my eyes, should be the light of our lives. Sometimes, it’s good to acknowledge that we – or they – might just need that light in a moment of darkness. Some friendships are transcient, and that’s okay.

But some friendships – the best ones – don’t just serve a purpose for a little while. They are the ones that stay and bloom and adapt around each other’s changing lives and circumstances. They are the ones that, now, at this point in my life, I value the most.

I was heartbroken to hear about the death of Caroline Flack on Saturday. Please, take this opportunity to reach out to your friends and check in with them. Tackle the tabloids by avoiding click-bait and celebrity gossip, taking extra care about how you present your opinions online, and – as Caroline would say – #BeKind.

andante, andante: notes on recovery

Mental Health

It’s been nearly two weeks since I took the plunge into honesty, and I want to continue sharing my struggles and successes with you all. Though recovery will never be completely rainbows and butterflies, this week I’ve found love and laughter in unexpected places.

Back on the EDU last year, one of the nurses told me the average time it takes someone to recover from an eating disorder is seven years. At the time, I thought she was depressing and disheartening. Now, I realise she was just trying to warn me: there is no quick fix, and even when your physical health stabilizes, there will always be emotional issues to tackle. It’s never as simple as ‘just eating’: it’s a long, winding road of learning and un-learning thoughts and behaviours.

This being said, the last week has been a good week for me, recovery-wise. After the initial sharing of my story for the first time (which was equal parts terrifying and liberating), I started the week positive and motivated. I’m currently on a 16-month waiting list for one-to-one therapy (tell me NHS budget cuts don’t exist, I dare you), but I’m lucky enough to be in regular contact with the EDU here in Oxford, and I’ve found their support really helpful so far.

A few days ago, I had an appointment with my new dietitian. It’s always nerve-wracking meeting a new member of my key support team, but she was a cracking lady; really supportive and down-to-earth. We had a ten-minute conversation about our shared love of sourdough, so that was great. I thought it’d be helpful to share some of the processes that I go through with my recovery – for those still suffering who have yet to seek help. Seeking help for your ED is the first step – and the hardest one – but I’d like to raise awareness of the fact that, although it’s scary, it’s vital in order to get the freedom you deserve.

So, my appointment with my new dietitian lasted about two hours. This is totally normal for dietitian appointments, though sometimes they vary and can be a little shorter. Usually for this kind of thing, I’ll be expected to go up to the eating disorder inpatient unit – though some units will have separate buildings for outpatients, and sometimes I might meet my dietitian at the main hospital. We talked about my current situation and how we could work together to make small changes that would benefit me in my recovery. While I’m still waiting for psychological support, it’s important to have a steady intake and sleep schedule, and to try and drop some of the unhealthy coping mechanisms my little brain has been clinging onto.

Because I’ve made some progress with my diet and weight over the past few weeks, this meeting was different from the others I’ve had. My dietitian has given me some timetable-come-meal-plan sheets that I have to use to keep track of intake and compensatory behaviours, and I’ve also been given a little CBT hand-out to help me remember the ‘new rules’. I thought it might be helpful for you guys to see:

You may find it totally bizarre that there are times when anorexics are ‘not allowed’ to eat – but this is a big thing in recovery! Even back in group therapies, we weren’t allowed any food or drink (aside from water) inside our sessions. There’s always been a huge emphasis on eating at the *right* times, and this is because a) it’s important to get into a good routine, for physical things like your metabolism, as well as psychological impact and b) it allows you to listen to your hunger signals.

Hunger signals are another big thing, let me tell you. For your average non-disordered person, they will feel hungry around lunchtime, and they’ll eat. For someone with an ED, feeling hungry is almost constant; sometimes we might feel hungry even after we’ve eaten, and sometimes we’ll feel so hungry that this can lead to periods of ‘bingeing’ which damages our stomachs – constantly shrinking and swelling – and our minds. So, until we’ve learned to train our minds and bodies to expect food at certain times, we’re unable to trust when we’re hungry and when we should be eating.

As you can see from the handout I was given, there are rules about the flexibility of mealtimes (1hr max), using compensatory behaviours (that’s a no-go) and eating outside of these set times (totally forbidden). So, my new rules are pinned up in my bedroom and I’ve jumped head-first into trying to achieve my goals. Also, my dietitian has clocked on to my competitive-ness and is definitely trying to provoke me in any way she can. She’s a smart lady (I hate that).

Another thing you can expect when recovering with the help of ED services is a lot of scans and blood tests. You kind of get over the needle thing after a little while! This week I didn’t have any blood tests, as I had them the week prior, but I did have a good old ECG and a DEXA scan.

So, for those who don’t know – an ECG is where you go (to your GP) and they stick lots of sticky pads all over your body and measure your heart rate. This is because those with ED’s will often have heart irregularities, like a heart-rate too quick or too slow. Deep in my disorder around fourteen months ago, my heart rate was very slow due to over-exercising (yeah, that can happen!), but this time, it was looking pretty healthy (#winning). It’s important to ask for an ECG if you think you may have an eating disorder – even if you feel you don’t ‘look underweight’, your heart can suffer from lack of nutrients, and it’s important to keep an eye on it.

A DEXA scan scans your bones to check their density. When people develop ED’s whilst their bones are still growing and developing (aka teens – twenties), it can lead to osteopena and osteoporosis. DEXA scans are super quick and easy – you lie on a table and put your legs on a raised block. It takes maybe ten minutes, if that. It does not involve getting in a tunnel. But, if you’re very lucky (and you forget to wear a non-underwired bra), you might get to rock one of these cool hospital scrub gowns.

My radiologists were hilarious and super interested in my writing: in fact, both of them jotted down my name and book title to ‘buy it when it’s published!’. So, uh, I guess I have to get it published now, if only to save me the embarrassment…! It’s always lovely to have good chat and banter with hospital staff: they make a routine check-up an actual enjoyable experience.

So, that’s my week for you! Lots of appointments, kind, friendly nurses, and laughter with some rad radiologists. It’s been wild; and I’ve mostly stuck to my new plans, so I’m calling this week a Recovery Win.

I also just want to throw it out there that my diagnosis of Atypical Anorexia Nervosa means that for most of my disorder, I was not underweight. A common misconception – and one that AAN sufferers often internalise – is that you have to be underweight to be ‘actually sick’. This isn’t true. If you can relate at all to what I’m talking about, I’d urge you to seek help. One of the nurses at the Bristol EDU once told me that AAN can often be more dangerous than other eating disorders, because your internal organs are suffering, but you might not ‘look the part’ and therefore not seek treatment. There’s a reason it has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. You’ve nothing to lose by speaking to your GP. Trust your instincts and find freedom through honesty.

Thank you so much for your comments on #FreedomFriday’s COURAGE issue, it does – and always will – mean the world. As always, questions and feedback can be shot my way at tomlin.bethany@gmail.com – as can submissions for #FreedomFriday.

#FreedomFriday Vol. 1: COURAGE

#FreedomFriday

In this second issue, we have poetry from Danny Steele, artwork from Sophie Victoria Rowe, and I talk openly for the first time about creative writing and mental health recovery.

every time with you matters

I wonder what it’s like for you
I say wonder as sometimes i don’t know
or can’t hear
or don’t hear
or won’t hear

I carry on, like an elephant trampling through the wild grass
thinking ahead

time waits for noone
spending time as us has been toxic,
‘us’ has become toxic, reactionary, defensive
the kryptonite cutting through the ice, a blackened flower wilted in the heat.

rage
pain
rage
repeat

in this, in this there is hope, there is potential through the pain:
There is always room for celebration, there is always room to hear what is really being said

growth
love
growth
repeat

every time with you matters
you are important, we are significant
i enjoy it most when we just be

by Danny Steele

*‘G A L A X I E S’ by Sophie Victoria Rowe*
*Instagram: @sophievictoriaroweart*

*

Writing yourself well: my creative journey

It’s so easy to lose ourselves. There are always things that need to be done, relationships we need to maintain, responsibilities we just can’t escape. Not to mention, holding on to the essence of who we are is becoming harder and harder as technology develops. We create different versions of ourselves to present on social media, to our bosses, our friends, our parents. So how can we find the courage to be truly ourselves in a society that tells us who we are isn’t good enough?

I struggled with my identity for many years. I was such a perfectionist, and so desperate to be equal parts successful and likeable in whatever pursuits I chose, that I created so many personalities I couldn’t keep track. At work, I wanted to be a loveable colleague and a valuable employee. At university, I wanted to be effortlessly successful and get the highest grade I was capable of. At home, I needed to be a perfect daughter and sister, always available to help and love and support.

But I was spreading myself too thin with all of the things I wanted to be. I’m a perfectionist anyway – a risky trait that I’m still trying to work on – and maintaining the high standards I’d set for myself just wasn’t realistic. My mental and physical health was suffering, and I had to find a way to get back to myself before I forgot who I was completely.

At nineteen, I was diagnosed with depression and began to develop an eating disorder. It started subconsciously, and without any effort to lose weight, but soon began to snowball out of control. Because I’d have periods of restriction and eating normally, my weight fluctuated, and this made it hard to ever admit that I had a problem. Somewhere inside, I knew I was grasping at control by using food and exercise, but I never fully understood why. As long as I wasn’t stick thin, I didn’t have to admit to myself – or anyone else – that there was in issue at all.

Over the next year, as my University workload increased, and I pushed myself to continue getting top grades in every assignment, I became more restrictive with my eating. People began to congratulate me on my weight loss, and this only fuelled my disordered thinking – leading me to believe that this was something else I was succeeding in. Every day, my disordered behaviours were more prominent, and the illness felt more and more like a part of my identity.

I continued my cycle of revolving personalities until I couldn’t anymore. A friend convinced me to go to the doctors, where I was diagnosed with Atypical Anorexia and assigned weekly weigh-ins, blood tests and ECG’s to monitor my physical health. But there was no psychological support available, and this lack of resources only convinced me I wasn’t ‘sick enough’ to receive treatment: something that I realised, much later, was a common belief in anorexic and bulimic patients. I was put on a waiting list for a specialist treatment program. I waited eleven months and was underweight by the time I was admitted.

It’s my first time writing about any of this, and terrifying as even most of my family and friends have yet to hear my story. It’s strange writing about a time when I was so unhappy, when to the outside world, it probably didn’t seem that way at all.

The ten weeks I spent on the program at an eating disorder unit in Bristol really were beneficial. The girls I met there were incredible, and I’ll always treasure our heart-to-hearts at the end of every session. Group therapy was something I’d never done before – in fact, I’d never done any kind of therapy before – and I was surprised to find that most of the sessions involved writing of some sort.

Spoiler alert: the story is less depressing from here on out.

Almost every group therapy had us writing something. Sometimes it was letters to our future selves, to our bodies, to each other – but the biggest piece of work we produced was our Life Map. Each week, one of us would present our life to the rest of the group. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write (harder than this post, even!), but after reading my story to the rest of the girls, it was like a weight had been lifted that I didn’t even realise was there.

The treatment ended with us writing letters of encouragement and support to each other and taking home a little envelope of kind words. I still have mine now, and I hope I always cling onto it. At the end of the day, that envelope holds more than just kind words: it holds hope for the future, for all of us.

Figuring out that I could use writing as a form of therapy was an epiphany for me. The end of treatment was scary and isolating, but I had something that I could take with me and use in my recovery. This will sound like greeting-card levels of cheesiness, but I really did get back to myself through writing. Having that initial courage to explore my emotions and problematic aspects of my personality on paper was the hardest part, but once I’d started, I never stopped.

Around the time I finished the program, I had just started my Masters degree. Had it been a few months earlier, the anorexia would have been pushing me to get perfect grades, never hand in anything that would get less than a First, attend every lesson… As it happens, I started my manuscript for the course with one thing in mind: to get back to who I really was.

I started with an exercise that I now teach in my writing workshops for mental health recovery: splitting the self.

When I was starting my Masters, I was still clinging onto my eating disorder. If there was one thing I learnt in hospital, it was that eating disorders develop for a reason, and often that reason is to help you cope. They are helpful, in a twisted way, and that makes them hard to give up. Writing about my disorder was still too raw – and I knew, somewhere, that it would do me more harm than good. So, I took my writing in a different direction: not autobiography, but fiction.

Exploring yourself through fiction is great. Honestly, it’s wonderful.

I began by taking two identities I had: Beth, who, let’s be real, I was kind of losing sight of, and this disorder. I took them away from myself, separated myself completely from them, and made them into two different characters: Etta, and Violet.

My manuscript I AM ETTA was born. I began with a writing exercise that I’d encourage you to try yourself, if you’re looking to do a little soul searching.

It starts with picking an identity.

I am a daughter.

I am a writer.

Et cetera. Pick your identity, and split it.

I am a good daughter, and I am a bad daughter.

I am a motivated writer, and I am a lazy writer.

You have two different identities now, but they’re so much more than that. They are two different characters. The good and the bad. Or, as one of my students described it, “Myself, and my shadow self.”

The next thing you do is give your two identities names. They aren’t you anymore. They are completely separate. It’s important to humanise these characters, and to make them into fully independent, fictional beings – because it’s hard to examine our flaws on paper. It’s hard to admit that we might not be so great in aspects of our personalities, but when you think about these characters, you will start to realise that there is a motivation behind everyone.

Even the worst parts of yourself have joys, loves, goals. Every antagonist is the protagonist of their own story, in a way.

Once I’d given my characters names, I started to jot down some words, images, and phrases that I could associate with each of them. I made two little tables, looking something like this:

Etta – “Well self”	Violet – “Ill self”
Childlike curiosity Stacks of well-read books The colour of the sky Kindness Chalky poetry on pavements Bravery	An unexploded bomb Manipulative Hailstones on bare skin A cloudy sky before a storm Flashes of manic laughter Neon colours that hurt your eyes

Do the same for your characters. Think carefully about emotions and descriptions.

With my writing workshop groups, I usually get students to put their two characters into different scenarios. Where might they meet? How might you think about bringing them together through a narrative?

What might they learn from each other?

Writing I AM ETTA helped me to explore my own emotions and motivations through a completely separate and fictional narrative. More than that, it helped me paint a picture of recovery for myself. I walked with Etta through her darkest moments, cried as I wrote about her suffering, but then I brought her up. I watched her grow. I was right there with her as she started her first steps towards recovery.

Through writing my manuscript, I was able to write myself well again.

I brought the focus that was on my eating habits onto my writing instead. Through nourishing my body, I had more time and energy to put into honing my craft. I graduated my Master’s degree with a Distinction, and feedback that I AM ETTA was a deeply moving and publishable piece of work.

The manuscript now sits on the desk of my agent, awaiting feedback, but it won’t matter to me if a publisher doesn’t decide to pick it up. Writing that book was the therapy I needed; a piece of writing that healed me in ways I might never fully understand.

The point of this essay is not only to shed light on a story that I’ve kept in the dark for so many years, but to show others that writing might be the way to wellness for them, too. Now several months into my recovery from depression and anorexia, I’ve been running workshops in Oxford on writing for mental health recovery. I’ve received wonderful feedback from students on all the different ways they’ve found pieces of themselves in their writing, and I’ve hope for the future that I’ll find more ways to heal myself and others through the simple act of creativity.

You can read the blurb for I AM ETTA on the Bookshelf website here, and in February 2019 you’ll be able to read an extract from the first few chapters of the manuscript.

Thank you for reading my story. It took courage to write, but that’s the whole point of #FreedomFriday. If you have your own story, poetry, artwork or creative writing to share, contact me at tomlin.bethany@gmail.com.