If you follow or read @rubencress his blogs, you might have read about me being sick. While I don't want to emphasize this part of me too much, I do want to give you a little update about what has been going on the last couple of months (almost a year) and what keeps me busy nowadays.
Life update
The last time I posted on Hive, I told you that I'd just moved to another city and that I'd been very busy with moving stuff and not feeling too well because of the stress it gave me. It was the first time living on my own and I was in the last year of my education (graduated in the meantime, yay). I also followed an internship back then, so as you can imagine, all those things combined were quite stressful.
As the perfectionist that I am, I always want things to be and to go perfect. My house had to be decorated 'perfect', my grades had to be 'perfect' and I had to look kind of 'perfect' too (whatever perfect may look like). As long as I was doing what I thought was expected from me, everything would be fine.
After graduating, I started working at my first full-time job. I already knew that I wasn't made for the 40-hour work week, but I really wanted to show everyone, and especially myself, that I could pull this off. At least for half a year. Long story short: I couldn't. Within 4 months I was feeling burned out and most importantly, not happy with what my personal and work life looked and felt like. It felt like a never-ending survival, over and over again, every week.
At the end of November I called in sick at my job. I already was seeing a therapist in the months before and he then diagnosed me with burnout and depression. I've struggled with episodes of feeling depressed in the past before, but this felt like so much worse. I'd worked so hard to be independent and successful, and not being able to do anything anymore felt like such a failure. Yeah, I think that's the right description: I felt like a failure (and I sometimes still do). And the worst of all, what would everyone think of me? I couldn't deal with my thoughts and emotions which made me slowly fall back into my eating disorder.
I've been struggling with an eating disorder for ten years now. The last couple of years were okay, as regards eating. I've never been completely free from disordered thoughts, but I'd found my way of dealing with them. But all those changes and new things in my life + feeling depressed and burned out made me fall back into it.
I knew I needed professional help, so at the beginning of January I signed up for treatment again. At that time there was a waiting list for almost 7 months. With @rubencress doing the absolute best he could (he knows how grateful I am:)), my physical and mental condition, unfortunately, got worse and we searched for other ways to receive (professional) help. I don't want to dive too deep into this whole process (it was awful), but after two months I got hospitalized at a Psychiatric Medical Unit of a hospital nearby. This was only temporary, and still not the mental help that I truly needed, but at least they made sure that things didn't get worse and even got a little better :)
Everyone that was hospitalized at the Psychiatric Medical Unit had to follow a daily program, which consisted of different kinds of therapy, e.g. creative therapy and music therapy. It helped me get through the most difficult days. I also have to admit that I'm a teeny-tiny proud of what I've created during the creative sessions. What do you think? ;)
Future plans
They send me home after three months and @rubencress and I are currently trying to make the best out of the situation. I'm still waiting for a spot at the treatment center for eating disorders, but they can call me any day now since I'm number one on the waiting list.
While still dealing with burnout and depression, I can't keep my focus on anything. There lays an unfinished Jigsaw Puzzle under the cupboard for two months now and I can't seem to finish my knitting project, which I also started two months ago. Ugh, so frustrating... I do like to have something on my hands though, for when I'm done laying in bed watching Netflix and Youtube. So I thought it would be fun trying to write about my day-to-day life right now, in the form of weekly updates. I can't promise you that I'll pull it off like @rubencress does with his monthly updates, but at least I can try and figure out if it gives me some kind of purpose right now.
Thank you for reading about why I'd been absent for the last two years. I hope I didn't scare anyone off. Also, please let me know if you would be interested to read about my little weekly adventures :)
Lots of love,
Dymph
P.s. If you ever struggle with your mental health, please talk about it with someone (even if it's just a friend or neighbor). It can give so much light to the darkness. Just know that you don't have to deal with that stuff on your own!