The Tragedy of Relapse

When you're spiralling so fast, your mind cant keep up. Dizzy, entranced, and then it hits you. At 8AM, when you find yourself pulling apart a razor to free the blade while sitting in the bathtub, it hits you. And you're holding the false remedy to a day you can't seem to see the end to between your thumb and finger, frozen in spot, knowing that this isn't a slip-up in recovery. You've drifted back to a place where you can't cope—a place you need to heal from quickly, because you are running out of options.

The realisation can be paralysing. The shock of it hitting you, that you are back in a place you had fought so hard to escape from. You're back to the past you have been running from. Instead of recovering, so near the end of the battle, all of a sudden you veered off the track. Depression, bulimia—the labels are slapped back onto the identity you have given yourself. Part of you still thought you had been going forward all this time... but it didn't take much for everything to fall apart at the re-welded and stitched up edges. The terrifying thought is that maybe you were still running, but that in this world there really isn't anything to be running to. That just maybe, there is no place where you will be content, and at peace in the chaos.

Well, that was a load of pessimistic crap from a warped up mind.

There is hope, I suppose—there is always hope, and there is always something to move towards which will be better. Even if we can't change our situation, we can change how we react. We can become stronger, we can learn how to cope, and that is how life will become easier. It hurts though, it hurts a lot. The pain I have endured was something I had been so proud to call the past, but it's dawning on me—it still is the past.

I'm sorry to everyone reading this, who has no idea of the direction that this article is taking. Really, this is the mumble jumble of my mind... I write to understand myself more than I write for other people to understand me. I write to process, to learn, to heal. And right now, I'm learning.

So, this is what I am learning right now. I'm learning that a relapse isn't a relapse. A relapse doesn't exist. Yes, I am hurting, and yes, everything that is happening is very similar to past pain, with struggles I feel I have had to endure before, but no, this is not that same. I am not back to where I was, because the past is the past. I am hurting, to a point where I have lost control of my eating, starving myself, and binging. It is the way it was before, but it isn't the same. This is not the same time, the same situation, the same reason. I find myself pinned to the sofa for hours on end, crying alone in my house and drinking until I can't think straight, and can't feel the hurting anymore. I find myself depending on alcohol, drugs, and self-harm rather than friendship and self-care. I can feel my body being destroyed, from the inside out.

The only thing that distinguishes this as problematic, and may label it as a relapse is that, like all those months ago when I suffered, I had lost hope. I had lost the understanding of the fact that things could improve, because I felt too far gone, too lost and very much beyond the point of being fixed. But, the reality is, that the ball is in my court. My situations may be out of my control, but how I react isn't. This can be fought against. It will take time, but I can heal—I can be fixed, and some day I will sit down, look back and this too will be in the past. I will see all of this as a memory, and I will think to myself, thank goodness you kept fighting.

You will too.

"Relapse" is a hard thing to accept, but in order to heal for good, you need to take a deep breath in and say OK. It's OK. You will get through this again, and will come out of it stronger. First, you need to tell somebody else. Somebody who is a part of your life that you trust, and that can help you through it. Definitely, do not push on through this while listening to close family and friends rave on in delight about how pleased they are that you are better. You aren't letting them down by telling them, you are letting them in. You are allowing yourself to deepen your friendships as you trust others. You are allowing yourself to rebuild by accepting where you are at, and being honest about it to those around you.

Although things are very difficult, you know where things went wrong in the past, and how best to pick yourself up. You know the old habits and dangerous remedies—you know how they never really helped you. So, my advice? In this crisis, steer clear of the tendencies you developed during the last struggles. Don't let yourself fall further, don't allow yourself to slip deeper. And, also learn to forgive yourself, and not to blame yourself or others for how you are feeling. Don't let yourself be bitter, or angry at the world. Stay soft, stay gentle.

Life is like a novel, and you haven't flicked back a few pages—there was just an unexpected plot twist. A sucky one, to say the least, but one that will be resolved. So please, keep fighting.

You are in a difficult place now, but remember that it won't be forever.