I Won't Quote

I have taken my sweet time with writing this post, but finally today, when my mood is awful due to doctor visit and I feel like a failure of a patient, I am writing this. :D (Actually this is translation from my Estonian blog, I had my doctor's appointment on Thursday.)

At the hospital we had a chance to take part in art therapy classes, where we could make whatever we wanted (though sometimes there were topics or we did something together). I took pictures of all my work (not good quality, I am sorry) and decided to write about them a little.

The first one is called Wish and it shows how I want to get well. Because the things that I have... depression, eating disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, suicidal thoughts - is sickness. And I don't wish this upon anyone.  I like how this picture came out. I used gel pen and watercolours and my own fingers. :D



This was the one where we had a topic - your life's mandala. Moods, present and past. I don't know if it is understandable, but for me everything started on the left side - pretty, colourful. Then came the breaking point, but now I hope to become better, to grow and maybe even bloom. But this is a goal that is still very far away.



I had super detailed colouring book and this made me want to make something detailed as well. This is not finished, obviously, but I kind of like it.



I used different materials to make some flowers. I think it looks a bit like a handmade card.



I really loved that we could use all different kinds of materials, magazines, glues, washi tapes, stickers, watercolours and so on.



This should be my sad version of Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life. I guess it is something. :D It was, however, made within like 5 minutes or so.



Falling stars. I don't remember making this picture, but I think it was towards the end of the class and I still had some colours left, so I made this sketch. But hey, somethimes sketches are the most important. While making those you don't have to think about anything and if you end up with something, something that has an idea, it is maybe cool. If I had to have my own campaign for some reason, then my slogan would be MORE SKETCHES!



Well now then with this picture there is a funny story. I have NO IDEA why and when and where I made this. I was actually concerned that the therapist gave me someone else's work, until I noticed my own name. Nice job, ECT! There are still days where I find out that I have forgotten something. For example I didn't remember that I had shown Silja all of these pictures when we came home from the hospital.



This was made right before I made the Klimt's copy and probably does not need to be introduced. I just figured I'd try. Somewhy I was thinking about Doctor Who and Vincent is still, I think, the best episode and often makes me tear up.



Something simple, yet clear. I really loved watercolours. I don't really remember making this as well. Kind of seems amiliar, but I don't know if I actually remember it or I think that I remember it. Weird to explain.



Patterns. Patterns patterns patterns. I just wanted to make so many pieces with patterns. I didn't even have a point. Actually these kind of pictures are kind of nice because you don't think of anything, you just let your hands do what they want and your mind can be empty.



A year. I wanted to make something else the way I made the first "Wish" picture. I think it came out rather cool.



Bubbles. Thought bubbles. Soap bubbles. I don't even know. Maybe this expresses how thanks to ECT I started to get my emotions back, but they could just pop any time at any small thing. Like soap bubble that floats, until it lands on someone, on the floor or against the wall.



Another mandala thingy. We didn't have any rulers or stuff, so this is just made with my own hand and gel pen.



While making this I thought how I am trying to break free, but can't seem to succeed. How I am drowned by my depression, how I am barely visible. Barely, but that is something. I am afraid that actually I am back at the place where I was, but I think I understand my illness and myself a little more. Does it make any sense? Maybe not, but for me, it does. The main thing is that I am still really. really bad. I even hate writing positive sentences here.



Dark thoughts. Because there are. They come and go and next to them there are also good and positive and beautiful and colourful thoughts and ideas and emotions, but at the same time... a few days ago I wondered what I would say in my farewell letter. At the same time I understood that this is not okay. This is dark thought. And I need to get over it. It needs to be re-painted. I need to program myself to overwrite it. This time I managed.



Faceless. Because this is how I feel every single time when someone asks how I am doing, how I am managing, how I am feeling, what is bothering me. Complete emptiness. Even my face has disappeared, because I have no answers. It is like static on TV, when you pick a non-existen channel.



For some reason this means a lot to me. Life circles. I made it during my individual art therapy, which my doctor had me do after hearing that I like art. In this, there are all my years from my birth up to now. I drew what and when happened. It would be difficult to write it all down here, but while crying, I told it all to the therapist. I don't think any other piece I made helped me as much as this one.



Bottled emotions. Because I feel like most of my emotions are bottled up inside me. I can't access them, not to mention share them with others. I know that there is happiness and sadness in me, there is excitement in me. There is love and there are tears. There is euphoria, there is melancholy. But I don't feel them. They just are. Like in a bottle, separated from the world. You can see them, but not touch them.



This was the very first thing in my first art therapy class. I also had a nightmare of this piece; it was ready in my dream, but kept getting smaller and smaller and emptier. It was disturbing and I have no idea what it meant. I think I would call it... Path.



Again I wanted to make something detailed, at the same time thinking of someone. Is it abnormal of me? I feel that it is, but I don't feel bad relating this to a person. Confused.



This is another very very important picture. Me. What is happening in my head. What is happening in me, what I am. When am I in charge and when not? At least I know now what I am fighting against.



Helping hands. Because everyone are helping me. Everyone around me are understanding and good and I have no idea why I am taken such good care of. Did I save the world in my past life?



Helping hands in a sense that they keep me together from falling into pieces.



During this one I thought about guided meditation, which I also would like to write about at some point. Anyway, after regular breathing exercises we had this short "imagination hike" where in one we took a hot air balloon out for a ride and in another one we went swimming in the sea. This was my interpretation.



What now. What comes next? What is important, what do I want, what I like, what I love, what I aim for, what happens now?

Congrats if you made it to the end!

I am obsessed with weighing myself. For a long time, my mood has depended on it. Also my breakfast has depended on it (for example if I let myself add some peanut putter to my morning porridge, or is full banana okay - maybe only half is allowed). And it is still like this; so I don't know - should I step on the scale or not then?!

At the hospital they tried to weigh me so I wouldn't see (I usually still managed to peek) and it was more difficult but also easier. When I didn't see. I still wondered what the number was, but at the same time it did not make me happy or sad - I wasn't dependent on the number any longer.

I saw my doctor on Thursday. He was not at all happy with me and said he will check when eating disorder facility in another town, Tartu, has a free spot. Because he feels that I cannot handle it by myself. I also feel like this, to be completely honest. All food related stuff has gotten a lot worse since I got back from the hospital.

But at the same time I am going to change my job, so I cannot just give away a few weeks of my life. Again. This is literally once in a lifetime opportunity and I look forward to it. I told my doctor to please, please give me one more chance, one more week to change my weight 180 degrees and make it rise at least a bit. Until now it has not happened. I will see him again this week, so maybe I will figure some stuff out then. They cannot force me to go to hospital, but he says that is is already an "existential question", meaning  "come on, Signe, your life is on the line".

This brings me to scale. To weigh myself or not? For the first time for a couple of days I have been thinking that maybe I shouldn't. But the time is passing fast (seeing my doctor again soon), and this sort of makes it necessary. Because if I don't, I automatically assume I eat too much and then keep eating less and less....

My psychologist at the hospital advised 2 times per week, for example on Monday and Thursday. Which made sense. But at the same time I am still too nervous and cannot handle this.

I want to run already. So much. Tried to tell my sister to let me, because I said that then I will of course eat more, but she did not agree. I guess I understand it myself that... It can't really go like this. Because I need to eat MORE already now, if I spend even more energy, I need to eat even more and it would be difficult. But I would mentally feel better. If I could move. I know I would have more apetite. I would be ok with gaining weight then.

And now I don't understand if this is my own idea or this is my eating disorder that tries to talk. Argh. I wish I had a psychologist already, but at  the moment they are not setting this up for me, because as I weight so little, it makes no sense. My brain has no energy to heal me from depression.

If anyone can, would you read how many times I have used the words "scale" and "weight" in this post? They don't even seem normal words anymore.

Unknowing something kills me. And this post is pointless. I just wanted to write down some of my thoughts. For some reason I haven't found much information about eating disorders in Estonian. I did read one book at the hospital, but it was translated from Finnish.

Well, there is this one Estonian book where a girl writes about her experience at Tartu eating disorder treatment facility, which I also read already. But other than that there seems to be nothing.

I am annoyed.

Actually I am mos annoyed at myself.

How I feel when I am eating?

Good, because food is delicious and I like it?

Good, because I am a rather good cook?

Normal, it is just a simple part of life?

Normal, I don't really think about it?

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Eating for me is almost sacred experience. It is as if I was afraid of food. It feels as if I have to justify every bite, both to myself and others. It is as if I do not have a permission to eat. There is so much guilt that comes with eating and it is torturing me. Torturing so much.

Lets just say you have agreet to go to a cinema with your friend, and then later just out to a bar. You haven't seen each other in a while and this plan has been brewing for some time already. And finally it is that day! Then something happens at home. Your washing machine breaks and floods the flat. You have a really good reason why you can't go out that day. Or... well, lets say you get a stomack bug and spend your day hugging the toilet bowl. You can't move an inch from your position.

Now imagine what you are feeling when your friend says, trying not to sound too disappointed, that it is okay and there is nothing you can do, it is just life. You can meet another time. It is fine.

But is it? Guilt is brewing. You find yourself thinking why now, why this time. Why not a week later? May the stomach bug come worse, but not right now! Let the wasking machine literally blow up! You feel guilty.

This is how I feel every single time I put something in my mouth. Breakfast porridge? I eat it LITTERALLY every day, but god forbid there is a spoonful of it more than normally - guilt appears! Soup for lunch AND yoghurt? Guilt. Oi oi, is the yoghurt necessary? All of the store brang yoghurts have so much sugar in them. And all the sweeteners are bad as well. I think I should do a sugar detox. OH and someone brought candy to work? One candy? It means at least 10 minutes of walking fast. Did you know that one candy has around 50 freaking calories?

For dinner you add some mayo or ketchup? Are you mad? Guilt. It is so unhealthy. Instead you could have couple of more grapes later.

Guilt. Guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt. Just guilt.

Today I had a bag of BelVita cookies. 4 cookies. Were they tasty? Heck yes. I also had coffee with coconut milk with them - amazing. But did I see them like this, were they just cookies? No. 56 calories per one. 224 in whole 4. I ate all four. It means at least 12k steps, if you walk slowly. Around 10k if faster. And even then it won't really be -224 calories. Guilt.

I wish I got rido of it somehow, but instead I am here, writing it down. Sometimes writing like this helps. Writing without much thought. But the worst part? The sickest, weirdest, freakiest part? I understand how sick, weird and freaky it is. Abnormal. Food is food. Energy is energy. These cookies won't kill me. I could enjoy them, especially now when I need to gain weight.

But no. I am drowning in this guilt and cannot get rid of it. Maybe tomorrow it will be better and I will make more sense of everything. But here it is, just some thoughts of anorexic.

Please don't want or get anorexia. It is not nice.

At one point art therapy was too little, so I started to make some sketches on my own. This portrays the thing where I am doing my tea challenge, and it is one of my favourite pictures. I also recognize myself on this picture, as I felt like drained and used teabag a lot of the time.


I wouldn't maybe say I cried all the time in my mind; I would rather say that my thoughts were cloudy and dark.


This is how I felt most of the time. Later it came to my attention that my blood had too little iron, which causes shortness of breath, which I had. So depression + lack of iron = panic. I think others may recognize themselves here as well, for example one of the caretakers who always seemed super positive, said she saw herself on the picture.


I feel like I now slept to make up for all these nights I only got a few hours. And I still felt tired a lot. But for depression, sleep is just as necessary as cup of sweet tea or some lighter sedative. I still find it difficult to draw faces, I wish I was better.... I know I used to be better at it, but at the moment I don't have enough patience for it as well.


Also another just a daily picture. I think that as much as I slept I also cried. Especially at nights. And it was not a rare occasion where my roommate tried to calm me down, because I was straight up hysterical. Rain-focused drawings were very "in", and I think the one on the right shows well how depression also brings worrying and paranoia etc. And then you feel that instead of protecting yourself, you are generating worries.


Head in clouds. I feel like this was somewhat a better day. Listen to your heart as you listen to music. Catching the stars and living with your head in clouds. I wish these days were more regular visitors. I don't know if I actually was in better mood, but maybe... Somewhy I love the clouds picture. Clouds are there, but it is not raining yet.


For this I dunno what to say. Maybe "I tried to use only lines and I cannot draw hands" or "I felt trapped and only pulling my hair helped, and it was weird. It felt like there was white nothingness around me and nothing helps me to feel things thank this - t least there is physical pain and you know you exist." Take it or leave it.


I wanna be cool and deap person and say that this picture shows eating disorder well. I didn't actually think that I am affected by media, but to think about it... TV and magazines are FULL of diets. After christmas - diet. New year - diet. Summer is comind - diet. Diet, DIEt, DIET. But okay, It is just a sketch.


This picture does not even have a story. I just were sketching some plants in order to figure out new look for my bullet journal and also wanted to draw something related to tea (because the first tea picture is my favourite), but I wasn't really into drawing people. So there is this weird... table there :'D.


Stripes and friends, sketch-me and sketch-friend. I dunno, it just felt like a cool style to try. My journal, where I just wrote rants down and drew in also got this picture, because I really liked it. You don't always have to have some big and important topic for drawings.

With music, I got this weird sense that I couldn't "just" enjoy it. I was really stuck in writing reviews and always started to analyse stuff. But you can listen to music just for listening. So you can draw just for the act of drawing, too.


If anyone would like to know how I felt at the hospital around 99% of the time. Here you go: portrait of Signe.


Sometimes I wish I could silence my mind. Sometimes I wish I could silence myself in order not to complain or rant at others. Sometimes I wish I could manage my emotions, I wish the outside world was quiet.


Cats were in and one of the caretakers was complaining at the lack of colourful pictures (the same who got the hospitalized cloud picture). I made something colourful, then. For Motu!


I made picture of Van Gogh in art therapy (next post about art will be art therapy one) and as my second huge favourite is Gustav Klimt, I wanted to make his Tree of Life, in some way. It is literally a silly sketch, I don't even know why I decided to add it here. Maybe to show how not always stuff works out? Maybe.


Example of me when the doctor or psychologist or nurse asked, how I am feeling. I did not know. I don't even know now. This is the most difficult thing you can ask from someone suffering from depression. I don't want to immediately complain, it would be polite to say "fine", but at the same time you are at the hospital, where you HAVE to say what is baf. So all of this is one huge confusing I don't know.


I still cannot draw any faces, but... Anyway, I guess this just shows an emotion I had, where it was a bit difficult to cope with stuff. Again.


Okay, so here is a face. But it is not regular. I had some thing with different coloured parts like this, so... For example the previous cat picture was similarly made. Now, to think about it, one could say that every colour is different feeling and the stripes are a way to try and fit them inside the boundaries, but it did not work out. It is what it is, it is something.


This is a real "work of art", with an actual thought but into it. Mulgi area of Estonia was looking for logo, so I took a wolf-like creature and bridge motives. After making this I read the terms and conditions and you were supposed to make the thing in photoshop and make example documents and all that. Impossible for me, as I have no computer art skill. But I liked having a topic.


Again this emptiness that is and does not leave and just goes through me and which you can't see but what you would like to show. It is difficult to show that I am ill, when I don't have anything to physically show. I wish... somehow... Maybe write it onto my forehead? Or make a shirt? I bet Awstuffi has a good idea for it.


And the first sketch I made at home!

So... until next time then, I guess?