GOSH, IT'S JUST ROLLING OUT

I was very tempted to stay in bed. It is cold and miserable and so am I. Although I am not really miserable I feel the way I always feel until my drugs kick in. John is still in bed.

I am still in a quandary as to whether to give you a long one or a short one but this morning I think I'm just in a go with how it flows.

On Thursday John told me he would not be home that evening or at least the latest he could get home would be the 11:30 PM train at Peterborough which would be far too late for me to go picking him up because of drug timing etc. I was also less than pleased with him because he promised me that he would not ever be doing anything on a Thursday evening and this is about the third time he has done this and it is not a case of him having to it is a case of him wanting to. Anyway 8:30 the following morning and I still haven't had a phone call from him so I called him and he groggily answered the phone. I had a few choice words to say and I went about my day which included swimming. When I returned home at almost 2 PM he was in bed. I still was assuming he had a hangover but it turns out he ate lobster on Thursday night and I think he had a case of food poisoning because the reason he found it so awful when I called him was because he had spent all night in the loo and only got home through the use of Imodium. He spent most of yesterday in bed although towards the end of the day he did not look pale and we did manage to do that bit of shopping we needed at Tesco. I feel torn between feeling sorry for him for being sick because I know awful that feels and annoyed with him for having broken his promise and had a night out with the boys on Thursday night.

In case the people a lot in this country didn't notice we did not have a winter here. They may have had one in Scotland which is much further north but it couldn't have been much of one because I don't remember much in the way of reports and you know what newspaper like any minor incident and its full p•age news. Well so far we haven't had spring either. In fact the weather doesn't seem to have changed. It is still dull and wet though it is warmer but still with frost at night.

I have no idea what John intends doing today about while he is still in bed I am going to knit and watch the ninth series of Grey's Anatomy. I am flummoxed by this program. I hate it. It is utter rubbish. Very melodramatic. And yet I'm on the night series and will watch as many episodes as I can back-to-back. Which for someone who hates it and thinks it's utter rubbish is very strange indeed. Perhaps I don't hate it perhaps it's a bit like sitting and eating a whole box of liquorice allsorts in one go. You really know you ought not because it is just sugar and liquorice and no good fee whatsoever and certainly will do nothing to educate you accept that Yang should have been written out in the first series. How does that woman have friends let alone a husband.

I have just figured out why my post tend to be long. Because I sit here waiting for my drugs to work and I can't sit here doing nothing so I type whatever comes out of my mouth. And you never know I might find the answer to the universe and everything just by rambling I could just hit upon it and peace reign upon this earth. Now wouldn't that be great. especially if I could do whatever I want to do that harm anybody and I could eat whatever I wanted and remain trim. Now that is a piece of growth I said trim I did not say skinny. whereas before anything more than 185 meant I was hideously fat and had no right to go out my door. and I am not kidding. I can't remember size is a mention that period of my life but it was shipped another example of self harm. I always wore whatever clothes I had which were dull and I covered that with a very long coat come winter or summer and I would sneak out to the shops usually to buy a record. If I went on an eating binge I would do the same except that I would go to several different shops because I was so ashamed of myself but I couldn't possibly by more than a couple of food items in any one shop because I was convinced they all knew that I was going to go on and eating binge. I would get home go into my bedroom well my bedsit or my squat lock the door and start unwrapping as if I hadn't ever read and I would stuff myself silly and fall asleep. It felt absolutely wonderful it was piece last the fight was over just for then. Of course I had to face what I had done when I woke up. I would flush everything I had left down the toilet and if it was too large for that I would go out in the dead of night and dump it in a public waste bin far from where I lived. Sometimes the urge to binge which is completely overwhelming and uncontrollable I would eat dog kibble and I have eaten out of dustbins. Can you see now why I never ever want to return to the Colin of those days. I know I had the disease and the lightbulb just went off in my head I am telling you and I'm telling you the worst of it without holding anything back. I used to take 30 Nylax the day because I never did quite get the hang of making myself vomit and I once swallowed a toothbrush in the attempt and I only just managed to retrieve it. I did eventually get put into a world-famous Anorexic unit run by a complete and utter attract whose surname was that of a food which was not an irony I found funny although I do sometimes find it funny now. I went because I thought I would be treated with love and kindness and someone would listen to me about the abuse I had survived. I could not have been more wrong I was given my own room but that room was glass so that they could see me 24 seven. I was treated like a prisoner and not like a patient with the disease. It was terrible. I was eventually discharged in disgrace because I dared to binge, WHAT THE FUCK DI YOU THINKWAS GOING TO DO OF MIGHTY ONE? STOP JUST BECAUSE OF YOUR PRESENCE? no. When the overwhelming urge hit me-the shakes the terrible cold the wanting to die-when that hit me I had to eat I had to get as much sugar in me as possible. Everything was locked except the bins which they did not seem to have thought about but unfortunately somebody else had beaten me to them. So I went out and to my utter shame I ate outside albeit surrounded by bushes. Had I been caught the shame would have been worse than had been caught totally naked and Wang Qing. If you don't have an eating disorder you have no idea what I'm talking about and I assure you I am so grateful that you don't know what I'm talking about. Anorexia/Bulimia are not self-inflicted diseases just as a Agoraphobia is not. any form of self harm is not. I still have scars up both arms where I used to cut myself. Luckily for me that was the final resort and my scars have all but faded so they are not visible unless I point them out to you.

This is why I say that all survivors become abusers. If we do not abuse others we abuse ourselves. I do believe that there is something about us that is broken beyond repair. But that is not an excuse to carry on with self-destructive behaviour or behaviour that destroys others. (Excuse me while I go and kill Megan. well now that has been taken care of. it was quite a messless job really)

What infuriates me is that there is very little in the way of knowledgeable help even in 2014 for people such as I was. It took me from 1975 until 1994 to find the right help. In the meantime I met all sorts of charlatans, sexual abusers, religious nutters, and people who believe that if I licked a little bit of ash that was supposedly part of Sai BaBa;s body I I would become well. I do have a very funny story about one of my experiences but that can wait. I met a lot of people whose only interest in me was to take advantage of me either financially or bodily or they were just on an ego trip and sincerely believed that their claptrap was going to help me.

They say the anorexia/bulimia is all about control. I still have my doubts about it but one day as I was driving to the pool I saw a rather rough looking boy walking along the side of the Dyke shirtless. he was skinny and hard. I knew at that moment in my 50s that that is what it had all been about I wanted to look like that because I believe if I looked like that my father would find me acceptable and others would stop bullying me. I still did not realise that it was my homosexuality that was the issue.

In yesterday's post I wrote about what I did to hide the fact that I was manic. You did not want to find yourself in a mental institution in the 70s or 80s for that matter and from my experience in 94 not then either. They were run by people who did not know what they were on about despite the letters after their name and in front of their name. Many were abusive and condescending. There was the occasional star to keep the light on but otherwise one flew over the Cuckoo's nest got it pretty well right. I thought about film when it first came out and I just knew that that was where I was headed and two years later that's where I was. I stupidly thought it would be much better and safer for me than being at home. It was far worse. I ran away several times but always got caught and brought back and put in solitary confinement and locked up. On one of these escapes I made it down as far as the ocean and there is a bridge between the mainland and one of the islands and I jumped off into the sea however it was a dark and stormy night and I did not know that the tide was out and when I jumped all I heard was SPLAT! and then I had to clear my way through this foul smelling bad until I got the bank were right cleaned myself up as much as I could by rolling around on the grass and I took myself left to the nearest police station and explained that I was a nutter who have escaped from the funny farm, which is what we has torture the camps were called. Fhe funny farm probe them to bring me back but the policeman refused to do so. Instead they called a taxi who took me back and I had to pay for it. £17 which in 1975 note 1977 I mean was a lot of money. they took it out of my care money and they only gave me pies to wheat for the next two weeks so of course I didn't eat.

I did not stop to bring under control this disease until I was in my 30s and yes the thought has already crossed my mind and that of my doctors that the gut problem I have and the bone problem I have could well be the result of that disease. I grew another 2 inches taller when I started to eat properly.

I still get a high out of not eating and overeating on sugar still brings me down and gives me a good night sleep. I rarely do either. I will tell you right now that the one sure way of placing me off is nagging me about my food. To me it is a very private matter despite the fact that I've written all of this to the world to see but my day-to-day eating is a private matter and matter what you say it will not change anything. I.e. to the way that I eat. I wish I didn't. I wish I could be like other people, like my husband, who enjoys his food and he eats absolutely anything yet if I ate what he ate I would be in serious trouble. One of the physical problems which I think is caused by the eating disorder rather than causes the eating disorder is that I produce too much insulin for the amount of sugar have eaten so that eating a doughnut for a normal person would not affect their weight but from me that doughnut would immediately be turned into fat because of the amount of insulin I would have released to deal with it.

I'm going to come to a compromise. I am going to leave this post here but I'm also going to post it on my blogs because then I am keeping my promise to my blog readers who are not on Facebook. It is good for me too because then I can stop feeling guilty about making a promise but I haven't kept to.

I was a agoraphobic for many years, I was obsessed with counting in my head find the in extremis I still do that. When I did eat I had to eat my food in a particular order and preferably in separate files that did not intermix just like that boy in the mysterious case of the missing dog in the night-time. I got such a huge identification reading that book. My doctor says that I am on the autistic spectrum but I would say that I was high functioning..I'm just so sick and tired of labels.

My name is Colin. That is my label purely for identification purposes. Colin has had many different experiences and most of them have been very painful but they have made me very understanding and compassionate toward other people. Colin is happy with that and Colin is still a work in progress and will be until the day I leave my body and even then I will continue to grow as I believe we all wil. however those are my beliefs and I don't care to hoots whether you believe that will not because if you don't believe it I shall be there on the other side when you take your last breath and I will be sticking my tongue out and waving my fingers at you going 'ya ya ya ya.'

GOSH, NOW I'M REALLY LETTING IT ROLL

I was very tempted to stay in bed. It is cold and miserable and so am I. Although I am not really miserable I feel the way I always feel until my drugs kick in. John is still in bed.

I am still in a quandary as to whether to give you a long one or a short one but this morning I think I'm just in a go with how it flows.

On Thursday John told me he would not be home that evening or at least the latest he could get home would be the 11:30 PM train at Peterborough which would be far too late for me to go picking him up because of drug timing etc. I was also less than pleased with him because he promised me that he would not ever be doing anything on a Thursday evening and this is about the third time he has done this and it is not a case of him having to it is a case of him wanting to. Anyway 8:30 the following morning and I still haven't had a phone call from him so I called him and he groggily answered the phone. I had a few choice words to say and I went about my day which included swimming. When I returned home at almost 2 PM he was in bed. I still was assuming he had a hangover but it turns out he ate lobster on Thursday night and I think he had a case of food poisoning because the reason he found it so awful when I called him was because he had spent all night in the loo and only got home through the use of Imodium. He spent most of yesterday in bed although towards the end of the day he did not look pale and we did manage to do that bit of shopping we needed at Tesco. I feel torn between feeling sorry for him for being sick because I know awful that feels and annoyed with him for having broken his promise and had a night out with the boys on Thursday night.

In case the people a lot in this country didn't notice we did not have a winter here. They may have had one in Scotland which is much further north but it couldn't have been much of one because I don't remember much in the way of reports and you know what newspaper like any minor incident and its full p•age news. Well so far we haven't had spring either. In fact the weather doesn't seem to have changed. It is still dull and wet though it is warmer but still with frost at night.

I have no idea what John intends doing today about while he is still in bed I am going to knit and watch the ninth series of Grey's Anatomy. I am flummoxed by this program. I hate it. It is utter rubbish. Very melodramatic. And yet I'm on the night series and will watch as many episodes as I can back-to-back. Which for someone who hates it and thinks it's utter rubbish is very strange indeed. Perhaps I don't hate it perhaps it's a bit like sitting and eating a whole box of liquorice allsorts in one go. You really know you ought not because it is just sugar and liquorice and no good fee whatsoever and certainly will do nothing to educate you accept that Yang should have been written out in the first series. How does that woman have friends let alone a husband.

I have just figured out why my post tend to be long. Because I sit here waiting for my drugs to work and I can't sit here doing nothing so I type whatever comes out of my mouth. And you never know I might find the answer to the universe and everything just by rambling I could just hit upon it and peace reign upon this earth. Now wouldn't that be great. especially if I could do whatever I want to do that harm anybody and I could eat whatever I wanted and remain trim. Now that is a piece of growth I said trim I did not say skinny. whereas before anything more than 185 meant I was hideously fat and had no right to go out my door. and I am not kidding. I can't remember size is a mention that period of my life but it was shipped another example of self harm. I always wore whatever clothes I had which were dull and I covered that with a very long coat come winter or summer and I would sneak out to the shops usually to buy a record. If I went on an eating binge I would do the same except that I would go to several different shops because I was so ashamed of myself but I couldn't possibly by more than a couple of food items in any one shop because I was convinced they all knew that I was going to go on and eating binge. I would get home go into my bedroom well my bedsit or my squat lock the door and start unwrapping as if I hadn't ever read and I would stuff myself silly and fall asleep. It felt absolutely wonderful it was piece last the fight was over just for then. Of course I had to face what I had done when I woke up. I would flush everything I had left down the toilet and if it was too large for that I would go out in the dead of night and dump it in a public waste bin far from where I lived. Sometimes the urge to binge which is completely overwhelming and uncontrollable I would eat dog kibble and I have eaten out of dustbins. Can you see now why I never ever want to return to the Colin of those days. I know I had the disease and the lightbulb just went off in my head I am telling you and I'm telling you the worst of it without holding anything back. I used to take 30 Nylax the day because I never did quite get the hang of making myself vomit and I once swallowed a toothbrush in the attempt and I only just managed to retrieve it. I did eventually get put into a world-famous Anorexic unit run by a complete and utter attract whose surname was that of a food which was not an irony I found funny although I do sometimes find it funny now. I went because I thought I would be treated with love and kindness and someone would listen to me about the abuse I had survived. I could not have been more wrong I was given my own room but that room was glass so that they could see me 24 seven. I was treated like a prisoner and not like a patient with the disease. It was terrible. I was eventually discharged in disgrace because I dared to binge, WHAT THE FUCK DI YOU THINKWAS GOING TO DO OF MIGHTY ONE? STOP JUST BECAUSE OF YOUR PRESENCE? no. When the overwhelming urge hit me-the shakes the terrible cold the wanting to die-when that hit me I had to eat I had to get as much sugar in me as possible. Everything was locked except the bins which they did not seem to have thought about but unfortunately somebody else had beaten me to them. So I went out and to my utter shame I ate outside albeit surrounded by bushes. Had I been caught the shame would have been worse than had been caught totally naked and Wang Qing. If you don't have an eating disorder you have no idea what I'm talking about and I assure you I am so grateful that you don't know what I'm talking about. Anorexia/Bulimia are not self-inflicted diseases just as a Agoraphobia is not. any form of self harm is not. I still have scars up both arms where I used to cut myself. Luckily for me that was the final resort and my scars have all but faded so they are not visible unless I point them out to you.

This is why I say that all survivors become abusers. If we do not abuse others we abuse ourselves. I do believe that there is something about us that is broken beyond repair. But that is not an excuse to carry on with self-destructive behaviour or behaviour that destroys others. (Excuse me while I go and kill Megan. well now that has been taken care of. it was quite a messless job really)

What infuriates me is that there is very little in the way of knowledgeable help even in 2014 for people such as I was. It took me from 1975 until 1994 to find the right help. In the meantime I met all sorts of charlatans, sexual abusers, religious nutters, and people who believe that if I licked a little bit of ash that was supposedly part of Sai BaBa;s body I I would become well. I do have a very funny story about one of my experiences but that can wait. I met a lot of people whose only interest in me was to take advantage of me either financially or bodily or they were just on an ego trip and sincerely believed that their claptrap was going to help me.

They say the anorexia/bulimia is all about control. I still have my doubts about it but one day as I was driving to the pool I saw a rather rough looking boy walking along the side of the Dyke shirtless. he was skinny and hard. I knew at that moment in my 50s that that is what it had all been about I wanted to look like that because I believe if I looked like that my father would find me acceptable and others would stop bullying me. I still did not realise that it was my homosexuality that was the issue.

In yesterday's post I wrote about what I did to hide the fact that I was manic. You did not want to find yourself in a mental institution in the 70s or 80s for that matter and from my experience in 94 not then either. They were run by people who did not know what they were on about despite the letters after their name and in front of their name. Many were abusive and condescending. There was the occasional star to keep the light on but otherwise one flew over the Cuckoo's nest got it pretty well right. I thought about film when it first came out and I just knew that that was where I was headed and two years later that's where I was. I stupidly thought it would be much better and safer for me than being at home. It was far worse. I ran away several times but always got caught and brought back and put in solitary confinement and locked up. On one of these escapes I made it down as far as the ocean and there is a bridge between the mainland and one of the islands and I jumped off into the sea however it was a dark and stormy night and I did not know that the tide was out and when I jumped all I heard was SPLAT! and then I had to clear my way through this foul smelling bad until I got the bank were right cleaned myself up as much as I could by rolling around on the grass and I took myself left to the nearest police station and explained that I was a nutter who have escaped from the funny farm, which is what we has torture the camps were called. Fhe funny farm probe them to bring me back but the policeman refused to do so. Instead they called a taxi who took me back and I had to pay for it. £17 which in 1975 note 1977 I mean was a lot of money. they took it out of my care money and they only gave me pies to wheat for the next two weeks so of course I didn't eat.

I did not stop to bring under control this disease until I was in my 30s and yes the thought has already crossed my mind and that of my doctors that the gut problem I have and the bone problem I have could well be the result of that disease. I grew another 2 inches taller when I started to eat properly.

I still get a high out of not eating and overeating on sugar still brings me down and gives me a good night sleep. I rarely do either. I will tell you right now that the one sure way of placing me off is nagging me about my food. To me it is a very private matter despite the fact that I've written all of this to the world to see but my day-to-day eating is a private matter and matter what you say it will not change anything. I.e. to the way that I eat. I wish I didn't. I wish I could be like other people, like my husband, who enjoys his food and he eats absolutely anything yet if I ate what he ate I would be in serious trouble. One of the physical problems which I think is caused by the eating disorder rather than causes the eating disorder is that I produce too much insulin for the amount of sugar have eaten so that eating a doughnut for a normal person would not affect their weight but from me that doughnut would immediately be turned into fat because of the amount of insulin I would have released to deal with it.

I'm going to come to a compromise. I am going to leave this post here but I'm also going to post it on my blogs because then I am keeping my promise to my blog readers who are not on Facebook. It is good for me too because then I can stop feeling guilty about making a promise but I haven't kept to.

I was a agoraphobic for many years, I was obsessed with counting in my head find the in extremis I still do that. When I did eat I had to eat my food in a particular order and preferably in separate files that did not intermix just like that boy in the mysterious case of the missing dog in the night-time. I got such a huge identification reading that book. My doctor says that I am on the autistic spectrum but I would say that I was high functioning..I'm just so sick and tired of labels.

My name is Colin. That is my label purely for identification purposes. Colin has had many different experiences and most of them have been very painful but they have made me very understanding and compassionate toward other people. Colin is happy with that and Colin is still a work in progress and will be until the day I leave my body and even then I will continue to grow as I believe we all wil. however those are my beliefs and I don't care to hoots whether you believe that will not because if you don't believe it I shall be there on the other side when you take your last breath and I will be sticking my tongue out and waving my fingers at you going 'ya ya ya ya.'

VERY LUCKY MAN

This last couple of weeks has been an emotional rollercoaster. I came the closest I have come to believing that my life was over and not worth living.

I have gone from that to feeling excited that I can carry on for a while yet. I am totally astonished at the time to less people have shown me.

I am also totally astonished that I let a person  I have been friends with  4 to 3 years  hear me  me at my very worst I didn't just let players drop I really let everything out from the bottom my gut. One of the things that really surprised me was how much of that pain was to do with my disease. It has started to become very real. Not that it wasn't before but I was able to live much more independently and I was having to give up showing dogs because of it. I was absolutely brokenhearted. Much to my surprise she was still there on the end of the phone when all that pain had come out. She is only the fourth person in my life that has heard me in that state. She knows who she is and she knows how very grateful I am that she did not reject me at that point. She was there for me when it really counted and I feel all emotional now when I think about what she did for me. People, you have no idea how truly listening can save lives. As she herself said we make very strange friends but there is something that attaches us together and neither of us know what that is because we are very different with very different pasts. I think it is because I accept her and she accepts me as we are and we don't try and change each other. I was also blunt with her and told her that I am the man child and I will always be and some of what we have experienced which was unpleasant might well happen again because sometimes I cannot help the child part of me having the upper hand and that child is still terrified and un-trusting and always imagines the worst or imaginings something bad is being planned behind my back. I was just wondering whether I should be writing about this and I've decided that I should because this is a part of me that really causes me to feel ashamed of myself and I have found that by writing about the things that I find unacceptable about myself helps me come to peace with it. There are some damages that a child experiences that can never be fixed. They can however be lived with but it does make relationships difficult and that is why I am so very grateful for the friends I have in my life because I know how high maintenance I am and I can assure you there is no joke in me using that term high maintenance. I am not talking about money or close all boots or shoes or anything like that. I am just high maintenance as a person.

I also find being with people extremely tiring no matter how much I may love them and there are times when I cannot see them or speak to them on the telephone and when I do speak with them on the telephone I can speak sometimes for hours and when I see them I can sometimes see them all day long and other times just for an hour or so.

I cannot believe how lucky I am that I have friends who are willing to deal with this in order to be my friend. And as for having had a husband to nearly 33 years that just blows my mind.

The long and short of it is: I have a handler for any of my dogs but in this case it will be Megan and Megan will go on live with my handler next weekend. There is no secret I just feel it isn't right to mention who she is until she does. I really like this lady and so does John and with John like somebody I know I am not going to get screwed. But this lady and I have a particular talent we share and that makes us very special.

John will be coming to the shows with me after all. Having been adamant the years that he would never come to that general championship shows with me he has now changed his mind. (I know that somebody spoke with him and I will leave it at that. I haven't been told either by John or by the person I think spoke to him but that is what I believe happened.) I have always wanted John to be at the shows with me and not just because he can help me but I always felt uncomfortable when people asked me why he didn't come to the shows with me. Of course if he was still working full-time there is no way he could come.

I cannot believe that I will be able to carry on showing and that if Mary Grace gets made up it will be because I showed her although that does not count out the possibility of her having to be shown by somebody else on the day.

I really did not realise how scared I am about where my illness is going and by how much it hurts me that I cannot just show my dogs without all the paraphernalia, drugs, and the general shit it that it takes.  I am amazed I have lasted this long.

I am amazed at the comments that get left here, loving one's, healing ones, helpful ones, kind ones,. Just knowing how many people are out there rooting for me as astonishing as me. I am going to have to be strict with myself so that I can continue with my other gifts of knitwear design and the armed painting. Those letters and Yarm painters that have abandoned my page have done so because I write so little about it and I haven't been publishing photographs of what I've done. My actual friendship numbers have not dropped but the comments from my knitting community have all but disappeared and that is my fault because and I now know what my doctor meant about me being in denial. All I was actually able to do was keep my dogs groomed and washed. They caused a lot of pain and fatigue and left no room for anything else.

Once again I feel guilty for writing such a long post but I know that those interested enough in me to read them to the end and it is clear that they do from the comments they make.

I FEEL GUILTY FOR NEGLECTING MY SURVIVOR FOLLOWERS BUT PLEASE KNOW YOU CAN CONTAVT ME DRIECTLY IF NEED BE :- apso AT tantra-apso dot com

I will get back to the Colin that you are all used to but ever since my wedding much has happened that has been extremely stressful for me including the deterioration in my physical condition and I have been pretending that everything is okay when I was lying through my teeth even to my doctor who was astute enough to know that I was lying. Mind you I even full to her that I was not having a manic phase by stuffing myself full of  tranquillisers.  when I knew the mania was over I stopped the bills immediately and of course went into withdrawal and then my doctor did find out what I had been up to and guess what? Her reaction was just so loving and so kind and she understood why did it because she knew that my only experience of psychiatry was in the 70s and I was petrified of being locked up in a cell as if I were a prisoner and being held down while my pants were pulled down and I was injected with chlorpromazine. She told me then that that would never happen to me again not ever. She also made it clear that she did not consider me mentally ill at all. She just said that I had been under tremendous stress and it was bound to come out in some why and in my way it comes out with mania followed by depression. And indeed that is what happened. Now she has gone and I am slowly getting used to my new one. But anyhow that is quite enough. I just wanted you to know how wonderful life can be just when you thought it was over. And I cannot describe the feeling of finding out those people who love you people you didn't even know did.

I am very fortunate man.