2000 - free fall broken
The new millennium starts with a fantastic New Year's party with dear friends, who were a couple then but have since parted and are now married to other partners. I am increasingly anorexic but do my best to hide it and pretend to be normal. Too much of the delicious 5 course meal still ends up down the drain.
In spring of 2000 I'm doing my 4th term of Comparative Literature studies, which at Göteborg University means that I take a postgrad course (Short fiction, a really good course!), attend postgrad seminars and am supposed to write a master's thesis. I start the term off with a bang by acting as an opponent for another master's thesis; a small gathering that takes three hours and is hosted by both of the professors. I'm ridiculously cold all through winter and constantly repeat to myself that I'm not thin enough. Venture deeper and deeper into anorexia, the thesis writing becomes a facade, because I can barely think clearly anymore. Still, I excel in seminars and my course. I start exercising again, in the student gym which has a policy for dealing with eating disorders. I guess I'm hoping that they'll tell me off if I go too far, because a part of me really wants someone to draw the line and stop me. It doesn't happen. I'm soon doing 2-3 classes a day, several times a week, purge on a daily basis, at least once a day, even at the gym, and am aware that this can't go on for long. But the rush - it's indescribable. I am so happy, when I exercise I am 100% present in the moment and think of nothing else, and I feel safe again. I start out with a new antidepressant and after only a couple of weeks realise that I haven't been depressed for a couple of days. After 4 years of trying one drug after the other, and almost 15 antidepressants alone and in combinations, the fog lifts and I can live again. The new-found zest for life and energy fuels the anorexic mania. In an act of self-preservation I quit the gym soon after my BMI drops below 14. At a routine ECG check in my GP's freezing cold examination room I ask for a blanket against the cold, but only meet with the nurse's critical gaze that scrutinises me upside down and up again before she asks if I've considered taking up exercise to boost my circulation. I am too stunned to reply.
Things happen very fast. My beloved ex, S, comes back from a couple of months with his psycho bitch girlfriend in Australia, he gets a job with a localisation firm and brings some colleagues to theatre meetings. I apply for a summer job with the same firm, but don't get it. One of the new theatre members is a project manager with the localisation firm and offers me a job as a resource, paid hourly. I accept. Today, I can't even begin to understand how anyone would have dared to employ me then, at a BMI below 13 and probably quite manic, but I apparently made a good impression. I do well at work, am glad that no-one can see how my legs and hands shake at the computer. Have seizures and pass out several times at home. S and I get together again, in some way, after he breaks up with the psycho bitch. I go out for lunch with my colleagues, as S works there and I can't escape it. The free fall is broken. I unintentionally overdose on my antidepressants all through summer and am totally oblivious to that until I go to have my prescription refilled and am told that I can't have that yet. Oups. However, that was probably just what I needed to be anxiety-free, start eating and gain a lot of weight (in my mind a lot).
I go to day care, 3 half days a week, during autumn and relapse. I want to be free but am not yet motivated to stop starving and really gain weight. I use any excuse to get away from recovery. The one good thing from that group is the physiotherapist, A, who is forever my angel. I quit the treatment but manage to keep seeing A. Start my own business in October, as I've reached the maximum hourly limit at work.
2001 - the first steps out
Fighting with the health care system to be allowed to go into a treatment centre. Take part in radio programs about eating disorders. Struggle to motivate myself to leave anorexia, and do so-so. A couple of steps forward, slipping back, but with a general direction forward. A is my guardian angel who helps me find the healthy me inside, and she dares to be tough on me. Finally get the funding to go into treatment, but have to wait until autumn. Lead a more normal life; cooking with friends, a dinner that gets out of hand and turns into something else, take another couple of steps "out" by joining the Bi group and party with them. Go for many long walks, often walking at least half the way home from town at night, for hours every weekend. I work as much as possible, periods of intense work followed by period of being ill when I crash. Go to a crazy, fun 30 years bash in Falkenberg, fall really ill but wait a week before I see a doctor as I have too much work to do. The result is hideous sinusitis and my first otitis as an adult. Go to London and meet friends. EU summit with riots in Gothenburg. Tattoo number one. I create a recovery oriented web forum for eating disorders, ViFinns, and start private therapy after summer, to boost myself as much as possible before I go into treatment.
On September 11 I am on my way home from University and hear on the radio how a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center, soon followed by a second plane. My immediate thought is: "what a crap pilot" and that the second plane probably couldn't see because of the smoke. I turn on the TV when I get home and it stays on all day. Start phoning friends when the news about terrorism are confirmed.
In late October I go into treatment for 8 weeks. I am critical but cooperative and deeply annoyed with all the unmotivated patients who take up expensive treatment places without wanting to recover. I speak to A on the phone forthnightly, which is not liked by staff. I get home on leave to see Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Make progress, put on weight, which is my goal with the treatment there, but am in a state of panic and disgust over growing. We have an utterly pointless family session. I come home a week before Christmas and am determined to keep doing well.
2002 - success and setbacks
Fadime, a Kurdish girl, is killed by her father and honour killing becomes a well-known concept. Author Astrid Lindgren dies. Pointless follow-up weeks in treatment; I feel like crap, am irritable and know that I'm being really childish, but no-one seems to neither see nor hear that I'm feeling so bad. Keep going to therapy and to A, have my ups and downs and get an ultimatum if I slip further. Every week I repress what I weighed the week before. Purge more and more seldom, start exercising again but in a healthy way, which I'm very proud of. Get two cats. Start working again and come autumn I begin my physiotherapy studies. Without any student grants, so I'm pretty much studying and working full-time. We have an amazing anatomy lecturer but I'm appalled at how impossibly stupid some of the occupational therapy students in anatomy class are. Yes, I am elitist. Fall in love with neuro-science and the massage course. Stressing over work and money.
2003 - growth
Take a sabbatical from studying as a physical training course clashes with recovery. Having that amount of scheduled training brings back too many destructive impulses and I don't want to risk a relapse. Keep working with my support group, ViFinns, and start the local chapter of an ED organisation. Work a lot, motivate others in their recovery. Or try to, as the case may be. The US and its allies attack Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Work more, exercise. End therapy and get a nurse as a contact. Also terminate with A. Tattoo #2.
Early in the morning of September 11 Swedish foreign secretary Anna Lindh dies from the knife wounds she sustained in an attack the day before. I turn on the radio very early and a reporter says that our Prime Minister looks sad and dogged when he approaches the parliament building, and I know that she has passed. Shock and sorrow.
2004 - spiritual awakening and recovery
Go back to my studies, but half-heartedly. Am beginning to realise that I will have a hard time accepting the general outlook on people that still permeates the health care system (far from holistic) long enough to finish the training. Active in ED support and my ever growing web group. I get clearer and clearer about what is healthy, what's needed to recover, more secure in my role as motivator. Move. Niece number 2 is born (number 1 was born in 1994). Leave the training for good. Very, very slowly go off antidepressants. Oldest brother gets married.
Huge spiritual awakening. I go to healing and full moon meditations and realise that I can easily connect to the divine/spiritual. Realise that my spiritual source and force is Goddess, a feminine energy. Read The Da Vinci Code and understand that there are others who believe in Goddess, find a starting point to look further into it. Find my way to webpages about Glastonbury and the Goddess Temple in a very strange way, but am forced to cancel a trip there in December due to lack of money. Lecture about eating disorders, hold a one day workshop for confirmand leaders, do an interview for a youth program on TV. Tattoos 3 and 4.
One September evening I realise that I am recovered. That the anorexia is behind me and over. A priceless feeling!
On Boxing Day morning I wake up early and turn on the radio, to hear reports of how an earth quake in the Pacific has caused a major tsunami that swept in over Indonesia and Thailand. I turn the TV on and as the hours pass the width of the disaster becomes clear. Unreal. I get a bit of a shock some days later when the cameras sweep over the boards with names and photos of missing and recognise the names of people from my home town. None of my friends are affected, thank Goddess. But this disaster brings a sense of hope for a resolution of the conflict in the Aceh province in Indonesia, as the Indonesian government readily send help there.
2005 - coming home
ED support involvement, spirituality. On the 8th of January I take part in a meditation for the tsunami victims as the hurricane Gudrun sweeps in over Sweden. No public transport works, so I walk home at night with some difficulty, and have to stop and cling to lamp posts in a couple of places. Exciting but not scary. Am told that I hold such an immense inner light - a bit surprising for someone who's spent the bigger part of her life in the dark. Do reiki training and am initiated into step 1 & 2 during a very intense weekend. Go from that directly to tactile massage, step 1. Catch a massive cold, I suppose due to the huge amount of healing, break a couple of ribs from coughing and never really get back to normal after that; the tiredness has lingered since. Travel to Glastonbury for Beltane and find my home. A lot of pieces fall into place, Goddess is present and everything clear and simple. That's where my roots are, and they go deep. Grow stronger, more empowered. Come close to burning myself out trying to help people who don't really want to recover enough to do the work, learn even more about boundaries and what are my and others' problems. Grow even stronger in my motivational and guiding work. Go back to Glastonbury in August, am happy and calm there. Read the leaflets about the Esoteric Soul Healing and Priestess of Avalon trainings, feel called to them but think that they are not for me. The practical problems are too big. Tattoo #5.
The hurricane Katrina ravages New Orleans. Rosa Parks passes.
2006 - transformation
Niece number 3 is born. I celebrate Beltane in Glastonbury and take a natural part in the the celebrations. The calling grows stronger; that's where I am whole, that's where I belong. Am beginning to get to know lots of people. Meet another S, who pops up in my thoughts some months later and I suspect that we will have something to do with one another. Am slowly learning to trust my intuition. Invited to speak about motivation at the annual meeting for the Swedish association for eating disorder professionals, and get great feedback. Start private therapy with A and tell her about my spiritual awakening. She's all support. Seriously consider the Priestess of Avalon training but can't see how I could afford it. Return to Glastonbury for the Goddess Conference, hook up with S the first night and it doesn't take 10 minutes before it's us. Hugely transformative week, realise that my connection to Goddess(es) is much stronger than I thought; that I am stronger than I thought. Hold the Goddess energy, which is an overwhelming experience. Meet soul sisters. Realise that I have no choice: I have to do the training. It will have to work out. Go home, but return at Mabon to visit S in London and go to the ceremony in Glastonbury. The last morning in Glasto brings a gift: the mists settle deep over the town and the crows are ever present. Morgana tells me to "Come back home soon, Sister." Yes, I am at home.
The training starts at Samhain, a still summery and overwhelming weekend. I feel like Bambi on ice as I have no experiences whatsoever from any form of Paganism, but my ability to learn quickly comes in handy and I realise that I may just have an intuitive knowledge. Deep female relationships with my Sisters. Travel to London for a longer stay with S over winter, but feel slightly apprehensive. Christmas in London is freezing cold, S seems completely uninterested in and unattracted to me; I get really low but try to stay positive. My first nephew is born on X-mas day. We go to Glastonbury for the New Year.
2007 - ups and downs
On New Year's day S tells me that he's afraid I might get pregnant and that's why he keeps away. Right. I feel utterly rejected and realise that he is not the equal I thought he was, but am still prepared to work on it. He apparently isn't. I go home to the cats and realise that it would be hard to leave them again. S tells me over the phone that his feelings for me have changed, but not after he has already told others. I feel incredibly betrayed for not being the first to know, and for how things turn out during spring. But I feel deep relief over being able to grieve and then move on, held by my Sisters. I drop the web support group. Take part in the Imbolc ceremony after someone falls ill, and love it. Ceremonies come natural to me. Am told that I have a place around the Goddess Temple if I take it, am asked when I'm moving to Glastonbury. Anxiety over what to do with the cats. At Eostre I end up calling in one of the Goddesses in ceremony, once again at short notice. Am growing ever stronger in my truth and beginning to realise that I can be beautiful. Interesting meditation with Rhiannon at Beltane. Form strong friendships in Glastonbury, more perhaps than in my course; I feel strangely wary of getting too close to anyone. Start going to 5Rhythms dances when I'm in Glasto, meet a man there who turns out to have a lot of connection to some of my closer friends. He's obviously very into me, but I'm not into him. What spark there was goes away when he becomes controlling, and when I tell him that it will never be us, his eyes go black and I realise that my intuition about him having quite a violent side is true.
Am somehow more present in England than in Sweden even though I spend more time in Sweden. Do a moon crescent tattoo on my forehead - a sort if initiation in itself. The last Harry Potter book is published. Work as a Melissa during the Goddess conference, sing in the Lammas ceremony and my training circle lead two morning ceremonies during the conference. For various reasons decide not to go on with the 2nd year; am really hurt by how people talk behind my back instead of to me, and then pretend like nothing's happened when they see me.
Meet a man who stirs something in me that has been sleeping. Pure physical attraction. We dedicate as Sisters of Avalon at Mabon. A magical night! My vows are strong and true and I realise that it's really the first step of my intitiation (which happens that winter, with the Lady of Avalon). Have two lovers, one of whom manipulates me and I feel so guilty and stupid for letting myself be manipulated that I don't assert myself when he wants to go further than I do. Have an abortion, which is a surprisingly positive experience. No doubts whatsoever, at the time I only tell my closest girlfriends who are totally supportive, it clears a number of blockages and the remaining feeling is one of hope. It takes me almost half a year to stop denying the trauma in itself, and the physical reaction comes almost a year later. Debut as a fantasy translator.
Vi har en dedication till Sisters of Avalon vid höstdagjämningen. Magisk! Mina löften känns starka och sanna, jag inser att för mig är det mer än en dedication – det är en initiation.
2008 - stasis
My youngest sister gets married. Heath Ledger dies. Presidential election in the US, I follow Barack Obama's campaign all through the year and am overjoyed when he wins. Less work, clearly harder times. Keep going to therapy, am clearly growing and proud of how much I've changed. Write more and more, feel a growing desire for creativity, expression, for touching others. Challenge my age anxieties and get more piercings. I love body art, so why deny that part of me? My youngest brother gets married and we siblings sing at the reception.
Major stress over money. Do make up artist training during autumn; it's so much fun and I feel that I am good at it. It's also a much needed creative challenge. Get my first assignment, a commercial shoot, before graduation. Try to figure out what the physical attraction to Mr hopelessly-immature-will-never-leave-his-girlfriend is about, as I'm not interested in complications and actually, not of him. Just attracted to him. Find my way into the BDSM/fetish scene, after years of thinking and insights, and feel at home there. Spiritually a confused and quite stagnant year. During autumn I grow more and more tired and depressed and end up being on sick leave. Back on antidepressants, but with limited effect. The year ends in a so-so way, partying but exhausted and empty. Life feels hidden beneath a thick fog.
And then there's 2009, which will deserve its own post.
