Where I've been and where I'm going

Another blog update so soon! I feel like keeping a diary of my recovery thoughts will definitely help, although how long I can actually keep it up is anyone's guess. Writing for my own benefit is a strange concept. For one, I don't feel the need to make crap jokes everywhere, which will no doubt make it much easier on everyone else, too.

Big thanks to Ian for sharing my previous post. It means a lot to me that people have read it and hopefully understand my current and past situation.

I realise over the past couple of years, my physical and emotional well-being has fluctuated to the point that I've sacrificed friendships and relationships. There's been days where I've genuinely felt like the life and soul of the party, but always followed by periods where I've wanted to shut the world out completely.

I experienced a long period of this shortly after my supervisor went on sabbatical. With no direct accountability for not being around the PhD lab where I have a workspace, and in a serious bout of relapse, I cut myself off from the entire Human-Computer Interaction group for months. Instead, I'd go to the library where I wouldn't have to talk to anyone I knew, where I was just another face in the crowd of undergraduates stressing over their own completely different problems.

I couldn't bear the thought of the weekly group meetings, sitting in the circle and admit that I'd spent another week spinning my wheels, although somehow putting in countless hours. I especially couldn't bear the lunchtimes: everyone getting together and enjoying each other's company over food, a concept I just couldn't fathom in my state.

After the new year, and an overdrawn Christmas break at home, I felt able to come back and attempt to make a fresh start. Since then, progress has been faster, friendships have been made and others strengthened, but overhanging it all has been the ongoing struggle with anorexic tendencies, physical and emotional symptoms and the fears that I'm not cut out for any of this, that I'm not working hard enough, that I'm letting myself and others down.

Do I deserve to be doing a PhD? That's the Impostor Syndrome kicking in, Forever a question I'll probably be unable to answer. Do I deserve health? Yup, I'm sure of that one. That one I can take action on.