Part 25: Life on Home Detention

It's weird to think we weren't really promised anything we take for granted it's just that over time the expectation that these things would be in place has enforced a sense of entitlement and boy do I have my fair share of it. It's kind of like when the last corner video store shutdown and you think to yourself in frustration... how am I going to rent five movies for five dollars that I never needed to watch now?

I think a lot of people will grieve for the weirdest things, it's like the cravings you have for chocolate or bread... except this time its people hurting from their retail addictions and other less considered problems. I admit I buy a lot of stuff to make me feel better, its a problem. I dress it up as collections but it's a deep emptiness that I try to fill with lots of things, food and consumerism being some of the more easily identifiable.

I am feeling a little weird because this is the second time that life has put the stops on the swimming progress. It feels a little like when you are playing a video game and you had out of bounds and the camera gently begins to guide you back on track. Sometimes I think of it like being well is just a downloadable content add on for life that I skimped out on paying for.

There's some anguish, I settling in for the idea that this is going to be a long lonely ninety days. Which is what has been recommended for someone in my position. I want to be able to swim, I want to be able to help. I want to be able to be there for the community I have grown to love over the last ten years. Instead it feels like the digital depression I had for much of my twenties, stuck behind a screen and existing in this weird state.

I'm still weirdly optimistic, whatever crazed thing that dragged me to swimming every day still screams me awake every morning like an army drill sergeant but with more flair. The depressive oppressive state just doesn't fit where I'm at right now so I'm avoiding slipping back into it by keeping busy.

Busy can look like a lot of things, for me lately its been a mixture of Sword practice, boxing, gardening, painting, dancing, craft projects, starting a board game library and attempting to make people laugh. So far... so good? I think we are all in a pretty uncertain time right now and everyone seems like they are a hell of a lot tougher than me, maybe its just that I have got to this beautiful point of being able to vocalize my feelings that I still feel the need to do so.

Part 24: A painting of a panic attack.

It's said a picture says a thousand words, though I was never too good at drawing. I do however believe based on all those well received creative writing assignments I wrote in college for other people in my english class... I have some ability to write. Huge apologies to my English teacher by the way, that wasn't so cool of me I guess. I have digressed, where was I? Oh yes, tonight I'm visited by a familiar friend that I wanted to introduce you to... as I attempt to paint this panic attack.

A classic panic attack can feel like a lot of things, to me personally it feels like falling backwards into a realm in which no air can fill my lungs, my brain begins to scream with two voices simultaneously, "Eli, you are falling" and "Eli, this is all in your head". One of the voices screams so much louder than the other, as I begin to die.

Now I'm not really dying, that's just my brain being kind of dramatic. I have ceased to breathe properly by this point, as I subconsciously cling on to the shreds of air I have already in my lungs and struggle to exhale. In mere seconds the world feels like it's rushing up at me, strangling me. In reality my breathing, blood pressure and heart rate are all within acceptable tolerances but try telling that to the panic. It's growing and hyperventilation is near, mental techniques kick in as I struggle to resist being done in by it's persistence. I win each time, I retain consciousness and eventually begin to be able to breath once more.

What causes these? I have a few things that will almost certainly help them manifest, though they are able to appear without cause. My two main triggers are so different from each other. The first is easy to explain, I am terrified of the highway and the speed at which cars drift like metal death traps along it... the fact that no one else finds this absolutely terror inducing will always remain a mystery to me.

The second is... weird. I don't really understand it. I have a fear of vast things (Which honestly is kind of ironic). It's this strange caveman like mentality, comprehending things like the depth of the ocean, how large jupiter is or trying to picture large numbers of things leaves me a shivering wreck. I just want to drop to the ground and scream. I feel weak for admitting this, but I know that there is such strength in being honest. I feel like this fear comes from a lack of being able to control external factors in my life, please forgive me my faults I'm a control freak... but an honest one.

You might be wondering why I'm telling you this and it this time. I just travelled to this point by way of the worst three hour panic attack I've ever felt and I wanted to be honest. I wanted to let you know that sometimes my brain just decides that everything is scary. I wanted to help normalise it for those of you out there that suffer from them silently. I wanted to illuminate and paint a picture of my irrational panic so if it's alien to you it is no longer so.

Part 23: This Winter might be rough.

So a month ago if you'd told me that the world would conspire to put me back in the situation where I gained all the weight in the first place I would have laughed you off. As the main character in my story I tend to have this vain view on how things are supposed to progress. Here we are though, my world is in isolation, that means no swimming, no seeing people and they cancelled the olympics so there goes one of my goals this year!

It would be really easy while confined to the house to just depression eat and play video games. The reality of being immunocompromised means that I might have to spend far longer being isolated than others. Keeping myself busy is going to be essential and that means projects, preferably outdoors projects really.

It's going to be a challenge to keep my mental health in check, isolation reminds me of some pretty bad times in my life when I didn't do anything or have any friends. I am glad the whole facebook thing exists and this blog might provide some sanity but there is so much madness to be found in those quiet moments.

My goals for this period are pretty simple,

Be available for those that need me.
Build up my strength once more for sword fighting.
Rekindle my love for gardening.
Do something active every day.
Find something to laugh about every day. 

These are all pretty basic things but the world has changed and they are necessary, this is going to be rough on everyone. I'm going to try tackle it with humour and weirdness, for I know no other way.

Apocalyptic MoonLite

Part 22: Plan... B?

If you are native to the planet we are currently on you most likely have heard about the Covid-19 and to all the aliens out there reading my words... greetings. Covid-19 has been a nasty wee thing, lots of panic and illness. It's also drastically changed the way most of us are leading our lives, no big events and many people are working from home.

From a strictly weight loss point of view that comes with a bit of a disappointment for me as the pools are likely to close which have been the one way I have been making so much progress. I have had to reevaluate what I am actually able to do without wrecking my body if this eventuates.

The answer actually took quite a while, it has to be something I am capable of doing in isolation if needed. Last night I finally got my answer of what I can do... I'm going to learn to dance, I'll rely on Youtube and the internet in general but I think I can do it and honestly with the music blaring then I'll be super into it.

On an upbeat note, I recently weighed myself and found I'd lost 22 Kgs, I didn't think I'd lost that much but damn... thats awesome. When my doctor told me my weight at my worst I wanted to cry, or actually... I wanted to eat something and then cry later. It's nice to be moving away from that point.

I recently celebrated a milestone of weight loss by dyeing my hair the brightest damn blue I have ever seen and I love it. I'm feeling so much better about myself with some weight decreasing, some new clothes and taking a bit more pride in how I look.

I have been finding it so much easier to just feel happy recently without leaning on emotional crutches that are horrible for me. It like my brain just started making the happy chemicals for once and then was like screw it, lets work double time and just make this creature ecstatic. What ever the cause its a good change.

Stay safe out there folks!

(Oh also my blog is nearly at 10,000 views... so that is baffling and fantastic!!!)

Moonlite

Part 21: In the Green.

I learnt how to stab myself yesterday... wait I guess I should rephrase that. I learnt how to use a diabetic blood sugar testing kit with utilizes needles. Needles used to be a thing that bothered me a lot more than they do now, I guess spending a week as a pincushion to a team of vicious medical professionals toughens you up to the idea of being jabbed with sharp metal objects.

It was actually rather amusing as the nurse who was supposed to be teaching me how to use the kit did not know so we learnt together under the tutelage of Professor Google and teacher's aide, Mr Youtube. She keep going "Did that stab you?" after psyching me up for the billionth time and the machine now delivering the injection. When the injection was finally complete and my blood was extracted I was super pleased to know that I was well in the green zone for where my sugar levels were at, having come down drastically since the hospital. I was pretty happy that I turned down that chocolate cake and ice cream the night before at a community function I was at. Later on I let a friend be the one to stab me and she took so much joy in it... I better watch out for that one...

My day then turned to swimming and I was not prepared for what happened there. The poor lifeguards ended up having the most dramatic customer, an elderly Greek woman refused to move from the swimmers lane despite being asked multiple times (Apparently she does this every time), when they politely but insistently tried to ask her she began muttering that insults and racist comments.

I approached her and tried to reason with her myself and even invited her to come aqua jogging with me, she treated me with more kindness than she showed the staff but between her anger and a solid language barrier it was difficult to make any progress. At a later point she ended up fully drenching a poor lifeguard with a massive intentional splash and the he was pretty miffed about that. As she left she informed me that she plans on swimming elsewhere and I felt a bit sorry for all involved, she had informed me she has pain and the pool helps... but her inability to follow instructions or be respectful had cost her a respite from her pain.

Hopefully we all learn to coexist one day.

Part 20: Ghouls just wanna have fun.

I'm currently combating a wave of nasty depression and rather than letting it knock me down I am going to focus on my goal setting and where I want to be in the future. I don't want to let depression beat me, it's too frequently won these battles but now I have the upper hand in the form of strangely unshakable optimism that I swear someone is spiking my drinks with.

So, screw it... goals. Mostly at the moment my goals are all swimming related, I.e amount of hours spent in pools, length of time I can hold my breath for, the speed of my aqua jogging or the ease at which I can pull myself out of the pool. All these things are currently improving and I aim to keep them that way but I think some extra incentives are always welcome. I think the main thing I want to focus on is time spent swimming, I'm pretty good with the constant tempo of movement so I think that will gradually increase as I keep it up.

I think the main way I want to reward myself is by making myself feel pretty, it's pretty sad by my reckoning that I feel so wretched all the time and I think some self care will help with that but also screw it, lets go all out a little. I'm aiming for some pretty new piercings and maybe even tattoos as I hit milestones to make me the full metal emo of my dreams. It's not how everyone would chose to reward themselves but honestly it's pretty motivating to me!

Some really cool news today, my friends went and picked me up some new clothes and saved me a harrowing trip on the motorway. Most of it is smaller than what I used to wear, some of it is new togs as my old ones no longer fit.... in all cases with the clothing sizes its not an upward trend so that is fantastic. This actually makes me feel delighted, I'm wearing a top that currently feels like it was made for my body type as opposed to a tent that I crawled into and someone cut some arm holes. All the clothes are light weight and made to look like actually garments so this is a new thing for me.

Another fantastic thing is my punching bag as been finally resurrected so I can now take out all of life's frustrations against it and it's swinging mockery. I am looking forward to being able to mix up my work out styles and find new strength through training in different ways. There is nothing like being able to take out your fury on a punching bag... and nothing like swimming gracefully in the water.

As always I am super grateful to those that have supported me during this journey but I feel like it needs to be said again today.

MoonLite

Part 19: Killed my idols, melted down my vinyl.

I think one of the hardest bits is expecting instant big changes. I don't mean I woke up this morning and I expected to be able to go for a massive marathon or thought I'd be able to sick tricks on my skateboard while a crowd of onlookers looked... onward(?) chanting my name. I mean all that would be nice and everything... but I am still struggling with some things I wish I weren't.

Also understanding my limits is a big one at the moment, I don't know what I can do and what I can't without getting very sick again and ending up in hospital once more. I guess my strategy of taking it easy on Drylandia and going  full on in the water is a sensible one... yet each night I try to get to sleep I am attacked by thoughts that tonight is the night that I wake up unable to walk again, that this next week is going to be hell or worst... that I might not improve this time.

It's really easy to think that I'm being overly concerned, but I normally have these flare ups 1-2 times a month and doing more increase that risk and currently... I'm doing heaps. It's so strange to not be able to trust the skin you are in to cooperate with you. I want to yell at my body, "Look, I'm getting the sunlight, I'm eating the greens and I'm doing the moving so back the hell off" but the message gets lost in translation.

I think that I had a bit of doubt about starting this blog a little while back, I thought that I wanted people to know me as my fictionalized self... that cleverly created digital construct of a person. Never saying anything too bold and meekly existing in a totally non challenging way. I thought that if I just stayed in my room you'd remember me in my youth. There was a resigned weakness about me like a shadow afraid of the light. Last year I wouldn't have admitted to an audience that I almost didn't go see a movie with my family because I had to be concerned whether I'd fit in the chair or that I hate public transport as I am so big and unwieldy that I hit everyone accidentally as I move down the aisle... but I think I have lived underground for far too long and I'm done with it.

I have started a new thing where I take lots of photos of myself to capture the slow changes and I am currently psyching myself to upload my worst photo ever to facebook to show my progress so far... I think its gotta be soon! I find myself seeing my reflection and not thinking "MONSTER" and have started thinking "Monster" so there's that.

Part 18: The Gnawing

Sometimes the demons come back around and it's always with fateful knock on your door on the one morning that you are weakest. My stress levels have been pretty high lately as I face off against a series of almost laughable circumstances and I can feel myself wanting to slip, wanting to chuck everything positive into a burning abyss and just slump into the form of a messy pile of discarded beanbags.

Of course, I can't do that. Despite my brain screaming at me that it desires "CARBS, COFFEE AND SUGAR!", in that order I might add. This demon I recognise, it's mouth is a bottomless maw and it wishes for me to feed it but the fuel it really eats are my goals and my future. I don't wish to feed it... it hasn't had much luck knocking here lately but it's like it senses I am weak.

Frantically I begin to reach for anything to do to keep it at bay, already near breaking point before factoring into the situation the knocking demon. I figure painting will at least let me focus on something else... so after reaching for my brushes I begin to lose track of time as I feverishly paint to keep myself sane.

I want to eat, it wants me to eat. The thin line of control is strained and made of brush strokes. I won't let myself allow my mood to be the dictator of my fate. I won't allow my efforts to crumble due to my lack of willpower. I go five rounds with the creature...

And I lost.

I'm not going to represent it another way. Today I stuffed up and I regret it, I controlled my fall somewhat but I must admit that some battles I'm going to lose. Occasionally I'm going to be really damn bad at this and it's unfair on anyone going through anything similar to pretend otherwise. Will I still be swimming tomorrow? Yep. Is it still salad for dinner? Yep. Am I a real person that stuffs up? Yep.

Being an emotional eater is really difficult and damn... I am 94% emotion. One weird silver lining is that I have found I'm only able to eat half of what I used to before I'm super full. Tomorrow is another day.

MoonLite

Part 17: A dream of Atlantis

Today was going to be a good day. I woke up early and prepared myself to smash another milestone. One I have been approaching rapidly as my stamina increases. As of today I have clocked up over 100 hours in the pool over a period of about five weeks. It's been a range of things from aqua jogging, jumping, swimming, weights and more recently handstands... but its all been good movement.

My friend who runs the pool decided to help me celebrate this achievement by making me a certificate which I as I am such a child at heart I still love getting something like this. She also did something else amazing, a couple of blog posts again I talked about some swimmers questioning other swimmers about their disabilities inappropriately. In response to me bringing this to her attention the pool manager has put up some fantastic signs, which read "Not all every disability is visible, please respect other patrons" Hopefully these improve things for those that suffer with a hard to notice disability.

I'm honestly pretty stoked for hitting 100 hours, It's been a really eye opening journey so far and I have met many people with interesting stories that could make far better blogs than mine! I think that the thing I am happiest with is the fact that I can start thinking a little more optimistically about the future. Where I was heading before was pretty grim, if I stayed on that path I was just going to get sicker and sicker. I have a chance now and am doing my best to seize it.

When I think about that week I spent in hospital I'm just so grateful for it, in some ways its the best thing that could have happened. I got so used to eating smaller portions that outside of the hospital I am still managing to not overeat and I have been able to resist. I don't know whether the strength I have now is artificial or real but while I am able to do this and it's easy I'm going to keep it up.

I have this idea that I want to do something to celebrate this milestone, but I have no clue what I want to do. Perhaps inspiration will come to me later but for now I am just going to rest and dream of Atlantis.

MoonLite

Part 16: Moon vs The Real World

Today was a productive day. It didn't start off that way. This morning started with an intense amount of pain as I paid the price for being far too enthusiastic with my "Aquajumping" yesterday. I contemplated what chasing one hundred was about... why the milestone of spending so many hours swimming in the pursuit of this mattered so much to me. In the end I drew a blank, it just does... and I'll allow any drive that propells me forward. I waited until my body decided it was time to stop hurting me and I crawled out of bed.

It was here that my willpower began to test me, for I hungered for the worst food possible. My phone was a conduit to summoning such morsels directly to me and forgeting my progress I began to order a massive amount of food... bit I stopped at literally the last possible moment and my stomach and willpower went through four rounds of bare knuckle boxing until I slammed my phone down declaring my willpower the winner.

Alas today I would have to do battle with a most fearsome opponent, a local medicine man who held power over my ailments and rights regarding them. Normally in such a theatre of battle I would prove to be meek and make little progress with the fearsome GP... but I brought along someone who possessed the power of organisational skills and sass. We arrived to do battle equiped with a list and a mission to address as much of it as possible.

We struck, our fifteen minute appointment became a race against the clock as while the doctor attached a blood pressure machine to my arm... we proceeded to strong arm him methodically into attacking each item on the list. We emerged victorious, the doctor only inflicting one superfical wound. He was not optimistic that my condition would improve without "starving myself". I scoffed at this remark and promptly ate him.

Having slain one foe we entered a world of panic as I tackled the panic causing beast called the motorway. Sadly after several crashes I do not exist comfortably in a world of speed and metal so I proceeded to "freak the hell out". Our quest was worthy though as we arrived at our destination with only slight terror and panicked singing of Abba's "Take a chance on me".

Before us held the prize. My holy grail. A glorious store full of clothes that actually fit me properly.. these are as rare as hens teeth. Alas... the price was gold. Each item of clothing clocking in at a pretty penny. I went merely to look today. Knowing that soon the spoils would be mine.

Having fought several battles today I look forward to chilling out on the beach tonight for a dear friends birthday. Tomorrow will have other battles with instinctive appetite, professional gatekeepers and perhaps another heavy dose of panic.

MoonLite