This is somewhat difficult for me to talk about… normally when I try to talk about it I end up writing a book… as in using too many words… and usually end up deleting and not posting at all…. Not only that… but in case you haven’t noticed already I ramble a lot (not just about this) and usually end up going in many different directions at the same time… even repeating myself…. so if something is unclear…. feel free to ask questions if you have any….

I was diagnosed with PTSD in 1998… In my life I’ve had more negative experience with food and eating than positive… starting when I was a child… long term abuse or torture by a mentally ill mother… her favorite method of torturing me was using food…. and/or something… anything she could make me swallow… Not always food or something meant to be eaten…

Even long after her death I had problems with food and eating…. I was starving myself for quite a while and became dangerously underweight…. and at one point I was diagnosed with an eating disorder… though a little later I was also diagnosed with Gastroparesis, severe ulceration of the stomach and later ….or after my entire colon was removed in an emergency operation… Ulcerative Colitis….

I also have another mental illness… schizophrenia… that makes me lose touch with reality unless I’m on medication… because of my problems swallowing I get a shot every 28 days and that helps me staying in reality most of the time…. I do have an occasional bad day though every now and then but nothing close to what it’s like without the meds….

I have talked about this here a little before…I think… but 9 years ago I was very ill… I was very depressed, self-harming and having symptoms of psychosis… I guess you can say I really had hit my bottom with my mental health…. I was an expert on hiding this sort of things…. ever since my childhood I had hidden what was going on inside of me…. but…. I was troubled… everyone around me knew that… but I hid a lot of what was going on inside of me and made them believe I was doing the best I could… in a way I was… but after all I was eating (which was a big problem before this) and I was not harming myself (or at least not in the way I was before) but at that point I had already decided to take my own life… I’ve posted about this on my blog before… and on Sept 10th which was World Suicide Prevention Day I posted about it on my Facebook page but for those who want to read it that post can be found on my Facebook page (For now it’s open to the public)

The attempt was colored by the abuse I went through as a child…. I don’t want to go into all of that in detail though but this left me a lot of damage…. Among the effects this had on my body is tissue damage and scaring on the inside of my mouth and throat… Caustic ingestion… I swallowed poison/chemicals that burned the inside of my body…. and kept burning me on the inside long after the actual ingestion…. Although there are other factors from my past as well…. it’s possibly…and most likely…. what caused the cancer in my esophagus… For now… I seem to be cancer free…. but cancer may very well show up elsewhere in my body in the future…. mouth, throat…. even my liver or my kidneys…. but this is something that I try not to think about too much and will just tackle if it comes up…. but I have had…and will continue to have regular scans because of it…

Another thing I did that night… was something that I had fantasized about for a long time…. This is somewhat difficult for me to talk about… and I hope I won’t be judged for posting about this…. Some of you may know about it already (if you’ve read my blog or somewhere else) but I have a large part of my visible tongue missing… In my deranged and delusional mind I cut it out… just because I wanted to know if I could do it… after all I was going to kill myself anyway (or so I thought)…. Doctors tried to save my tongue… by attaching the “missing” part back in… but there was too much damage done on the inside of my mouth so it wasn’t successful so they had to remove it again….

OK…

I know there are people on here that can’t eat and get all their nutrition through a feeding tube…. I know there are people on here that have had tongue cancer… and/or people who struggle with swallowing… or speaking out loud…. But in the past I have wished I was physically unable to eat and speak…

Ever since I was a kid I’ve had a severe stutter…. My mother told me she was ashamed of me and told me not to speak to anyone who spoke to me… If I did it had consequences… Even at 13 I stopped speaking…. didn’t speak a word for almost 3 years….

Waking up alive after the suicide attempt changed me…. I don’t want to live in the past anymore… I want to live…. and enjoy life… I want to be able to speak better…. and I want to be able to swallow…. and eat…..

Sometimes I have “bad days” I wish I didn’t have to speak and/or like recently when I’m working on eating again after my surgery …but I also know that my ‘bad days’ are when my mental illness is shaking it’s ugly head…. and messing with my mind…. and lately it has been a struggle….

Since the suicide attempt I have been working very hard with a speech therapist that has helped me a lot… My stutter is nowhere close to where it used to be… I speak very very slowly though…. (I type a lot faster than I speak btw) and I *can* speak in spite of my tongue being a little too short… or clearly enough for most people to understand what I say….. I admit though…. I’m not the most talkative person at the party and mostly just speak to my family…. trust and self-esteem issues probably…

I was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in August…. and had an esophagectomy on Sept 16th…. not only did they remove my esophagus but I have no stomach left at all now…. and from previous surgeries… I have no colon and only 3 – 3,5 meters of small intestine…

Long before E-cancer diagnosis last August…. or since May last year I got a feeding tube because my inability to eat enough orally …problems with my mouth, tongue, throat, esophagus and stomach problems… but even though I couldn’t eat enough… I was eating a little bit every now and then or when I could for a year along with the tube… or until last spring (sometimes in April/May I think)…. I haven’t been eating anything through mouth since then (until recently…) but I kept getting food down my windpipe or chocking on it… and/or it getting stuck in my esophagus…

I’m slowly starting to eat again after surgery although no one is really pushing me except me maybe…. I still pretty much rely on the tube…. but my ‘eating’ consists of only a teaspoon (maybe) or so of something soft throughout the day…. It’s been quite a struggle…. both physically and mentally…. especially mentally…. but just having food inside my mouth (without really swallowing it) is a mental struggle for me and causes anxiety and unwanted and most of the time uncontrollable responses and reflexes on my part… My tongue… or lack thereof… is another problem… lack of properly working saliva glands and not to mention lack of feeling in large part of my mouth and impaired sense of taste…. excuse my language… but fuck that!

I am going to work through all that! I realize I may need the tube for the rest of my life…. and I may never be able to eat a large “all-you-can-eat” buffet meal… (not in one sitting anyway) but I want to be able to eat without having a negative mental reactions or memories…. without a panic attack… and without the ‘shadows’ from my past interfering… Damn it! I want to be able to enjoy a meal for once in my life!