Good Morning Lovelies, 

It’s been a long time coming this post. I’ve thought long and hard about writing it. Yet, sometimes I just need a place to brain dump and I feel safe doing it on here with you. 

A lot has happened in the past few months. Much of it being confusing, hurtful and horrible. Out of it all though, I feel like there was one thing that was said that I can’t stop thinking about and I need to talk about it.

Recently, someone said that I went into a, “nuthouse!” A phrase used to describe the hospital I went into for my anorexia. It’s one of the most disturbing things I have ever had shouted at me. It was a name that I would never use to describe the place I went to or the people there. In fact, I think that everyone in there is a true bloody hero and a fighter. 

Mental health hospitals are not a nice place. I have been left with more scars than when I went in. However, they are a place that tries to help you. Tries to save you. Tries to show you how much of a fighter you are. They proved to me that I am a lot stronger than I ever thought I was. They showed me people, each of which going through their own daily struggles, working hard to get their lives back.

There are many stories I could tell you all about what I saw and experienced. They are not my stories though. The people in them are not for me to use to write a post. They are humans. Not anything else. We are all navigating this illness in our own way. I will be damned if I allow anyone to call the place in which we all thought this illness, as much as we could, a nuthouse. 

Unless it produces peanuts, no house is a nuthouse. No one should be called a nutter or made to feel less than they are. The moment I walked into that hospital I knew I was in for the battle of a lifetime. 

There are not many people who would get up at 5:30am, be made to go for a wee and then get weighed. Have charts of those weights decide whether you can go home to your family or not at weekends. Be watched over whilst eating and drinking. Have to pick foods from a weekly menu that you had to eat, even if you didn’t like them, in fears of being put on a nasal drip. Have nurses poke and prod you every single day, whether it be in your sleep or not. Yet, I experienced this and I came out of it alive. More alive in fact than when I went in. 

I will openly admit that from June 2019 until early 2020, I was ready to end it all. Sorry to be so serious, but that is how I felt. I couldn’t see a life past this illness. I was bored of everything. I would spend hours in bed and when not in bed, I would just do what I had to to get through the day. I didn’t try with the therapists and doctors because I couldn’t be bothered. 

They wanted me to drink some milk. I told them I did, yet I never had an ounce. Now, my breakfast bowl overflows with the stuff. They asked me to try a sweet, I told them to get stuffed. Now, I’m all for a biscuit, some Haribo and mini chocolates. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way cured. I wish I honestly was. I find it a damn struggle to get up and fight every day when I know I could easily give in. Yet, I do. I do it for my mum, who is my career, best friend and sister. She has dedicated her life to helping so many others, a lot of the time having it thrown back at her, but I won’t. I want to get better for her. Whilst it may be slow, I do it for her. 

I do it to see my nephews and niece grow up. I do it to laugh with my brother again about his love life. I do it because I made a promise to my dad the last time I saw him alive and in his coffin. My therapist once said that I should be proud that he got to see me working hard to make a change. To bring back the person he knew. He told me himself he could see it too. 

So, I will never allow the hospital to be called a nuthouse. It’s not a nice place for sure, however, there is nothing nuts about it. It’s not a place to label the people inside as anything but heroic. It’s definitely not a place where they make peanut butter. The hospital is that. A hospital. A place that works to make you better. It’s a helpline. 

Those words were shouted at me in an angry rage. They are words that have scarred my heart for life and I don’t think I will ever get over them. A nuthouse isn’t a place. It isn’t anything. But a hospital is. A hospital is a place people go to get as well as they can. 

So, when you are describing a place and the people in it, don’t ever and I mean EVER call it that lovelies. Each and every person there is a fighter. Is a hero. Is a soul. Call it something rewarding instead. A haven. A hospital. A sort of home. A place to get better. Unless you have experienced them, you simply don’t get the right to call it this and even if you have I know you would never label it as such. Let’s just think a little lovelies and be a lot kinder! Brain dump done!

Joey X