Imagining non-ed life.

I have recently come to the end of a short period of CBT and now have another wait for the next step of it. I suppose I have progressed a little, but the difference is pretty tiny. I can now eat in front of a few more people than I could before.. and that’s it. I’m not eating any differently, I’m exercising more compulsively. and I am just as preoccupied with my body and calories as ever.

On a more positive note, I do know I get to continue my training where I am already next year, which is a MASSIVE bit of good news! But now this is definite, my parents are pressuring me to get longer lasting therapy there (before, my excuse has been “what’s the point if I end up moving again in the summer?”) I am not against recovery, but the idea of having that first appointment all over again just fills me with dread. I can’t count the different people I have seen on one hand anymore, and I am frankly bored of waiting/ being optimistic about whoever the new person is/ relaying the entire saga of it all to yet another person.

Being perfectionistic as I am, I feel like it would be inadequate to accept help until they tell me I’m anorexic. As I now live in a different part of the uk to where I was diagnosed and treated before, my ed wants the same justification it had initially. I know it is irrational and dumb to think like that, but I can’t argue myself out of it. I know that the eating disorder will never reach “the bottom” and so it is pointless to tell myself I will try to recover when a certain set of circumstances arises. The circumstances will constantly keep changing, I will keep pushing back the idea of letting go, I will keep feeling like this, and all because it is scary and stressful to change.

In spite of all that, I imagine sitting with one of my present housemates in our future house (just the two of us next year woop woop!) and eating. I fantasise about planning nice meals together, cooking together, eating yummy things… but I am thin in all of those mental images.

I don’t have a bloody clue what I want. I want to feel and eat normally, but I would rather be dead than look normal and chubby and horrible.

Reading that back I am ashamed of sounding so vain. I know that it seems like it is all about my body, but really I know it is just control. I don’t want to be or feel out of control…