10 things I wish people would say to me:

1. You can talk about it, even when we’ve had the same conversation 1000 times. 

2. It doesn’t matter if you eat with me or not- I want you there. 

3. I understand that being thin is very important to you, and I accept I can’t change that. 

4. You are allowed to feel whatever you want. 

5. I love you the same no matter how well or unwell you are. 

6. You can tell me if things I say are triggering. 

7. I don’t understand your attachment to your illness, but I do acknowledge that the decision to let go is scary. I support you. 

8. You haven’t failed by not recovering. Maybe this bad time will become motivation to change. 

9. You have the freedom to eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full, and eat things you like. 

10. I think you are very ill, but don’t see it. 

NEDA- eating disorder awareness week 2016.

Awareness week has brought up a lot of emotions for me, as well as some changes to my treatment causing me to overthink. I like seeing ED stories and info popping up on social media and people talking about topics that can be very shame filled and lonely, but sometimes it raises my feelings of competition. It’s easy to believe I’m not that sick when I am overwhelmed with images of very underweight sufferers, or posts from those in inpatient because of medical complications. I admire all those who have turned their lives around, but from my disordered point of view I can’t accept what people say about how great recovered life is, because I’m too focused on my perceived failure at being ill. 

To be referred back to the ED service I was using last year I have to go through the referral process again. My psychiatrist thankfully did a lot of that for me, but I now have to do medical monitoring for 4 weeks. I’m so terrified. I know that my current behaviours, which are really the ones I have carried with me the longest, put me into the anorexia category. My long term restriction was broken up with a period of bulimia (I was diagnosed and this is when I was using the service last year), so now it’s about my weight. My doctor is clearly going to be blind weighing me to see if I am losing weight enough for them to help. 

I would want to die if I was told I wasn’t thin enough. I couldn’t handle that and I’m scared it’s going to come true. 

2 out of 16.

At the start of the year a friend gave me the idea of making a “16 things for 2016” list. Instead of having loads of massive, unrealistic resolutions, I made a list of things that are a mixed. Many are just things I would like to do- a show to watch or an experience to have. 

Number 2: get a massage 

As a dancer, I’m not at all unfamiliar with a sports massage. Try having one on a torn hamstring or damaged ankle ligaments. Yep. Painful. Not at all fun. Just very painful. That being said, the idea of a massage to relax me seemed a good one for my list. I booked to have a Swedish massage and went to it on Monday. 

Wearing just a pair of bikini bottoms and having a stranger touch your most hated parts of your body was really difficult at first, but clearly I couldn’t just get up and leave once she started so I was forced to ride out the anxiety. It worked. By the end of the massage I was almost asleep! 

I have definitely thought about it since, and had some intrusive thoughts about whether she made judgements of my body etc, but I like that I can very easily never see that massage therapist again and just forget about those feelings. I think massages are certainly a good thing for me to do as both self care and a bit of a challenge for my anxiety too. Definitely recommend it!

Body blues.

Utterly exhausted of having no consistent view of myself. Sure I look not thin enough whatever the image, but even my view of my bone structure/ body type changes from moment to moment. It’s making me really frustrated and fed up. 

I feel like I should have reached the magical point of thin enough by now, and I haven’t. I know I don’t look super thin, in fact I think I look “normal.” My mum notices my weight changes as I only see her during holidays. She thinks I look smaller, but I think she might just be trying to please me. 

I want to sleep and wake up when this is done with

ED jealousy

I really struggle to not show my jealousy when it comes to my ED. even though I like that I am high functioning and continue doing things, a friend going to inpatient or getting physically ill because of their ed causes me so much distress. 

Finally I think I know why. Maybe I’m more fired up about this more than my other disorders because it’s my eating that has bought both more pain and more comfort than anything else. 

Being jealous over an illness makes me feel very guilty, though, because I’d never feel this way over the flu or an operation (or anything non ed based) and I do except that the thoughts are proof of my sickness in themselves, as no non sufferer would probably want to suffer. 

That’s a mind game.