You can’t ever be understood

There are a fair amount of people in my life who know I have an Eating Disorder. For some of those, the knowledge ends there. They accept this as a fact, but don’t understand or have the ability to empathise with the complex feelings and difficulties it brings along. Then there are the select few who listen to endless conversations with me, try to help me see the pros of recovery, and “get” me- the good and the bad parts. 

The last few days I’ve felt a little isolated with my thoughts. Sharing them can sometimes be enough to lessen the stress I feel, but at the same time, nobody can ever have my disorder with my rules and my feelings. If nobody can ever 100% understand, then what’s the point? 

I’m once again confused about recovery. Do I still want to get sicker or get better? I want all the benefits of being better, but I want my body to get smaller. 

Be brave 💕

These words are so appropriate at this moment in my life. I’m at the beginning of a life as a graduate performer, and that’s a frightening place to be. It’s exciting, too, to know I can keep carving a path towards my goal career though. 

Words of inspiration for today:

Definitions

I feel like I’m the only person who feels so strongly about different words to describe a body. Thin, slim, fat, overweight etc etc all have a different meaning to me. 

Call me skinny and that’s comforting and reassuring to my ed, but if you don’t say one of the words that are “ok” to me, then I feel triggered and embarrassed. 

To other people, these words seem to be interchangeable, but to me it’s critical to make the right choice. Really screwing me up at the moment & I have an audition tomorrow too. 

Fuck. 

Family dynamic, triggers, and dietitians. Oh lord help me.

I ended up spending an hour talking about food and my family in a dietitians appointment yesterday. Holy Jesus there were SO MANY THINGS TO SAY! I’ve realised how abnormal and triggering both my parents are in relation to food and body judgements, and it changes my emotions dramatically when they comment aloud on themselves negatively, or judge others very harshly. 

What if they are judging me?

Don’t get me wrong, my parents love me, and they are intelligent, funny people, but nobody is perfect. My brothers don’t have any hang ups about their bodies and they both eat what they want when they want, so clearly I’m not going to place blame for my own problems on my family. It’s just coincidence that my personality and predisposition combines with my parents attitude to food and creates the perfect storm. 

Their relationship isn’t straightforward either, and it often feels like I take in more worry and negative feelings about this than my siblings. Maybe that’s just because I’m more sensitive? I hope that some of the current snappiness between them is just an expression of their stress over some life changes that are on the horizon, but who knows (not me, because I only ever get part of the bloody story)

It’s been on my mind a lot lately, because I’m back home and begin with my parents makes food more difficult for me to handle. I don’t want things like this to be an excuse to not try to get better, as let’s face it, I’ve spent far too long doing that by now. 

I have to say there was something so comforting about this session. I felt like I was being listened to and treated with some respect. I was able to ask questions and also to just say some of my main ED thoughts that are firing on all cylinders at the moment. I’m not sure if it sounds silly, but I felt like I was treated like a “real anorexic”. I must sound like a lunatic… But yeah. It felt validating for somebody to speak directly to me and say that dietitians don’t always like working with anorexia because it twists their words, and it’s difficult. It made it ok for me to feel that confusion and difficulty. 

At fucking last.