Yoga type update

It has been a few days since I decided to put some of the yoga class I went to into my daily life. 

It’s actually going well.

I have had some early mornings, and therefore done my 20-30 minute practice in the evening, but both times of day feel good for me. I like how I feel when I’m stretching with my eyes closed, alone, with quiet, meditative music in the background. Each day so far, I’ve been glad that I made the effort. 

In my dance training during term time, it can be hard to stretch effectively after a long day, but the short routine I’ve been doing could definitely work in that scenario too. 

In terms of mentality I have noticed something quite significant. I’ve noticed that I set a goal (to try doing some yoga each day this week) and I’m achieving it. My usual harsh mindset could have set me up to fail. My negative voice would have required me to do at least an hour, only in the morning, adding 5 minutes a day etc etc, and any small diversion from the plan would have meant I had ruined it. 

  

 

So basically all this rambling would have been explained just as well by the quote alone 😂 I saw it today, and thought it was all too well timed for me to not write about!

Xxx 

Walking obsession.

I go through times where I walk on the spot for hours on end to burn calories. I am doing that right now.

It makes me feel so much more comfortable with having eaten at all, but at the same time, I hate that I feel so compelled to do it. I’m tired and bored. Therefore, tomorrow I am going to eat a lower calorie number so that I don’t have to walk.

I do want to get better and be a normal eventually, but right now, I can only think about being thinner. In a very messed up, illogical way, I won’t allow myself to get better until I have got worse….

Speaking my mind.

My binges and purging (usually through laxatives and exercise as I’m rarely able to be sick) are always a result of my restrictive anorexia. Before having a restrictive eating disorder I never ate out of control, ate quickly or had the urge to eat loads. Until today, I never told anybody LITERALLY what happens. I found myself saying that “I ate loads in one go, had to rid of it and then sat in a panicked state, unable to physically move when I was unable to do so. No money for laxatves, unable to be sick and not feeling like I could ever do enough exercise…”

I have never been so open about what goes on in the short binge phases I experience, and I feel so relieved. I have admitted that I DO have a problem in that respect, and while it isn’t its own entity- more a biological and psychological response to deprivation- I do need to address it in order to reach the ultimate “middle” of eating well and being mentally ok.

I am not yet in a place to contemplate not losing more weight, and so I am going to accept that, but create a calorie range, so there is a bottom to my restriction. That way I will still lose weight, but be “allowed” a certain amount… this will be new to me, as throughout my problem with food, lowering the calories has been a constant focus. What I have learned is that 100-300 calories less a day barely speeds up the weight loss at all anyway!

5 THINGS I WILL DO IF I FEEL LIKE I AM GOING TO BINGE:

-Think about how I will feel if I do
-Do my favourite breathing exercise
-Listen to music
-Remind myself that I don’t need to “stock up” food, because I have induced the deprivation and I know I am going to get x calories tomorrow anyway. Know that my body is programmed to survive, but the instinct to eat large amounts in unnecessary in society where food is readily available
-Call someone and talk about anything! This is good because it proves food doesn’t have to control my llife

I feel like I have just had a massive revelation! Never using clear language has stopped me from fully admitting to anybody the truth of this side of my illness. So I will say it again and see it in black and white:

My anorexic brain wishes me to be perfect. When biology eventually cuts in, my instinct makes me eat and eat. The eating disorder makes me guilty, get rid of the food, and perpetuate the cycle. When the phase ends, I am back to restricting all the time and so pretend I have never binged. Like most people. I HAVE BINGED. I am not proud of it, and have hidden it by wrapping the statement in cotton wool when speaking to others. Now this is a fact, I can break that cycle. Then I only have the one (starvation)  cycle left to break.

Best descriptions of eating disorders.

Just some things I have read recently that I really like. At last there are some things around that haven’t got eating problems totally upside down!

“People who develop eating disorders feel that they’re not good enough,” Sacker says. “They become obsessed with perfectionism. That perfectionism begins to focus on what they eat. But underlying it is depression and anxiety.”

“At first, it was such a relief not to worry about anything else. The eating disorder started as a coping mechanism to help me avoid my other problems. But, in the end, it became the biggest problem of all.”

“If your value is looking good by societal standards, then you’ll feel good about taking that self-depriving step towards trying to lose a bit more weight – e.g. passing on dessert. There is definitely some psychological reward from having this Spartan mentality. On top of this, if you value achievement and hard work, it seems you’ll certainly at an increased risk of deriving a lot of pleasure from controlling food intake.” 

“They are emotional illnesses and really there is only one illness: the use of one or another aspect of eating behaviour to change the way we feel.”

“Too fat or too thin, it’s the same emotional illness.”

“When I had Anorexia, I really wanted to say to an aunt: ‘please don’t mention that I look ‘well’ because this triggers my eating disorder thoughts’ but I didn’t know how to do say so tactfully, and did not want to bring attention to myself, so what did I do? I started to avoid that aunt. What did my mother think? She thought I was being rude. And on it goes …”

“I can’t even look at the menu. There’s nothing on here I can eat. There are too many choices. I don’t want to be here and now everyone’s looking at me. I want to go home!”

“The biggest problem with humanity is that we always want to know why. Maybe it is ok to sometimes not know, and to accept life as it comes. You have to challenge your own hurdles instead of sitting down to look for an answer you might never find.”

 

Exhaustion.

I am having a good week class-wise, but my body is fighting against me. I reached a point of feeling unable to lift my own legs to stand up before dance today, and once I did, even I could see that I didn’t look well- pale, yellowy, tired…

I hate hate HATE feeling so pathetic, but I am hanging on until I reach a weight where I can settle with stopping. My point is realistic, as I have maintained on my goal weight before, but a voice in the back of my mind is screaming that the ed is just tricking. Is there ever an end? 

Being angry and anxious

I would usually say that I’m not an angry person- at least not at others. I basically never get cross at people, or shout, or show anything at all when I am furious on the inside. I think that all my anger ends up being aimed at myself… like today.

Somebody said a couple of things that just drove me mental this afternoon. They were needless comments, both of which linked to my ed/ self esteem and made me feel like crap. As a result I sat alone in my room and panicked.

It is times like these when I just hate the world. I want to be locked in a room until everything is gone & I end up harming myself or throwing my stuff around. Even though what was said wasn’t actually my doing, I took it out on myself by throwing my phone (which somehow didn’t break!)

At the moment I am just annoyed that I can identify the thoughts that are my illness, but seem unable to do anything about them! I feel as though I am destined to be stuck in a life where I’m regularly totally unstable and hating everything. 

All I can do is to attempt to be calm and together as every new challenge arises.

An epic day & a plan of action :)

Today I got my assessment marks at college and they have made me smile! My response to “you got the highest marks in the year” was “are you joking?!” I am so happy that my hard work has paid off, that my teachers like me, and that my psychological issues have not got in the way of either of those things.

After a tough day seeing a therapist yesterday, I am feeling mega positive after the surprisingly good news this afternoon! So, I have been thinking carefully recently about what I want to do about everything, and this is the plan:

-Reach the body measurements I have set myself, and then STOP. The weight I want to be is one that I have maintained on a healthy amount of calories before now, so I believe this goal is realistic.

-Accept the CBT appointment I’m waiting to receive in the post, and try to make the most of what I am offered. Become less anxious as a result.

-Continue to work hard in my studies, and do as much as I can to keep my ed stress outbursts to a minimum!

-Go to a youth ed group if I am eligible for the one I have in mind.

-Keep trying to accept that my eating disorder has to stop dominating my life if I want to have a healthier and happier life, but that I don’t have to abandon my ed label. My experiences and feelings will always be a part of me, because everything that happens is!

-Try to be more relaxed even when doing tasks that majorly trigger food stressing (such as getting food out in front of others.) 

Thanks to everyone for all the positive messages the last week or so. I always feel so supported when I know there are others who have ed’s who have been told they are fine, or who have had a tough time getting help/ getting help that’s actually useful, or who know how it feels to be trapped and not certain of what to do. I love that I’m not alone, and I think it is also good for me to be reminded that my problem is real & I do need to challenge it. Thanks… my blog is a very necessary outlet right now!

 

Anxious, positive and sad all at once…

So, I went for the awaited CBT assessment and I am going to get some for my anxiety, so I can hopefully go on to apply it to all the food stuff.

I am positive that getting some sort of help is now in the near future, but the whole thing did make me very anxious. I’m also annoyed by the fact that I mentioned how almost all my panic is about food, weight etc & she then felt it appropriate to say “you don’t have an eating disorder”

Although this was more a general statement than an accusation, I was hurt that she didn’t guess before I said that I did. It just made me feel like a not thin enough failure. I guess it is pretty dumb to dwell on that one point of conversation, but it all goes back to the fact that my ed feels like my protection, a piece of me… and above all, it is there every minute of every day in a very blatant fashion in my mind. All of a sudden I’ve realised that people only really see you from the outside. Of course, I take from this that I am not thin enough, and that I should be disgusted that my eating disorder is technically “atypical.”

Another mental argument I’ve also got going on is that I do have an eating disorder, so it’s ok and I don’t need to be freaking out…

Then there is the logical part of my brain that knows (very VERY deep down) that surely all of the above is insanity.

Will I ever get out of this? Am I even sure that I want to? Will getting thinner and people knowing more obviously about my ed really give me the twisted sense of justification I feel I need in order to give it all up? Would people even notice at all- I mean hardly anybody has noticed that I’ve never eaten at college infront of them (and we have been there 4 months)?

Everything is confusing. I am happy that some help appears to be on its way, but I’m worried that it won’t be right, or be enough help, or that I simply won’t be able to have a normal mentality.

Looking back at an old diary.

Yesterday I randomly stumbled upon my old food/thoughts diary from about 18 months ago. Reading it back I was absolutely horrified at how crazy I sound, but also filled with sadness at the fact I still think the same horrible thoughts.

“Today they told me my problem wasn’t diagonseable. She is stupid anyway, because now I am definitely going to keep going so that I can be thinner and confident and happy. I must do this, because having an eating disorder means that I am in control of myself.”

Needless to say, 3 months later I was having counselling. As it was pretty short lived (lady retired!)  nothing changed in a long term fashion: here I am, a long while later and back where I was.

I still totally  believe that being thin is so important that I feel unable to leave the house something, I still just sit in a dark room and cry out of hopelessness, and I still spend hours meticulously planning and calculating food.

Apart from the odd time, I can usually be this way without having perpetual panic attacks like I have done in the past… I know that takes some mental strength to change, but realistically speaking, my eating disorder does dictate my life even if I can keep the worry and madness inside my head nowadays.

I am beginning to wonder when I will accept myself without an eating problem. It feels like a part of my identity (logically I realise this isn’t true) & so the uncertainty of personality without it scares me. I am desperate to be able to be “normal” but at the same time, getting help in England is almost impossible it seems! 

This morning I was looking at non-nhs options that are free for students, so I must want to get better… thing is, do I want it enough to drown out the part of me that is stuck like this?

More of a question than a post…

When my ed began, I lost weight eating around X calories (don’t wanna talk literal numbers). Now, I eat similarly but usually do about 3 times as much exercise. I am terrified that over the holidays, despite maintaining my calories control, I will not have lost weight. My measurements (waist etc) aren’t bigger though, and the amount I eat is still a weight loss level .. so worried 😦 HELP?!

My logical brain tells me that my weight loss will have been slower, due to less opportunity to exercise while on holiday, but that my body needs more than I have given it just to run itself.

My ed says I must be fatter, disgusting, a failure.