Can anybody help?

My family did everything to try and help me in the early days. It didn’t work because I just did everything I could to conceal my behaviour.
Now that they have given up , I pace rooms to burn calories in their presence. The need to do so is compulsive and I’ve stopped caring if they see me doing it or not. At least this way we can talk and see each other, instead of hardly saying hello because I would whisk myself off alone to exercise.
This has made realise that nobody can help you unless you choose to be helped. Mental illness may not happen through choice but it can be recovered from/ improved by choice. Personally , I don’t think I will ever be completely free of my eating disorder, but my cbt and antidepressants are beginning to make me more optimistic about being able to manage it better in the future.
Once you’ve had an ed, the thoughts remain at any weight. One must definitely eat normally during the recovery process, but eating alone is not a cure.

Friendship :)

“Friends are the most important ingredient in the recipe of life.”

Being home for the holidays means that I have finally had the chance to see my closest friends in the flesh again! Facebook, skype etc are brilliant, but nothing beats them actually being there 🙂

I am lucky enough to have some of the most amazing friends. Having moved into a student household, I now know that quite a lot of other people my age do not have the same bonds with people back home as I do. There are about 15 people who have all been a shoulder to cry on throughout this whole ed, anxiety, depressed mess, and I will always be so grateful to every single one of them.

Out of those, there are some who have been particularly incredible at being there for me. These are people who I could and have phoned in the early hours, who have calmed me in a panic attack over the phone, or who have provided me with an unexpected way of letting things out. The people who have literally spent hours listening to me in a hysterical state, or while analysing my own thoughts, or while having an ed vs me argument out loud, are the most fantastic people in the world.

As well as being amazing listeners and some of the most calm and supportive friends in the world, these are also people who are absolutely hilarious! I have known some of them longer than others, but I have bucketfuls of memories with all of them- some going back to childhood. The amount of words that can’t be said without bringing on the giggles and all the random stories of crazy things that have happened are thoughts I treasure every single day.

Since I began to use food as a coping mechanism and focus all my worry and self doubt onto my body there have been many days when I have woken up feeling like a waste of space. I often feel hopeless, too emotional to do anything, anxious, angry or utterly confused…

the friendships I have are sometimes the only reason worth getting up in the morning. ❤

 

Holidays, food & selfishness.

This wouldn’t post yesterday for some reason..

I ate Christmas lunch by myself & it was blissful. The fact that I was absolutely certain that nobody would come in or that nobody had looked at what I was having made me feel safe, happy and in control.

Although there have been a few too many social occasions surrounded by food the last couple of weeks, I really do love Christmas, and it has been a special day to me since I was very young. At a buffet today (family only) I told everybody I wouldn’t eat before we went to it. I am glad I stuck to that, but it was quite hard to be present in that situation; for some reason, being around food made me particularly on edge this afternoon. 

It is exceptionally challenging to maintain relationships and maintain my fears and rigidity over food all at once, and I am so relieved to have done both this Christmas. A little piece of me does however feel sadness that I can’t join in with these things without it ruining me emotionally for the day/ week etc….

I wonder if anybody else even really cared about what I was doing… I suppose that most of us are too wrapped up in our own thoughts and judgements to truly focus on someone else for very long, but even so, I do worry that people around me resent my lack of willing to eat socially. (Here comes the essay on selfishness) Is it selfish of me to choose my own comfort about eating, rather than place myself under pressure for the comfort of others? I guess it is, but as a person I do not consider myself to be selfish. Although much of my time is dominated by thinking about my food plans. or exercise, or my body, this is almost exclusively a negative activity. It isn’t having a love for myself, or done out of not caring for anybody else. In fact, I try so hard to please others and help my friends whenever I possibly can, but this also brings me pleasure so it I guess it is partially selfish too?

Nothing is selfless. I believe that everybody has their own unique balance of being kind to themselves and being kind to others. How often you think about yourself or others is irrelevant: surely it is the manner in which you think of yourself and others that matters. I hate myself a lot of the time, but there are moments (like xmas dinner) where I was “selfish”, in that others may have felt happier had I sat with them. In my eyes though, this was a small act of kindness to myself.

Everybody is selfish, but sometimes that is the only way in which people can be easier on themselves for a while. Maybe some weird part of my eating disorder is that I can only ever do things that may be seen as selfish in order to be nice to myself, as then, I am still punishing myself in some way?!

Even though they will probably not read this: thank you to my family for (mostly) acting ok with me doing my own thing and being somewhat awkward about all the food parts. I love all of my gifts and did enjoy my Christmas day and boxing day, even if that seems odd all things considered!

 

Wanting, needing and the motivation to do something about either:

It is very easy to be confused between what you want and need, and what you can and can’t do. I WANT to be thinner and believe I NEED to be, but is it possible to achieve this without sacrificing the other things in my life and is that thought even right in the first place?!

Recently, other people are giving me mixed messages about how I am doing. Obviously, this is something that only I can ever be fully aware of, but all the same, it is giving me a lot to think about! 

Some people are telling me how much better I seem and how pleased they are that I seem to be handling my stuff ok on my own; others say I look thinner and my habits aren’t normal or good. My conclusion is that my exterior mood is calmer and more relaxed, so those who comment on me being better are talking about that as opposed to my body or attitude to food… Who knows, but it does prove that I am doing something right, and I’m pleased about that. I suppose the sad thing is that I don’t really think I will ever be able to give my eating disorder, as that voice in my head feels like it will be there forever!

Even to those who think I am doing better (in whatever respect) it is STILL HARD and probably always will be. People forget that and I just because I am not panicking 24 hours a day doesn’t mean my thoughts are different and it is simple to not end up in an anxious mess.

An unofficial Christmas…

As we are all off back to family for Christmas, we had our own celebration day today. It was actually lovely, despite all the food being present. I am so happy to be at the end of the day having not panicked at the dinner table, thrown up, eaten the wrong thing etc! For once I have done vaguely ok…

Thinking about the festive period I had last year, I am disappointed at how I handled myself. Thinking about all the secretive eating, crying, failing, exercising at night and insane food plans makes me sad. I really hope that I can stay in this restrictive pattern and not go into the ups and downs of last year, as I can feel pretty low at times as it is!

On a happier note, today has got me thinking of all those little Christmassy memories:

*Decorating the Christmas tree

*Sitting by a lit fire

*Playing board games

*Going out in the snow

*Seeing my favourite family and friends 

*Laughing

*Buying, wrapping and receiving presents

*Christmas music and films!

Happy December!