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. 

Sh*t People Say to People with Mental Illness (Reblog)

Originally posted on wehaveapples:“We all get the blues!”? You: Um, so… I can’t function on a daily basis. I’m on the floor right now, unable to move. I’ve been sobbing for so long that I can’t breathe. This is my everyday. This is NOT “the blues.”? “Just be strong and put on a smile.”?…

https://dearestsomeone.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/sht-people-say-to-people-with-mental-illness/

IAPT therapy and eating disorders

I am currently being treated in the high intensity iapt service. I hadn’t heard much about the iapt thing until I got referred, and so I did some investigation into it online. Initially I was a little confused, as it seemed that Body Dysmorphic Disorder was as close to ed’s as iapt went. I was psyching myself up for some more pointless therapy.
But then I got there and was utterly surprised. My therapist is a clinical psychologist who has done the extra work to be a HI therapist. Therefore, her educational background is very broad in terms of the kind of psychological issues she has studied. Even so, I know that ed clients aren’t people that she works with regularly.
From personal experience I knew that an ed service probably wasn’t the way to go though. The waiting lists are long and the cases are usually prioritised by physical risk; I’m not dying so they would probably assess me and send me on my way.
Since starting my iapt cbt, I have found documents online about particular iapt services that do specifically say some ed clients are seen in their services. All I can say is that I’m so glad I took this option.
My therapist is warm, kind, organised and helpful. She has books about cbt in eating disorders and is giving me ed specific homework. She also recognises the need for medical input and so I am being monitored by a gp- like I would be in a ed service. She has created a formulation that merges my ed, anxiety, depression and self esteem into one, and has helped me through the hard parts of starting antidepressant medication.
I feel like she might be the person who can really help me 🙂
I’m also totally fascinated by therapists. I kinda find it hard to imagine them as people outside of work! It must be a really rewarding job, and I suppose their own life experiences probably make them better at understanding others.