Living by the rule book

What I was given yesterday was permission to publish version two of the anorexic rule book that I've learnt to live by. A redrafted edition.

It's not like the edition I lived by back then, not like it was before. By giving me this permission in my head -is basically stating that I am okay and can be 'content' and cope with living within the restrictions this rule book states. It's normal and okay that I still put these controls on my life. What I don't get there is that she can't see that I opened up and said the reason I can't commit to therapy fully, give my self over and burn the book - is not because I am not fed up with the way I'm living, I am. I'm too addicted to the rules and I know they hold me back. But it's about trust. I don't trust anyone at all that it can be different for me. I also need to turn pages carefully because of the commitment I have to my life too. By that I mean work, mortgage and my plans.

It's just yet more proof services take their eye off the ball when you've got a high-functioning mental illness. When you're able to read and live by anorexic rules day to day to cope with life, but when you're able to be a 'rebel' and break the rules from time to time.


It's like eating disorders services are almost relieved that one of me comes along now and then. Self aware enough to write my own rules to cope, with the awareness that going back to volume one is NOT the life I want or need. But still not being able to put the rules down.

Unable to trust myself or my body to cope without them. Worried that living without them would be too much to bear. Apparently, when I can't break the rules any more and my life is governed by them completely, that's when they'll help me put it down.

I was sat there, admitting that I still live by the rule book, still count calories, still hate my body, still hate when I break them, still control everyone and everything I can to stick to them - and still know I'd be better with help to get rid of the book - but nothing.

Apparently, It's my fault for not trusting that burning the book would be the best thing to do. Maybe I needed help lighting the match and watching the pages burn...but I don't have a light, that's why I went back, but they can't help.

So I'll keep the book under my pillow for now. I need it like in needed a security blanket as a child. After all, I am able to break the rules from time to time. So what harm does keeping the book do? Really.

Hmmm.

Wow, Have you lost weight?

I know, I know, I'm recovering from anorexia, it's not about losing weight and being complimented for  it, that of course is the last thing anyone will say to me. But that still doesn't stop me wishing that I could hear it again.

When you've spend most of your life, like I have, holding the belief that the biggest compliment anyone could pass was suggesting I'd dropped a few pounds AND you could notice AND it looked good, it's hard not to crave it.

Call it shallow, call it silly, call it what you wish, but those words still hold importance in my head.

It's also linked to the growing green-eyes I'm getting towards anyone who dares tell me they're on a diet, losing weight of just 'not that hungry' recently. The same goes for the people who tell me they're 'eating healthy' or giving up carbs or wheat or gluten or any other part of their diets in a bid to shed a few pounds. 

I've got the defense tools to keep me on the recovery staight and narrow with my own meal plan. Different rules, I know diets don't work, they'll regain what the lose, it's balance, blah, blah, blah. But why is it so hard to hear? 

It's harder now I'm closer to a healthy set weight, it's been hard for the last year since I've been in a healthy BMI. Sat freezing, shivering in three jumpers, severely underweight I could listen to people's weight loss tales, but that's because I KNEW, I was aware I was killing my body, starving it and it needed all the Fortisips and peanut butter it could get to repair, but now? There are blurred lines. 

Unless I'm totally off my head, most women love hearing they look like they've lost weight and look good for it.

I know most of my friends and family would agree. I guess society plays a part in this and the multi-million pound diet industry dreams of it long being this way, but this is what I don't like, going AGAISNT the grain especially when it makes recovery even harder.

I don't want to be different to everyone else, I don't want to be going up when everyone else is going down, I don't even want to be maintaining when everyone else is getting the kicks I once did. I'm not sure if it's rose tinted anorexia blurred glasses clouding my memories of how weight loss felt on the scales or what but...

...it's hard to swallow when I feel like the only person in the world who's never going to hear those magic words ever again, especially when I feel humongous. Sod what society tells me, I know this is about how I feel.