The downs and ups of life and scales

Or should I be more honest, and say the downs?  Yes, Let's go with that for now. Not downs, as in emotionally, but downs, drops, falls in weight. 

Let me set the scene again, I stopped seeing my dietician Ms. F more than 18 months ago now, I left the eating disorders unit a year later, back in May 2015. Fully discharged after three months of step-down sessions. Back in 2011 when I was admitted in a blur of anorexia, and started the long, long road of recovery, a target weight of 60-odd kilos was floated around, knowing realistically, ideally in their eyes it'd be a bit more.

The bit between August '11 and now is pretty much what this blog is. Let's not go over and over all that and let's fast forward to now shall we?  

When I left the EDU and waved farewell to Dr. B we put plans in place for monitoring my weight, without falling down the trap of getting scales at home. That's been successful and works for me. Once a month I get up and go to the leisure centre and jump on the public scales. Yes, there is still a routine there, I won't eat before hand, I do wear the same outfit and it plays on my mind the week and days before, but it doesn't consume me. 

But it's when we dig down to the facts, numbers, digits and what that means to me, it's where it's less clear than the routine I've now established to gain them.

When I last stepped on the scales at Kinver, my weight wasn't 'quite' where they would have liked it. I stepped off and was very blase with Dr B about being able to push on, fully recover and do the last bit myself. Not blase in a 'I'll get away with anything I want' rebellious, let anorexia takeover way - I don't want that. But more-so in a 'it doesn't matter...it'll happen as life happens' sort of way. Quite frankly, I didn't care. But also had a niggle of 'I'm fine at this weight thank you...' For now at least.

But that's the thing. I was fine at that weight, but I'm no longer that weight. 

It's lower. Whether I like it or not, whether it's intentional or not, whether I think I look it or not, whether I feel it or not. It is lower. 

Now, it's NOT been intentional, but I'm not kidding myself, I feel better about it being lower, than I know I would if it had gone UP the same amount. I haven't consciously sat down, colluded with anorexia and had an urge to LOSE weight. At all. That much I know. But that's also dangerous, because I can quite happily live like that, because I don't feel restrictive and restricted. 

Do I like it? I don't like the fact that I know other people will judge me, and whether they are honest to my face about it. It's just easier to swallow than gains. 

As for thinking I look and feel five kilos lighter than a year ago? Not. a. Chance. 

I just don't, In fact, over Christmas my weight went down slightly again, a few grammes, but still down. But I spent some of December feeling the old, greedy, gluttonous, unhealthy, piggy thoughts. But it was down. Do I BELIEVE the number. Well I am not blind I can SEE a lower number on my little print out, I know the digits are fewer than the ones in November. I get it. But I also don't. 

I have always fallen into the trap that I think LOWER weigh-ins are the anomalies, this has been the case throughout recovery. Gains felt forever, losses felt temporary. I still have this mindset about  my weight and that's how I've wound up here I think. Every month I've told myself it wouldn't be the case next month, so I just carried on the same. Not restricting more, not counting calories any more closely, not eating more, not reducing exercise, but also not increasing it. I KNOW there are things Ms F. and I worked hard to put back in my diet, which since leaving I've not eaten in a 'no big deal' way, I am aware this is how it's dropped. That's were I'm realistic in how recovered I am.

Every month just believing because I DON'T FEEL or SEE anything BETTER or THINNER or LIGHTER in the mirror, because I don't feel any different in my own skin, or feel any more comfortable in my own skin. 

I've just carried on as I was - not trapped, clinging on to ED, but not massively challenging or moving any further away either. Just generally keeping things the same. 

But if we take the cold hard numbers. They are down. I'm not out, but they are down. But the thing is now, what am I going to do about it? Hm.

It's not me, it's...

...well, I don't know what it is. But the full body mirror and nakedness after a sun bed didn't help. 

I know what it's not though, it's NOT body dysmorphia. You know why? Because I haven't got BDD, never have had.

I know I'm not overweight, I know I am not 'fat. The number on the scale makes sense, I am not 72kgs, so can't LOOK the same as I did I lost weight. I know this. I see a different shape.

I don't want to look like I did at my lowest. I don't want my spine on show, I don't desire arms the size of a child's and I am not too fussed about a thigh gap. I never was.

The problem is I REALLY don't like what I've got. But then again, how many women do? There bits of my body I wish were more toned. There are bits I'd pinch in and curves I'd like to add to. I get that. Most women are unhappy with some part of their bodies (aren't they?)

The issue I have is my fixation with my stomach. I have to admit, I DO prefer the way it looks at closer to my lowest weight than I do right now. I still spend far too long wishing there was a way of NOT starving but having THAT stomach. 

I just DON'T want the protruding pelvis and muscle wastage in my thighs which gave me the midriff I approved of back then. 

It's just so hard when anorexia made me feel confident in a bikini and recovery really doesn't. But the thing I do know is that, it's not real. That confidence isn't me. It's anorexia and that stomach comes with a whole load contracts I'm not willing to sign. 

I just wish I BELIEVED that when I'm stood in front of a full length mirror. And I wish people believed me when I told them this.

Where's the BODY piece of this jigsaw?

So if I told anyone how I felt about my body today, they'd probably tell me the usual 'it's anorexia making you feel that', 'you need to accept yourself, warts and all' 'you're not fat...' Blah, blah, blah.

But I get sick to death of people telling me I don't FEEL fat. I do feel fat, I really do. I also see it. It's real to me. So please, dear GOD can people stop telling me I'm not. I am subjectivity fat, for me.

No, I'm not about to launch a career as a plus-size model (nor am I skeletal enough to strut it down a catwalk at London Fashion Week) but to me, I have lumps, bumps and bulges in more place than I care to have. 

No, thinking this doesn't mean I revert to anorexic behaviours. I haven't skipped my meals or snacks because of my disgust in my own skin today. In fact I faced a fear food I've not had in a very long time. But anyway, you and I both know anorexia's 'ideas' don't help fix anything.

This is where my head gets messiest, where I stop understanding and where despite putting other bits of the puzzle together, there is still a missing jigsaw piece in my recovery.

I poke my stomach or look in the mirror or glance down at my body and I just SIGH. Every single time, I SIGH, I don't know what to do, what to say to people, how to deal with it, how to change it. 

No one else is with me when I try Size 10 jeans on and I pray they're too big, then I have muffin top. No one else is with me when I wake up and already have a bloated round belly resembling someone who's 4 months pregnant. No one is with me when I throw my clothes around my bedroom because every top I try on clings to my stomach. No one is with me when I look at lower weight pictures of myself with rose tinted glasses. No one is with me when I put my running kit on and feel too huge to even run. No one is with me when I endlessly click on dresses on ASOS unable to buy anything because I know it won't look right. No one can hear the constant 'they think I'm too fat' conversations in my head, despite getting on with life (and recovery).

All this. Everyday. I wake up most days and still hope to find the jigsaw piece has turned up. I hope I look in the mirror and think 'Okay, I can deal with that'. Unfortunately, It never turns up.   

I can be SO positive and actually full-on positive sometimes, yet I tell myself such negative things, believe them and think all this at the same time? HOW?

This is the missing piece for me at the moment. I can put together my recovery jigsaw and do my recovery sums. I can see that sticking to my meal plan is a better option than restricting. I fully 100% know that anorexia will never fix this. I also felt awful at my lowest weight, so know losing weight and numbers won't fix it. I know that 1000x sit-ups a day or running every mile I can won't fix it.

So what will? 

My thinking right? Logically, I know that my thinking needs to change, but I can't stop looking at my body for the answers or solutions (or for it to magically change or appear the way I want it to) Nothing anyone says or does CHANGES how I see my body. It just makes me more resentful of it. 

The jigsaw piece I need to find to join this link in my recovery is in the head. But my head is screaming that I'm fat remember, so any suggestions to where the piece is would be more than welcome. 

I really hope I find this piece somewhere soon, it's so frustrating trying to remain positive about the other bits of the puzzle that I've worked hard to put in place, when I can't seem to finish it off. 

I never have liked jigsaws.

Body Checking: Part II

I wanted to share a video from the lovely Arielle Bair (click her name to visit her blog!) from her Wednesday Warrior series on the WeRFreEDomFighters channel about Body Checking and Mirrors because it definitely helps me remember that BODY CHECKING is an ED behaviour which can be as destructive to my recovery as getting on the scales, counting calories or restricting my intake.

I am going to remind myself and watch this video all week to help fight this part of my recovery. 

Body Checks: The New Calorie Counting

Body image, BDD, weight restoration, hatred of 'hippo pictures'......there seems to be a new theme of posts appearing that are moving away from the eating, from the calories and from the food.

This is another layer of my eating disorder being stripped bare and laid out for me to try and get my head round. Hang in there with me, I'm warning you, this one could take a while.........

So, I was sat in my therapist's office on Friday, holding my favourite pink cushion to my stomach, legs twisted and crossed up a blanket (it was EVEN cold on the ward, yes!) and sitting with my arm crossed across my chest, holding on to my cold, hard shoulder bone, you know checking it was still there.

I was brought out of my, "is there more fat on this, do my thighs look chubby today, I can feel my stomach fat, my leggings are digging in" thoughts by Mrs W announcing that she was going to start some work on 'BODY IMAGE' with me to work on my BDD and resistance to weight restoration.

Starting with telling me about the new 'Body Check' journal I have to keep.

Me? Body Check? I automatically wondered why I was having to do that "I don't do that, I don't body check" Unless of course, she's talking about taking pictures of my body or obsessing about old pictures or poking my fat stomach? Oh, those body checks. Right, here goes...

I suppose it was easier to ignore or not notice the checking and my body in general as much when my preoccupation was fully on food and calories. But recently, as my MPs are settling in, and food is out of my control, as I am gaining weight,  these body thoughts are creeping in more and more...they warned me. 

It just shows my inability to think about anything else to do with my ED when I was still restricting, when my whole life was consumed with the eating side of anorexia, the calories, the portions, the scales, the weighing of food, the starving. When I thought I wasn’t REALLY AN, it ‘was just about the food’ that I am just being a fussy eater.  I am realising now, it might not be that, I might be AN! It also reminds me how deep rooted these thoughts are. This plus the general confidence and body image side of things has taken priority over every other single aspect of my life. 

Realistically, the body checking started a LONG time BEFORE the starvation, it's these checks that led me to 'give in' and listen to my ED thoughts and change what I was checking. Am I just vain? Do vain people do this? Why do I do this? (I'd like to add here that I think this is where people think AN sufffers are just self obbsessed and vain and that is all it is - I don't think they consider that we use this as ammunition to HATE ourselves and drive me to starve)  I have always poked, prodded, taken photos to beat myself up about, spent hours, days even, in front of the mirror, hating every inch of my fat, ugly, disguising body. Hours of my life spent in the gym, in the swimming pool, distracted all the time by my fat. Self hate is so deep rooted in me that I don't even know what I look like any more. I have called myself a barrel, podgeo and a hippo for as long as I remember - and ALWAYS CHECKED for the bits of my body that confirm these nicknames. I still do. 

Now in recovery, after destroying my body to stop these daily, hourly, minute by minute checks I am worried about how much is going to come out from this body checking diary thing because today I haven’t recorded it all but it's constant. 

Every time I go to the toilet I hold my stomach and hope it goes down when I pee. I poke my belly and look at my fat belly button and when I pull my leggings or jeans back up I look at how my stomach looks In what I am wearing. I check my hip bones, front and back, I spin around to check how my butt is growing. When I am talking to friends or in sessions I cover my stomach with cushions and clothes and play with my shoulders and collar bone more than I realised I do. I notice when I was sat in Costa that I often sit up straight and feel my spine and hip bones from the back and although I said to Mrs. W that I didn’t think my legs bothered me I noticed how much I touch my knees and feel the tendons and ligaments behind the knee a lot and obsess with out my thighs look all squished and fat when I'm sitting down.

I also need to be HONEST with myself here, because I feel guilty because I know I take more picture’s of my body than I let on to Mrs. W too. It might not be a lot compared to how many I used to take when I was losing weight, but I know I take more pictures that other people probably do. To ‘check’ what I look like. But I suppose more than that I spend a long time looking back at old photographs, ones I took of myself specifically because of my ED, for my own thinspro for my ED and weight loss and also looking at pictures of days out before and during losing weight to try and figure out what I think about my body.

To put it in perspective, I don’t actually have enough space in my journal or time to write them all down. To write how often I look at my stomach, or glance in the mirror and tell myself I look awful and ugly or think about how thin my hair looks, the condition of my skin all my fat and everything. Every time I look in the mirror I give myself some sort of grief about how I look or I worry about how I look. Too fat but too ill as well and you know, not perfect. NBD right?

It's these new NBD moments of checking my body, always, always the bits I hate the most, which keep the spiral of self-hate alive. They are the NBD moments that make gaining weight scary, they are the checks that my ED drives my to do. They are the check, the preoccupation and the obbsession which should tell me I'm still battling AN, despite eating. The Body Check NBDs are the biggest NBDs now and this is where the real hard work starts. 

Anyway, I need to remember that every time I go looking for the bits I hate I figure out the same thing, I hate it. Not really a productive way to spend my life is it? I know the answer.