Bump, Breasts and Bread

I've only spent 21 weeks and four days out of my 34 years and six months on the planet pregnant so far, but I can tell you, it’s changed me more than just physically, already!

I’d always been anxious about maybe one day having a baby, but never thought it would be something I’d be capable of. Firstly, emetophobia (fear of vomit) pushed the notion out - morning sickness, being sick in labour, then baby sick - not for me thanks! Thankfully, I’ve not suffered so far in pregnancy with sickness at all, the first trimester was quite breezy compared to some people’s experience. (*plenty of ginger did the trick!) 

Then there was the lack of menstruation for seven years at the worst my eating disorder. I was aware from the start of the crisis that every month I didn’t have a period I was eroding my chance of being fertile. Yet that didn’t persuade me to turn my back on anorexia at the time. Fast forward to 2019, lots of self care I mentioned in my first pregnancy post, and we conceived in May! 

Now the changes to my body. We hear the same old rhetoric from women about how ‘babies ruined their bodies’, society is obsessed with people losing ‘baby bellies’ and dropping the baby weight before they leave the maternity unit. As someone who’s recovered from anorexia - they all set off the alarm bells, everytime. Why on EARTH would I ‘ruin’ my controlled and monitored body? Give it up for 9 months and leave myself with a horror show? Nah! 

But you know what, I’ve been working hard to re frame all that now it's happening. It's part of what my doula is helping with, and why I am going to Positive Birth Groups and embracing positive pregnancy stories.

I am looking at my growing bump in excitement. I’m actually loving having bigger breasts and a big bump is a reminder that Baby Brown is doing well growing in there. Of course That doesn’t come naturally to me, a lifetime of craving no curves and ‘flatness’ takes some undoing, but I’m probably less self conscious of my body than at any time since I was about 10! I’d go as far to say as I’m proud of it. 

What I am more conscious of, and the part of the second trimester playing on my mind is eating and hunger. It’s constant. I am no longer setting the food rules by the clock or just for me. We know anorexia prides itself on the ability to control time and hunger - but no more. I’ve always told myself the story that I’m ‘greedy’, ‘glutinous’ and ‘piggy’ with no self control (despite never suffering with actual binging) but snacking more or adding more to plate bothered me. It still does, making this part of being pregnant harder to deal with right now. 

I am dealing with it, I have no choice - and secretly it is liberating to eat previously ‘banned’ foods - the ones I still banned until May this year! But it’s a work in progress. I’m staying away from counting calories as much as humanly possible and I’m eating when my body tells me I need to (music to my former dietitian’s ears!) intuitive eating, me? I know I’ll gain weight, I have to. I know I’m needing more fuel to grow a human and keep me energized for work. It needs to be a varied diet - with carbs and fats top of the list. I am doing that, eating more - but it doesn’t come naturally. 

Those greed thoughts are there, as are the ones I put into other peoples minds, assuming they’re agreeing. I still hate people commenting on my food and what I am eating, it really does get to me. (Please, don't do it, I am eating more, and differently, I am aware!)

It’s also my changing tastes, I’m going off my usual favourite lunch and dinners and craving more comforting meals, smaller volume, higher calories, like spaghetti hoops on toast and vegan fish fingers and mash. Woah, that's a lot for my head to take some nights, and even if it's tasty, it makes me want to cry when M asks me if I'm enjoying it! 

Yes I am scared about when my midwife next wants to weigh me, I worry about non-bump weight gain, like my bum and thighs, and who knows how I'll feel in February when he's here. But for now,  there’s never been a more crucial time for me to tune into my body and just bloody listen and trust it! I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt for the next 18 weeks and 3 days, because it’s doing something quite marvelous right now. Growing my little man.

Looking back and thinking forwards

I'm not sure how to explain how it felt walking back to the eating disorders unit on Thursday, I actually made a 'Ughh' noise out loud heading up the driveway towards the outpatient department. Loud enough to wonder if anyone had heard me. It was a completely mixed set of emotions.

In some respects it felt familiar, like going back somewhere steeped in memories would, but in other ways it felt much more clinical and cold than before. I felt out of place and disappointed in myself. I didn't like how even knowing I was going there made anorexia louder, in a 'pride' sort of way. I didn't like that volume. Despite the residue of my eating disorder, I wouldn't say it was a voice which out-shouted my own for the past 18 months. I've been louder, which is why I've made the progress I have done thus far. 

My assessment was with a Dr. I'd not seen at all before, but whom I knew of. She also knew of me. 

I was weighed, measured, attacked by the vampire and had an ECG. The latter was fine, the bloods are pending, I seem to have shrunk 2cm in 2 year and my weight was higher than it was Saturday and lower than the last time they weighed me. 

Too low for them to be happy with. But not low enough to ring alarm bells. A BMI they're not happy with, a BMI which means I have been offered treatment. But I don't think it's my BMI which they're mostly concerned with. The lack of periods is one thing they're keen to change, as is my thinking about myself and  the food rules I still live by. 

It was a lot of the old questionnaires about self esteem, thinking, mood and emotion - the clinical side of things - and the therapy admin. We spoke at length about the care I'd had before - and how the service had changed since. Those people who have followed my blog from Day 1 will know that I have never defined the 'type' of therapy I had. Because I was never told. I ended up with a miss-match cobbled together careplan with no clear 'type' of therapy, no clear boundaries and no one style of work. That was partly because of the faults in the EDU, partly to do with my emergency admission in 2011, and my refusal for IP care, but need for serious support and finally, a little do with my quick move back to work - and ability to NOT focus on therapy. 

Things have changed. I have now been given two options. A course of CBT-E, with hardcore weight-gain, 20 sessions twice weekly and then 20 more one a week. With a focus on weight restoration, weigh-ins every session and then therapy to deal with all the anxiety OR CAT (cognitive analytical therapy) with an expectation but not a focus on WR, dealing with WHY I still think certain ways. Either 16,20 or 32 sessions. Obviously, the first is the one which is clinical proven to help anorexia best - the latter, a good option too. With the amount I have going on in my life, the latter is looking 80/20 most likely for me to go with. Plus, let's not bullshit. I'd be terrified of the first, but also, I have to keep my main focus on work and life. 

The one comment Dr. W made was "I think you owe it to yourself to finish off recovery"...and she's right. For as recovered as I am, I am not free. But what is hard to comprehend is being back there and not feeling like I belong. Being back there at all.  Although what is near-on impossible to get my head round and answer was the parting questions raised...."What do YOU want to get from going back? What purpose do my eating rules serve and am I willing to give therapy another go." 

Who knows? Probably. Maybe? Yes?

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.

When's a habit a behaviour or a decision a deal?

It'll come as no surprise that I've always been a creature of habit. But when a large chunk of your life has been spent with unhealthy habits, sometimes the comfort of said habits is actually doing more harm than help. 

What I still struggle with is the internal debate on where the line is on habits and eating disordered behaviours actually comes. With the routine and habits that on one hand I see as 'just getting on with life' but on the other are maintaining a semi-recovered status quo. 

Remember those 'no big deals' I battled early in recovery? The NDB habits which Ms. F and Mrs W. challenged everyday when I altered, switched or left bits off my meal plan? Well I guess I should have challenged them more back then, because they're so natural to do.

It's not like the behaviours - or habits - cause me distress or upset though. But I wouldn't know if challenging them does, because I don't do it very often. That's the thing. I do just get on with life. But does that life include controlling my diet, avoiding high calorie 'junk' food and having rules around when I am 'allowed' or 'not allowed' to 'treat' myself by eating out or adding a bread roll? Yes. 

So how is that recovered I hear you ask? Easy, it's not, because I am not free to eat what I want, when I fancy it. I am not free from guilt and I feel like I need to 'earn' those treats. Do I feel guilty for eating or bad when people point out how much, or what I eat or if I think people look 'healthier' than me. Yes. 

But on the other hand, do I WANT to include most of the foods I don't have in my diet? No not really. So this is the conundrum I am in. With no 'weight restoration' plan or dietitian setting out 'challenges' to test anorexia, I don't - or feel the urge to - I just have these habits. My diet. 

I do jut get on with life, but life where I eat lots of salads and 'meat' (Quorn) and have the same 400 calorie breakfast, similar lunches and rotated dinners everyday. I have basket loads of fruit a week and pile my plate with veggies. I eat the same suppers, custard or soya yoghurt with dried fruit and granola for supper. Every. Single. Day. Unless of course, I eat out with colleagues or friends. Once or twice a month. There's some calories I don't count, some things I don't even think about anymore, but I wish I had tried harder to erase the mental calorie 'rough guide' I started when I stopped obsessing. Because that's my guide everyday.

Like I've mentioned in previous posts since discharge, I never hit the golden target weight I was first set, I was a kilo or two under (but in a healthy BMI for a year). And since starting life outside the EDU, my weight's not plummeted, but I have not gained over that number either. The thought of the month I get on the scales and I am that target, scares me. I know this is not right, ok?

But then again, are these just all habits I'm stuck with in an 'anorexia hangover' - or are they behaviours that still control my life? This is the debate I still have. The deals I still do? I don't know. I just get on with living with them and try to ignore food thoughts - and don't really tell people HOW I feel anymore. I just fit them in my routine and try to cope. 

Farewell, it's been emotional. But I'm not.

Almost four years after being shipped back to my home town under the cloud of confusion of the deadly downfall into my eating disorder, I'm here. I've reached the eve of my farewell to the hospital that's helped me save my life. 

I had no idea it would take so long, after all, back then I didn't even believe that I was ill at all, let alone be as ill as I was. Four years ago my eating disorder had swallowed my entire life. I was desperate, trapped, holding on to something I thought was the answer to all my worries, problems and desires all wrapped into one. Oh, how wrong I was. 

It's been a rocky road, like anyone who's recovered from anorexia will understand - and anyone who's supported a friend or family though recovery will recall. It makes my head spin to sit here tonight to try and sum it up, it's almost impossible, so I won't really begin. It's been horrible, painful, agonising, confusing, amazing, eye opening, exhilarating and extremely emotional. And everything in between. 

Although on the eve of my discharge from the unit, I'm feeling anything BUT emotional about it. 

I always thought I'd be feeling like I understood myself at this point, like I'd really hit a milestone, that discharge would be like a dissertation or something. Like I'd get a big tick, a mark, feedback on how I'd performed. That I could call it a success. Complete. But it's not like that.

My appointment is actually before work tomorrow, I'll probably go, be asked how I've been during my three months without treatment (I've done okay actually) I'll ask lots of questions, be asked lots too - and not really know how to answer. Then that will be that I guess, 

To be honest, I feel guilty about not being as upset or emotional about not seeing them again. My gosh, when Mrs W left, I was an emotional wreck. but I guess that's the whole point, back then my life was my eating disorder, then my life was my recovery and now that level of emotion has gone from the process. 

Life has sort of been cross fading from the last four years into my future. 

I was always told I would begin to use the tools I've been taught by my team on my own eventually. I never believed them. But now it's starting to make sense. The more I use them, the better skilled I'll become at getting through life, carving my own way. There is a sense deep down that the reason I'm not nervous about moving on is because I don't think my use of these tools have REALLY been tested yet - so I don't really know how I will react. But I will live and learn how to soon enough I guess.

I know that I've not had to deal with weight gain on my own yet, I still don't eat the foods I find challenging very often. I know that I avoid stressful food situations and need to be in control of most of my meals. But as a friend said to me earlier today, I am aware of my behaviour, and know what I am doing and where the line is. And he's right. I fully understand when the tools need to be used. It's only when I step through the next entrance, only when I walk this path that I'll learn how to use them like a pro. 

So, whether tomorrow ends up being an emotional affair or not, it will finally be farewell. A door closing on that chapter of my life. That much I know. 

Crossfading chapters rather than fanfare

That's how I'd best describe the turning of the page to the next chapter of recovery.  

The chapter of recovery where treatment has come to an end. 

The next page I see is blank, not with a pre-written title in the corner, no one dictating appointments or plans. No weekly dietician, no weigh ins, no blood tests...blank. Just a date in the diary to check in in a couple of months. By then I'll be 30 and we'll have a new Government. 

But treatment being complete doesn't mean recovery is.
(as much as I wish it meant that.) 

It's time for the chapter where it's all down to me. And I've decided that I don't have to have anorexia any more. Although, four years ago, I thought that saying that out loud would come with fanfares and fireworks. But it doesn't. I don't even like telling people I've finished a chapter?

 I've gradually allowed life to cross fade into recovery. 

The part of me that desires tick boxes and clear lines despises the greyness of reality, but that's half the battle, right? In an idealistic world I could draw a bold line under recovery and recovered, but that's not how it works. I get it now. 

And I am okay with that. The blank page of this untitled chapter isn't scary as I thought it would be, it just feels natural. I'm still figuring out food, body and life, but slowly, in my own words.

The bit that doesn't feel natural is trying to explain to other people what this chapter is about or whether I like it, because I don't know yet do I? Plus, no one else has read the previous chapters the way I have. No one else has had their head stuck in my recovery like I have - so how will they ever understand this bit? 

It's not a new book, like I thought it would be. 

It's definitely still the same book, maybe a new volume? 

I've read and reread and learnt a lot in the past four years. I've been to hell and back, I've wanted to throw the book out, rip all the pages from the spine and burn it. But I haven't. I've kept reading, even when it's made no sense at all. 

But writing this next volume is about writing a future. It's about deciding who I am, not trying to understand who I am not. 

Pass the pen. 

Fixing Frustrations

I just hate my body, but what I hate that it's so frustrating too.  By 'it' I mean me.

That's frustration with the physical skin I'm living in and frustration with myself that I can't seem to shake of the thoughts. 

Not only that, there's the frustration that I know losing weight wouldn't make it go away - and frustration that I'm endlessly searching for a 'fix' that I know will never find. But still have a glimmer of hope that I could.

I feel like I have no answer or clue how to shake the frustration. And that's frustrating itself. 

I get frustrated with food too. With the freedom to eat. I don't like it. It feels like food controls me more when I eat freely these days. I feel like it's sneaky and greedy and it means I have to fight the next level or not exercising it off. 

It's also extremely frustrating that none of this bothers me enough for it to be a major problem. It's not enough to force me to give up the freedom recovery has given me.

But it is frustrating enough to make little changes and plans. Enough for me to pray I'm 'strong' enough not to 'give in' to cake and chocolate in the run up to Christmas, 'strong' enough to make myself more active and strong enough to fire up my jealousy of other people.

Those other people are those in recovery who seem from the outside to have balance - health and are skinnier than me and seemingly sorted. But also those without eating disordered pasts that don't understand the limbo between fully recovered and fully consumed by anorexia. 

It's all frustratingly unfixable. And I don't even have the answers to fixing those frustrations, let alone the answers to what I want fixing. 

Where do we go from here?

So, today it is 2 years, 5 months, and 24 days since I started treatment at my current eating disorders service. That's 904 days scattered with therapy, dietician appointments, meal plans, blood tests, weigh-ins and apparently that's around 21,816 hours filled up fighting anorexia. 

In that time I've eaten, I've cried, I've lost weight, I gained LOTS of weight and in the words of my dietician I 'have worked really hard' to beat my eating disorder. I've switched therapists, banned my family from ever coming to another FT session. I've let people into my life, my recovery journey. I've pushed others - some very unhelpful people - away. I've regained nuggets of life, I'm rebuilding my career, I hope I've helped others' in recovery and I'm getting to know ME again. 

But REALLY where am I now? Where do I go from here? How can I keep going? How can I fully recover and be FREE of this? They were the big questions at my review last week and honestly?

I have no idea.

Recently it's been said I've slipped into a 'false sense of recovery' with life ticking along, with tough days and challenges yes, but generally plodding on.

My team have concerns this is dangerous place for me, because it leaves anorexia unchallenged on a day-to-day basis. I get caught up in a whirlwind of life going well, but it exposes me to the dangers of crashing if something goes even slightly wrong. 

I never wanted to be the skeletal wreak of a woman I was 2 years ago, it scared the hell out of me, I knew it wasn't right to look the way I did. Nine hundred days ago my body was shutting down, my health deteriorating by the day and I was terrifying my loved ones with the worst case scenario if I didn't take action.

That's why I have worked bloody hard to get to the weight I am, to be healthier, fitter. Some people NEVER get to here, halting at a much lower BMI. But this is the block now. I am really struggling to move from here. I can't bear to gain more weight, in fact I dread it. To lay it straight - I am 'borderline healthy', constantly fluctuating above and below the healthy range. And I don't seem to move from here. I can't see I need to. 

No, I am not menstruating, which I am constantly reminded is dangerous being a 28 year-old woman who wants children. Although my bones are okay at the moment. My bloods are pretty much there, but not quite. 

Food? It's safe. controlled and way too over-analysed. I've been empowered by Ms. F to be able to set my own meal plan, and don't feel trapped by my options but I'm not kidding myself either. I too often make 'No Big Deal' switches and happy to go off-plan if it means eating fewer calories. I still feel like I eat too much and get overwhelmed with guilt if I DARE eat too much 'junk', I'll eat out, sometimes and I still won't let people cook for me. This needs work, I know. 

I won't even get into the psychological progress; there is a hell of a lot of untangling still required. All I would say is through the amazing work of Mrs W. I'm so much more 'aware' of my illness, I have the tools to cope with and manage anorexia. With Dr B. I am getting to the roots of the problem, but it's taking time.

So, like I say, where do I go from here? Well, 

I am moving from weekly to monthly dietician appointments with Ms F. 

I will continue to set my own meal plans and fill out food diaries. 

I will be weighed monthly (like I have been for the last six months) 

I will continue having weekly therapy sessions with Dr. B.

I guess the POA is about weaning me off services. They believe 'I know what I need to do' and although it does confuse me, that they think I am 'fine' now, food wise and I no longer need to restore weight, I know they want to prove that I CAN DO THIS myself. I know what to do, I just need to do it. They're right, being propped up by services and supported can do more harm than good sometimes. 

But guess what? I still have anorexia.

I also only have 1 year, 1 month, 18 days until my self-set deadline for discharge. That's just 414 days to prove I can beat anorexia. 

Postcards from Suffering and Recovery

Wish you {weren't} here...

I usually post when I am feeling 'on top' of my thoughts, drawing upon themes, analogies and issues that therapy's thrown up or that I have happened to 'figure out' in recovery. But I wanted to share something different, in the hope that it helps map the progress that can be made and the difference a year (or two!) can make. 

This first part is from a journal I kept BEFORE recovery, I was was very ill and 'anorexic' but it happened to be a significant day {Choosing to do this today was unplanned, I wasn't sure what looking back would bring} The second part is last year, 10 months into recovery. 

...as for today 28th May 2013 is still happening, I am living it. Recovery is still happening. 

28th May 2011

I don't even know where to start today - I really don't.

I am off work today - I got sent home yesterday afternoon after collapsing and told to have the day off today - everyone thinks its stress - I know I can't make it in to work because I am not able to function properly at the moment - probably because I have eaten XXX or below cals a day for 50 days now. That sounds weird to say/admit to myself. I know this is affecting my life. I know it is.

I had the most honest, open and frank conversation with my housemate/BFF last night - we were up til gone midnight talking about her, her depression, me, my problems with her boyfriend, my problems with work and life and in the middle of it all. I just told her how much weight I'd lost. That was MASSIVE for me. Bigger than anything I thought I was capable of.

I told her about Ana. About how I hadn't pushed her away but that Ana was pushing her away. I hated lying to her - but Ana was making me. Convincing me that if I told my housemate that I'd be a fat bitch again - that I'd gain. That I would have failed at my goals. It was so weird to say it all out loud - and I can't explain how that feels this morning other than I feel SO different.

I have told her that I am not ready to maintain or gain or change the way I am eating - nor have I told her my UGW - or how much more I want to loose - or how close I am. But I will not keep it secret - I will at home be able to relax and measure and count and let Ana carry on making me restrict - but I am not going to let Ana push away her . Does that make sense?

I also admitted that one of my big things is a fear of gluttony and over-eating - which is where my standards of what this is and how it is defined have got more and more restrictive. I hate to think of myself of gluttonous - it makes me feel sick. With my OCD and anxiety issues I am scared of sick - I am scared of people over-eating- I hate it - I hate to think I am going to over-eat or look gluttonous. 

Now I think eating more than XXX kcals is overeating and this is where I am at. I see eating crackers - garlic bread - chips - etc, as gluttony and I believe I am better than this - and eating them is gluttony - does that make sense? I am only JUST today for the first time in 20 years of having ED thoughts realising this, that it's been Ana all along,  it's early days. VERY early days.

I slept the best I have done in a LONG time last night. 

So anyway, today -  Weigh-In  XX  with a VERY slight loss of 0.2lbs. 

{I went on to list the calories I had eaten, the calories I had planned, how many I'd undershot it by and what I had burned off. I have taken this out so not to trigger}

NOTE TO ANA - See, I have told someone I feel happier and I can still restrict the way I want to. You don't own me. We are going to be walking around shops and I have gymnastics coaching later - so est. steps burn is about XX cals.  I feel in control today. 

{Later} I'm so scared of being XXlbs again, I really am.  I won't gain that much will I? How will I make sure I don't gain it all back. What if I freak out and pig. What if I go back where I came from? I feel sick. Again - eaten too much. I might as well give up.... Frankie and Bennys - soup and salad I feel so fat. I want to die . I don't think I can do this any more...

28^th May 2012

I just keep thinking I need to send a disclaimer to everyone one of my friends, everyone I meet or will be seeing soon to not to expect me to be thin or thinner that I was the last time they saw me, or to expect me to look like I have anorexia. I just feel like I need to stop them being shocked about the weight gain and stop them being disgusted about how I don’t look thin any more. That way they won’t feel awkward or wonder why I am fat again when they see me. Maybe that way I will be less defensive or negative about looking the way I do and they’ll know why I am fatter again but I can tell them my head is still a mess. Maybe I won’t be as embarrassed about being so chubby now.

Like another thing, I am really starting to HATE that I can feel my bra digging in to my back. I would just like to feel okay in my clothes. Why do I have to be so broad and wide and have such a FAT back. I would just like to be 32 D or something with NO extra fat bulging. Not chubby with back fat.

I know I am playing scenarios out in my head, like being on the beach or at the spa next weekend and I expect or want people to see perfection but if I think about it logically that is ANA trying to tell me that I am letting myself and others down with this body. It is Ana trying to convince me that I was closer to perfection at my lowest weight, that would make people admire my body, be jealous of me for once. That I would have felt the BEST with the BEST body. But I am AWARE that it’s BULLSHIT, because like W said to me, other people don’t see anorexic bodies as perfect, just other anorexics and Ana herself. AGH. 

I don’t know what’s worse; having these sub-conscious thoughts that I want to be thin or my lowest weight being better or the fact that I am aware that they are my ED thoughts trying to convince me that Ana can make me more desirable. I know it’s hard, I know it seems so real and unreal, aware and analysed and unaware all at the same time, but I guess that is recovery, and it is HARD. Right?

But right now I am resenting all those people with eating disorders that are in recovery that stay skinny that they are just lucky, like people without eating disorders that are just skinny that don’t have to deal with looking like I do and what is worse is I know it is going to get worse too.

It is so hard because I DO trust W and F literally, with my life, but I am terrified that they have worried about my quick gain in weight but just aren’t telling me and when people tell me I am doing ‘so well’ with WR I just want to SCREAM and my head SCREAMS so much. It really just feels like the most I have ever messed up, ever.

“Never underestimate your power to change yourself. Never overestimate your power to change others.” Wayne Dyer

“Hope is the surfboard of life: It never sinks, and if you balance well, it gives you a beautiful ride.” Patti Gaulrin

And with that last quote, I know I need to find some sort of balance to enjoy life and balance won’t be at either end of the scales – it is NOT black and white, good or bad, fat or thin. I KNOW this, I KNOW I do. But I don’t believe it. Most of the time, I’d like to think balance is good, healthy is good but I just have hope, not complete sight of it. 

Maybe I will just KNOW when it feels more balanced – rather than being able to pre-empt it? But that doesn’t help me know anything NOW does it? When all I feel is FAT and don’t have much balance in my life at all. I just have a crappy life, no job, no home, I feel lonely, have no money and then I have this weight gain. It all feels VERY negative and not very fairly balanced. It is. 

My recovery is to be continued.....I am a work in progress and the next postcard from recovery will show MORE progress. This much I know. 

My old friend 'Emet'

"Emetophobia (from the Greek etmos, to vomit, and φόβος (phóbos), meaning "fear") is an intense, irrational fear or anxiety pertaining to vomiting. This specific phobia can also include subcategories of what causes the anxiety, including a fear of vomiting in public, a fear of seeing vomit, a fear of watching the action of vomiting or fear of being nauseated.^[1]"

Not only am I battling anorexia, a lot of my issues with anxiety around food stem from a phobia I have been having therapy for since I was 7 years old. Emetophobia. 

It used to dramatically affect my everyday life and led to daily panic attacks throughout my childhood and teenage years. Its direct association with food and eating was the first reason I was referred to the EDU in 1993, then in 1995, 2000. I have had extensive counselling, therapy, CBT and battles with Emet and as I have grown up, it affected my life less as I've gotten older, I suppose, mainly because I learnt how to control the anxiety and panic attacks and 'faced the fear.' during my years at university and in my working life. It doesn't 'go away' and I could think of nothing worse than vomiting (especially in public) and the thought of being sick or feeling sick fills me with dread if I stick with the thoughts too much. 

It has direct links with restrictive anorexia and can, in some cases, lead to people suffering with Emet being wrongly diagnosed with a clinical eating disorder, but in my case it's all mixed up. 

Although my Emet hasn't 'caused' my clinical diagnosis of Anorexia Nervosa. They are intrinsically linked by food and diet, yes, but they are not the same thing. In going over old notes with my current therapist (at the same unit) I have started to realise that I used my EMET to HIDE my struggles with AN as 'Ana' became a louder voice.

However, now in recovery I am tackling the left over anxiety and habits linked to well-engrained obsessions (and compulsions) with food. They are all still present and cause problems as I am recovering. It's a case of 'balancing' the phobia, OCD behaviour and AN at the same time - what a juggle ehy?

A few problems are: 

-My list of 'Emet' SAFE foods are my AN 'Bad' foods.

This means I 'blamed' my EMET for the conflict I used to feel about not 'listening and following' Ana - I was tied to my safe options and gave myself a hard-time about not leaving them - and this lead to Ana telling me I was TOO WEAK to listen to her.

-I 'banned' so many foods throughout my life, I don't actually know which as AN or Emet choices.

-I get set in a rigid structure with food and meals 

-I don't mind eating the 'same old foods' I always have.

-I am scared of 'new' foods making me sick

-I have deep rooted 'good and bad' foods

-I find it hard to separate my AN thoughts, OCD habits and EMET anxieties.
-I have always had 'disordered eating'  

and a long, long list of other conflicts that make sessions with my therapists multifacial to say the least! 

New Month, New Approach

WOW. Honesty has been OOZING out of me today. It's tough, I get these pangs of guilt to Ana, but that's what I NEED to do. I have 'snitched' on her a lot today and that's what I am going to keep doing, until she no longer TRUSTS me!

I have also taken a MASSIVE leap, jump, skip, run today and put ALL my trust in my recovery team. I SUGGESTED, yes I SUGGESTED that I now need the meal plans they've been hinted at.

I decided that Ana was all too often creeping in on my meal choices, my choice to miss snacks and cut corners with calories and generally making meal time choices a nightmare. Not anymore.

Ms F. and I have worked out all my meals, snacks and suppers until next week and I HAVE to complete the whole lot. There are days I am already terrified about, I know there will be times when Ana gives me massive conflicts and REALLY has a go, but there is NOTHING she can do to alter the food I eat.

I'll now be able to 'agree and disobey' and hopefully 'disagree and disobey' her and I will be able to breakdown the conversations I have with Ana over food, without it affecting my calories/choices and meals.

One of my major problems is seeing food as 'good and bad' and 'healthy and unhealthy' and life in general as 'black and white'. Something I need to change during recovery to enable me to embrace the grey areas, but for now, this meal plan is black and white. That is good.

If I DON'T eat the meals or snacks Ana is winning
If I DO stick to the plan. I win.

It's going to be easy to discuss during sessions. Easy to see where I succeed and to see IF Ana succeeds and it stops Ana being able to blur my thoughts of whether I've had and good or bad week regarding food when I am asked.

Yes, It means I lose control over my meals on a day to day basis. Something I thought I'd never be able to accept, but I need to so I can beat this, so I can recover and so that control doesn't get handed over to my worst enemy, I might have mentioned her....Ana?

P.S. Day 1 of meal plans - SUCCESS! (Just need supper with my Fortisip and it'll be a full house!)

Something Feels Different..

I am not sure WHAT or WHY and finally after 3 weeks of really, really struggling I am starting to FEEL more positive about this recovery thing.

I am getting little flecks of positivity, little moments of hope and more 'lightbulb' moments than I have had since I  recognised my struggles with anorexia and finally asked for help back in May.

I am scared to be happy about this. But I need to go with it, I need to know that this is me awakening and finally getting my head round what it is I need to do to get better. It's like I am getting less scared of jumping, less scared of what will happen on the fall and becoming more able to TRUST that Mrs W, Ms F and my friends and family will be there to catch me.

One statement that came up in my session on Friday with Mrs. W. really helped, more than I can imagine.

"Think of it like this, what have you got to lose? If you restore your weight and REALLY hate it THAT much, you know you are going to be able to lose it again. You know you know how." 

Mrs. W said I should take this thought and use it as a safety net, a comfort blanket keeping me warm as I venture into the unknown.

I KNOW she's saying this, however crazy it sounds, because she is confident that I won't feel worse once I am in 'positive energy' I need to trust her confidence in me, because she must have it, she wouldn't use being 'friends' with Ana if I get scared as motivation if she didn't would she?

What I added myself was that if I DON'T try, if I don't restore weight, I will never know. But if this journey takes me to a place I really hate, and I do fall back to Ana, least I will have tried. What have I got to lose by giving it a go?


You never know, Mrs. W might just be on to something here.....

Pasta Maths...

So, like the creature of habit that I am...I have been having a specific pasta from a specific supermarket since I started eating pasta again, mainly because it seemed to be the lowest calorie and it was small tiny (made for children type) pasta so it took me longer to eat and looked like more.

Today I went to buy it – and before I picked it up I looked at the calorie content of the other wholemeal pasta and it was LOADS higher and stood there with both in my hands I wondered why.

It turn out the reason to blame is the burden of my anorexic life. Cooked vs Dry weight calorie information.

I think it is because on other pasta it is the dry weight and the one I have is the cooked weight, but I have been basing my calories on the DRY weight of the one I brought. So, basically this made me FREAK out whilst I was in the supermarket and then whilst I was walking to the bus the maths was going round and round in my head. I was desperately trying to figure out if I was right or not. I couldn’t let it go; I couldn’t stop wondering if I had totally overeaten EVERY time I have had pasta. I was ANGRY with myself for making a mistake, misreading the calorie rules, the instructions written in front of me. How could I be so stupid NOT to know the numbers?

< Cue Ana starting her usual "You are SUCH an IDIOT" song.>  

Those measurements and numbers really got to me there and then walking down the street; “so 50g dry weight would equal 100g cooked weight and 100g cooked weight would be 100 calories and other pasta dry weight 100g equals 300 calories so…..” and on and on. Then it turned into “and that means this pasta is MORE or less than the others anyway.” I suppose that fact made Ana feel a bit better. But I have NO idea of working it out and no idea how much I have actually consumed. 

Do the numbers in the pasta I've already had matter?

Then I stopped. (literally) It suddenly occurred to me that EVEN if I have eaten ten times more than I thought, or just twice as much, it hasn't made me instantly fat. I haven’t gained lots of weight because I didn't know the exact calorie content, I haven’t ballooned from not knowing exact numbers and I need to learn from this that the numbers DON’T matter, do they?

What I need to do now is FORGET the calories in that meal, forget the numbers related to the pasta. I have been happy with my portion size, measured in a little cup to the same point each time, so why change it. My initial thought was, “well next time I have pasta, I will weigh the same portion size dry and then weigh it cooked” so I can work it out. 

But what will I achieve by doing that? It would only allow Ana to criticize me for the meals I have ALREADY eaten (and enjoyed) and allow her to dictate how much pasta I’d have to sacrifice to keep the calories in the meal to what I THOUGHT they were. But the thing is, I probably still need to INCREASE the portion of pasta I have, and really, this proves that the numbers can go wrong, they aren’t always accurate and they don’t matter as much as Ana makes me believe.

Plus, I really do love pasta! Shh, don’t tell Ana! 

Why Don't I Jump?

MAKE THE JUMP FOR GODS SAKE! 

The books and videos and blogs are right, the EATING IS THE HARDEST PART but it is the part that will make the difference to me right now. It is the difference between THINKING positively – this week has FELT positive in my head but I need to now make FEELING positive in to actually being POSITIVE. But this is going to mean REALLY facing my fears and jumping in.

This is so scary, but everything I have read and watched (both my Jenni Schaefer) has said the same thing, that it is the scariest bit, it is the hardest bit but I HAVE TO JUMP, TRUST MY PARACHUTE will open.

I have been thinking ‘strong’ all day and now it is 9pm and time to actually eat more I get scared and totally back out of it and talk myself out of adding to my calorie totals, convincing myself that 800 calories is fine. This is what I mean when I say I feel strong when I read about it, I know it’s in me to do it, to jump but in reality Ana keeps dragging me back and makes me feel weak. I keep saying I’ll wait till XX time or ‘I’ll do more tomorrow’ but this is Ana keeping me hanging until the next time I get on the scales. I know I need to be less scared of this.

I know EXACTLY what I need to do RIGHT now, why don’t I just jump. What am I ACTUALLY scared of? Why am I falling for her tricks? Why do I feel the need to give her the satisfaction of the number she says she’ll be happy with on Friday *this number used to be 14lbs heavier than I am now remember Sarah* Why do I want to make her stronger?

Because to RECOVER and to get me BACK I need to JUMP, right now the JUMP is supper tonight. It’s a small jump because I can’t see it taking me to 1200. But a small jump is better than sitting here making ANA stronger isn’t it?

Positively Guilty

This is my newest idea to help the Catch-22 situation I am facing in recovery at the moment. Again, inspired from Jenni Scaefers 'Life without Ed' book! Basically, it's all about POSITIVE GUILT.

I, like many other anorexics, have massive issues with 'guilt' and battling the should of/could of type thoughts. So basically this is about rewarding guilt when I feel GUILTY about recovering. 

I am focusing on the guilt I feel for leaving Ana, the guilt I feel for eating. Because they are POSITIVE guilts. Those guilty feelings for eating what I want are only guilty to Ana.

So every time I start to feel guilty about having 'junk' or 'bad' food, every time I get the guilt-trip from Ana about my calorie total - and then STILL have supper and every time I have guilty feelings about having chosen higher calories foods, when I could have restricted,  I get a heart. 

Those heart represent me building my health, strength and beating Ana. In recovery I a GOING to feel guilty for 'beteraying' Ana but these are positive guilts. 

I need as many hearts as I can get - and I need to finish they day feeling guilty about betraying Ana, instead of feeling guilty for betraying my health and for betraying recovery. I am aiming for AT LEAST a heart a day...

Anorexic or Healthy?

A page from my journal as a reminder...

Why Don't You Just Eat?

I don’t know what I’ll do If I get asked again ‘Do you want to get better?’ ‘Do you want a new job?’ or the worst ‘Why can’t you just eat?’ These are the questions I keep getting asked by my family. They keep saying that EVERYONE is getting frustrated and annoyed with me because they say ‘You’re an intelligent girl; you know what you need to do.’ I know I have a degree, I know I haven’t always restricted my diet to the extent I did this year and I know I haven’t always been this underweight, but the sooner they realise I have felt like this for A LOT longer than they have known the better. The sooner they might be able to understand why I CANT JUST EAT.

The hardest thing at the moment is they can only understand the physical sides of anorexia, they keep going on and on about how ‘they don’t believe it’s this psychological.’ That my treatment is focusing too much on all that ‘psychological stuff’ and that I need to just eat. K asked if I ‘get told off’ for maintaining my weight and not gaining this week and she can’t understand why I don’t get ‘in trouble’ for not gaining a huge amount of weight.  

I keep getting asked if I want to get better. YES, of course I do, that’s why I am going to my appointments, it’s why I am going through this battle, it’s why I am sat at my parents, not in my own home. If I didn’t want to get better, I wouldn’t have said anything, I wouldn’t go to meetings and I wouldn’t be drinking Fortisip, eating food or listening to my apparently ‘intelligent self’. I don’t think they are trying to understand (and I don’t expect them to fully understand!) that recovery is an exhausting battle which is trying to restore my weight and health physically but trying to re-build my mental health by teaching me to accept my body, my weight and to build a better relationship with food. Basically, re-teaching the last 10 years of my life.

Dismissing and trivialising of the psychological aspects of anorexia hits me like a bullet, it completely makes me feel pathetic and it makes me feel like I am making it up, that it is trivial and easy to beat. It makes me feel thick and weak for not ‘just getting better’ and it makes me feel like I should know what I want from life. I don’t. I don’t know what I am fighting for, other than health right now. But in order to fight for my health I have to fight off Ana, I have to fight off anxiety, obsessions and fear – and trust that it will be worth it.  I have to leave a place where I feel safe and warm and in control and run and leap in to the freezing cold sea and swim for dear life.

They don’t seem to want to accept that I have presented them with a ‘happy’ me for so long, but I haven’t felt like that inside. I can see that is hard for them, I get that – it’s the way I felt when an old friend told me she had and ED a few years ago and even I hadn’t noticed. It made me feel horrific for not noticing her pain, 

But that’s the biggest danger of eating disorders, they makes you good at ‘sucking it up’ at hiding your feelings and amazing at pretending you’re fine. Because Ana always CONVINCES you and everyone around you, that you ARE fine. It’s just the way I am, I just like to be healthy and in control and I don’t like chocolate. 

I was obviously good at it, because everyone around me isn’t accepting just how long this has been going on. I just wish they'd believe me. 

We're Over Girl...

...you're one of those evil friends who has self-gain on the brain. You're selfish and a complete B*TCH.

You're one of those friends who tells you you're not good enough
You're one of those friends who bullies you in to thinking the same as them
You're one of those friends who makes you lie
You're one of those friends who tells you everyone else hates you.
You're one of those friends who steals from you
You're one of those friends who just takes over, all the time.
You're one of those friends who no one else likes
You're one of those friends that NEVER goes away.

So, really, Ana, you're not a very good friend at all, are you?

Thoughts are thoughts...

Thoughts are thoughts, but it is the way I act on them that’ll mean the difference between recovery and living with my eating disorder.

It can work both ways I suppose, I can THINK that I am doing enough and my true self is in control and NOT actually challenge myself enough to restore my weight and recover.

AND 

 I can have ANOREXIC thoughts, distinguish that it’s Ana and I can choose to challenge them and work towards recovery OR I can choose to act upon her rules and restrict or measure or weigh.

In both cases it’s acting on these thoughts that can make the difference in recovery or in continuing to live with my eating disorder holding the reigns.

Take today for example. I thought that I ‘Don’t need to eat an apple after my appointment because I am going for a coffee in an hour, and that could be my mid-morning snack.’ I distinguished that this was an anorexic thought, because a) I was hungry and b) I need to have BOTH at the moment to help increase my calories. So I ACTED on this by buying an apple and eating it. Then I went for my coffee, and thought ‘You only need a small coffee not a medium like usual, because there is SO much milk in that and it might make you feel heavy and sick’ at this moment in the queue in Costa, I could choose to act on this thought as Sarah or Ana. Unfortunately in this case I ordered a small coffee. I made a choice ANA wanted, which isn’t helping with my goal of restoring my weight.

This is a habit I have gotten into, challenging Ana with one thing, then restricting because I have already challenged her and I back off and keep her happy. I am becoming more and more aware of this each time I go through my food diaries with my dietitian. Meal by meal or day by day, it's the same habit. I think this is the first step – being AWARE of the thoughts and who is driving them, the step I need to take now is ACTING on them.

I have another challenge tonight too. One of my goals this week is to eat a jacket potato with beans. The anorexic thoughts I have already had about this since leaving the clinic today are;

1) There are SO many calories in that meal
2) You don’t NEED beans, just have the potato plain with salad
3) What could I have instead that ‘sort of challenges me’ but is safer in terms of cal content
4) Just have beans and no potato
5) If that takes me to XX calories, then don’t snack later, it’s ok.
6) Is it bad to eat potato at dinner because it’s late?
7) You don’t like baked beans
8) They’ll make you bloated and grosse
9) Beans are a waste of calories

And there are probably more that I haven’t noticed, which are all Ana trying to talk me out of eating the dinner I NEED to eat and decided earlier I would try tonight. Now, I have the choice to cook and eat this dinner and make it POSITIVE or to listen to ANA and not work towards recovery. These are just two examples of the clouds of thoughts I feel around EVERY drink, snack and meal.

No wonder my head is muddled and obsessed and preoccupied with thoughts about food and eating. If the theory is right, the more I challenge Ana and go against her, the quicker and less significant these thoughts will become….the more I think them, want to challenge them, go through the process and then let her win by acting in her favour, the harder and longer the fight will be. She ISN’T getting weaker if I don’t turn my back each time…

 I have also been told again and again, it is a trait of anorexia to see life as black and white, good and bad and success and failure and I for one am so guilty of doing this. I know I am. Or not feeling like I am doing well enough in recovery and beating myself up about it and then just 'not bothering' or convincing myself that this is all just fake and I could snap out of it. The proof is in the pudding (How ironic?) though, because when I do just try and ‘be normal’ or attempt to convince myself I can snap out of it. I freak out. I ‘run away’ from the challenge and back into Ana’s arms each time I freak out and DON’T try something. That’s my eating disorder RIGHT there. ...

I know it’s all about listening, reasoning and challenging Ana that will eventually mean 'recovery.’ And my gosh, it seems she needs a lot of challenging right now, I better start ACTING on it and showing her who’s in control.

Anorexia and the Minnesota Starvation Experiment...

ANOREXIA, BULIMIA & THE MINNESOTA STARVATION EXPERIMENT  < Read it Here

I was told to read this study a while ago by my therapist and I did. I re-read it this afternoon to remind myself that some of the behaviours I still find distressing or upsetting in recovery are a result of semi-starvation. Not always Ana. With restoring weight these habits, obsessions and symptoms with fade...

Physiologist Ancel Keys led the starvation experiment

I know in order to figure of the psychological roots of my anorexia and to be mentally strong enough to distance myself from Ana I need my body to NOT be in semi-starvation. Until I have restored enough weight and consuming enough calories, I am going to feel unable to cope with the stress of therapy.