A picture speaks a thousand words...

..but it doesn't tell you what's going on behind the eyes

and those words could very well be lies.

So before you see what you think you see,

Close your eyes and listen to me. 

I did promise myself I would stop looking back, stop being overly reminiscent, dragging up the past. I promise, I'm slowly learning there is no need. There is only a need to look (and move) forward in recovery. 

However, when talking about 'goal weights' and goals in general I needed to take a look back and think about times when I have perhaps been 'happier' with my body, my weight, myself. Cue plugging in my external hard drive and opening up a folder in Pictures labelled - Ana & Me. 

It's not a folder I wanted to open this early in my recovery, it's full of weight loss pictures, thinspro, pictures of food (lack of food) and my old journals. It could have been a trigger, it could have pushed me back to her life, rules and made me go backwards. 

The reason to this crazy behaviour was something Mrs W and I spoke about last week. How would I feel about setting my old UGW as my target for restoration now? Would it feel different now I am not on a one-track mission to create 'Anorexia's perfect body' would it be the ultimate kick in the bitches teeth to make that my first recovery goal? (Yes, I still need to restore to G1)

Well, I opened up the folder 'UGW Reached' and you know what my first reaction was? Oh, I look really fat. FAT, yes, FAT. I looked straight at my stomach, my thighs, my sides. (N.B my weight plummeted past my original UGW earlier in the summer) No, that weight wouldn't make me happy. I hate that picture. I hate all these pictures. Every picture documenting my fight with AN, every new bone showing, every pound lost, every half pound loss. A set of pictures illustrating my spiralling mental health, the shut down of my life and my pain. But I can't stop looking and looking and looking.

I had to snap out of it, close the folder and rethink this idea... 

The next thing I did was look at old pictures, of happy times, from uni, from London, pictures of times when my mind told me I was fat, but I was happy enough in other areas of my life to tell Ana to zip it and leave me alone. Cue another set of emotions... 

On the outside I look happy, I am smiling, I am with friends, I am even eating cake and sweets and chips in some, but this is what I mean. These pictures hurt EVEN more than the 'Ana and Me' ones, because I don't look back and think of the fun, I look back and see FAT. I see the pain behind my eyes, I see my imperfections and I see all the things I used as ammunition to allow my fall to Ana. 

I saw one photo this morning and had to burn it. It was horrific and the abuse my ED launched at my when I saw it hurt. Instead of seeing me at my nieces 2nd birthday, I saw fat, I saw hippo, I wondered why noone told me to lose weight, I wondered how the guy I was seeing at the time EVER found me attractive. I hated it. So I burned it. 

So, there isn't get a conclusion to this, I don't know how I feel or how much a photograph really proves about happiness, I think it might even say less than the scales, in my eyes at least.

I just need to stop looking back at photo's and memories at the moment. Maybe I'll open up (and burn) more when the time feels right. 

Body Gossiping about Body Image...

As part of Body Gossip's Body Image Advent I have been thinking about my own issues surrounding my ED and my Body Image.....

I’d like to believe I was immune to society’s pressure to look a certain way; I have attempted to convince myself I was for years. But when it boils down to it, something out there has contributed to the way in which I see myself when I look in the mirror. Perhaps it’s the constant comparing, the inability to take compliments and my on-going obsession over my ‘worst’ bits that skew what I see? Or perhaps, I need to admit, it’s actually ALL of the above?

Although my disordering eating started BEFORE I placed as much emphasis on ‘how I looked’ (a mix of OCD and emetaphobia as a child) my desire to achieve what I see ‘perfection’ has most definitely been a factor in developing Anorexia Nervosa.

In my eyes, people around me, whether we’re talking about models, celebrities, friends or strangers, they have always been prettier, thinner, better dressed, got less cellulite and have better hair (you get the picture) than me.  My obsession with comparing my body to others, usually unfavourably, drove me crazy. I believed that being the thinnest, the most ‘in control’ of my body would help me stop comparing and start accepting my body, because it would be perfect. I spent (and still spend) a lot time WISHING my body was different, teeth whiter, hair blonder, tummy flatter, and a lot of time moaning about these things to friends, again and again.

 I didn’t know what weight would make me happy, what measurements would make me ‘perfect’ and what at all would improve what I saw in the mirror. What do Victoria’s Secrets weigh and measure is a question I have often asked.  Of course, whatever goal I set, it moved when I got there because I wasn’t happy, yes, a lower weight MIGHT equal perfect and therefor happiness. I hate to admit it, but even before my obsession with the numbers on the scales in more recent years, I suppose I used society’s notion of the ‘perfect body’ as my scale as I was growing up.  I wanted to be top of the scale, but not knowing where I was starting from made that a little tricky.

 I could reel off to you all the things I HATE about my body, all the things I hated at a heavier weight too (they are the same by the way) You could try and tell me differently, you could attempt to give me a compliment, but it's falling on deaf ears. If I can't see it, you MUST be lying. I still do. I don't feel I look like I have an ED, I don't look anorexic? Emaciated? Why would she use that adjective for me? I'm not the 'E' word, I'm just a bit thinner that before? This is BDD. This is how I think.

Of course, like I said, my BDD not the only thing that has led to my eating disorder, but I do think it plays a large part in halting my recovery. With the help of my therapist and dietician I can start to restore weight and health, start eating a more nutritional diet and working a way out of the control of AN, but it’s me that has to start accepting my body to move forwards. 

However, developing a less discorded picture of my own body is proving difficult when every women I know moans about their body, wants to change numerous things, is making 2012 the year they stick to Weight Watchers or getting their teeth whitened. Plus, those VS models are still there aren’t they?

So where I don’t feel Body Image is ALWAYS directly linked with eating disorders, and not EVERY women who has issues with body image DEVELOPS an eating disorder, when both eating and body image are both disordered, it can be a long, hard road to improve your relationship with food and to accept your body for what it is, imperfections and all. I should know. I’m trying now. 

POEM: If I Were Thin

A poem written after a session at the EDU with Ms. F and after a day thinking about HOW I got here, what keeps me here and the thought processes that have been with me my whole life. Through my work at the EDU and with my psychotherapist I am becoming more aware of my attachment, addiction to and hate for Ana.

If I Were Thin

Unattainable goals
The desire for control
The spiralling jealousy
Which plagues my soul

The constant abuse
Delivered inside
That nobody else hears
And from which I can't hide

The mirror is shattered
From the hurtful song
I can't look and like
Everything is wrong

I'm not the prettiest or smartest
The richest or most thin
And all of the blame
Comes from within

Have I caused this harm?
And done too much wrong
By caring too much
And hearing your song

Have I slipped too far?
And played for too long
why can't I let go?
And silence your song

My desire to be best
For them to hear my pain
Confusion and exhaustion
It drives me insane

I craved perfection
To be better than you
To be the one they envied
To follow things through

By being the thinnest
I’d feel confident within
Id stop comparing,
If I were thin

Talking to Ana

A conversation between Ana and me this morning…

Following an argument with my younger sister and knock on argument with my parents, this is the way the Ana and I sorted this whole thing out. I am going to start doing this more often so I can work out how to shut her up, once and for all...this is a technique used by Jenni Schaefer in her book, and I think it really does help me further separate my thoughts from my eating disordered thoughts.

Ana: Don’t eat your breakfast. They don’t care about you and you don’t need this breakfast now. You didn’t want it anyway did you? I will make you feel better if you don’t eat it.

Me: You’re right, I hate this breakfast. I don’t deserve to eat it anyway, what’s the point?

Ana:  100%, that’s right –don’t eat it. Make a scene – It’ll make them feel bad and guilty for not caring about you and you’ll feel good afterwards for not eating it.

Me: You’re right, I want them to feel bad about this too.

Ana: So stop eating you selfish fat cow.

 <I WALK AWAY FROM THE BOWL – GO DRY MY HAIR READY TO GET OUT THE HOUSE AND GO FOR A WALK.  THEN RETURN TO THE BOWL >

Me: Hang on, You’re not helping me are you? It’s just going to make it worse by causing a scene. And you’re wrong, how does ME not eating make them feel bad? It’s killing me, not them. You’re wrong!”

<I PICK UP THE BOWL AND CARRY ON EATING, THIS TIME OUTSIDE ALONE and CRYING>

Ana: No I am not. I made people listen to you before didn’t I? They can’t hear you. They don’t even CARE that you’re crying

Me: Yes they can hear me. I just need to clear my head and then talk to them about it when I have shut you up.

Ana: Leave a little bit of breakfast then, just for me?

Me: Okay, but just a little.

<I LEAVE SOME BREAKFAST...THEN, WALKING TO COSTA>

Ana: Thank You for that Sarah. Just think, you're burning calories now too. Great! Oh, and when you get to Costa you’ll order an Americano – because you’ve had too much milky coffee recently and there are WAY too many calories in them. You’ve already had too much this morning; you won’t have saved any calories if you do. Plus, today is Sunday; you’re bound to eat too much later too.

Me: Ana, restricting my calories is not going to make them feel worse. They are getting on with their lives and want me to get better too. I am having a coffee light not an Americano, I've burnt cals and deserve it.

Ana: Okay, well you won’t be having a burger with your dinner then or bread with your soup later, unless you like being greedy that is?

Me: Oh, we’ll see about that Ana. By the time I have cleared my head I might feel stronger again. Plus, I know I can’t let other people’s emotions stop my recovery. Including YOU.

<I DRINK COFFEE AND WRITE THIS>

The bad bit of this is I DIDN'T have the burger, this has had an effect on my mood and eating today. I am going to bed under my calories and I feel very low tonight. Let's hope a conversation with her tomorrow goes more my way....

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.

Counting Calories...

...Like HoldingOn's video describes so well,  a big part of my anorexia and my recovery is consumed with counting calories.

Even now, when I am restoring weight, I am still counting. Every 1,3,5, or 10 calories makes a difference to my day, my anxiety levels, my life. I am FED UP with these numbers consuming me.

They stop me relaxing, they take over my thoughts as soon as I wake up, when I am in the supermarket. They are the reason I make some really bizarre meal choices and the reason I can't relax about some foods. Calorie counting DESTROYS social events, I withdraw from the table, eaten up by counting, adding and comparing calories. The anxiety levels caused by not knowing the calorie content of something drive me insane and the endless hours searching for the calorie content of food takes over my life. If I am not counting the calories consumed, I am counting the calories I've burnt. I needed total CONTROL over the calories that touch my lips, every single last one. Now that is easing, but I can't be carefree, and every 'nearly' carefree moment is followed by a manic look for the content.

The adding, the counting, the comparing from minute to minute, day to day. It is TOTALLY EXHAUSTING. 

I don't know why I bother, the totals NEVER make Ana happy any more either. So no one is happy when I am counting calories....I have already taken steps to STOP COUNTING:

1) Taken off all calorie counting apps from my phone.
2) Binned my personal food diary, and only use the clinic forms
3) Challenging myself to NOT count some foods
4) Relaxing about calorie content of fruit and veg
5) Not weighing all my foods

POEM: You

There are experiences in life I witness, see or hear which stick with me and I can't shake them from my mind. This happened to me yesterday after my appointment at the clinic. As I walked away from my session with Miss. F, full of ideas to help in the battles with Ana I saw a girl.

A girl, who probably wasn't much older than me, although she looked 20 years older. She is an inpatient at the same clinic I am getting treated at and seeing her struggling to walk down the corridor has stuck with me. I can't shake the image of her from my head, nor can I stop thinking about how ill, frail and old she looked.

I wanted to stop, hug her, tell her it'd be okay, tell her she's worth more than that life. But I didn't. And I realised that I need to do the same to myself. I need to remind myself that this is the extent of Ana's games and when I try and convince myself 'I am nothing like her', I need to also remind myself that I am.

As I went to bed last night I took this with me and I wrote a poem about her to try and explain how it made me feel seeing her, especially at the start of a week where I need to turn around my recovery, psychically and psychologically after a tough week last week. This is for you.

You 

You looked so frail,

Your face so old,

To our destructive friend Ana,

Your soul you’ve sold.

It shocked me to see,

Your delicate frame,

But it’s easy to deny,

Our thoughts are the same.

You’re tight in the grasp,

Of the same evil bitch,

But, me, I’m freer,

With the chance to fix.

Your life she has taken,

The control is not yours,

But the damage, your pain,

Still happens indoors.

I caught a glimpse,

Of pain in your eye,

It’s not a life you’d have chosen,

And neither did I.

Your delicate frame,

Covered in a mountain of clothes,

This is not the perfect,

That you or I chose.

Your legs were so tiny,

And your arms weak and thin,

I’m intrigued to know,

What you feel within.

There is a pain that links us,

We saw at a glance,

You looked at me softly,

And saw Ana’s dance.

I don’t want to become,

The girl that I saw,

I know life is worth living,

And I am worth more.

As you struggled towards me,

The look that you gave,

Your eyes were so empty,

Your body, A slave.

The sight of your legs,

The skin on your face,

Tells a tragic story,

Of Ana’s embrace.

Your life seemed shattered,

And your dreams ripped in two,

And I’m going to bed,

With nightmares of you.

I can’t erase this moment,

It’s stuck in my head,

It’s all I can think of,

As I lie in my bed.

Your fragile bones,

Clear for me to see,

The struggle you showed,

The look you gave me.

Seeing you suffer,

Has made me see,

If I don’t fight harder,

You will be me.

I am Original...

One thing I am guilty of, and even with the support I'm getting in recovery is comparing myself to others. I spend hours wishing and willing that I was someone else, with different thoughts, a different (and in my eyes, better) body, different goals and  wishing I had someone else's everything. 

I need to remember.....

How do you define recovery?

For me recovery is both a journey and an end result, a destination where everything will make sense and I will love myself a bit more.

There have been times when I thought recovery was something different, when I thought recovery was admitting I felt a certain way, or adding a few calories to my daily total. I thought that meant I was recovered. At first I thought the goal posts for recovery changed, but those are little milestones along the journey of recovery. But to know what it’s like to be ‘recovered’ – well, I can’t wait to feel that, because most of my life has been consumed with thoughts, emotions or behaviours surrounding food and body image.

To truly be ‘recovered’ and free from my eating disorder will take time, I know this, but I dream of what this means most nights, and write about how it might feel most days.

Recovery will mean I don’t always need control. It will mean I don’t have to pretend I am more recovered than I am. Because I will be.

It will mean I’ll be able to let someone cook for me, buy me a meal, take me to a restaurant without me needing to choose the menu, the ingredients or time we eat. It will mean I’ll enjoy eating out social without shrinking in my seat when I can’t find something low calorie on the menu or when I can’t work out the calories in food someone has cooked for me. It will be the moment I can order a main off a menu and not two side salads. It will mean I will order a dessert I love and share it with my friends. It will mean truly being excited about birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and parties when normal eaters enjoy food, drinks and cake.

My life won’t revolve around food. I won’t let food consume my thoughts the way it does now. I won’t have to plan my meals, my calories, and my totals days in advance. I will make the choice to stay at a friend’s house, or go shopping at a certain time or have friends over when I want to, not because it fits in with what I planned for lunch or dinner. I won’t have to eat a different meal to my family or carry my ‘safe’ snacks with me. I won’t spend hours wandering around the supermarket, obsessed and scared of the food at the same time. I won’t spend hours picking up packets of food and reading the calories and putting them back down. I’ll be able to make a choice without even looking at the calorie content because I fancy eating something.  I’ll be able to work out when I am hungry and eat and when I am full and stop – I won’t have to stop when Ana tells me I’ve had too much. I won’t spend this much money on food I’m never going to eat, because I’ll be able to eat it without feeling guilty.

Guilt.  When I am recovered I won’t feel guilty for eating foods I love. I won’t feel guilty for craving my favourite foods. I won’t feel guilty for wanting another serving or an extra spoonful of pudding, because I’m hungry.  I won’t feel guilty for not hitting my daily calories, because I won’t count them that precisely. I won’t feel guilty for hitting them either, because Ana will be silenced.

I won’t have a hundred rituals surrounding food and I won’t play mental games every meal time. I won’t time my meals or worry that I am eating too fast or too slow. I won’t have to weigh my food or worry that I haven’t weighed it. Recovery will mean I am free from meal time maths. I’ll be free from adding calories in my head and from ‘researching’ calories whilst I am eating.  I won’t have to distract myself with reading or writing or counting to stop myself adding and I won’t need to keep every meal at the same calories and every snack lower than every meal.

I won’t fill myself up with diet coke, coffee and water to take away hunger or make myself wait for mealtimes my eating disorder wants. I won’t have to have the same ‘safe’ food over, over and over again. Or panic when it’s not available.

Emotionally, recovery will mean I am happy in my own skin. I’ll be able to accept my body and who I am. I won’t be paranoid about what people think of me. I won’t have to triple check that ‘I look okay’ or if something ‘makes me look fat’. I won’t constantly compare myself unfavourably to others. I won’t think I’m the fattest, most ugly or least successful. I won’t worry what people think of me, or how people see me. I won’t constantly worry about what I’ve done wrong, or what I have said, or that I’ve annoyed people. I won’t play situations that didn’t occur over and over in my head. I’ll be able to take a compliment from a boyfriend without thinking he’s lying to me and I will allow myself to feel beautiful when someone tells me they think that I am.

I will stop saying sorry for everything. Sorry. 

I won’t feel so up and down, I won’t be so irritable or snap at people when they haven’t got the food I like in, or they’ve prepared food ‘wrong’. I won’t get so upset about the smallest things or allow my mood to be altered by food and calories. When I am fully recovered I won’t have to make excuses for not going to events, or meeting friends or completing things, because I want will do those things regardless of food and eating. I won’t shy away from social events or spending time with people because of food. I will be the sociable, happy me. 

I’ll remember the things I loved and truly enjoy them again.  I will relax. 

Physically I will look and feel like myself again.  My face won’t look gaunt and my skin will glow. Full recovery will mean my hair will stop falling out and will be full of life and vitality again. I won’t have the daily tears when I brush my hair and it falls out and I won’t have to conceal spots or dark circles under my eyes. My body won’t hate me and I won’t hate my body. My skin will be nourished and plump and my veins won’t throb through my skin. My shoulders won’t be angular or bony and my spine will be protected. My hips, elbow and knees won’t look so skeletal.  I'll be when I don’t get pins and needles in my legs when I sit still or can relax in a bath without my spine and hips banging against the tub. And get out without wanting to pass out.

Recovery will defined when my body is functioning properly, my blood will be fully restored and my immune system will be restored too. My brain will function fully once again and my fitness will be restored. I will have muscular legs again, not bones and skin and I will love my toned figure. I will be able to exercise because I want to and I enjoy it, not because I feel I have to or to avoid feeling guilty when I don’t.  I’ll swim, run and cycle without working out the calories I’ve burnt. The calories won’t be my motivation.

I won’t look in the mirror and see, fat ugly or not good enough. I’ll look in the mirror and simply see myself for what I am. I won’t poke, prod and feel my stomach nor will I tell myself I am fat. I won’t pick clothes to hide my stomach, or feel uncomfortable in clothes that cling. I will wear clothes I love, that make me feel fantastic. When I have restored my weight and recovered I will be able to wear my favourite bras, jeans, dresses and top without them drowning me.  Recovery will be defined physically when I’m not constantly cold, when I can feel the sunlight on my skin and enjoy it.

Recovery will mean all these things are no longer part of my everyday life. Recovery will be full when I am fully living again and my mind is free from food. Recovery is not quick and it's a journey that has many milestones along the way....I am on my way.