While my head quietly spins

I used to suffer from panic attacks, the sort where my body trembled, I could focus on nothing bar the trigger of my panic, it was clear for all to see. I was the girl with anxiety issues and it was obvious. 

In social situations I'd either a) worry for months about going, then not go to avoid panicking or b) I'd go and have to hide or leave after not being able to control the anxiety spin. That was the story of my socialising experiences from the age of 7. Be a meal out, a day out, two-week holiday or a school trip. Of course, I learnt to cope or avoid from an early age, so actually, as much as I know life could have been MORE enjoyable, I'd not been a hermit! 

Things have changed now though. Thankfully, I've not had a full-blown panic attack for years, but that doesn't mean I panic though. I see 'getting though events' as a tick-box, despite craving the enjoyment and for good times to last. So, inside, I might not be filled with terror or paralysing fear of situations, I rarely am, but my GOD I worry.

Wow, do I worry. 

What's worse is I TRY to keep the worry in and cope. I try to be normal. But my head takes me somewhere else. It quietly spins. When most people are embracing the moment, I am worrying about the food I've eaten, what I look like, what I've said, what I am (and what I am not) how I come across. I compare myself to those around me, I envy people's calmness, their clothes, their skin and their lives. Don't tell me I should stop comparing. I know "comparison is the thief of joy..." and all that. 

So what am I trying to say, why does my head quietly spin? That I don't know. But what I do know is that I am REALLY guilty of taking it out on those closest to me. Projection, getting snappy because people can't sense my spinning. I think they should be mind readers, obviously. I wish I didn't do it, and then what's more, I wish I could explain. 

If anyone is the same as me, and has a fairly robust 'brave face' and can turn the confidence on, you'll know what I mean when I say it's sometimes harder than being an outwardly anxious (or avoider) type. It's like I let it all build up, going round and round and round my head then purge the emotions.

I find a quiet moment to try and explain to someone and CAN'T effectively do it, because I don't understand myself sometimes. Not only that, there are thoughts I don't WANT to explain sometimes. I realise this makes me really hard to be around sometimes, I hate it. It's about being in control, I know it is. It's about the fact that my insecurities eat me alive sometimes. It's about seeing myself though negative eyes still. 

Basically sometimes, instead of panic attacks these days, I just let my brain remind me of how I should be.  

Changing the game plan

Let's talk team tactics. First you need to realise this isn't just about food or anorexia now, it's my general game plan for life. It's not even about being too defensive of said life and my actions any more. It's not about attacking people for asking questions that's my worst habit. But, my current game plan seems to be a toxic mix of both, which isn't working for me. 

I feel attacked and the need to be defensive, almost all the time. Of course, I do the attacking but with that, I get more defensive too. All this does it create stalemate. No chance for a winning shot. 

I don't understand why I do it. Other than to try and 'protect' myself, like I believe I protect my 'game plan' and keep myself safe, just thankful I'm not losing. Whatever that means nowadays. I know I still don't think my team, plan or predictions are good enough to share with the bigger squad.

All I know is I still don't know how to react when people make suggestions about my life, when people I care about (and who care about me) want to know something about me. I get defensive quickly, like I'm worried that somehow it's all part of a master plan to catch me out or trip me up. The belief everyone has a motive that's on a difference agenda to mine. It can be as simple a question as 'What have you got planned tonight...' and I'll clam up and respond with 'Nothing, as usual, why?' - maybe it's insecurity, that I wish I did have something on - but reality is, more often that not, I couldn't actually face doing anything. It can be anything though, from exercise, to food and from the clothes I chose and the people I see. 

I've always been defensive of my life and actions, that's not new or balanced. But that's part of me. But deep down, let's be honest here, who (or what) am I protecting when I'm ultra defensive over food or eating out? When people suggest I try to eat something new, or question how I am weight-wise. That's the bit that sits uncomfortably - and it's when I am most likely to attack. 

I realise if I am going to let new people in, to allow people to get to know me - the real me - I am going to have to change my game plan. And maybe even let an assistant coach make some of the tactical decisions once in a while. 

I don't want to manage the whole lot on my own any more. I want to have a real team and not feel like it's Sarah vs the World. But it's been so long out on the field on my own, I've sort of forgotten some people are on the same side as me. 

Although there's still one player on the field that's not really in it for the team. 

The Recovery Make Up School

Recovery feels more and more like I've got a big box of cosmetics to use when I need. Say you were to get a big spot before a date or a girls night out - make up helps, right? 

You know you can cover it up with concealer - foundation and powder - add some lippy, blow a kiss, tada, good to go. 

(Especially if a makeup artist has taught me apply to it correctly!)   

It makes that damn blemish less red and that concealer has made those ghastly black eyes less noticeable. For now.

The imperfections are are pain, but they're no longer stopping me embracing bits of life, getting out three, I can cover it up and get on with things. For a while.

But I know the spot is there - even if I'm concealing it from the potential new boyfriend or the friends with perfect skin - but you can't keep make up on ALL the time.

Even if on the surface I look improved. Inside I know I will need to deal with that spot at some point, I will need to catch up on sleep and give my skin some serious TLC to make it go away.

I know how - exfoliate - spot cream - stop blocking my pores with the make up to cover it up. 

They're learnt behaviours and techniques which enable me to cover up and control this problem and not miss out in bits of life, that without make up I would. Or it at least makes me a little more confident.

But all the makeup in the world won't solve it, make it go. 

Make up is a extremely handy tool for a short term cover up, a lift, a boost for a single night out or that fix for a blemish on a first date.

As are the learnt techniques or behaviours and known coping strategies in recovery.  BUT what I must remember, like applying make up to clogged up skin, it's not resolving the problem underneath.

In some ways it's actually adding to it. Not helping it to heal.

Walking around in life, getting on with things, thinking all is okay when I can cope, manage and control anorexia isn't the solution.

But it's addictive to just cope, easier, but knowing what I am doing day to day to enable me cope with anorexia, eventually becomes part of the problem if I'm not careful.

Maybe it's time to take the make to off before it gets worse and do what I need to do to clear it all. 

For good. 

I Don't Care....(or do I?)

Is there any surprise I am so confused when I realise that I’ve spent a large part of my life convincing myself that I DON’T CARE when actually I really, really DO? 

I did care, I did worry, I did get scared but I have spent so much time dampening down these feelings, dampening down that I care, telling myself that I don’t care, that I am brave, that I can fight, that I DON’T care, that I have managed to get lost somewhere in between.

I have ended up lost in a place where I don’t know what I feel, what is real or whether I like, dislike or care, or not.

It’s like I have tried for as long as I can remember that I didn’t care if I was captain of the hockey team, if I won a medal at gymnastics or if I got the best grades at university and school. I tried to believe that I didn’t CARE that friends were thinner had better clothes, were more popular, had better houses or families. 

Everything, on every level. I then moved on to convincing myself that I didn’t care if boyfriends said other girls were pretty or had amazing bodies, when, deep down I WISHED so hard that I DIDN’T care, but it ate me up inside and I did.

I get lost in trying so hard NOT to care, that I know I seem contrary or I seem like I am fine or I come across like I am dampening other people’s feelings too. Like I try so hard NOT to care about something, that I snap at people when they DO have it, or when they care and show they care. It’s hard to back track and admit you do care, because people think you’re lying, when actually you’re finally telling the truth.

It’s like I pretend I don’t care about money or about leaving journalism or my gymnasts winning, and I did, it’s everything to me. I cared and I do care, worry and panic about EVERYTHING. 

Right now with my recovery, I don't know if I care about my weight increasing, about my body changing, about the feelings of greed, hunger or failure, or am I just trying to numb the emotions and convince myself I DON'T care, when like everything else, I do REALLY care?

Deep down I know I don’t think anything is ever good enough and that nothing I do will ever be good enough. And so the cycle begins, huh? 

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! 

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! 

JUMP

This is where I am at, this is exactly where I am at. I am avoiding the HARDEST bit. The food. Slightly restricting still. The 'bad list' food.

I keep reading things this week that confirm this and I need to believe it. I need to believe the advice and TRUST everyone around me and trust that my parachute will open...

This video confirms it too. Let's count down to that jump... 3,2,1...and...

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...

I Miss......

I'm thinking a lot about London today and my old life and how I used to be. It’s not what I am meant to be doing, because yet again its dwelling on the past, but there is so much I miss right now.

I miss being able to pop to Oxford Street on wondering around, I miss random trips to the V&A museum and National Portrait Gallery, I miss being able to be happy about the most random things and ringing my mum about the funniest things I notice when I’m around London. In excitement about something happening on the South Bank. I miss earning money and spending it without feeling guilty. I miss going to Selfridges food hall to look for delicious treats and to spoil myself and friends and not counting the calories in jelly beans.

I miss wondering around Brent Cross and Westfield and dreaming about what I’d buy, but now I wonder round town wondering how many calories I burnt and what I am NOT going to eat. I miss the buzz of excitement I got when I realised I didn’t need to use a map to find my way around the underground. I miss how grown up I felt. I miss it being the norm to go to the pub on press night for a few Malibu’s and just order nuts and crisps with the boys, because I wanted them and it was a ritual! I miss how I was confident to walk to Kings Cross or hail a cab home at midnight. To my OWN home. I miss how I relied on NO ONE I could sort everything out myself, paid my rent, I brought my shopping, food I liked. I ruled my life.

I was INDEPENDENT. 

I had a career, I had my life and I had my friends. I didn’t mind going for days without speaking to my parents or months without coming home. I decided what I did and when I did it. I didn’t need to answer questions or feel guilty for not getting dressed on my days off and sitting around. I miss how exciting everything felt. I miss telling my parents things, rather than asking them. I miss having lots to talk about and to be proud of and even more I miss having things to look forward to. I miss randomly to gigs , finding new bands or wondering around Soho and China Town on a Saturday night.

Most of all I miss me. I miss my drive, my determination and my inability to accept second best. I miss my creativity, my excitement for art, architecture and design, for writing and for publishing. I miss my excitement for noticing little things around London, like finding Pudding Lane’ or buildings I had never noticed before and then my thirst to find out more about them.

During all these memories I know I enjoyed them, but I know I also felt I could be better, I could be skinnier, I could be more in control, I could be closer to perfect. I could have earned more, ate less, live in a nicer flat, have a better boyfriend. But I suppose I was so distracted by all these amazing things, and anorexia didn't have the upper hand that I could push these thoughts aside and get distracted by life and little amazing things. I distracted myself from myself to keep strong. 

“I might be fat, but I can go to Selfridges at Christmas and feel warm inside sipping a gingerbread latte (with cream) and being happy because I love shopping or I might not be perfect but I love to people watch and dream sitting in Starbucks with a good book” I was either busy enjoying or stressing about life and didn't give Ana chance to butt in too much, although she was there her thoughts did NOT CONSUME my life like now. I suppose the problem was always going to be when living like this caught up with me. This year it has. 

Ana has taken all this from me and given me noting in return, other than a stupid number on the scales and an unhealthy need for control. She hasn’t even given me the perfect body or the confidence she promised for all that time. She definitely hasn’t given me the ability to appreciate life or made me anymore likely to fall in love. She has managed to twist the once positive parts of my personality and made them in to her best weapons against me. I need to get these back. I need to use my determination, my control, my drive, in my favour not hers. I know I do.

If I am EVER going to have ANY independence ever again, if I am EVER going to live MY life again I need to. I want to feel excited again about stupid things, to relax, to be random and silly with friends without the inner monologue from Ana stopping me being me. I want to be independent again; I want to be able to ring my friends with good news, with exciting things to tell them and without having to feel like it’s an effort to concentrate on what they are saying. I don’t want to feel like I have to moan, but I do. I want to make plans to see friends without feeling like it’s an effort.

I think today I am starting to realise just how much of my life, my soul, my personality I have given to Ana in my quest to be perfect and fix everything with my weight and body, how much I have given to have this ‘control’ and how much I have sacrificed to be thin.

Truth is I have lost everything and that alone make me feel unarmed and weak and pathetic in this fight. How was I stupid enough to give all that up? For Ana? I need to find a way to get my weapons back to help fight Ana and get my life back. And to stop that bitch using my own strengths against me.

Eating Disorders, OCD & Anxiety

This week's video from one of my favourite Recovery Warriors, Arielle, is relevant to the way in which my anxiety, OCD and ED work together. How one (or two) can lead to, be a result of, and maintain the other(s).

WATCH IT HERE

I have suffered from OCD and Anxiety most of my life but only been diagnosed with anorexia in my twenties. My ANX and OCD have always surrounded body image, food, will-power and control. Through lots of therapy and support I manage to control my OCD and ANX, but find it hard to control my ED.

It's hard to separate the three and try and figure out if my anxieties and obbsessions with food, health, calories, weight and body were always an ED or whether these teamed with my perfectionism, self esteem and control issues lead to my anorexia.

Which ever way round it is, the three have a massive impact of my life and all three are hard to overcome.

Click the links above this or below to watch the video on Arielles website.

Arielle says;

"Actively Arielle: A Voice With A Commitment: Eating Disorders, OCD, and Anxiety: This week I discuss these 3 and how they are linked. I also discuss ways of dealing with anxiety, and disclose a bit of personal information..."

My Recovery Playlist

I am jumping on the Recovery Playlist bandwagon which other Recovery Warrior bloggers have spoken about in the last couple of days. (No Matter What My Size and ED Bites) I can't find one song, but a whole playlist of them...

Music has ALWAYS played a massive part in my life. Like many other people, we create a soundtrack to our lives, with music that defines times and places and brings back memories. Music that inspires and touches us.

Over the last week or so, I have randomly burst in to tears with my ipod playing through my 'Recovery' playlist in iTunes. I have also smiled, laughed and been sent into deep thought at some points.  The lyrics, the songs, the messages and my interpretation of them REALLY do help my recovery. Even if I do look slightly strange walking along crying sometimes...and even if some of the artists and songs aren't usually my style!

The Playlist (which keeps growing!)

Christina Perri - Jar of Hearts
MGMT - Time to Pretend
MGMT - Kids
Arcade Fire - My Body is a Cage
Katy Perry - Firework
Lady Gaga - Hair
Lady Gaga - Born this Way
Demi Lovato - Skyscraper
Coldplay - Every Teardrop is a Waterfall
Coldplay - Fix You
John Lennon - Imagine
Adam Lambert - Whadda You Want From Me
The Killers - Human
Jessie J - Who's Laughing Now
Jessie J - Nobodys Perfect

Some of these were already my faves, some weren't, some remind me of times when I felt strong and others make me feel better about feeling weak....Whichever one they are, they are helping me right now!

Check them out.....

Yellow Eggs and Red Sauce

Sitting at breakfast this morning, E and K have scrambled egg on toast. The doorstep toast is warm and the butter is melting nicely, the eggs are scrambled perfectly and look like little egg clouds floating in the jug. The condiments are put in the centre of the breakfast bar, more butter, salt, pepper and tomato ketchup. 

Where's your red sauce? 

Tomato ketchup is delicious on scrambled egg (so I’m told!) as E drizzles the RED sauce on his breakfast; K adds salt to her eggs. “I WISH I could put RED sauce on my eggs, I could just eat that, I bet it’s really tasty” She says. So, on overhearing this, I ask “why don’t you then?” Pause. “Well its RED sauce on YELLOW egg isn’t it? If red and yellow go together I WON’T be able to eat it, I just COULDN'T!” Pause.

My Dad, E,  pushes and pushes for K to try adding RED sauce to YELLOW egg, trying to persuade her that it is (as she suspects) extremely tasty. “Go on, just put some on if you want it.” He suggests. Even sacrificing a slice of his own breakfast for the cause in an attempt for her to try the mixture. They both suspect that it would REALLY complete her breakfast. But it’s no good.  The yellow and red together thing is too much for her to handle. There is NOWAY, no matter HOW tasty it may be, or not matter how much she’d love to, that K will add RED sauce to YELLOW eggs.

This conversation was all too familiar to me. It’s usually me in the ‘Why CAN’T you JUST eat more of what you know will be tasty?” Why CAN’T I just eat more substantial meals, or have full-fat cheese or whole milk? Why can’t I have pasta two nights in a row or eat a slice of cake I’ve lovingly baked for everyone? It doesn’t even work when people sacrifice what I suspect is a yummy sweet, just so I could perhaps TRY it. Nope, it’s just too much sometimes.

It’s what it’s like for me. It’s not a choice, it’s not something I can ‘just do’ and in the same way that there is NOTHING physically stopping K putting tomato ketchup on her eggs, there is nothing PHYSICALLY stopping me eating more, stopping me eating high calorie foods, foods with a higher fat content. I have those foods there in front of me, ready and waiting.  I wish I could eat them, like K wishes she could put red sauce on yellow eggs, but it is a fear holding us back. It can seem irrational to those around us, that can’t understand WHY if you like the taste of something, if you WANT something that you CAN have, why don’t you just do it?  

It’s not even a case of not eating now, because I am eating and to me I am eating a lot. Almost five times more than in the grip of my anorexia, five times more calories, five times more food. I’m Five times BETTER than at my worst and better at battling the fears.  My calories are very nearly back to normal (okay, with the help of Fortisip) but I still can’t JUST EAT high-calorie foods, foods I have labelled ‘bad’ for most of my life and foods that I have fears around. I wish I could help people understand that I have this fear, this barrier, and this power stopping me with EVERY bite. 

The foods I have now re-introduced in to my diet were once dangled in front of me, teasing me, but I just couldn’t eat them. Every bite of food I now eat was once K’s red sauce and yellow yolk situation, each one I now eat required me to face my fear front on and put it in my mouth. Each food I still won’t touch is going to require me to be brave enough to just face it and eat it. Each time E and K see me eat something new, something on my ‘bad’ and ‘fear food’ list, they need to remember it’s like K facing her fear head on and adding the sauce to her breakfast, which today, she didn't. I was just too much. 

Too much to handle 

Yes, to other people my fears probably seem ‘irrational’ - food is, so I'm told, to be enjoyed. It's the same way I can’t understand why red sauce can’t be put on yellow egg yolks. 

When I attempted to explain this concept this morning I was greeted with ‘Yes, but, at least I am eating.” Au contraire, dearest K, you’re not. You are denying yourself the red sauce on your eggs, despite knowing it’ll be tasty. It maybe be on a different scale. But the concept is the same! Right? Well, apparently not.

But when K says she CAN’T put it on her eggs, despite really wanting to, I am able to apply my fears of gaining weight, of food and of fat and understand that when she says she CAN’T enjoy ketchup on eggs, she just CAN’T at that point in time. Not only that, she can’t explain WHY she can’t. And so she goes without something she KNOWS she would enjoy, and the eggs go without the sauce.

It’s exactly the same concept. Why can I see it and they can’t? 

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. 

Feeding & Starving

Starving me is feeding Ana. Feeding me is starving Ana.

(and there's only one of us that can survive.)

Tennis with Ana...

Today has been epic in terms of emotions. I could not begin to count the number of different feelings/thoughts/emotions I have felt today. I have been in an all-day emotionally tiring tennis rally with my eating disorder...

It's Me vs Ana in this match...

...So, in relation to my earlier post, I am going to pick up where I left off, where I was about to serve for the day's match, by attempting to make a higher calorie dinner than I have been used to, face a 'fear' food - yes, baked beans - and see if I could take some points from under Ana's nose...and...

I had the jacket potato and baked beans (picture evidence!) which I TOTALLY needed to do. I need to now remember that was a point won against Ana which I need to keep doing BUT it is not the end of the world if every attempt at challenging Ana isn’t as successful. 

I need to remind myself that there is no need for perfectionism EVERYTIME when I am taking a shot at her. I did check online for the calories of a small potato, but I had already eaten it. It is recognising the thoughts but making positive and healthy choices even if they are harder than settling for the anorexic choices. 

Hello, Jacket and Beans!

I am not going to let myself feel guilty for making a ‘recovery’ choice right now or for taking a step AWAY from her. That'd be like feeling guilty for beating your biggest rival in a game of tennis wouldn't it? How stupid! 

I also feel like I convince myself that it was easy to do what I just did – as with everything in my life in the past I haven’t actually admitted to anyone that I find something’s hard and challenging – so now it feels that I have convinced myself that if it isn’t easy next time then I have failed. It’s like I try and forget how hard it was to do what I did tonight, and how long it’s taken me to eat that meal and how long the beans have been in the cupboard before I opened them tonight. I want it to be easy, so I am good at it. Though, I suppose every time I do it, it will be easier and I will get better at it? Like practising my serve, the more I practice the easier it'll be to serve an ace?

I also read something really helpful written by another recovered/ing anorexic tonight  A post by Kate Peoples on her blog 'Small Steps Upward'  -  that totally made sense and really helped me get some clarity and was like a well-needed cheerleader in today's match! 

This comes with its own problems though – I feel like I should have thought of this before, and I am rubbish for not realising that this is how I felt – and now I am copying her! Anyway, it was about TRUSTING your therapists/team and I came to the conclusion that at this crossroad I have the choice to trust everyone at the EDU that they are not lying to me, they know exactly what they are talking about and are experienced professionals that want to see me get better OR I can put my trust in Ana and carry on living a half hearted, restricted and disordered life? I just need to go for it, have faith that it is all going to be okay in the end. It’s terrifying but it will be worth it to be free and get on with my life. Like trusting world class coaches and ignoring the other players trying to trick me, right?

I also figured that I need to take recovery step by step – not panic about it all at once, which I keep doing. I first need to restore weight, just do it, be healthier and THEN Take time to deal with the emotions about my weight, body and anxieties AFTERWARDS. It's like worrying about the final at Wimbledon when I am only just getting though the second round isn't it? 

It’s REALLY not going to work that way – I need to remember that the sooner I restore my weight, the sooner I can work towards FEELING better about myself and work towards a healthier and happier me. The longer I stick where I am on the scales and with my intake, the longer I will feel like crap. Like, I'd feel crap if I got knocked out in this game because I listened to the other players telling me what to do, not my coach!

What a day! Emotional tennis in my head with Ana, but I think I won that game? New balls please! 

POEM: I Wish...

I wish I knew a way out,
A way to gain and grow,
I didn't want this life,
The thoughts,
But how was I to know?
I didn't want to be this way,
To lose everything I had,
My house, my job,
My dreams my goals,
To feel so lost and sad.
I wanted to be perfect,
And happy in my skin.
The thing I wish
I knew before,
And believed today,
is that
Happy isn't thin.

Don't Believe EVERYTHING you THINK...

I have the destructive habit of taking MY OWN opinion of me, my body, my life and now my recovery and ignoring everyone else's views.

The biggest problem is that I always come out bottom.

Weightless blog wrote about this today and how cognitive distortions can lead to negative emotions and contribute to eating disorders. They defined cognitive distortions as as “a biased way of thinking about oneself or one’s environment, including one’s body image, weight or appearance”

This relates directly to the work I am doing at clinic on' rewiring' my thoughts and learning to accept that MY perception is not always right. In fact, it is usual wrong, especially if I partake in my habit of dispelling all the evidence around me to ensure I maintain my OWN view of myself.

At the end of their post they ask... Which of these cognitive distortions do you relate to most?
The answer...I can relate to all of them, too well. They are all too familiarly and exactly what I am working on in recovery at the moment. I couldn't pick one that I do more than another, and they are SO destructive. To break these cognitive distortions will to break free from my eating disorder.

This is especially destructive when I have ALWAYS compared my self unfavourably to everyone around me. It's a habit I need to break if I am to be completely free from Ana.

Perfectionism = Control + Fear

I need to know that I wasn't perfect, I am not perfect, Recovery can't be perfect, Every day doesn't have to be perfect and nothing is pure or perfect...

The desire for perfectionism is a combination of my desire of control and my fear of what happens if the control is lost, or if I'll never be perfect.

Perfectionism can be destructive. Mine is.

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.

- David M. Burns-

She and Her...

My therapist set me a self characterisation task. This was so hard to do this week. I panicked that I was doing it wrong, that I wasn't writing the right things and that sums it all up! I'm not sure what Ms. W will make of it, or what it says about me, but after the week I've had, I am pretty sure I have a long way to go in changing some on my destructive and dysfunctional beliefs....


"She is a complex character with a lot to say. She’s not afraid of speaking up about her opinion or voicing her complaints or comments when she wants to. Although, sometimes you have to sieve what she says for effect or to be contrary, from the bits she really feels or means honestly. Her likes and dislikes can change from day to day or hour to hour and it can sometimes be exhausting to keep up.

On the surface She seems driven and focused on achieving her ambitions and dreams but it is clear to those that know her that more often than not she is trying to convince herself that she knows which path she’d rather be on. This uncertainty in her own thoughts and ambitions can almost seems like she’s out to prove something to everyone around her and to herself.

One of her major struggles is her inability to live in the here and now and accept things for the way they are. She almost seems to live in the past, always dragging up old emotions, blaming herself for things that were sometimes not even her own wrong doing, without even realising she’s doing it. She blames herself for things that sometimes weren’t even her fault and convinces herself they were. If she isn’t playing old events and situations around in her head, she’s planning and worrying about the future. Worried about whether she is ever going to be able to reach her high goals of getting what she wants or whether she is going to mess it all up.

Her need for control is clear for us all to see and she even knows the extent of her desire herself. Al is fine and well until the control is taken away from her and then if that dreaded situation ever occurs, her mood can switch quickly. Her defences go up and her tone becomes less open and chatty and becomes more argumentative and defensive. It almost seems that the loss of control over a situation is too much for her to handle and the barriers go up to protect her weakness.

This can also be seen when she doubts the value of her opinions or if she or her work are criticised. It doesn’t stop there though, she joins in and her habit of being her worst critic comes into action. To those who don’t know her, this is more than likely to be perceived as an inability to take criticism on board, even if it is constructive. But it’s quite the opposite. If you get to really know her you’ll understand that it is because she is her biggest critic and tortures herself for not having done something perfectly in the first place.

Her chatty personality comes across as confident and bubbly on the surface when faced with social events but the internal monologue she is used to hearing paints a very different picture of her. She seems unable to stop comparing herself, physically and socially to anyone who comes into contact with, even her best friends and family. She can almost seem envious or jealous of those around her and her competitiveness ensures she can’t accept being the one no one else envies.

She might not be the prettiest the richest or the most ‘career’ successful of her friends, but she is also not the one with a husband, house or child. Most of the people around her can accept their ‘place’ in society and accept themselves, but not Sarah. She can’t accept any of it. It is almost as though she doesn’t feel good enough in any of these areas, never mind achieving her goals of being the one they envy.

At 26 years old, she has only recently realised the extent to which she has managed to keep up her internal conflict of control and self-doubt whilst portraying a driven, independent and confident women on the surface. It is only after unpeeling some of her layers that you realise that those moments of defensive comments or the times her mood switches or that day she snapped, were pockets of herself hate seeping to the surface in moments of weakness. They are the moments when you realise that she is not she strong as she seems"

Journal Doodles

A thought to take forward to October...

I have pages in a section of my journal which I doodle statements, questions or random outbursts in. It helps me just get it out without doing a full entry and I often refer back to them to remind me of quotes or helpful comments, also, to remind myself when my thoughts are dysfunctional or 'Ana-driven'