The uninvited guest at Christmas...

Around this time of year, towns/cities are starting to put Christmas decs up, coffee shops summer drinks are replaced with 'festive favourites' and shops are starting ti fill with presents.I love the build up to Christmas as everything feels more exciting and cosy. The one annoying thing of approaching winter is the uninvited guest of anorexia.

The past few years, I've found Christmas has become a lot easier food wise. I started to look forward to instead of dread Christmas dinner. I'd eat chocolate, drink mulled wine in the centre and just feel more at ease in general.

This year feels slightly different. Knowing i'm struggling i'm starting to dread the big day. I know not everything about Christmas is food, but a lot of it is. It's more about feeling 'left out' (by myself) of things i want to join in with. Going out for a hot chocolate after Christmas shopping, having that mulled wine and not worrying about how many potatoes i'm going to be having with my Xmas dinner. (yes, i know that sound daft but Christmas with anorexia is dominated by thoughts like this). Food is also a huge social thing. If you've struggled with an eating disorder, you know what it's like trying to think of what to say if you get asked out for a meal, drinks when you've got 'that voice' telling you, you can't do any of these things, it's isolating.

I so desperately want to do what I can, to dread Christmas less. Anorexia has stole too many Christmas's. I've spent 2 in hospital, and I don’t want this year to be the 3rd. Life is so precious, and a single day wasted giving in to the ED is another day lost. It's never too late and i'm going to try do what I can to avoid this.

Anorexia food thoughts/confessions

 Before recently struggling with food, my diet was quite balanced. It wasn't perfect, but I ate anything and everything in moderation - nothing was off limits.People may remember me posting lots of baking/cakes i'd bought. I really miss that. I keep telling myself 'one day'.

I was at the supermarket yesterday and felt completely overwhelmed with all the food around me. I imagine myself putting any food I wanted in my basket, Cakes, bakery rolls, ingrediants to cook a nice meal. Seeing others around me fill up their trollies with lots of nice things, i felt envious.  Again, i told myself 'one day'. It's just daft though with eating disorder thoughts. 'They can buy those nice things but you're not allowed..yet anyway'. I'ts like i have to close my eyes whilst navigating the shop, ignoring all foods I would have once picked up and just grabbing the 'safe' foods i'm allowed. It feels rubbish. 

I've noticed my thoughts around 'nice' foods have increased. I will spent time on instagram looking at nice food people have cooked/baked. This is an embarassing confession, but I downloaded the Ocado app (I never shop there and don't intend to ) , but i add loads of nice food to my basket and imagine what I would buy if I could. I get a weird sense of enjoyment from it which I know sounds mad. 

It's weird how the eating disorder brain sometimes work. If you're depriving your body of certain foods, I think your mind tries to convince your body you are, in some way, shape or form, getting these. (Doing the 'fake' ocado shop, looking at other peoples baking etc'). 

I've bought a couple of food items I'd love to have eventually, I just feel like I can't just yet. A few years ago when I was struggling. i used to buy and hoard loads of food. All the things I could eventually eat one day, but that day never came and the food went out of date. It seems quite a common thing for those with eating disorders to sometimes hoard food.

I remember in hospital asking staff why you become 'obsessed' with food, and do things like i describe above.. An amazing eating disorder recovery expert, Tabatha Farrar, explains it well...

'Despite the fact that it makes perfect biological sense that a creature living in an environment of scarcity would hoard items, this is another behaviour that isn’t picked up on consistently. It is one of those things that you probably think is something weird and specific to you. It isn’t, many of us turn into super-storers when our anorexia is active. These are observations from my own experience, and the hundreds of emails I get a week from people with anorexia.When you don’t eat enough food, your brain perceives that food is scarce. When your brain perceives that food is scarce, it may also come to the conclusion that general essential resources are scarce. Hence, the desire to hoard all sorts of items after prolonged energy deficit. (And you get that restricting food is what leads to the perception that food is scarce, and energy deficit, right?)'

I also hope I can wake up one day and just think 'f*** it', i'm going to eat what I want and not feel guilty'. I'd love to get to that point. I know rationally it's not going to be that easy, but I guess in the long term I can hope to achieve this one day 

De Ja Vu...

I haven't written a blog in months, but here I am again and things are difficult..It feels like De Ja Vu.

I always feel I need to say this. If anyone is currently struggling with an eating disorder/gets triggered, please don't read this blog just in case any of my own difficulties trigger anything.

Back in 2013 when I first developed an eating disorder, it was triggered by running. It started off innocently trying to get 'fitter' but this soon turned into an obssession, and not one that was enjoyable. I was running up until getting admitted to hospital. I remember the doctor saying my heart rate was 28bpm. I was running with a low heart rate but that didn't seem to stop me. It's scary because people can present you with scientific/factual evidence about your health, yet your eating disorder discards this because the need to 'satisy' the ED thoughts are too overpowering. 

Fast forward to around 2 months ago, I wanted to try running again. I was rubbish at any kind of sports during P.E other than this so wanted to give it another go. I was completely aware of running triggering eating disorder stuff years ago, but I genuinely believed it would be ok this time. I thought the awareness of this was enough to prevent it from happening again. I just wanted, and still want a healthy relationship with exercise.

It started quite well. 20 minute runs every other day, but the distance soon crept up. I was trying to convince myself, and others around me this wasn't eating disorder motivated but deep down I knew it was starting to affect my food, and the thoughts crept back. Up until last week it took around an hour and a half to complete a run, which I dreaded doing every single time. I didn't want to do it. but felt I had to. I told myself once it was done I wouldn't have to worry about it again until the next one. It didn't work like this though. The time spent NOT running, I spent dreading/thinking about the next one. It felt like a vicious cycle. 

During this period, the running started to affect food. I completely admire and aspire people whom exercise and can eat what they want and not worry about it. Mine just turned the opposite way. Food started to decrease which is completely irrational when your exercise has increased. I guess thats the thing though, eating disorders aren't rational. It's so fustrating because I know what I was doing was wrong and it didn't make sense but i couldn't stop doing it. 

Up unti last week I was trying to plod along. Alongside the physical changes, I felt I was becoming less and less myself each day. It was hard to plan anything 'fun' because my days were dictated by food and exercise times, so anything else had to be around this. Eating disorders are extremely controlling and before you know it, every aspect of your life is being controlled. Eating disorders HATE you giving time to anything else other than IT. You have thoughts such as 'just one more run then you can do less' , 'eat this again today and you can eat more or something different tomorrow, I'll go away'. But it never goes away. These thoughts only get stronger the more you listen to them and that's what happened. 

I remember a couple of weeks back not being able to sleep due to hunger. I wrote my thoughts down. I'm going to share them here just to try and highlighty how bizarre and irrational eating disorders can be ..

'It's 11pm. I wanted to be asleep early. I could feel myself getting tired earlier and thought I'd have a good nights sleep. Instead my body is signalling to eat. I've got hunger pains but my mind won't let me have anything. i've spent the last hour debating whether to have a banana, so it settles and I can sleep. I can't though. If i have one now, I can't have one in the morning before my run, and that means less energy whilst running. So i need to wait it out. I feel an impending doom coming and I can't explain it. I just have this strong feeling in my body/mind that I'm going to die soon. It doesnt make sense because I'm not ill like I was years back, but i feel death is close and i don't know why? is it because I'm not eating properly so I'm not thinking straight? Or is it true? If it's true and I die, I'm worried it'll be either in my sleep or whilst I'm running. I just have this feeling my hearts going to give up either from sadness or the fact my body can't go through this again. I'm terrified of death, I don't want to die, but I can't stop what I'm doing'.

Last week I had a dietican apt and got a wake up call. I didn't realise what I was doing was serious, and was trying to downlplay everything. My mum was also in the appointment via video as she wanted reassurance I was doing ok. I remember my dieitican saying to me 'I can't convince your mum everything is ok because it isn't'. She said I was on my way to hospital if i continued to lose weight. That scared me as thats the last thing I want. It's so bloody hard though to change what you're doing when the eating disorder has already clawed its way in again. To cut a long story short I've had to stop my exercise completely. I don't have to change food at all until my next apt as doing too many things at once becomes overwhelming. 

I'm on my 8th day of no running and can't believe I've actually done it. Hagrid (the dog) has come to stay with me, and I genuinely don't think I would have been able to do it without him. It's more a logistics thing that stopped me. Not wanting to leave early as he normally barks for the first 5 minutes of me leaving but that would wake the neighbours up, so that stopped me, and it's s worked. Having Hagrid here works wonders. Just knowing someone is here that loves you eternally for who you are. If you're having a bad day, he's still there wagging his tail and being cheeky. 

When i struggle with food etc I just feel like a huge drain on those around me. I think its the guilt from struggling. Sometimes it's just easier to distance yourself. I lost a lot of friends when I first struggled back in 2013. I don't blame them. I turned into someone who wasn't me, with a blank personality who couldn't attend social gatherings due to being too consumed by eating disorder thoughts. I'm teriffied of that happening again. The thought my existance could impact negatively on anyone is something I dread. That's why its even harder with an eating disorder because you still continue to do things that are unhealthy as you feel you can't stop, but this in turn affects other people so I guess that's like a vicious cycle too.

I've had this thought the past few days and i'm hoping even just typing it out will help realise it's irrational. I keep telling myself 'I'll recover when I've lost more weight'. If i'm walking around town past bakeries/cake shops I imagine what It would be like to eat those things again. That's when this stupid thought pops up 'You can eat those things  and recover, but not until you've lost more weight'. 

It doesn't make sense?? If i'm to unpick that thought I'd rationalise by thinking 'If i loose more weight, the ED thoughts will get stronger which in turn will make it harder to recover, it increase the chance of hospital being a real thing, and the journey to recovery will just be longer'. See..I can rationalise it and know the though is absoloutely ridiculous...so why is it even in my head? I just want it to piss off.

Anyway, I've survived a week. My mums sent me loads of crafty things to do. It was her idea to make some personalised Christmas bauble decorations (so if you’ve seen me post. A million times about them that’s why!). It’s therapeutic and keeps my mind occupied making them. Onwards and upwards, let’s see what this week brings