A little visit from family and a lunch date...

On Monday my mum and Simon came up to York to see me and I was excited because I wanted to spend some nice time with them and have a normalish day. Whilst working on these foodie little challenge things I wanted to tie this into their visit. We went to Cafe Nero for Lunch and I decided to have one of my puddings there too. Stupid head was thinking ' I usually have a pudding on Tuesday and a pudding on Saturday so it's all messed up if I have one on Monday instead!. It seems such a petty silly thing (which it is), so I tried to rationalise it and thought if I don't change the days, it's just another stupid irrational rule I'd be listening to, which makes no sense at all, so decided to be flexible and go for it.

We went and I was nervous, even though I knew what I'd be having I still felt uncertain until the food was sat there in front of me. 'What if they don't have what I planned to have' 'What if they get my order wrong", these type of completely random thoughts went through my mind which as guessed didn't happen anyway...and it was all completely fine!!! This is the thing that I'm learning that it's pretty much ALWAYS the anxiety beforehand that puts you off doing different things, when in reality most of the time it's a lot easier actually doing it then you think, which gives you a sense of relief but also a sense of empowerment to know if you don't avoid things due to the 'fear' (when the fear is never really that bad in the end anyway) it allows you to be a little more free and encourages you to try new things more often...

Little snapshot of lunch...I NEED THIS MILLIONAIRES SHORTBREAD AGAIN...LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!
















After lunch we looked around town for a bit and I took my mum and Simon into topshop to get some photos taken in the photobooth which was awkward and funny because we were waiting for ages for them to print out, staff had to come and try and fix the machine by moving the whole bloody thing, then we had to get in it again to take more pictures whilst the staff watched and waited to see if it was working again (proper cringy haha), but it didn't!

We went to the cinema afterwards to see a comedy 'Why Him', which was ace, would definitely recommend it. We went to the Reel Odeon cinema, which feels like you've gone back in time a few years but I love it as it's cute and old fashioned.

Probably sounds a bit silly but the day as a whole was good because I felt the most care-free I have in a while, felt less pre-occupied so could enjoy spending the time with my Mum and Simon by laughing at little things and just being normal. (felt sad when they went as I would like to feel like this everyday...but know it's normal for your mood to fluctuate. You can't stay on a high 24/27 as much as you can't stay on a low 24/7...mood goes up and down which is normal and makes you appreciate days like this even more...All in all it was a good visit!

Chelsea X

365 blank pages and all that jazz

Food, glorious food!

Firstly, I'd like to say thank you for the responses I got from my last blog post, the advice and support has been listened to and taken on board so thank you all :)

I've come to a decision how to push myself a little more. The 2 choices I had in mind was to go full pelt with the "**** it* button; or to plan challenges with food gradually to move out of my comfort zone. As much as I wanted to go with the first option, I knew my anxiety would be too much to cope with this at the minute, so second option it was.

So far so good. I've had 2 days of eating different foods and challenging more. The majority of the time the anxiety is so much worse beforehand than it actually is doing it, which just shows how powerful your mind can be sometimes! And the feeling you get for doing something new is definitely worth it, and helps to move that little bit closer out of the comfort zone. My friend helped me with how to plan different challenges and I've done it through a hierarchy of foods; GREEN: 'safe foods', 'AMBER' a little bit more challenging and 'RED' the biggest fear foods. I'm giving myself a certain amount of times I have different foods in this hierarchy, which helps to gradually push new foods in, adds more variety, as well as making all foods seem 'ok' to eat again, and less scary. (Gosh as I'm writing this I'm realising how boring this sounds, so sorry haha - and thanks if you're still reading!)


I know this may sound not much but for me it feels like a big change at the minute and a change that I'm glad I've made. My mood and motivation is up and down at different points during the day but I know this is expected and just accept how I'm feeling and not let it affect me. Like sometimes I feel like I'm on top of the world and can conquer anything, and there are points in the day where I think what the hell am I doing this is all wrong! So a mixture of different feelings but I know for me right now it's the right thing to do, and the only way to get out of a rut is to do something different. The big 'C' word CHANGE, which always sounds like a good option in your head but when you actually do it, it's easier said then done! But nethertheless I'm going to keep going. I'm trying to do this mainly on my own because I've not really been able to do this before without more support, so would love to get to the end of all this and think 'I bloody did it', so can focus on more important things in life.

I tried this new chocolate bar today with my lunch and I would definitely recommend!

Tomorrow my Mum and Simon are coming to York for a couple of days. We're going out for lunch tomorrow and I'm having my pudding there too which I can't wait for but anxious at the same time. Irrational silly unwanted thoughts can buggar off , thank you very much head :)


Chelsea X

Being stuck in a "quasi-like" Recovery mindset..

I haven't posted on here in a while but I've got so many bloody thoughts spinning around in my head I wanted to get out..

It's been nearly 3 months since I left hospital and I'm still living in the beautiful city of York. I absolutely love been here. There's plenty of opportunities for jobs and volunteering, groups to join, social things to get involved in etc etc. The only annoying thing getting in the way of completely throwing myself into what this city has to offer is myself. - I feel so stuck in my own little bubble because of rules etc , I feel like I'm not fully living life to its full.

I was a bit naive to say the least that when I was discharged from hospital I would be completely cured and everything would fall into place (A happy ever after kind of thing - which was a bit silly of me to think!). So it was a bit of a shock to say the least when I hadn't prepared myself for thoughts creeping back. I didn't really know what to do with them because like I said - I thought I was free of them. My way of managing them was to just 'go with it' and do whatever made me feel better at the time. However, before I knew it 'just going with it' had become a little bit more, and a bit more and quickly I found myself trapped in my thoughts - and it was all my bloody fault due to being so naïve! My way of coping with stress and feeling in control of things is taken out through food, so I should have been more weary of this when I left.

Where I am today - I'm aware of what I could have prevented through hindsight,  but I can now get back on track independently, along with great outpatient support and support from friends and family. I'm following what I need to follow but I still feel stuck. I feel like I have to follow rules in order to feel safe, so if I've eaten something I feel bad about I'll have something safer to make up for it - but this is just another way of letting my thoughts win because if this was ok it would be making me happy but it doesn't; it's just making me feel trapped and like I'm a prisoner to myself. I don't want to do things half-heartedly - Ideally I would like to throw myself into getting back on track, but because I'm so worried and rigid I don't know how. I want to move out of safety and be more free. Sometimes during the evenings when I'm fed up of following rules/safety I have this glimmer of 'fuck it;' and plan to throw rules and routine out of the window, but when I wake up the next day, this glimmer has fizzled out and I find myself doing the same old and feeling more and more stuck and not pushing myself - not comparing what I ate yesterday to today and what I'll be having tomorrow. The most frustrating thing is that no matter how much support there is around, I physically have to do what I need to do myself and that is the most hardest thing because as much as you might want it, it's the bloody thoughts that get in the way and you just end up in a cycle.

Weight loss is just a side effect of eating disorders but I mainly just want to be the old me again, be more care free and throw myself 100% into recovery without compromising with my eating disorder. I want to be involved more in 'life' again , Rather than just survive each day in my little safety bubble. I think Christmas has shown me just how much food is a massive part of being social, and following rules etc makes you feel you can't enjoy it as much and I always feel guilty for this and just want to be 'in the moment' when spending time with family/friends, rather than being pre-occupied with irrational thoughts that shouldn't really matter.


I just want to throw myself 100% into recovery, rather than attempting it but compromising with my eating disorder too -and I know it doesn't really work like that if you want to 'properly' recover. How many challenges do I set myself each week? The problem with food 'challenges' is that what I think is a challenge, someone else wouldn't so it gets difficult. I just want to throw away all my rules at once, but terrified at the same time. How many challenges is enough? How many is too little? aghhhh I don't know! But these are the kind of things going in my mind right now and I just want some reassurance or something I don't know! If anyone has advice that would be great haha. (I don't even know if any of this really makes much sense!)

Chelsea X

What is this 'Recovery' malarkey?

It's been nearly a year since I last posted something on here, so thought I'd give it another go...

I wanted to talk about the definition of 'Recovery', in terms of recovering from anorexia, or in fact any other mental illness. It's viewed as a positive; which of course it is, but what does Recovery actually mean? How do you measure how far in recovery you are, or when you can class yourself as being recovered? Is there a list of things you need to achieve, in which when all of the boxes are ticked you are classed as fully  'Recovered'?

I feel there may be a misconception of what 'Recovery' actually is, or what it means. I know for myself that I've found the word confusing to understand, and my own interpretation of the meaning has changed overtime.

A couple of years ago I viewed 'Recovery' as being this amazing, exciting thing in which my whole life would be 'perfect'. Better than it would have ever been before any illness. I would be happy all the time, without a care in the world, I wouldn't care what I looked like or what I ate, and nothing would go wrong. My idea of recovery sounded like a fairy-tale. Life with or without an illness is never 'perfect', so I have no idea why I ever considered recovery to be like this, and of course it wasn't. Why was I so surprised?

I did a quick google definition of what recovery is, and it defines it as "a return to a normal state of health, mind or strength'. I know from reflection, that I completely mis-interpreted what Recovery meant, and it's only since I've been in York I've started to realise what it means for me. Recovery isn't a new fantastic, different, better than ever life. Recovery can be introducing things back in your life, that you may have lost,  such as friends, family, education/jobs, hobbies etc etc. Every day things that you take for granted, and can begin to appreciate again.

I also used to worry that recovery meant you had to be perfect, and struggling would be a sign of weakness. I'm now coming to the realisation that this isn't true. Life isn't always fun and games; difficulties will come into our lives but it's the resilience and strength to overcome these that shows we are 'recovering', and if something goes wrong, or we make a bad decision....it's not the end of the world!

Not really sure what I'm trying to say but I've been thinking about this for a while..so if you've got to this line thank you for reading! Xx