Fast Forward on Moving Forward - Part Two

So then I went on a healthy eating plan - a diet, if you will.

Which still sounds pretty bad, given all that I've said previously about the damage I have done to myself by dieting. It sounds like I did a complete 180 overnight, I know, but in truth, it was a difficult decision to make.

I felt guilty for contemplating yet another weight loss plan. After all the advice, guidance, information and knowledge, I've gained through years of recovery work, how could I find myself back here again? I felt as if I might be throwing away all my hard work thus far to overcome disordered eating by engaging with behaviours that hurt me so badly last time.  I didn't quite trust my own motives for wanting to diet in the first place. I felt confused as to whether I was trying to fix something else with food. Was it my body which was really an issue, or was I getting mixed up again with something going on in my head?

Being entirely honest with myself, I couldn't be 100% certain of anything. I didn't, and still don't, totally trust myself when it comes to my relationship with what I eat and how I see myself. I had to ask other people I trusted for their advice, and luckily for me, the people around me are generally kind and sensitive to my issues with food (why have people around who aren't?!). Objectively speaking, my then weight made me obese; it gave me physical pains and contributed to my losing confidence in myself. People I loved could see this, too, and they wanted to support me in whatever way I chose.

So I decided to go ahead with a healthy eating plan. It was a diet, in the sense that I wanted to steadily lose weight and get back to a healthy body size for me. I felt guilty for taking this route and I guess a bit hypocritical for going back on my word. Yet without reducing my food intake, I wasn't sure I'd make it back to healthy on my own because I wasn't getting to grips with intuitive eating, as much as I'd like to have done. I was still eating emotionally and was getting lost in it.

I hoped that having a plan would help me re-learn, in practical terms, what it is to eat "normally" and change my practical eating habits in a way that my previous self-reflections hadn't managed to achieve.

However I planned for the worst, putting special measures in place to help keep me from falling into disordered eating and thinking again. I promised to eat sensible amounds of food with no cutting or skipping on meals. I promised not to eliminate junk food or particular food groups. I promised not to let my eating plan to get in the way of joining in with meals out or celebrations. Trusted friends and family were told of my plans, and I invited them to interfere if they felt I was getting out of line.

And it has worked for me. I'm back to a healthy weight and size. I no longer have pains in my body. I feel more like myself and feel confident and able to wear clothes which reflect who I am inside. I feel more relaxed around food than I have done in a long time, largely because I feel able to say no without feeling as if I'm being deprived (whether or not I actually want what's being offered). I possibly eat more than I did before, and definitely as far as fruit and vegetables go that is the case. I've been swimming and I enjoyed it. People who know me have seen me in a bikini and I haven't run away.

Saying all this, the process has not been perfect and it's definitely not been easy. It took time for my body to adjust. My mind took time to get over the fear of even trying to eat a little healthier. Sometimes, I still get the disordered thinking and it can feel even more real because my body is once again going through the weight loss process. Other people aren't always supportive and sometimes, they change around me as I look different. My life isn't any more exciting and I still get down at times.

I want you to know this because losing the weight I'd gained ultimately as a result of disordered eating has been a really important part of my recovery. And even though I know that it would be totally wrong for someone else in my position, it has worked for me. Losing weight never fixed my problems before, and it still doesn't fix things. I guess the difference now is in me; I don't expect it to do anything more than change the shape or size of my body. And that's it.

By doing this, I'm essentially putting myself back together again in a way which works for me, and me alone. My body and my mind are slowly coming closer. I'm not always sitting in the back of my own head, watching and waiting for life to happen. I'm a little bit more "here" and I am glad to be back.

Fast Forward on Moving Forward - Part One

It's been a while since I've been here. Okay, so it's been a long while; much longer than I thought it had been. If anyone has been reading this, I apologise for leaving things so... unfinished, I suppose. It feels a little awkward even being here, writing again, if I'm entirely honest. I'm not really sure what I'll be writing, or where I'll be going with this blog. It just feels like a good time to write again. Where have I been since late 2011? I can't even remember properly since it all seems so long ago. Life-wise, work-wise, I'm in the same place; working a 9-5, living with my partner, same friends, same family stuff. Food-wise, I'm in a somewhat different place. Having issues with food, eating and body image feels a little like living in a hall of mirrors, or being thrown down Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole: I never quite know what I'm going to see, or what to expect, of either myself or the world around me. I just get used to one new "normal", and then seem to move towards another, my feet having barely touched the ground in-between. Okay, so what's happened since then? I stopped attending the eating disorder support group sometime later in 2011, or maybe early 2012. I started to feel as if the group couldn't offer me the support I needed as someone who felt pretty much recovered from an eating disorder. The focus seemed to be on those new people who were only just acknowledging they had a problem with food, and I'd been over that ground too many times before. I carried on over-eating, which didn't bother me too much, really. I'd never gone back to the way I'd eaten before developing an eating disorder. Which makes sense really because it wasn't something I thought a lot about until I had the eating issues, and then it was all I could think about... You can't un-know what you now know, right? I just ate the way other people seemed to eat; often over-indulging in "treat" eats, and slowly gaining weight without really noticing. Having struggled for so long with the disordered eating, it was kind of a relief to not really think about it at all for a while. I just ate and then put it out of my mind. I figured that this was a part of recovery, and maybe it was being recovered itself. Fast forward to the start of 2013 and I wasn't feeling too great in my skin. I started to see what I looked like in the mirror, and I didn't like it too much. I was much heavier than I had been pre-eating disorder days, and over the previous year I'd gained a little more. My knees hurt when they'd never bothered me before. I got random pins and needles sometimes. My clothes were tight and didn't really fit too well anymore. I felt sad, and a bit ashamed of myself. I think what bothered me most was that didn't really look like me anymore. I don't think I had for a while, but it took me until then to really look and see, objectively, and without kicking myself so hard I'd look away again. I was slipping further inside myself, hiding in the back of my head. And I was angry with myself. Frustrated at the way in which I repeatedly self-inflicted pain through over-eating. Despite knowing so much about my issues with food, I had been acting them out, over and over. I saw what I was doing and I still didn't stop myself. I just let myself hurt me, making me slip further away from myself, and go deeper inside. And I'd had enough. Turns out, that this was what I needed to start making some changes.

Not Giving In

Apologies for the lack of posting. I've been away, on holiday, and part of that is escaping from the computer. My day job pretty much has me glued to the thing, so it's a welcome break for me.I hope I haven't disappointed anyone in my absence here, and am happy to be writing again!

...

Whenever I've felt low of late, I've heard a familiar phrase pop up in the back of my mind.

Why don't I just not eat? I could just stop eating...

The red flag phrase that I imagine pretty much everyone who has had prior dealings with an eating disorder has encountered during recovery. I know that this is my warning; that something is wrong and that I need to look for what that thing is and deal with it directly. It happens when I am overwhelmed; with life, with choices, with all kinds of emotions, positive as well as negative. It happens when my thoughts become overpowering, my mind spinning with words and phrases, alphabet soup/


It's not that I want to re-discover anorexia, or bingeing, or even diet. It's not even that I want to be thin.

Except it can feel like I do and this feeling, it can be completely overwhelming, even now. It can feel like a desperate, greiving cry for a person - and a body - I once was.

Why don't I just not eat? I could just stop eating...

... and eventually, I'd be thin
... and I'd only have to think about food and my body
... and nothing - or no one else - will matter
... and everything else would go away
... and I will be happy

The hope - the unspoken promises tagged on the end - is what draws me to it, I think. None of these statements are factually true. Most I have previously proved to be wrong. Life continues, things happen, people change. My anorexia didn't stop it before. It just put things on hold and I had to deal with them later. My anorexia didn't live up to all it promised me. It left me worse off than I was before.

So when I am at my worst - when I am crying to my boyfriend because I think want my eating disorder so bad or asking my Mum to reassure me that I'm doing okay - I will not give in.

I will not resort to my eating disorder. I am past the point of return, because, in my heart, I know the truth: I cannot unknow the destructive, negative - even life-threatening, and yes, disappointing - reality of an eating disorder.

I'm still greiving for myself - the girl that developed the eating disorder, the one before her and the one that's writing to you here and now. I'm greiving for my eating disorder - for all I got out of it and for all the desperately-pinned hopes of the life I willed it to bring. I will continue to work hard to move through this.

I am coming out the other end. I am no longer eating disordered, as I have written about in earlier posts. It is scary, and there are still dark times where it is tempting to return to old ways, but I am starting to believe that perhaps I can live in the world without my eating disorder.

And this is happy news indeed.

The Fatness Barometer

(Or That Post about How we Drag Ourselves Down by Thinking 'Fat')

My eating disorder inevitably made me super-sensitive to the notion of 'fat'. 'Fat' was the word I used to describe a particular body size and shape (with this becoming notably smaller as the anorexia grew) and a way of being (namely lazy, unattractive and sweaty). I’m saying this and cringing; however it's pretty much accepted as fact in our society and so it's hardly surprising that in the midst of my eating disorder, I too accepted this as truth.

I spent so much of my time looking for proof of my ‘fatness’. In my anorexic state, it was in the numbers my anore recorded in my little book of what I ate; it was in the tags inside my clothes; it was in the amount of exercise I'd done that day or how much I'd sweated at the gym. When I was bingeing, it was obvious as my clothes no longer fit; it was in the depression that seemed to grow as my body did; it was in every bite I took, rebelling against the restrictive months prior. Evidence of my 'fatness' was in everything I did, said or felt. Fatness and 'feeling fat' eventually became so common-place, it ultimately became synonymous with anything I didn't like about myself.

Despite moving forward with my life and not actively considering myself to have an eating disorder, this whole 'fatness' thing hasn't quite disappered. I am still struggling to break the ties from those things that I’d use as measuring sticks as proof of my fatness. Hence the Fatness Barometer.

So how does it look? Well, here's a perfect example I took from this morning that, in the spirit of raising awareness, I'd like to share:

Monday mornings and I don't have a great relationship. It's my anxiety peak of the week. So this morning's arrival at work, already hot, flustered and generally angry at the world for the very existance of Mondays, was not unusual. It started off fairly well for a Monday. I had packed my lunch (and enough snacks so that my snack drawer runneth over) and got out the door only slightly late.

And here's where it went wrong. Realising at the last minute I'd neglected to put on a wash before racing out of the door, after already consciously deciding that no, there was no time to take out the rubbish, I felt like a failure.A knot formed in my stomach.

I locked my door, checking, re-checking and checking again that it was indeed locked. I clocked the OCD-like behaviour and the anxiety kicked up a gear. I spent the whole journey fumbling in my handbag, checking I hadn't forgotten random items (mostly those I could have lived without for the day. I clung to my bag, worrying about what may become of my beautiful new uninsured (as-of-yet) Netbook nestled inside its wrapper. The knot in my stomach just multiplied.

I arrived at work to the realisation that I'd forgotten my work key. I kind of thought I knew where it was (on the kitchen top, possibly now on the floor if it had been on top of the tea towel I'd grabbed to dry my hands). I just couldn't be sure... The knots tighten again.

My hair's stuck to the back of my neck, and what’s not stuck starts to frizz. So much for that blow-dry before I left the house. What's the point in trying to look nice?! I feel the heat rise to my ears and forehead. Sweat prickles at my hair-line.

A colleague has to open the door for me, as I've forgotten my key. What an idiot I am!?! I am (self-)conscious of the redness that surely must be visible. How embarrassing... If I wasn't red before, I am now as I blush, furiously, ashamed of myself and of my body for giving me away... Knotty stomach again.

The make-up I so carefully applied this morning; it might as well never have happened, I think despondently, as it slides down my face. I stick my desk fan on, hoping to perform some kind of damage control. But what’s the point?! I must look pretty awful once I get to work.

I gulp at the air when aware of the tight feeling across my chest, as if I’d purposefully been holding my breath. I know I never stopped breathing, yet it feels as if I can’t get enough air in! I am careful to try and breathe as quietly as possible, thankful for the fan muffling my laboured breath. Anyone would think I'd done some actual exercise! Yeah right... The shame slaps me across the face.

I feel fat.

Pretty ugly, right? The feelings of self-hatred, shame and frustration that wash over me whenever I experience intense anxiety (or panic attacks, in the worst case) suggest to me that the Fatness Barometer is still hanging around.

So how can I look to move forward and break this?

First, I can acknowledge its existance here and I can acknowledge to myself that certain situations seem to trigger this negative reaction in me. For example, I struggle to disassociate exercise from anxiety; a hang-over from its role in my eating disorder. I notice it most when I am rushing to get to work in the morning. The walk to the tram stop is always rushed and then walking to work, up an incline, brings me out in a fluster that can sometimes lead to a 'mild' kind of panic attack.

Next, I can make myself a promise: I will use the tools that helped me with critical thinking in therapy to stop the fatness barometer from taking readings. Using something called subpersonalities, in therapy-speak, I learnt to seperate myself from the critical voice within. I can then choose how I want to look at things, which allows me to choose the path of least anxiety. I can choose to be realistic; even positive.

Finally, I can remind myself that in my moving forward, I can choose not to participate in anything that is detrimental to my physical and mental health.
I have chosen not to participate in the dieting culture. This has been crucial to moving forward and away from disordered eating. I don't join in with dieting (or diet-based conversations) because I don't believe that my whole worth, as a person, is tied into my body and how I look. I am more than that. The whole concept of 'fatness' is just another way we're pushed into thinking, talking and behaving according to the dieting scene's rules. I don't want a part in it.

You are worth far more, too, than what your "fatness barometer" tells you.

What do you use as your "fatness barometer"? What steps do you take, or think you might take, to break free from it?

Finally Food

As far as moving forward from disordered eating goes, there has to be at least some part of the process that involves dealing with food, my eating and how this impacts my weight. Right?

For me, this whole process thus far has had to focus on the other stuff first. What other stuff?

Well, off the top of my head, this has included things like:

-Getting an idea of why I may have developed a disordered relationship with food in the first place
- Asking for help - and accepting it
- Therapy
- Attending support groups
- Finding the clues that (in retrospect, at least) suggest I have been succeptible to developing an eating disorder
- Looking into my past, at other issues I have had, and working on letting them go
- Re-building friendships and making new ones
- Working on forgiveness (of myself and others) for all kinds of things
- Figuring out (slowly) who I am, now that I'm no longer the person I was before, or during, my eating disorder and accompanying depression
- Learning to take risks, make decisions and get my braves on!

All these things, and many more I'm sure I'll talk about on this blog, have helped to alter my relationship with food in a positive way. I can't quite put my finger on how this has worked, but I can tell you that it is working to improve my issues with food and the impact it has on my weight.

Since taking these non-food related steps forward my weight has stabilised at a little over what I believe my natural, non- eating disordered, weight probably will be. I've been in the same size clothes for around 3 years now. my food fears are at an all-time minimum and I am currently at my closest to having a "normal" relationship with eating in the six years since my eating disorder, as such, began.

I am therefore proving to myself (and others) that even without directly tackling the issues I have with food, moving forward from disordered eating is possible.

Two or more years into my committment to move forward, I feel like I am now only just getting to a place where I can begin to look at the specifics of my eating.

Why now and not then?

There are a couple of reasons why I believe I can now handle this stage of moving forward.

First, I am able to look at what I eat, how and when I eat certain things, without judging myself as a person on my eating. This is a huge thing for me, and for anyone whose worth has essentially been pinned on what they look like and what they put into their body. To not have to feel bad for putting food in my mouth is wonderful! Yet now that I tend not to feel this (though occasionally it does happen), it doesn't feel like such a big deal anymore. It is, and it's a huge step to being able to really look at what's going on in my relationship with food.

Importantly, there's also the fact that I am no longer trapped in the bingeing-dieting cycle. I don't even believe in dieting as a valid lifestyle choice any more. I can think more clearly (because I am not biologically all over the place as a result of some serious self-medication with food) and I no longer fear slipping back into an eating disorder. Don't get me wrong; there are temptations at times and I am not naieve enough to think it an impossibility. I just know that it's not worth it, for me. I have too much to get out of living a life without it, than to go back to not living a life, but being in the grips of an eating disorder.


I am also now at a point where I can begin to entertain the notion of changing the foods I eat and the habits I have around food. I thought that wanting to move forward from my disordered eating was the same thing as changing my relationship with food. I've learnt that it is and it isn't.

When I made the decision to move forward with my life, it definitely included a different way of eating. A happier, more comfortable and relaxed way of eating. I just couldn't do it straight away. My head had to get to a more happy, comfortable and relaxed state first. I had to prove to myself that I could change, by showing myself in other areas of my life, before I could let myself believe that the same was possible for my eating. I think I have enough evidence stashed up to support me in experimenting with changes in my eating.

Stepping away from the evidence-based reasoning as to why I am willing to now look at addressing the food side of my disordered eating past.... Well,it just feels right for me to do this now.


So in answer to the original question at the beginning of this post, moving forward from disordered eating will inevitably involve dealing with food issues. It just might not be as soon as you'd think. And that's okay.

Making a start...

Having spent some time reading other people's blogs, I'm eventually making a start on my own. (Observation: This sentence smacks of listening to other people before making my own decisions, but then that's a whole other topic.)

It seems like I'm making a lot of starts at the moment, so perhaps there is something in the 'spring clean' phenomenon; it seems like I'm spring-cleaning my life. Plus I'm learning a lot about myself, that I was only partially aware of before:

First, there's a new flat on the horizon. I haven't been in my current flat all that long (six months - since the start of my current job), but my flatmate is moving forth with her life and thus me with mine. Realising that I don't enjoy spending much time alone, I've sought out (and found) a place with friendly inhabitants - ones that want to make friends with the people they live with, as opposed to just co-existing.

My current flatmate is really nice; just not there all that often. I thought I'd like a flat to myself, but it hasn't really felt like mine, given that it is full of someone else's things. So it's felt pretty empty, and the time I spend alone in it is mostly time spent very aware of the loneliness.

This seems to 'make space' or 'allow' for fairly regular episodes of binge eating. (I'd say I'm probably classed as someone with binge eating disorder of some type or another, though I'm not that keen on the eating disorder categorisation thing.) Generally, this is where I eat too much comfort food (ironically, creating the most uncomfortable feeling); get some sort of pay-off from feeling full (what I reckon is probably not feeling empty and being aware of my body); and then go to bed feeling a bit rubbish, probably texting the people that love me and worrying them, too.

Lesson 1: Loneliness is not good for me. Spending time with other people is and so that's what I will do.

Secondly, and probably the biggest new start I've made is my pre-and-post Christmas, I've-had-enough-of-this reaching out for help with said binge eating. I didn't always binge; it's a result of a 5 or maybe closer to 6-year relationship with eating problems (to be discussed in other posts). But yeah, I've got to a point where I really do want to change, and feel I'm in the best position to do this.

I have the support of an amazing man; one whom I can't quite believe I deserve to call my boyfriend, but nevertheless, he is and is also my best friend. My family support me and so do a couple of friends whom I am lucky enough to know and have in my life. And a special cat or two who bring warm fuzzles into my life (and occasional bite marks)! Brilliant,eh?

But at the end of the day, it's about me doing this for me; getting to know (and like) myself again; and putting the graft in.

What I've done so far:

• Contacted a local eating disorder group and attended an assessment;
• Been to an eating disorder support group;
• Asked for counselling at work;
• Attended a counselling session (didn't work out - another story(;
• Read three self-help books, all of which have some great suggestions and points I'm trialling every day)
• Kept two diaries: one with general stuff in and one for food and feelings;
• Started ballet;
• Booked myself on a self-esteem, eating-related course;
• Been open about this with the people close to me.

What I plan to do:

• Find the right counsellor for me to support me in making changes;
• Think about going to ask for GP support (fear of doctors generally keeping me from this right now);
• Keep trying to make changes and move forward from this.

Lesson 2: I have made leaps towards changing my relationship with food for the better. I still have a way to go, but this is huge. Kudos to me.

So yeah... big changes happening for me right now. Will keep you posted on how it goes.