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starting with breakfast: Fage, Coco Rocks and Fruit Flakes yogurt raisins...yum! actually I'm cheating as this is yesterday's breakfast, today my brother ate my LAST banana before I got up so I had to have 1.5 cups of cereal instead. fail. holidaying with family is such a minefield! they tend to not bring ANY food thinking they'll eat out, then realise that having breakfast out every morning just isn't feasible. in this one aspect I'm more organised than them!
have been struggling a bit and really up and down today (oh fuck I said I hate the word struggling in my last post. oh well.) I seem to go from happy, upbeat and positive about the future to terrified in the course of an hour. when I am not ill there are so many questions - what am I doing with my life? where is this degree taking me? am I actually still vaguely intelligent or did I starve all my brain cells away? will I be ok fitting in with my year at uni when my dropping out means I'm living with a bunch of third years? this almost makes me long for the days when all I worried about was where my food was coming from! key word almost, I think I've walked round enough supermarkets in a starvation induced daze for one lifetime.
don't know if it's related (it probably IS!) but I feel almost totally convinced today that I'm at my first target weight already. reality check Fi - gaining 8lbs in three days is almost certainly NOT possible! I've been looking at facebook pictures of myself at my highest weight for the last half hour. probably a bad idea. I wish I could look at them and think I looked better, happier. but I really don't. I look awkward (I felt it!), uncomfortable (I was), out of touch with my own body (yes!) and to top it all off my face looks totally swollen and you would never believe I was only just over a bmi of 18. ridiculous eating disorder talk really as I can look at the friends next to me at even healthier weights and think they look great. it's NOT a vanity thing. I feel vulnerable writing this thinking 'seriously? you sound like you're just worried about how you look!'...but it's like I said...it's the way I come over in those pictures and how I remember I FELT, more than anything. I know how quickly I always relapsed after those pics were taken, and I know why. learning to deal even at my initial goal weight will be hard, I've never maintained that for more than six months either (I was underweight before my ED), but getting to where I was in those pictures and higher? I believe now that I will. I don't want to just do 'harm reduction but at a higher weight'...let's be honest if that was the goal I'd rather stay as low as possible! but thinking about all of this makes me want to cry. ok I am crying (shut up, I become a human fountain while refeeding. you should have seen me in IP. EVERY meal I tell you! lol). and I feel vulnerable as hell because why should this matter? I never admit that I care about my weight in 'real life'. it's always 'accidental'...I never make an effort, didn't you know!
another probable cause of my random terror - went over to our rented place near uni today, and found a letter addressed to me from the local hospital. asking me to an 'initial assessment' appointment on the 5th October. apparently my GP referred me, so I can get some more support when I'm up there. just the thought of having to explain to a random stranger about everything scares the living daylights out of me. but 1000 times more so when I remember that I WILL (yes, I still will :P) have gained another 8lbs by the time I go to it. I know I will still be fairly underweight, but I don't look it at that point, not after having gained such a lot, especially not to 'normal' people who only notice when you look like a skull! so what, I will have to actually use my words and explain how yes, I was a total wreck at the beginning of this year, that I've come from a place where I was extremely ill, that I am simply 'doing' better now...I am still not ok. I already feel like a fraud talking about the details of my illness NOW when I'm not so grossly emaciated anymore. no doubt this appointment will having me fighting like crazy with thoughts that I am attention seeking and they will secretly write down 'who does she think she's kidding?!'
I want to bash my head into a wall reading this post. I just wish I was more stable mentally and it's incredibly difficult not to pretend that I AM, and write about fun 'normal' things. I definitely could, there is other stuff which goes on in my life, but at the end of the day when I'm alone, this is still there. and it will still be there for months or years to come.
4 comments:
Unless I am very much mistaken you posted a couple of those photos on LB once, right? Well, I didn't see what you see. I actually remember thinking 'whoa eating disorder' at what you said about the photos at the time :P because you just looked like Fiona to me - maybe a healthier version, but not swollen or disproportionate. Lol, I have some photos of myself at last year's highest weight actually - body shots which I took on a day that my IBS was really bad. All through my relapse I kept looking at them and using them as justification for my actions, because I thought I looked so much bigger than everyone else with a similar BMI. But bloating kind of does that :P it doesn't mean I was fat, it just means I had eaten something weird. And ditto you. Yeah, weight restoration does make people a bit of a funny shape for a while sometimes but that doesn't last forever, weight does redistribute itself eventually. And it's nothing that anyone else would notice anyway - it's just that we scrutinise our bodies so we notice every tiny change. Anyone else looking at those photos of you and reading what you think of them would be utterly confused. As they should be, because eating disorders suck like that :P
Also, you will still look underweight in another 8lbs time. But that's beside the point - any EDU which sees your history should automatically offer you support, there's no way they will just see what you look like now and dismiss you. If they are assholes you can always get the prophet of doom to shout at them. Well, he's got to be good for something, right?!
I have written an epic comment, sorry. I just want to give you a hug <3 and don't forget, even though this shit IS going to be stuck in your head for a while yet, the only way of getting rid of it eventually is to fight it and carry on as you are. Giving in might shut it up for a few weeks but in the long term it just prolongs the torture. It's not fair and it sucks, but people do recover and I have never read a book by anyone who said that their major regret was not having an eating disorder anymore. Most things worth require you to fight for them <3
Lol, the start of the last sentence should be most things worth HAVING. Gah, I can't type this time of the morning!
Lovely, I really do understand on so many levels...
Thinking of you xoxox
I find photos are really a tricky business, sometimes I`ll look back at photos and think gosh I looked ok and others I`ll look back and not be happy with what I see. The same applies to when I look in the mirror.
You have to think to yourself logically about it though, you said in those pictures you were a bmi of about 18? That is not big at all, thats just borderline healthy even under it, so really when you look at those pics just remind yourself of that. I know it doesnt quite change things but sometimes I find it helps to think about things logically.
I do the same I look at other people at healthy weights and think they look wonderful, so again I tell myself well if they are that weight and I think they look great then I can be the same to. I hope that makes sense?
The people at your assessment as well will have read your file and they will know your background. They wont just dismiss you off without a thought, that really is your ED fooling you into thinking that you arent worthy of their help or treatment.
The whole process of gaining weight really is a huge struggle, I find it hard to, its not just about gaining the weight its about accepting it and accepting a new weight and new body, getting past the fears that people wont recognise your still hurting inside and that they will automatically assume everythings ok.
You just need to battle on and have faith that as you put on weight you will become mentally stronger to fight back against those thoughts that the ED sends you, they wont disappear but you can be ready for them.
Think of the advantages of getting better, you can stay underweight and ill and miserable or you can give recovery a real good shot, have a chance at your course and a chance to build your life again.
I hope some of that made sense!
xox
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