but who ARE you?
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I really appreciate the support and replies yesterday...especially the teaspoon solidarity! honestly I slid that in there as a slight joke but I have to agree - teaspoons are fantastic :D I also have to quickly apologise, my internet is playing up like nothing else, those of you who blog with Wordpress, I can't even load any pages on it, and even on blogger it doesn't seem like my comments are going through :( so I will be back tomorrow I hope, if it decides to fix itself! Facebook isn't working either so I am feeling rather cut off from the world...slightly bizarre if you think about it!
today was...difficult. I swear this is why I never want to post anything good because invariably I spent the next day in an awful mood. of course, that could also be because I seemingly swing from cheerful to grumpy every 24 hours these days ;)
I suppose you could say I'm having a bit of an identity crisis, as cliched as that may be. since figuring out that I have demolished the illusions I used to have about my eating disorder, and I don't want to BE that person any more, the question is, how can I be anyone else? I can't stop running over and over in my head a conversation I had with a very close friend a couple of years ago. it was in the midst of a relapse, and I was venting my frustration to her about how I hated having everyone associate me with anorexia, almost having it tag along as my invisible shadow. I said 'really, deep down, that's not who I AM...it's just a thing which keeps following me'. and her response was (paraphrased!) 'somehow it is though. it's just part of YOU, I can't imagine you being any other way'. over the years I've been told by many people that they can't imagine me at a normal weight, or without the little idiosyncracies that come with my eating disorder. of course I don't blame them at all...mostly I think they were trying to make me feel better actually!
anyway, I suppose there's a minor issue of vanity here. if I, and everyone else, has been looking at a low weight version of me for years, do I even have the 'potential' to look normal at my target weight? sorry that sounds quite bizarre, it may only make sense in my head! but it confuses me a lot. far beyond the issue of looks though, is what it all represents for myself and my personality. as Katie has wisely said many times, when you become anorexic you aren't just a thinner version of yourself, your entire personality shifts. of course I have noticed this to a greater degree when my weight has dropped especially low, but now that I'm aiming to maintain a weight high enough for my brain and body to be FULLY functional for more than about five minutes, the question arises will it change me? my early childhood wasn't the happiest as far as I can remember...I was accelerated by a year and felt out of place among my peers, with a couple of friends but mainly disliked, inevitably due to being annoyingly precocious and involved in just about everything - extra work, reading, chess, programmes for gifted children, swimming...ok I will stop before I get tired just thinking about it! in any case I was unhappy at school and unhappy at home...old sad story. but I know that during my adolescence I've been sociable, fairly popular, cheerful in company, still a bit of an annoying overachiever but also a troublemaker and more 'well balanced' shall we say? the fear now I suppose is, will I lose my spark and become shy if I'm not hiding behind the false confidence of being underweight? will I become less focussed and determined...is that a symptom of the disorder? thinking about my two short forays out of diagnostically anorexic territory doesn't help either...my commitment to recovery was so tenuous that by that point my chaotic and overwhelming emotions and the build up to the inevitable relapse eclipsed any glimpse I might have had at how it 'changed' me. of course, I shouldn't necessarily assume that any changes will be negative ones! but when facing something you fear terribly it is rather the default setting!
I've slightly emotionally exhausted myself writing about all this, but at least it provides some distraction from the mundane and annoying recovery related stresses which have been driving me up the wall today. so it seems I need to be eating more. and my body is telling me this in a very emphatic and pushy way...I was out today and had to be TOLD that I was pale as a ghost and shaking, apparently it was time to inhale yet another large serving of food. I don't really have a problem with it in theory, but all day I've been panicking that eating this much will push out the sensible side of my brain and allow me to convince myself that I am 'overeating' or some such rubbish. I am very good at 'warning' myself that it wouldn't be healthy to start gaining too much weight...insert eyeroll here. I'm sure I will handle it though, but I am having a temporary attack of nerves! in fact right now my feet are getting cold...sigh. it never ends!
just before I blogged I remembered to take a pic...I must eat some of the weirdest cereal mixtures ever!
chocolate & dried pineapple? yes! I think anyway ;) also, how weird does my tea look? I'm having to drink Ceylon tea cause we've run out of coffee...not good, not good at all!
back tomorrow with more sense I hope?
today was...difficult. I swear this is why I never want to post anything good because invariably I spent the next day in an awful mood. of course, that could also be because I seemingly swing from cheerful to grumpy every 24 hours these days ;)
I suppose you could say I'm having a bit of an identity crisis, as cliched as that may be. since figuring out that I have demolished the illusions I used to have about my eating disorder, and I don't want to BE that person any more, the question is, how can I be anyone else? I can't stop running over and over in my head a conversation I had with a very close friend a couple of years ago. it was in the midst of a relapse, and I was venting my frustration to her about how I hated having everyone associate me with anorexia, almost having it tag along as my invisible shadow. I said 'really, deep down, that's not who I AM...it's just a thing which keeps following me'. and her response was (paraphrased!) 'somehow it is though. it's just part of YOU, I can't imagine you being any other way'. over the years I've been told by many people that they can't imagine me at a normal weight, or without the little idiosyncracies that come with my eating disorder. of course I don't blame them at all...mostly I think they were trying to make me feel better actually!
anyway, I suppose there's a minor issue of vanity here. if I, and everyone else, has been looking at a low weight version of me for years, do I even have the 'potential' to look normal at my target weight? sorry that sounds quite bizarre, it may only make sense in my head! but it confuses me a lot. far beyond the issue of looks though, is what it all represents for myself and my personality. as Katie has wisely said many times, when you become anorexic you aren't just a thinner version of yourself, your entire personality shifts. of course I have noticed this to a greater degree when my weight has dropped especially low, but now that I'm aiming to maintain a weight high enough for my brain and body to be FULLY functional for more than about five minutes, the question arises will it change me? my early childhood wasn't the happiest as far as I can remember...I was accelerated by a year and felt out of place among my peers, with a couple of friends but mainly disliked, inevitably due to being annoyingly precocious and involved in just about everything - extra work, reading, chess, programmes for gifted children, swimming...ok I will stop before I get tired just thinking about it! in any case I was unhappy at school and unhappy at home...old sad story. but I know that during my adolescence I've been sociable, fairly popular, cheerful in company, still a bit of an annoying overachiever but also a troublemaker and more 'well balanced' shall we say? the fear now I suppose is, will I lose my spark and become shy if I'm not hiding behind the false confidence of being underweight? will I become less focussed and determined...is that a symptom of the disorder? thinking about my two short forays out of diagnostically anorexic territory doesn't help either...my commitment to recovery was so tenuous that by that point my chaotic and overwhelming emotions and the build up to the inevitable relapse eclipsed any glimpse I might have had at how it 'changed' me. of course, I shouldn't necessarily assume that any changes will be negative ones! but when facing something you fear terribly it is rather the default setting!
I've slightly emotionally exhausted myself writing about all this, but at least it provides some distraction from the mundane and annoying recovery related stresses which have been driving me up the wall today. so it seems I need to be eating more. and my body is telling me this in a very emphatic and pushy way...I was out today and had to be TOLD that I was pale as a ghost and shaking, apparently it was time to inhale yet another large serving of food. I don't really have a problem with it in theory, but all day I've been panicking that eating this much will push out the sensible side of my brain and allow me to convince myself that I am 'overeating' or some such rubbish. I am very good at 'warning' myself that it wouldn't be healthy to start gaining too much weight...insert eyeroll here. I'm sure I will handle it though, but I am having a temporary attack of nerves! in fact right now my feet are getting cold...sigh. it never ends!
just before I blogged I remembered to take a pic...I must eat some of the weirdest cereal mixtures ever!
chocolate & dried pineapple? yes! I think anyway ;) also, how weird does my tea look? I'm having to drink Ceylon tea cause we've run out of coffee...not good, not good at all!
back tomorrow with more sense I hope?
5 comments:
Can i tell you how many times i have thought about this SAME topic in the past three days? It's been really irritating and scary at the same time since im worried I dont even know anymore. I actually have a post about it and mentioned you, hope you dont mind.
Check it out - www.manorexianerbrosa.wordpress.com
Hey lovely,
*hugs*
I recognise that what you're writing are just thoughts and feelings and now how you might feel tomorrow or the next day and that's totally fine!
I just wanted to give my two cents (because that is what I do!)... I know you're thinking and considering what your personality might be like, how it might change, where it might not etc... as I was reading I was thinking...that its not about what your personality will or won't be like, but rather that YOU will have WAAAAYYYY more control over forming and developing it! The thing with eds is that it tends towards certain characteristics due to a lack of food (or unstable use of food and thus brain biochemistry)... so there is less control over ones personality... but when you're moving back to normal weight and more stable brain biochem, you, Fi, are gonna have more control over where you want to work on aspects of your personality that you want to develop or change, continue to strengthen or face and go, "Eww! Gotta change THAT characteristic!" But you'll be ABLE to do that...
Make sense??
What occurs at normal weight isn't fixed :)
Love you miss!
I definitely wouldn't define listening to your body in that way as overeating: if anything, it's a step towards being truly intuitive.
From both of your last posts I get the sense of so many other aspects of your personality besides being anorexic ~ it doesn't define you on the blog and I'm sure it doesn't in 'real' life. You're able to get up to all kinds of shenanigans with your friends (lol) and they obviously value you for your many great qualities, some of which you have already identified yourself. Intelligence, talent and a dynamic personality have nothing to do with EDs.
In relation to people questioning your recovery, they can, quite frankly, stick it where the sun don't shine (couldn't put it politely, sorry!) You know where you are and what it takes to get you where you want to be. Rapid weight gain without sorting the psychologial issues gradually only gets people to where I am now: at a healthy weight but still royally screwed up about food and eating. Too many people put too much emphasis on the 'gain weight as quickly as possible and then you're fine' approach. Being 'recovered' doesn't mean being the one who puts on the most weight in the shortest amount of time, though obviously it is ultimately necessary. No-one else has any right to judge you: they can't see into your mind and only base their views on a very narrow impression on the person they're vilifying.
Good for you for sticking to your guns!
<3
*oh, and I can totally relate to the swinging from positive to severly depressed every 24 hours...hopefully that means today may be a good one?*
Identity crises are the new in thing with the blogosphere :P all the cool kids are doing it!
Aw Fi. I understand where you're coming from, it's scary moving away from something that has been such a big part of your life for so long. I don't think you are going to lose anything positive though. Your anorexia and the relapses always started when you were depressed and people who are depressed tend to lose their 'spark', but people who are physically and mentally healthy don't. Your friends will still accept you if you change, especially if that change means that you are healthier (and hopefully happier, in a genuine rather than just not-feeling-anything sense). And you will make new friends at uni too, who will hopefully only see the healthier version of you, so that will be the new norm. You won't be cold or tired or distracted by thinking about food, you will just be Fi. Maybe that's scary too, because most people work out who they are when they are teenagers and that doesn't tend to happen if you're ill, but I think I've seen enough just-Fi to work out that she's pretty cool :P
I have no idea if any of that made sense. You know I mean well though! <3
so true that ED causes a shift in your personality !
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