running up that hill

firstly, thank you so much to everyone who messaged or commented on my last post. I'm not exaggerating when I say there were times when I was left in tears after the amazing way people reached out to me. I must add a quick caveat - I don't know if I haven't made this clear before in my posts, but I'm in treatment for my eating disorder, I see someone weekly and am monitored, medically speaking. I just wouldn't want to worry anyone or leave them thinking I was alone.

It felt incredibly cathartic to write what I did the other day. while it's frustrating that it not only took the terrible relapse & subsequent hospitalisation last winter, but relapsing again afterwards and losing most of what I'd gained in weight and progress to reach this point, I'm still grateful. this year I've come to terms with how serious my illness is and come out of the denial I was in up until that point. which for me, was always going to have to be the first step.

last night (this morning?) at 3am I did something I've never done before. I felt like I was reaching a point of total frustration and anger with myself and my life. I had changed this, yes. but extremely conditionally. I was gaining weight and telling myself I'd stop at a bmi of 13.5. still binge/purging multiple times a day. not allowing myself to hope for the future. yesterday I watched a video made by a girl who had a severe eating disorder and recently committed suicide (someone friends of mine knew). I was absolutely bawling my eyes out by the end. while its amazing that she was able to get her message out there before her death, the whole situation is so irrevocably tragic. anyone who has lost a friend to this illness recently, I am so sorry and I am thinking of you, however futile that may be.

at 3, after I'd attempting to make myself look a bit more presentable and not tear stained, I went down to the Nightline drop in 5 minutes down the road. it's actually usually a phone in service, but I hate talking on the phone, and I remembered that they let people come in for coffee at all hours of the night, and had a totally random desire to just chat to a normal person for awhile. so I went in, and ended up telling a totally random person from my uni pretty much everything about what's been going on. bizarrely, trying to explain my dilemma to someone totally healthy (and male, to make it stranger!) seemed to be a total lightbulb moment for me. seeing how they reacted to my appearance, my clearly utterly distorted thing and so on was incredibly helpful in showing me what needs to change. I left feeling more hopeful and full of ideas and motivation than I have in months. crazy seeing as I'm totally not lacking in people who DO understand my illness to talk to! but talking to someone who didn't (but really listened and took in my explanations) was so different and surprisingly helpful!

so this is how I ended up sitting in Costa this lunchtime eating a tuna melt panini. which incidentally, I've never had before, randomly enough! I was a very fussy eater as a kid, then I had restrictive anorexia, and nowadays I wouldn't buy something like that even if I wasn't keeping it down cause of the cost, so there are actually quite a few things I haven't ever tried. anyway, even when I've been doing well and gaining weight previously I somehow never would have picked this sort of thing. I automatically went for lower calorie options...maybe a chicken panini or something. I challenged myself on some levels with dense things like PB and fruit juice etc...but the sort of very 'normal' foods like this were way off limits and I'm not sure I even realised it. in any case, I wanted it and after my 3am conversation I realised that if a mentally healthy person was in my position, a small sandwich volume wise packing nearly 500 calories would be exactly what they'd pick. I also have a whole 8 inch (I know, gasp) Pizza Express margherita to eat later tonight (1/2 price in Tesco, UK people :) ). anorexia can fuck off, it's so much easier mentally and physically to eat like a normal person trying to get calories in! I actually wish I'd felt up to increasing today too, but my feet are still horribly swollen and I want to see if the edema will go down a bit first cause I know it'll flare up again when I add in more calories. but, stay tuned for when I do in the next week or so ;)

I'd actually like to start using this blog to narrate what I'm eating daily for awhile, for some kind of accountability to myself. Hope this is ok with everyone :) note that this is about 1500 calories, and please look at it bearing in mind my individual circumstances. obviously generally more is needed to gain, and I will be increasing, but I started from a low intake and a low weight and it is recommended to gain on a lower level for a short amount of time til the body adjusts. anyway. this is me for today, both already eaten and planned...

breakfast: two Oatso Simple sachets (one cinnamon one golden syrup!) with 30g raisins cooked in

lunch: Costa tuna melt panini

dinner: 8 inch Pizza Express Margherita pizza

snack: debating between a bar of Dairy Milk and a blueberry/pistachio Eat Natural bar. will see what I'm craving when the time comes ;)

another annoyance, can't find my camera or I totally would have snapped pics of all of these! but again, coming up...