running up that hill

so, I can say with absolute certainty that the past week has been the hardest in my recovery so far. harder than starting to gain, harder than eating KFC, definitely harder than anything I ever thought I would be able to come out the other side of.
the bright side is - I did! and I am doing great now. just thought I would slide that in before I narrated the doom & gloom of the whole thing.

part A of the week from hell came in the form of my weekly appointment. before I went, I was mainly worried about the weigh-in, cause I was on my period (tmi? sorry!) and I usually gain about a kilo in fluid retention. so my weight was up significantly more than would be expected, and even though I knew it probably wasn't 'real', especially cause of being around the 'magic' (or not) bmi 15 mark I found it incredibly difficult to rationalise. the main trigger was unexpected though. my therapist asked me when I am planning to stop gaining, and I told him that I want to get to a healthy weight. cue a comment along the lines of 'well, there's a healthy range, but you have to consider that for YOU, healthy might be more like a bmi of 16 or 17'. ARGH this ridiculous 'chronic' 'you can't cope with recovery' attitude again which drives me totally mental. not only that but the suggestion that MY healthy weight might be so low was incredibly triggering. I believed this for years, and to some extent still do suspect that my set point is low...without giving exact numbers, my mum's bmi is under 20, and up until I got anorexia I was always 'under' on the growth charts (not bmi, I know that doesn't apply under 18). anyway, not the point, because I have only recently come to realise that even if my set point were 'underweight' I would need to get within the healthy range to really ensure recovery from anorexia (well, clearly, how can you recover from a disorder characterised by fear of a healthy weight if you're not there :P ). to be honest I think it's worth it to avoid going back to where I was in January. SO, having my therapist voice my exact old EDd thoughts which I've only challenged really recently was incredibly hard. not to mention that this discussion went on to involve him saying that even a minimally healthy weight would be 'unrealistic' and a bmi of 20 or 21 just laughable. yeah, I wasn't really laughing.

so after that utter debacle, a total mixup of my seminars on the following day, which led to me having to prepare three topics in 24 hours through no fault of my own really pushed me over the edge. I never intended to revert to my eating disorder, but after purging several times over the next couple of days and not managing to 'replace' the calories in time, I ended up at about 2400 on each day. now, in my mindset at the time, this wasn't disastrous, because I was having such a stressful crappy time and thinking 'well, who cares if I just gain a big slower, lots of people gain on less than I am'. lesson one - do not compare. lesson two - do not fuck with your body or it will fuck with you. consequences of going down 600 cals those two days - I was exhausted, out of it, consumed with ED thoughts, hating my body, scared about food, feeling powerless...ok you get the picture. I also got some rather spectacular swelling in my fingers when I increased again, so if that won't teach me, what will eh? thanks to coming to my senses, and the helpful presence of Katie on MSN when I was trying not to purge one evening, I made sure my slip only lasted two days :D sure, it's annoying that it happened at all! but heck, I'm human, and that really was a week from hell, not an excuse. and secondly, I learned LOADS from this. so, silver lining!

I also have some 'mood pictures' from when I was feeling a bit silly and playful...



grumpy face! made with mini wholemeal stottie, fried egg, bacon & asparagus :)



and smiley face! toast with dijon & chicken, toast with philadelphia, fluff & carob raisins (don't judge til you've tried!) and a kaya bun (Chinese supermarkets are amazing)

more food. oh btw just for reference, most lunches and dinners pictured also have desserts or chocolate ;) but I dont tend to eat them off the same plate, of course.



Gregg's chicken tikka baguette. quick convenient lunch :)



huge bowl (read: a double serving pot) parsnip soup, new potato & rosemary bakery bread w/ butter, chicken. dinner tonight made up of fun things I bought while out with one of my friends today.



finally, pancake picture! this was actually when I had them randomly as a snack, that's far too little for breakfast :P but anyway. american style with micro-ed strawberries (thank you blogging for this idea!) and strawberry marshmallow fluff.



cheese/ham kiev, potato/caramelized onion rosti, mixed veg w/ minted butter (oh and mustard of course, how could I live without it?)

ok enough for now! I want to come back and write more about my day out today cause it was immense, but will leave it for the moment as this is getting long. happy Saturday everyone :)

this may be a short interlude again, I've written 800 words of essay number two, so going well, but I'm also pretty tired ;)

firstly, have been SO snap happy the past few days. theme of my photos is, you know you're in recovery when...

...you're up at 7.30 filling the house with the smell of streaky bacon being cooked within an inch of its life (sorry housemates!)



I'm being Northern, ate the bacon on a mini wholemeal stottie, cherry tomatoes and a slice of toast with my usual philadelphia & honey on the side.

you have to pile your food a bit to fit it on the plate, and that's not because you have so many vegetables OR cause you're using a kiddie plate ;)



two mushroom/cheese/veggie crispbakes fried in olive oil, double serving mash, asparagus

your evening snack is effectively what you used to eat in a day, but with about 4 different high calorie add ons making it multiple times the original amount...



greek yogurt, Grape Nuts, 'raisin rebels' (chocolate, caramel & yogurt coatings), fruit yogurt raisins, chopped dates, candied melon

...you realise that it IS possible to make tofu taste as good as it does in restaurants, you just have to marinade it (soy & honey) and fry it in olive oil.



tofu, chinese steamed buns with chicken & shiitake mushroom filling, stir fried veg

and I so WISH I could say 'you know you're in recovery when you're warm all the time'...but no. guess why?



it's snowing AGAIN. and with the limited heating, this house is really not very warm. in fact I'm wearing about four layers plus my fleece blanket right now. all I can say is, good job I'm eating! strangely, I'm still getting what I think are actually worse night sweats even in this weather...weird.

I'm experimenting with a few things right now, mainly about being less rigid over counting and measuring food. and no, trust me, this is NOT a grand scheme to eat less ;) I am just bored of the amount of headspace it takes up getting calorie counts 'just right' and so on. so, I've been estimating and going by what I think is right, then adding up in the evening, but while I still have time to make it up if there's a deficit. which I haven't had to do so far so that must be a good sign! I'm also generally forcing myself not to care about the little things, like the exact weight of something (I don't let myself weigh anything obsessive, but I do weigh cheese, cereal, dried fruit and dry carbs), letting my housemates try something of mine or trying something of theirs, and so on. no lie, if I'm alone I am regularly found whispering little admonishments at myself...the funniest one is a quick 'oh fuck off' when I find myself itching to take out an extra 3g of cereal off the scale ;) but crossed fingers it hasn't caused me any more hassle than that thus far.

hopefully I will be able to blog about something more interesting in the near future! in any case I am still reading but I'm sorry that my commenting is pretty slack :( blame Luther (current essay topic!)
x

which is exactly why I probably shouldn't be writing this post right now! but never mind, I'll consider it light relief. I have six due in the next three weeks, totalling 12,000 words, so there may not be huge or particularly deep posts coming from me in that time ;)

on the other hand, pictures I can do!



typical breakfast and/or snack...observe the skill of fitting anywhere from 400-600 calories into a bowl of yogurt! this one includes greek yogurt (I use Total), Grape Nuts cereal, dried cherries and white choc chip mix, blueberry yogurt raisins, banana and candied melon. making interesting mixtures with these is always fun and colourful!



'new' food number 1 of the week. it's amazing how many foods I'm coming to realise were 'off limits' until now without me even knowing it! I probably have something that I haven't kept down before and kind of intimidates me every couple of days, but I still have a seemingly endless list!



another one...spiced fruit english muffin with butter and philadelphia/honey (it was the melted butter that was the issue lol...so good though)



lunch today - egg mayo/ham sub roll, asparagus, strawberry trifle. do note that's a pretty small lunch for me :P tis cause I had a big breakfast today ;)

so speaking of breakfasts...why was mine big? yeah pancake day you guessed it! I couldn't take pictures cause I made them with my housemate :( but they were amazing! we used 'add water and shake' mixture cause we were lazy, and made american pancakes! I had two big ones with strawberry marshmallow fluff and a banana, plus tofu scramble as well. best breakfast ever...I actually want to make more soon even if it isn't pancake day, just cause they're fun!

oh aside from food I do have another interesting picture! someone sent me an anonymous Valentine's card...



see initially I assumed this was my dad, cause I couldn't think of any potential suitors and he's just the sort of practical joker who would do that! but the postmark is Tyneside, which is 5 hours away from my parent's home, even he wouldn't go that far for a prank! so basically, I am stumped, but it was a fun surprise!

generally I'm doing really good and feeling positive, aside from the essay crisis anyway! the only thing which is driving me insane is that the dreaded 'stomach eating itself 24/7' hunger seems to have returned with a vengeance just to spite me! there isn't much to do about it I guess so am just kind of riding it out, and seriously hoping that once my weight is a bit better my body will realise I'm not about to starve it again any time soon. I missed my appointment today cause of the essay crisis so I don't know my weight, but I am guessing it is around the point I was when I self-discharged from inpatient last year, so I should be into a more stable if still underweight stage soon, hopefully that will help. crossed fingers ;)

hopefully I will take breaks from the endless essaying to update soon, but if not don't worry, I am alive, if buried under a pile of books in the library :)

you've guessed it - I have a camera!

fairly boring photos as of yet but await more :) I went out to a retail park with my friend today, we were going to see Avatar but decided that 2 1/2 hours was just WAY too long and we'd rather mess around and go shopping.

first up, lunch...naturally I have photos :P tis stuff we got from M&S taken into Costa.



feta & sundried tomato pasta salad, soy vanilla latte



and chocolate covered Oreos :) found in a shop in Brighton last weekend. apparently Sainsburys have stopped selling the white chocolate ones though which saddens me immensely...

also went to Miss Selfridge/Topshop, and this isn't my picture, but I am totally lusting after this dress and am plotting to buy it when I can fit a decent size :) (and hopefully the weather is slightly warmer so it can actually be worn without jeans etc!)

spent the afternoon after that doing more shopping, then home to my friend's place & we spent about a bajillion hours just chatting away and not noticing the time as we always seem to do. I came home to find my house packed...one of my housemates has her boyfriend here and the others have a guest too! s'alright though :)



half eaten dinner ;) what, I was hungry! it WAS a chicken kiev, a double serving of mashed potato (yes with wholegrain mustard mixed in, don't judge!) and veg.



also this: toffee meringue. had the other one as part of my afternoon snack, oops at the eating both M&S desserts in one day! but only cost £1.19 so not as bad as it could be!

speaking of M&S, check my food cupboard/fridge stuff. I was seriously impressed with myself, managed to get loads of stuff for only £20 using offers/deals and so on. basically got most of the weeks food and only need boring stuff like bread & bananas now!



k that's the bottom shelf of my cupboard. stuff you can see - cafetiere coffee (my friend bought me one for Xmas. I'm spoiled, what can I say!), chopped dates, all butter sultana biscuits, 2 vanilla fondant eggs, candied melon, dark chocolate spread, agave, French dressing, tuna, manuka honey (yeah my dad bought me that, too. don't think he looked at the price tag first!), pear cider (wouldn't be a student cupboard without it), mini granola pot, soup, strawberry marshmallow fluff. there wer LOADS more bars and stuff in there after my weekend but I've actually managed to eat a very large proportion of them! still have some mini Nakd ones but you can't see 'em.



fridge stuff - the art of deals from M&S. and yes, totally aware that they aren't really 'deals' in comparison to if you made the stuff yourself. darn my laziness! but still, cool that you can get stuff without paying much more than in Tesco etc. in the pic - 3 for £5 potatoes and veg, crispy potato skins, caramelized onion rosti (underneath) and veg with minted butter. butter on your veg is clearly the only way forward on a weight gain diet! also Chinese deal, chicken/mushroom/rice and siu mai prawn dumplings. also got a prawn noodle bowl thing like the first one for my housemate, think we're gonna have fake 'Chinese takeaway' night tomorrow! oh and goat's cheese, which I am obsessed with and will probably bankrupt me cause it was NOT on offer :(



other random fun purchases - mini syrup bottles from Costa! excited to make my own pretentious coffee drinks. (I just admitted to this AND owning a cafetiere in a student house? facepalm...)



freshly baked poppy seed bread I got this morning, obsessed. seriously, everyone should try this, preferably white flour lol, so much better in this form. not as scary as it seems either, I just cut it up and weighed the pieces ;) had it for breakfast and evening snack, and will totally eat the rest for breakfast tomorrow.

ok I have some photos of me now. so, I'm going to scroll a bit, and please don't look at them if you find photos triggering. to be honest they are like the anti-trigger to me, but I know these things affect people differently...










ok :) these first ones were taken on January 4th. I believe it was the day before I started increasing and gaining weight, although my memory is a little hazy. yeah so basically they are at the lowest weight I was this year, and only 4lbs above my lowest in my last relapse. I think it was also either the day after or a couple of days after I suspect I had a minor heart attack cause of low potassium. just looking at them now...well, I don't know. it's quite horrifying to be honest, looking over them before posting made me shiver. I remember looking at them at the time and thinking that it could be worse. I'd decided I wasn't going to let anyone section me unless I weighed about 9lbs less, and looking at the photos I thought that was totally feasible and I'd be fine. er. scares me now. anyway, I've rambled enough. please no one blackmail me with these cause I know I look ugly as HELL...that's kind of the point of posting them :P



excellent side effects of emaciation - square face, dead eyes, looking like Count Dracula, lanugo on my FACE (ew), utter inability to realise how ridiculous I looked.

ok, and you knew there had to be a positive spin to this :) photos now!
let's be upfront about it - I am still very underweight. in the six weeks since that first one was taken I've gained probably 12lbs, and have a lot more to go. BUT, I think the ones I took today just look SO much less depressing! sure, I don't look healthy...but I look like someone who has hope, and a fighting chance at getting healthy :)



I'm sorry that I don't have the time to write more at the moment (I'm really busy with a really boring essay), but hey I think this post is probably long enough with all those snaps! I will be back in due course though :)

sharing my current 'song on repeat' again :)

Something Corporate - Watch the Sky

I'm lost at sea,
The radio is jamming but they wont find me,
I swear its for the best
And then your frequency is pulling me in closer
Til I'm home.

And I've been up for days
I finally lost my mind
And then I lost my way.
I'm blistered but I'm better and I'm home.

And I will crawl, theres things that aren't worth giving up I know.
But I won't let this get me I will fight.
You live the life you're given with the storms outside somedays all I do is watch the sky.

This room's too small, it's only getting smaller
I'm against the wall, I'm slowly getting taller here in Wonderland.
This guilt feels so familiar and I'm home.

And I will crawl, theres things that aren't worth giving up I know.
But I won't let this get me I will fight.
You live the life you're given with the storms outside somedays all I do is watch the sky,
Somedays all I do is watch the sky.

So I am feeling a little deflated today. Not in a terrible way, strangely it is sort of a relief to have had a day where I HAVE struggled, but I've dealt with it and come out feeling ok, rather than things being almost scarily uncomplicated.

Firstly, I think I'm probably totally sleep deprived! I don't seem to have caught up from this weekend, cause my body is apparently in a 'wow shock horror, what to do with all these nutrients/calories, better stay permanently awake and not miss any chances at getting more!' mode. While at the start of my illness the 5ish hours of sleep I'm getting would have been standard or even good, because of restricting leading to waking really early, I tended to get more like a decent 8 hours in the past few years, I guess cause purging a lot exhausts your body when you're already ill? so it's kind of irritating me :P also my increase last week did help with the incessant hunger throughout the day, but mornings are still really difficult. yesterday I had to grab a bar from the kitchen and sit down quickly to eat it before I made the rest of my breakfast, cause I couldn't stand up for long enough to prepare anything more complicated! amusing later on, but I was annoyed at the time! it is dawning on me now what a difficult and fraught task I took on deciding to refeed as an outpatient from such a low weight. obviously when I was so into the illness I didn't have perspective on how ill I WAS, so it didn't really come into consideration. but having gone through a rollercoaster ride of bizarre physical and mental symptoms in the past five weeks I am a) considering myself very lucky to have made it through the most hazardous part mainly trouble free and b) glad to be getting towards a 'safer' weight so hopefully some things will settle down! in any case I think the physical stuff is messing with me too, cause sleep deprivation and irregular mealtimes have made me feel physically quite off lately. unfortunately my plan to get back to really strict times didn't work this week cause of uni commitments which has been a bit frustrating. it IS good practice to learn to deal with things and switch them around though, for example having something small as an extra snack to eat if I can't get home for a meal and I'm getting dizzy and horrible. while I am balancing out and generally at the same calorie goal every day, I'm glad to be able to work on flexibility, and in fact, not worrying about being say, 50 calories over one day and 50 under the next.

second new thing for today has been starting to put my 'plans' for dealing with weight gain and body image into action. I actually started to come up with some of this in my head last week, but today has been the first time I've really struggled with it to an intrusive extent. now, this stuff may not work for everyone and some of it is actually quite counterintuitive! but, I know what HASN'T worked for me in the past. previously, when gaining weight and particularly at my highest weights, I would avoid addressing body image to some extent. at my highest, I wouldn't open my eyes in the shower or when changing...I never looked at my body, wore hugely baggy clothes, and sometimes wouldn't go out or socialise because of it. now I'm not a subscriber to the view that anorexics quite literally see a 'heavier' image in the mirror. I'm pretty sure that if I had actually forced myself to get used to my body, I could have adjusted to the weight gain. sure, there is an element of comparison and as I was at a highER weight for me it would still have been hard. but no one actually looks fat while still underweight, and I think I was actually barring myself from any chance at realising that by refusing to look at my body and being guided by my preconception that I 'should' look fat at that weight. additionally, it's actually quite difficult for me to even write this, use the 'fat' word (lol) and admit that I did such bizarre things as refusing to even look at my own body. I think to some degree it feels shallow, and also to be honest I feel like a bit of a jerk saying that I have such twisted perspectives on what is a 'comfortable' weight for me (aka emaciated) and what is 'far too high' (nothing of the sort).

anyway. my tactic now is to totally reverse everything I did back then. while it feels embarrassing to me, my judgements about my weight are a) symptoms and b) a reaction to being 'accustomed' to being very underweight. nothing more. so, at the moment I am forcing myself to 'watch myself' gain the weight, wear decently well fitted clothes, and hopefully get used to my body as I go along. I won't lie, it's not comfortable. and I think it's particularly difficult at the moment cause I'm getting close to a weight which I've found it very hard to be over in the last couple of years. but, I do think it is working. this evening I feel a lot more at peace with everything than I did even 12 hours ago I think.

what's ironic is that at my appointment yesterday I was actually utterly shocked at my weigh in! I had gained 2lbs, but after the first week of increasing to 3000 I had expected a really big jump, and I actually blurted out 'oh my gosh!' when I got on the scale! it makes me laugh that my reaction is so totally reversed from what's expected...there have certainly been times when a 2lb gain in a week would have totally send me into a tailspin. however, at the moment every week I seem to expect to gain more than I do, and it is teaching me that my 'expectations' about what a certain amount or type of food will do to my weight are very out of whack. it was also nice again to 'shock' my therapist with my progress, and apparently soon I should be able to be taken off the 'high risk group' for the eating disorders service in my area. the CBT stuff is going well, this week I did a 'pros and cons' list for staying eating disordered (expect there were no cons....oops. I felt silly writing them cause they were so, well, disordered?) I should have kept a copy so I could type it up here, but I'm supposed to be writing a letter from myself in 5 years both recovered and still ill this week, so I will post those when I get around to them.

I've got some fun plans for the next few days :D tomorrow is loads of uni stuff and a seminar on sport in interwar Britain (I know, just why?) but Friday we are doing Dominos night as a house, Saturday planning to go and see Avatar with a friend, aaaand next Tuesday is pancake day! if anyone wants to join me in having pancakes for breakfast that'd be immense :D I am really excited about enjoying a 'food relating socialising opportunity' like this with my housemates without my goddamn eating disorder screwing everything up!

sorry for the long hiatus everyone :)
I'm so tired and overwhelmed by my weekend back at home that I almost don't know where to start! but I will try the beginning...

I had driven back on Friday, arriving in the evening, and early Saturday morning I went to Brighton with my family, because my 9 year old brother was looking round Brighton College. Embarrassing moment number one of the day - the head asked whether it was ME or my brother who was looking round?! Er, that would make me 16...I am 21...not impressed! I made a swift exit half an hour later (not cause of the that comment really, I get it a lot, twas just funny. I was bored though) and walked into town. I went to boarding school in Brighton age 15-18 so I know the city really well and it's one of my favourite places. First I went to the Lanes (loads of amazing quirky little shops) and bought a birthday present for my friend, plus some more random browsing. I also found an awesome organic supermarket and bought some things I haven't seen before. I got a 'raw organic food bar' purely because I've never eaten anything raw before (well obv I have, but you get what I mean right?) and I was curious. I had it with a chicken salad from Pret for my lunch, and it was actually a lot better than I expected! Hehe I am very cynical about this sort of thing, but it tasted fine. Wouldn't pay £1.39 again though! I did loads more browsing around the centre of Brighton before I went to meet my family at the pier and play silly slot machine games with my brother. Later on we drove round loads of residential areas in Brighton cause my parents are thinking of moving there if my brother does end up picking Brighton College...SO excited for this prospect!

Saturday evening was my friend's birthday, hence the present buying :) we went to a karaoke place in London which was fantastic! I've only done karaoke once before, and that was on holiday in Hong Kong, I had never thought of doing it here. So much fun though. and trust me, I really can't sing. but still so amusing, I'm so glad I came down for it!

see after the driving and all this fun on Saturday I was really tired and could have murdered a lie-in, but first my dad offered to take me to M&S and buy me food (er, who would refuse?!) and then I decided that I would definitely regret it if I didn't go back into London during the day and do some shopping! the Circle line was down which was incredibly annoying, and meant I didn't get anywhere until 2.30! but hey, I had Wholefoods lunch. totally made up for it. I also bought SO much stuff, will detail and probably take a pic when I have a new charger (next part of the saga, mine is lost, so I have to fork out for another :( ). did loads of random wandering round London too, it felt really good to be back. I like Durham but it is kiiind of a backwater!

in any case, I just...don't actually think I have words to express how amazing I've felt this weekend. I can't believe I didn't know it was possible to feel this good mentally and physically. since I increased to 3000 calories it's been a total eye-opener...my anxiety has decreased massively and the nature/intensity of my ED thoughts has been totally different. I used to get so angry and frustrated with myself when I was really ill and I read about other awesome bloggers who I may or may not admire greatly being able to ignore the thoughts and make the right choices in spite of them. at that time it felt to me like the eating disorder was literally screaming and drowning everything else out, and often I doubted there was even anything else of me LEFT. but recently...I don't know, it feels like an echo...a little flea in the back of my head periodically making last ditch pathetic attempts to influence me, which I generally laugh at. as I haven't 'worked on' this at all, and my weight is still very low, I can only assume it's a nutritional thing? which a) is awesome and I am loving it, and b) damn why didn't I realise this before! it does make me very very wary and paranoid about skipping or accidentally falling short on anything food wise though, because I'm pretty sure that if I were even on a maintenance diet at this weight things would be right back to where they started. probably a good thing though, a little paranoia about the right things never hurt anyone ;)

in any case, I definitely took advantage of my newfound freedom in terms of food choices this weekend. 'stuff which I never thought I'd keep down' included...
~ pastry (a veggie/cheese pie one night and goats cheese tart the next)
~ chocolate samples in Montezuma's aka best chocolate shop ever
~ cheese & crackers
~ chocolate spread
~ fast food! (on the drive back today...had a KFC toasted twister and BK fries for lunch. KFC fries suck...at least my illness taught me one thing! this was so unbelievable I think I was in shock. since I was 14 I've kept down fast food once, and then it was just fries and I blatantly restricted like crazy afterwards. unfortunately I should have realised that this would mean it would kiiind of mess with my stomach! oh well)
~ brownie sundae which I got from Whole Foods. possibly the scariest one and hardest to sit with. especially as it just got WAY too sickly halfway through and didn't feel worth it. but the victory was worth it :P
~ Krispy Kreme doughnut this afternoon

k think that's it! again, I think I am possibly a little overexcited by the fact that I feel so 'free' and liberated to eat whatever I feel like. I'm sure it will calm down given time though! I keep cycling between craving fast food/high fat/dessert type things and wanting loads of fruit & veggies! I guess my body is confused...

I just dont know what else to write right now. I am still so happy and overwhelmed. obviously I am early on in this journey but I feel SO capable for the first time in years, and trusting in my own judgement. the only thing intruding on my happiness is the worry of 'why me, why now' and 'will it last?'. I intend to make it last though :)

more music :)

I have an odd feeling that I will remember today for a long time, whatever happens going onwards from here.

First thing: I increased my calories to 3000 today. Honestly, I actually decided to do it this morning before breakfast! I'd toyed with the idea since I realised that almost a week had gone by and I'd only gained 1/2 a lb, plus I was getting hungry to a really unpleasant degree. I also ended up binge/purging the other night, and I'm almost certain the trigger was hunger. I'd already made peace with the fact that I wouldn't stop cold turkey, but it seemed unnecessary and annoyed me. My thought process this morning went like this...sure I could leave it, keep gaining 1/2 or 1lb a week and wait. But with the amount of weight I have to restore it seems likely that I won't get the whole way on 2500, especially as I only gained about 4kg on that much last time at home before it slowed to a halt. So I just decided to take the leap, as I figured if I were less hungry it would probably help things mentally and also with the b/ping, plus the art of fitting 3000 calories into a busy day is an excellent way to challenge your eating disorder ;)

So yep, it actually went really well. I don't feel too full or anything actually, although having eaten 2 chocolate bars and lots of other 'dense' things may have helped. I'm really glad I took this step :) it could just be a placebo effect but I also feel a lot calmer mentally. I know I'll probably have another big weight jump at the end of the week but that's ok too. to be quite honest, as un-anorexic as it may sound, I've spent too long in horrible places weight wise and I want out, asap.

I also went out for the meal at ASK with my housemate :D this is the other main part of the day that made me feel I'll remember it. she ordered the classic burger, and I got the chicken one, which was a pan fried chicken breast on ciabatta with salad and pesto mayo, and a big bowl of chips which I ate with tonnes of ketchup. I went to the bathroom after we paid the bill and looked at myself in the mirror. just cause. it was so trippy to see ME staring back, with my size 6 skinny jeans on and the ugly angular jawbones which I detest (none of the weight gain seems to have gone to my face yet? grrr!). to know that it was me who just did that. talk about feeling disconnected from reality! but in a good way, I think!

I've been sitting here thinking for the past hour about what changed. why I've been able to do the things I have in the past few weeks. when I was younger I always assumed there'd be a turning point, a realisation. something really dreadful happening and me realising that living with anorexia wasn't worth it. and sure, there was the scare I had in January with my heart. but that wasn't it. I've actually had symptoms of cardiac arrest before, but that time I was utterly in denial, and as I was at a bmi in the 15s I decided this meant it 'wasn't bad enough' to warrant y'know, going to a hospital. the thought of actually believing that rubbish just makes me feel sick now. so my point is, there have been lots of 'moments'. the purportedly incredibly dramatic 'life changing' stuff which doesn't really change your life. inpatient didn't change it. going into a general hospital because of my low potassium didn't change it. being tube fed didn't make me decided I had 'taken it far enough'. I'm still not sure what DID change if I'm honest. what I know is, I'm not recovering because of how ill I've been. I'm recovering because of how healthy I HAVEN'T been. because of the dreams I had as a kid which would never get realised if I was starving and running round Tesco's late at night, and trying to avoid being sectioned. because of the degree I want to do well in instead of scrape through. because of the friends I want to have who can hold a conversation with me without being distracted by the fact that I look like I have some kind of illness. I am going to stop now before I feel like my blog has been filled with cheese. but you get the idea ;)

incidentally, thank you SO much to everyone who gave me advice and pros & cons on my last post. it has really helped me think. for the moment I am still skeptical about the idea. like some of you I've 'stopped' at bmi 15 before and it didn't work out well at all. I also don't really want to go through the triggering process of reducing what I'm eating then having to increase again. I am going to hold the possibility in the back of my head though, so we shall see :)

I'm going out tomorrow for sushi again, then home to London at the weekend for another good friend's birthday :D so hopefully will get my camera charger then and take some photos finally! might even make it to Wholefoods! but I also want to get fast food while I do the motorway journey down. just for another challenge ;)

except apparently our harsh winter hasn't ended and it snowed again today. YAY. well not really, particularly not when my fingers are about to drop off. I think I'm beginning to understand how healthy people feel the cold. yes, the most horrible chill inside my body is gone now that I seem to have an internal combustion engine on the whole time, but my toes and fingers are still very vulnerable in this weather!

I'm sitting in the front room while my housemate bakes brownies in the kitchen - I just had a prawn/veggie/udon noodle stir fry for dinner. we were actually planning on going out (to ASK...2 for 1 main meal vouchers at the minute) but I managed to scupper our plans! half an hour before we were meant to leave I was having nasty stabbing pains in my stomach, so I went to lie down briefly. and yeah, you've guessed it, fell asleep! and of course my housemate is far too nice and considerate to wake me up :) we've decided to go tomorrow though so all is well, I am seriously looking forward to it! downside is that now I somehow have 300 calories to make up. ah well, I'm sure there's a bar of chocolate in my cupboard somewhere!

I had my weekly appointment today and it amazed me how well it went and how productive I felt like the conversation was. previously I've felt really let down by the feeling that I was being told that maintaining a very low weight was ok and there wasn't really much hope. but, surprise surprise, now that I'm feeling better and more able to express my feelings, I've been able to get across that that doesn't help me at all. also I think demonstrating my ability to change BEFORE asking to be treated as a 'recovery patient' was a really good move ;). actually I also managed to put on a tiny bit of weight since yesterday (or last week who knows cause my scales are very inaccurate) which is awesome.

some of the things we talked about did confuse me and leave me with a lot to think about. I'm working on enhanced CBT, which involves making goals to try every week. I was asked what I thought would be a good 'challenge' for this week and actually was a bit stumped, since I'm not restricting at all and doing the best I can not to purge with quite a lot of success. my therapist asked me if there were any challenges which I would balk at and feel 'unable' to complete. at the moment, behaviourally, I couldn't come up with one. going out to eat or eating particular foods would be ok (well, within reason, I'm not about to eat offal or brussels sprouts etc. no need for self torture here!) increasing what I'm eating would also be ok, if I need to, now that you guys helped me out in relaxing about that possibility. however, all this is not a testament to me being perfect or anything. my biggest sticking point and fear has always been the weight aspect. of course this failed in the 'challenge' context, cause as I said, he couldn't exactly ask me to come back next week at a healthy weight or anything! after talking about my fears about this though, he suggested something interesting and/or confusing to me. basically, that we could aim for me to get to a certain weight first (he said bmi 15, but not set in stone) then stop, re-evaluate, and push my weight up in small increments as I build my ability to cope with it.

ok, so I don't know what to think about this. I've heard of people doing 'stepped recovery' like this before and it actually working, so I'm not dismissing it out of hand with the same skepticism that I would have for harm reduction for example. however. while I can see the logic, in some ways it goes against my intuition. we discussed (and I agreed) that being at a healthy weight is probably my most entrenched eating disordered fear. forgive me for going on about this cause I know it might seem obnoxious, but I was underweight before I got ill and have never been healthy weight wise in my life. not a boast or a 'woe is me recovery is sooo hard for me', but it does have a huge effect on my thinking. I can push myself to eat, say, a chocolate bar or a meal out at a restaurant and KNOW, even though I'm afraid, that it actually won't destroy me, because I've done it before and heck, I'm still here! the anxiety didn't kill me. it was all distorted. my irrational fears about weight restoration have a huge basis in the idea that I just won't cope and the anxiety will totally crush me, and I have no empirical evidence to disprove that idea. now my instant reaction to this is 'but you KNOW that in other people's reality, that won't happen, even if you can't see that as your reality just yet'...and that says to me that I just need to stop talking about how terrifying it is and do it, then this barrier will be overcome once and for all. at the same time I feel like my therapist is obviously experienced (and I trust him a lot more after the last few sessions where I feel he's really understood me) and his concerns about me not coping and relapsing if I push too fast are valid (well, it's happened a lot of times before :P). the trouble is that while a lot of fears can take a long time to dissipate in recovery, the fact that the weight thing is the one I feel so paralysed and incapable about kind of screws me over, cause in a sense it's the most important to get done relatively quickly! if I were terrified of eating in public, I could take that slowly within reason. but I don't know that appeasing this ridiculous fear by taking 'breaks' in weight restoration sits right with me. at the same time I don't know if I AM being overconfident! I'm definitely going to address this more in next week's session. and in any case, I told him that me gaining weight is utterly non negotiable in my head until I get to a bmi in the 15s, which gives me some time to think about it. has anyone else heard of this approach? or generally has an opinion on it?

ah also, because I want a picture to make this prettier, here's some of my stash from shopping yesterday! I took it cause it makes me feel like a 'real' blogger, hehe.



Eat Natural almond and apricot bars (how do I like these when I hate almonds and dried apricots? life is a mystery...), coconut bar, 9 bar, Nakd raisins! the raisins are my favourite, currently obsessed with eating them with Grape Nuts cereal and banana sliced into Greek yogurt. I swear Greek yogurt is like my biggest debt to blogging! ok no that'd be shallow :P

quite literally! (but I also love Bright Eyes! here's the song) forgive me for what may be an incoherent post: it's VERY early in the morning! the physical symptoms of refeeding are really freaking me out at the moment. I am constantly waking up after just a few hours sleep, drenched in sweat, and finding that I'm dizzy and weak with hunger when I stand up. hence the early morning (/kind of still night) blogging. I've heard of people experiencing this and know it's nothing to worry about necessarily, but I'm finding it really difficult. it seems like my metabolism is catching up to a normal rate this time, which is why I'm a bit sketched out cause that hasn't happened to me before. in hospital last year I never felt hungry in the slightest or had night sweats, and I gained a steady 1.5kg a week when I wasn't purging or otherwise messing around. of course to compound my worries I had to weigh myself when I got up, bad idea. well, I've been weighing twice a week and it's four days since last so fairly standard, but I now regret it as my weight has stayed the same. cue more confusion/weirdness. again, not necessarily actually an issue because theoretically I could have been retaining extra fluid the last time from stopping purging, and that's just died down now. just don't know how to interpret that...I mean I guess in general I gained in total 3.5lbs in just under two weeks. but obviously I don't know to what extent I was genuinely dehydrated from purging every day before that. ahhh too difficult to interpret. I should probably just relax. also I think some of the confusion is just eating disordered disbelief that I can have eaten a restaurant meal, carbonara, SNACKS that have multiple times the calories I used to eat in a day, and not see massive weight gain, or any in the past four days.

moving on, why all this random relatively inconsequential stuff is bothering me so much? well, I'm not feeling shaky at all in that I don't want to restrict or purge, I'm still confident about today's meals and so on. mainly I think, I've always been overly worried and paranoid (hence the premature concerns) that I will end up having to increase my meal plan substantially down the line to gain what I need to. while it's only one weigh in and considering circumstances it might not be 'valid', it's the intense hunger that worries me more, particularly because at some point it will make binge/purging a real problem. I know it's normal to feel hunger before meals, especially during refeeding, but this is getting to the point where I wake up 4 hours before breakfast starving and dizzy, and I would be 'ready' to eat my other meals over an hour before I'd planned to. clearly, it's all kind of scary :P bear with me cause I realise it may sound like I'm probably secretly happy about this but feel like I shouldn't be - the prospect of being able to eat more and justify it cause I'm hungry? yep, would have liked that but not wanted to admit it - when I had restrictive anorexia. now it's a prospect that really scares me...I think perhaps because I don't 'miss' food when I'm ill in the way I used to then...well y'know I miss being able to keep down normal stuff but not specific foods themselves. also I'm very aware of how my last relapse got so bad, after gaining for a while I had maintained for a bit on 2500 calories and went up to 2800...so when I cut back to virtually nothing overnight, the weight just fell off. my mental state went backwards insanely fast and in six weeks or so I had lost over 20lbs from an already quite underweight bmi. it would somehow feel 'safer' (bizzarely!) if I was gaining scarily fast, because it would feel like it was 'difficult' to get the food in, and like I didn't have so far to fall. feeling like a bottomless pit and being plagued by worries of how I'm going to gain the next 30-45lbs (haven't decided on a target yet, too early :P) is not my idea of fun!

right I seriously apologise for that post. honestly, if it annoys you that it's basically a stream of consciousness full of fairly distorted stuff, sorry and you don't have to reply ok? here's the thing: sometimes disordered thoughts float around the back of my head like annoying little snakes or something...I'm not even fully aware that they're there or of their exact contents, but I find them influencing my actions sometimes anyway. you know...I'm trying to think of an analogy...like if you fear a particular food and aren't sure why but after talking about it realise it's because you're worried it won't keep you full? in any case, I guess I'm, erm, using my blog to 'purge' the freakout that was in my head this morning. cause it's my blog and all ;) I might come back and edit some sensibleness or delete though, but it did help. firstly I can see that some of my fears are just illogical, like the fact that it's not a struggle to eat this amount triggering me. also it's fairly obvious from my ramblings that I am panicking and thinking too far ahead, and it'd be easier for me to try and 'stay in the day' (example: do not let the weight you've (not) gained in four DAYS make you panic about the weight you want to gain in the next four MONTHS, lol). also, if anyone's got any 'dealing with hunger' tips I might love you forever!