come back around
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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 :)
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 :)
9 comments:
I can't believe your therapist said that gahh! You stick to your guns girl, because I am certain that you can completely recover. All the more certain after reading about how you got through this tough week and you are STILL keeping a positive mindset on the whole thing and never giving up.
I've never weighed more in my entire life than I do now and I love it! If you had said to me last year that I'd get to a BMI of 19.9/20 I would have told you to eff off and that I was never meant to be that blah blah eating disorder talk. But I am so so happy here, and as soon as I got to this point my body seemed happy just to stay where it was.
You are going to beat this eating disorder and I'm so excited for you!
Btw, I think I was in your area today - I went to Durham to meet a friend from treatment and I'm sure either you or someone else mentioned that you live up there...unless I imagined it!
Epic comment over now!
Sarah x
I'm really proud of you Fi :) It sucks that you had to go through that, but in some ways it sounds like it was a helpful experience - you managed to pull yourself out of the slip in two days, that takes some doing! Stuff like that can be great for building your confidence. I was also so impressed when you asked me to keep you virtual company for a while :) thank you for letting me help, I was really touched. And well done for getting through that evening! I am seriously going to come up there and kneecap that man if he upsets you like that again, grrr.
Your grumpy food made me lol :P
Ugh that is so frustrating for you to have to keep hearing that from your therapist. I know they are maybe just saying it to try and not scare you but maybe if you just told him that you are fine with gaining a bit more they wouldnt tip toe around the subject as much? Anyhow Im glad to hear you have the right mindset and a healthy goal in sight.
Although it sounds like this week was fairly rough,it also sounds like you have made good progress with not totally reverting back to old behaviours. You managed to bounce back which is the important thing.
xox
Laura
Oh Fi, I had no idea when we met up that you'd had the week from Hell! I wish I'd asked you more about how you were doing instead of waffling on about myself so much and moaning about my issues which pale in comparison to yours!
I loathe and despise therapists with a passion and I swear I've never been to one who hasn't triggered me, set me back in recovery or damaged me further. It's ludicrous to suggest the BMI 16-17 is somehow okay because it's damage limitation: fine, it might not be dangerous but there's no way anyone's thoughts can be in the right place at that weight because the brain and body are still partially starved. It's fortunate that I don't know where you go for these appointments, or I'd be tempted to march down there and strangle the man. You have proven that you CAN cope with recovery, and a BMI of 20 is not laughable for anyone.
You should really give yourself a pat on the back for choosing to talk to Katie online ~ I wish my darn laptop wouldn't crash every time I try to launch MSN messenger, but given the fact that I didn't pick up on how fragile you were feeling on Friday I'd probably be useless anyway. I wish I could be a better and more supportive friend to you like Katie has been!
I learned from this too, in a different way...I have so much trouble reading people socially and can be completely oblivious sometimes. One psychologist even put me on the mild level of the autistic spectrum (although subsequent ones disagreed with her) because I don't register or understand other people's emotions very well. But that's no excuse.
Can't wait to hear about your day and I really, really hope you're back in a more stable place now.
*hugs*
~Jess~
xoxoxoxo
aw Jess don't beat yourself up! sorry I should have specified, it was Tuesday and Wednesday that I was having a shit time. I was far more perky by Friday and seeing you cheered me up even more ;)
x
^ Tis true, I was with her Saturday and she said what a nice time she had with you. :) (I'm the ''food fun friend'' :D)
Just want you to know how grateful I am to have such an amazing friend as yourself.
That's it really.
x.
Ugh, I hate that attitude that says people with anorexia can never recovery and can never be at a healthy weight. It makes me so angry and it's so ridiculously untrue. And I'm so sorry you had to hear that but I'm so happy that you didn't let it stop your motivation to recover! You are amazing! And I'm so glad you were able to get through this hellish week.
I love your grumpy food :)
Err...how much of a dweeb is your therapist?..ugh..
I guess we can but pardon their stupidity and try to appreciate that it's nigh impossible for health professionals to really know what NOT to say when they haven't necessarily personally dealt with an eating disorder themselves...Tis still an EPIC FAIL on their part though..
I really admire you for getting through such a tough week.. You continue to astound me as ALWAYS..and give me hope that i can make it through too..
Muchos love..
Chilly..xx
p.s. I know it's waaaay on the distance but dya know what you want to do when you finish uni?..Do you prefer Hist or Lit?
I would very much like you to show me exciting coffee shops in Durham :-) Once my bank account is looking a bit healthier I want to make another trip up there, maybe in a month or so...will let you know ;)
And inspiration wise, you actually inspire me...you and Katie have shown me how determined and strong we can actually be in fighting eating disorders. Until I came across you both, I lacked confidence in the notion that people could go it alone...well not completely alone, but you know what I mean. It gives me hope to think that even if inpatient hadn't happened, I still could have made it, and that there is something indominatable and strong about the human spirit that I previously underestimated.
I really shouldn't comment late at night, it makes me express myself in really weird ways! Anyway hopefully even a little of that comment made sense. Moral = you inspire me and are brill.
Sarah x
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