apples and oranges
15:27 Edit This 10 Comments »
so, I have been trying to write this post for quite awhile. and I just deleted everything I had and started again, cause I want to talk about what's honestly been on my mind all day. funny that! ;)
the past week has been pretty hard, and today in particular. for some reason a lot of old anxieties and hesitations around food seemed to come up, and every time I didn't occupy myself I found myself counting, adding up, worrying about planning my meals. and in a way that's really out of character for me I was spending my time thinking about whether I had 'balanced' my diet right...had enough protein/carbs/vitamin K24, or if I was skewing my calories too much towards the morning/evening/date of the apocalypse, if the feng shui of my diet was right...you get the picture. I also almost backed out on 'social eating' with my housemates a couple of times cause the prospect of the 'challenging' foods we'd planned made me incredibly anxious, when the week before I wouldn't have even thought about it twice. add a few times where I purged and had to 'replace' meals and you definitely have a week where my eating disorder was trying to get a foot in the door so to speak.
so I found two possible reasons/triggers for this and am addressing them both at once today. firstly, essay deadlines and uni are obviously pretty stressful at the moment. so I took a deep breath, told myself that the first year doesn't matter THAT much, and took a day off today to go out with my friend Hannah. which was definitely a good decision :D also, I only gained a lb this week, which don't get me wrong is good, but a definite slowdown from the past couple of months, and possibly explains some anxiety cause whenever the 'difference' between what I need to maintain and what I'm eating decreases I seem to get really nervy and plagued by ED thoughts. so I took a leap today and increased a bit more...I'm hoping I can sustain the 2lb/week gain I had going before so that I can get to my target by early summer. it's quite amusing looking back...there was definitely a time where I'd never have thought I could cope with that rate of gain let alone get impatient and want to sustain it throughout refeeding! but who's complaining...I feel comfortable and good in my body now and I'm definitely not second guessing that.
anyway this brings me around to what has 'really been on my mind'. deciding to increase wasn't hard (especially with some helpful thought tennis from my friend today :D ) and fitting in the extra calories wasn't hard. but from then on I've found myself totally unable to get my brain away from intrusive irritating thoughts about how I 'eat more than anyone else/gain faster/eat more unhealthily' and so on. how everyone will and should think that I just do these things (increasing, food challenges etc) cause I'm 'greedy' or 'weak'. comparing is actually the devil. deep down I know that only I know what's right for me, and that isn't necessarily the same as what's right for someone else. but my brain is still on overdrive. see, this feels like I am making some long slightly obnoxious request for reassurance. I don't mean it to come off that way. obviously, I need to be able to reassure myself and feel secure in my own choices. but I thought I would ask if anyone else struggles with comparisons, and with 'pre-empting' other people's beliefs about them. I assume it would be a common theme with eating disorders but I feel incredibly obnoxious/self obsessed talking about it, and that in itself made me think it was something I should write about! so...question for anyone...what are your experiences with comparisons? :)
speaking of challenges though I have a new one planned for Monday. it's going to be quite a sad experience...
I am giving up this for a week :(
'this' being yogurt & cereal, of course. I've already stopped eating loads of foods which I used to think I 'liked' but were actually just 'safe'. but greek yogurt is one which IS safe and I did eat when I was ill (albeit without all the toppings!) but I'm pretty certain I actually do really like it. however. I am sure I will live without it for a week and food is really not so important that I need to eat my favourite things ALL the time incase of a famine tomorrow, whatever my body might like to think about that. so, I am giving it up as of now (just ate my last one) so that I have the opportunity to/am pushed into eating more different things and probably trying new foods :) wish me luck!
the past week has been pretty hard, and today in particular. for some reason a lot of old anxieties and hesitations around food seemed to come up, and every time I didn't occupy myself I found myself counting, adding up, worrying about planning my meals. and in a way that's really out of character for me I was spending my time thinking about whether I had 'balanced' my diet right...had enough protein/carbs/vitamin K24, or if I was skewing my calories too much towards the morning/evening/date of the apocalypse, if the feng shui of my diet was right...you get the picture. I also almost backed out on 'social eating' with my housemates a couple of times cause the prospect of the 'challenging' foods we'd planned made me incredibly anxious, when the week before I wouldn't have even thought about it twice. add a few times where I purged and had to 'replace' meals and you definitely have a week where my eating disorder was trying to get a foot in the door so to speak.
so I found two possible reasons/triggers for this and am addressing them both at once today. firstly, essay deadlines and uni are obviously pretty stressful at the moment. so I took a deep breath, told myself that the first year doesn't matter THAT much, and took a day off today to go out with my friend Hannah. which was definitely a good decision :D also, I only gained a lb this week, which don't get me wrong is good, but a definite slowdown from the past couple of months, and possibly explains some anxiety cause whenever the 'difference' between what I need to maintain and what I'm eating decreases I seem to get really nervy and plagued by ED thoughts. so I took a leap today and increased a bit more...I'm hoping I can sustain the 2lb/week gain I had going before so that I can get to my target by early summer. it's quite amusing looking back...there was definitely a time where I'd never have thought I could cope with that rate of gain let alone get impatient and want to sustain it throughout refeeding! but who's complaining...I feel comfortable and good in my body now and I'm definitely not second guessing that.
anyway this brings me around to what has 'really been on my mind'. deciding to increase wasn't hard (especially with some helpful thought tennis from my friend today :D ) and fitting in the extra calories wasn't hard. but from then on I've found myself totally unable to get my brain away from intrusive irritating thoughts about how I 'eat more than anyone else/gain faster/eat more unhealthily' and so on. how everyone will and should think that I just do these things (increasing, food challenges etc) cause I'm 'greedy' or 'weak'. comparing is actually the devil. deep down I know that only I know what's right for me, and that isn't necessarily the same as what's right for someone else. but my brain is still on overdrive. see, this feels like I am making some long slightly obnoxious request for reassurance. I don't mean it to come off that way. obviously, I need to be able to reassure myself and feel secure in my own choices. but I thought I would ask if anyone else struggles with comparisons, and with 'pre-empting' other people's beliefs about them. I assume it would be a common theme with eating disorders but I feel incredibly obnoxious/self obsessed talking about it, and that in itself made me think it was something I should write about! so...question for anyone...what are your experiences with comparisons? :)
speaking of challenges though I have a new one planned for Monday. it's going to be quite a sad experience...
I am giving up this for a week :(
'this' being yogurt & cereal, of course. I've already stopped eating loads of foods which I used to think I 'liked' but were actually just 'safe'. but greek yogurt is one which IS safe and I did eat when I was ill (albeit without all the toppings!) but I'm pretty certain I actually do really like it. however. I am sure I will live without it for a week and food is really not so important that I need to eat my favourite things ALL the time incase of a famine tomorrow, whatever my body might like to think about that. so, I am giving it up as of now (just ate my last one) so that I have the opportunity to/am pushed into eating more different things and probably trying new foods :) wish me luck!
10 comments:
I'm new to reading your blog, but I went through this several years ago, and what struck me was the whole "feeling selfish" dilemma. I know it's especially hard to feel selfish, but one of my good friends who helped me go through recovery pointed out to me that recovery IS selfish. You have to be selfish in order to get better and, then, in the long run you haven't really been selfish at all because your friends and family get to have the person they love and care about back. This whole selfishness is also a part of the 12-step program that people recovering from all types of addictions use. You sound like a very strong person to be doing so well with your recovery and I wish you the best and hope you won't worry too much about feeling selfish every once in a while.
The comparassions are definitely a common thing I think. I know I certainly struggle with doing the same, Im constantly thinking people are looking at what Im eating and thinking to themselves how much I eat and that how on earth could I consider myself to have an ed if I eat the way I do.
I also feel like I really do eat loads compared to others, I see people at work eat next to nothing whereas Im practically chewing my arm off if I miss a snack!
These are all ed controlled thoughts though, because when I have actually voiced my concerns to say my mum shes surprised and reassures me that people arent even paying attention to your food or how your eating. When you have an ed you kind of become more sensitive to things about food and seem to focus everything around it.
I dont have any great advice how to get over this except for when you start to feel those thoughts just immediately stop and think of something else.
You definitely taking a great attitude towards gaining the weight, its good to see your coping better with the idea than you had originally thought :-)
Have a great day,
xox
Laura
Sorry this past week was a toughie, but honestly you are doing so well and should be so proud. It's totally acceptable and normal to have hard times, getting over an eating disorder is a major ordeal. I think it's really important (as you said to me :)) to identify what's causing your feelings so you can rationalise your self and not feel so helpless. Uni stress is definitely understandable and am really pleased you managed to take some time off. Secondly, the comparisons is definitely something I find hard. The thing is people honestly don't care what you're eating out in the real world, you are you and completely valuable no matter what you eat, weight and all that crap. Of course when you have an ed focus is on those aspects but you have to remember that noone is judging you and you just have to do what you think is right and what works for you as an individual.
Love, hope the work calms down.
xxx
Aw Fi, whatever the circumstances around a person's recovery, their eating disorder will try to find some way to beat themselves up! I got all weird about not being vegan at one point, and I felt dreadful looking at blogs by people who were raw despite knowing full well that I would be very ill on that sort of diet (IBS for the win, stopped me from ending up orthorexic :P ). I also spent obscene amounts of time googling stuff about the latest miraculous micronutrients and trying to decide which supplements I should be taking, getting obsessed with superfoods and tbh, I think goji berries taste like crap. Oh, and then of course there's the protein issue - you know I'm a carbs girl and it's hard getting enough protein when you're veg and allergic to milk, so I always beat myself up over barely getting to the recommended daily amount when most people seemed to be eating twice that!! STILL, most of that disappeared once I started approaching a healthy weight. It just didn't seem important anymore. And this is the girl who ate five fairy cakes yesterday :P So yeah, I really think part of the anxiety is biological. Mostly it takes time, an extended period of proper nutrition (and by proper I mean the amounts and types of food it takes for you to be healthy, not a fecking macrobiotic diet or whatever other nonsense :P ), and a lot of sitting with these feelings and doing what you need to to stay in recovery anyway. It's totally normal to have weeks that are ridiculously hard, the important thing is recognising what's going on and doing something about it, which you did! So yay :D Anyway, you have been ill for a long time and all logic suggests that your body and your brain really do need you to do exactly what you're doing now to get better. It sounds like Hannah did a great job of playing thought tennis and I promise I would be capable of talking about something other than you know what if you wanted to bounce things off of me too :)
I just wanted to say that i can totally relate love..
I sometimes find myself actually trying to justify what i'm eating to people around me when in fact they really don't care..It's rather ridiculous...
Prob why i mostly tend to eat alone..
My irrational fear of judgement really bothers me..
But slowly im starting to realise that just like recovery differs from person to person..so does 'normal' eating..
muchos love..
as always i think you ROCK lady!
You updating always puts me in a good mood.. x
You've no idea how nice it feels that you actually find me helpful in someway (other than on asking cooking advice, bahaha) because I often feel like you help me massively and how I wish Iwere capable of the same. Look at me and my skills.
You know what I think anyway so not going to give you a pov you've already heard.
I'm envious of you Fi. Thankfully this is greatly outweighed by my happiness I have for you.
Looking forward to next week. You know we said N'castle? we could go mad and go to manchester. Would be a trek but could be a bit amusing. Though we may got lost. No, we'd definitely get lost, so maybe scratch that.
Loves
And chilllllyyyy message me (on fb or w/e) the lin to your blog please. I missed you leaving lb :( I've pretty much left myself. All drifty mcdrifterson about it. All the cool brit chicks are ;) Katie stated the trend :p
I love you, Fi, I'm so proud and happy for/of you - reading your posts makes my day and honestly without your kick up the backside I'd have taken far, far longer to get back on track. You are an absolute star.
Yep, can definitely empathise with the 'eating more than everyone else' feeling. But nobody else is relevant, and in what warped world did it become okay to admire the people who eat the least anyway amongst women in particular. I'd love it if we could celebrate having a healthy appetite instead of thinking someone is so 'virtuous' because they don't eat much. Stupid, twisted society that we live in...whatever you're eating is nourishing you no matter how little vitamin K24 it contains ;) I know it's true because of how damn gorgeous and glowing you looked when I met up with you: you looked ten times' better than any of the bloggers who live on green monsters and raw kale!
Glad you had a great time with Hannah and hopefully that lessened the essay deadline worries a little. You are more than capable of meeting them: just don't sabotage yourself by worrying (hypocritical coming from me I know!)
Good luck with your challenge :)
*hugs*
~Jess~
xoxoxo
I have no helpful experiences with comparisons, I struggle with them a lot myself. I think you just have to remember (and tell yourself often) that you are you and not anyone else, you are a different person to person a and different to person b as well and what is best for you and fulfills your needs may not be what is best for them and fulfills their needs. You need to put yourself first, ignore everyone else and keep doing what is best for you.
It's easier said than done I know, I find it hard to put that into practice myself.
Also good luck with giving up the greek yogurt :). I've had to give it up myself because it was proving too expensive on a student budget :(.
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