The Coming New Year...

I had an appointment with my therapist today, which was good, and we talked a lot about motivation. About the way my eating seems to be good right after an appointment, then gradually goes down hill over the week, and the last few days are usually quite bad. Then, totally unprompted, I had a little sit-down afterwards and had a good think about why I'm recovering.

I looked at my sheets that we've made - the lists of the pro's and con's, the reasons why I'm fed up with ED, the things I can do to help motivate myself. But I also just wrote a little list of what I want out of life. I want to help people, I want to act, I want to appreciate music and art, I want to fall in love and have a long-term relationship, I want friends and to be close to people, and...I want to be skinny. Well, that's what I wrote at least. Then I had a little think about why I want to be skinny.

What will that give me? Why do I want that? Well, I want it because I want to have a 'good body', and go through life with the confidence that I look good. And yet, looking that way requires illness, madness and eventual breakdown. And many people look good without being thin; many people have confidence in their appearance without being thin. What's more, achieving thinness won't necessarily make me confident. What it definitely will do is consume all my other goals and make them impossible.

That's why I'm recovering.
And it's why you should, too.

This is the time of year for reflection, and thinking about what you want, as people formulate their New Year's Resolutions. This is the first time since I was 13 that my New Year's Resolutions haven't included weightloss. The first time since I was 13. I'm now 21. Isn't that fucking scary?

So, my New Year's Resolutions this year are to practice self-love - RADICAL SELF-LOVE where possible =D - and, the slightly more boring, non-ED related one, to structure my time better. (Making schedules and suchlike.)

What are your NYR's, and why are you making them?

x

Hatred?

I'm trying to figure out what I'm feeling right now, because I can sense that there's a lot there, except there's some sort of filter that means I'm not experiencing my emotions to the full. They're kind of muted somehow. Probably a self-defensive mechanism on the part of my subconscious. But I'm trying to figure it out anyway.

I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling distressed. I'm feeling ashamed. And I'm feeling hatred. Now this is interesting, because hatred is an emotion I very rarely feel, towards anyone or anything. I'm just not the kind of person to hate. Or am I?

I realise that all this time, for years and years when I believed myself not to be the hating kind, that I've been hating at full pelt. I've been hating my body, just in the way that I'm hating it right now. For many years, I simply hated myself. But I never fully realised that it's exactly the same kind of hatred that other people feel. Maybe I never wanted to admit that I was feeling that hatred, because I like not hating. I like being an easy-going person who's calm and clear-headed, and generally tries to achieve a level of understanding that surpasses hatred. So realising that actually, I do hate after all, is not a very easy realisation. I've been feeling just the same amount of hatred as the next person, it's just that mine has all been directed inwards. Maybe that's because I was ashamed of it; maybe it's because I'm just not as compassionate towards myself as I am towards everyone else. Maybe I'll never know.

But the point is, right now, among everything else, I'm feeling hatred. And that's ok. It's unpleasant, and it's irrational, but it's ok to be feeling it.

Embrace your emotions. After all, they're yours.

All Hail Gala Darling

Like my Christmas nails?

Thought I'd update, although it'll be a bit depressing I fear. (Despite the fact that I'm currently sitting in the living room with my whole family here, music playing, parents hanging up Christmas cards.)
It's pretty miserable at the moment to be honest. Without restricting, without weightloss, I literally have nothing. I am nothing. Everything I do is an attempt to distract myself from the fact that I'm eating so much (it's actually a healthy amount, but feels like tonnes to me), and every meal and snack gets harder than the last. I was meant to have an appointment at the hospital today, but it had to be put off until tomorrow because the buses have been jiggered by the snow we've had.

What I would like to share with you all is my latest discover, Gala Darling's blog, and her programme from February of RADICAL SELF LOVE. I have started practicing already and it is, well, radical. I've got a RSL Bible and everything. On the front page it just says "I am fucking brilliant". Lolz. Then I wrote a description of myself after Bea's video on WeRFreedomFighters, about how weight doesn't define you, describing lots of things about myself and conspicuously not mentioning my appearance in any way. It's a good exercise. I'm soon to be printing off lots of quotes to stick in there, and got lots of hearts to draw!

I particularly enjoyed this blog entry:
http://galadarling.com/article/100-ways-you-can-start-loving-yourself-right-now
Go read it! All of yous!

x

Today's Appt

Currently watching The Barber of Siberia, one of my favourite films ever =D

So the first thing to say is that yesterday, when I weighed myself (and on Saturday), I got the number in kilos. After posting yesterday, I worked out what that number was in stones + pounds, and it wasn't nearly as high as I thought. Not the highest I've been in a year. (Thank god.) That was just a taste of what is to come if I don't sort my shit out by the time I actually do reach that weight.

I calmed down a lot after realising my weight was lower than I thought, which is not a good thing, but I suppose in the short term it did make a big difference. Trouble is, my mind set by then was already stuck in the 'must-lose-weight' thing.

Luckily I had an appointment today, and we talked about a lot of things. I brought up the fact that I don't know how to deal with weight gain, and we talked about anxiety. When I see that I've gained weight, my anxiety shoots through the ceiling, and the obvious thing to do is to start restricting, which brings it straight back down again (doesn't completely eradicate it, but helps). What I need to be doing is riding it out, and it'll fade of its own accord if I distract myself. Besides, being underweight increases your anxiety anyway. And losing weight only reduces anxiety very temporarily - after all, it's a compulsion, not a choice, and you can never lose it fast enough or 'well' enough.

We also talked about enjoyment, mainly the fact that I don't get any from anything other than losing weight. She was saying how I need to change my expectations - other things might not be enjoyable yet, but they will be, and they'll be enjoyable in a different way. And - as I said - losing weight is only enjoyable for a very short time, and extremely unenjoyable the rest of the time.

So I need to ride out my anxiety, and change my expectations of enjoying things. And continue to eat lots of food. We'll see how all that goes...

Gut feelings vs what I actually think

My thoughts are in an absolute whirl today. I feel terrible.

I'm gaining weight, and I don't know how to deal with it. That's what this comes down to. Not knowing how to deal with weight gain. It's going right at the top of the agenda for Tuesday's appointment, but until then? Not a clue what to do with myself.

After a very successful 10/10 day on Saturday, yesterday ended up being more like a 4-5, and today is set to be even worse. I've weighed myself twice this week, which I'm not supposed to do. Result? The number is the highest it's been in at least a year, possibly two. And seriously, I just don't know how to handle that. I really, honestly don't.

My thoughts have gone straight back to not giving a shit about whether I'm healthy or not, and just wanting to be thin. I was thinking this morning how I'll have to get rid of all my short skirts because I'll just look terrible in them. I've still got a pair of jeans from last summer when I was underweight, and can't bring myself to get rid of them, because I can't help feeling that I should be able to fit into them - that's the size I ought to be. I just look so much better that way. In fact all my clothes would look better on me if I was slimmer.

Now I know full well that when I was down at that weight, I was not happy. I remember very clearly writing an e-mail to a friend who was also struggling, and emphasising how not worth it the weightloss was. My eating was so disordered, and my mind too. I was an absolute mess. And yet, I did still feel that I looked better than I had done at a higher weight. There were times when I looked in the mirror and thought "yeah, not bad". I don't have that any more. I just feel huge. People would comment on how thin I'd got, and it made me feel great; now my parents say how much better I look, and it makes me feel awful.

The thought of that number on the scale this morning sets panic into my heart, honest to god. I literally do not know what to do with myself.

What's silly is that when I see thin people, I think they look good; when I see healthy people, I sometimes still have to remind myself that that's beautiful too. It's so programmed into my brain that thin = beautiful that I'm ashamed of myself sometimes for thinking healthy people don't look as good as thin people. It's such a joke. Of course it's difficult to judge how beautiful someone is before you know them - mostly I find people beautiful because I know that they have a beautiful personality. And I find healthy people much more attractive than thin people - I'll say that much straight up. I honestly don't find thinness at all attractive, on either gender. I guess I don't feel like I have a beautiful personality, so I have to make up for it by having a beautiful body. I just don't have any self-worth, so I need to make up for it by having as good an outward appearance as I can.

But until I have more self-worth? What do I do until then?

It's funny, I have a friend who was very thin when I first knew her - not through disordered eating, mind - and last summer she put on a fair amount of weight and now has a much healthier build. When I first saw her after the weight gain, my initial thought was that she didn't look as good - then I stopped myself, and realised how ridiculous that was. She's still just as wonderful a person, and besides, that's what bodies are MEANT to look like. They're supposed to be shapely and sturdy and strong, not thin and weak. And I honestly do think she's just as beautiful now, it's just that my initial gut reaction was different. So how do I cure that gut feeling?

There's a quote from The Seagull, where Masha (who I'm playing) goes: I shall tear this love out of my heart, right from the root. (rough translation, apologies).

That's what I need to do with this bloody eating disorder. С корнем вырву.

I give today a 10

Hey guys.
(Although, I haven't had any comments in a while, so I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this....but whatever.)

So I'm on the gradual weight gain programme, having to eat three meals and three snacks every day. And omg, it's FUCKING HARD WORK. My therapist was talking about 'ripping the plaster off' instead of peeling it back slowly - going all out and trying to do a full week of eating properly, rather than having the odd day here and there where I eat well, and other days where I let ED take control. So that's what I'm trying to do. To rip the plaster off. Only trouble is, it hurts like a bitch.

I have to rate every day out of 10 based on how well I've followed the plan, and I've had at least one 10/10 so far. Yesterday was more of a 6, since I missed a meal and a snack (oops). But then what I did eat was very good, hence why it's not too bad a score. Doing pretty well today, except I got up late which kind of funked everything up. I made a veggie meatloaf earlier using a Nigella Lawson recipe (omg, love Nigella...), trying to make sure food is nice atm. Like, if I'm gonna be eating 6 times a day, it has to be something I really like otherwise it'll feel like even more of a chore. I know some people feel safer eating foods they don't really like, cos then they know they won't binge, but I'm the complete opposite. I can't eat stuff I don't really like, cos it feels like a complete waste of calories. Like, now I'm full of calories, and I didn't even get anything out of it. You know?

So, aiming for a ten. We'll see how that goes...

This morning

So, this morning.

First off, my weight wasn't as bad as I thought given that everything I've eaten since Saturday was still inside me. It was exactly the same as last week. But what really REALLY frustrates me is that, had the laxatives worked, it would definitely have been lower. And then I would've had that all-important downward line on the graph.

As it happened, there was no graph today, because my therapist had forgotten to do it. But it turns out that they need 4 readings in order to describe a trend, so actually, it wouldn't have mattered what today's reading was. The idea is that they get you to look at trends rather than obsessing over individual weight readings - that's the theory. In practice, it's gonna take a lot of work before I stop freaking out over each individual weight. And you know what really got me? I know she didn't mean it to be upsetting, but my therapist said that she was worried my weight would've gone down since last week. Like, of all the things to say that are gonna just turn the knife in the wound of not having lost weight because of stupid laxatives.  :'( Of course, from a treatment point of view, she pointed out that it was good it hadn't gone down. But all this really is by the by since, as I said, it'll be next week before we have 4 readings on the graph and can deduce some kind of trend. Anyway.

We're in the slight conundrum of knowing that my weight is now within the healthy range (something else I despise) but that my body still doesn't like being here, and wants me to be a bit bigger. So we're gonna shoot for that higher weight, but taking it very slowly, looking at gaining a couple of kilos in the next month. This will require a HELL of a lot of work from me. Because it's not the intensive weight gain programme I was on before (since we can't be absolutely 100% sure that I do *need* to gain weight, it's just that I've noticed my body tends to move itself towards this higher weight so that's probably where it wants to be.) See, the idea of the intensive weight gain programme is alright, because you essentially go all out and eat loads of junk food - in terms of all-or-nothing, that's the 'all'. Although I know perfectly well that in practice, I can't do that; I just can't handle eating that much crap for that many days in a row without taking a starvation break.

So actually, all things considered, it's probably a good thing that I'm on the current plan: I can include junk food, but I don't have to eat lots of it. The difficult thing is, as always, moderation. I just don't know how to do moderation. Even though that's what ends up happening when I *try* to go all-out: I can't manage it, so I end up eating some junk but not that much. So my eating habits will probably be exactly the same as when I'm on the intensive programme, it's just that now, that pattern is what I'm aiming for. But it's the mentality that counts. When I'm on the intensive programme, my mind is set to full gear - even though in practice I don't manage it, all I manage is second or third gear. Whereas now, my mind is supposed to be set to second or third gear, and I don't know how to do that. That's what's bugging me.

And, of course, the temptation to make sure my weight is lower next week, to get that *official* downward trend...well, let's not even go there...

Back to old behaviours

Tuesday tomorrow - weigh-day. Freaking out big time. I've even resorted back to taking laxatives, which I haven't done for over a year. (I quit when my parents found out, and my mum pointed out that women in our family have a history of gut problems which I seem to have luckily avoided, and it would be stupid to mess up my system now. I totally agree, but can't help it...)

Like I think I said in my last post, I weighed myself when I was at home on Saturday night. And given that I've been restricting since then, I thought I could be sure that my weight wouldn't be any higher than that. But, not to put too fine a point on it, all the food I've eaten since then is still in me, and I'm terrified what impact that will have on my weight. The graph gets drawn tomorrow: tomorrow will clinch the pattern, and will decide whether my weight is 'staying the same', or 'going down'. It'll probably be 'staying the same', which I hate. I so want it to be 'going down'.

To put this into context, I won't give numbers, but let's say my weight was X in Week 1. In Week 2, it was 1.1kg lower than X. And I was hoping that this week, it'd be even lower still. That would make a nice downward-sloping line on the graph. But I imagine at this rate it'll be back up to X again. =( Especially after eating so well on Wednesday-Friday. In fact, my weight was exactly X on Saturday night, just be some weird coincidence. So I'm hoping it'll be no higher, but it almost certainly won't be as low as Week 2. And when a graph goes up and down like that, they classify it as overall staying the same. And, most importantly, staying the same at a healthy weight. Which means I don't have to put weight on - I have to try to eat completely normally.

Ok, eating normally for me is the biggest scare. I can cope with gaining weight, because I've done it before, and at least it means I get to eat nice foods. But eating purely healthily? I literally have no idea how to do that, and no idea how to cope with it mentally. It goes completely against the 'all or nothing' mentality that I've had for so long with this eating disorder: either I'm allowed 'bad' foods, or I'm not; I don't know how to have them sometimes, in moderation. And I don't know how to eat purely for health, and not just for taste (when I'm gaining weight or having an 'eating day') or for weight loss. This is completely unknown territory for me, and I'm terrified that as a result of that graph tomorrow, I'll be catapulted into it. Honestly, I'd rather lose weight and then gain it back than maintain the same weight, because losing and gaining are both routines that I know well and feel reasonably comfortable with.

And you know what I'm most terrified of, most of all? Being told 'just try to eat healthily, and if you gain weight, you gain weight.' Like, if I'm going to gain weight, I want it to be controlled and deliberate. I hate it so much when it just happens unintentionally. I know that my body doesn't like this weight, even though I'm technically within the healthy category. My body likes being about 10 pounds heavier, the bastard. But because I'm not technically underweight, they probably won't tell me to deliberately gain any more weight - they're most likely to say that dreaded sentence 'just try to eat healthily, and if you gain weight, you gain weight'. That's a nightmare situation for me, and it's probably going to happen tomorrow.

Hence the restricting. Hence the laxatives. Hence hardly being able to concentrate on my work. Because I'm scared that one of my worst fears might come true tomorrow.

Big success, then slipping

Hey guys. So, the last time I posted, things weren't looking so good. Right now, they're kind of mixed.

If you follow my YouTube videos you'll know that I finally had some success on Thursday, breaking the board in Sul Ki Do! That was friggin awesome. Especially because I tried really hard to eat properly on Wednesday and Thursday, so that I could be up to full strength, and it looks like it paid off. Yey for recovery! I just felt so good on Thursday, and it did carry on into Friday. Eating well, I just felt so much more alive, you know? I went to the MCR after college Christmas Dinner on Wednesday, and was chatting away happily, not subdued by worries about how many calories I'd just consumed.

Things started to get harder on Friday, when I no longer had a specific goal/reason to eat well, and on Saturday I only managed two meals. I didn't really follow the whole regular eating plan, either, which is what I'm currently on for CBT. I have to eat something solid at least every 4 hours - 3 meals, 3 snacks. At the moment I can choose what I eat, so long as it's solid and I don't go longer than 4 hours without eating. Yeah, totally failed on that front on Saturday, but that was mainly because I was moving and the whole day was hectic.

I'm staying in Oxford until Wednesday even though term is now over, because I want to get some essay work done. Trouble is, my normal room is on the main college site, and they need it for interview candidates over the holidays, so I've been kicked out to extra college accommodation out of the centre. Highly annoying, as on Saturday (normal going home day), I had to do two moves - one with some stuff to my new room, the other taking the rest of my stuff home. I went home Saturday because there was a ceilidh in the evening, though in the end I only lasted for half of it because I'm coming down with a cold and wasn't feeling good =(

So today I was at home in the morning, then my mum brought me back to my new college room this afternoon. I managed brunch with my parents, but it doesn't look like I'll be managing another meal today. Still, I am getting back into the routine of regular eating (even though I'm just having fruit), which is better than nothing. I'm just not ready to go straight into 3 full meals and 3 proper snacks a day, not yet. Which is why I haven't been given any rules as to what I eat, I guess - I'm supposed to be taking it slowly. But somehow I still feel like I'm not doing well in recovery, just because I *should* be eating better food. God, I need to cut myself some slack. I had a very good few days last week, so so what if things go downhill a bit now? I'm still doing what I've been told, and can't be expected to manage more than that just yet.

I think my problem with regular eating, is that it means I don't feel like I can lose weight. Even if I had fruit for all my meals and snacks, I wouldn't be losing weight as quickly as I'd like. I won't say what my normal weight loss routine is, but let's just say, it doesn't involve eating 6 times a day! So I'm not having the benefit of losing weight, but neither am I having the benefit of eating proper food and feeling ok physically. I'm in a sort of no man's land, neither here nor there. Really don't like this stage. And I don't know if I'm going to be asked to gain weight, so I don't know what kinds of foods I'll be asked to eat when we do get to the stage where I have to eat the right things. That's stressing me out, because I like to know what's coming. Am I going to be asked to eat weight-gain foods, or just normal foods? I have no idea, and I hate that.

Anyway, I've been rambling for long enough now. Better sign off. Love to all xxxxx