Eating Disorder Recovery

[OhIFellOff]

I'm documenting my journey to try and recover from an eating disorder over the year. I know I'm not alone in this struggle, so thought I'd share my experiences.

ellechapmanblog.wordpress.com

That's ok, don't be ! How was your day after you got up? How did you spend it?

I had quite a good day actually A friend I haven't seen for months came over for a coffee and chat, I walked the dog once it stopped raining, managed to finally get my head round going through all my clothes and decluttering - I have a huge pile of clothes that are too small or that I hate myself in that will either go on eBay or to the charity shop. Also managed to talk to dh about him finding employment and selling our house. He won't make decisions, leaves it up to me, but I really struggle too.

Unfortunately dh produced a pack of biscuits tonight and I had 4, feel d stupid because I wasn't hungry, just knew they would taste nice. Also I only intended to have one, but forgot that isn't possible!

Hi carrie and maggie

I have been on the thread for a couple of months and it has been so helpful. I am still struggling but I feel I am doing better with my BED than I have ever done before.

fighting and purple have been v supportive and also willing to share - we all have lots in common with how we feel/our relationship with food. And sleep has lots of insightful advice and careful questioning which makes you think.

carrie I understand the worrying what others think. The other day I was wondering if the cleaners in an office I work in (I freelance) would talk to the people I sit near about any food wrappers in my bin! Errrr I am sure they have other things to talk about!

My low esteem issues are from my DF I believe. It has such a lasting impression doesn't it. How do you get on with them know?

Having a clear out of clothes sounds good. Especially ones you don't like/don't feel good in. Could you use the money from ebay to buy a couple of bits that you do feel good in? We have talked on here about charity shop bargains, don't have to be top of the range.

I find it difficult to make decisions too as I am a perfectionist, so I end up in a state of indecision.

Can you start by breaking it down? So not "We need to sell the house", but "if we wanted to put the house on the market what do we need to do first?" See an estate agent? Doing some decluttering? Do some decorating? Look at a new area you want to move to?

I am sure your DH loves you for who you are, but I know how easy that is to say to you but so easy it is to believe.

Re the eating mindfully. Do watch the TED talk linked up thread. It is about how diets don't work. I also liked the charts she shares which show that healthy behaviours have a bigger infuence on health than weight. Which brings a little comfort.

I always panic at the Daily Fail type headlines "Obesity linked to cancer" "Fat people are evil"....well maybe the 2nd one is made up!

fighting and sleep have talked wisely about living for now, not a magical/wonderful day when one is thinner. Which I really struggle with but know it makes sense.

Well done for trying to address your issues. It is much easier not to and to just reach for the food....

In my "news". A week to a big work thing I am organising. Contemplating employing someone as I think it would help me build things up. A big step though.

Also a family member has been taken ill whilst abroad. So that might involve a trip out there. Don't want to say too much but it is a worry.

Anyway wishing you all a good Tuesday.

Morning Carrie. Just take it a day at a time, this is a huge puzzle made up of pieces that are revealed as you go too. Even if you feel a day isn't a good one, tomorrow is another one.

At the moment what you eat, as sleep said, isn't the most important thing (so long as you are eating enough for your body to work) is trying to find what emotions your feeling and how they may be contributing.

Thinking of it as a process that will be many months perhaps longer may stop the pressure to be ok now building. Allow youself time and freedom. You wanted 4 biscuits last night, that's fine. A huge plus for you and maggie is already you are no longer a square 1, the process of recovery is in motion and you both did that. Right there is your first significant achievement already.x

sorry for over sharing last night, I seem to have no idea how much information is too much or when to stop

I get on ok with my mum, although not sure about df, he is very difficult to talk to. If I'm honest I don't feel comfortable with them, but not sure I feel comfortable with anyone. I'm always watching myself from above, trying to be normal, if that makes sense?

I agree with the others. One day at a time. When you give yourself permission to eat certain things you find that you don't want them so much or if you have them you don't binge. I used to binge if I allowed myself a day off dieting. So I would cram as much 'bad' food in as possible. Or if I slipped and had one small 'bad' thing I would think sod it, I've ruined it I may as well eat loads. I now realise that one chocolate or bag of crisps doesn't mean I have to binge and because i am allowed say crisps I don't think about it all the time and want them less often.

It will take time and there will be steps forward and steps back but when you have a step back try to remember everything you have achieved and don't beat yourself up about it. You won't lose weight quickly but it will slowly come off when you change your attitude to food and you are more likely to keep it off. Just don't make it your main focus to start with - however hard that seems right now.

You aren't over sharing Carrie, the more you feel able to tell us the more likely you are to get helpful insights and shared experiences . A bit like the letter I posted the other day about 'your fears are boring' you will most likely discover you are far from being as strange as you think you are and at times at least, we all have the same thoughts and feelings!

And purple and fighting are right about focusing on the long term and being kind and patient with yourself. Eating well, improving self esteem, healing yourself, is a practice, not a perfect.

On the subject of perfect, can you name one single thing in nature, that is perfect? Even the most amazing rose will have 'imperfections', doesn't make it less beautiful. Perfection is an illusion...maybe instead, focus on being 'enough'? And what 'enough' is will be different for all of us, but it will generally mean being a fantastic version of ourselves, personality 'faults' and love handles as well. If we are looking after ourselves properly, taking care of those we love and being loved in return, doing the things that fulfil us physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually and keeping to our own moral code, that is usually 'enough'. MrsM, something for you to think about?

Carrie you are probably going to worry about a million things on here. I worried about over sharing, not sharing enough you name it I felt maybe I didn't do it right. That is true for most areas of my life. Its not real though! It is just a voice that is there to make us fail for many reasons. We can ignore it and it doesn't have to rule us!

Now although I can say that to others, like here amd I genuinely believe you all can, reprogramming the brain to accept is a huge hill for all of us to climb. I have to push anxiety away every day. At least now I do. In earlier days I had to look at why I felt that way. Now I know where it comes from and I am trying hard to rebuild my self confidence to not care about a conversation I just had and whether I said the right things. So in a rather long way, what I'm saying is, we're here to vent our stories and help each other, whatever they may be. We don't judge or think bad things about each other. Most of the time I think its more likely to be relief that you are reading someones feelings mirroring yours.x

Thank you, you are all so kind .

purple how you feeling?

I'm sort of on the low side.the last couple of days. It's probably the weather and colds going round the house on repeat. I have so much to do for the business, I have to force myself to switch off (I love doing it and can be a bit of a work-aholic). Think I may need to dig out my sun light again. To do lists are keeping me in check. Eating wise I still seem to be stable, I can't be bothered to weight myself Its maintained for most of this year so if my clothes get an slacker I know.which direction it's heading anyway. I was fed up with the heat but school runs in the rain are pretty bleugh!

Fighting (everyone for that matter) - make sure you start taking a vit D3 supplement from now until next spring, especially if you are prone to Winter doldrums .

Im ok thanks fighting. I keep thinking about my interview and what else I could have said but that's natural. On the plus side I have been so busy preparing for the last month that I have put weight etc to the back of my mind and it has been nice to not stress about it. Sorry you are feeling a bit low. The sunlight sounds a good idea. I'm exactly the same about being fed up with the heat but now hating the cold.

sleep will get some of those vitamins.

About to go shopping, will add hem to the list, thanks sleep.x

OK, it took me hours but I managed to skim the whole thread, and while I'm encouraged that there are other people in the same boat and so willing to share and help others, I'm also a bit disappointed that there's no quick fix! :)

Potted history: I put on lots of weight with the babies (2 DS'), and counted calories to lose it. As far as I know it was the first time in my life I'd ever consciously restricted what I ate - I've always loved food and had a big appetite, but before that I'd maintained my weight without thinking about it too much.

It was only after reaching my goal weight that I'd find myself oscillating between 1800 calorie days and 6,000+ calorie days, where I'd make endless trips to the kitchen eating whatever I could find in huge amounts. It feels like I've tried everything now but I'm still unable to find balance. I've deleted the app I was using to count calories, stopped weighing myself, and don't have any restrictions on types of foods I can eat. But still, I'll have days at a time where I eat until I'm in agony (I never make myself sick though), and I think about food ALL THE TIME.

Ironically, my weight is still within my ideal range, maybe a couple of pounds over, and my dress size hasn't changed. I play a couple of sports competitively, so that may be compensating for it. But it's more about the feeling of having lost control and the constant battle not to binge that I want to change, rather than my weight.

I realise it will take time to sort this out, but I don't think I can do it on my own. If it's ok 'll be lurking here for a while - really looking forward to see how other people navigate this successfully.

Maggie there is no quick fix. That's why we are going through this because we have messed up our metabolisms with all the different quick fixes we have tried over the years. Once you can accept there isn't an easy answer it will become much easier. It has taken us months to truly accept that though!

Yes, sorry, if there was a quick fix then someone would be making a fortune out of it Maggie. With regard to your binges, I would recommend reading 'The Gift of our Compulsions' by Mary O'Malley. Essentially it is about the process of understanding that bingeing/emotional eating (or indeed any compulsive behaviour) is not wrong it is there to call our attention to something else in life that needs it, a lesson if you will. Once you accept this, and stop fighting the urge to binge, be gentle and curious about it - like a big scary looking dog you try to make friends with then the process of change can start. Next time you get the urge to binge, don't fight it but try and write down any feelings/issues in your mind before/during and after. Any kind of scribbles, all useful.

Thanks for replying.

Being curious is interesting - I have tried to focus on what I'm thinking during a binge episode, but I can't. It's as if my brain switches itself off. I'm watching it happen, and am aware of it, but at the time I'm not conscious of any inner monologue / feelings about it either way. It's as if I'm an impartial observer. If I could muster up the presence of mind to work out what I was doing, then maybe I'd be able to stop myself.

Re. the other things in life that might be causing us to binge - other than just sorting those out, is there anything else that can be done? What if they're outside of our control?

If something is out of your control you can't change it. What you can do is change your reaction to it. It won't be easy but it is possible to do it.

Absolutely Purple. maggie I would start by trying to accept that it is ok to binge, it serves a purpose for you in the same way that drugs, shopping, alcohol, exercise or gambling does for other people. It could be the one thing stopping you falling into deeper depression, so from that pov it is a good thing. Still an unwanted habit but by getting to a point where you don't have to 'check out' because you aren't fighting it as hard, you can start to examine what is behind it-someone, something, anger, words you need to say that you are literally stuffing down. And also to find healthier coping mechanisms, as Purple says, a change in how you react.

Carrie could you try and eat 3 meals today, even if timing is a little out of the ordinary? Even a snack between two larger meals, but make sure it's something with protein and good fat. Don't care about anything else you have

Sorry, Maggie, I got the depression but wrong, but it's relevant for Carrie, for you, there could be worse coping mechanisms to choose!

Perhaps it would it help if i told you what I had out of my control Maggie. (it still is but I changed me very slowly for the positive, a first in my life).

Work was in a job that I adored. In order to have that job I had to taylor who I was, what I said and couldn't share my honest opinions and thoughts. Had you asked me I would have said I was happy. Only with hindsight I wasn't, that job ending made me realise how much I had given up in my own voice to have it. The release of anxiety was unreal! I now have the opportunity to further my new business through them but I won't do it. I am putting me before possible work.

Home life wasn't good, but trundled on. Issues had been left unsorted and I had been unhappy for a time. Counselling addressed this and with work DH and I communicate better and are now both happy (together).

I never used to speak up in any situation fear of doing something wrong. I have always accepted bad treatment from others so long as I didn't upset them. I was a mess behind closed door and wanted it to stop, others wouldn't change so I ended long standing friendships that were toxic and one sided. I need to be liked to be ok but that is being gradually being replaced by learning to aknowledged my own worth. Perhaps new friendships will start for reasons oher what I can do for them.

Finally past behaviours of those close to me. I used the counselling, blog and just working through the hurts to look at how they made me feel and what it made me into. There was a lot for me to aknowledge that had been done to me. It won't change but confronting it was essential to knowing why I ate for no apparent reason. In Dec & Jan I was binging ever day and night, I would be excited to be able to eat more when he kids went to bed and I had no idea why.

These feelings weren't apparent or in the fore front of my mind. I was simply carrying them all and hadn't dealt with any of it. I've done it in stages, when I have been ready or if I had a lighbulb moment. The blog is a massive outlet for me and I'd highly recommend something like that (what ever works for you). Writing may start out as something to do and things come to the surface as I go. I was a closed off person and still am in RL to an extent but I'm genuinely happier. The more I let go of mentally the less I have binged all the way down to not really wanting to when I feel low. My supermarket binges are even losing there appeal now too. I never thought I'd get to this point but I did. I can't emphasise how much it happens as you go even when you have lots of bad days keep talking to us or someone in RL it always helps.x

There were more obvious things like a death of someone I was close to. Two very difficult pregnancies followed by months of difficulties. These things alone pushed me into a bad depression.

Deciding to start this journey has helped to lift that. Although I absolutely accept it does return for no reason at times, I just have to slow down and accept time doing only the essentials each day will help me until it lifts. These battles we have are genuine and recognised conditions, there is no shame in them at all.xx

Fighting, thank you for being so open and honest. To me this feels huge, too big to imagine getting to grips with, but if no one minds me asking stupid questions and writing down how I feel, I would like to give it a go.

Sleep, I will aim for three relatively healthy meals today This morning I had poached eggs on rye bread toasted again, then went back to bed - I only had three hours sleep last night, my mind was too active. For lunch I've had half of a can of pea and ham soup and a chocolate bourbon biscuit - I wanted it, so decided to let myself have it and one was enough

I wish I could write a blog, I think I'd have lots to write down, but I can't write well and struggle to find the time. I've tried writing a diary before, but worried dh might find it and read it.

Maggie I struggle to work out what I'm thinking when bingeing too. It seems to start as just wanting something sweet, but one biscuit/piece of chocolate is never enough, nor are two pieces .. Then I feel disgusting and out of control.

I also know I can't weigh myself, if I don't lose or even put weight on I go off the rails completely.