Today I stood on the scale and I saw the highest number I’ve seen in over three years. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want recovery if it means being this big. I can’t do it. My trousers for work are starting to tighten and my shirts aren’t as flowy. It is heading into winter here and I’m not okay with that either. Thankfully I have a med change in a few days. That will help with the winter.
If recovery means me hating every single tiny millimetre of my body then I don’t fcking want it. I cannot stand this body I am currently in. I want out. I can’t do this anymore. I just want to be tiny. Screw being “normal” or “healthy” because I was healthy. I was happy. Just let me be tiny. I’d rather die than be fat.
Today I woke up and rose to the occasion. I am not one to get up early and grab a full shower during the week, I’d much rather stay curled in my warm blankets than get up earlier. So I was definitely off to a really good start.
I get to work and I’m just riding this slap happy mood, not thinking a thing in the world. Maybe that is exactly why this happened. I was too chill and happy and she saw fit to sneak in. Sneak in she did.
I found myself cautiously slipping into the bathroom after a bit of breakfast and gave into a behaviour that I swore I’d never do again. I even have it written on a sticky note that this behaviour is NOT AN OPTION. Apparently today it was the only option. Like I was seeing myself engage in the behaviour as if through a glass. It’s not like I did it on purpose with all intentions. It was just weird. It felt normal and a part of my daily routine like in years past. It felt so normal and I walked back to my desk as if nothing had ever happened.
Once lunch time came around and I change for the gym it hits me like a brick. I did the one thing I said was not an option. I slid to the floor scratching my head trying to understand what I did and how it even happened. All I know is I let my guard down and she snuck her damn head in, having no business in my happiness.
I have a lot of work to do to figure out how and why that behaviour happened. I was under no stressful situation. I literally was humming and enjoying a nice morning. There is currently NO reason. It simply happened. By no means do I believe that something somewhere lead me to the event, i just have not figured it out.
Ana has been yelling so I am sure there are some weird underlying facets that lead to the event this morning. It makes me feel gross and dirty. I never enjoyed Mia she was just another friend I needed to function if I had no control of what or when I ate. She was always my plan B. Ana does enough damage on her own. Medical studies show heart damage and a new scientific article shows that prolonged anorexia does cause brain damage that may, may be possible to reverse upon recovery. That makes a lot of sense when I see how this has been going on for the last 16 years.
Recovery is such a struggle for me and I don’t know why. Do I want to forever spend my life striving to be the smallest? Do I want to spend my life hiding my body fully ashamed of the figure I have? I have a lot of work to do and I think my Friday zoom group meetings with Alsana and once a month therapy with Holly might not be enough right now especially since I am coming up on a med change since the seasons are changing and I hate, abhor really, the cold and the days get darker earlier, it just burns my soul.
With that being said, today’s lesson is, even on your best days, if you are not keeping guard, even the best days can fall victim of your eating disorder. Recovery is hard, and it isn’t a straight line. It’s okay to have slips but we have to stand back up and move forward. I choose to pick myself up and move forward to a new day.
I stared at my nutrition shake for what felt like forever. I couldn’t do it. I felt that if I just pour it into a coffee mug then it would be easier to drink. Simple right? An expensive nutrition shake cannot be wasted that easily. What was easy just three weeks ago is now a mountain I cannot climb. I put it back in the fridge and walked back to my desk completely defeated and empty. I had nothing left in me and I mean nothing. I left work early because I just didn’t have anything left to give. I drove home in a flood of tears. What happened? How did it become so severe again? Where did I go wrong?
Today is a new day and I am going to fight like hell to give my body the energy and nutrition it so desperately needs. I did it! I ate my morning bowl of cereal. I am current fixated on Frosted Shredded Wheat. I poured that into the bowl and added the almond milk. Though it took time I was able to finish the whole bowl. Success for me. I did it. I fought back!! However, I start to feel that draining of my energy so I pop in both of my headphones and fall into Hillsong United’s 100 billion times, Know You Will, and Another In The Fire. As I fill my ears and heart with worship music and feeling the chills that these songs bring gave me the energy to keep pushing forward.
I let my guard down. I felt like I had a positive grip on fighting for recovery today. I took a walk on the treadmill at lunch. I had brought my computer to work so I could work on this blog. Needless to say that’s when I lost my grip. I added up every single calorie. I calculated the in and out. Since my FitBit took a crap I’m back to handwritten math. By the time I came back from the gym I knew I had to fight again. I have to keep fighting because I am worth so much more than this. I deserve to live a life that doesn’t revolve around numbers, food, exercise, and so forth. Yet, I caved. I forced myself after what felt like an hour to drink my nutrition shake, which had been in my line of sight this whole time. So I didn’t listen to her. I got a coffee mug and poured my chocolate Orgain shake into the cup. I took the first two sips. I did it! I am winning again.
Unfortunately, my brain had other things already set in motion. After successfully fighting her and drinking my shake a bit I put it to the side so I could keep working. That was all it took. As they say, out of sight out of mind. Though I could still clearly see it, I was immersed in my work that it became an after thought. I checked the clock as I was nearing the end of the day only to my horror that I still had a mug full. I broke. I tried to hold it in. I tried. But the first tear fell and a wave of anger and panic hit me. How could something so damn easy as drinking something I have been drinking for the last two years, albeit, begrudgingly for a solid eight months? Why am I different in that three weeks ago I would just open the cardboard like material box and drink the shake as if it were nothing? Fully acknowledging the nutrition I was getting through the shake that I wasn’t getting elsewhere. I lost that victory that I thought I had gained.
As I sit here I want to know how it feels to not have a voice, your very own voice, dictate a nonsensical moral value in regards to what you eat and how your existence in this world is meant for you to be tiny. I want to know what it is like to look at food as fuel and not a death sentence. If I continue to let her win I will die. Ana is literally the deadliest mental illness. It beats out Bipolar and Schizophrenia. An eating disorder, anorexia, is the deadliest mental illness.
I need to take my power back. Linda’s power, not Ana’s. Something so simple caused me so much paralysing fear that almost drove me to ask someone else to open the shake and to pour it into the mug henceforth not being able to back out of drinking it. You get 4 shakes for $9-10 dollars. That’s a lot to just pour down the drain. But I did it. I ended the day with the mug completely empty. I won.
Now as I close, can we leave some ways to combat the panic and fear surround meals or snacks? Let us know what has helped you. I want to be able to build a solid toolbox that me or you can reach into that can guide us in our recovery. Our ED thrives in secrets and hopefully with these honest posts we can each reach out to each other as we work to put ED behind us. I don’t believe in a full recovery in the matter that this will go away forever and that I won’t fall again into old behaviours that can lead me to where I am today. I do believe that as long as I choose to be transparent with my struggle and I ask for support that I can be I can reach a recovery where I will be without behaviours and without these chains that are holding me today.
Tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be a successful day. Let’s do this!!
Another successful day for her and another loss for me. I lost my fight over breakfast. I only had an apple. For lunch I made myself drink an Orgain shake. I ran two miles and that exhilarating feeling getting off that treadmill is something unbeatable right now. Yet back to the office I must go. I want to be able to complete the full 5K by the end of the month.
I did have one win. One win for recovery today. I ate dinner. Not what most would consider dinner but it is better than last night… better than nothing.
One bite at a time. Recovery is my commitment. Am I on the right track? I’m trying to be. Will it all be better by morning? Absolutely not! However, by writing this, no longer hiding the secret she loves to be, I am able to fight for recovery whether or not I want it right now. I will get better eventually. For now it will be my daily struggle until it become natural once again.
One day I will be better. As of right now, I shall quote Emma from RBS: “I’m not better, okay, I’m not better and I keep waiting for someone to figure that out; and they don’t. I mean of course they don’t ’cause as long as I say the right thing and I act the right way they’re happy, because that means they cured me right?”
Right now I am not better and that is why I decided to write this. To share and to learn from others. There are many of us bloggers that are trying to recover and there are those that have blogs of recovery. I hope to be able to share my experiences and hopes for a recovered future and that one day this will be a blog of nothing but recovery.
I don’t understand how I got this bad this fast. Lying and sneaking. Losing almost 4 in two days has made it worth it. Feeling empty feels so powerful. I get to control this. No one else. Not even her. Ana has always been there and she always will be. Last night Mia stopped by real quick and I haven’t felt that gross in a long time. I definitely didn’t listen to her and give in to those behaviours. I really wanted to but I didn’t have the energy. It is sad to know that my intense back pain was the only thing that kept me from engaging in a nasty behaviour.
You know she is winning when you cry over the thought of your normal nutrition shake and a wonderful honey crisp apple. 250 for the shake and 48 for the apple. Count in coffee of 182 (creamer) and that is still under 500. These very two items have become a staple in my diet and now she has me crying. I don’t understand why. It is 3:00pm. So that totals to 480. My tdee is around 2,000 and my BMR is 1,400. So my journey in recovery reminds me that 480 for a daily total can be a death sentence.
But today, July 01, 2022 I choose to keep trying to climb out of the hole. Recovery is a wonderful thing. I just gave up on it. I gave up on me. I can either try again with recovery or I can die trying to be tiny. I want to live. I really do. I need to relinquish the need for control. I need to do better.
For the last two days, I have been beyond uncomfortable in my skin. I work out, I literally run for fun. Yet, these last two days I have been crawling out of my skin. The anxiety creeps higher and higher to the point I double dose my Atarax, which I am allowed to do, and an extra calm gummy. My weight continues to hover too high and I am not okay with this being the possible “set point” that my body has decided on. I would be okay say if it were like ten lbs less for my “set point” I’d be okay.
Recovery comes in waves and right now I am drowning again. She is being so loud and she is making recovery near impossible at the moment. All I want to do is restrict, restrict, restrict and exercise until I can’t anymore. I am fighting to stay above the waves but I am also letting her win. I don’t want to lose her. She is my best friend and safe space. I want recovery but I don’t at the same time. I’m tired of being at this higher weight and most days I just sit at work hating every tiny inch of my body. I just want to run. I don’t want to go out and eat. I don’t want to sit and be average. I want my small body back. The one where I didn’t take up space. Just let me be tiny.
I want recovery but then I don’t. I’m tired and I’m so tired of hating my body.
Can someone please just look the other way and let me be tiny? Can we keep it a secret just between us? Do I really need food? Can I just keep drinking Hyrdroxycut drink packets… I mean they do taste good? Can we not tell anyone that I still have the scale at work so I can check my weight throughout the day?
Can I just be tiny?
Can I just walk away from recovery for a little while?
