I've spent the last week trying to make sense of my feelings. It's hard when on the surface it's because I "feel fat" but as they say 'fat' isn't a feeling. So what is it that is causing me to feel this way?
This week has been hard. Work has been overwhelming me with what I feel is too much responsibility too soon and my concentration has been shot which has caused me to make mistakes in my work, only minor ones with minimal consequences, but my perfectionist attitude towards certain things has been making me beat myself up.
Thought pattern: I did x wrong - I'm a terrible nurse - I'm a terrible person - I can't do anything right - I can be good at starving myself - if I lose weight things won't feel so bad - if I lose weight things won't hurt so much.
Irrational I know - to a sane person this chain of thought makes little or no sense. To me however, it makes perfect sense - at the time.
Thought modification: Everone makes mistakes every now and then - I will learn and do better next time - I do plenty of other things right - last time I starved myself I could no longer work at all - I nearly never made it to being a nurse at all - I was never good enough - never thin enough - if I hadn't chosen to recover I would be dead.
These are things I have to remind myself every day, the thoughts I have to drum into my head to keep going through every hurdle, every meal time, every grocery shopping trip. But I do keep going and for every hurdle I cross the further I am from that miserable empty life of weakness, pain, numbness and isolation that Anorexia brought me.
Friday 11 February 2011
Friday 4 February 2011
Loss and Mourning
I said I didn't want this blog to be purely about food, it was supposed to encompass my whole life trying to live healthily and happily. So in that vain I'm not going to write about what I've eaten recently. I hope to write some posts later on ethical, environmetal and animal friendly products that I have found but not today.
Today I'm going to try and explain a few things.
I'm going to be honest and say I'm struggling. Things aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination but I still some way to go with changing my mindset around food, bosy image and self worth. I still spend far too much time thinking about food and what I 'can' and 'can't' eat and that's one of the reasons I want to move away slightly fom the topic.
Recovering from an eating disorder is a long and rocky process, no one changes overnight. I've come so far and broken many bad habits and destructive thought patterns bu there are still some aspects I struggle to shake. I've recently gained a little weight and still let the scales determine mood and self worth, admittedly no where to the extent that I have done in the past but I still put far too much value on the numbers that I read in the morning.
Today the numbers were bad. They through me into a panic. Today I have been in mourning for Anorexia. I really miss it. How can I miss something that made me so thoroughly miserable? That could have killed me? I don't have a sane and rational answer to that, all I know is I miss the feeling of seeing the numbers on the scale go down each morning, the high it gave me knowing I hadn't eaten that day and the feeling that I was 'special' I wasn't dependent on food like everyone else, I could live without it. Of course I couldn't, obviously I was deluded. But every day I have to remind myself of that.
I also miss the feeling of being taken care of, the feeling of being fragile while at the same time being strong and independent. I know this doesn't make any sense - but it made sense to me at the time. I know now that I felt so lonely and needy that I starved myself to prove I didn't need anything which resulted in me needing more than ever. And I think these thoughts have resurfaced today after experiencing a suuden and overwhelming feeling of homesickness and loneliness.
To put it plainly I'm still in mourning. I haven't reached the point where I can see only bad in Anorexia and sometimes I desperately miss it. But I know I can never go back, that part of my life is dead and gone, but for now I will continue to mourne.
Today I'm going to try and explain a few things.
I'm going to be honest and say I'm struggling. Things aren't bad by any stretch of the imagination but I still some way to go with changing my mindset around food, bosy image and self worth. I still spend far too much time thinking about food and what I 'can' and 'can't' eat and that's one of the reasons I want to move away slightly fom the topic.
Recovering from an eating disorder is a long and rocky process, no one changes overnight. I've come so far and broken many bad habits and destructive thought patterns bu there are still some aspects I struggle to shake. I've recently gained a little weight and still let the scales determine mood and self worth, admittedly no where to the extent that I have done in the past but I still put far too much value on the numbers that I read in the morning.
Today the numbers were bad. They through me into a panic. Today I have been in mourning for Anorexia. I really miss it. How can I miss something that made me so thoroughly miserable? That could have killed me? I don't have a sane and rational answer to that, all I know is I miss the feeling of seeing the numbers on the scale go down each morning, the high it gave me knowing I hadn't eaten that day and the feeling that I was 'special' I wasn't dependent on food like everyone else, I could live without it. Of course I couldn't, obviously I was deluded. But every day I have to remind myself of that.
I also miss the feeling of being taken care of, the feeling of being fragile while at the same time being strong and independent. I know this doesn't make any sense - but it made sense to me at the time. I know now that I felt so lonely and needy that I starved myself to prove I didn't need anything which resulted in me needing more than ever. And I think these thoughts have resurfaced today after experiencing a suuden and overwhelming feeling of homesickness and loneliness.
To put it plainly I'm still in mourning. I haven't reached the point where I can see only bad in Anorexia and sometimes I desperately miss it. But I know I can never go back, that part of my life is dead and gone, but for now I will continue to mourne.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)