Talking to my eating disorder

I first met you when life turned against me, a mere child, vulnerable and needy.

Your skeletal, cadaverous body scared me initially, but you whispered promises of security, perfection and companionship, and slowly a friendship was forged between us.

I soon stopped seeing your sharp edges and rotting flesh with fear, and saw you as an object to strive for, the embodiment of perfection, a true friend.

And as I followed your and rules, eating only as instructed and getting high on starvation, my flesh also dissolved, revealing a frail skeletal frame.

At this point I realised I was in love with you.

When people learned of our relationship they tried to come between us, telling me you were very bad for me, but this attempt to cleave us apart only served to make us closer.

In time, slowly but surely my health began to fail.

You forgave me for every attempt to fatten me up, and was there for me once I was free from the medics and their ill-placed good intentions.

You told me I needed to try harder, be more dishonest, lie to those I loved, so I redoubled my efforts and was rewarded with more weight loss.

One day I woke up, my head clear for a change, and I thought of all those wasted years, lost opportunities spent following your gruelling regime rather than studying or hanging out with friends.

I'd pushed away countless people because you were my everything., and I'd believed everything you said.

Slowly over time I began to separate my thoughts from yours, and I loosened your tight, bony grip on me.

Over the years at times of vulnerability, such as when the black dog was at my door and threatening to suffocate me, I'd welcome you back. But I'd always leave you again in the end.

As flesh re-emerged on my body, it was like a thawing, and the world gained colour and tones it lacked with you by my side.

You would rage at me, screams of indignation and attempts to shame me for nourishing my body would be a constant in my ear, but somehow I was able to work through that.

Now you walk behind me.

Many times I've looked back in longing, and you smile sweetly and reach out to embrace me, but I look away and keep walking.

I've learned that I need to keep moving forwards, not backwards, but I have a new fear now; I'm terrified that whilst I strive to keep away from you, you will attempt to befriend my daughter.  

What is recovery?

A while ago I posted a blog entry entitled "What is anorexia?". I thought it was about time to write an article from the other side.

So what is recovery? It certainly sounds nice, like the sun shining through black clouds after a prolonged period of thunderstorms. Of flowers on lush, green grass, tinkling streams and big warm smiles. It sounds like happy ever afters, of lives spent in delirious happiness forever more.

For me, recovery is nothing like that.
It's darkness, fear and an overwhelming bitterness of what I've had to give up and what I've had to accept as "normal".
It's continual body-checking, with the terrifying knowledge that nothing will get smaller again.
It's eating, not out of choice or desire but because it's the "right thing to do".
It's avoiding mirrors, and when I do catch sight of my reflection feeling a horrendous sense of loss for my bones, and a repulsion for the new fleshier areas.
When I meet people I haven't seen for ages, I see them look me up and down, seeing how fat I've become, feeling the sense of shame because I wasn't strong enough to keep up the starvation regime.
It's betrayals by friends, because I'm no longer ill enough, no longer providing them with drama from my hospitalisations, no longer fun or exciting or worthy of friendship.
And it's anger, that feels unbridled, and terrifies me that it will consume me and rage out of all control.
It is the fear that I will never again be able to starve.

But recovery is not all black and foreboding.
It's smelling the freshly-cut grass, seeing the cherry blossom on the trees, listening to music, and being aware of my senses again and not just the feeling of hunger.
It's time spent with my remaining close friends, with the gratitude that they love me for me, and they won't abandon me to fulfil their own shallow desires.
It's date nights with my husband, who has somehow not lost sight of me throughout my illness, who never gave up on me for dead, and who continues to be by my side for better and for worse.
It's having the energy to play with my children, jumping on the trampoline, running around the park, being ever present in mind and body.
Recovery is accepting my growing body is not fat but strong, and it takes me miles as I run, walk, swim or cycle for the pleasure of it and not just for burning calories.

Every day I can hear anorexia calling me back into the cold darkness once more. Every day I long for the numbing effects of starvation, of the familiarity of diminishing, of the security of the known. But every night I tell myself I only need to keep going with recovery for one more day. Just one more day. And slowly but surely the days are turning into weeks, and now a few months have gone by, and while I'm never really happy, I am having occasional moments of joy. Feelings of accomplishment, of a life that is being lived and not merely existed.

I don't know if this is it and I will stay recovered forever now. I suspect not; anorexia has been in my life for over 25 years. But recovery isn't just about sunshine and rainbows for the rest of your life, it's about living in the moment, always fighting, not letting stresses that go on around you from affecting your focus.

Recovery is like the thawing of the longest winter, and the unfurling of a tender, new spring flower.

Bumps in the road

Recovery has been a bit wobbly of late. After the initial few weeks of the novelty of eating better and the almost immediate gains in energy has worn off, it's really hard to keep up the momentum to keep driving forwards. I can see I'm still improving physically just by looking back in my training log; 8 weeks ago, any form of exercise resulted in several days afterwards stuck on the sofa unable to do much else. I was just exhausted. Now I'm able to put in 5-6 decent days of training a week, preferring to do it in the mornings so I have the afternoons to rest up and recover. Today I set out to do another 13k, though actually miscalculated distances and ran 14k instead, but for the first time since I've started running again, it was incredibly laborious, and each km run felt like squeezing blood out of a stone. There was a point where I just sat down on a bench and cried, because I was frustrated and annoyed at myself and was acutely aware that my body was reminding me it's still not very well. Normally it's very much mind over matter and I can mentally push through the physical barriers. But today, my body said "no".

I think a lot of my issues today are just that I'm exhausted. I don't cope with rest days very well, so recently I've been ignoring them and training anyway. I really do understand that the body needs rest, and that rest days are a positive part of training, but to my anorexic brain, rest days are idleness, and idleness means I don't deserve to eat. A few days of skipped meals result in what happened today; a bad run. Too many skipped meals leads to relapse, and while I yearn to restrict again, I know I need to keep going down the recovery path. I have my first appointment with the ED dietitian this week, as I genuinely don't have a clue how to eat "normally". I'm hoping she will be able to advise me on how to fuel for a run safely, in a way that will enable me to perform as well as possible whilst not making me gain any weight. I also hope she will be able to help me with eating on the days when I don't train, so I feel safe to rest whilst still eating. Oh heck, I think I'm counting on her to be a miracle worker!!!

But while I battle with recovery and all the crap that that brings along the way, I have recently discovered that some people actually have a problem with the fact that I'm trying to get better. It appears that some people only like me while I'm seriously ill and at death's door, because as soon as I start doing better they drop me like a hot stone, defriending me on Facebook and that sort of thing. Are people really that pathetically shallow, that they only find someone interesting when there's a life and death drama to be had? If I was to relapse again would they come traipsing back, wanting a piece of the action once more? It makes me think of when I first arrived in Nottingham when I started university; my popularity massively soared after I was attacked, with a particular group of people being all over me, wanting to say they were friends of the raped girl and therefore in the know of all the gossip. I was dropped by them after about a week when one moaned to me that I wasn't "over it", only 5 days after the incident. I felt rubbish about it then and I feel rubbish about it now. But, as a good friend of mine said, who does it make look bad? Certainly not me. Time to cast off the dead wood and get any negative people out of my life. If I get ill again, I almost certainly won't survive. And my gorgeous children need me in their lives now, and for many years to come.

Looking forward, I have 4 weeks until the Nottingham 10k, and 7 weeks til Ramathon. Tomorrow I'm meeting someone that I've been chatting to online for a while, and next Sunday's long run will be spent in the company of my dear friend Sarah at Elvaston country park. The best thing is schools go back tomorrow so I get a break from the bickering! Happy days!!

Pictures from Wollaton deer park

Keeping the momentum going

I am now 6 weeks into recovery, and I can honestly say that at times it sucks. It's not just about eating more and the associated aesthetic results, its like a massive thawing of everything, physical and emotional. And it has been those effects that have sent me scurrying back into the depths of anorexia in the past,and is why so many people dip their toe into the sea of recovery and give up for a while longer. But for each horrible thing that I have to endure on the path to recovery, there is an associated positive, and it is these wonderful things that I am trying to focus on, enabling me to battle through the other stuff. I know I can always go back to starving, I can do it any time I want to. But I do want to try recovery, and every night I tell myself just do it for one more day. Bit by bit the days are building up into weeks, and one day I won't need to keep taking it day by day and it will get easier....or so I hope.....

The most significant thing I have to handle is my immune system waking up. When I was really unwell I never caught any of the bugs flying around, because my body couldn't spare the energy for my immune system to fight them. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing; I was ill enough without having infections on top. But now I'm a bit better nourished I'm catching everything, only my body can't deal with the bugs as efficiently as a healthy body would, so it takes a lot longer to shake the bugs off. For example, I'm currently 10 days into a heavy cold! Equally, atopic issues such as asthma and hayfever are running rampant, but this has happened in the past during recovery and will settle down in time, providing I keep doing "what I need to do".

Although the physical side effects of recovery aren't a whole lot of fun, I am thrilled that I am now training as I would like. I am putting in some form of training every day, and am seeing great results in my fitness and endurance. Granted I am not where I would love to be, tapering ready to run VLM16, but in 6 short weeks I have gone from struggling to walk to running 10k (still buzzing at that!), and more importantly I am not needing several days to get over a training session like I did at the start of those 6 weeks. At times it feels like slow progress, and my head struggles to accept where my body is at, but at other times it feels like nothing short of miraculous. So while my body is getting a bit bigger, I try to tell the panicked thoughts that it has gained muscle, not fat. Likewise when I struggle with the fluid retention affect of reintroducing carbs into my diet I remind myself that the carbs are enabling me to put in all this training, and energy plus muscle mean I am a runner again.

How lucky am I to be running amidst these beautiful animals?

Emotional thawing can be the hardest part of recovery. But with every negative there is yet again a positive. I don't want to detail all the crap that goes round and round my head; that is something for my therapist to deal with. But I can share with you the wonderful bits, such as the almost overwhelming pangs of love I feel at times for my children. I never stopped loving them when I was really unwell, but I was in such poor shape that at times they seemed like another job to do. But now it's like I have all this love, and pride in what they achieve, and it's all so much less effort. Then there are times when I'm out running and it's tough, and my legs are heavy and it feels like I'm breathing through straws, then suddenly it hits me: I'm out running! And then there is an overwhelming gratitude that's almost too much to bear, and pride in myself that I've fought my demons and I'm taking my life back. So in the times of despair, and thoughts that "I can't do this", I try to remind myself that I am, in fact, doing it, I CAN do it, and it will be worth it.

Tonight I'm sat here and, despite a massive sense of achievement for today's run, I'm struggling with the concept of continuing recovery. It's as though the bigger the accomplishment, the more the anorexia grips on and digs its hooks into me, making me question whether I can keep going. Whether I want to keep going. Because I know anorexia well, I am familiar with it, good bits and bad, but recovery...well....that's new territory, and it scares the hell out of me. I'm so tired of the continual fighting that recovery entails, I want a break from that, but I know if I slip back again I may not have the strength to haul myself back out. So I need to keep going. I'm so lucky that I have running as a motivator to keep me focused. But more than that, I only have to post something related to my running achievements or recovery on Facebook and I receive thunderous support from all corners. That support empowers me, and at times like now when I feel weaker I allow it to carry me along, away from the darkness, and into the land of the living. I will always be so very grateful to everyone who continues to support me after all this time. I'm very lucky.

A gratuitous Barney picture, just because!

Recovery

It's been a while since I updated, and for once I feel less in limbo and more like being on a train that is slowly pulling away having been sat at the station for a very long time.
3 weeks ago I was discharged from hospital. It was my 7th admission in 4 months, and I'm hoping it will be my last. While in there I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, which has messed with my head somewhat for reasons I'll explain later, but it confirmed to me that I am so utterly sick of hospitals, and having needles stuck in me and IVs pumped through me, and everything that being in hospital entails. And as I lay in bed one night, whilst a dying patient was brought into the side room of my ward so their family could say goodbye in private, I thought, I can't do that to my family. I couldn't bear for Larry and my children to be clustering around me to say goodbye. So enough's enough, it's time to change the record.

Slowly slowly I'm letting go. Although my food intake hasn't really changed, my mindset has. In the past 3 weeks I've restarted personal training, I've made a few pitifully short but amazing runs, and I've started going to some of my old gym classes. In body pump my weights are much much lighter, I need frequent breaks in PT sessions, and I often come home and sleep for the rest of the day from the effort, but it's a start and I'll take that over being moribund any day. I feel hideously fat most of the time despite getting smaller not bigger, but maybe I always will. Maybe I'll always despise myself, maybe one day I'll learn to like myself, but at least I'll be alive to watch my children grow up.

The thyroid issue is one that has rattled me a lot. I refused to take carbimazole at first because my theory was, if I was struggling to lose weight when heavily restricting and my thyroid was working overtime, why the hell should I slow my thyroid down and risk gaining a load of weight in the process. My ED consultant said I'd probably only start taking the meds when not doing so interfered with my running, and boy was he right! My first attempt at running sent my heart rate over 200, from a resting heart rate of 120, and it was at that point I could see the benefits of taking medication! Sometimes being so stubborn is a hindrance rather than a help!

I am so blessed with having so many wonderful friends who are like scaffolding, holding me up until I can manage alone. Sadly, not everyone is nice and kind. I received the following at the beginning of February:

The police dealing with my case called the writer deranged, and clearly someone who doesn't know me or my family at all well. Friends have said they are sick and evil, I'm just glad to see there is someone out there who is WAY more messed up than me! The police are aware of who the sender is, and if there are any more letters like that I will press charges and let the law have them. But it is sad, that someone whom I considered a friend could do something so despicable, yet not even have the courage of their convictions to sign their name. And really, if I'm going to get a poison pen letter, I'm kind of disappointed they didn't bother to cut out letter from newspapers...! I am not ashamed of having mental illness, and I'm certainly not going to hide it away like a dirty secret. I am an advocate of the charity Mind, and that has given me the confidence to speak freely. Besides, pretty much everyone who knows me knows what's going on, unless they're living on a different planet!

But for now, I'm taking it one day at a time. Trying to be patient and allow my mind and body to heal so I can achieve what I want to achieve, rather than trying to get there straight away. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey. It'll be worth it all in the end.

The beginning of the end

So another year draws to a close and all around are people making resolutions to make their lives better in someway. Most commonly they will decide to lose weight, eat cleaner, go to the gym more, give up smoking....most of these will be but distant memories once February begins, as old habits come to the fore again. This is the time when I will start to hibernate a bit, because discussions about dieting and weight loss and how best to cut out as many calories as possible is akin to reading a step-by-step guide on how to kill yourself for me right now. Oh don't get me wrong, I LOVE talking about all things weight related, but then I'm in one hell of a relapse with anorexia right now so dieting is my bread and butter (pun intended).

Hooked back up to the mains

Unfortunately for me, unlike last year where I could write resolutions along the lines of attaining self-contentment and achieving a time in VLM that made me happy, this year my resolution is simple: to stay alive. Yesterday I was discharged from my 5th hospital admission since November, all of them aimed at keeping me alive a little bit longer by increasing my serum potassium level, rehydrating me, and helping me get control over the continual vomiting I now know is part of cyclical vomiting syndrome, exacerbated by hypokalemia. There's always a point during each admission where my potassium reaches such a level that a pale-faced junior doctor comes rushing over ordering infintessimal bags of IV replacement. In the first few admissions they thought that they could shove a bag through overnight and I'd be fine to go home, but the last few admissions they've come to realise quite how depleted my body gets. It does amuse me though when the doctor you'd previously spent ages trying to convince that one bag won't cut it come over all flustered, pale and sweating, ordering what feels like dozens of the things back-to-back "stat" after read your recent blood result. Every time I get discharged I ask Larry "will that be the last time?", and every time he laughs and says no, I'll be back in a few weeks. I even have the staff saying see you in a few weeks when I leave. But I don't want to be a professional revolving door patient. I don't want to be a collapsed out mummy on the sofa on Boxing Day, just waiting for the children to go to their little holiday with grandparents so I can get my hospital admission without them ever knowing.  

Did that really happen?

Apparently the answer is to eat. I don't think people realise how hard that is to do. Ignoring the fact my body struggles with food going in, hence the vomiting, what does stay in I struggle to digest. And then there's the psychological side of it all.....I am so lucky to have friends I can call on, but when I'm in full-scale panic at having eaten something, nobody can really get through to me. Everyone in hospital asks who's "looking after me", who's in control of me. When I say I'm under the ED team they smile, as though responsibility can pass to them and the problem of me is solved. But the ED team consists of a once weekly appointment with a therapist. No medical back up for the physical side, and when I have to miss an appointment due to being in hospital or too ill to attend, I don't even hear from my therapist. No one checks up on me. The one person who is the best at looking after me is my GP. He sees me weekly, he checks my blood, he's always available if I need to run something past him, and he gives a shit. I honestly don't know what things would be like if I didn't have him supporting me. The best thing is he remembers ME. Not the broken, half-dead specimen in front of him but me at my best. Post-VLM, enthusing about how amazing it was to run a marathon. Celebrating my successes, supporting me when my health led to what I perceived as failures. I'm luck to have him.

And I'm lucky to have my informal cheering squad. I can't neglect to mention Larry, who's had to watch his wife disappearing in front of his eyes for the past 8 months, fighting a battle he can only sit by and watch, and still love me even when anorexia changes me physically and emotionally. He knows I might push my body too far this time, but he's still there, as supportive as he can be despite his own mixed feelings. God, I'm a shit wife. Then there are my friends; some of them long-standing, some a bit newer, but all playing a significant role in keeping me going. They are all so different, but I love them all and appreciate everything they do for me. I know my trainer TT will be there waiting when I am able to progress from the wobbly walking I'm currently doing onto bigger and better things. And Laura will always be there with diet coke and a pot to paint.

So if I was to write resolutions for 2016, they would probably be a lot different to what I would've written had I been fully well;
1. I want my friends and loved ones to always feel appreciated and never taken for granted
2. After almost 25 years, I will finally figure out how to kick anorexia out of my life once and for all
3. Everything has to be about my babies, my 3 beautiful children who deserve to have a functioning mum
4. Failing that, a lottery win would be ace!

Happy New Year everyone xxx

What is anorexia?

The media portrays anorexia as an almost glamorous disease, like heroin chic. "Proana" websites are full of "wannarexics" wanting to "catch" anorexia to help them lose weight. The most recent one I saw was "help me get 'ana' so I can fit into my prom dress in 2 weeks". They often get sent off with a flea in their ear, told to try a healthy diet and not a deadly disease, but it always strikes me as terrifying how so many young girls are glorifying what kills up to 20% of sufferers, that it can be considered desirable and almost like a status symbol. So I've decided to outline what anorexia means to me, if nothing else to get something out of my system.

What is anorexia?

It is the rapid loss of weight, granted, and feeling your clothes getting bigger until they start falling off and you need smaller sizes.
But you don't see that. I've lost a third of my body weight in the past 5 months and I still see what I saw then....fat, hideous, revolting.
It's watching the people you care most about exchanging worrying glances and knowing this is killing them too, but feeling totally powerless to change anything.
It's lying in bed all night with hideous abdominal cramps from laxative abuse, which you didn't even need because you'd barely eaten anyway, but you took "just in case".
It's watching everyone else getting on with their lives while you're stuck, or even in reverse, and you would do anything to move forwards but eat.
It's missing out on taking your family to the Goose Fair because standing is a bit of a challenge today and having a bit of egg was too little too late, but oops now I need to burn off the egg.
It's seeing all your running friends racing and improving, while you're grateful to be able to walk a short distance every day.
Sometimes you lash out, and you hurt people you care most about like I did yesterday, and I don't know if I'll be forgiven or not. It's hard for most people to separate you from the ED bit of you.
It's being cold all the time, and nothing really warms you up...except maybe hot food, but that's not an option because you're too tired to work it off.
It's being scared ALL THE TIME that your children will notice and develop the disease when they're older.
It's lying in bed feeling your heart pounding and hoping it calms down but doesn't stop entirely overnight.
It's watching your children playing, and praying you get sorted so you see them grow up.
It's having people you considered friends totally ignore you and your FB posts because they don't understand, so maybe ignoring will make you go away.
It's other friends whom you haven't seen for ages swearing under their breaths at your weight loss and asking you if you're ok, which shocks you because don't forget, you don't look any different in your eyes.
It's begging your therapist for more help only to be told you're lucky to get one hour a week because funding for eating disorders is so scarce, and you're too heavy for inpatient treatment.
And then one day you find a breast lump, and realise that if it is cancer, you'd be too scared to have treatment because the steroids will make you fatter.
Every night you go to sleep and pray for the day when you wake and food is separate from feelings, and you can start accepting social invitations and eating for pleasure.
It's about so much more but I'm getting really tired sitting up to type this and need to lie back down.

Last year my dreaming the impossible was to be able to run the London Marathon 2015. This year my dreaming the impossible is being alive to run the London Marathon 2016 for Mind. I've missed Robin Hood so far this season and will miss Royal Parks and Great South Run over the next few weeks. I'm not missing any more. By hook or by crook, I will start VLM16 and I will also finish it. I just need to figure out some stuff first. Thank you for reading.