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!