SAFE TRAVELS GRANDMA

My grandmother passed away in her sleep overnight.

I’ve been caring for her the past ten years. On Tuesday she woke up, reached out and held my hand and said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.” She was 98 2/3. She wrote this poem about me when I was very young.

Simone

Where did you come from little child
You who drive your parents wild
What seeds long past have had their day
In varied loves – to have their way

A child of fire – a child of flame
Contrary and wild but never tame
What does the future hold for you
Little devil tried and true

May it bring you all things good
Fame and fortune compassion too
Love and pity, joy and pain
Or your loved ones loved in vain

Bless you little devil child
Though you’re here to drive us wild
Without your fire we well may be
Untried and cold – we’ll wait and see

THE NEVER ENDING STORY

As soon as I make a little bit of progress – and find a few moments of hope and belief – I seem determined to crash and burn, just to prove to myself recovery is either impossible or impossibly difficult.

What happened? Who gives a shit – same old, same old. But if there’s one thing I am taking away from this recovery gig, it is the importance of pulling my pink spotty bed socks up and getting on with things. No point wallowing around in one of my infamous pity parties – they gain me nothing and I’ll be there all by myself.

Every day is a new day and a fresh start, and today’s poor choices do not need to be repeated again. I tell myself this at the end of every day – it is an ineffective strategy for making any lasting change. My halo of Snapchat flowers are bright and angelic first thing every morning, and by afternoon they feel as fake as the smooth, porcelain skin the Snapchat filter thoughtfully plasters across my aging visage.

So how do I find lasting change? By implementing some of the tools I accrued over the last decade or so – the most important of which are mind tools. Changing thought patterns so ingrained I don’t even know they’re there. We have been doing an exercise in identifying thought patterns. It goes like this…

• Situation
• Thoughts
• Feelings
• Actions
• Results

Then you do the exercise again with reframed thoughts and feelings, which leads to different actions and results. Or so the theory goes. I get stuck though.

I can identify situations (phew!). Then I hesitate a little, but with a lot of digging, start to figure out what I’m thinking. The next step is the tricky bit – feelings. I don’t know what they are. Well – that’s not true… I know what feelings are – but I can’t feel them. Logically I know what I’m probably feeling, but I can’t notice it. I’m just numb all the time.

I don’t want to be numb any more.

I’ve been talking about these feelings for quite some time now – years with my psychologist. I hear again and again feelings won’t kill me – I’m sure that’s true. I don’t think I’m likely to find out in a hurry though!

As a child I was highly emotional – easily brought to tears, or laughing so hard I wet myself. And it was never approved of. I learned to suck it all in and produce a pasty bland face showing nothing. Or to plaster on the appropriate level of joy, jealousy, or rejected. The emotions were still there of course – bursting at the seams to the point I routinely couldn’t hold back tears, adding a deep level of shame and horror every time. So I learned to numb. And I am awfully jolly good at numbing myself.

Now when I try to remove those numbing activities and to consciously access the well of emotion to see what’s sitting there, I feel dumbfounded. What’s there? Am I sad? Why? Am I just thinking through this logically, or am I genuinely sad? There are things to be sad about – we all have things to be sad about if we focus on them. So perhaps I’m meant to be focusing on the things I’m happy about – we all have things to be happy about if we focus on them. But then I’m conscious of the fact I’m forcing myself to feel something, rather than allowing whatever is there to just bubble up and be.

I hope this is a case of practice makes perfect. I have a lot of practice to do. I’m willing to do it – and I’d like to see some results.

The other mind work I need to do is meditation, mindfulness and visualisation. I need to do some aspect of this every single morning. Every. Single. Day. It needs to become a non-negotiable, essential part of my day. Just like brushing my teeth, having a shower, and painting my public face on.

All the other tools I’ve found and utilised are great, but mental health issues are mental. Which is defined as relating to the mind. And all the other tools are the important garnish, but if the mind is not developed and healed, they are always just bandaids on a gaping wound.

So here I go again, circling around in this never-ending story. Polishing my halo of filtered Snapchat flowers and hoping I can choose to make the choices that will lead to lasting change. It’s up to me. It has always been up to me.

WHY DO I DO IT?

I am coming to the end of an eight week online course for recovery from binge eating and/or bulimia.

I am about to commence an eight week online course for transformational writing and author awakening.

Both cost money. Neither will return any money to me. So their intrinsic value is about personal growth, not financial returns. And I have had to justify the investment in both courses – not only to myself and my husband, but to other people. Not because they don’t think I should do the courses, but because they genuinely want to know why I’m doing them and what I will gain that can’t be gained elsewhere – for much less (or no!) money. I have struggled to find the words to explain why.

I tend to be deeply instinctive – about people, places and situations.

When I meet someone, I either trust, or don’t trust them, almost immediately. That level of trust doesn’t necessarily relate to whether or not I like them. I can dislike someone but still trust them deeply – meaning I respect their opinion, don’t feel judged, know my story will be kept in confidence, and their interactions are genuine and honest. I can also like somebody but not trust them. I am not sure if that makes sense? I can’t even explain why I do and don’t trust people – it is just something I see in their eyes. And I’m rarely proven wrong.

With both these courses, I have had the opportunity to get to “know” the facilitators a little bit before commencing – through Facebook group interactions, and watching live videos. Both of them are people I feel very strongly that I can trust. I value their experience and expertise in their chosen fields. I appreciate their strengths as teachers and mentors. And I am confident in their authenticity – they are real people not pretending to be what they are not.

The ED recovery course felt like it was something I needed to do to save my life. How long can I go on with an eating disorder getting worse and worse? One way or another, it would eventually kill me. I have tried so many other things and it just felt like something I had to do. My gut was screaming at me, Do it! Do it! So I did it. And I am eternally grateful I did. I have had quite a mind shift. Recovery was never going to be complete in eight weeks, but I have been set upon the path and have a lot more tools at my disposal. I also have access to the free group forever, which remains a fantastic supportive place to be as well.

So what did I get for my money in the recovery course?

• I haven’t restricted my food intake for over four months
• Purging reduced from 6-10 times a day, to once or twice a week
• Bingeing reduced from daily to maybe one or twice a week
• Slip-ups are followed by a lot more compassion and acceptance
• I have fantastic visualisations to work with
• I have a group of women who understand and support me
• I have removed all the tools of my self-harm trade
• I am eating three main meals and three snacks a day
• I am extremely well hydrated
• More than anything else though? I believe I can recover!

So the author awakening course – what do I believe I will get for my money?

• I believe it will be a continuation of my recovery
• I believe there will be focus on acceptance – in every aspect of my life (past, present, future)
• I believe it has the capacity to return my lost confidence
• I believe it will continue to heal the great hurts I have internalised
• I believe it will offer me hope for a future that is goal oriented – not just going through the motions
• I believe it will allow me to expand on my current writing, so I can further explore the stories – real and imagined – that are bursting to be released
• I believe it will allow me to continue to connect with the world in the best way I know how
• I believe it will introduce me to a community of women who will empower and support each other
• I believe it will teach me about the world of publishing and editing
• I believe it will teach me a lot of the technical craft of writing I have never learned

So is it worth it? Come back and ask me in eight weeks! I’m not a psychic – I can’t guarantee that it is going to be life changing. However my gut is once again screaming at me, Do it! Do it!

I’m deeply conscious of the fact purely from a monetary point of view, I won’t have anything to show for it. I won’t get a “thing” to hold. I won’t get a job at the end of it. I will simply be gaining (hopefully) skills, confidence, knowledge and awareness. But perhaps those things are priceless…

YES!!

Day 30 of the challenge. I made it!
In case you missed it, my challenge was to write for 30 days about my vision for freedom and the reason why I want to recover from an eating disorder. I’ve been a tad higgledy piggledy, but I got here. While I confess not every moment of every post for the past 30 days has been cheerful or optimistic, I feel I have a much clearer sense of why I want to recover and what my future holds – which has been a big stumbling block. In summary?
I want recovery so I can experience peace and serenity in all aspects of my life – not just around food. While food occupies all my thoughts I can’t have serenity.
I want recovery so I can be fit, healthy and well, and to be here for family and friends when they need me.
I want recovery so I can contribute meaningfully – in the workplace, my home, and relationships. In every capacity, I want my interactions to be meaningful.
I want recovery so I can live long enough to meet my grandchildren and accomplish things I have yet to even dream of.
I want recovery so I can travel to far flung places, hike the highest hills, and lap up luscious vistas.
I want recovery so I can become everything I am destined to be and to dig into my deepest depths to find strengths and qualities, skills and interests I never knew I had or wanted.
I want recovery so I can write my story. Your story. Other people’s stories. Real stories. Made up stories. To write about love, lust and loss. To write about tears, tragedy and triumph. To write about passion, people and places.
I want recovery so my future is something to yearn for, not run from.
See those glorious vintage dresses hanging in the tree, with a glorious blue winter sky above them? I love their quirkiness. I love the ancient beauty of the fabrics, the fresh starkness of the bare branches, and the hope and warmth a deep blue sky offers. I love that all those things are juxtaposed together. And I hope that is what my future looks like – random bits of gloriousness tossed together to make a beautiful picture.
And now that the challenge is over? I reserve the right to write whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it. Maybe that will be tomorrow. Maybe it won’t. Maybe it will be cheerful and recovery focused. Maybe it won’t. I will see what happens when the mood takes me. In the meantime, many thanks to all the people who believe in me, for sticking with me, and for the lovely supportive comments I get. You are totally awesome 🙂

RECOVERING

I am recovering. I am not recovered… I am in recovery. This I believe. This I know.

My recovery course is ending and while I would love to say I am recovered, that was never going to happen. I can’t recover from 50 years of disordered eating in the space of eight weeks. Unfortunately!

Many things came together to create my dysfunctional relationship with food. And many things need to be pieced together to heal. I spent a decade searching for answers, magic bullets, the perfect diet and quick solutions. Anything offering absolution with absolutely no work on my part. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too.

I have accrued a lot of knowledge, tools, and a network of real people and online communities. The giant puzzle needed to become whole is getting much closer to completion. I think I have most of the pieces now – enough to get me well underway at least. And these are some of the things I’ve learned:

1. Acknowledgment: You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. I mastered this – I definitely have a problem!
2. Acceptance: This is much trickier. While I fully accept the issues, I struggle to accept and move past the origins. I’m just about there.
3. Overeaters Anonymous: I loved OA – it’s an awesome recovery place no matter what flavour of ED you have. I didn’t find all the answers I needed but I found a lot – a community of loving, supportive people and a place to share my story without judgment. I learned how to listen with my ears open and my mouth shut. I read a lot and learned about journaling, reaching out, and making recovery a priority.
4. Professional Support: I am blessed with a wonderful doctor, dietitian, psychologist and psychiatrist. All of whom helped me with lots of tools – understanding why I developed an ED, understanding nutrition, accepting the importance of medication, using CBT and DBT. The most important of all though was recognising, acknowledging, accepting, and working through emotions. I have so much more work to do in this area.
5. Journaling: If I were to tell someone with an ED to do ONE thing, it would be to journal. We have so many emotions, thoughts and feelings all tucked away, hidden inside, desperate to be let out. Thoughts govern feelings. Feelings govern actions. To change our actions, first we change our thoughts. Journaling is the best tool for making sense of those thoughts. It also led to my blogging, which is leading me to writing. Which I love 🙂
6. Mantras & Affirmations: So airy-fairy. So useful. The trick is to say strong, positive statements you believe. Standing naked in front of the mirror and telling yourself you’re beautiful is great – if you believe it. But if you have an ED, chances are you have terrible body image and self-esteem, and you’d rather roll around in dog shit. But you can say useful and believable affirmations and mantras, things like: my body nourished three pregnancies, I will never give up, I am good at [INSERT] etc. There are always positive things you can say. Not backhanded compliments! Just keep it gentle and believable.
7. Reframing & Visualisation: This is new to me and I need to do a lot more. But it’s awesome. We’re all familiar with the inner critic (you suck! can’t believe you did that). Reframing takes a negative thought, identifies the origin and turns it into a constructive lesson rather than a humiliating putdown. Life always throws curve balls but I don’t have to beat myself with a bat every time they head my way. And visualisation is just taking time to imagine how my day might pan out, or what my future might look like. Visualising possible hurdles I’ll be confronted with and healthy ways to cope. These two tools are really difficult – and absolutely essential.
8. Why? I can’t stress the importance of this enough. If I don’t have a reason to recover, why would I bother? It’s a lot of hard work so there’s got to be a payoff. I have to picture what that pay off may be. I have to be working towards a goal, not just recovering because other people think it’s a good idea. I have to do all the work – therefore I have to have all the reasons.
9. Hope & Belief: Without these, nobody would bother to recover. I have to have hope – if I have no hope, I’m not going to put an effort in. If I don’t believe I can recover, I am right. If I do believe I can recover I am right. This is probably the greatest thing I’ve taken away in the last eight weeks. Hope was consolidated. Belief was found. I am still trudging along a long dreary road, but now I believe there is something worth travelling towards.
10. Food plans: I messed with these a lot over the years. There’s a really fine line between a food plan and a diet. Diets don’t work. That is proven again and again! Yes – we all have a “diet”, but that is different to dieting. Some people leave particular foods out of their nutritional intake for essential reasons (nut allergies, coeliac etc), but regularly leaving out food groups because of a fear they’re making me fat is idiotic. It’s just another type of restriction, and if there’s one thing I have learned, restriction leads to binging – a hundred per cent of the time. The two most important things I’m putting into food plans at the moment is eating six times a day, and I want to score at least three out of five from the foods groups.

So there’s my recovery list – the things I’ve collected for my puzzle. We all need lots of pieces, what works for you? It is easy to feel like a failure when someone recovers and you don’t, but perhaps it’s just not the right tool or the right time. Keep collecting. Keep going. I’m going to recover. So are you!
 

EAT

I have to eat food.

I have to eat food – six times a day.

SIX TIMES A DAY!!

Fuck… Well to be honest – I don’t HAVE to – it is a choice I’m prepared to make. I am generally very obedient (see grandma!! I really am!!), so if say I’ll do something, I follow through.

I’ve just started reading a book called The Bulimia Help Method, and after many introductory chapters on how dieting, removing food groups, or restricting causes eating disorders (there’s a lot of science to back those claims up apparently), the first rule is to start eating – three main meals and three snacks (or six small meals).

So I need to eat at (approximately) 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and a (very small) late night snack before bed. And I have to do that every single day, even if I’m not hungry. It can just be a little bit of food – like a cup of tea and a mandarin – but I have to eat.

Obviously main meals are meant to be a little more substantial than a mandarin…

As my weight has been climbing since I stopped restricting (but haven’t as yet stopped bingeing and purging…) I struggle to believe recovery will bring me to a healthy, stable weight. However as my body becomes more nourished – through the food I am eating and keeping down, and with all the multivitamins I was taking – it becomes much easier to make intelligent decisions. So – starting tomorrow, I will commit to eating six meals a day for the rest of this month and see if the urge to binge really, truly reduces. I am sceptical… But I promise to report back in a little while.

It does seem vaguely logical. I can see that by ensuring I eat something every three hours, I will probably start to let go of a lot of the food thoughts like, should I eat? when should I eat? can I hang out a bit longer before I eat? do I deserve this food? what should I eat? why am I eating? blah blah blah. It’s so boring. It’s incessant and it hounds my every waking moment. But it’s also boring. So perhaps structured eating times – rather than structured eating – will assist me with a lot of the mental food obsession.

Time will tell.

It is also supposed to assist with metabolism, as the body becomes used to the fact it will be provided with food on a regular basis so it doesn’t need to store every ounce of energy it comes into contact with – just in case it needs it later. My poor old body has never known when it will be fed, if it will be fed, or what it will be fed. It’s a tad confused.

I will commence six meals a day and part of me is thrilled to bits to basically be given “permission” to binge all day long – six meals seems like a staggering volume of food. But a much bigger part of me is thinking I’ll report back here in a month to say, I told you so. I’ve gained 20 kilos now.

I’m trying to stay positive though. I’m going to eat. I’m going to see how it goes. I’m going to recover.