Pondering

I had an interesting thought today...

One of my many fears of recovering from my eating disorder and gaining weight is what I think other people will assume about me.

I worry that if I look healthy and normal on the outside then everyone will assume I'm fine, happy and coping well on the inside. They'll have higher expectations of me. They wont realise how much of my time is taken up by eating disordered thoughts, and will therefore expect me to do better at everything.

However.... I challenged that thought today!

There's a lady in the office where I'm working atm who is SCARILY underweight. In the past I might have found seeing her triggering... but now seeing her has actually helped change my views slightly.

Now I don't know if she has an eating disorder, or some other illness, but my immediate thought was that she must be suffering with anorexia. Other thoughts that went through my head (I'll be honest here!) were that it is NOT a good look! she looks ill, lifeless and unattractive. I thought that I definitely do not want to end up looking like that ever again.

 The interesting thing was that at no point did I look at her and think, wow she must be having a hard time and be very unhappy, she probably doesn't like herself much or she's calling out for help.

These ideas didn't even occur to me... someone who has been in that position and is very atune to it... so I'm guessing the average person wouldn't go much further than thinking she's very underweight, she doesn't look well.

THEREFORE, QED, CONSEWUENTLY, SO, HENCE, IN CONCLUSION AND FOR THIS REASON....

... losing weight and being noticed as thin/ill will not necessarily make people understand that I'm struggling anymore than being at a normal weight would.  I hope managing to straighten out this fear in my head will make weight gain just that little bit easier!

I cannot show my emotions through my body image, I have to use my voice.

Much love

xxxx

It's the taking part that counts

I swam in the County Masters swimming competition yesterday (where all the adults in Hampshire race) . It was really good fun and is always quite friendly as well as being reasonably competitive.

I was worried that I wasn't gonna achieve to the high standard that I always set myself, and I thought I'd be gutted if I didn't swim well.

So beforehand I thought it through and decided I'd much rather go and enjoy it from the social aspect and not be so competitive. I knew I hadnt trained enough recently to have any chance at getting good times, and I also knew there's no way I'd get close to doing a personal best, because since I was ill I haven't done enough swimming to get back to proper fitness. There were lots of people in my age group of 18 - 24s and cos it's the youngest age group there are lots of peeps who are still very competitive rather than the older age groups where it's all alot more fun and relaxed!

Anyway, once I'd sorted everything out in my head, I was raring to go and have a good time with my team mates. It was fun to drive to the pool as a group of us and just joke around... and there were many laughs had during the day from all sorts of antics... i thought people grew up and matured as they got older, but deffo not!

I managed to join in the banter (and start alot of it!) and not feel shy or awkward even though everyone else there was quite a bit older than me. To be part of the team and feel like I was included was definitely a much bigger achievement for me than how well I swam :)

I got a bronze medal in the 25 frontcrawl which was cool, and came between 5th and 8th in the others which was pretty middling, so perfectly acceptable! Our relay team got disqualified tho cos we were a bit hopeless!!

Bling! (they don't even give you a ribbon, pah!)

Me being an ideeeotttt

It was great to see people in their 70s and 80s still competing. There was even a 92 year old who was determined to get a national record! I hope I'm still as fit as them when I'm that age.... all the more motivation not to destroy my body with an eating disorder.

Zat iz all for now
xxxx

Change at last

Over the past couple of weeks I've been in constant panic mode. I've felt myself grow bigger and have more fat on my body and not been able to cope with this. The panic has been there pretty much every hour of every day. The thoughts sucked me in until I couldn't possibly think about anything else. It was like living with a constant adrenaline rush and a big ball of knots in my stomach!

Every time I thought about my body, my immediate reaction was disgust and that I coudn't possibly cope with looking like this. Then I would try and block the thoughts out of my head, but the nasty feelings would linger on.

STOP!

Finally, after mucho discussions with my mum, I can start to see the bigger picture. I had got so caught up in feeling terrible that nothing else mattered. Now,.... I realise that if I want to be healthy I need to accept that my body WILL be different to what I'm used to. It's not the end of the world, and the less time I spend worrrying about it the less I'll actually care. Now I can accept that my new body image will take some getting used to as I've never had a proper women's body before. I am allowed to feel anxious about the changes, and when I accept the anxiety it will allow the feelings to subside.

There are far more important things in my life, and I don't want to waste them by being in a constant state of fear.

Some pretty fleurs in our garden! bit random and nothing to do with my post but I liked them and that's all that matters! :P

I read this amazing girl's blog this morning and it was spooky how well it tied in with what I've been feeling. Thanks Fi!!!

I think I've been stuck in a place where I'm 3/4 of the way through my recovery. I look healthy, I can eat with others without bringing attention to myself, I can do all the things that I missed so much when I was ill, I'm louder and more confident than I was...... but still in my head there are alot of ED issues that need attention before I can ever recover properly. I DO still have an eating disorder even if it isn't so obvious anymore.

When I can accept myself for who I am and feel worthy of taking up space on this earth, then what I look like won't feel so important to me. I'll be able to just be.

Hope so anyway!

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."

 ~e.e. cummings

Love love

xxx