Friday 31 March 2017

People underestimate the power of eating disorders

I can vividly remember when I was plummeting downwards into some of the worst times with my eating disorder, I was in my bed room at university and my stomach rumbled. I had the usual fight in my mind about whether to eat or not, and then I remember hearing a voice in my mind telling me I couldn't eat. I don't believe I ever really heard voices in the way some people do, but I imagined this voice and for months and months it popped up, from my imagination, every time I felt hungry. It grew and became more regular, and then I would be congratulated when the numbers on the scales went down. Maybe my imagination was too vivid. Maybe it was my subconscious. It never really bothered me what it was that I heard and felt, it just became the norm.
Eventually I told myself it was all my imagination and proved myself right as I stopped imagining hearing anything.

I think people brush eating disorders under the carpet, especially if someone isn't very, very thin, like me. But this isn't fair. Eating disorders destroy lives, control lives, manipulate lives. My whole life, my every move, revolves around eating. The torment is constant.
People should not underestimate or ignore the realness of eating disorders, whether the signs are visible or not.

'A certain darkness is needed to see the stars' - Osho, The Book of Secrets.

Thursday 30 March 2017

Can 1000 nice comments ever erase 1 cruel comment?

It's happened to me, to all of us I'm sure at some point. People say things, flippant comments like 'oh you're eating again?' and try to make a joke of it. Or 'why don't you eat? Scared you're fat?'
What makes people think things like that are okay to say? 
It happens too often to me and to someone very close to my heart and I hate the pain I see it causes.
I wish people would think, just think before they speak.
Everyone has their own battles that we don't know about, so everyone should just be kind. 
Just be kind. 

Wednesday 29 March 2017

Something to loosen the grip

I want more than anything to find a way, a 'cure', a solution to feeling like this. I know without a doubt there must be thousands upon thousands of people in the world who feel something along the lines of what I feel.
I want to find a solution but I can't, maybe because eating disorders are so, so personal, no two peoples issues are the same. So you could ask, how do you get better unless you happen to find what works for you, what helps you?

I am a Christian, and I talk to God most days when I'm driving to university or work, I chat to him about life, ask him to look after the people I love.
I ask him to loosen the grip that food and weight have over me. I ask for a break, just a single day where I do not have to base my life around the numbers on a weighing scale.
This day is yet to come, and I guess that's the way it's meant to be for now.

'A wound is the place where the light enters you' - Rumi

The journey so far

For so long I thought there was nothing wrong with me, I didn't qualify to be classed as having an eating disorder, as I wasn't anorexic or bulimic.
I went through a phase of bulimia but for me, it was never going to last. It never satisfied me and it didn't really help me.
I guess I started off 'not too bad', but then plummeted when I reached about twenty one/twenty two, became hooked on illegal diet pills with speed in them, taking four or five times the daily recommended dose, starved myself continuously and ended up having to leave my job.
I always found starving myself to be the thing I needed the most, it was what I enjoyed, what made me feel better. I would starve myself for several days a week, but I was never skin and bones, I never went below seven stone (to my disappointment), so I never received any physical health help. Maybe I could have got help, but I didn't want it. Until now, I never felt like I could talk about any of it.
Although some of my closest friends knew, I became a master of disguise. Mainly to save my friends and family from the pain I was going through.
I couldn't bear people knowing how I felt, and as I didn't live in the same city as my family, or indeed most of my friends, it was easy to disguise what was happening.

In the last year or two, I have improved but I am not recovered. I am far from it.
Can anyone recover from something like this?
I dragged myself out of the vicious circle of tablets and starvation.
Although I can now live without illegal tablets, I still rely on my trusty laxatives.
I now can allow myself to eat meals, I can't let myself eat what I want, I can't eat carbs, I religiously calorie count and weigh myself around seven/eight times a day. Still now if I have a 'bad' day and eat carbs or something high in fat, then a starvation day will be needed.
I can't eat what my friends/family want to eat and I can't go anywhere over night without weighing scales.
My life still revolves around my weight.

I am now training to work in mental health, and naturally during training we hear a lot of inspirational stories and statements, but there's one that really sticks in my mind;
'It can snow as late as May, but summer will always come eventually'


An introduction

My name is Catharine. I am about to turn twenty five years old and for the last seven years I have battled with an eating disorder. EDNOS to be more specific.
I decided to make this blog because it is time to be more open and talk about the battles that people go through with eating disorders. 
This blog may be brutal at times, because eating disorders are brutal.
Eating disorders are isolating, they control every aspect of your life, and maybe this blog will be just another blog, lost in the internet, or maybe it can help people. 
Maybe it can help even one person feel slightly less alone.


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