Someone I love wrote this on a card. And it really resonated. Acts of kindness and encouragement can mean the world when you are struggling.
I wanted to share these words of encouragement because they are so powerful.
Your recovery must come first so that everything you love doesn’t come last. Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.
I’ve never written a post whilst “in the thick of it” before. But one of my values is authenticity. We often forget our struggles when we come out the other side and often some of the biggest lessons are lost if not shared when we are truly at our most vulnerable. I’m out of alignment and stuck. That’s basically an eating disorder summed up.
The last few months have been hard. I let small ED things creep back in and before I knew I was back under anorexia’s grip. I didn’t think they were a big deal. Individually they probably weren’t but if like me, you have a history of an eating disorder, we have to be vigilant of these things because one slip can become a landslide before we even realise. It’s a lot easier to deal with when it’s small and early. My aim of this is to reach someone, perhaps you’ve noticed a couple of things slipping, shut this down before it becomes an uphill battle.
The best way I can truly describe being amidst a relapse of an eating disorder is “Smoke and Mirrors”. I could kind of see it happening, but the smoke just kept coming.
The eating disorder serves as an obscurer. It’s made it near impossible for me to accept/ see I am in a relapse, I have a problem, I need help or that I’m not making my eating disorder up. It confuses my brain on a daily basis. It will have me believe I’m fine when everything and everyone I care about tells me the contrary.
All of this is the smoke that has kept me in the grips of anorexia, it’s made me hard to “reach”. How do you solve a problem when someone doesn’t believe there’s one to be solved? It’s taking me time to figure this out. It can’t be unless I decided to trust the people telling me I’m on fire. Some days I believe it, other days I can’t see past the smoke.
This is the main reason for wanting to share this, because I forget this feeling when I get back on track and yet it’s a feeling I can guarantee anyone who’s lived an eating disorder has or will feel at some point. When this started a few months back, I didn’t talk about how things were slipping, instead I isolated and went to anorexia’s open arms. Anorexia and eating disorders thrive on this secrecy, isolation and vulnerability.
Talking might have pulled me out of this faster and so I urge you, if you can feel things slipping, don’t wait for it to get worse before you ask for help. “It’s no big deal” may well be a big deal. It gets harder to ask for help the longer you wait and the eating disorder will do anything to trick you into believing you have this “shit in control”.
It’s a scary and lonely place to sit in. When your brain doesn’t allow you to see through the smoke. Everyone around you might be trying to pour water over the fire, but you struggle to even feel the burn. Occasionally the smoke clears for a moment and you might get glimpses of the situation and it’s suffocating. Realistically it comes back to putting one foot in front of the other to pull yourself back out. Because I only I can pull myself out, just like only YOU can pull yourself out. BUT*** We don’t have to do it alone. Which is something I’m yet again grappling with.
My goals are to go back to basics.
What does that mean?
– Attempting acceptance and when it’s not there trying, to trust my support team because I sure can’t trust my brain right now. If people are telling you they are worried, try to listen to them even if the eating disorder doesn’t believe it. It may never believe it, but one thing I do know is, I can trust people that care about me.
– Try and be honest. There’s no point saying you ‘want’ to recover when you don’t, but that doesn’t mean we can’t commit to recovering or at least trying. It’s a very strange concept to explain to someone who has never lived an eating disorder, why on earth wouldn’t someone want to recover from something that was harming them. For me the work here is coming from “unpacking what my beliefs around what the eating disorder does for me“ It’s hard for me to say I want to recover when in the short term recovery makes me feel shit but I know that long term it’s short term pain for freedom.
Again being honest about what’s realistic for you to challenge now. Only you can really know this. Recovery is meant to feel hard. But I know if I over commit and I can’t meet that goal it only fuels the critical voice of anorexia. Everyone’s recovery is different. Your goals will be not be the same as the next person. Whilst we are at it, releasing comparison full stop.
– Going back to basics. Trying to re-establish the healthy routines.
– Trying to re-establish things like regular eating.
– Using tools that I have learned in treatment or that have helped me in the past- such as dialoguing (as much as I dislike this exercise) because I know it helps to bring my healthy self to the foreground. Dialoguing is something I have let slip, yet it’s a tool that has always helped me see my eating disorder thoughts and healthy self more clearly and allowed me to reinforce that healthy side of me in moments of difficulty. (For anyone who is unaware; dialoguing is an exercise where you write out eating disordered thoughts and counter them with your healthy self (non disordered brain) to try and separate yourself from your disordered thoughts and strengthen your healthy self, you should always end on a healthy self point)
– Connecting not isolating or withdrawing. For me this looks like: keeping appointments with my team, talking to friends and family and even writing this blog because it’s connecting with my authenticity. This is something that I’m finding hard right now because the eating disorder wants me to be quiet an secretive. I’m also having a tough time saying eating disorder or anorexia and so I’m being deliberate in using it. Calling it what it is. Connecting with reality, truth and people. All the things the eating disorder tries to stop me from doing.
So where am I going with this…
Am I motivated to recover at every waking minute at the moment HELL no, But I am COMMITTED to keep trying every day. You don’t have to want to recover. But first step is to meet yourself where you are and work with that.
Eating disorders will distort and hide the truth of your suffering from you. Making it hard to accept or see your reality.
But no matter where you find yourself, even in times of relapse it’s important to remind yourself you’re never starting at square one, even if you feel like you’re starting again. You’re starting with more knowledge and resilience than you did at the beginning. Recovery is not linear. It’s ok to not be ok.
https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/recovery/self-help-tools-skills-tips
Sat in the car with Ben driving me to my first ED therapy session was the scariest day of my life, but it was also the beginning of my life. Sounds dramatic, well it was.
I sobbed the entire way, I yelled at him when we got stuck in traffic and the prospect of missing this appointment. The extreme reaction came from utter terror that if I missed this appointment I might never be able to re-find the courage that was leading me there and fear of starting the hardest battle of my life.
I had been to therapy before, when I was 7 and struggling with OCD and again a couple of times as an adult but I’d never talked about the eating disorder.
I remember the room and the welcoming demeanour of my then therapist who went about my intake assessment, I recall the paper questionnaire she had me fill, (EDE-Q) exploring my relationship with food body and mood. Distinctly I remember the battle in my head about how honest to be.
The room was cold and it was pitch black outside and I’d rushed from work, because I didn’t feel I could attend this appointment in work hours. At the end of the session I remember telling the therapist “please don’t label me”
She replied with a sentence that changed my life. “You have anorexia, restrictive type”
I felt a rush of complex feelings, Shame, disgust, denial and most prominent RELIEF. Relief I might not have to do this anymore.
Relief that now it was out in the open I couldn’t completely deny it anymore. Although at that very moment in time there was no part of me that felt “ready to give this part of me up” I also knew I couldn’t keep it up either.
The weigh in, which would become a regular feature of our sessions following, made the ED scream. I wanted to leave and not return for my second session but the present but quiet healthy voice would make me show up.
And three years on, that quiet healthy voice is now the predominant voice and I’m grateful to her.
I went back 3 weeks later and started CBT-E. It was the toughest and still remains the hardest thing I’ve ever done, hands down. I affirm it saved my life, in every sense. But 3 years on from that first meeting I wanted to share some hard truths.
1. Recovery isn’t a quick process. When I wrote a blog last “year- two years in recovery”, a large part of me hoped and thought by now I’d be saying I was fully recovered. In some ways this black and white all or nothing thinking kept me stuck. It was putting an unnecessary pressure on myself. There’s not magic crossing line.
2. You don’t always have to want to recover in order to do it. I mean when I reflect on that first appointment I certainly didn’t, but I started it anyway. There are days now, where the constant of my eating disorder feels like an easier option than recovering. But when it comes down to it, I hated my life with an ED far more than in recovery. Recovery will also not be forever, whereas an ED would be or a race for death. I don’t want to die and so even on the days where the ED comes knocking it no longer has as much power.
3. My definition/expectations of recovery have changed with time. Like I said, I no longer have a self determined end date for recovery. Instead it’s a commitment I make to myself over and over, with the hope and expectation that one day I will confidently exclaim I am free.
4. Slips, lapses happen. I’d be completely disingenuous if I pretended recovery has been linear. I’ve probably had more slips in the last 12 months than the 12 months prior to that, but each slip/ lapse has given me much needed information and education. I’ve gotten to learn so much about myself and it’s been generally easier to pull myself out of each one. It’s shown me areas of recovery that require my attention and focus to move forward and prevent the same slips later.
5. Self compassion. As a typical ‘all or nothing’ thinker and perfectionist tendencies it’s been one of my biggest challenges to learn to be self forgiving, to show myself kindness and compassion particularly in moments of struggle. But eating disorders feed on this inability to be kind to ourselves and practicing these have been by far one of the most powerful tools I’ve found in my recovery. This includes learning to talk back to the negative critic with kinder & gentler affirmations. Often, accepting what the eating disorder tells me and countering those thoughts with a healthy alternative. This continues to be something I work on. My journal is full of dialogues between my healthy self and the eating disorder voice and I gain insights to recurring themes or things that are keeping me stuck.
6. There are many beautiful things in recovery. My husband recently sent me a text “do you know what I really love? That the real Nikki is almost fully back, despite the shit that goes on in your head, the goofy girl that’s always been there is coming back more and more”
I screen shot that text and in moments where the ED is screaming at me, I read it and use it to motivate me to make the right decision. Finding something that can help motivate you in tough moments can really help, whether it’s a post card or somewhere you want to visit, an affirmation or a text from a relative can often empower you to fight back.
Now here’s where I highlight once more, I don’t always like recovery but if I want to stay that “goofball” my husband, family and friends love, I have to fight that voice, sometimes many times in a day. And this lends me on to another recovery tid bit.
Connection. Connecting with others in recovery, connecting with those that have trodden the path before you and connecting to your why’s is like an eating disorder recovery essential survival kit.
Connecting with people who ‘get it’ has helped me more than I can express in a simple blog. But if it’s something you’ve been reluctant or afraid to do, please consider it. Talking to people who ‘get it’ often without having to say what “it” is, really helps in several fronts; feeling seen, not alone or crazy. Not to mention the unwritten support and etiquette that most people in recovery show each other (I.e automatically knowing what Info is harmful, like numbers etc) without having to ask someone not to share things likes diets etc that is normalised outside of the ED recovery community. This can also lead to a level of accountability the “wanting to set an good example or help others” can inadvertently push you forward.
7. Connecting to my why. If I was to share what my why was three years ago, it would be very different today. The only thing I knew then was I couldn’t live that way any longer. Now, my why remains dynamic but is also much broader. I’m no longer a one dimensional figure where my life revolves around food and exercise.
What has recovery taught you?
That’s it my reflections on the last three years in recovery, who knows what I’ll find in the next 12 months, but I know one thing I’m letting go of the pressure of setting myself a recovery deadline and I’m just going with it.
Might work be an area that requires your attention in ED recovery?
If I was to ask you what one of your most challenging situations in recovery has been, I expect a lot of you will answer, navigating recovery and work.
What is it about work that makes it difficult to remain in recovery or on course with your goals?
Taking time off from our jobs/ school or college may not be possible for everyone in ED recovery. It wasn’t for me personally. There are times, where I know not being at work would have been really beneficial to recovery. Taking time out is beyond the scope of this blog and very individual.
I want to share some reflections regarding the relationship my work has had in my own eating disorder with the hope this may help you.
Considering many of us spend more than half our adult lives at work, it may be we need to put extra “work” in to maintaining our health in our place of work. Finding a way that means the two are not in conflict is vital. Both living with an eating disorder and recovering can be very stressful, managing this with the stressors of work can compound this further. It’s exhausting.
Ideally a person who is in the early phases of recovery wouldn’t be worrying about their career when the main goal at this time is to stay alive, yet because of a plethora of reasons, such as financial worries, stigma, access to care this is the reality for many. Many jobs lack the flexibility that is so needed to make progress in recovery.
Recently, I moved city and role in a new hospital.
Before we moved I told myself , “this was going to be an amazing fresh start in terms of recovery”. Before I go any further, I still have this view but I’ve had to shift my expectations and time line.
I came here with the mindset; people here don’t know my past which means I can start a complete fresh, ‘I will eat with people, eat all the foods I’ve not been able to in previous jobs and I will break away from the ED disorder identity’.
** To be clear, I ’m not ashamed of my background or struggles and if asked I will elaborate, however I want to recover, and not being tied to this ED persona is important to me.
My goal is to not be seen as the person who is ‘weird’ around food, or left out of social engagements that involve eating. I’ve missed out on this for years and my goal is to heal this relationship. Making connection with others, is recovery to me. To get to that, this for me means taking smaller steps.
Okay, so fast forward 6 weeks into my new job. I’ve felt completely perplexed by why my intentions hadn’t come into full fruition.
Let’s break this down, why might be harder than anticipated?
1. Firstly, let’s bin the notion you can ‘out run’ an eating disorder. I believed for years I could move and leave my ED behind. Time after time I proved this wasn’t a thing. I moved half way across the globe and my eating disorder followed. And so, let me save you the wasted time: YOU CANNOT OUT RUN AN EATING DISORDER.
2. People spend a lot of time at work. Sometimes people are afraid to share their struggles for fears of; discrimination, stigma or bullying. I was and to a certain extent still am.
3. Work can be a trigger for many. I’m not for a second saying certain occupations cause an eating disorder, however I strongly believe in those of us with the vulnerability to developing an ED, certain jobs may perpetuate them. Having this knowledge may be an asset in preventing and helping people to recover, for both employees and your employer. For instance certain occupations attract particular personality traits. Working in fitness, fashion, catering may draw specific trait’s. Working in the food industry may both be motivated by an ED or exacerbate. Certain careers like professional sports, fashion, entertainment and healthcare reportedly have higher incidences of people with eating disorders. Doctors’s may be at risk through; perfectionism, hard working, people pleasers and combine that with a culture where it’s praised if people forgo breaks, being vulnerable and speaking out against struggle is seen as a weakness. The stress of looking after others, exams, career progression, missing social events, It’s a perfect storm for those of us with the ED vulnerability.
4. Neural pathways take time to develop and naturally take time to deconstruct and rebuild new pathways. If your ED mindset and behaviours are entangled with your job, then it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get why it takes time to resolve. (Though it’s taken me until now to realise this for myself).
5. Culture and societal pressures, “diet culture, weight loss, fad diets” are almost seen as a way of workplace bonding. People can fear being ostracised by speaking against this or simply excluded if they try to protect themselves from these otherwise seemingly innocuous conversations.
6. In the same theme as above fearing social engagements that involve eating with others can feel like it’s thwarting making connection’s and perpetuate this spiral.
7. Work place canteens may serve as a barrier to some people, the lack of options coupled with social anxieties may add a layer of stress.
8. Time pressure, work related stress may exacerbate eating disorder thoughts and behaviours especially when eating disorders have been the maladaptive coping strategies for stress.
9. Work may reinforce self esteem issues. If a person’s eating disorder is entwined with poor self esteem, a person who feels negatively about themselves at work or has poor confidence it’s unsurprising this may manifest in their eating disorder’s.
10. Imposter syndrome may be both perpetuated by an eating disorder and in some ways recovery. This is a big one for me, as I battle the eating disorder it can cause a imbalance of energy. I become anxious my focus on recovery is thwarting my career progression. I feel added stress and pressure, which can become a trigger in itself. However if I am not focusing on recovery, my work performance slips at the cost of my obsession with food and numbers. My anxiety can make me worry about losing out on promotions or career progression. Yet despite having to expend this energy, it will never impact upon my work in the same detriment that living with an eating disorder can. Being patient and kind to yourself here, I feel is the key. Forgiving for what is.
Now we can see some of the ways our eating disorder might be entwined in our work schedule, we have given ourselves insight and a place to focus our recovery goals.
I personally feel like identifying this, is a milestone in my own recovery, but I also feel frustrated by the fact it’s something I have to consciously focus on. It’s another hurdle when so much I want to be able to say; I’m free. Free to focus on anything but recovery from anorexia. However, I also fully embrace this is part of my healing journey.
Though I don’t claim to have this figured out, these are some of the tools I’m using to help me navigate this part of my recovery:
1. Make realistic goals. I am very much a black and white, or all or nothing thinker. Recognising my thought processes around recovering in the workplace has served as a catalyst to make changes. It’s not a failure if you can’t challenge everything all at once.
2. Be honest with yourself and importantly your support team. Make use of help anywhere you can get it.
3. Set yourself goals and debrief if they need tweaking. For example my initial goals were to eat with people every day when I started here. When that wasn’t working I needed to go back to basics and work out what was serving as the barrier. If eating with others is something that causes you a lot of anxiety, perhaps starting with smaller challenges first and building up to this might be a good one. I’ve been working on challenges like; making eating regularly non negotiable, practising eating different foods and buying the occasional meal or snack from the canteen. Something I have never been able to do until now. As I’ve become more comfortable in doing this I’ve then aimed to eat with others on occasion. I might not be in a place to buy foods and eat with others everyday yet, but that’s okay! I’ve often brought my lunch in and then gone and sat with my new peers outside or in the canteen. My point here is, you don’t have to achieve everything at once, take a step back from striving for perfect. Perfection is an illusion. Start with what feels achievable right now. I was focusing on the end goal rather than where I am right now.
4. Perhaps find a colleague you feel comfortable with, someone you can eat with (they don’t have to know about your eating disorder). I used to eat with a colleague in my old job, because she had a “fuck it mentality’ around food she was a great role model ( and she didn’t know how much she was helping me)
5. If it’s an option, sharing your struggles with a co-worker or employer. This is very personal and not for all. However having people around who know about your ED may allow other ways you can be supported: making time for breaks or allowing you to attend appointments etc.
6. Boundaries, boundaries and boundaries. Whatever boundaries you need to protect your recovery, whether it’s removing yourself from triggering comments, or carving specific times in your day that align with recovery. Boundaries are like a recovery superpower.
How can you, as someone without an eating disorder help a co-worker?
It’s highly likely you work with someone struggling with their relationship with food and body. You may never know someone is struggling ( kind of the nature of an eating disorder).
But you can be a real ally in someone’s recovery by:
1. Being mindful of how you talk about food and bodies around others. Don’t be that person who encourages the cheap diet talk. Keep the diet talk out.
2. Don’t comment on others eating habits, an innocent comment such as “ I wish I could eat that, or is that all you’re having or you’re going to eat all that” might just be the comment that serves as a barrier to a person eating.
3. If someone turns down an invitation to join you in social eating, don’t stop inviting them on other occasions. When someone feels excluded or isn’t given the opportunity to participate it may perpetuate the cycle that they cannot join in or they have to keep isolated. Eating disorders are extremely isolating.
4. Be kind. Don’t judge someone.
5. If you think someone you work with may be suffering from an eating disorder, share your concern with them in a non judgemental manner ( this may depend on your relationship). They may not open up to you, but you may have given them encouragement to talk to someone they’re comfortable with. It’s not your responsibility to make someone recover ( no one can do that) and so often a person won’t need advice but a supportive ear.
6. Educate yourself about eating disorders, some of the most harmful comments come from ignorance rather than a place of malice.
7. Be a role model, show people it’s ok to show vulnerability, to talk. You’re vulnerability may be the gift a person needs to feel safe.
8. If you are an employer, you can make your workplace a safer, more inclusive environment. Providing mental health training, awareness to make the workplace inclusive and reject stigma surrounding mental health.
I expect if asked, a lot of you would join me in saying one of the biggest threats to you recovery is work. Right?
With that, it makes sense a lot of our recovery energy needs to be focused on creating balance where the two are not in conflict. Perhaps talking with your support team can help you create a more symbiotic relationship.
What else would help you at work?
Protecting your recovery can be like developing a super power. It’s also incredibly important when we are surrounded by potential triggers every where.
If we are in recovery from an eating disorder, we need to learn to reject diet culture, which is really difficult when it infiltrates every part of our society.
I recently came across a blog, where the author was promoting a weight loss regimen, whilst sharing their own ED Recovery.
That tells me two things, firstly it is not something helpful to my recovery, secondly the writer very likely still holds a lot of internalised implicit biases around weight and fear of weight gain and unlikely recovered.
The intention of this post is to highlight the importance of being aware of the content you chose to follow and your motives behind it.
People have the right to write/ talk about whatever they like. However, it can be really damaging to a person who is trying to heal from an eating disorder to follow accounts like that. You have a choice regarding the content you chose to follow or not.
My thoughts are and they may be unpopular, YOU CANNOT recover from a restrictive eating disorder whilst still actively attempting to pursue a smaller body. Believe me you cannot. It took me long enough to come to terms with this. You might get the idea of “I could go on x diet, lose this much and I would be ok”. Take it from me you will not. It is a relapse waiting to happen. That is how my last real relapse happened. All it really tells you, if you get those thoughts there’s still work to be done on neural re-wiring. It gets easier. I get these thought from time to time, “If I could just lose X amount I will be happy” this is my eating disorder voice and one that I know cannot be trusted. A size, or shape will never change how I value myself, I am so much more than a measurement but this is not what my eating disorder believes, it will make me buy into the notion that my worth is solely based on a number. This is not happiness.
I cannot diet ever. ever. ever. Choosing to go on a diet when you have a history of an eating disorder is like saying a person who has recovered from substance or alcohol abuse can have the occasional drink. You would not say this. Dieting is our drug. We cannot safely dabble.
In recovery the focus should be on challenging our fear of weight gain, body image, learning about the health at every size movement. Dieting becomes less appealing. I’m not saying you won’t get those thoughts. However your brain will learn that you don’t place all of your value on a number and it’s not something we’re interested in. If the concept of Health at Every Size (HAES) is new to you, I encourage you to explore some of the resources I’ve shared at the bottom. However, a very brief summary of HAES; the basic premise supports people in implementing health practices for the purpose of overall well being rather than the focus on weight control. There are some key values to HAES, it encourages people to eat intuitively, accepting of body diversity shape and sizes and that health is about much more than weight. This is a very simplified explanation.
I do not believe a person can endorse weight loss and be fully recovered themselves, because the aim of eating disorder recovery is to unlearn your fear of weight gain, to rewire implicit fat bias/ fat phobia. Therefore by promoting weight-loss on an eating disorder recovery site is an oxymoron. It does not have a place in recovery. I personally do not follow accounts whereby the premise is promoting weight loss or any form of diet culture based content.
If you are trying to recover from dieting, disordered eating or an eating disorder it is your responsibility to not allow this to trigger you. Therefore avoiding unhelpful information such as “losing weight” in eating disorder recovery might be the easiest way.
My last real relapse came from thinking “I can safely diet”
How I deal with these thoughts now; I challenge myself with the following questions:
Why do you want to diet, what are you actually trying to do? What are you lacking in an area. (It’s usually self care and self compassion for me).
But, I find sites like this are dangerous in the ED recovery community, they do not realise the potential harm they could have. This particular individual has a large following. Many of the followers suffer with binge eating and the blog is the last thing a person experiencing such should be taking notes from. Dieting no matter how you look at it is restriction. Restriction is no friend to bingeing in fact restriction causes bingeing.
I recently shared this checklist on my social media- it serves as a way to protect myself and maintain healthy boundaries.
Resources:
Orthorexia- the “socially acceptable” eating disorder
My eating disorder like many, has been a shape shifter over the years, meaning at various times I would have met criteria for more than one diagnosis besides anorexia nervosa.
We are all human beings. Fitting into criteria or a neat little box isn’t congruent with being human. And so whilst diagnostic criteria can be useful to help identify or guide which treatments may or may not work for you, I think that’s where their relevance ends.
What is Orthorexia?
The Diagnostic & statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) does not currently hold a separate diagnosis for Orthorexia. Instead it technically fits under the diagnosis Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) , although not perfectly, we return to my point about us being humans and not fitting neatly under one set of criteria.
This is a disorder characterized by an obsession with eating “healthily” or “clean” foods. A person becomes fixated on eating only foods they deem to be “pure”, meaning they can adopt strict rules and restrictions around foods and how they are consumed. I called it the “socially acceptable” eating disorder because it can be hard to detect in a society that praises restriction and demonizes anything else. People often reward people for eating “cleanly”. No eating disorder is ok. Orthorexia is when a persons focus on eating healthily actually becomes detrimental to their health, as a result of the obsessions, restriction, nutritional deficiencies and effect on the body.
It wasn’t until I started recovery for anorexia I realised I needed to challenge this too.
Orthorexia complicated my recovery, as I mentioned eating disorders are shape shifters, my way of “coping” with recovery became focusing on nutrition for a short while. If you are trying to recover by eating only “healthy” foods, you need to challenge this.
You cannot recover from a restrictive eating disorder holding on to ANY rules around foods. My obsession with eating healthily also preceded my development of anorexia and at some points other ED symptoms.
It is generally accepted that people experiencing orthorexia are not always driven by a fear of weight gain or drive to be thin, unlike anorexia. It can result in body dissatisfaction but weight loss it is not the driving factor (usually). It is about feeling clean and pure. I have no doubt that it could lead to anorexia in those of us with the genetic susceptibility because it can result in energy deficit.
Some of the warning signs of Orthorexia may include:
If you think you have a problem, any concern with disordered eating, it is always good to seek help. Talking to a GP, a health at every size aligned dietician or therapist would be a good place to start. You deserve to have mental freedom.
Helplines/websites:
But when life is challenging , you won’t have an eating disorder to contend with as well.
Rather naively, I think many of us hold this notion of “if I could just fix my ED, my life will be perfect”. So let me get in there early and save you the “aha” in months/years to come, set your expectations now, be realistic .
This is something I have come to realise throughout my recovery. The many times I’ve contemplated what recovery means, how I define it, what life will look like beyond my ED.
As I’ve gotten further into recovery and shifting away from my eating disorder, it’s become increasingly apparent that recovering from an eating disorder does not mean life will ultimately be all rainbows and flowers once the ED is conquered. No. That’s just not possible. But, life’s so much better, just putting this out there early.
But, the big thing here, the “aha” moment for me, was recognizing recovering from an eating disorder means we have tools to help us when life throws us a curve ball and returning to the eating disorder does NOT have to be an option.
Additionally when something in life happens out of our control, not having to contend with an eating disorder simultaneously, means we are better equipped to handle the stress.
An eating disorder is a big problem, not a solution. It may feel like it gives you control and comfort around times of difficulty but I promise you, that is the mask of the ED. It is definitely an added problem that you do not need.
Recovery will not mean that when you have a stressful time in your life, a loss or lots of change you won’t experience human reactions such as anxiety, low mood or whatever else we all feel according to life events. Recovery doesn’t make you some kind of super hero that doesn’t feel or get rocked by anything- but it does mean you don’t resort to dangerous/ maladaptive coping mechanisms that you have relied upon until this point. Learning to feel has been a skill I’ve developed in recovery and how to respond to these feelings.
It would be unrealistic to believe you will never have a day of insecurities, or god forbid a bad body image day. Because even people who have never experienced an eating disorder experience these human emotions. But if you’re recovered you won’t obsess over them, you will be able to deal with them and it won’t “ruin your day your week or even your year”! Yes I did just do that.
Recovery is a beautiful thing and it means something different to everyone. The recovery process is not the same for any of us, but I do believe it is important to consider your expectations of what it will mean for your life.
Personally, it has led me to an understanding that beyond ED Recovery work, in order to remain in recovery, l will need to put work into ongoing stress management, imposter syndrome and work anxiety. For me they are interlinked.
It is highly likely this will mean continuing with therapy of some kind to help me work with these issues, because I want to protect my health legacy.
One thing I know, life stressors are not something that are going away because it’s part of life, everyone has problems. BUT don’t let having an ED be one of them or believe that once you have recovered you will be a unicorn and NEVER have another issue.
When will my extreme hunger end, is my extreme hunger normal? Should I trust this hunger? How do I get rid of this extreme hunger? Why can’t I eat like a normal person? Am I mad? Are these questions you’ve asked?
You’re not alone.
Hunger is normal. Most people wouldn’t give it a second thought, they experience hunger, they eat and move on with their day. It is a normal human function.
For those of us who have been through an eating disorder or any form of disordered eating we have tried to avoid hunger. Lost touch with it, broken our trust and relationship with it.
Almost as a sick joke, when you start recovery, it is very likely you will experience the well recognised phenomenon that is hyerphagia, a.k.a ‘extreme hunger’, though not everyone does. Realistically you are unlikely to be able to go from heavy restriction to eating ‘normally’ straight away.
What is extreme hunger?
It is essentially a biological reaction to a period of restricted intake, this can be through disordered eating such as dieting or an eating disorder. It is the body’s mechanism to heal, there are physiological aspects to do with hunger hormones such as ghrelin as well as psychological mechanisms. It is a means of repaying the deficit of energy the body has undergone to repair itself. So whilst we are here, let’s emphasise that although it feels ‘excessive/extreme’ it isn’t under the circumstances is it?
When you restrict, even in short periods your body begins to utilise energy from all parts of your body. This basically means your body has started digesting its own organs etc. Now imagine if that was for a very long time, the damage done, eating normal quantities of food would be a drop in the ocean, it’s not enough.
As someone who has ignored hunger, restricted their intake of food, this feeling of intense hunger is terrifying but makes complete sense if you break it down logically. I wanted to wait a while before writing this, I wanted to write my experience from the other side to reassure you IT REALLY does get better.
Not everyone will experience it, it will look different for everyone, it may show up right from the offset of recovery, or like me later after a relapse.
I remember trawling the internet for hours, reading scientific papers, watching YouTube videos to try and predict when my ‘extreme hunger’ might subside and if it was normal asking all of the above questions, hoping for an answer.
The truth is, no one can tell you when it will happen, if it will happen or when it will go. The only thing you can be reassured in, IT IS NORMAL, IT WILL GO AWAY when your body is ready for it too. And yes, there may be times it returns, for instance if you enter a period of inadvertent restriction i.e. after a small illness.
I didn’t experience this “extreme hunger” when I first started recovery in 2019, it showed up for me when I truly let go of all restriction and got back on track from my last relapse in August 2020. It manifested in many ways which I’ll elaborate on.
When I was seeking comfort from online sources, article after article would reassure me that what I was experiencing was in fact a completely normal response mechanism to restriction and that if I honoured this hunger it WOULD dissipate. I did not believe any of this at the time. It felt so wrong, like I was doing something wrong (I was in terms of my ED brain, which is a good thing), I felt like it would never end.
But now, if you have found this by searching “will my extreme hunger ever go away, how do I get rid of extreme hunger” I promise you as someone who has come out the other side IT WILL GO AWAY if you obey and don’t judge the hunger. I know you’re probably laughing at me now, “how can I not judge this hunger, I am never going to be able to get through it” YOU WILL.
What does it feel like...
It feels like bingeing. It’s not. It is eating what you need for the deficit. The key difference is restriction and the behaviours associated such as compensation etc. Although- I personally believe BED (Binge Eating Disorder) patients are often in a difficult position- where many treatment providers inadvertently promote restriction, by trying to limit intake, which in my opinion can set the sufferers up to binge more, which makes their recovery journey difficult. But that’s just my opinion. This is why health at every size aligned treatment is so important.
Your mind and body tells you to eat ALL foods ALL the fucking time.
You’ll think you can control it, “I won’t eat as much as that tomorrow, I’ll be normal” but you won’t, you can’t win that, so settle into the discomfort.
You will likely feel full to the point of pain but hungry all at the same time. Your stomach may feel bloated because it’s not yet well rehearsed at digesting and it’s like your stomach can’t keep up with your brain. Or you’ll think your full and done only to then feel as if you haven’t eaten just 15 minutes later. This is completely normal. (I mean nothing about restricting, starving is normal, but this response to that is)
I could eat my dinner & pudding then 30 mins later repeat this and still feel un-satisfied. I felt like a bottomless pit. It was like a survival drive.
I also experienced mental hunger. Mental hunger is a form of hunger, where you are constantly thinking about food, it often occurs when we haven’t 100% connected with our physical hunger cues or satiety.
For me this included dreaming of food, often nightmares of my fear foods, thinking about what my next meal would be, worrying about what it would be, when I would eat, if it was enough/too much, if it was ok to eat XYZ, if I was hungry, am I eating out of boredom, emotions, would I like it, would it be horrible, It was probably more distressing than the physical hunger because it was relentless and totally unimportant. If you experience mental hunger, it’s hunger. It will get better with eating.
For someone who has not experienced this, it’s hard to actually express how intrusive this is. It makes thinking about ANYTHING else really hard. My rule of thumb during this time was, if I thought about it, I ate it.
THIS is highly traumatic to a person who has restricted their intake for so long. I would advise you to enlist support during this phase. Distraction can work a treat when you are eating. Watch a show that holds your attention, eat with someone you trust, take up puzzling, anything to shift focus from the anxiety of eating. (I don’t personally believe mindful eating is very helpful at this stage as it just increases anxiety and our ridiculously critical brains, mindful eating is for WAY further down the track, intuitive eating is the goal. Just not now.
Hot water bottles become your best friend as do things like peppermint tea, they help soothe some of the gastric symptoms (I.e. unbearable gas – having a pet helps for blaming purposes!).
Yoga not only helps with the anxiety side of things, it can help with the bloating.
This is not a time to be wearing things that make you uncomfortable. Wear elasticated pants, those comfy sweat pants, flowy dresses, loose clothing, nothing that makes you feel constricted.
One thing I did, which is probably really weird but it helped me, was to name my belly “Bob”. This wasn’t a particularly conscious effort. But I like to use humour for many things, my distended belly ‘Bob” became a running joke between my partner and I. When I reflect now, I can also see it made the process easier, I separated myself from ‘Bob’, which meant I could seperate myself from my ED. If ‘Bob’ was hungry it was easier to feed ‘Bob’ than it was myself. If ‘Bob’ wanted something my ED was utterly disgusted by, ‘Bob’ got what they wanted, it was ‘Bob’ not me. When Bob was bloated I could laugh and show them compassion rather than receive the barrage of abuse and contempt my ED voice would show me.
I HAVE NO IDEA if this is something that ANYONE else would do. But it worked for me and I wanted to share.
I haven’t fed ‘Bob’ for ages, I feed myself now. But when it was really difficult to do, responding to ‘Bob’ was easier. As a thirty something year old there’s nothing less de-humanising than not being able to feed yourself, and until I could, I enlisted this tool.
Will my extreme hunger ever go? Yes, when? no clue.
Eventually over months my appetite “normalised” I use this term very loosely. There’s no such thing as a ‘normal’ appetite but what I mean is I now have a pretty reasonable relationship with my hunger cues and desires. I am leaning into intuitive eating. This extreme hunger fixed itself with time. I would find it very difficult now to eat large quantities of food (outside of what I was desiring).
One thing I had to accept was, during this time and possibly for the foreseeable future my requirements are not the same as someone who has not waged war against their body. I had a lot of damage to repair, to pay back and so comparisons to your peers will NEVER be helpful. It is not a normal situation to be in, recovering from an eating disorder and so your requirements will not likely be the same as someone who has not experienced this. So leave the judgement behind. YOU do YOU, stay in your own lane. For example there have been times where I have been able to demolish double what my husband can eat, I do not believe in the “his and hers” portions. Or portion sizes full stop for that matter.
Eventually your body will start to heal, it will start to trust you and your hunger and satiety cues will return without any intervention. Just hang in there.
Stigma has many definitions and layers.
But from my A-level psychology days the works of a psychologist Goffman defined it as an attribute that is “deeply discrediting’and reduces the bearer from “whole, to a tainted version” of themselves. Though much of his theory has been disputed most still accept this part of the definition.Goffman definition
“n. Stigma; the negative social attitude attached to a characteristic of an individual that may be regarded as a mental, physical, or social deficiency. A stigma implies social disapproval and can lead unfairly to discrimination against and exclusion of the individual’. Definition
Stigma is not a new concept, dating back to Ancient Greek and Latin, where it’s common meaning “a mark, or “sign of” as well as ‘to brand undesirable”, hence the origin of the word.
Labelling has been an area of great debate for decades. Various psychologists and sociologists have attempted to argue in favour of labelling and it’s impact upon stigma or refute it. Each arguing different consequences of labelling.
Regardless, one thing I have witnessed as someone with an eating disorder is a fear of attaching a label and the stigma associated with it. The reason I am writing this was prompted by a discussion with someone within the ED recovery community this week. They themselves were struggling with the label they had just been given at diagnosis. I recall vividly feeling this way, it served as a barrier to me seeking help.
It reminded me of my very first appointment with my then therapist. After completing the EDE-Q questionnaire and the weigh in, she said with conviction “You have anorexia nervosa”
I remember practically begging her to not attach “the label”, it meant everything to me, to not have this “blemish the tarnish” on my record. It felt dirty, shameful. Even though, I had know myself, in the moments free of the anasognosia I had had Anorexia for many years but NO one had formally named it, labelled it, discriminated against me for it. Suddenly this would be the first thing doctors saw on my record. It mattered.
This fear appears to be a common amongst many fellow eating disorder sufferers. I expect, though I cannot blanketly say so, for many other mental health issues.
Labelling has been attached to concepts including, self-fulfilling prophecy, stereotyping and stigma. Suggesting close interconnection. Labelling theory broadly states people behave or identify in ways that society or people have labelled them. This can also work on a societal level that people develop stereotypes attached to a label and expect specific behavioural patterns attached to those with a label. This can have positive or negative consequences.
Lending itself to the self-fufilling prophecy whereby an expectation results in fulfillment of embodying the label.
As these roles tend to be “deviant” from the societal norm stigmas can develop. These are derived from negative stereotypes and thus resulting prejudices and discrimination result.
The structure of stigma can then be further categorised into self stigma, label avoidance, public stigma, social and structural stigmas: ( this is by no way comprehensive and just my simpleton understanding). For this post I’m focussing on stigma within mental health.
There’s a breadth of information available pertaining to the many types, mechanisms and structures of stigma.
1. Self stigma: Self stigma impacts upon how you see yourself and your interpersonal relationships. Self stigma can be a barrier in recovery, in seeking help. It can distort perceptions of how you believe other people view you. An example in the case of anorexia might be: “ I am not worthy of help, seeking help makes me weak” self prejudices– “having an eating disorder is my fault, Why would anyone want to employ me, be friends with me”. Self-stigma and resulting discrimination: self-imposed isolation, the person cuts off from world and opportunities, including help)
2. Label avoidance: An individual may be aware of stigma surrounding a particular diagnosis and thus engages in behaviours to avoid the label. With respect to eating disorders this might look like: “having a diagnosis will mean I am vain, or I chose this “lifestyle” so they avoid seeing a heath professional. Prejudices that result- ‘I am ashamed to have an eating disorder, to be seen as someone with anorexia’. Discrimination: Concealing the “label” from my family or employer and therefore not being able to attend important appointments, because I am afraid I will lose respect and my career. The best way to combat this is through finding your voice, self-disclosure. This may be through sharing your diagnosis with a small circle or friends, family or being open to talking more broadly. (This is very personal)
3. Public stigma: Where general beliefs and prejudices are affirmed to a marginalised group ultimately leading to discrimination towards them. ‘People with eating disorders are vain, People choose to have eating disorders’. Prejudices may manifest as; employers are worried to employ the person, as they may fear their mental health makes them unreliable. Discrimination may result in a person not being employed.
4. Societal/ Structural stigma: this refers to policies invoked by large organisations or systems such as governments, health facilities that lay down restrictions on opportunities and rights of those with mental illness. An excellent example of this is weight stigma. The DSM-V label of atypical anorexia. Where this diagnosis is exactly the same in terms of criteria as anorexia with one difference the sufferer is not of a low BMI. The prejudice- fat people cannot experience as severe symptoms or implications as those who are underweight. Which is not the case. The discrimination that may result; many people living in larger bodies are denied access to health care or resources because of their size. This is a big one. Structural stigma is the one that affects marginalised communities. It’s interconnected to societal stigma. How we address this is through education, challenging the narrative. But it takes time.
There are MANY types of stigma and I have barely touched the surface. My aim was merely to shed light on how public, structural and self stigma are closely interlinked and can serve as a barrier to those with mental health problems from seeking help. Understanding the origins of stigma means we can continue to break down the cross links within it. My hope is that one day, no one will fear seeking help or a diagnosis because the label will not hold power.
Answer this question honestly, do you ALWAYS, without fault give YOURSELF full permission to eat exactly what you want, when you want?
If you are some one like myself recovering from an eating disorder it is an essential skill we must master.
For a person who has never endured an eating disorder, you have still been subject to the messages from society that eating xyz is bad, eating after x o’clock is unhealthy. It’s all bollocks but it’s been ingrained into us and so I reckon if you really answered this question truthfully the answer would be no, for the majority.
What does permission mean in eating disorder recovery?
There were times/ are times where I have required external permission to eat. Questions like, is it okay to eat XYZ, is this too much, are you sure I need to eat XYZ? These are all utterances that have left my lips. Obviously, like any human being, I do actually know the answers to these questions. But giving myself that permission to eat is something the eating disorder makes very difficult. The eating disorder tells us there are many things we cannot/ should not do. Permission to eat intuitively, unconditionally is not something the ED permits.
This is something we have to master for ourselves.
There were times early in recovery, where I just couldn’t give myself that permission. At this point, I think it’s often helpful to have support, where permission can be granted, whether it’s from friends, family, therapists, dieticians or coaches, until you are strong enough to start permitting yourself. Ultimately that is the goal. Full unconditional self permission. It doesn’t happen over night. I have given myself permission slips before. If I couldn’t do it mentally then having a permission slip physically was helpful.
Intuitive eating is the goal, but it’s not something we can just start doing. Particularly in early recovery, when you are re-kindling hunger cues, trying to restore weight because realistically left to our own devices in this phase we would likely not eat enough. My ED would not allow me permission to eat more than I intuitively felt in early recovery. This is where external permission was really helpful until I could do this. I would set an alarm every 3 hours, my snacks, meals all non negotiable. Until I started getting hunger signals and cravings.
Even now, there are occasions where if I’m having a stressful time where this self permission can be difficult. I can walk through the process in my mind but then following through is the issue. So permission slips or external permission can be helpful.
The following are some common permission pitfalls/ situations I’ve come across- I don’t think they just apply to eating disorders but I do believe they are very important for us not to fall into.
1. I ate a lot of food already/ I ate so much for dinner I can’t possibly be hungry or eat now. If you are hungry you are hungry. What you ate before is old news and irrelevant. Your ED won’t like it, but so what.
2. I haven’t exercised. You do not need to move to eat.
3. I’m not hungry now so I’ll just have a little bit. Then 30 minutes later or just before bed you’re hungry. It’s normal. Respond. You’re bodies not on a timer.
4. It’s after X O’clock I can’t eat now because “it’s unhealthy”….Your body does not tell the time, it doesn’t work to a schedule, this is a diet industry myth that is not substantiated by evidence.
5. But I’m going out for dinner in an hour so I’ll wait. Nope if you’re hungry, you’re hungry.
6. No one else around me is eating but I’m hungry. This is a tough one for those of us in ED recovery. Eating in front of others can be challenging as can eating when no one else is. But YOU have to be able to give yourself permission to eat whenever, wherever.
7. You don’t know what the nutritional value of something. (You don’t need to). Your body is not a calculator, again this comes from diet culture.
8. You gained weight. Giving yourself permission to eat when you have gained weight- whether you’re in recovery from an eating disorder or just rejecting diet culture is courageous.
9. Don’t feel hungry. Eating when you don’t feel hungry but are not sure when you will next eat etc is smart eating. In ED recovery there will be times where you don’t feel hungry as your hunger signals are not working. Eating mechanically here is important, giving yourself to eat even when you’re not hungry is essential. Set an alarm, reminder if you have to.
10. Eating when other’s around you are dieting. Giving yourself permission to eat unconditionally- this is definitely a hard one. With or without disordered eating.
11. Permission to eat, just because. Because it’s nice- something our weird ED brains can have a hard time with. My brain often questions why. There does not have to be a reason.
12. When you don’t feel you deserve to eat. Food has no moral value. You always deserve to eat. Find that permission.
You always have full permission to eat what you want, whenever you want no matter what. We all need to be able to grant ourselves unconditional permission.
Recovery involves a great deal of self exploration and a deep development of self -awareness, a level that most people will not their entire lives. This is something to be grateful for.
When I first started treatment for anorexia, I remember my therapist drawing out two pie charts. She asked me to fill in the blank circles with what was important to me in life and as a person. Her point was to show me how warped our thinking becomes when we are living with an eating disorder.
My pie at the time is a world apart from the one I would draw today.
The original pie was occupied by over valued pre-occupations with food, fear of weight gain and then tiny snippets of other aspects such as family, friends, career, “hobbies’ (at the time it was labelled as hobbies rather than individual interests because I didn’t have many besides controlling my food and shape) now this would include things like, creativity, art, writing, yoga, running, being outdoors, travelling, my veggie patch, puzzles, learning and discovery. My point being it’s a lot bigger and I have reconnected with individual interests and no longer struggle to think of what my “hobbies” actually are. Recovery involves increasing self awareness and discovery.
I wrote a blog on “you are not your eating disorder” some months back. Whilst I still believe this to be true, it is somewhat simplified because much of our identity is unveiled to us as we move through recovery.
When I was first asked, “what are your values?’, by my therapist I had the default answers, but they weren’t the core. I’d long lost touch with what they were. I suppose I identified as my eating disorder.
I had my values I would spurt as if off of a script because I felt they were what they “should be” I had my values that came from my eating disorder, but truthfully at the time I had no clue what my “true” values were.
Personally discovering and reconnecting with “my” virtues and traits has been instrumental in my recovery. There’s a sparcity in research pertaining to the use of connecting with values and eating disorder recovery but I believe for many of us it could be the missing link.
We know that eating disorders can be ego-syntonic ( we believe our actions, beliefs to be appropriate and congruent with our central personality, in contrast to ego-dystonic). Meaning many of us “value our eating disorder, see nothing wrong with it” and it helps to explain the resistance to give it up. This is where the whole rhetoric “you are not your eating disorder comes in, but to begin with we often view this as synchronous with our identity. Through the self exploration we bring the ego-syntonic values into question, essentially resulting in dissonance between the contradicting values.
I’ll use my own example, when I used to turn to restriction, I’d escape the negative emotion I was trying to avoid and feel a sense of mastery of control, in the early days anyway. All of these appeared congruent with my core values; self control, self discipline, hard working, dedicated. But the more I explored what my true values were, I could see there was an incongruence. It was bringing these values to the surface that helped me move past the ambivalence I felt towards recovery.
Some of my own values and how honing them helped motivate me in recovery..
1. Honesty and integrity. I don’t think I need to expand, I became extremely deceitful in order to protect my eating disorder. I could see that lying was causing a great power struggle. Giving myself permission to become my authentic self, learning to communicate with myself and support helped me to align with these values and realise living with anorexia was not living as my authentic self
2. Compassion, forgiveness, courage, perseverance, curiosity are some of my core values. Part of my self healing work has been to learn to set boundaries, to have an “off” switch, developing the compassion towards myself that I show others and practicing self forgiveness.
3. Solitude is important to me, I can be at home in my own company. I try and nurture this by following my morning routine where I get up slightly earlier and have 30 minutes to myself. I often use this time to journal and check-in. Expanding on this further I’m someone who needs routine to keep grounded
4. Connection is important to me, although I need time on my own, I thrive on connecting with others. My family, friends, other people in this community. This was incongruent to how I was behaving with my anorexia, I become isolated, withdrawn. I believed my behaviours were helping me connect, enabling me to control anxiety around social events for instance. However, what actually happened is I avoided the social events, I pushed people away. Highlighting the conflict of the ED value and my own.
Some food for thought…perhaps journal prompts
If you’re in a place where you are still trying to figure out your values, something I found helpful to start with, was thinking of people I admire. What is it about them that I admired?
What are some of your character traits? How do they help you or hinder you?
What are some things you believe in?
Identifying our core values helps us make decisions about the future, they shape our relationships are central to who we are. They help us to understand that when we are acting out of alignment to our core values it brings about distress and often maladaptive behaviours. This is why I truly believe connecting with our core values assists us with developing coping skills for situations and finding inner peace.
Weigh day in recovery This used to instil dread and fear into me and so I want discuss this further as I’m willing to bet it’s a common experience in recovery.
I’ve already talked about my tenuous relationship with the scales. However in early recovery when we are “ nutritionally rehabilitating” the scales can be important in therapy. Weight restoration can be an integral part of ones recovery.
I was doing my usual re-reading old journal entries and so many were about “weigh days”.
For me, I used to experience extreme anxiety leading up to weigh day and then days following.
Why is “weigh day”so traumatic for someone in recovery?
People with eating disorders tend to obsess over numbers, whether it’s calories, clothes sizes, or the frigging number on the scale. The numbers torment us. We live by them, we fear them. Therefore on the days I had managed to gain weight my eating disorder voice would throw a full on wobbly, if I’d lost it would throw a full on wobbly. You cannot appease an eating disorder.
For my family the “weigh days” were important to them, they were afraid it was one of the only ways the could tell if I was “doing ok” or slipping because of the secretive nature of ED. This reinforced the anxiety as-well, the concern of feeling like a failure or the threat of more focus being placed on me. But, I had lied before, many times and so I respected the validation they needed whilst I rebuilt trust.
The “target weight” issue
I personally don’t feel that “target weights” are helpful to most of us with EDs. I completely get why health professionals use them, but I personally feel that they have the potential to perpetuate trepidation and internal judgements that exceeding that target weight is to be feared or avoided.
Realistically most of us go way over. We go over because we need to, it’s called overshoot and it’s natural. It’s your bodies way of protecting you in case another famine arises. It’s why when people continually diet end up heavier because their bodies no longer trust them. However eventually when you let go of the diet BS, your body figures it’s shit out. But try rationalizing that with someone fighting an ED voice and going against an entire society who shares the ideology weight gain is a negative.
I believe holding on to my target weight kept me stuck, every time I got close to I’d bail on my recovery efforts, if I surpassed this arbitrary number I slipped. Until I let go of weighing and ate unrestricted. For some I imagine having a rough idea of a target may help them but for many like myself it can be a sticking point.
I know that, eating disorders love to hold on to numbers, to manipulate our thoughts and behaviors. Mine convinced me I needed to know my weight in early recovery to “monitor progress to “check”. Let’s cut through the crap, my eating disorder wanted to know the number as a “form of control” to ensure I wasn’t “gaining too much, too fast” it colluded with the numbers and therefore my behavior. This was continual until I was willing to accept my motives to know the number was not healthy.
Additionally certain values held specific connotations to previous relapses, or behaviors. For example the “target weight” hurdle was a huge trigger. I found it almost impossible to reach or pass when I knew the value because my eating disorder voice would get so much louder.
Recovery is hard enough, why make it harder for yourself by observing the scales? If you follow the recovery process, eating enough, not engaging in behaviors your body will recover and reach its natural weight without your eating disorder trying to complicate/ control things along the way.
For a while, I couldn’t know my weight, or (when agreed with my therapist) we reduced the weigh days.
There are pros and cons to this. Weight provides teams with anthropological information about recovery.
Regardless of whether it’s vital you are weighed you do not need to know your weight, you have the right when you attend a medical appointment to be blind weighed.
Fast forward to now, I’ve been in recovery for a while, there are days where I feel a draw to the scales. I know it’s never about the scale and I return to my recovery tool box to find what I need. I do not weigh myself. If I have to be weighed I would like to think it would cause little more than an internal stir.
If I have the situation where I have to be weighed:
I will likely follow my own healthy voice’s advice and ask for the number not to be made known to myself. Because, weight has no value to who we are. We do not need to know. It’s not worth giving the unhealthy part of my brain ammunition.
Maintaining momentum in recovery is exhausting.
Some days feel like you are cruising along. But I want to talk about the days where you feel exhausted by recovery itself, when motivation wavers.
I feel it’s important because without acknowledging, this “burnout” has the potential to hinder one’s recovery, through frustration, boredom or just sheer mental fatigue.
Burnout has been defined as a state of complete mental and physical exhaustion resulting from prolonged stress, where a person’s ability to meet demands is impaired. Often, through feeling overwhelmed and/or emotionally drained. Not surprising the pandemic has resulted in high levels of this and likely far more to come.
This definition is also applicable to recovery don’t you think?
When I was all consumed by my eating disorder, if I’m honest, I found every day exhausting. Living by the constraints of so many rules and behaviours made every waking minute punishing , not to mention the insomnia. Oh my god the insomnia that results from a starving brain, it’s like a waking nightmare, you’re haunted by the food “you won’t allow yourself” and all the while your brain is trying to scream at you to eat. Your brain wants you to live and in doing so constantly reminds you about food, 24/7 it doesn’t sleep and so you don’t sleep.
Life with an ED was sapping, but I didn’t appreciate this at the time, partly because I was permanently living in a high state of stress all the damn time, my body didn’t allow me to feel it. It’s the fight or flight mode, the product of an overactive sympathetic nervous system. But I was tired.
When you enter recovery your body has the chance to pause and take a breath when you finally stop. It begins to heal. Healing hurts, when you injure yourself, it’s the inflammation and body’s response to healing that’s sore.
I’m not going to sugar coat it, this moment of stopping, everything might hurt. All the injuries, the pain your body has concealed from you, just so you can “keep going” hits all at once. It’s a wall like I have never faced before and barely have words for. This fatigue and pain gets better as you feed yourself, rest & heal.
Early recovery is exhausting. There’s so much healing and adjusting to do, but the anticipation of better days ahead kind of pushes you through. You and most people around you expect tiredness in the early days, it makes sense from what your body has been through.
It’s what I’m going to discuss next that I think has been a difficult concept for me to grasp or allow myself not to become overwhelmed by.
Recovery is boring. Really fucking boring at times. Realising you will likely need to deal with recovery each day to varying degrees. Recovery still has to fit in your world. It has to so that you don’t fall into a pithole.
For example as we get further along in recovery, so many things change, mostly positive let me just get that out there now.
However…as your world starts to get bigger and your eating disorder brain is taking up far less of your mental space, you start to see who you are and what life without your ED can be. You start to have goals and dreams that are “normal” people dreams, not unrealistic eating disorder standards. You don’t want your ED to even factor in, but for a while to protect your future it has to.
You know in order to realise these aspirations you still have to have recovery goals, because how can we dream of a life without an ED if we don’t put the work in to recover?
It’s more like an irritation on these days where you are mostly free, without the constant barrage of intrusive thoughts, you have room to deal with life, “normal” thoughts & goals. Here, I try to reframe my thoughts to be grateful for these days because the alternative of not being bored, sucked.
There are days like today, when I have lots of things I am focussing on, career progress, my job in hand, family, where we will be living in a few months etc that it irks me that I have to spend any extra energy thinking about recovery. Today this meant a bit of extra attention to meal structure because I’ve lost my appetite. I can’t afford to fall into that trap and I have to focus on fueling myself properly on top of the other things. Frustrating as it is, that recovery still has to fit into that world and those future plans, it’s helpful to reframe this thought process, I am happy to inhabit a big world that my recovery has made possible.
Other times where I think recovery can become arduous is when we ruminate on the past. I often experience regret for lost time to my eating disorder. I no longer feel ashamed about it for the most part, but I do feel sad. I find this regret prevents the resentment to recovery orientated thinking/ behaviours when I’m feeling “over it” because I don’t want it to be my future as well.
This can be emotionally draining. I think it’s important to return to your self care toolkit on these days. I think becoming tired of dealing with recovery is real but I would choose to be here, rather than be a slave to it any-day. Recognising how you feel and that you can’t make massive progress EVERYDAY is ok, Burnout is ok. Be kind to yourself. Acknowledge that this is a good sign.
If you’re feeling the recovery burnout I hear you. One day you won’t have to use as much energy to protect your health legacy. So be grateful for the boredom and keep going
This post is not intended as medical advice and I am not an expert. I write this with lived experience, the intention of raising awareness and promoting self advocacy.
Have you lost your period?
Losing your period is never something that should be taken lightly, it can be a serious indicator that your body is functioning suboptimally.
What is Hypothalamic Amenorrhea?
The absence of a period for 3 or more months related to an problem with the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is situated in the brain it connects our endocrine system to our central nervous system. It has many roles- it basically acts as a regulator for many of our bodies systems. It is the main regulator of the pituitary gland which is the where central regulating hormones are released. Some of those hormones include reproductive hormones, needed for menstruation.
Hypothalamic amenorrhea- When the control centre of the brain that regulates hormone secretion– is turned off.
Why does this happen?
There are several factors that can lead to disruption to the hypothalamic signalling. This post is focusing on the reproductive aspects- hypothalamic amenorrhea. My intention is to give a brief outline to help you understand 1.why it happens, 2. Why doctors don’t necessarily consider it when they see someone in front of them.
Factors that lead to HA:
◦ Energy deficit, this is the biggest factor and can occur due to a plethora of reasons. One of those is dieting. Whether this is through intermittent fasting- where the regular signals are not being maintained, caloric deficit, or excluding specific food groups such as cutting carbs/ fats, they all disrupt the signalling from the hypothalamus.
◦ If your hypothalamus perceives energy deficit it shuts down non vital functions of the body. It keeps you alive, it’s like a book balancer. What you don’t “need” it cuts. Menstruation is a function of reproductive health. Therefore, it is not a vital component to staying alive. Therefore it shuts off this non vital function, in order to preserve other functions including keeping your heart beating. This is another reason why we tend to feel COLD ALL the time when we are in energy deficit or have HA- the generator shuts off the heater to conserve other functions.
◦ Weight loss regardless of your size. You can have HA at any BMI. Firstly, If you lose weight it’s likely related to energy deficit, however when you lose weight you lose important regulating hormones (leptin) which are in fat cells and this is part of the feedback system to the hypothalamus.
◦ Stress. Something that puts stress on your body can disrupt periods. This may be through emotional or physical stress. Cortisol turns off the hypothalamus. Therefore it can cause you to lose your period.
◦ For similar reasons to above- exercise especially high intensity exercise can raise your cortisol by placing stress on your body. Additionally it can lead to energy deficit and weight loss and so it’s continues the issue. This is part of “female athlete triad”
Unfortunately HA is a common issue, however it’s not always recognized. Partly because it’s not understood and there are many misconceptions around HA. For instance people inhabiting in larger bodies are often rewarded for their weight loss efforts and exercising, but we know that HA can occur at any size. But often we are not as open with healthcare professionals about our lifestyle and they often don’t enquire.
When women lose their periods they are sometimes then commenced on the contraceptive pill to “restart” their cycle, or in some instances diagnosed with Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).
Unfortunately this is a problem because the management of PCOS- is often the complete opposite of HA. The contraceptive pill does not address the underlying issue, energy deficit. A bleed induced by the oral contraceptive pill is not a real period. If you took the pill away likely the person would not bleed.
I lost my period for a long time, thankfully I have healed from HA personally.
When in the depths of my eating disorder I did not advocate for myself or share my situation with healthcare professionals. I was advised at times to take hormones, I was not advised to stop/ reduce my exercise or eat more for instance. Getting a diagnosis is challenging because one, we don’t share and two it’s not always on the healthcare professionals radar.
However sharing knowledge with health professionals can help raise awareness.
I am no expert, I write this purely from personal experience and getting to know people within the recovery community.
I encourage anyone who has lost their period to seek medical advice, there are many reasons for this not just HA. But if you are someone who could be at risk of this you may need to advocate for yourself here.
I’ll write a separate post about some of the myths and issues associated to HA.
Journaling can be a game changer in eating disorder recovery. It has been for me.
Your journal can become one of your most powerful allies, it can become a well honed tool from your ever growing recovery toolkit. It’s versatile and you can scribble anything you like anywhere. There’s no right or wrong way to journalling. Journals can be sculpted to wherever you are at in your recovery. Journals can be used for outpouring your thoughts or completing specific activities.
If you’ve not tried the whole journaling shizzle out yet, I highly recommend you give it a go.
Why?
Journalling gives us a safe space to churn our thoughts on to the page in all their ugliness or beauty depending how you view it. Thoughts you wouldn’t otherwise exorcise.
The journal itself can be used as a recovery tool, through various journalling exercises and practices you can solidify some of the groundwork from therapy sessions etc.
Sometimes the journal can be as simple as your listening ear when your struggling with an urge. Often the time it takes to write out the thoughts and feelings around a behaviour or an urge is long enough for the urge to pass and you’ve got written evidence of what led to the feeling or thought to help you next time it occurs. Win. Win.
We often take progress we’ve made for granted, but re-reading journals can really help you see each tiny step you’ve made even when you feel like you’re stationary.
I’ve never been a “big sharer” of my thoughts or feelings (until I was well into recovery and now I write a very un-private blog with all my craziness laid bear). However journalling helped me to share some of my most shameful thoughts, fears and emotions without judgement. Part of the eating disorder problem is the inability to share, or express difficult emotions or the feeling that what we have to say is wrong etc. It’s this rhetoric that keeps us locked in. Journalling releases a lot of this and makes it easier to begin to talk outside of the pages.
Keeping a journal can help us to identify recurring themes, thought patterns, processes especially those that occur around our eating disorder “self”.
Although my eating disorder is not your eating disorder we all share some common thoughts patterns that make us similar, which is why I write this blog in the first place. If it resonates with one person I’m glad I write. I find reading about what has helped others in recovery not only inspires and motivates me it actually strengthens my recovery. I remember reading about journalling on NEDA and completing some journal prompts from the “8 Keys To Recovering from eating disorder recovery workbork” and they really helped get me started in journalling in early recovery. Now journalling is part of my daily routine. Mostly in the form of gratitude practice, but I will elaborate on gratitude later.
Once I have written the thoughts out on to page, it becomes so much easier to see them for what they are; THOUGHTS. Just because we have a thought does not make it true.
For example, an old entry of mine in June 2019:
I couldn’t make a single decision about what to eat for dinner, I stood in the kitchen for ages agonising over whether to add oil to the pan, all I could hear was how fat I’m becoming and how unhappy I will be
I reminded myself restricting has never resulted in happiness, I was not able to add the damn oil tonight, but I know I am capable of making hard choices and I will find the courage to do it”
After writing thoughts like this out on paper over and over, I began to believe my healthy voice again. Restriction doesn’t make me happy, neither does endlessly pursuing “skinny” They are just thoughts and my truth is I can be happy living an unrestricted life at any size.
My next post I’ll share some journal prompts that have helped me.
But for now, perhaps try and think about if you were to go to bed and wake up recovered ( I know I wish right?!) what would that look like, what are some of the things you would do and feel as someone without an eating disorder? How would your life be different?
Can you scribble somethings you have learned this week? What is helping you, what’s holding you back. What have you discovered about yourself?
Quash stigma not fat: ED recovery blog 