Anyone you meet will always have a list of habits, both conscious and subconscious. Some are daily, others, occasional, like making sure you have a cup of tea in the morning. Most of these habits are benign, if at times strange, but there will always be those that we will want to rid ourselves of! Much of this is because many habits can be harmful, often without us noticing for a while. Whilst many of us might be content to live with them, we all have the ones we want to say goodbye to!
It would regularly take time for an initially harmless act to turn into something unhealthy, and by that time the behaviour had become entrenched. I didn’t realise that my daily mandatory 5+ black coffees with sweetener were bad. I rationalised (falsely) that it’s just coffee and everyone likes coffee, as well as convincing myself the insane amount of coke zero I consumed was normal (it had no sugar!). On the surface, these habits aren’t horrendous, but they contributed to my anorexia. Coffee and sweetener was a replacement for food and I never realised.
Often, during treatment, I insist that my habits around food, as well as other lifestyle choices I make, are so entrenched that I can’t ‘unlearn’ them. Trying to change behaviours that have been etched in over a long period of time is hard work, but it can be so rewarding. For me, I do not have a memory of what it was like to be ‘normal’ because I have, for as long as I can remember, had an untypical relationship with food. Yet, with each day as I move the dial further towards ‘normal,’ I feel like a new person as each of my unhealthy habits falls by the wayside.
But, whatever habits one is trying to change, however small, the path is not easy. Procrastination, as anyone working from home right now will know all too well, can get the better of all of us.
‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’
‘I’ll just have one more night getting drunk and it will be my last.’
‘Next time I’ll be more friendly when I see my neighbour, I’m just not in the mood today.’
‘Tomorrow I might visit my grandparents, I just can’t be bothered right now.’
The list could go on, because let’s be honest, facing up to changes that need to be made is difficult. They say that admitting to the problem is the first step towards recovery and this is something that has certainly held me back. But, as I look forward with trepidation to what the future might hold, I take great strength from looking back through the years and comparing myself to how I was then, to how I am now. Change is slow, but each small step over time adds up to great strides. If only I had known or appreciated these ideas back then. Five years ago, I could have just followed my meal plan, rather than throwing it in the bin outside the dietician’s office. Maybe, if I had just broken my habit of clinging onto anorexia for as long as possible, none of these so called ‘habits’ of mine would be as prevalent as they are now? I also wish I had just spoken to the long list of professionals I have seen more, and been more open and honest then, rather than spending sessions in awkward silence, praying the clock ticks quicker. On the most part, I wasn’t able to speak openly, as I have said previously, I didn’t know ‘how’ to speak.
Yes, I have not completely recovered, far from it. I asked my dietician this week if she has seen progress since she met me last October. She replied back, ‘Yes, back then I would have been sitting for over an hour with you whilst nibbled your way through one Weetabix with a pathetic amount of milk.’
Change doesn’t happen all at once. Change is a process, and often, when rushing through, it can be hard to make those changes sustainable long-term. There are no time boundaries on recovery. I don’t have to reach certain ‘grades’ or ‘milestones’ as recovery isn’t definitive. Annoyingly, often the definitive marker of health is weight, which despite being biologically accurate, is far from the truth.
Recently, I have started an online travel journalism course. It is fantastic and really encourages me to see life from outside my ‘eating disorder bubble’ of a head. Aside from procrastinating my recovery, bad habits even managed to creep in during something as simple as a writing course. I had a piece of work to hand in - and writing is something I actually love to do - which involved choosing a location in the world and writing a piece on it, as if in the travel segment of a newspaper. However the fact that I had to write a piece left me with some fear of starting it. To me, writing is a hobby and no-one forces me to do it. In this circumstance, the very fact that I had do it in order to pass the course, my brain suddenly switched and I just ‘couldn’t be bothered.’ After finally pushing myself to write, it didn’t feel like a chore. I had pushed past the initial hurdle of starting something, and once I got going, and finished it, I really felt like I had accomplished something, and somewhat proud.
Overall, the topic of habits and change is complex, as often the mere sound of the word ‘change,’ conjures up an unsightly mental image of hard work. For the most part, no-one likes work to be hard, however, if that hard work provides rewards, it is always worth it. Whatever goals you have in mind, whether big or small, you have to cut it into parts so it doesn’t feel overwhelming. I have attached below a picture of ‘smart goals’ as they are known. They really help making change feel less overwhelming.
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