Holding my Key

Posts

A new step in my journey…

If you had spoken to me four or five years ago, I would never have believed to be in a position I am now. This weekend, I will be in a white dress and a veil, walking down the aisle. No, this is not a post to say I’m suddenly recovered, but more to express how much progress I have made since then. Four years ago I had just been discharged from hospital. I left that admission with the full knowledge I was soon going to lose all that weight as soon as I stepped out the door. I never told anyone that at the time, I made it out that I was suddenly ‘all better’. I looked better, so I guess to most people that meant I was better. In fact, I decided then that I had one mission currently in life. Whilst my other friends were either getting married or starting new jobs, I was losing weight. In my head, my new weight and food targets I was achieving, were far more interesting than anyone else’s major life milestones they were achieving! I didn’t need what other people had. I had my own littl

Calories on menus : helpful or harmful?

Calorie counting is a hard topic. It became part of my life further into my eating disorder once being in hospital. Unfortunately, that’s a massive negative impact of being on an eating disorder unit, where the standard gossip is which snack choice has the lowest calories. It soon became ingrained in me and I learnt the exact numbers of every food item and which were the dreaded most ‘calorific options.’ Numbers have played an enormous role in my anorexia. Whether it’s the nutritional content of food, kilos or BMI. (BMI accuracy is a whole another conversation to be had!) I am aware that in order to move away from my harmful behaviours, ‘un-learning’ numbers is something that has to be done. When I walk into restaurants, I already scan in my mind which meals are safer. It’s pretty upsetting because I guess the whole fun of eating out in most peoples’ mind’s is choosing a delicious meal they might not be able to replicate at home. When I heard about the new government bill coming in

Slowly but surely ...

I know I’ve been a bit M.I.A recently. It wasn’t for a particular reason, just I guess ‘life’ got in the way. My world has been busy, as has of course, my mind. I sometimes get angry at my mind. It’s not fair that mine seems to work in different ways to others. I often get annoyed at the universe for landing me, with what often seems to be an unmanageable load. Since as humans we aren’t aware exactly of what goes on in other peoples brains, it frustrates me that my head just doesn’t seem to cooperate with the world around me. I have often described it as being on an ulterior planet. Yes, of course I’m on planet Earth. Guess it would be quite cool to be writing from Jupiter?! I feel as if my brain runs a million miles an hour, which is probably how this post reads. I have so much whirling through that I regrettably make stupid decisions. I guess you could call one of those ‘decisions’ could be that I concluded that starving myself is the best way forward. I’ve been trying my utmost h

Riding the waves

Apologies for my absence, but I’m back. Back with a huge amount of motivation, and enough to show anorexia the door. Since I last wrote, life became pretty full on as I was back in my clinic full time again, 10.30am to 7pm. It took time to settle back in, and also very importantly remind myself what needs to be worked on. I think when we are at home, especially in the 3rd lockdown we have all just endured, I personally fell into a rut. I was intent on getting through every day, logging on zoom at 11 and logging off at 5. It became pretty monotonous and although it was a big help, online treatment was not what I needed. Since returning to in-person treatment a few weeks ago, I suddenly got this surge of motivation. It is normal that motivation will fluctuate as that happens with all of us, however I decided to make this return to in-person treatment successful and I am determined to give it my all. This isn’t to say motivation will always be present the whole time, but with ever

Which one should I choose?

Last year I wrote myself two letters. Two very different letters. I don’t want to share them word for word as they’re quite personal, but I thought I would give you a snapshot of the dilemma that often races through my mind. The first was to a Lizzie in five years time, still battling Anorexia. The best way to sum it up was utterly depressing. I wasn’t married, I was alone. Alone with my thoughts and with a ‘life’ filled with hospitals, machines and the dreaded word, food. I had let it conquer my life. Anorexia had won. I had thrown away every hope and dream I had left inside. There was nothing left inside me fighting for freedom, the only thing left was a small, flickering flame that kept my eating disorder alive and powering through. S had left me long ago, my siblings had given up on me, and whilst my friends experienced all that comes with life in their late twenties, my life was empty. I burst into tears after writing it. The second was to a Lizzie in five years, all recovered

Staying aware ...

It is the end of Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2021. Often many posts shared on this week are filled with transformation pictures, showing sufferers in their severely underweight figures next to a more recent image in their newly-found ‘healthy’ body. The reality is there is so much more to raising awareness than just wanting to validate your own illness through photos to prove you were the 'sickest' (I'm aware it sounds strange that people with an eating disorder might celebrate being the most unwell). When people talk of ‘awareness,’ this should mean a time to remind and educate others about eating disorders and the full scope of them. I have often found that ‘awareness weeks’ that occur all throughout the year casting light on a whole variety of issues and illnesses occurring in the world, can become albeit monotonous. Someone recently told me, ‘every week seems to be awareness week.’ I guess they are correct in a sense, however they exist for a reason. They exist beca