Is God in the details?

There's a lot of talk around eating disorders around 'triggering' and unhelpful disclosure. There is also a lot of shame and secrecy. It may sound obvious, stupid, or naive, but to me the answer to much of this isn't that difficult... when I'm really ill, I'll be more vulnerable, I will never seek out tips etc. but I'll be vulnerable. When I read memoirs with details, or see posts on twitter etc about 'details' I see vulnerability and shame - a need to justify to oneself and others one's emotional pain through these rules and numbers and so on, because the protaganist perhaps is not fully holding onto the belief that they deserve support, that they deserve better whatever their 'details' may be. Then there are the other details, the hidden kind. Anyone with an eating disorder knows what I mean. These are not photos of fruit salads, or BMIs, or dexa scan results. These are waking at 2am in panic to sneak away and complete some exercise regime, avoiding sex or intimacy, going all day without food and then eating 12 slices of bread, taking laxatives to the point you damage your digestive system, regularly puking and hurting your teeth, fainting midway through a football match or whatever the individual 'push-points' may be. These are not my particular issues - they are a variety of things I encountered on an EDU. What became clear is recovery is about honesty, and tackling shame and imperfection. The NHS lets people down because numbers matter too much, and this is wrong, and it hinders a preventive approach. The critical thing to me is that I refuse to be a number - in illness or in recovery, if someone is struggling and vulnerable they may share numbers and that's ok, but it is sad that we cannot see past the numbers with eating disorders. BMI X is not the answer. Like any other mental health difficulty, flexibility and better coping strategies, greater honesty and good support are key. For me speaking and listening has been far more useful than hiding, and if one thing feels like it would be helpful it is making the nasty secrets and the dark truths around eating disorders more open - even as a relatively uncomplicated anorexic as the years have gone on, there have been bad bloods, health scares, and humiliations. Perhaps less talking about fruit salads and more talking about the true dangers and fears might help to open some doors, and make the NHS realise how badly some decent ED support is needed? These are one of the most dangerous mental health conditions - people should not be apologising for not recovering when many counties offer no outpatient preventive support. Perhaps more of the dirty truths of eating disorders and less of the instagrammed recoveries and memoir recipes is just what the doctor ordered?

Christmas wishes

This is my first Christmas living with my boyfriend. Last Christmas I was kind of unofficially invading his house, but I was also spending every waking minute living and breathing my PhD thesis so Christmas was reduced to a three day intermission in that process.... So this year it feels special. Christmas has always been really mixed for me. I'm religious and it has a great deal of spiritual significance, few things are more moving for me than midnight mass. I have also always loved the feeling of magic that surrounds Christmas, especially when there are children involved. But, it also brings up some very painful memories - some of which I can still barely tolerate thinking about - and brings up a huge amount of anxiety around some difficult and unresolved family dynamics. And then of course there is food.
I have been trying to embrace the excitement that the kid in me still feels over Christmas - making the house sparkle, gift-wrapping and bows, candles, the smell of mulled wine and Christmas baking. On Saturday, we got a tree, and I spent hours carefully choosing decorations and making it pretty, and just as I wanted (as a kid, our tree was always chaos - I wanted a colour scheme and symmetry, my sisters wanted EVERYTHING on it, they won...). I love our tree! It's pretty and it lends a touch of Christmas magic to the room. I have delighted in buying (too many) presents for my niece and nephew, carefully choosing this years gift-wrapping colour scheme, and picking out cards for each friend abroad that best matches their personality and taste. I have come up with plans for ice-skating and Christmas markets, bought mulled wine, and filled the living room with Christmas candles.
The thing is, I've also been avoiding and suppressing my terror over spending an entire week with our families. Or rather, I had been. Then I got blindsided by an unexpected surge of total panic on Saturday evening, was unable to sit or stay still, unable to tolerate the fear, I wanted to run away to the sea, to make everything stop somehow. I even tried buying cigarettes (on the plus side, this confirmed I have definitely lost all desire to smoke, a spectacular waste of money that went straight in the bin)!
When I'd eventually calmed a little, I tried to explain. I described my fear of being trapped, unable to leave the house all day. Just sitting, eating, talking, being evaluated. My boyfriend very gently suggested that this sounded like my anorexia was scared. I insisted that wasn't it... I still don't really know, but I think there is definitely a bit of both... Part of it has nothing to do with anorexia and everything to do with other stuff around reliving memories (to do with my family, not his) of feeling controlled and judged and forced to play the part of the person other people want to see. And part of it is the very anorexic fear of sitting around unable to walk off my anxiety whilst meal after meal, and snack after snack appears, and the inevitable comments about my appetite (from my boyfriends family) and avoidant chaos-making (from mine) increasingly make me feel a conspicuous failure.
This has been nagging at me ever since. My boyfriend deserves to sit around, relax, enjoy catching up with his family and sharing Christmas treats. He works really hard, and comes home everyday to his anxious girlfriend wobbling around attempting a DIY recovery whilst the NHS offers SFA in terms of guidance or support. That is tough. Really tough. Whatever Christmas means to me, to him it is all the things it should be, all the things I would wish it to be for my kids if I had any - togetherness, sharing love and joy, and giving gifts, having meals together, playing games, resting and relaxing. Coming together with those we love to celebrate, catch up, and relax. I don't want to take that away, I don't want to bring any tricky associations to his picture of Christmas, the way that past events have done to mine. At this time of year more than any I wish that he and I both had a little support around this.
I absolutely believe that recovery has to be for oneself and not just about pleasing other people. And there are many reasons that I want recovery just for myself. But I also want it for my boyfriend... I worry so much that all this wobbling around trying to figure out what on earth I'm doing isn't just putting aspects of my life on hold, but also aspects of his.
The more I think about all this, the more I'm really saddened by it. Sad for him, and sad for me. I really want to be doing better, to be more on top of my anxiety. I really wish I could be the girlfriend I feel he deserves. Being passive and self-critical isn't the answer. Neither is waiting for the NHS to commission community support for eating disorders. Nonetheless as things stand my (incredibly selfish-feeling) Christmas wish is once again just to make it out the other side without any major catastrophe or humiliation, and my Christmas mantra is once again "this too will pass". I genuinely love Christmas and yet again the combination of anorexia and a somewhat tricky family dynamic threatens to reduce it to an endurance test. It is rarely as bad as I fear in the end, but 'not as bad as I feared' is a million miles from 'fun and relaxation', which is what my boyfriend has in mind. I have less than two weeks to change this and I am really struggling to figure out how.
The one thing that is crystal clear from this is that even at a stable weight and relatively healthy, as long as anorexia still plays any part in my repertoire of coping strategies, it will forever threaten to sap the fun out of not just my life but my boyfriends too. So I guess my real Christmas wish for us both is that one day we get the Christmas we deserve - one without so much of a shadow of anorexia in the room.

Learning to live with mess

I've been thinking a lot about the myth of a 'perfect recovery' -I recently came across what I must admit was a very beautiful looking example, filled with instagrammed bowls of fruit and yogurt, a delicate size 8 girl daintily sipping on chai lattes, carefully arranged plates of vegetables and cereal bars, steaming bowls of soup, and so on... Well of course I desperately wanted mine to be like this. Or rather some part of me did... but who REALLY wanted my life to be like this? Well my anorexia of course. It's swapping one illusory guide to perfection for another... Recovery is necessarily going to be messy because life is messy, and I have no doubt that this beautiful illustration of recovery masks the same fears, tears, and self-loathing, as the hidden mess of my recovery which I try to hard to mask... When I stop and think hard, I absolutely do NOT want to live my life photographing every meal, making a shrine of cereal bars and hot chocolates to replace the books of calories and rules.
Well why do I try to hide this 'mess' that is my path through recovery? Is that reinforcing the shame, and supporting the illness? Perhaps. But this has happened for a reason - and it happens time and time again... The more I think about it, the more stigma and misunderstandings around anorexia trouble me - and I worry that I absorb this too much, and it further fuels my need for secrecy.
Most recently this has come up at work. I feel bullied half the time, but then the other half I'm told what a great employee I am. I've been told to keep my anorexia a secret - because "it's not like disclosing depression, admitting to having had anorexia". Apparently anorexics tend to have problematic personality traits. I regularly feel my personality is being attacked and am anxious and sleepless throughout the week, and then exhausted by it all by the weekend. In this context, it's hardly surprising that I am feeling more self-critical and ashamed again. But yet I feel powerless and scared to stand up to this. So I am pretending that I'm doing better, that I'm in control, that my life is like the pretty instagrammed images I saw. And this seems to be what people want. I still get criticised and laughed at, but it makes it more difficult for my anorexia to be used against me.
All this has been nagging away at me, and then this morning I read a powerful and moving post on the voice of anorexia... It occurs to me, that voice is not so different from the one at work. Most of the time the anorexic part of me tells myself how shameful and awful I am, berates me for every mouthful consumed or unwalked mile, but then intermittently it gives me a warm glow of relief and praise for the uneaten snacks or extra miles walked... Basic psychology tells me that should be reinforcing, and it is. The thing is, as time has gone on, at work any praise feels empty and manipulative - it has lost all impact or meaning. Sadly my anorexia has not. I still have that scary rush of relief if I discover my weight has gone down - it is quickly followed by shame and attempts to mask it, but it won't go away. It's totally irrational, but it feels safe and kind and a shield from all the horrible stuff out there. At the moment I am not losing weight and so I am terrified to go anywhere near the scales. No amount of reasoning will convince this part of myself that I am not out of control and fat, despite the fact that I know full well that I am not overweight and I'm more in danger of losing control to anorexia than to greed.
To make matters worse, when I recently tried to explain this internal war zone to someone from the EDU that I was admitted to 2 years ago, they attacked the anorexia and questioned my commitment to recovery. This went on for a few weeks and before I knew it I was lying again, just like I did when I was there - because I feel shamed for struggling with anorexia as opposed to wholeheartedly hating it, and being committed to the beautiful recovery meal plans and pretty pictures of food.
I WANT a rich and messy life full of spontaneity, imperfection, truth, and love... Home-cooking, not tidy, precise apple segments; rich, connected relationships, not superficial, safe ones; emotional highs and lows, not predictable impassivity... A life with fewer rules and more mess and fun. But I struggle to face up to just how horribly messy and imperfect I am without the urge to go running back toward the bomb shelter of anorexia - the anxiety becomes too much, the self-criticism to great, and I find myself numbing it out again. I desperately want to be good at recovery, but that isn't what recovery is about - it isn't something to be good at, it's riding out the storms and mess and whirls of anxiety and self-criticism and holding faith that this is the only route to taking life off 'pause' and embracing one's dreams.

Reflections on recovery

For various reasons, I have been thinking a lot recently about what recovery means to me. There is one thing that I am clear on - to me, recovery is no more about weights and numbers than anorexia is; to reduce anorexia to numbers is to miss the point, to reduce recovery to numbers is to live your 'recovered' life in a different set of chains... So what is it? I think part of the trick to recovery is in the process of working out what a meaningful recovered life might be for oneself - and that is quite personal and idiographic. But there are also perhaps some themes, and somewhere in there there is an important thread around working through body image distress... A close friend is currently working through that process, as am I.

To me, recovery is certainly not about replacing one set of numbers and rules with another; that is not an excuse to live a life in denial, but I think to me it is important to not think of recovery in terms of BMI, not least because everyone has a different 'set point' and that point can and will change for any given individual in response to other factors outside of their control. Recovery is about reaching a place of psychological freedom, where emotional vulnerabilities can be navigated without using food/body as a source of emotional control/numbing.... Easier said than done! *sigh*... But it can be done, I believe this 100%; I believe everyone has fat days and body hang-ups but they don't always have to have the impact that they are having upon both myself and my friend just now.

Another important theme is around personal connections, trust, and vulnerability - these are things that not only challenge personal shame and self-hatred, but also add a great richness and colour to life. to me, my close relationships are completely invaluable and I will do anything that I can to support the people I love, both in good times and bad.

I also think, related to that, that a big part of recovery, and in particular relapse prevention, is about developing sufficient self-compassion to be able to be honest with oneself and with trusted others about times when things are more tricky and food/body issues are looming bigger in both our brain and our behaviour -  that is a really great weapon. Personally, I have found a close friendship with a wonderful girl that I met on an EDU invaluable in this respect - I think we have developed an honesty with each other that has really helped me to fight back at the more shaming voices that my anorexia can come at me with. I feel that no-one deserves to feel shamed into silence and deception by their eating disorder, and learning safe ways to fight that is invaluable. I really liked this piece on lying and EDs: http://www.dropitandeat.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/lying-and-eating-disorder-recovery-what.html

Finally, I personally feel that part of recovery is letting go of this unhelpful 'devil vs angel' schism with respect to anorexia... Depression etc. are commonly conceptualised as undestandable responses to particular combinations of personal vulnerabilities and life circumastances. Anorexia is instead talked about as some kind of evil spirit that one must be cleansed of - I find this unhelpful and counter-productive.

I personally feel that while I am often angry with anorexia, when other people get angry with it, a part of me wants to leap to its defence and point out that actually it has worked very hard to take care of me in the past (although of course it has also worked very hard to destroy me...). I've always worried about this 'angel vs devil' splitting of my thinking about anorexia - and I think it is something that professionals often reinforce by talking in a language of war and eradicating this evil thing. The thing for me, is as I move away from anorexic behaviours, my emotions become more intense, my anorexia gets more anxious and it screams more loudly "come back, let me make all this scary stuff go away for you" - it thinks that will make things better, because it misunderstands that I am no longer in a place where blocking out emotional pain is necessary or helpful as it was when I first became ill, so I need to find ways to ride these waves of emotions without doing what it tells me in order to reassure it that I don't need it to try to look out for me like this anymore, that I am stronger and more resilient and so it doesn't need to worry and interfere so much... With time and repetition, it should hopefully then feel reassured that I don't need it so much any more and quieten down a bit... I think this is a process I am trying to master at the moment... and I think I will, but that process will, like all others in recovery involve blimps, bumps, highs and lows - all this brings personal strength and a deeper knowledge of our own resiliency and how to harness that in times of distress. My friend rather beautifully described anorexia as like an emotional bomb shelter, and recovery as the process of venturing back outside and learning to trust and navigate the post-war world.

Ultimately, I strive to move back to intuitive eating, no weigh-ins, and more spontaneity, freedom, and fun - a life without number and rules determining how I *should* be - because I should be just as I come, there isn't a formula to win over acceptance, either from myself or anyone else... This is the thing with the body image stuff for me - it distresses me unbearably, but in the same stroke if anyone judged me based on the stuff that I am tormenting myself about, I would question why I had chosen to be friends with them... I love my friends regardless of their shape and size, and I don't believe for a second that they would care less about me if I were over-weight (or for that matter if I got really ill and underweight again). All that makes me determined to master my distress because I want to be able to treat myself in a way that is in line with my values - and those very clearly scream out that a persons worth is not and cannot be measured or determined by their physical appearance....  None of this is a magical cure, and I have often used a sign on my bedroom door: "what would you think or say if someone else was treating themselves as you are?" or variants of this... not rocket science, but I would be very sad for the girl who lost hours to tormenting herself in front of a mirror or screaming and crying over the curve of her stomach. And one day, that girl will no longer be staring at me in the mirror. And then if and when I meet her, I will be able to honestly say with complete authenticity "yes, that piece can go to" - that day will come. But I believe it come through riding out body distress without using behaviours to numb it, not despite that distress.

As Brene Brown says, one cannot selectively numb out the emotional lows, and I don't want to miss out on the highs that I am working so hard to discover and cherish.

What would I say to my 18 year old self?

A number of things (both on twitter/blogs and in my own life) have given me pause for thought recently and led me to reflect on what I would now wish for my 18 year old self...What do I wish someone would have said to me, what I have I learned in the 12 years since, what would 30 year old me say to my 18 year-old self? So I wrote a letter to 18 year-old me:

Dear H,

Please don't do this to yourself. You tell yourself that you're in control, ok, that other people are thinner, that you're just doing what they do, that you're being 'healthy'. This isn't healthy, with time you will come to realise that, and to appreciate that if you find it hard to stop this, scary to eat cake (whether you want to or not is not the issue, you should be able to), hard to do what others do and have regular meals, then actually you are not in control at all: you are being controlled. Anorexia is controlling you and stealing your life away. This might not seem all that urgent to you just now: you fit in with the size zero trend, you get good grades at school (not that you care much!), and you are mostly preoccupied with how lonely and lovesick you are. Food may not seem that urgent. But it won't go away, it will just get worse. You are using food to deal with that loneliness and sadness. Food cannot be a solution to those problems, it is only going to add to them.

When you go away to Uni, people will not be impressed by your slim frame, they will be scared and keep their distance. You too will become scared and distressed and face a painful and difficult battle to get back to a socially acceptable weight. As you navigate your twenties, you will miss out on team lunches, romantic meals with boyfriends, you won't even eat a slice of your own 30th birthday cake. When your PhD supervisor (yes, you do end up with a PhD, I know...) takes you and your boyfriend for a meal to celebrate passing your viva, the food takes up all your attention, leaving little space to enjoy the achievement, occasion, or company. You will find yourself rising two hours early to write guiltily in your journal that your boyfriend deserves better and that you wish you didn't always feel fat in the mornings. Is this what you dream of?

This is not a game. It is a serious illness. You are not just being healthy. This will not go away, it will not be ok without you acting to change things, it will just get harder. Eventually you will come to find yourself desperate for something better. Size zero and 'healthy' diets don't seem that interesting at 30, and it turns out that that isn't what this is about at all, that was one of anorexia's lies. Choose something better now. Don't lose another 12 years to this. Don't give yourself another 12 years of bad habits and well-rehearsed fears to fight. It will only make your life harder when you discover that you want something more.

Yes, you can have relationships and anorexia. You can have jobs and anorexia. You can stay out of hospital and hold onto anorexia. But you will find anorexia limits what you can give and get in those relationships and jobs. You will find yourself with a wonderful boyfriend who checks with you if it will be ok to surprise you by taking you out for dinner. Your boss will keep emphasizing that you mustn't work too hard - you don't, he is worried about your weight. You deserve to be free to enjoy romance and spontaneity, free to excel at work without feeling defined by your illness.

Life is so much more than this - there is so much richness to it. You can travel, enjoy spontaneous lunches in Parisian cafes, drink champagne on top of the Eiffel tower at sunset. Visit Stockholm and Poland and experiment with different cultures and cuisines. You can show your boyfriend Scotland, and drink wine together by the fire after long days walking in the countryside, sharing your favourite views and old memories.You can watch eagles soar over Dun Caan, run in the sea, kiss on top of windy Devon Tors. Recovery has brought you all these experiences. The sooner you start, the sooner life can bring you these things that you dream of. Anorexia will steal them away - spontaneity, living in the moment, nurturing your body and mind, loving wholeheartedly and freely, these are the stuff of life and why recovery is absolutely necessary and worth it.

Deep down you know that things are not ok. Do you want 30 year old H to enjoy cake and champagne on her birthday? I know you dream of marriage. So does 30 year old you. The main thing getting in the way at 30 is probably the fact that you are only now getting on with fighting this illness. At some point you will be faced with these choices: life or anorexia, love or anorexia. Who will you give yourself to? Choose life, choose now, know that you want and deserve better than anorexia. You want love, and romance, and Paris, and freedom, and fun. Take a deep breath, and ask for the help that you need, and accept support if and when it is offered. You cannot do this alone, and you cannot get better when your mind is still playing games - that is why you need others to help you, people who can see clearly that fruit is not a meal, and that as long as you are always angling for the lightest version of everything, you will not be free to enjoy the full richness of life without an eating disorder.

Finally, know that whatever happens, and whenever you get the support that you need, this was NOT your fault, you have nothing to be ashamed of, and you deserve love and care just as you are. Anorexia is an illness, not a choice. And it is never too late to start the recovery process. I feel sad for you at 18, you really did deserve better, and I'm sorry that you couldn't see that. One way or another, by 30 you will, and I'm glad. I hope that that will be because you have tasted the freedom of recovery - and relished it all the more for having experienced the small world of anorexia.

"Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy - the experiences that make us most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light." Brene Brown.

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Dr Seuss.

Ramblings on terminology, recovery, and believing in what we don't yet know...

I was thinking a lot today about the way we use terminology, often without much thought, and the impact this can have. This then led me to think more broadly about how often we can find that with time find ourselves in places of progress and acceptance that once never felt possible. I saw a question today about recovery, and these three things inspired me to write again...

Clinicians, and especially academic clinicians often use terms like 'abuse', 'neglect', and various diagnostic labels rather readily in their formulations (both of psychological distress at a broader level, and at an individual level) without perhaps fully appreciating that whilst a common and relatively accepted language in many clinical/academic forums, when characterising an individual's experiences these terms can take on quite powerful and personal meanings (even if you also happen to be an academic or clinician). The first time the terms 'abuse' and 'neglect' were thrown my way in the context of my personal experiences I fell of the depression cliff in a major way. I had never conceptualised my experiences in that way and was not equipped or supported to deal with that. Neither my clinical or academic understanding helped - in fact they made it worse. People that I loved became alien, experiences and memories that were treasured became 'contaminated' and those I'd suppressed and forgotten bounced back at me like a hail storm. I could not make sense of my conflicting emotions - either 'abuse' and 'neglect' meant that people that I deeply love deem(ed) me unloveable or not worthy of their care, or they meant that these people were people I was somehow wrong for loving and so my problems were my fault because I pursued these 'bad' things. This took me to some terribly dark places that hung around like glue for far too long.... For a long time I believed that I had been depressed my whole life, would never get better, and was destined to die young. I could not conceive of happiness, and I could not think of a resolution to these conflicts in my relationships.

Well, I was ill and that was depression thinking, depression talking, but when you're in it, it's very hard to know anything else, it messes with your thinking so powerfully at it's extremes. But as a consequence of those experiences I think that I seize and treasure in ways that perhaps I otherwise wouldn't those moments in my life when my boyfriend spontaneously kisses me on a Tor and I forget everything but that moment, or when I watch the sun set over the sea in his arms and feel total peace and contentment in body and in mind. That is not to say that peace, contentment, invigoration, or mindful engagement come easy, but they DO happen, and pretty regularly. I would not say that I'm depressed these days and I'm certainly not in that black hole anymore.

With the terminology and my relationships, well I've come to accept that there is a world of difference between professionals using 'abuse' etc. to predict vulnerability to psychopathology, and what it means as a lived experience. In my case, my experiences no longer mean to me either that there is something wrong with me, or with the people who have been labelled with these things... I think now in terms of the most positive and constructive way of approaching these relationships - not what any of our pasts or limitations 'mean' about our worth. This works, mostly pretty well. We are close, but mostly they will neither share my highest highs nor my lowest lows, because they cannot tolerate my experiences of psychological distress in a way that is helpful to me and so they are not a safe place for vulnerability. But others can, and there are other places for me to connect in those ways.

So what does this make me think about recovery? Well the ED stats are depressing. But so are the chronic depression ones. Statistically I'm screwed. But I look back and my life has changed SO MUCH for the better - and in ways that I would never have believed possible. I could list all that, but that's what journals are for and why I keep one. To me the critical thing is that now there are highs and lows - bad stuff (and annoyingly incomprehensible sad moods) still happen, but so do joy, laughter, connections, and self-acceptance. Neither all the time, but that seems like a fair deal to me. I have accepted and moved forward with a pain that was so deep that it drove me to attempt to take my life, and also forgiven myself for having done so. If I can achieve all that with my depression, why should anorexia be so special? Who's to say that the things that I can't yet quite see with that won't one day be my every day experience?

With depression, I took things one day at a time, one quest for happiness at a time. I think that the same is true with anorexia. There have been times when I've been better, and times when it's slipped again... But I KNOW that I can shut that voice up, it will probably always whisper from time to time, but it's a whisper that I can shut down, like the whisper of depression on the mornings when I'm inexplicably sad - it doesn't have to get elaborated and I just need to be slightly more proactive about doing the good stuff to ensure that it doesn't become amplified. Personally, I think that one can't (and in my case I'm not sure that I'd choose to) erase one's history and experiences, but whilst the vulnerabilities may remain, they don't necessarily have to have so much impact. I kind of believe that a part of this puzzle (although not the whole) is that our emotions DO respond to our behaviour: if we behave as though we are better, with time, parts of our emotional experiences will catch up and change. It takes a great deal of persistence, determination, and distress tolerance, but I believe that it's achievable. And without a doubt, it's not worth giving up on. After all life is more fun when you let yourself laugh, and chocolate's more fun when you don't count the squares :-)

On the power of a room filled with flowers :-)

I've been thinking a lot recently about the 'whys' of anorexia - I've become involved in consulting on a new trial of an intervention for eating disorders (which I received myself as an inpatient nearly two years ago) and this has meant that my professional and personal worlds have blurred (even more than the boundary battlefields of living with a boyfriend who researches the same area and at the same University!). I have also been thinking a great deal about shame, fear, and the need for acceptance (I'm reading Brene Brown - who has some wonderfully insightful things to say). My experience (both personally and in my interactions with others who have struggled with anorexia) is that the fear of losing control/letting go/being vulnerable is not limited to negative experiences. There's a fear of positive emotions too. A general fear of being 'seen' whether in association with the good or the bad. When I passed my PhD exam, people got me flowers, there was a champagne moment, cards, compliments, lovely things... The whole lot terrified me; I didn't feel worthy; I knew my thesis was not that good, I knew every flaw, every bit of mess and imperfection in my PhD and I was terrified that accepting these lovely gestures, enjoying these moments set me up for the shame of someone else seeing them too and taking it all back or belittling me. But without these kinds of positive experiences, and more importantly without living them, being in them, accepting them - hell enjoying them, how can one possibly foster better self-esteem, challenge shame, develop resilience to the battering that anorexia can deliver?

This weekend turned out to be somewhat challenging - something stupid unexpectedly set off that evil anorexic self-hatred. I stuck by my food regimes and so on, I didn't give in in that sense. But on my beloved weekly coastal trip I sat crying behind my sunglasses while my boyfriend swam in the sea, I could not allow myself to enjoy it, to let go - I wanted to, I knew I should, I knew I could... What stopped me? Anorexia. Nothing about the cognitive effects of starvation etc can account for this - my body is not starved any more. With all mental health problems, if you have ever been trapped in the depths of despair that they can bring, there will always be a fear of that coming back - and that instills a fight mentality, to ward off the terrible warning symptoms that could spiral into a repeat of previous personal hells. But what of the positives? Of letting go, living life and actually actively pursuing fun? Seeking the good stuff, acting as if you deserve it? Not just the food, but the happiness part? Surely without that recovery is unattainable...

A few years ago I was deeply deeply depressed. My route out was ultimately not via sitting of NHS waiting lists (quelle surprise!) but by behaving as though I believed in happiness even though I didn't - buying myself flowers, going to the coast (hence the now weekly routine), lighting candles, taking the time for a warm bath or a good book. It was bloody hard work - especially at the beginning, and it's no replacement for the psychotherapy that eventually followed, but it took me away from a place of hopeless suicidality. Perhaps it will also be the key to finally kicking anorexia's butt once and for all... After all if you're never seen by others, you trap yourself in isolation and disconnection. If you never allow yourself pleasure, you deprive yourself of the incentives to fight for life, and in doing so fuel anorexia's flames.

In that spirit I have planted (or rather my very tolerant boyfriend did!) myself some beautiful roses - hopefully my happiness (and their health - which I'm already worrying about!) will blossom over the coming months...

A poem... not very good

Empty Light

Heavy tears bring the relief of light
Heavy blood the numbing loss
Heavy in me
Heavy without
Heaviness of a relentless mind
When will this heavy 
Become light
That my heart might lift
My feet skip
My soul sing for life
Will this illness of light
Leave me, heavy
This illness of heavy
Show me light
Within not without
Beauty in mind, body blind
Worth a right
Not earned by light
Heavy the price
For the lightness of life.

Taking a risk

I have be thinking about trying writing a blog for years (literally), and for some reason today I thought that I would bite the bullet and actually do so. It will probably be terrible, no-one will read it (which actually feels reassuring), and it will be another abandoned experiment in a few weeks, but at least I have tried....

I have this constant conflict between the fear that confessing to MH problems is risky and ill-advised at least until I have a secure career, and feeling passionate about the importance of fighting eating disorders, being positive about recovery, and speaking freely about these serious and depressingly overlooked MH difficulties. This long-avoided blog was intended to be a space for me to speak freely...

For a long time I held this terrible fear that perhaps recovery from AN isn't really possible and it held be back and trapped me - obviously looking back, that is a part of the illness, but whatever the cause, to me the solution was to find evidence to the contrary. I needed to KNOW that people did recover by finding someone who had. Around the same time that I embarked on this search, I made a new friend - she arrived on the EDU I was at 2 weeks before my discharge (a year ago now) and we clicked immediately, nothing to do with ED stuff, we share a love of foreign films, reading, the sea etc. I don't think she'll mind my saying that she was really caught up in AN when we first met, but I saw this wonderful girl buried underneath the illness and I couldn't help trying my best to encourage her out of her shell and help her to challenge AN as it waged war with her. She's such a wonderful person, I hoped that maybe if I opened up a little about my own path and what has helped me, it might somehow be of use to her or help her believe that she deserved treatment and that things could and would get better.

All the while I discovered Portia di Rossi's wonderful book, Ilona Barton's blogs, and Emma Woolf's column and book - and I took hope. More than that though, I was inspired by the openness and honesty in their writing, it was completely different from previous "recovery" writing that I've encountered where the writer couldn't quite help presenting a "perfect" anorexia that seemed to miss the hellish reality of my experiences of it, and didn't really seem to have left them behind. These frank and moving accounts of the awfulness of EDs and the hope of a real, meaningful recovery heartened and inspired me to take my own fight beyond just a healthy weight and seek out a healthy mind too.

Rather ironically, while I was seeking out hope and inspiration from others who had overcome EDs, I unintentionally became a source of hope and inspiration to my new friend. I can't help feeling uncomfortable about that, not because I don't care for her and want to offer her support, but because it makes me feel fraudulant - I still have wobbles and tears, and I worry that I'll fall into faking it and let her down, trying to be a "perfect" recovery when of course that is as illusive as "perfect" anorexia. She worries that she'll make me ill again, and I struggle to convince her of how much I gain from her friendship - that it is absolutely not a one-way thing. But despite both of us struggling with what is essentially a problem of low self-esteem, we have a wonderful relationship - we support each other, share fun, advice, tears, and laughter. We can both speak freely with the other about how things really are, and that's a great weapon in our wars with shame and self-criticism. A year on, and my small attempts at reaching out to someone and opening up a little for once, have gotten me a close and beautiful friendship, and that friendhsip has helped keep both of us positive about recovery, and brought us both many good times that no-one can take back.

I guess, what I was hoping to express by writing this (most probably to noone!) was (1) friendships are priceless, noone should be alone either in their struggles or in their joys, (2) recovery from EDs is possible - difficult but SO worth fighting for, and (3) talking about EDs can have positive impacts that go far beyond our expectations at the time - be it something as small as opening up to a friend about your experiences, or as brave and impressive as publishing a book, sharing recovery experiences (in a way that feels safe of course) spreads a message of hope, and that is a truly wonderful thing.