beginnings…

I’ve been waiting for this day and today I think I might do it. I have it all planned out and have almost done, I just wanted to give myself this before I got too tired late. Today is the first day of reaching 2,500kcals since starting the recovery process. This is a huge deal for me and I have ben finding it hard to get past 2,100kcals for about 6 weeks and my recovery has been kind of stagnating. But today, I’m doing it – and I’m proud. Hopefully this will mark a new beginning for me. If I can really embrace recovery then I might be able to find my life again. The dietician asked me to bring a family member to help to keep me on target and keep my calories up so the brother’s helping me. That makes me happy – the brother has always been my best friend and I lost him to this disorder. I feel like I’m finally getting him back. He wants to support me and he’s starting to feel like a friend again. It’s nice because sometimes I miss having friends.

Today has marked another big step towards recovery as well. Since following (all be it half-heartedly) a weight gain meal plan, I’ve been relying on other people to give me permission to eat. Like, I’d never eat alone and would never remind people it was meal time. I figured that other people would remind me when they were hungry and if they weren’t hungry then I shouldn’t be either. And I’m scared – scared that if I eat alone I’ll just end up binging and compensating in some way. I just desperately want to hold onto my control and not be greedy or appear that way. And there’s always the niggling “If no one else knows I’m eating, what’s the point. I may as well not.” Ridiculously stupid I know but it was the only way I could eat and that had to be the first step. However, the therapist decided yesterday that I should try to start facing these fears as the family have a holiday booked in a few weeks and this could be a really good opportunity for me to take the reins. They’ve decided they won’t go if I still rely so heavily on them and I really don’t want that guilt. So today, I had my afternoon snack by myself. It felt awful at the time but I got through it and now I’m proud. The therapist also decided that we should try to address some of the rigidity I have around timings of meals. Fear of getting hungry means I won’t eat earlier than planned and I tend to push meals back so I won’t get hungry later. Now my afternoon snack has to be at different times each day between 4 and 5pm. Today it was late (ten past five) but I’m hoping to bring it forward tomorrow. Baby steps.

It’s not all been easy today. I’ve been really anxious and fighting off so many urges to restrict, always second guessing my food choices and timings. And I’ve felt really physically bloated and stuffed, though I think that’s only my mind projected my feelings onto my physical self. I also get really physically tense – so much my muscles ache – but that’s not new. I’ve been plagued by disordered thoughts all day and have really struggled, but I’m realising that I can deal with them. Sometimes they’re overwhelming, but mostly I can just acknowledge them, tell myself “That’s negative” and try to think positively about what I’m achieving by doing these things that can seem so distressing – Happiness and health! I think positivity is the only way this can work. I just keep telling myself I have nothing to be scared of and all of this is good. Sometimes, it the thoughts get too hard, I write them down, put them in an envelope and throw them away (thanks Beth) – I have no space in my life for these thoughts. My fears are irrational and I just have to face them to know that. Right now, I can’t know that, but if I treat them like they are, eventually I’ll prove myself right. I hope.

My totes yummy risotto.

So onto my eats today. It feels completely epic but to most people it’ll probably seem normal. I won’t list them all because that’ll be boring. I will say though that the best meals were my carrot, celery and lentil soup and my haricot bean, leek and mushroom risotto. I’m a boom-tings cooks and I hate to blow my own trumpet but I’ve missed my own cooking. Eating new foods is exciting for me. I’m even planning on shaking up my meal plan a little (but keeping up the calories) to get a little variety. Variety is another thing that scares me but I don’t want to waste this time when I actually HAVE to eat loads of food eating the same thing over and over. I can literally have anything – all food is good for me right now and there is no such thing as too much. I don’t want to waste this opportunity on monotony, though if I’m honest, I might have to. Hopefully variety won’t be too scary and I think I’ll only change little bits of the meal plan at first. Again baby steps.

So this epic post highlights the beginnings of my life I hope. I am going to embrace this. I want to be better and I need to be healthy again. This is how I’ll do it. No more halfways and just abouts. I just need to keep positive, gain weight and challenge myself every day and this will get better. I’m feeling good about this. And you know what else? I’m feeling proud. x.