weight

God i really want to lose weight. I feel hideous. In fact, its no want, so much as need. Im HUGE and i cant take it anymore.

chronic fatigue

I really dislike wishy-washy diagnosis's. So the whole 'chronic fatigue' thing doesn't sit well with me. Mostly because there is a popular school of thought in society that says that its just an excuse to be lazy-and I dont 'do' lazy. That'l be the eating disorder.

But I am so so tired all the time. Nothing seems to make any difference. Walking 2 feet makes me feel out of breath. And im not THAT unfit. And my rational self knows that even being a little overweight does not cause this degree of tiredness and breathlessness. Obviously i know the Ed is the cause. And I know that being this depressed does not help - I know im on the wrong meds, but currently my Ed service does not have a consultant - waiting for new one to start, so just have to sit it out. I always get very tired when my mood drops. But the last few weeks have been ridiculous. I slept through 2 days straight and then felt worse than ever.

i can see how my Ed makes me tired...the being sick/electrolyte imbalances etc...but how come it never improves when i manage better days of eating and not being sick?

Whats there to get better for if im too tired to notice it?

having a bad day

you know, im fed up with people thinking that people with anorexia are far sicker than people with other kinds of ED's. Its just not true. Yes, i would agree thats its more visible to others - which makes getting help a WHOLE lot easier, let me tell you. But i really feel like my ED-not anorexia, but bulimia/EDNOS - is going to kill me. Its got me  and i feel merciless to it. it says i do. shit. I think a lot about suicide. But actually, when i think about death, i actually think im far more likely to die with my head over the toilet. happy days. my heart pounds, i get breathless walking a couple of steps and i feel like crap. And yet im still not eligible to go back to day patient treatment whilst waiting for an inpatient admission - because im not anorexic. London services, full to breaking point, now are only catering to those severly underweight. because thats fair, right? I puke up blood everyday, but im not underweight, so its a no go. it should not be this hard to get treatment and support.

dunno

i just feel so so sad all the time.

never ending tiredness

i could sleep for about 10 years and i think i would still be tired. I spend all day counting down how long i have until i can go back to bed..that cant be right??

hormone madness

So, a couple of months back, I mentioned to my clin psyc that I thought I could link my low mood to my periods - so my mood plumments just before and during my period, and I get ridiculously teary about a week before it starts. So we decided I would try taking the pill again - which I haven't for years- and this is the first month I have been on it. I'm 3 days into the 7 day break, and omg i have never had such god awful PMS in my whole life. I've had period pain the whole month long, and now I literally feel like my blood is boiling and have the worst cramps :( 

Also not sure its had any effect on my mood- i know its just the first month, but given how its bad enough having period pain for a week, let alone the whole month, I think I might give this idea a miss. 

on the plus side, yesterday i got as far as dissmantling a disposable razor to get the blade out, but then got back in control of it and just threw it away. I think I just needed the comfort of the routine or something. 

*trigger warning SI*

I'm having really bad Si urges tonight. I Haven't cut for almost 2 years now, but tonight i feel totally consumed by it. I just want that old feeling of relief back. I cant get my stress level down and i feel so wound up and tense and just full...of i dont know what.

I want to cut so bad. I think i miss the routine of it. Cut/get stitched up/sleep it off. It was really reassuring. My self harm was at its worse when i was living in Cornwall, before I came to Uni in London, and beside from the release of the cutting - 'the man that hurts so bad i feel monged out' kind of feeling, the predictable-ness of it was probably what helped. I'm a person that likes certainty. I also like to know that I can feel blocks of time-my depression gets a LOT worse when i have a lot of unstructured time, and i got stuck in a pattern of cutting for hours at a time, in a very planned way-put a familiar film on, glass of wine maybe, and then just spend hours making the same cut worse and worse, until i couldnt put off going to A&E anymore. The long wait in A&E filled time, the immense throbbing pain from the wound blocked how bad i was feeling out, and the doctors/nurses there knew me well enough to know what was wrong and that i was dealing the best i could-because they knew my background-i was gradually able to tell them how i felt.

I guess i feel really loss again, and SI feels like something familiar. I have to keep telling myself that it would be really different if i started again-the consequences would be a whole lot worse-getting pulled out of my degree course, losing my therapy (not self injuring is in my 'therapy contract') and just the fact that london services are very different-and my local A&E staff have zero understanding of SI and treat it as a massive 'time waste'. Even so, i bought blades for the first time in a long while yesterday. I just out them in the bathroom cabinet, but i feel better knowing they are there. I guess i need to get rid, but feels so hard.

I think its part of the huge nostalgia stage i am going through at the moment. I miss a lot of things from a few years back, and recently ive really been struggling with my best friends being so far away when we used to live pretty close a few years back. I loved being down the road from my best friend.

I feel kind of aimless right now. Its nearly christmas-which i find hard, but i feel so low that just nothing matters anymore. I don't care about anything really anymore-other than my friends still liking me (a constant stress) and life just feels so pointless.

i just feel really crappy. and hungry. but eating is so scary right now. My ED is calling the shots right now, and i guess i just wish it would kill me and put me out of my misery now, because its just so hard.

im so tired with it all. I hate sounding so pathetic.

i hate this

the uncertainty of everything right now. I cant stand it. I feel so wobbly with this whack of depression, its like its smacked me in the face. It makes it so much harder to try and eat, because i just cant be bothered to think about the hassle of food, so i just don't. and then things get bad, and then i just sleep and sleep and then thats all my life is. no matter what i do, it comes back to another round of this. i thought i was over this phase now.

Familiarity

I feel like all I am is my eating disorder.

I don't want it; but at the same time I'm really scared of it not surrounding me. As much as i try and fight it away, sometimes, I feel comforted by its familiarity. I don't feel like i have any point anymore.

nostalgia

I've just looked back at some of my old posts and I really miss the bloggy people I used to talk with a couple of years back. So this is just a thank you, if you ever see it, for just being there when it was really really awful. 

Thanks xxx

bloody food does my head in

am so fed up with it. Food takes over my whole life, STILL. Its always bloody well there. In illness its all about trying to manage with none of it, and in recovery its trying to bear having some of it. I HATE IT.

i hate how i can send a whole day debating wether its ok to eat a piece of fruit because I'm hungry between meals. Im fed up with worrying about meals and worrying about dinner time at breakfast-being awake all night worrying about breakfast. ARG.

i hate the feeling of food, and the taste of it, and chewing it, and how it feels when you swallow. I hate feeling full - there never seems to be any in-between anymore- I'm either full, or so hungry I'm not sure if its because i feel sick and ill.

I mean, do i just embrace it, and accept this as my life? or do i keep getting to the point i feel genuinely suicidal keep trying to eat?

I dont know anymore. But I do know that i cant keep going on like this. No mans land is doing my head in.

this week i have to go and have tests about the blood that comes up when i'm sick- i have to have a gastroscopy and I'm really stressed about it.

whats 'ill enough'?

I feel like i'm at a rut in recovery right now.

I'm about a month out of a very good inpatient admission of 7 weeks, at a specialist private unit, funded by the NHS. It helped a lot, helping me to add food back in, and to break the cycle of being sick constantly after eating anything. And it made me rest and finally heal my broken ribs.

So, having come back home, and being back at uni, i just feel so worn out by it all. This has been YEARS of my life-actually most of my years full stop. Something is making me feel like I cant be better yet-that I haven't been 'ill enough' to be done with being ill yet. I think part of this is to do with having to really fight for all the admissions and treatment that i have had, and prove that i have been ill, in a way. I guess thats the difference with bulimia/EDNOS and Anorexia- you can see when someone is very ill with anorexia, but its harder to see on the surface with bulimia. I dont know-i guess i feel a bit like i haven't done with beating myself up yet. And i feel so disgusted with myself that I never got to be the real low weight i always 'wanted' to be.

I have all this proof that I've been really unwell. I've had admissions, and therapy, and been on bed rest and all sorts. but it just doesn't feel like i really have the need to be ill somehow out of my system. I guess i still feel a bit like i need it to help me through, that i'm scared to really finally let it go. Im so confused, because if you asked me if i could have anything-i would say i want to be better, and feel 'normal'. but there is this bit in my head that keeps telling me i haven't been 'ill enough' yet. I mean, is that just my ED giving it some? i don't know. I just feel really bloody confused.

kind of sort of a little bit back in the land of the living.

im not sure yet what that means.

xxl

i feel totally tortured by my eating disorder. My head is killing me.

im so preoccupied by weight. Im so fat and i look hideous at the moment- so many photos of me looking xxl and then some. i hate it that i care so much. and i hate that i spend my whole life thinking about what i can and cant eat, and how much i weigh.

Rock in a hard place

I think someone threw a wet blanket of depression over me. I'm so tired I can't find the energy to do anything. This is unfortunate, given that I am 1. On placement and 2. Currently writing my dissertation and 3. Have a horse that desperately needs schooling. 

Shit.

If only I could find the energy to wake up a bit, I might be able to summon up the motivation to do something about this.

In the meantime, I think I might just go back to bed. It's only 11 hours before I have to be back on placement and that is already a shortfall in my current need of around 23 hours snooze time.

Double shit. 

i feel like im drowning in fog

im just so worn out with it all.

Waiting for commissioners report...

So, my clinic psychologist has now applied for funding for me to go to one of 3 places for a short stabilisation stay- for 6-8 weeks, then back to my current outpatient team. So we are looking at Care UK's Ashleigh house in Gloucester, Naomi ward at the York retreat or the ED ward at south west London and maudsley hospital( because we have to list an NHS service provider. V unlikely that they will have space as their ward is full and primarily for anorexia also- but they do take BN patients, unlike my local ward). My preference is for either of the first- and especially Naomi ward because they specialise In PTSD treatment alongside the ED management/treatment which is what I need. My admission to my local ward 2 years previously was difficult because they didn't understand howy PTSD was triggered, and how to help with the flashbacks- and maudsley are very similar in the way they work- they share the docs etc. and there is a higher proportion of BN sufferers in these 3 places which I frankly, think would be better for me. Having said that- I'm happy with anything I'm offered right now.

Has anyone been to any of these places?

going IP again

My local eating disorder service ( also a national referal centre and supposed centre of clinical excellence) now ONLY provides IP services for anorexia. WTF?!

My clinical psychologist and Go have now refered me for a second opinion from another service with the view of accessing IP services. They have also applied to primary care funding for me to go to independent treatment clinics - Priory, Ashleigh house (Care UK) and Hunterscombe. Because my local service cannot provide the care that has been recomended - a short term IP stay for stablisation and to allow my ribs to heal, and the recomendations also fit with NICE guidelines, i should be approved for funding.

I feel really ill right now. So lost and overwhelmed with it all. ANd its like no one understands how bad it is, and all i seem to be getting right now is grief from people, and and my friends at uni just dont get it. literally had enough.

Doesnt help that im also insanely sleep deprived after being up literally all night writing stupid uni assignment. Everyone else is out celebrating handing it in, and im at home in a soggy mess, because i just seem to be permenently in tears.

dumping ground

i feel like i am the dumping ground for everyone elses shit right now. and i have so had enough of it.

got me thinking

So, I've actually had this blog for about 4 years now, and in that time have been in a huge cycle of recovery - relapse - recovery and, that, in itself, is really bloody depressing.

The one thing I have managed to move on from - and am really pleased I have, is the cutting. Its been a really long time now - a year and a half, i think - and thats a long time for me. It makes me realise that i guess i've been hellish lucky as well, because i have had some really dicey moments with self harm, with one near fatal incident. Even when I am really struggling with the eating disorder and low mood, cutting feels very low on the 'options list' which is a huge change.

If i could just shift the heaviness of the depression, i think my eating disorder would give me a lot more space to breath. Lately ive been thinking, that maybe i am actually just majorly depressed by nature-and always will be, so should set myself some new happiness baselines. But i know there have been huge chunks of time when its not been like this. its really difficult. My main depressive symptoms are around extreme tiredness and fatigue -hypersomnia. which i have a hard time in ED terms with, because it just makes me feel really lazy. But sometimes i just end up in tears because i am soo tired.

The further I get in therapy, the more I realise I have to come, in terms of recovery from this. The one good thing now though, is that recovery feels harder to give up on.

putting it all back together

im thinking about applying to my PCT for funding for private inpatient treatment over the summer. my local service - which is a national centre also no longer treats those with bulimia as an inpatient. This makes me so ANGRY, because once again, anorexia takes priority over those with other ED's. other ED's which are just as dangerous, just as devastating and just as difficult to recover from.

Anyway.

Earlier in the year, around christmas time, I fractured my ribs. This has been really difficult to manage, because ive always been having a real struggle with vomiting again. and each time im sick, i yank them again, and they just wont heal properly. So i need some proper rest, but im really struggling with this. The trouble is, Uni helps me realise that there is a reason to recover, and its taken so long to get to a point where i have friends, and social stuff going on, and then theirs the horses...and if i stop and try to just inforce rest at home, everything else goes to pot.

Im a hell of a lot better than i was. but i hate the way that the vomiting had snuck up on me again. I guess i need to pull things back, but its so hard. It took so long to make friends at Uni and i dont want to have to explain why i need a break, or anything else. and the horses are a huge part of how i manage my depression. and i cant deal with losing that.

its so difficult.

i wish i could move on...

I look at other peoples blogs, and pictures i see on facebook, and hearing news of others.

it seems like everyone moved on a whole lot. Babies, new boyfriends, or married. Or graduated, or decent careers, and all that goes with it - houses, cars, holidays and stuff.

and im still HERE.

I want to be better - and im a lot better than i was. I just wish i could sort the rest of it out now. Im so fed up of being left behind.

BOOM

i am so depressed. i cant see why i should go on dragging myself through this. im so tired. and i dont feel im getting anywhere. i just want to stop waking up in the morning. i really really do.

progression

over a year without self harm...thats a really big deal.

ok, so i am still very much struggling with an eating disorder. my weight worries me. but- heres the thing.

the headspace is different.

im not ok with the Ed taking over me. i know what its like without it now, and know what makes it really kick off.

and im not having it. I know now i CAN be recovered, i can be better and i can feel happier with myself.

and that is where i am going to be again.

i know what works for me. i know that as frustrating as it is, i have to slowly cut down the vomitting before i can can just stop it. i know i have to do this by stretching the time out before i vomit until i can stop doing it. i know i can do it, because ive done it before. i know that i have to keep food diaries again, and i know i need to ask to see the dietician at services again, and keep trying to tell her about how things really are.

But I CAN do it. and im doing it right now. no SI, no Ed behaviours today. i can i CAN CAN CAN get better from this.

knowing i can is the real progress. It takes time to heal a lifetime of wounds and wrong, but im getting there.

i feel strong and proud.

I CAN BE WELL from this. i dont have to live my pass.

thats real progress