Monday 29 September 2014

I am pretty down at the moment


It’s been a while since I have felt this low…
 
 

I am just sick of being poor. I am sick of living frugally and scrimping/saving where I can. I got paid 4 days ago and ITS ALL GONE. Financial independence is bull shit when every month before you can even say “I have been paid” it is all gone on bills. It’s going to a quiet month.
I’m just tired of working and working my arse of and having nothing to show for it… I need to make changes that will save me money. I’m thinking that one of the best ways to do that is to quit drinking and smoking – which in all fairness; I am probably going to have to do anyway due to lack of money. It is so hard managing everything and being unable to even pay for my anxiety/sleeping meds…

This weekend I had a night out with my best friend. We had a really good catch up and headed to our local pub. I spent the majority of yesterday afraid to move in case I threw up, I have not been that hung over in a long time. I had a burger yesterday which I am so ashamed of.

This morning I have just dragged myself out of bed. I have been having some serious nightmares recently. I even woke up on Saturday morning shouting “Help”!! I am thinking this is likely due to the fact I haven’t been able to fill my prescription so my receptors in my brain are firing. Never mind anything else, but they are terrifying.  Have you ever been awake in your mind but your body has still been asleep? It’s like you feel like you need to move but you become paralysed and you can’t do anything but lay there not moving or making a sound. It’s very disorientating.
Yesterday I just wanted to cry, constantly, I think that is also due to lack of medication, and obviously alcohol is a depressant.

Anyway, this week for me is going to be busy. I am going to avoid alcohol were possible and try to reduce the amount I smoke. The main problem there is that it is likely going to mess my anxiety up even more.
The biggest trigger for me this week is that one of my co-workers appears to have an ED too, she is extremely thin and frail. But when I look at her instead of feeling bad for her, I envy her. I am sick!!! I wish for once I could just focus on everything else instead of my weight, like work, like seeing an old friend, like planning a post hen party. Like anything other than how worthless and ugly I feel. My face has erupted in spots, my skin is in its worst condition ever.  

Wednesday 24 September 2014

I can't even dress myself...

 
Without genuinely hating everything about myself!! I buy myself nice clothes, things that I think will make me look fashionable, instead of just hiding in baggy clothes. But I always end up going back to my staple wardrobe. Wide legged black trousers, an oversized cardigan, a variety of baggy tops, or leggings, boots and a baggy dress.

I have literally spent a fortune buying pencil skirts, tights, shoes, and dresses to wear to work, even a gorgeous pair of cigarette trousers… but they are just too tight, too fitted. They make me feel whale-like. Last year, after a 6/7month restriction phase with little to no binging I felt a lot better about myself. I was at 235lbs. Now I have regained all of the weight I worked so hard to lose barring 15lbs. I am such a weak weak failure.
This isn’t about just losing weight for me; this is about being able to love myself again. Really love myself. To look in the mirror and be happy, to put on an outfit I WANT to wear, and then not ripping it off in a rush because I can’t stand how it makes me look.
I dug out all of my diuretics, diet pills and laxatives this morning. I have put a carry bag in my handbag and I now carry them with me.  I will not self-harm again, I know that now. But I will do whatever it takes to get this weight off and reach my goal weight. I do not want to slip back into bulimia. After years of starving and extreme diets, it was actually bulimia I was diagnosed with last year.
I am going to be careful and I will keep people updated. I’m so disgusted with myself I really have left myself no choice. Recovery may work for some people. But it doesn’t for me.  

Tuesday 23 September 2014

Breaking the fast


I never used to eat breakfast. But last year something dropped, like a penny or something. That throughout the day My body wasn’t getting anything, just water and coffee. So all day my body was still in starvation mode, until I ate a small meal in the evening. Then I’d go to bed. So I figured all day my body wasn’t burning anything and then I was eating (fuelling my body) before I went to bed… which is a bit odd when I look at it that. So I started eating in a morning which is something totally against anything I have ever done. I have never eaten in a morning, the thought of food before lunch time genuinely turns my stomach and makes me feel uncomfortable.
I started by eating 20g of All Bran (I had been struggling to go for a number 2 with all of the restriction I’d been doing) so that helped to get me functioning normally again. Then around 2pm I’d eat an apple to stop me binging when I got home.
More recently I have been having Overnight Oats in a morning, I use 20g wholegrain quaker oats. 2 tbsp fat free greek yoghurt, a splash of milk, and some frozen fresh fruit.  I add a few nuts in there for protein and healthy fats… it comes in all in all at 201cal and it keeps me full for a long time. No hunger pangs = less binging for me.
I’m trying to avoid bread and planned meals where possible.
I will see how long I can go binge free for…

Monday 22 September 2014

My past... my present... and my future.....


 
 
 
I don’t remember how old I was when I first felt fat…  I know I have never been able to borrow my friend’s clothes. It’s been about 10 years since I could wear “normal clothes” instead of plus size (UK 16+). That being said, despite the fact that I am (in BMI terms) classed as obese, I was last year diagnosed with and Eating Disorder. I think it will help if I take you back to the beginning with me…
My childhood wasn’t exactly ordinary, but then it wasn’t exactly extraordinary either. My parents split when I was 6/7 years old after my dad was exposed as having an affair with my mum’s best friend… After mum left we moved from the country to the city. By the time I was 11 I had been to four different primary schools, so being the new “fat” kid, I was an easy target for bullies. I was a lot taller than all of the other girls my age and a lot stronger. I guess growing up in the country made me “farm tough” as Cam (Modern Family) would put it. Nevertheless I was bullied, by the boys and the girls, about my weight, about my family, my height.
I spent the weekdays with my mum, and weekends with my Dad. However I am pretty sure my Dad didn’t want me there, he’d go out for hours on end and leave me to cook, clean, set a fire, wash the cars etc… I wasn’t even 11. When we did spend time together he would get me to do sit ups and lift his dumbbells, because “Anna, you need to exercise to lose this puppy fat, now come on let’s do 20 pushups”…
Secondary school wasn’t so bad. I ended up being in a group with two sisters that lived near me, so I had friends and the bullying wasn’t so bad. I got on with my life and my studies. Left with 11 GCSE’s. However, I was still bigger than all of my friends. I grew to be 5ft 8. All of my friends were 5ft – 5ft 6… So I was taller and twice the size of them in clothes, them being a UK 6 and me being a UK 12. Over the years my dress size increased with my age. This increased my unhappiness and my need to cut out certain foods and I swam for miles at the local swimming baths.
As an adult this has continued. Once I hit 18 and started going out, I’d be the first on the dance floor and the last to leave. I would stay out all night and drink in excess. My group of friends changed and for the first time in my life I remembered being happy and accepted by people. I was 18 the first time I started a proper diet. I began going to weightwatchers with my friend.  Only I figured how to restrict my diet even more, completed my journal as though I was eating a good healthy diet and I was all smiles as I collected my shiny 7’s and 10% awards. I was saving up calories from throughout the week in order to binge drink. They call it Drunkorexia.
Not long after that I moved out on my own, I lived in a flat by myself and for the first time I could really control my diet. No more deep fat fryer at my mums house, or calorie laden pasta meals served with fresh bread. Now I had control. I talked my GP into prescribing me Reductil, (an appetite suppressant that has since been taken off the market for being linked to Cardiovascular Disease and Strokes), I used this to seriously restrict my diet. I avoided being hungry and therefore avoided eating. Not long after this was stopped (it caused my blood pressure to raise) I moved into a shared house, but I still managed to hide my disordered eating. I lived there for two years.  I’d go to work ridiculously early in the morning, eat lunch then pop to my mums after work. I’d tell my mum I was eating at home then tell my housemates I had eaten at mums.
I moved back in with my mum after this. Then, after a year I met my boyfriend. At the time I had a horse, I was around 238lbs, but was very active, always mucking out/riding/lunging burns a lot of calories. I have always looked like I weigh less than I do.  We moved in together after about 6 months and have been together ever since. In that time my weight reached an all-time high of 293lbs. At that point I was so depressed, I was refusing to cook for myself and ordering fast food on an evening then hiding the proof. Then at times I would sit there, so full and uncomfortable, crying. It was a vicious cycle. In 2009 I began restricting my diet. Cutting myself to 800 calories a day. I did the ABC, 2468, every diet under the sun. But I settled for 600 calories a day and 2 hours of exercise 7 days a week.  I stopped drinking fizzy drinks and only drank hot drinks/cup a soups and water.  For example my daily food intake looked like this.
B – Apple
L - Cup a soup and 4 low fat crackers
D – Mini Wrap/Salad/Steamed Veg and Fish.

My weight went from 293 to 228lbs over 6 months. Well on my way to my 110lb goal weight.
Then everything came down around me, my relationship broke down (this has since been resolved). It was during this point I became hooked on diuretics/laxatives and purging. I was in a crisis I guess. But I attempted to overcome this myself and in the aftermath, my employer found out about my eating habits. They forced me to enter treatment before they would let me continue to work, so I entered recovery.
For the last 8 months I have been given all of the tools to overcome my ED. I have learnt about the effects of Eating Disorders and the effects of starvation/binging and purging.  I was given a diagnosis of Atypical Anorexia B/P Subtype. I crossed my T’s and dotted my I’s. Now  I find myself still gaining weight months after entering a regular eating pattern. The clothes that once fell of me are now tight and uncomfortable, and all I can think is why have I let myself go like this? I can’t stay like this. I need to lose this weight. I need to be thin. I need to be thin… Nothing else matters.   
I will reach my UGW of 110lbs...
 

Friday 19 September 2014

Who am I?

My name is Anna and I am currently living in the UK, in Somerset. I have suffered with disordered eating for most of my teens and now I'm in my twenties still struggling with negative thoughts and body dysmorphia.
I have been in and out of recovery over my life and at the moment I am out of treatment and I am actively trying to lose weight.
I am a big girl, always have been, it seems unlikely for a "fat person" to have an Eating Disorder but it does happen.
This blog is about my life, my feelings and my journey.

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