Girl Meets Recovery

Went out on leave to challenge dinner, mind was screaming run away, you don't have to eat, no one will know. Than a second of clarity followed by the thought but you will know so i called up my brother and my friend and got them to tell me it will be ok. Though it doesn't feel like it will be ok right now i continue to try remind myself but i did it and this feeling im currently feeling will pass. Repeating the words this to shall pass until eventually it does. F**k anorexia i spent most of today crying because i realized how much this disorder has its grips on me and i am so done letting it. I may lapse but i will never stop fighting.

Something i hear a lot in treatment and especially while inpatient is people wanting to recover to enjoy life, i dont think that is how it works i think we need to enjoy life in order for us to recover.

Its been a few months since i posted i felt like it wasn't right because this was about recovery and i had relapsed but i think i have just been to hard on myself. Because sometimes relapse is a part of recovery, relapsing can teach us our triggers, it can teach us many things. I am currently inpatient at an eating disorders ward, i find im always anxious and though i know i have support of the people outside it still feels isolating. Treatment isn't a holiday it is hard work and can get so exhausting. So anyone still fighting i am so proud of you and anyone struggling with finding the will to fight on i believe in you.

I guess it has been a while since I have made a post but when I do I like to make it accurate to what is happening in my life around that time it makes what I have to say relevant.

But I guess what I can leave everyone with is don't forget to check in on your family and friends, they may put on a brave face but that can be a mask and it isn't always easy to show others what is behind the mask. So even if someone doesn't feel ready to open up just the simple act of being there can go a long way.

Self care the thing I hide from and say hell no to. But it does have it's uses, for me I find my self care in playing playstation, watching movies, Starbucks and spending time with my friends. By doing these things it helps me clear my mind, calm down when a day has been rough on me. a bit of self care can help improve mental health because generally doing something we enjoy lifts us up, makes us feel better, makes us happy and it doesn't always have to be something you enjoy, self care can be doing things to take off stress for future you such as doing the washing or making that phone call you have been putting off but need to make soon. Self care in all of its forms hold a purpose and helps relieve stress and a stressless mind can be a very healthy mind.

After a long day today I have found myself exhausted and had to stop and ask myself did I take on to much pressure for me to handle and I guess am I burnt out in this instance no I am just exhausted and rightfully so after going through a big change. The problem is if I am to neglect the exhaustion I am feeling at this instance and allow it to get worse it will quickly lead to burnout which can affect your mental health in a negative way, so it all acts as a domino effect and can easily spiral, if you feel yourself getting exhausted act on it as soon as possible.

Today marked a major day for myself, shopping can be an extremely anxiety inducing task not knowing if you got to much, not knowing if you got enough, is it following ed rules is it going against ed rules, what if I get it and don't know if I can eat it when the time comes was all that money a waste, It took me a considerable amount of time and a lot of anxiety but I managed to do a lot of shopping today and i would be lying if it wasn't scary or anxiety inducing but at the same time I am proud of myself for taking that leap something I didn't know was possible until I exposed myself to it, did it go well I am not sure, but you can't succeed unless you try.

Recovery takes work and can be a part time or full time job, it can be emotionally and physically draining because it will take a lot of time and focus, sometimes life needs to get put on hold or slowed down which is ok because we all need to go at our own pace, for me I have had to question how much I can keep studying, how much can I handle before I overload, it is good to be mindful of where we are at and what we can handle because taking on to much can have a reverse effect.

Though there are many things I plan to talk about I try to keep the relevant to that days experiences, today in group we discussed trying different things to face anxieties. When facing an anxiety provoking situation in honesty you have to do what we all hate hearing and that is to face anxiety head on and push through, which I am sure we have all heard once or twice or a million times, there is much more to that running head on into situations that make you uncomfortable can be like

waking up going for a run and suddenly you hit a brick wall that you cant just walk around the only options are to knock it down and in order to knock it down you would need tools to do this otherwise you can find yourself with no way through. This is what dealing with anxiety can be like or at least my perception of it.

Exercise it is something that holds a purpose to everyone, it can be stress relief, fun, obviously for health and fitness but how do you know when exercise becomes unhealthy, well there is the obvious in when you exercise more than you consume, when you push your body further than it is capable of, for me I did both but it was also something else when I ran I would be running away from something, when I punched the boxing bag I was angry and fighting my past abusers, exercise stopped being fun and became emotional I had been expressing emotion in an unhealthy way. So yes exercise is good and a great way to deal with emotions it can also become more detrimental and emotionally taxing. So be mindful about why you exercise.

Well I guess after the news I got yesterday a good thing to talk about is triggers, the word trigger and its variations of triggers and triggered have been treated like a dirty word, I for a long time thought I had no triggers but in reality we all do, a trigger doesn't have to solely be an upset response it can be for a happy response or an angry response we all have them, my negative triggers for example relate to trauma and to talk of behaviours my mind is screaming for me to do. Where it is important to learn others triggers it is more important to learn your own, once you do it can make a world of difference.

It is always hard to hear that your actions can be triggering to others around you, especially when you try to not he triggering. But I guess the lesson learnt here is to be careful what you say or do because you never know who could be watching or listening and you never know what will or won't make someone uncomfortable and bother those around you.

I found when looking at my food diary that there was a level of restriction. This is a good chance for me to be mindful, though restriction wasn't my intention it has still happened and I need to keep myself accountable and prevent this slip from turning into a backslide.

2 posts within an hour I guess to make up for the lack of posts today and yesterday.

Communication is key but also how do you communicate when the words dont always come out but when some people suffer trauma talking isn't the only way to communicate.

In this instance this page feels like my healthy way to communicate but that is after years of unhealthy ways were used. The signs are usually there but the words aren't always so support and working to find a healthy way (without force) to help someone communicate can be the big first step to them feeling comfortable and opening up to you.

when helping a friend or a loved one suffering from an eating disorder it can be important to ask what the ed voice is saying, it is easy to just push food onto someone and hope for the best but in cases that can make the situation worse if the anxiety's and the ed voice isn't addressed so yes the encouragement and push to eat can be important, asking what is happening in another persons mind can be 100x more helpful.

In the past I spent a large deal of time dwelling on lost friendships wondering what I could have done, now I try to live by the approach that everyone can be my friend and that the term best friend doesn't have to be subjected to a single person because if I can impact at least one persons life in a positive way that is a win and if I can do that for multiple people than that Is a fulfilling victory, this is something that has been an encouraging factor in my recovery. Knowing I have to ability to hurt people but not using that ability and to help instead that is what I believe in.

Supporting someone with similar struggles as you can be extremely uplifting there is a reward in seeing them succeed and be proud of those victories but in this it is important to keep mindful in the sense of an eating disorder while some of the best support can come from someone with lived experience, one of the biggest triggers can be within that same community, that constant struggle with your own mind telling you to not do the exact thing that you are trying to encourage another to do as well as the level of competitive nature of eating disorders or the fact that no two people are the exact same and a persons triggers can come from anywhere. This is why remaining mindful of your actions, your own mind and the kind of support you are receiving is important.

Forgiveness towards another is easy, what is not so easy is forgiveness towards ones self you can find yourself spending a lot of time not knowing that you need to forgive yourself or even how, but in order to heal you need to be able to forgive yourself for the way you have felt, the day I accepted I had anorexia originally was the day anorexia became me and for that I hated myself and in time I couldn't begin to heal because i couldn't forgive myself, now I understand the hate I felt cant be towards the disorder because it is something I have, what i can hate however is the behaviors involved. Forgiveness to yourself is the first major step you can take towards healing.

Waking up or a morning and facing the day ahead can seem like an impossible task, I know this because this is something I currently feel as I write this, but by facing this impossible task today it will in time become less impossible, now to say it is as simple as just try would be insulting to me and to everyone else with mental health struggles but to try is still an important step needed so we can do the impossible, so we can make the impossible very much possible. One day at a time.

On a happier note after how doom and gloom my last post was, I have officially been laxative free for 4 months now so like hey that is actually one hell of an ed win.

My story there would be many ways to tell it start to Finnish, chapter wise or the different situations throughout my life, they are things that shaped my life impacted me they may seem insignificant to you but one of the rules of mental health is what feels like nothing to you could mean a lot of pain for another so in case I would like to leave a TRIGGER WARNING because I want to speak about important life altering events in my life some involves me directly some were indirectly but still it affected me. The reason this is important is in order to have context to where I am I need you to see where I was. My history doesn't define me but it does shape me.

When I was born with a genetic growth defect what this meant was I could have stopped growing in the womb and as a result my mum could have died or at least this is what she had told me I have a younger brother that had the same defect and he didn't make it. This led to me needing to take needles between the ages of 5 and 11 to help with my growth.

Not long after I was born my biological father left I didn't know until recently the lasting effects him not being around actually had on me in a way I was jealous that he seemed to love my siblings more than me and had time for them, it always left me wondering why I was never good enough for him was I broken, did I do something, I was lucky i ended up with a loving step father in my life for the 25 years that followed but it still weighed on me as to why my dad didn't seem to want me. Enter the fact that he was also homophobic and I would guess transphobic as well.

When I was 3 I started feeling extremely depressed like I was in the wrong body, I should have been born a girl, I was in fact a weird child and was more aware of how the world worked so I never expressed these thoughts until I was much older it caused a great level of stress and pain for many years until I was 17 and I told someone which it spread like wildfire and suddenly almost everyone knew, I again did get pretty lucky and received only a small amount of bullying, most get worse. But what I did develop was a permanent fear for my safety because I could be killed just for being trans if the wrong person was to ever find out.

When I was 5 it turned out someone has ADHD so that was a ride and a half the difficulty in paying attention affected my learning as well as the hyperactivity and a difficulty in expressing emotions, I'm sure you could just imagine how that went down, I was a wild child.

When I was 9 I was first diagnosed with depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies. It is truly a wonder that I didn't get real help back than. Pretty disgusting to be entirely honest

Enter 11: it was at this time I had been threatened and attacked by a man 3 times my age after that I cowered and retreated more and more, I developed bulimia to cope and at the time it really served a purpose the rearing of an ed became a staple in my life for many years to come.

13: simply put high school was not easy, I was deemed to stupid by the teachers and was bullied by both students and teachers I would often find myself in altercations and defending myself always to some how be at fault. My bulimia worsened and I started self harming.

At 16 my gender identity really started to get to me and my s*xuality became a struggle. I had a girlfriend that I still love to this day and what happened was my best friend at the time found her out drunk and took her home where she proceeded to have s*x with 8 people they were between 18-24 while she was under the influence and only 15, I'm sure you can do the math, what really got to me was that there was still a level of decision on her part she cheated on me on my birthday and I was left feeling like I was never good enough that maybe if I was better than she wouldn't have endured that, maybe if my focus wasn't on this guy I was crushing on than I would have been enough. After that I put all my focus on this guy I liked he seemed nice but was adamant he wasn't gay in fairness neither was I but it was at a time I wasn't out as trans so in his confusion he would do s*xual things to some people and I got the worst of it, the guy I liked molested me there was no did he or didn't he, it happened and I somehow had to deal with what had happened.

I stupidly came out as gay and around that time the guy I crushed on prior would manipulate everyone around him including the guy I liked at this point so enter my first boyfriend I guess I can simply explain he Constantly treated me like I wasn't good enough for him and that I didn't deserve him it was emotional abuse.

As I came out over the next several years as trans something weird started to happen guys liked me I didn't know at the time it was because I was the perfect test for them to see if they were gay, for a while I found I was being used by guys till it eventually reached a point where things would happen in my sleep.

I guess by this point I had begun to disconnect and my mental health worsened and on occasions I would try bounce out of what was happening but it became to difficult In some aspects of my life it improved i started hormones and was the happiest i had ever been but I was still having a hard time the had been su***de attempts and to say I fit my whole life experience in this post would be very false. but it wasn't until bulimia turned to anorexia and I lost a lot of weight, at first I didn't realize what was happening than when I finally did know that I had an eating disorder I would scream for help but no one would hear, I was only met with replies of no you don't or not skinny enough and I worsened until around my birthday I was hospitalized because when I was fat I couldn't have an eating disorder but I didn't stay fat I got skinny, I did have people supporting me to get into recovery but I put it off to me it was impossible. 3 months on I am doing well it is very much still a struggle and I know I couldn't do it without my support team but I am hopeful that I can maybe one day get through this and get past the events that affected me in the past I am getting better and it is starting to feel good, in recovery there will be good and bad days but always keep hope and fight because it has made me stronger as a person.

i guess i was inspired by a friend i had made recently and something one of my best and dearest friends said to me today, it was that i may not see it but i have made so much progress since the start of the year. i am a trans-gendered female and i suffer from an eating disorder which is anorexia purge sub type, i also suffer from multiple other things and next i would love nothing more than to be able to tell my story on this page as i think it is important, it can show where i was, what i have survived and where i am going from there. i hope to inspire the change i want in this world and if i can reach at least on person than my job is half done, the other half that is my recovery.

btw... i am actually really awful at this kind of thing i am so new to this so if it is off until i get the hang of it please cut me some slack. I decided to start by adding people I know and I guess we will see where we go from there.