Diaries of a recovering bulimic and confused young adult
It's a Sunday evening in Berlin, which means all supermarkets are closed. As usual I wasn't foreseeing enough to do a proper foodshop, leading to an empty fridge this evening. So, takeout food it is! I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of happy when I found out I 'had to' get takeout tonight, and the whole day I was thinking about what I would order and what I would watch whilst eating it. About an hour ago I opened the Lieferando website to have a look at my options tonight, only to be overwhelmed by the variety of food and different kitchens they offer. I wanted everything and nothing at the same time. After a long search going from indian to pizza to vegan food, I found a nice vegan place where I could order a mixed platter with naan bread and a slice of bananacake. As I was about to order it I started to panick. It was too much. I'm trying to get in shape and healthy (in a physical fitness kind of way, not estethically), how is this going to help me ever reaching my goals? I start to look for something smaller, but realise soon enough that these dishes will only make me want more food and I will end up going to the late night shop to buy shit food anyway. At this point I only see 2 options. I order a load of food and throw up afterwards, or I order a small portion which will leave me unsatisfied and will probably drive me to satisfy cravings by eating a whole pack of coockies. I close the website and try to still my hunger temporarily with some crackers. My housemate has some salad and tomoatoes I can use, I have a tin of chikpeas, if I get eggs from the late night shop that somehow makes up a meal right? This feels good, this feels safe, this I can do.
I hope one day I can eat nice food without the need nor the fear to overindulge, but until then I will have keep to my safe foods: porridge, eggs, bread, spreads and vegetables. Don't get me wrong, I do eat other foods and every now and then I get take out, but it does lead to overindulging which is sometimes fine, but when I just want a normal meal without any inner conflict, eggs and veg it is.
Morning Motivation Meditation
It is important for me to achieve my physical, creative and intellectual goals. Because I know I can. I have a great ability to connect to myself and share this connection with others and I have a great ability to be in the moment, absorbed by the thing I'm doing and able to express it. I am intelligent and easily look at things from a different angle. These things make me a great performer and creator. There is a lot of shit out there. I know I can make something that is valuable to me, that I connect to as well as something that will inspire entertain and touch an audience. I need to do this for me, cause it makes me happy, but I also owe it to the world to develop my potential and share it with others.
Morning Motivation Meditation
I have many things that i want to do, learn, research, become. I can either do these things now or I can let things pile up and feel bad about not doing them. The first option seems better. I love what I do and am happy that I can self-organise mos of my life so that I can work on all my dreams and goals. I've managed to make my life this way that I can do whatever I want and spend my time following my passions, I love it! I love all my friends and the people I train, work or spend time with, i'm fascinated by ny own current research and my own creations, I'm grateful for having great teachers here from whom I learn a lot... My life now is all I've ever wanted it to be, and eventhough my goals are a lot more ambitious then where I'm at now with my work, I will get there. Just like I got to where I am now by dedicating my time to doing what I love. I am proud of the person I've become, I'm proud of what I made my life to be, I am proud of everything I've overcome to get here and I can't wait to meet the person I will be in a couple years time.
Morning Motivation Meditation
Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. As much as I value doing what I want and following my own inner compass, things we have to do are impossible to avoid. So I accept that this is the situation and I can't change it. Only then I will be able to adapt, see the importance of the task and commit to it. If there is the slightest loophole, the slightest thought in my mind that I don't have to do this and I could be doing something else instead, it becomes so much harder to execute the given task. The ame is true in regard to my eating disorder. When there is the slightest possibility present in my mind that I might maybe one day have another binge and purge "because it's not that bad", it will happen sooner or later. If I convince myself that it is under no circumstances possible (as in the possibility really doe not exist, even if I wanted to there is absolutely no way I could make it happen) for me to repeat this behaviour, my body and mind will adapt to the situation and act accordingly to this reality that I created. It's like going through a breakup for example. It's incredibly painful, but you have to accept your new reality, and eventually you move on.
Also this, when doing things you don't want to do, do them with focus, patience and importance. I will go to the gym in a bit, eventhough I don't want to but this is my reality and I cannot change it, and it's important that I don't go through my routine just to get it over with, but to do the exercises with focus so that I'm actually working on strength in a productive way intead of waisting energy on mindless activity.
So let's do this day, with patience, importance, focus and enjoyment!
So tired. I am feeling so tired.
Just a couple of years ago I would have loved this feeling, this exhaustion, knowing that I've pushed myself to my limits and even further. I would feel satisfied with this victory of the mind over the body. I would know that I can do anything I put my mind to. But things have changed since then. I have changed since then. The tiredness now terrifies me. As soon as I get tired, I get scared. It's like I already failed. I start to predict the future: "I won't be able to get out of this, so everything I do now will be shit", "I will break down, I will cry, I want to cry", "I'm going to binge and purge again, I'm going to get depressed again, I will end up in the same cycle I always end up in".
People always tell me not to be so hard on myself, but I can't help but be dissapointed. I know the Eva who gets tired and puhes even harder, I know the Eva who doesn't give up and fights for what she wants. I've experienced it, I know it's there. I want this Eva back, but I don't know how. I only know how definitely not to do it. Going into a "I just have to work hard and push through" mindset is alway tempting in moments like these. But I know now, this mindset is not helpful. Even more, it's harmful.
For now I have no answers, but maybe I don't need to have them yet.
I'm just really tired and that is okay.
Time to figure out why I sometimes overeat. I really feel now that I'm committed to the not purging. I'm not really scared that it will happen anymore. I haven't purged in 50 days even though I had some binges during this time, and everytime I start a binge I notice the desire to purge. But i know i cannot do it cause i will be devistated that i broke my streak. Of course since the purging is gone, i'm not binging on insane amounts of food anymore, cause the thought that my body will actually have to process all of this junk and safe all the extra calories terrifies me. But the binges are still there and I would like to get rid of them. Today for example I had My 3 meals as usual, but already a bit more indulging, and afterwards I had a big bag of chickpea crisps, a sandwich with brie, a mcflurry and 2 small bags of crisps. I don't understand where this desire to eat comes from, and i'm still not satisfied.
The facts today: I was very tired after a busy weekend and travelling between Belgium and berlin; I had a bit of alcohol the day before; my body was aiking because of the busy weekend; I felt like chilling because I was spending the day with my family; I was dehydrated; there was food around that normally wouldn't be around; I'm out of my regular training routine; I took a day off; rather abnormal eating pattern the previous day;
Possible explanations and solutions:
- when I'm tired I want to eat. What I should be doing is take a moment to calm down.
- when I'm dehydrated I want to eat. What I should be doing is drink a lot of water.
- I struggle to chill without going overboard. I think it might be because I'm not really chilling. It might be because I actually stress about having a day off and I use food to help me chill.
I think in general I try to sooth any kind of discomfort with food: being thirsty, tiredness, physical discomfort, stress, being unable to focus or not wanting to do a certain task (often related to stress)
So let's start checking what the real discomfort is when an urge to eat comes up and how I can relieve it.
Random Writing
I've been in this place before. I'm in bed, watching netflix, thinking about which snack to eat, dreaming about bingeing and pruging but knowing that I can't, realising that I made this commitent to be more purposeful and act according to my values, but not giving a shit. I didn't catch the "fuck it" thought. I told yself I would work on noticing "fuck it" thoughts. I just had one 15 minutes ago, and I completely missed it. Of course I knew that what i was doing was not according to plan, when I put down my work and started making peanutbutter on toast, but I didn't realise that this was the part of me speaking, which I actually want to get rid of. This part of me has become really good at disguising as the real me, to convince me that it's harmless. But it is not harmless. It's everything that makes me sad, makes me a failure, makes me waste my life. There is nothing good about this part of myself. I hate this part of me, I'm ashamed of this part of me, it's making me feel unworthy of life and a disappointment to humanity.
So above is the situation. What can I do righ now to change this situation?
I should get some more work done. I need to clean my room, I need to prepare my class, I need to make dinner, I would like to continue the sapiens research.
I close my eyes for 20 minutes and I go through the tasks with courage and patience.
I will never binge in my life again. I will never binge in my life again. I will never binge in my life again. I will never binge in my life again. I will never binge in my life again. Binging is not an option, it's not a thing, it's a concept that doesn't exist. Binging doesn't exist, therefor I never did it in the past, and I will never do it in the future.
I don't know why you're posting these things here, it's like you're talking to yourself, but it's not a private journal, this is a public one, so it means you're doing it hoping that someone will react to what you say.
[edited by Anomalia to remove unsupportive content]
@neonHickory2479
I enjoyed posting these things here because I think it might be interesting for people to see what goes on in my mind and it was a good exercise for me to formulate my thoughts. I know I enjoy discovering how other people think, so I guess there must be other people out there who enjoy it too. I never claimed my problems to be special, I don't need them to be, but they are still hard for me none the less. I actually struggle with my food so much because I'm a dancer and I was told million times during my training that I had to lose weight and eat less (not in a nice way). It gets into your head when you really want to achieve something that is important to you (there are also personal reasons, which i won't discuss, why this was so important to me) and the person you trust the most tells you to lose weight all the time and that you're not good enough. Of course there are a lot of things attached to this and I don't expect you to understand it, just like I will probably never understand what you are going through. I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm not special and I'm actually okay with this. I'm not trying to use my problems as a way to pretend that I am special. It's not a competition really, and in the end none of us are special. I also never said that my life is harder than that of someone starving in Africa. I'm incredibly aware of the fact that i had a privileged upbringing, and i can't even imagine what some people must be going through, but believe it or not life is still hard. We all have our struggles whatever the circumstances and we all need some support from time to time. It's a very common thing that dancer's mental health issues are overlooked, it's hard to explain to other people exactly what we went through during our training and i might have exactly the same reaction as you if i read my posts whilst struggling with actual real life stuff. I don't need you to understand, it's okay, but maybe some people might find my sharings interesting or pick something up from it, however small it may be. If you didn't that's absolutely fine. I hope you are also sharing your struggles with people one way or another because we can all learn a lot from other people's experiences. Finally, I actually would like to encourage you to take a look at the way you responded to my posts because I honestly think it says more about you than it does about me. Eventhough I'm pretty sure you won't take my advice, i'm just boring and pampered after all, with a mindset like you are showing in your reply you might miss out on many opportunities to turn your own life around. But then again, I don't really know you.
@Eva456
Yeah, yeah .. you might be right you know, I might be a rude person for the way I respond to you. But being rude does not overrule being right. And being right is more important, at least for me. And I'm glad that you're 'incredibly aware' of your advantages, compared to others. But I think you use those words too lightly. Because when someone is 'incredibly aware' of that thing, he wouldn't even dare to mention his issues, much less to complain about them, like you do. So I don't think you're incredibly aware, I think you just use those words too lightly and you don't really understand what they mean.
[edited by Anomalia to remove unsupportive content]
@neonHickory2419
I never said you were rude, and I agree that it‘s okay sometimes to be rude if that means you can speak your truth about something and you feel like it will be helpful in the situation that you‘re in. The rule of ‚I can be rude as long as I‘m right seems a bit narrow minded to me to be honest. I find it very suprising also that you would be so sure that your very strong opinion about a girl on the internet that you don‘t know, an opinion that you‘ve based only on a couple of paragraphs she wrote, is „right. I feel like you might be using this word too lightly … Where you right when you said that I‘m thinking so much about food and losing weight because I am attention-seeking? No, you weren‘t. I think so much about it, because I wanted to be a perfect dancer. Dance used to be the only thing that made sense to me in a complicated world and I wanted to be a part of it and in order to be a part of it I thought I had to be perfect. I don‘t believe this anymore, but the thoughts are still there. Because these are things that I‘ve been telling myself for years. Where you right when you said that I prefer to sit around idle thinking more than acting? No. In fact I‘m acting a lot I just don't feel the need to prove it to people online that I don't know. I‘ve made a lot of life changes the last three months and I notice a lot of progress, so I don‘t think there is a lack of acting from my side. All this just to say, I don‘t think you were "right".
This being said, I will admit that I used the words „incredibly aware a bit lightly. I‘m glad you pointed out my tendency to sometimes use certain words because of the way they make a sentence flow instead of for their specific meaning, and I can try to keep this in mind. Sometimes it's easy to forget about how bad different life is in different parts of the world and how unfair this world actually is.
But I get a bit confused when you say that the fact that I have a roof above my head and access to food basically means I have no issues. Cause with that logic no on who has shelter and food can have issues? So living with a trauma is not an issue? Living with drug addiction is not an issue? Losing both your parents at a young age, not an issue? I don‘t like to overanalyse wording all the time but, "Let me remind you that, through comparison, with those in Africa for instance, your issues are inexistent? I'm sorry, but that doesn‘t even make sense. If we would compare my situation with "those in Africa (do you even mean to say they all live in the same situation?) I‘m pretty sure I would still have mental health issues and they would still have the issues they have going on in their lives. This is the clearest example of comparing apples with pears (dutch expression, not sure if it translate) I‘ve ever read. I get the point you are trying to make (I think), but I strongly disagree that we can‘t have issues because we have food and shelter.
Can I also remind you that you‘ve only just read a few minutes of my life. I‘m not claiming that not being able to choose what to eat is the big issue here. I‘m also not complaining about anything. I didn‘t read all of my writing again, but from what I read it pretty much just sounds like I‘m describing a moment in my day or I‘m describing what thoughts are coming up in my mind. I'm just using this space to share thoughts and situations from a person in recovery, cause it might be interesting for some people and it helps me feel lessa lone with certain things.
I find it a bit confusing that you get so worked up about me using a wrong word, because it doesn‘t seem like you‘re considering your words very carefully. It‘s perfectly fine if you want to make me aware of the fact that there are people in this world that have it way more difficult than me and I agree with this also, but you are so very extreme in your argumantation because you want to make a point, that you actually say a lot of things that aren‘t true. I also find it weird in general that you get so worked up about the fact that I share thoughts and behaviours that you consider lazy and pathetic. So I‘m not allowed to share the embarrassing parts of myself? Because this is kind of what an eating disorder is. It‘s not rational. Of course I know it‘s ridiculous and it doesn‘t make sense, but should we keep these irrational thoughts and behaviours hidden?
Now up until this point I could kind of see some good intentions in your writing, but I really wish you wouldn‘t have started about the dancing career because here you‘ve actually lost all my respect. „Do they offend you when they tell you to lose weight? no they don‘t, but they enforced an image onto me of an unattainable perfect body and made me believe that I have to achieve it in order to be succesful in my career. „A fat whale can not dance … „so dancing equals being thin. Again this doesn‘t make sense. There is a midway. I‘m [edited by Anomalia to remove weight specifics per ED community guidelines] heavier now then I was during my training and I‘m still succesfully working as a dancer, I‘m still gratious on stage and people pay money to see me and learn from me. So the whole „we shouldn‘t let dancers get fat theory seems a bit extreme doesn‘t it? Setting a lower standard for myself was actually a very necessary step that I had to take in my recovery, because striving for perfection wasn‘t making me happy. If it makes you happy, then feel free to live your life that way, but I started to realise I value different things in life other than hard work and perfection.
Your response further also proves my statement that dancers mental health issues are often overlooked, cause you literally are overlooking them as we speak. I‘m not going to go into the whole topic to explain to you the things some of us go through, but that you would have the audacity to talk about my field of expertise as if you know it, is a bit shocking to me and shows no respect for other peoples knowledge, no trust in different perspective and a belief that you know things better. Last but not least, eating disorders are mental health issues, panic attacks are mental health issues, depression is a mental health issue. Maybe you don‘t like it, but they actually really are defined as mental health issues, so I‘m sorry if you disagree but I can‘t really change that.
I‘m just hoping that you can see that there are many flaws in your reasoning, cause it can be very dangerous to believe so strongly that you are right, especially when the reasoning isn‘t actually logical.
I think I‘m also a bit confused as to why my writings are bothering you so much that you had to comment on them and you couldn‘t just ignore them. I‘m not really sure what you hope to achieve with this or which point you are trying to make, because you're not very articulate.
