littlelauren94

[littlelauren94]

Where have I been?

I truly thought I was recovering. I was happy, I felt whole. I found a career I am good at, married a man I love, and I believed I was through the worst of it. I still had difficult days and struggles with self confidence but I was able to do and discover things that I enjoy, not held back with crippling guilt or anguish over my body.

But I have been on my own now for nearly a month and all I can feel is control slipping through my fingers. I am so ashamed of my inability to care for and nourish my body, watching as it changes in response to my behaviour. What will my husband think when I see him next? Am I becoming a pig, will that be his first thought? I know that it is mine.

I haven’t had a creative thought in years. I thought I was okay, but maybe I have been dulling the senses to the point that they are almost gone. My dreams of writing a novel linger but the motivation and inspiration are depleting. What have I become?

[littlelauren94]

Biscuit Spread

You think you’re doing okay, but you still weigh yourself every morning. If the number isn’t small enough, you’ll dutifully tie your shoelaces and go for a run, just to see a smaller number when you come back. 

I still have bad days. There are still times when I’m lonely and despondent, finding myself turning to the cupboards and fridge to find some kind of distraction from thoughts bouncing in my head. I didn’t notice the problem or the habit I’d started to form, until I finished the jar of biscoff spread in the office that my boyfriend had bought. I headed to the shop to buy a replacement, but my heart sank when I realised they didn’t sell the stuff and there was no possible way I could get to a shop before he was in to find out what I’d done. 

Ashamed, I cleaned the jar and hid it at the bottom of the bin. A half full bin, I might add, up to my elbows in other people’s rubbish and left over food, just to avoid being found out. I have feigned ignorance, mentioned that it wasn’t there when I went in this morning and that I’ve bought him something else so he wouldn’t be without breakfast the next morning. 

I proceeded to spend the next three hours googling counsellors and therapists as I clearly still have a problem. I’m still ashamed that I ate the jar, but worse, I’m terrified to admit it to anybody. This is still a secret that I’m harbouring and it terrifies me that it might come between us. I’m scared that a jar of biscoff will end my relationship. 

It’s ridiculous to type it out, but there’s still that voice that’s stopping me opening my own mouth and admitting it. Nothing bad can come from it, but I can’t say out loud that I still have a problem. Maybe from fear he won’t understand, but mostly from fear that he’ll be repulsed by me and my lack of control. I don’t want to lose him, I don’t want him to see me differently. But we live together now and if I don’t heal, it will all come out in one go. 

I’m scared of that too. 

[littlelauren94]

Enlightenment.

You would have been 60 on the Solstice yesterday, and I bet you were having one hell of a party. I wish I could have joined you.

I don’t remember the last time I made myself throw up. My relationship with food has improved dramatically in the last two years. My whole life has changed. 

I completed my Masters and got my degree which is a bigger achievement than it sounds. I spent the whole year crash dieting, binging and purging. I was a swollen, broken mess by the time I finished, but I got through it in one piece and came out stronger as a result. Following my Masters I spent 3 long, well-earned months doing nothing, before starting a job training to be a weather forecaster. 

The year I spent alone and in pain paid off - I’m qualified now and different person. I don’t think I’d recognise the broken girl on the floor of the en suite bathroom today. I wish I could tell her it will work out in the end, the pain goes away, you learn to deal with it and you start to piece yourself back together again. I wish I could hold her and let her cry, listen to the heartbreak she had bottled up, too ashamed to share with her family, too self-conscious to share with her friends. The people who are in most need of a hug are the ones who hide away from the opportunity. 

It’s been a slow recovery. A lot of progress was made in the three month break, spending time with my mum and childhood friends, slowing down and allowing myself to feel the colossal loss of my father, something I had been burying during my time in University. Moving to Exeter to start the new job, I wanted to he happy and healthy. I also wanted to be skinny and sexy but for the first time, I listened to and managed my body in a healthy way. I moved in with a friend, also starting a new job, and sharing food and eating together taught me what a normal relationship with food looks like. I don’t think this friend realises what an impact she had on my body, my self esteem, my health and ultimately my future. 

I met my boyfriend in Exeter. I wasn’t expecting to, I certainly wasn’t looking, but it was the most organic friendship and eventual relationship I’ve ever formed. He’s also had a big impact on my health and body, but mostly on my mental wellbeing. He loves me, he loves my body and gives me more confidence in myself every time we’re together. I still have bad days, I still occasionally eat a whole share bag of M&Ms or a whole pot of sweets but I no longer punish myself. I no longer beat and abuse my body after a ‘bad’ episode. I embrace it, I accept that actually that is a part of me and it’ll take a long time to relearn my behaviours but sometimes your body does need a little love and care, be that in the form of a massage, a facial or a bar of chocolate. Instead, now I brush my teeth, say enough and carry on with my day. I wake up the next day and I begin again. These occasions are becoming more and more infrequent, maybe once or twice a month, sometimes less, and nothing physical has changed. I haven’t gained any weight, I fluctuate a little but I can recognise it and change my diet accordingly. I still run, 100 KM a month nowadays and I no longer get stomach pain, I no longer faint from the efforts. I’m healthier and happier than I’ve been for a long time.

Coronavirus lockdown has been a challenge but I’ve embraced it, and not punished myself for the bad days. These are unprecedented circumstances and I think everyone is doing the best they can. 

Two years ago I would have laughed at the notion that one day I would be okay, that one day I would have just one slice of cake and then carry on with my day. But here we are. And it could be you. Miracles do happen. 

[littlelauren94]

Heartbreakingly true 

Some people’s 500 calories is fruits and veggies.

Others eat a piece of cake and a couple fries for the day.

Some people drink green tea or coffee to keep them going.

Others drink nothing because they desperately don’t want to break a fast.

Some people tell themselves it’s okay to eat over 1000 calories every now and then, it’s healthy even.

Others cry their soul out for going one calorie over.

Some people exercise regularly, keeping in mind what exercise will best help them get to their “goal.”

Others exercise constantly, because they need to be in the negative calories.

Some people were bullied once or twice or maybe even never for their weight.

Others are bullied relentlessly.

Some people fast no longer than 15 hours.

Others fast for days on end.

Some people start already in the normal range.

Others start in the overweight range.

Some people have never gone to rehab.

Others are in and out of inpatient care constantly.

Some people have tried recovery, and are striving to reach recovery status every day.

Others never want to recover.

But you know what?

All of them have a valid ed.

All of them deserve love, support, and help.

Ed’s do not give a shit about your background, age, gender, weight, race, religion, habits, grades, bringing-up, family, or anything else.

All they care about is controlling you.

[littlelauren94]

Start Again

I’ve ‘relapsed’ a couple of times in my life. Losing weight, putting on weight - I wasn’t my happiest when i was skinniest, but I was a damn sight more happy than I am now. 

I know it’s possible. It took me 67 days to lose almost two stone two years ago, and honestly, the excitement and possibility that I could to it again is more than I can say. I would say ‘starting today’ as there’s no time like the present, but realistically, I’ll run in the morning, rain or shine, I’ll eat clean and detox again. 

I actually can’t wait. 67 days. 67 days of green eating, keeping busy - too busy to eat at least. I have a new tattoo, which I love, and which will look better with a little less fat on my hips.

I’ve struggled with quite severe bulimia for the last 12 months and I’m exhausted by the unpredictable and downright terrifying sugar swings. More than once, I’ve genuinely felt like I’m going to die. 

I’ll look after my health again, I’ll be okay. Grief is a funny thing, but I’m determined. 

[littlelauren94]

Fake it before you make it

And eventually it will be true.

Just like getting over a relationship, you have to convince yourself you’re okay and moving on, before you actually are. So with something like an eating disorder, tell yourself you’re okay, you don’t need the binge, or the purge, you don’t need to deprive yourself or wallow in self-loathing: you’re better than that. And eventually, someday, you will be. 

[littlelauren94]

Grief

It has been ten months since my father passed away and I’m still trying to find a sense of normal again. For a while I believed that this was now the way I was going to feel for the rest of my life; it would never go away, but I would learn to deal with it. Now I’m calling bullshit. 

I want my life back. I want to feel happiness again, real, uninterrupted, natural happiness. I miss my Dad every day, I still cry to myself before falling asleep every night. But if this is me ‘dealing with it’ and learning to live my life again, then I want an intervention. I’ve developed an unhealthy relationship, obsession even, with food, anxiety has left my chest clamped, inhibiting my ability to relax and breathe. Somehow I’ve become introverted, self-conscious and paranoid, a shadow of who I used to be and who I want to be. This year was always going to be difficult, so it’s ridiculous that I’m making myself suffer even more by not allowing myself to experience or enjoy anything. 

Granted, 95% of the time it seems futile. We live, we die. We sleep, work and eat in the middle, but why, does it even matter? Each day is a battle to avoid feeling this, and honestly most of the time, I lose. Sometimes having things to look forward to help, but mostly they’re temporary and it’s right back to square one afterwards. So here goes nothing: maybe I should do it for me. Having spent 23 years caring what other people think or have to say, I’m exhausted. Pining for a life and a body I used to have, the death of my father has made all the changes so real and it’s time for a new start.

Here goes nothing.

[littlelauren94]

[littlelauren94]

About 40% of people with anorexia will later develop bulimia.

It’s hard to say whether the duration of anorexia has an impact on this. I tottered on the edge of anorexia for about five years, from the year before my GCSEs to completing my A levels. My weight never really exceeded 120 pounds, at 5′7 I still felt like a whale, wearing over-sized jumpers to hide last nights dinner. I will always wonder if my obsession with being skinny and aversion to food affect my grades at school. I can imagine it did, but I’ll never know to what extent. 

After moving to university I seemed to creep towards the other side of the spectrum; to my mother it seemed that moving away and starting new ‘cured’ me, and I was gaining weight and enjoying my life.

Well that’s a lie. I was drinking almost every day, partying every night, going home with faceless, nameless men, ‘enjoying’ my freedom. I was so desperately depressed for the first year; my weight rocketed, grades fell and I lost more of my dignity than I care to remember. So I got myself a job. Something to get out of the house for, somewhere I was not allowed to be drunk, and it made such a difference. For a year, or maybe two I can honestly say I was happy. Okay, I had the same insecurities as most girls, but they were reasonable and I managed them. 

Somewhere along the line, something went wrong. I started to obsess about my weight again, obsess over my appearance. But by then I was far more educated in healthy eating and diet-exercise balance and I had the common sense not to put my body through what I had before. Or so I thought. 

Until I was 21 I had never made myself sick. I’d tried, but I didn’t have that desperation, I had never really eaten so much I physically needed to. I wish that were still the case. For a little while, I made myself sick sporadically, I was repulsed by it, I never planned it and I never enjoyed it. I found a way to control it though, I started running, frequenting the gym when I was feeling desperate.

I wish my story stopped there. I wish I could say that finding the gym and a healthy exercise routine solved my problems. 

For a while it seemed to - but I didn’t realise that by quitting one obsession I was feeding another. I didn’t realise that visiting the gym seven days a week and running on six was overkill. I didn’t think that I was actually exercising more than some athletes yet depriving my body of the nutrients and energy it needed to heal and function properly. I did well in my undergraduate degree, but at what cost? I fainted on a weekly basis, I saw spots and struggled to concentrate when it really mattered. My body found a way through because it had to, but I doubt it could do it again.

I’m now doing my Masters degree, after having spent a year not knowing which way to turn. I’m doing a masters, that’s hard enough in itself. I shouldn’t be spending every other night with my fingers at the back of my throat, ‘cleansing’ my body. I need fuel for energy, to think, to learn. I know all of this and yet I can’t stop. 

Suffice to say, I have never been happy. I’ve never achieved one of my goals and been proud of it; I would see the next goal weight, the next weight to lift, calculating how far I need to run or how much weight I need to lose to be happy. To be perfect.

[littlelauren94]

Where have I been?

Bulimia is not glamorous. Bulimia is not beautiful, or interesting or brave.

Bulimia is a scratched throat, grazed knuckles and a spotty chin from the vomit. A girl, too self conscious to go out and meet new people, but knowing that’s the only way she’ll start to be happy and enjoy life again. Too embarrassed to date people, constantly avoiding male attention, wondering what their motive for speaking to her might actually be.

A puffy face, swollen stomach and the relentless feeling that you’re in the way, larger than life and all around unappealing. 

I’ve been off the grid for a while, dealing with Dad’s death. I’ve been writing as well, by hand, but it seems that hasn’t really helped. I’ve fluctuated with weight as well as the regularity of throwing up. This weekend it has been particularly bad - I think in the last three days I’ve purged five times, I don’t really remember. That’s the problem, the fog is real. It’s such an automatic response now, I’m caught in another trap.

I get the ideas - I’ll starve myself for three days, I’ll run twice as far for a week, I won’t eat any sugar. But then the fog comes and I forget that I’ve made these vows to myself. I didn’t used to be this forgetful. So I end up purging, because I don’t remember my changes until it’s too late. 

Grief is hard. I thought being at university things would change. I would be more busy, have so many more things to do, be around my friends all the time. But the truth is I’m still so sad and mostly in shock. I have friends, but none of them who knew me before this happened, none who I can go to and cry. Grief is exhausting, I’m tired all the time, but I also have so much work to do. I don’t need to spend my whole time working, but I use it as an excuse not to see people, because I’m too embarrassed about how I look. Not that anybody knows what I used to look like so can see the weight gain - maybe that would be even worse. But it angers me that they don’t know me thin; I was so much happier. 

I’m supposed to be going to a party with some old friends but I think I’ll give that a miss - I’m feeling particularly fat. There’s a wedding in March where some really old friends will be, and that is the goal, I will do it by then. 

[littlelauren94]

Filling a bucket with a hole.

Everything seems to have fallen apart. My weight is slowly climbing, my eating is slowly getting out of control and I’ve started making myself sick to compensate again. I’ve stopped running as far and I’m not training often enough.

It’s all since Dad died almost two months ago. I’ve been in a limbo and I can’t break out of it. I feel trapped, and yet with so much freedom I don’t know what to do with it. 

I miss my old life, I miss my old home and my old friends. Since leaving Swansea, everything seems to have gone from bad to worse. I have been heartbroken and at every attempt of putting it back together it’s shattered again; I feel like I’m trying to fill a bucket which has a hole at the bottom. 

I want my Dad back. 

[littlelauren94]

Relapse

Not knowing you have an eating disorder is hard, confusing. You develop these eating habits and behaviour patterns that don’t seem concerning to you, but the attitudes and expressions of those around you alert you to your changes. I found I was angry all the time, without knowing why, overly sensitive and alert to comments and compliments. In retrospect, the ignorance was bliss. Not knowing you have a mental problem is hard. But what’s harder is knowing about it.

Scratch that, it’s not hard, it’s torturous. I can’t begin to explain the constant battle that goes on in my head from before the moment I open my eyes in the morning, to long after I’ve begun trying to fall asleep. As a kid I suffered dreadfully from headaches, caused my dehydration and a lack of proper nutrients. Now my headache can’t be cured by drinking a glass of water, because I cannot quieten the voices that are telling me I’ll feel better if I eat and arguing that I don’t deserve to.

At 15 years old I didn’t think twice about drinking two litres of diet coke for lunch and having half an apple for dinner five days a week. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth time I found myself passed out on the bathroom floor that maybe my body was deprived of something. With age comes knowledge; that means to say that I am painfully clued up on health and nutrition, and I find myself constantly battling between what is ‘healthy’ for my body and what would be the most effective to shed pounds fast. 

It doesn’t stop there, oh no. My younger and more naive self was oblivious to the pain and worry my eating disorder inflicted on those around me. I’ll be the first to admit how selfish I was as a teenager. It wasn’t until I grew up and began my recovery that I began to realise how my ‘secret’ eating habits affected my family; it’s the main reason I’m so committed to putting other people first now, for fear of not noticing or caring about anybody but myself (ironic really, given the content of this post). 

As you may have guessed, I’m used to keeping secrets, preferring to keep my affairs private. I’m stubborn, proud, and terrified of admitting my weaknesses. I have this fixation on being perfect. You could blame the media, the availability to edited photography, the constant stream of ‘perfect’ celebrity bodies, the latest diet trend or newest, most effective exercise fads, but whatever encourages it now, the desperate need to be perfect was always there. 

Combine this with anti-body-shaming ads and ‘real women’ embracing their looks and you find yours truly, a painfully overeducated and confused 20-something, battling with the desire to eat and the desire to not feel so disgusting.

You wouldn’t know it to look at me. Hell, you wouldn’t even know it by asking my closest friends; believe me all you’ll get find out from them is that I have my shit together and if someone is going to get something done, it’ll be me. Who worked a full time job, danced competitively and obtained a first class maths degree? That was me. Who landed a job working as an au pair in the Caribbean? Me again... On returning, who managed to get a new job, house and car in the space of two week? That would be me again.

Do you want to know a secret? Do you want to know who calls their mum approximately three times a day just to hear somebody else’s voice? The same girl who has spent more time throwing up into the toilet than sitting on it, her fingers rammed to the back of throat, tears streaming down her cheeks. I hardly even need my fingers anymore, I can make myself vomit on cue. 

It makes me sick (haha) thinking that other people do this to themselves to, reading their stories breaks my heart and I desperately want to reach out to help them, tell them they are better than this and they deserve to be happy. You can say this to me, but I won’t hear you. It’s falling on deaf ears. 

[littlelauren94]

Fuck you and your ‘perfect’ brother. You’re so proud to call him family, you’re so grateful to have him in your life. Imagine how things would be different if I’d told the truth, had I told everyone how he took advantage of me, pinned my arms by my side, lay on top of me and raped me. Instead of letting you, and all our other best friends, call me a slut and slowly cut me out of your lives, because I didn’t want to break up your family.

Seven years later, you’re lucky to call him your brother and I still flinch when a stranger accidentally brushes my arm in a queue. 

[littlelauren94]

I always date the guy I know will break my heart.

For the weeks and months I spent spoiling him, making him happy, I probably got less than half that attention in return. I’m okay with that; I listened to him, his worries and troubles, let him shout at me, and then happily kissed his wounds better. I’m crazy to think that he would ever do the same for me. 

Love isn’t about how much somebody else dotes on you, worships you or makes you happy. Loving someone is sharing your love, giving it to someone else unconditionally. I wouldn’t change my last four years for the world.

I’ve come to learn that al men are the same; they are all going to hurt you eventually. The biggest difference is how prepared you will be for it. You can date a kind boy, the nice guy, and it will be perfect for a while - but eventually he will hurt you and you won’t see it coming. Alternatively, you can date the bad boy, the one who’s impossible to pin down, knowing full well that he will hurt you, so when he does it doesn’t come as such a surprise. It still hurts, sure, but you knew it was coming. 

I don’t know when I became such a cynic. Maybe it was when my father broke my heart, walked out on me, my sister and my mum. That was the biggest betrayal; since then, I’ve accepted that every guy will hurt me. So why waste my time with the ones who lie from the outset. I’ll take drama and fights any day over stability and security; the excitement and passion are unrivalled. 

[littlelauren94]

I think this every single day 

I actually wonder how it feels like to have a normal relationship to food. Like how can you eat without feeling bad about it. how can you eat a cake and feeling satisfied after. How can you stop after one piece of chocolate. How does it feel like to not binging until your stomach actually feels sick.how can you eat too much without worrying about it. How can you not run to the toilette after everytime you ate too much. How does it feel like to eat when you’re hungry and not feeling good about your grumbling stomach. How does it feel like to eat normally?

[littlelauren94]

Nothing about mathematics is actually difficult.

I’m serious. Once you get down to it, pretty much everything that you do in math can be reduced to a series of really quite simple logical-reasoning steps. It’s just that math can seem overwhelming because these steps build upon one another.

Think about this way; other subjects that you learn at a high-school level are like old, episodic TV series. You can sit down and watch any given episode and be reasonably confident that the plot will make sense, regardless of its relative position in the season or the season’s relative position in the series. So if you can, for example, read a history of the middle ages without necessarily needing to know anything about Ancient Greece; you can study human physiology without knowing anything at all about the mitochondria. The order in which these subjects are presented, at least at a high-school level, is somewhat arbitrary.

Math is like a modern, prestige format TV series full of story arcs and ongoing plotlines; each episode builds upon the one before it, to the extent that if you just put on a random episode, the odds are good that you will have only the faintest idea of what the fuck is going on. You cannot, for example, just plunk yourself down to learn about trigonometry. You need to learn about geometry, algebra, arithmetic, and even, ultimately basic counting before you understand the plot. And if you have not been paying attention, or if you have had poor teachers in the past, you may find it (temporarily) incomprehensible and be put off of the subject, but it’s important to remember that, fundamentally, it’s not anymore difficult than any other subject. It’s just that sometimes, you may need to review previous plot points in order to understand what’s going on.

[littlelauren94]

You’re supposed to be able to talk to your family, open up to them about anything. That’s what they’re there for, to celebrate your achievements and support you when you’re at your lowest. At least, that’s what I’m told.

What if you’re always needing support? It’s got to the point now where I feel like I’m constantly seeking help and advice from those closest to me, and it scares me that I might be inadvertently pushing them away. It made sense, when I was abroad, I was feeling alone, I was bored, so I came back, thinking that would solve the problem. It did, briefly.

And now, here I am, having tried to start a new year with a new start. I’ve eaten myself into a stupor, literally thought I was going to die, before spending an hour, clutching the toilet basin, forcing my fingers to the back of my throat, gradually feeling better each time. I haven’t got it all out, I didn’t start purging soon enough, but I feel so much better for it. 

It’s bizarre; it’s not until afterwards that I begin to think about what I’ve done. In the moment, I can’t think clearly or around the problem, I’m vaguely aware how I will feel during and after, but it still won’t stop me. It’s not until afterwards that I consider bulimia to be the problem (which evidently it is, but I’m too ashamed to vocalise this). I wait until afterwards to google to disorder, look into the facts.

And I can see myself in all the symptoms. So maybe tonight it was binging and making myself vomit, but it spreads further than this. Spending weeks restricting, monitoring, obsessing over every calorie that passes my lips, exercising to extremes on at least 6 days of the week. 

Naturally I want to speak to my Aunt about this - but she’s got her own life and her own issues. My mother would be ideal, but she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t know what to say, and she doesn’t need the extra stress. My sister just got engaged, she has enough on her plate without having to worry my mental state. Recently it’s been a succession of bad news; breaking up with my ‘boyfriend’, sexual assault, bulimia. It’s something else she doesn’t need.