Eating disorder triggers other mental health problems

 I'm open about my mental health, I want people to understand what it's like for someone living with an eating disorder.  An eating disorder doesn't come in a specific size, someone of 20 stone or 5 stone can have the anorexic voice that screams at them daily that all food is bad, that bullies them into believing they are fat, a failure every time they eat. It can scream at you as you are trying to sleep, making you hate how fat and disgusting you are.....it has you believe....and the sad thing is if you are fat, people say things like well you haven't just realised you are fat....eating disorder thinking and behaviour aren't understood but are even less understood in people with Eating Disorders who are normal or overweight. It isn't the same as a diet gone wrong, or just over indulging......it is the cycle of your head not allowing you to eat, then eating,  then not eating again....

Yet most people with bulimia or other non specified eating disorders are normal or above normal weight and bulimia doesn't mean making yourself sick which is what people often think with the word bulimia....it actually means hunger of an ox ( whoever came up with that name for it) and 50 percent of anorexics become bulimic.  You might meet someone with an eating disorder who still has the anorexic thinking but due to the body and brain having a survival mechanism that tries to stop them starving themselves they end up bingeing often after long periods of starvation but then the eating disorder voice screams louder how much of a failure you were for giving in and eating and so the cycle of having to compensate begins, being sick or laxatives are common but so are periods of fasting and over exercising yet a " fat" person who engages in eating disorder behaviour and is tormented by eating disorder thoughts 24/7 is just told things like well eat healthy and exercise. I know for me in my younger days I restricted my calories and counted and recorded them daily, only allowing myself low calorie amounts and exercising obsessively in the gym for hours....I know all about diets and exercise and I wasn't healthy then despite doing that, I was being sick daily, taking Laxatives and diet pills and had to have a pacemaker for my heart....but I wasn't constantly told well you need to exercise....I have never been a couch potato,  I get physically tired alot which affects me physically and mentally so I have to know my limitations and it was mental health meds and heart failure that made me gain weight and I've struggled to exercise much since and then after having covid last year have struggled doing alot of exercise but do still try and swim as much as I can when physically and mentally I can....I'm going to try do another sponsored swim which is 22 miles over 12 weeks the distance of the Channel to raise money for people with spinal injuries. I did the swim in 2019, I was feeling quite positive then and was able to tell myself I needed food to do the swim to raise money for charity and every time I felt anxious about going I had to push myself as I was doing it for charity. I'm not in as positive mindset this year, there's been alot of changes going on, coming out of lockdowns,  coming close to the end of my 2 year therapy, and worrying I will leave therapy still struggling with my eating disorder and unable to manage it. 

I was curious to look on the website of an eating disorder clinic I went in 10 years ago where it said as part of an inpatient treatment programme for bulimia there would be therapy and groups but when I went I had bed and food, I was sick after everything I ate and despite telling staff how much I was struggling was told I had to manage it myself and I was high functioning as was still working as a support worker myself, I got no therapy and came home the same as when I went in. 2 years later I did get some cbt therapy for eating disorders after a battle to get it and it did help to an extent but was 20 sessions to deal with a 10 year problem....it helped having someone who understood the eating disorder voice and tried to understand the barriers to just being able to eat normally without feeling guilty. 

I really wish it wasn't still a problem,  I often still feel like a pressure cooker especially when I have added life stresses, in the past to relieve that pressure I would self harm alot, often to punish myself for eating a way to deal with the guilt. I am open about this as self harm and its relationship to eating disorders I feel is often misunderstood, after a lifetime of living with it I understand it I just don't know how to change it. There have been times I got suicidal because I couldn't live with it anymore, thankfully I survived and I rarely self harm now, but I'm often stuck in my own thoughts and that does my head in, I still fight the urges to self harm daily and the majority of the time I can stop myself and tell myself reasons not to do it but when I'm overly tired and emotional that's when I dissociate and zone out and lose that capacity momentarily and end up acting on thoughts, but I'm better at recognising when I'm getting to that point and nipping it in the bud, in the past it would lead to constant crises, and hospital admissions for severe self harm and overdoses and I am proud I haven't done that for a long time.

I have long periods of positivity and then certain times of the year my mood takes a nosedive, im not sure if September is that limbo of the end of summer and darker nights but not quite the excitement of Christmas my favourite time of year. But looking at Facebook memories and remembering other times, this time of year I have had alot of my worst times with my mental health, it's normally been a bad week or 2 in the past ending up in hospital but I now recognise when to ask for more support and put in my own plans to manage better.

Here's to finding my positivity back......