Happy new year....sod off diets/ eating disorder thoughts

 Happy new year and all that, think last new year and the one before that I convinced myself my new years resolution was to "not diet", accept myself whatever size, but this year that mindset has totally gone, I just see pictures of when I was smaller and just wish I could be that size again ( even though I thought I was too big on there). As I've said many times before my mental health problems started with Eating Disorders and for years I couldn't get help with it, the year I was sectioned in hospital in 2015 I was in hospital for self harm and suicide attempts which I was doing because of my self hate, mostly relating to my weight but also feeling I wasn't good enough to be alive in general but even though I wasn't eating for days at a time, being sick when I did which then led to nights of self harm to punish myself for giving in and eating, no one actually helped me with the eating disorder thoughts that were driving it all, I kept getting told I had never had an eating disorder it was all personality disorders despite the fact in 2010 I was in an eating disorder clinic for 2 months where I got no therapy and then in 2012 I did get some cbt for eating disorders,  2 years after discharge from the eating disorder clinic in Leeds and then I got the therapy after a mental health crisis where I ended up in a and e for self harm but was told to see my care co ordinator who had been off sick for over a year so after leaving the eating disorder clinic I was left with no mental health support and tried to aim to be a mental health nurse myself to help people in a way I hadn't been helped but I was never mentally stable enough to start uni, I did my access to nursing course, I got through the interview and had a place but my own mental health just kept getting worse over the years. After I left the locked mental health rehab I was sectioned in for a year, I went to an open rehab they helped me practically to live independently but my eating disorder was at a point I was being sick alot and I was self harming and taking overdoses again until 2018 when I joined choir, I still had suicidal thoughts,  my bulimia was bad, I had my gallbladder out and the stitches took ages to heal due to my bulimia but as I got more into choir and felt accepted and loved choir I set myself weekly reasons to not overdose etc. for the whole of 2019 and it got to a point the thoughts to overdose went but the anxiety around food didn't apart from I did a sponsored swim and told myself I had to eat to do the swim to raise money for charity and I felt the healthiest I had in a long time. But then after that stopped and we went into lockdown in 2020 it was hard again as I was stuck at home on my own, luckily I had choir and choir friends on zoom that helped with lockdown but my anxiety of being around food was hard to fight. What people don't get is an eating disorder is a mindset which you don't choose it just decides to plant itself in your brain there is anorexia and bulimia and a cross between the 2 called eating disorder not otherwise specified but there are overlaps the only way I can describe is the anorexic voice wants you to not eat, the bulimic one says you can eat if your sick/ starve yourself the next day or whatever, the anorexic voice gets mad at the bulimic one for giving in and eating and somewhere in there is your rational self that knows we need food to live, to enjoy life etc. The first time I self harmed was the frustration of that voice one day as I was crying in the kitchen cupboard wanting to eat but unable to because of the argument in my head but then I would self harm to punish myself for eating but then for other reasons too as time went on to release any negative emotions. The other connection between anorexia and bulimia is that about 50 percent of anorexics become bulimic because physically the body and brain fight to make you eat to survive so starving leads to bingeing and so the cycle of starving and bingeing and behaviour to undo the binge becomes bulimia but the anorexic voice is still there but once bulimia sets in you lose the anorexic control but the anorexic voice never goes despite what weight you end up and you hate yourself more because even when you were smaller you could never be thin enough. For me an antidepressant called mirtazapine, water retention from heart failure and the effects of alot of overdoses led to me gaining alot of weight back in about 2014 and I've not been able to lose a significant amount since. I have done restrictive diets since then where I lost weight but then it ends up back in the bulimia cycle. One of those diets which has worked for a while was a special k one so I am trying to convince myself it will work this time, but rationally I know it can only go one way really but the obsession with food and weight and anxieties in life in general drive it. It hasn't been an easy Christmas because my nephew got covid so I couldn't stay at my parents or see them apart from an hour with masks on to exchange presents after all having negative lft tests and it did affect my mental health alot. I was going to eat Christmas Dinner there after Christmas but there were a few issues and I ended up going home and eating on my own instead. I had a nice evening with my parents on new years eve and we had a take away I told myself it was my last take away and last unhealthy meal before a special k diet on the 1st. But on the 1st I ended up not eating all day then eating one meal then on the 2nd day I ate one meal and some chocolate,  telling myself to start on Monday with the special k which I did but it seems whatever I do the thoughts are just there 24/7, sleeping and distractions like choir work until you can't do those things 24/7. Loneliness also affects my mood and I spend alot of time on my own so that impacts it too.

In September I was assessed by the eating disorder service and was told they would give me 10 sessions of group therapy for people who binge eat but not restrict but I was hoping even that therapy teaches to have 3 meals and 3 snacks so with support of therapists who know what they are doing they might help me meal plan and be able to stick with it without feeling guilty but I was told the therapy would start before Christmas now I'm told it could be March, but I've struggled on this long, my own willpower stopped me acting on self harm and suicidal thoughts but the eating disorder part is harder. I put a post on Facebook about a special k diet, I got supportive messages of concern which I'm thankful for and I got people advertising other diets to me and people telling me they were deleting me as I was triggering them which I'm sorry for it was not my intention. Unfortunately I know an eating disorder isn't a diet gone wrong it's a mental health problem and I'm hoping I can keep it at bay enough to stay healthy for choir and Warwick and hopefully going back to work but I also know my anxiety about my future is bad which makes it hard. I have stuck to 3 meals and 3 snacks today even if 2 meals were 30g of special k but I don't know if its rational thinking or eating disorder thinking trying to disguise itself as rational. I can't predict how it will end up I also know I got fed up of begging for help with it, I was optimistic about the help coming this time but not so sure now.....rationally I know this picture was just before I was admitted to an eating disorder clinic but am struggling to accept myself how I am too and the constant thoughts in my head are doing my head in.....