30 day eatingdisorder recovery challenge

I am going to begin on this 30 day ED-recovery challenge and see how that goes. I'm not feeling particularly good and recovery isn't going as well as I would like it to be. Hopefully this will help me :) 

1. List your stats (height/weight). What eating disorder are/have you struggled with?

2. What does recovery mean to YOU?

3. List 10 NON physical things you like about yourself.

4. What are factors that contributed in your choice to recover? 

5. What actions do you believe could be taken in the future to help prevent your child(ren) or close friends from ever developing an eating disorder?

6. What was your favorite meal before your ED? What is your favorite meal now?

7. Do you think the media contributes to the growing rate of girls developing eating disorders younger and younger?

8. Create a list of all the positive things your eating disorder has given you. (This day should be short haha.)

9. Create a list of all the negative things your eating disorder has given you.

10. Does anyone in your close family have an eating disorder? If so, do you think it had an impact on you developing one?

11. List 10 PHYSICAL features you like about yourself.

12. Post a picture of 1 thing you ate today. 

13. Do you believe you can ever fully recover from an eating disorder? Explain.

14. How do your friends and family feel about your eating disorder?

15. Post a picture of you before you ever developed an eating disorder. What emotions were you feeling in this picture? Describe your picture.

16. How would you help a close friend or family member if they developed an eating disorder?

17. What does being fat TRULY mean to you?

18. Here’s a challenge. Come up with a hobby you’ve never done or haven’t done in awhile that has NOTHING to do with eating or exercising or cooking. Totally non eating disorder related. What is your hobby? Why did you chose it?

19. Has your eating disorder ever held you back from something? If so, explain.

20. I feel eating disorders have somehow been glamorized. Explain your opinion on this.

21. Who has been the biggest contributor of your recovery in your life? Explain.

22. Describe your goals for your future. 

23. List 2 positive things that happened to you today.

24. Where were you in terms of your eating disorder 6 months ago? Describe how you’ve changed.

25. What are your ‘fear foods’? I CHALLENGE you to eat one today. Dare you. Do it.

26. Eating disorders often come hand in hand with social anxiety and or depression. Start 1 conversation today with someone you don’t normally speak to. How did it go?

27. Create a letter of everything you would write to your eating disorder as if it were a real life person.

28. What do you need to improve on in order to advance mentally and or physically towards recovery? Explain how you plan on actually moving forward with these goals!

29. Challenge yourself again in some way today. Whether it be being more social, eating more, eating another fear food, etc. Explain.

30. List your stats again. Did this help you at all?

Story of an ED

You know those days when you don't want to get out of bed? The days you don't feel like interact with anyone and just want  be by yourself? The days you don't even see a point in existing and nothing goes your way? You're tired, so extremely tired. Tired of everything and everyone, especially yourself. You're disappointed, unhappy, depressed, sad and hopeless. You're trying to decide wether you should get out of bed or not. "Not" seems much more appealing, but you go for "get out of bed". You go for the challenging choice and you get out of bed, get dressed and if you're feeling extremely strong and powerful, you poor some low calorie cereal in a bowl and then drown it in low fat milk. You look at the clock, it's 5 to 7 am. You throw what's left of your breakfast in the trash because you wouldn't dare to finish those 50 grams. You grab your bag and run out the door, without a lunch pack, to catch the only bus that drives through your neighborhood this time of day. Technically, you didn't have to run. You only ran to burn the calories you just consumed. Filthy, disgusting calories. The guilt is killing you. Why were you so weak? why did you give up and eat? You run a little further, past your bus stop, and towards the next one couple hundred meters away. You check what time it is and see that you have enough time to run to yet another bus stop further away. When you arrive at the third stop you see the bus come driving towards you. You get on the bus, sit down and finally you can catch your breath. Your heart is beating like never before, your body is about to give up, but you are happier than ever before. Or at least you feel like you are, but the truth is: you're miserable. You know you shouldn't have run, you know you're supposed to be proud of yourself for eating breakfast, you know it all, but your head tells you otherwise. It tells you that you're strong for starving yourself, that you don't deserve food, that you look so much prettier if you don't eat, that a single calorie makes you fat and ugly. It even tells you that you're worthless. Your thoughts don't count anymore. You've lost all control. The control you once had, is comepletely gone. You know what you're doing to yourself, but you don't care. Why care when you're eitherway too fat and disgusting, this at least makes you thinner, but you're never thin enough. The last couple of months you've seen the number on the scale drop drastically, but it's never low enough. You're constantly finding new places to squeeze fat, or what you think is fat, but really is skin or a relaxed muscle. You don't care, if it's pinchable, it must go. Your hair is falling out and your skin appears gray. Your teeth and gum hurt. Your body is covered in bruises that you don't remember getting, they just appeared from nowhere. Every movement you make and every step you take hurts. Your muscles are sore and most of all: the spark you once had in your eyes, is completely gone.
Now it's just a matter of time when your heart stops beating and sends you away to a better place. A place where your troubles are nowhere to be seen. One day the beating stops and you're jumping from one cloud to another when you look down, all the way down to earth. You see your family. Your younger brother is crying. He's crying because he lost his only sister. His older sister, who was supposed to look after him, to be there for him, is now gone. Your mom is standing by his side. She's crying too. You have to look away. You can't bare to see your mom crying, even though you two never really got along. A tear slides down your chin. You see your dad coming towards your mom and put her arms around her. Your younger brother joins in and all three of them are now crying together. Your eyes are filled with tears and your cheeks are wet. You wish it didn't go this far. You wish you didn't let this disorder take your life away, that you tried to take control when you had the chance. You wish all this didn't happen. 


"Beep, beep, beep, beep", your alarm wakes you up. You look around yourself and you can't believe it, you're alive! You jump out of bed, get dressed, poor some normal cereal into a bowl and drown it in full fat milk. You pack your lunch, check what time it is and it is 5 to 7 am. It's time you go out the door to catch the only bus that drives through this neighbourhood this time of day. You take one step over the threshold and take a deep breath. The fresh air after a storm fills your lungs. You walk to your bus stop and wait for the bus. When the bus arrives, you get on it, sit down and think to yourself : "Today my life begins!"

Motivation

This disorder cuts pretty much everything out of your life. Your energy, your happiness, your health etc. It cuts pretty much all your abilities to enjoy life, your life. Your only chance of living. Your only chance to experience swimming with dolphins, watching the sunset from every corner of the world, learn to surf, scubadive in the Great Barrier reef, get married, go on a honeymoon, have children, do charity, make a career and leave a footprint after yourself here on earth. Either it is in form of descendants and in the heart of people you've met and you'll meet in the future, or in history. You can do whatever you want! you have all doors and windows open! Except if you drop out now. Then all chances of ever experiencing real happiness are thrown out the window, wich is closed afterwards. Starving yourself will lead to those chances disappearing. Yes, it will lead to death or so serious  medical complications that you won't be able to live your life.

Hold on, stay strong and all this kind of bullshit, because I believe in you and you CAN do this! 
-M

"Just get better"

When will people understand that people with eating disorders can't "just eat", "just stop counting calories"or "just stop weighing yourself". It isn't that easy. It's much more complicated than that.

You're afraid of spiders? well get over it. Oh you can't?  why can't you just hold a spider? it's not that hard, just do it.
No exactly! you would freak out because you are afraid of spiders, and therefor won't hold one.

An eating disorder is similar to that. We struggling with an ED are afraid of food. Food and nutrition freaks us out. It's not something we made up. It's something our brain has done to us with out us knowing. It's a mess up with chemicals in our brains. It's a disorder, a disease.

You wouldn't say to a cancer patient :" just get better" like he/she would be able to control it. The same goes for eating disorders and other mental disorders. We can't "just get better".
-M

Relapses

Reapses are the hardest part of recovery. I'm having a relapse now and I really can't see what all this fuss is about. I'm not sick. Not even a little bit...
That's my Ana talking, and I know I shouldn't listen to her. But it's hard. Really hard. Harder then anything I've ever done before.
I fight it everyday. The thoughts, the tendencies and the "voice" that's constantly saying something negative about me in my head. Especially when I'm eating and afterwards. It's Ana. Destructive, down breaking and disgusting voice that has taken over my life.
Because of her, I've become overly concious of my body, ridiculously insecure and over the top hard on myself.
I have to remind myself constantly of that during recovery, there will be relapses, but I can't give up. After a relapse, there's recovery. I just have to fight. And I'm not losing, even though I have relapses. I'm losing if I give up during relapses. And I'm not going to lose this war!
-M