Day 11

List 10 PHYSICAL features you like about yourself.

 Omg, this is so hard! I don’t really like anything about myself at the moment, I dislike almost everything and I don’t like looking at my body because it triggers me because it’s “too fat and disgusting”. That is at least what the demon on my shoulder keeps telling me. I don’t think this list is going to be long but here it goes:

1. I have a birthmark right besides my left eye that I actually like

2. I have a light birthmark below my right eye that I like. I and birthmarks have a weirdly good relationship.

3. My ears, weirdly enough, but I like them :P I guess that’s because they are similar to my grandma’s ears.

4. My eye-color, it’s light blue, just like my grandma’s

5. I like my hair, even though it’s really thin and keeps falling out. I like how long it has gotten J 

6. I think that’s it. Because I don’t want to trigger anyone I won’t mention the anorexic things I like about my body. 

When will I learn to love myself?

When my dad was here 3 weeks ago I lost weight. A lot of weight considering he only was here for 5 days. I lost whole 3 kg!! Since then, I've lost 2 more kg. A part of me is proud, really proud! But have I been working towards this the last 3 months? No, not at all. I haven't been striving towards recovery to let Ana take control. I've been working towards happiness, but I've ended up pretty miserable.

I want to have a normal relationship with food. That's all I wish for. I don't get hungry, and worst of all, I don't get full. I don't know those two feelings anymore and I'm terrified of binging. I've only binged once, luckily enough, because the guilt that came afterwards almost killed me.

I want to be healthy, I want to feel normal, I want to be happy, I want to feel comfortable in my own body and be confident, but I don't know how to anymore. Or have I ever known how that feels?

I've never been comfortable in my own body. Never. Not even as a child. You could say I've had a kind of an ed since, well, forever. I always thought "no, I can't eat that, I'll get fatter." Not only fat, but fatter because I felt unbelievably huge.

And am I just gonna learn to love myself now at age 17? Almost 18?! I guess I'll just have to. That's what recovery is for, right?

Day 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?

·         We have to positively encourage people around us, and reassure them that they are beautiful and fantastic just the way they are. That way increases their self-esteem and makes them believe that they are good enough, ALWAYS good enough.

·         The community has to stop being so obsessed with appearances, calories and weight loss.

·         Assure that they are good taken care of, by themselves and by others. Be there for them when they need and help them to think more positively, see something positive in every situation. That is important. We need to be more like Pollyanna 

There are so many other actions to be taken to help prevent our close ones to develope

an eating disorder. We have to remember that our actions have consequences. What you

say to another person might not matter much to you, but to that person it can turn their

life upside down. 

Why continue?

Why exactly am I doing this? Why am I pushing myself so hard everyday when I can just lay around and show my middle finger to the rest of the world? When I can experience my dream, my dream weight and dream life. Why don't I just give up on this eating, eating, eating, when that's all I want to do at times?

I have an answer for that.

Today was a shitty day, well the days before that were that also, but today was even worse. It has come to that point that I don't cry anymore. When I get sad, I get so extremely sad that all I do is stare into an empty wall and completely fade out. At that moment I ain't myself, I ain't anyone. I've disappeared, mentally, but physically I'm still there. I haven't cried in a long long time, or well, since July this year when I was inpatient and my mom came to visit me after we've been 6 weeks apart. Today that changed.

You should probably know some background details:
My dad doesn't understand how routines around mealtimes are for me to be able to fight this demon. He has been staying with us since Monday and I've dropped many meals since then, eaten less than 1000 kcal in one day when I'm really supposed to have 2500. And yes, I'm in a relapse.

Back to why my period of no crying took an end today:
I felt really guilty, miserable and ashamed both because I hadn't eaten and because I'm having a really bad body-image day today and I knew I had to eat but I didn't want to. I didn't know what to do, so I decided to call my ultimate favourite person in the whole world: my grandma. I needed to ventile to someone I knew would support me, incourage me and make me feel a lot better. Also I hadn't talked to her in a while and I really missed her.
At the exact moment I heard her voice, I felt the "crying feeling". The feeling of your throat closing up, your eyes getting wet and actually a feeling of relief by finally getting it all out.  It felt SO good! She always makes me feel better, no matter what. She has always been there for me and she is my rolemodel.
She incouraged me to get up and make me dinner (even though it was 21:30) and told me how great and strong I am. I love her.

She is the one that got me into recovery. She cried while begging me to get better. She was terrified of losing me and she had already lost me into the disorder. Seeing her crying because of me made me want to try recovery just for her, because she deserves so much better. So much better than having a grandchild wich worries her that much.
If I would give up on recovery now, I won't be disappointing her. I would be disappointing myself. I would make my grandma even more worried than she already is, and that would literally kill me. I can't do that to her.
That is why I will do my ultimate best to recover. For my grandma because she deserves so much more.

-M ♥

So much more

An eating disorder isn’t only about wanting to be thinner and weigh as little as possible, it is so much more than that. It is about control, about getting hold of something in your life again. You feel like everything is slipping away from you, and you search for control. Unfortunately, food becomes a scapegoat.

 All of a sudden, like a thunder from a clear sky, it turns into an intense fear of food, to be more specific: calories. Calories become monsters, monsters that will hunt you every minute of every hour of every day, when in fact they are just a measurement of energy. Energy that is necessary for every living thing on the planet. No energy = no life. What will keep our bodies going if we don’t get any energy?

We humans do not photosynthesize, so the only way to get energy is through food. But when having an ED, you do not care about that. You don’t care if you are dead or alive. You feel dead, and you wouldn’t care if you were in fact dead. You don’t see any point in living, you do not have any energy, you do not have any social life because well, the ED took that away as well, and your health is shitty, because guess what! The lack of nourishment is eating you up, inside out. It is a slow process to suicide.

But what happens when you’ve been stuck in this pattern for a long long time and you’ve decided to want to change it? Maybe it is too late. Maybe your body is about to give up. Even though you mentally are ready to fight off those demons, your body might be worn out. The earlier you decide to fight, the better.

1 in every 5 of those suffering from Anorexia Nervosa dies. That is 20%. There is a bigger possibility to survive cancer than Anorexia; that is unbelievable, right? To me it isn’t. I, like other anorexics, know how powerful and destructive this disorder can be. The thoughts that hunt you down and drag you down with them. That drown you and mentally kill you. People, who haven’t experienced it, don’t know. They don’t understand.  And I guess they never will. And that is probably for the best. 

Day 1

Ok….. this is going to be tough. I don’t even know if I want to, it’s too embarrassing and the number is way too high…… but I guess to challenge myself and my ED, I have to… ok, here it goes: I’m 176 cm (5”9) and 63 kg (138 lbs). I am struggling with Anorexia and I have struggled with it since 2009, with periods of EDNOS with anorexic tendencies.  I’ve been in recovery for 2 and ½ months now.

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?

Challenges challenges challenges

There are challenges around every corner. I challenge myself every single minute of every single day. I never thought I would make it this far, but I have. The time passes unbelievably fast and at times I can't follow it. I just kind of float with the stream. At school, I am "just kind of there". Waiting for the time to pass so I can go home and be alone. My Ana doesn't think I deserve having friends. She is upset, she's furious. I am eating as normally as I can and I do my best to do exactly the opposite of what she says, but I end up every single evening with a panic attack. My heart beating at 300 mph and it hurts. An aching pain swirling around in my chest, killing every little bit of hope that's left.

But the next day, when I wake up, I'm fully motivated (or at least nearly) and I kick my ass out of bed to eat breakfast. It's easier when I have enough time, no stress, and can enjoy the moment of actually completing something I never thought I would be able to do. I don't want to isolate myself, and I promise I won't, but it sure seems the best solution from time to time.

I'm hanging in there and doing the best I can, but it's hard to eat when you're not hungry... I don't get hungry anymore. I just feel dizzy and weird because of lack of energy, that reminds me to eat. Sometimes 10 times passes until I actually remember to eat. That happens especially when I'm at school...
I'm working on it though.

My weight bounces up and down, up and down, up and down. It's not stable and I guess that's partly waterweight and partly restriction at school 's fault. A.k.a. my fault.
It's all my fault, I know that. I was the one who got myself to this point, and I know am the only one who is able to get me back up from there, so I'm doing my best!
-M

About me

I am going to tell you a little about myself, here it goes:
I'm a 17 years old girl with several diagnosis of mental disorders, I was 5 years old when I got the 1st one... So mylife has pretty much swirled arround my mental health and trying to fit in with the rest and be normal. I've been bullied a lot, you can read more about that here. And the past 3 years have been particularly tough. with EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) that evolved to Anorexia Nervosa, and my other disorders got worse. From May to August, I was in a hospital for 9 weeks all in all. Not much considering, but way too much if you ask me! Never going back!!

But over to something fun!
I'm 176 cm or about 5"9, pretty tall, but I like it
I've got light blue eyes and my haircolor is light brown.
My birthday is on Valentines day... or should I call it "removal day" since I was taken by cesection and not technically born? :P
I'm studying science in upper secondary school and I love it! I've always loved school and learning, not weird considering my mom and aunt are teachers. I'm a high achiever and I don't settle for anything less than an A or at least a B+. Somewhat a good quality, but I tend to have way too high expectations for myself and that's not a good thing. 

I love photography and on crappy days I can completely cut out all my problems by snapping some photos.
I also loooooove chocolate! It tastes like heaven, I literally can't live without it!

I hope you got to know a little bit more about me, and if you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! 

-M

Mental-challenge day

Today has been a very long short day. On Mondays I'm done at school at 10:40 so by that terms it's a short day, but this one has been a long one. 1. we had our classphoto taken this morning (mental challenge). 2. I forgot my keys so when I finally arrived at home I had to walk all the way to my brother's school ca 2 km away. Get the keys, walk back home and then FINALLY I was home! During my way home from school I "only" took a little over 6000 steps. Heh, todays work out finished! and more than that actually, since I'm not allowed to "work out" more than necessary in a daily life due to I´m a recovering "exercise-aholic". I had to put everything I had into not running. It's a habit of mine to always run up and down hills, so this was Another mental challenge I faced today. Pretty proud of myself!
And to make it even better: I´m really struggling now to keep down the chocolate cake I had for midday snack, but guess what!? I wont give into those thoughts because I'm worth so much more than that! Throwing up won't get me anywhere. I'm in recovery for a reason, so purging is NOT an option!

BTW I have now crossed out 9 items of my fearfood list!
Maybe I'll post it here soon, just for me to look back to in the future and see how far I've gone from today, and ofc for you if you're interested :) 

p.s. I'm SUPER nervous about posting this photo, I don't like showing my thighs, but guess what Ana?! I will challenge you to the ground!

-M

Pictureday!

It feels like there's a mountain in my stomach, that's how anxious I am... We've got Pictureday today at school, so yeah, I'm dead.
Usually on classphotos, I look retarded. Some how the photographer chooses the pic that I am the only one not "perfect". Last year my eyes were closed and my smile was like when you're smiling and at that exact moment see a huge spider, so yeah, a terrified smile haha.
Wish me good luck!

*Foodgasm*

I haven't been as hungry as I've been today in a looooong time! It almost scares me how hungry I am haha. But I know that my body is craving the energy it needs, and face it, it haven't been getting much of it lately, due to my latest relapse, WHICH I'm almost over now! :-D

I hate relapses, but I love food! It's devilish how fantastic food can be, both in appearances and in taste! The pictures speak for themselves.

*Foodgasm* Here's what I ate for dinner, not nearly as fancy as those pictures, but it was tasty though!

Spaghetti with Swedish-meatball sauce

I look forward to winter!

I'm freeeeeeeezing! Autumn is definetely here in Norway now. I like the autumn and I LOVE the winter, but when the houses are made of wood and are poorly isolated, it's not as much fun. I like to sleep in a warm bed and not wake up with a cold, but I guess that's not an option hehe. The radiators take a lot of electrizity, so we try as much as we can to not use them. But of course if it's too cold, we turn them on.

I can't wait till the snow is here. It makes everything so pretty and bright. It covers all the uglyness, the dead grass, the trash on the streets and etc. It makes the world look so beautiful.

The holidays make everyone in such a good mood, filled with excitement and niceness. That makes the holiday so much easier for people like me, the people who are depressed during christmas time. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with my family and cuddle up in a blanket to watch a christmas movie which usually ends ridicoulsy beautifully, watching the snow falling outside the window and etc. But the food and too much sosialisation make me irritated and depressed, and probably because of former experiences arround christmas which I won't go further into.
But I look forward to it. It makes me happy and relaxed to see the pople I love be happy. It doesn't matter to me how I'm feeling, since I'm used to feeling this way.

I can't think of anything creative to name this post

My bestfriend said to me today : I'm so hungry! But I won't eat because... Eeeh..I shouldn't say why" but she continued anyway : " I want to lose weight"¨

My first thought was "Well THANK YOU very much!!" She knows about my Ana and how much she affects my daily life now since I'm fighting her as well as I can, but still she just had to finish that sentence.
I didn't answer her. What she said gave Ana an energy-kick so I couldn't answer since me and Ana were fighting about wether she (ana) is right about no food = beauty, weightloss and happiness or I am right about healthy food = healthy body.

My mind constantly shifts between thinking "I'm right" and "Ana is right". Unfortunately Ana is stronger during schoolhours, probably because of an old habit of not being allowed by her(Ana) to bring food with me and not realizing that there was something wrong with it.

About my bestfriend, I'm devestated that she has those thoughts. No one should go through them and I sure hope my struggle doesn't negatively affect her. I wouldn't say that she has an ED, those are just typical teenage thoughts, especially here in Norway. Everyone, and by that I mean literally EVERYONE is obsessed with diets, fitness and weightloss. Not weird considering how the Norwegian community is. Every other commercial is about weightloss and diets. No joke.
That's only making my recovery process even easier...not.

And just to have said it: she did eat an icecream 15 minutes later. Thank God! 

Sorry for the depressing post, just had to let it out

Tough time and snack

My evening snack for tonight is an organic Superfruit raw food bar. Delicious!
Ana has been really tough on me today and I'm about to give up, but I wont. I wont let myself to give up now when I've come so far. I will recover sometime, and if I give up now, the next time I try recovery it will be A LOT harder. It's hard enough now, so no, I won't give up!
-M

Breakfast

My breakfast this morning:

• Lactose free yogurt, since I'm lactose intolerant at the moment due to lack of nurishment over long time.
• 1 tbs Sugarfree apple and raspberry jam
• 6 chopped up fresh dates

After I tasted it, I drizzled some cinnamon over it and it was YUMMY! Definitely going to make this more often!
The beauty of this is that you can use whatever you like! You don't have to use dates, or this kind of jam. If you like apples, then you use apples! You like blueberry jam? then you use blueberry jam! 

Yogurt goes with almost anything. I LOVE IT!

Being sick is NOT a good sparetime activity!

I've got time off of school this whole week, and of course I had to catch a cold. It's so typical! Like it wasn't enough having digestion problems...
But well I have to make the best out of it, so I made a cup of tea. My favourite: Mango & passionfruit ♥
I also put on som music, and now I'm just relaxing, going through some blogs and of course: drinking tea :) 

I'm a bit afraid of getting triggered now since I don't have an appetite, at all. Oh well, not a bit, but A LOT afraid!   And since I'm kind of triggered before, this won't make it any better. I guess I just have to pick myself up and keep fighting. Not much else to do in this situation.

- M ♥

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!"