Day 27

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

Dear Ana

I’ve known you for quite some time now, and you’ve gotten way too involved in my life. Our paths need to be separated. They crossed a long time ago and have kept on crossing ever since, but now it is time for that to stop. Everything gets born and everything dies, our relationship included.

I thought you were nice. I thought the things you said were true, but things are changed now. I’ve realised what you’ve done and have been doing. You’ve messed with my head, making me belief all this bullshit of yours. “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” you say? Well I know what tastes better! LIFE! Life tastes better than striving towards perfection.

I am so irritated, frustrated and desperate because of you that I don’t know where to start expressing my real, true feelings. But I am also thankful. I am thankful for the kilos you’ve made me lose. But then again, that might be you messing with my head again. Get out, get out, GET OUT!

You came because I lacked control. Because I lost control, you decided to pop up again and save the day. Except all you did was making it tough, in another way than before, but tough. You saved my life. You saved me from killing myself. You made me feel a bit better with every kilo I lost, but it was never good enough. 17 kg. You took 17 kilos away from me, but I still didn’t get me to the underweight category measured by BMI. You got me to 18,7. And I know that frustrates you as it was SO close! Half a kilo more and we would be UNDERWEIGHT again. A little over three years ago, you got me to BMI 17,7 and of course that wasn’t low enough for you, but back then I fought against you. I had the energy and will, but you never really left. I didn’t get professional help later on as I was way too fat to be suffering from such a demon like you in my head. And whenever I brought you up with anyone, they just looked the other way. I tried to tell them about my experience with you in the past and how the thoughts still hunted me, but they wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t take it seriously. You hid in the back of my head, getting ready for a backfire, which eventually came.

You don’t want me to talk. You don’t want me to tell anyone as it is “our little secret”. It is embarrassing to tell anyone that you actually are a voice, because I feel that by admitting that I am admitting that I am crazy. Hearing voices isn’t normal, it is the opposite of normal.
I get super nervous when I talk about you because you are there, in my head, screaming at every word I say. I want you to get lost. I want you to leave me alone, for once.

I want my period back (surprisingly). 3 years of irregular or none menstruation is a long time. Now it has been… I don’t remember how long, since I got my last monthly menstruation.  But to illustrate it a bit: After I started recovery (July 2013) I should have gotten my period 5 times. I’ve had it 2, each one for not even a day. I don’t even know if it can be counted as menstruation. 

You’ve taken so much away from me: my womanhood (haha), my ability to socialize without being super awkward, my few friends I had, the spark in my eyes, my happiness, so much excitement towards things like Christmas, birthdays etc. You’ve taken away so many possible good memories and replaced them by memories of tears, desperation, head hanging on the toilet seat, exhausted after stuffing my fingers literally down to the larynx and pressing my stomach up to my lungs.

But you’ve given me so much as well. You’ve given me people who care. You’ve given me so many really good friends, two that I can define as best friends. You’ve brought my family closer to me, supporting me and showing me that they care. You’ve made me and my grandma have a better relationship, and showed me that she and I are really much alike, more than I could ever imagine. You’ve made my other grandma and I so much closer and I can proudly define my grandma as one of my very close friends.

Inside my head, you’ve made my life miserable. But outside, in the real world, you’ve made me realise that I’ve got people around me that love me (or well, you’ve made them show me that they care).  And that messes really with my head because I start questioning if I get healthy, people will stop caring. They will stop noticing me. Stop loving me. I don’t want that. But I don’t want you either. I am afraid that I will lose my support and end in the same black hole as I was in 6 months ago. I want to thrive, but I also want to survive. That’s the problem. 

What is Ana doing to you?

I was with my psychology specialist yesterday and she really made me think. What is it that I am trying to achieve? What is it my eating disorder wants me to achieve?
      I did not need to think for long. Of course it is to be thinner, better and more beautiful. That is all I have ever wanted to achieve. Do I want to be perfect? Eh YES. Of course do I want to be perfect, who doesn't?
     But when will I achieve perfectness? I’ll be perfect when I am thin, beautiful and good enough.
     When will I achieve being “beautiful enough”? I answered: when people will notice me.
     When will I be “thin enough”? I answered: when I can see that it is enough.

That is a dangerous thought don’t you think? Measuring myself by my distorted thoughts. Will I ever achieve those goals? There is a quite simple answer to that: Nope. The thinner I’ll get, the higher the standards get. Achieving “perfectness” is undoable. It is impossible. Just like when I made myself a goal weight and said: “when I will be x kg, I’ll be satisfied”. But what happened when I got to that weight? “Just five more kg and I’ll be happy” that’s what happened. And that is how it continued, and would have continued till I disappeared, if I had not been stopped. The standards got higher as the weight got lower. 

While Ana (Anorexia Nervosa) is making you want to achieve perfectness (which is not achievable), she is actually dragging you as far away from it as possible. It is different from person to person what ‘perfect’ is, but it most often goes on appearances (hair, eyes, smile, face, body and such things). As well as wanting you to achieve her standards of ‘beauty’ and ‘perfect’, she is dragging you down with her, not letting you eat, making you restrict, making you feel guilty and making you completely paranoid. By doing like she says, you won’t reach her standards. Not only because they are unreachable, but also because you destroy your body. 
Your smile disappears and her empty look comes instead. The glimpse in your eyes that once exampled your joy and happiness will be long gone and replaced by a sad glimpse of tears. Your beautiful hair that used to flax in the wind will fall out in clumps and your skin gets dry like a desert. The life as you know it collapses. You won’t be yourself anymore, you will be her. But what is she? Who is Ana?  

We all have different opinion on her and we all experience her differently. She is not the same for anyone. No two Ana’s can be compared to each other. 

For me she is bossy. She’s a bully. Her voice is the voices of my bullies that are constantly on repeat in my head. She is every bad word in the dictionary. She never lets me catch a break and take a deep breath. But she is also a friend. She is a friend that has been there for me for a long time. When I felt alone and forgotten, she was there telling me that everything will be OK, as long as I lost a few pounds. She assured me that everything would be OK, if only I would drop lunch. She assured me that starving myself would make me feel a lot better and people would start liking me. But as the time went by she got stronger. She told me to disappear. To be so small that no one could see me anymore, because no one noticed me either way. I was a wallflower, and she told me I could as well be dead. That it would not make a difference for the world if I wasn’t present. She is a mean ‘little’ devil sitting on my shoulder, criticizing my every move. 
 Even though my heart was beating (and still is), I wasn't alive. She took my life away and replaced me with herself. I might have been called M, but in my head M’s thoughts didn’t matter. I was lost. I am first now finding myself again, even though I get lost once in awhile, I fight to find me again. And that is what matters. 

What is common with every Ana out there is that nothing she says is true, she’s a liar. Even though she tells you that what she says is the truth and nothing but the truth, she is lying. She couldn’t be more wrong. She is a murderer that comes uninvited into your life and does everything to see you suffer. She manipulates you with her sneaky ways to think that she is your friend, when everything she is, is your worst enemy that doesn’t want you anything good. And if you don’t fight, she will eventually kill you. Take your life away and put it nicely on her shelf as an award among so many other awards. Too many other awards. She keeps an ever going list of records over life she has succeeded with snapping away from innocent human beings with her sneaky ways. All you can do is fight. Fight till she disappears into the corner, scared and afraid of the strong, fantastic soldier you have become. You got to keep going and be a hell of a soldier that does not let a criminal like Ana boss him around! Fight like you have never fought before, that is the only thing that works!

Day 23

Day 23 apparently got lost somewhere on the way, but better late than never right?

List 2 positive things that happened to you today
- I'm gonna tell you about Friday, because I think that this post was supposed to be published then (?) 

1. My mom didn't wake me up and stayed at home with me because I was nowhere near being in good enough shape to survive the day by myself after a major breakdown the evening before. 
2. We went Christmas shopping, bought some stuff to make our living room perfect, went to a cafe and I had a normal hot chocolate WITH full fat cream AND white chocolate sprinkles (!!!!!!!) and like that wasn't enough, I also had a glorious brownie WITH cream!!! My mom had almost the same, except she had a mocha instead of chocolate. It was completely spontaneous and a HUGE step for me. I didn't even regret it. 

I love my mum so much, don't know what I would do without her!

I'm freezing my ass off right now. I'm so cold that I can't even do schoolwork. I'm laying besides the radiator, and still am I freezing. What is up with that?
I love wintertime, but I don't look forward to this winter weather wise... I'm freezing now and it is +degrees outside, how will it be when the temperature is around -10 or even -20 degrees? Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I'll die!

I'm staying home from school today because I am in a huge relapse and I really have to use all my time and efforts to get back on track. I hate this stupid, annoying, hating, terrifying disorder. I want to be free,  free like a bird!

There is no one else than me, myself and I, I have to recover for. I have to recover because I want to, not because others want me too. Even though that's a big plus, I won't be able to recover if I don't want to myself. I can wish all I want, but wishing isn't enough. I have to put those wishes into actions. And if I want to be able to put those wishes into actions, I have to put all my time and efforts into it.

I want to gain my life back. I want to enjoy life and enjoy living. I am sick and tired of this so called 'life'. I want to be normal, once in for all. Even though I'll never be completely normal (if there is such a thing) I want to be a little closer to it than 500000000 miles away like I am now.

Why does this have to be so hard?
I'm finally getting a specialist to talk to, and I'll meet her on Tuesday. I deeply hope that it will work because I am desperate. I need to be able to concur this illness. It has taken up way too much of my life!

Day 12

Post 1 thing you've aten today

This was my lunch. Two toasts. One with butter (!), ham(!), cheese (!) and cucumberslices. The other one with Prime (Norwegian spread that is made of milkproducts) and my daily glass of milk on the side :)
Fearfood Friday? huh, nope, not for me. For me, everyday is a fearfood day!

-M

P.S. this is my Instagram account if you are interested (hint, hint ;) )

Day 10

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

 Yes, my fathers mother has Anorexia as well. And yes I think that had a huge impact on me, especially because when she was at her sickest she kept reminding me that thin was better and when I started losing weight in 5^th grade, she gave me a huge compliment and told me that I had been fat and stuff… But she has helped me a lot and this summer she said that we should fight together and the first one to get to 65 kg would get a price hehe. But I don’t know how that is going since she doesn’t really contact me when I’m not visiting her.

Day 9

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

·         Constipation

·         Worse sight and a lazy eye

·         Worse hearing

·         Thin hair

·         Dry skin

·         Lactose intolerance (gotten better)

·         Gluten intolerance (gotten better)

·         Joint pain

·         Chest pain

·         A lot of anxiety against food

·         People are actually scared of talking to me and look and stare a lot

·         Bad concentration

·         Paranoia over small things that don’t really matter

·         I’m too addicted to routines.

·         Exercise addiction

·         Extreme fear of nutrition and water consumption

And I keep counting for a long long time!

A normal teenager for half a day

Yesterday I was going to restrict. I felt humongous and disgusting, but then I read my favourite blog that always helps me through tough times and motivates me to continue recovery, even when I am about to give up (www.living-with-anorexia.blogspot.com) You should really check out her blog, she's amazing!!
But yeah back to me. Like I said, I read the blog and it motivated me to fight, so what did I do? well, I went down the toughest, stressfulest, hardest stairs I've ever have gone down. It's the same stair as I always walk up and down at least once a day at school, but they've never been this tough to climb. I went to the cantine to buy something to eat. Some REAL food, not diet yoghurt or 0% fat products. REAL wholegrain baguette with a cut up meatball, pickle, onion and mustard dressing (!!) It was so good and I didn't let the guilt sneak up on me. No matter how hard it tried, I didn't let it get to me. And I'm proud!

Later that day, I went to the supermarket with my mom and guess who got her pre ed favourite icecream?! Yes, it was ME! Magnum whitechocolate strawberry icecream. It was DELICIOUS!
Did I restrict after that? Nope. I had dinner wich was wholegrain couscous with a soft egg and mini tomatoes. After that I went out to a party. The first one in over a year! Due to my struggles I haven't been able to party, and nope I don't drink. I don't want to. I don't see anything charming with underage youths drinking with the one mission: drink as much as they can in the shortest possible time. But yeah, I had fun with my friends and actually felt like a normal teenager for once :-D I danced like an idiot and laughed like one as well.

My classmates kept saying how glad they were to see me and asking me if I was having fun. They are amazing and so nice! (they know that I'm struggling)
Yesterday afternoon was really nice and I don't regret a thing!
Over and out
-M xoxo

Day 8

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

·         I’ve gotten to know myself a lot better and I’m A LOT stronger than before.

·         I’ve lost weight hehe (but not in a good healthy way)

·         I’ve gotten to know so many fantastic people both while inpatient and through the Internet.

·         Me and my mom have gotten a way better relationship. It was good before, but now nothing can top it!

·         I’ve seen how many people actually care about me J

·         It has made me feel like I have control in my life (when in fact I don’t have any control at all)

Way too long list….  I can actually come up with more positives, but I won’t because there is something negative with everything I list as "positive"

Day 7

 Sorry for continuing this 30days challenge so late hehe, buuut I will finish it sometime ;) 

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

Well, everything has its consequences and effects on PEOPLE (not only girls, but boys as well) that are sensitive for developing an ED and yes, I have to say that media contributes to the growing rates. They put the standards for “good enough” higher and higher. It’s always: “you’ll be prettier, better, hotter and etc, if you use this and that and these products.” Why can’t we just be enough, just the way we are? 

School school school

School is mentally tiring. It's not that I don't enjoy being around people or learning stuff. I just get overly self-concious, insecure and all the stress is killing me. Luckily I have a reduced time schedule so I really hope I won't get a nervous breakdown again like last year. Though when teachers are telling us how the plan for the next couple of weeks are, I breakdown crying. Fun, very fun indeed...

I have chemistry test on Monday and I feel ready. I feel like I could as well take the test right now, even though I haven't read much. Chemistry is something I'm good at, something that makes me feel like I really accomplish something and I like that :) My teachers ask me how my preparations for the test are going and when I say it's going very well because it's easy, they all get very surprised. I guess they're not used to students thinking that chemistry is easy :p

After a chill day at school with some biology, chemistry, internet surfing and filming for a school project (I was an "actress"! Scary stuff) I got home and immediatly changed into my favourite outfit; sportsbra, huge t-shirt and tights. I read some chemistry and drank hot cocoa. Well, to be honest there wasn't much reading, mainly instagram surfing hehe. You have to make it seem like you are "perfect" on a blog, right? That's at least a trend atm ;)

You got any questions? You are more than welcome to ask me anything you like!

-M

Day 6

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

It was bacon wrapped chicken with pepper cream cheese sauce made by my mom. Now it is steamed vegetables… I know it’s not a meal, but I can’t come up with anything at the moment.

Puzzle pieces

Woke up, 5:30 am, more than ready to start the day of. I lay in bed till 5:45 and then decided to get out of bed and make myself a delicious breakfast a.k.a. porridge with mango and cocos. I ate and felt kind of motivated. I actually looked forward to school, but all of a sudden everything changed. It went from a good day, to a terrible one in 0.01 seconds. Everything came razing down. I was in the middle of math class, actually only half an hour in to it and still had 2 hours left. I just sat there, staring in to nothing and I was senseless at that moment and felt everything around me racing down like a waterfall.

I am tired, so extremely tired of seeing things that aren’t real. No I’m not schizophrenic, I am talking about fat. I see fat everywhere, even my toes are fat. I see a belly that is way too huge and makes a “beautiful” muffin top over my pant line.  I see thighs that literally jiggle in the wind. I see calves that could be real calves, that’s how huge they are. I see a double chin bigger than Mount Everest. I see arms that look like arms on an obese person and at last but not least, I see cheeks that are blown up like balloons.

I know that these things aren’t true. I know how Ana is disturbing my thoughts, but seeing this 24/7, every time I look in the mirror and every time I look at myself, makes it too real to not believe it. At times it gets too much, way too much. That’s what happened today at school. I began crying, in the middle of class, over my breakfast that I btw ate two HOURS earlier! The regret, the shame, the disappointment was enormous. My head was weird. I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t listen. The only thing I could do was look in the mirror and cry while feeling my rib, chest, collar and hip bones. Nothing sexual, only Ana being Ana. I wasn’t me anymore. I was Ana.

More and more of me is constantly getting washed away, but at the same moment I am always finding new pieces that I didn’t know existed. It’s like a puzzle and I’ve finally understood that some of those pieces that I’ve been struggling puzzling together simply do not fit. And all this time I have been desperately forcing them together and didn’t understand why they always fell apart again.

I haven’t found all the pieces yet, and I am still forcing pieces together to feel and look more “whole”. But even though I want them to fit, they don’t. I just have to accept the fact that this process takes time and in the end, I will have all my pieces in the right place. Even though it is on my death-bed, they will all fit together sometime. 

No good posts lately

Sorry for no good posts lately, I just don't feel like blogging about how well I'm doing in recovery because then I would be lying. I'm hanging on though, but it is hard.
Yesterday I only ate about 1000 kcal and that's WAY to little considering I walked/ran almost 10 km in an hour and well, I have to gain to get my period back. But I'm afraid of gaining. I don't want to get fatter than I already am... I know that's my ed talking, but it's hard to not believe it when it's constantly on repeat in my head.
Now I'm laying here, blogging on my mobile, about to go in the shower, and then go outside to show my dad around (he's on a visit from Iceland)
Hope you're doing better than I am. Love you and stay strong!

Day 3

List 10 NON physical things you like about you.

This is going to be hard...

1. I'm caring

2. I'm smart, not as smart as I was before Ana, but I'm still smarter than average.

3. I'm usually on time and I HATE being late.

4. I'm kind of a Pollyanna, I get it from my greatgrandma.

5. I always put others feelings before mine (that is sometimes negative...)

6. I love my family more than anything in this world. They are the reason why I'm still here and struggling through recovery.

7. I can't lie, it is literally impossible for me. Well sick me lied more than telling the truth, but it always ended with me telling the truth because I couldn't bare the guilt (there is when me, real me, came to senses)

8. I love animals, they've helped me through some really tough times. Just having someone to cuddle with, talk to and care for really helps.

9. I can't sleep much (if I'm not really depressed). I like it because that way I won't miss out of great days.

10. I actually like a bit of my disorders, they've shaped me to the person I've turned out to be AND they've made me into one hell of a warrior. :)

I'm not used to counting up things I like about myself, my thoughts usually go the other way. But I did it!

P.s. follow me on IG (margrets_recovery)

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.

B to the I to the G, BIG mistake!

I did a BIG mistake! Capital B, capital I, capital G mistake!
I forgot to pack lunch for school... and I won't be home till 14:30 and I ate breakfast at 6:30. I can't restrict, I don't want a worse relapse than it already is! What to do??
We have a cafeteria here at school, but I can't eat food someone I don't trust has prepared.... it's a major fearfood of mine!
Maybe I just have to challenge myself and fight through it? One baguette won't kill me. Worse case scenior is that it will ruin the rest of my day, but that's really hard to do since I'm going to see Jeff Dunham tonight! I'm really looking forward to that, since I didn't get to travel to the Netherlands this week on a school project...
But I have to look on the bright side of life!

Gotta love Monty Python! especially on tough days like this one.
Stay strong!

Never good enough

It feels like no matter what I do, I do it wrong. I always fuck things up, ruin everything; most of all, my recovery. Thanks to my socially awkwardness and insecurity.
I try and I try and I try, but I never succeed. I keep reminding myself that if I do my best, I am succeeding. Even though I don't reach my goals, if I do my best that is, or at least should be, enough. But it is hard to remember that at all times.
I have to remember that no matter what I do, there is always going to be someone that is not pleased. I have to get better at doing what makes ME feel good. What I want, not only what others want me to do, but what I want to do!

I'm too obsessed with what others think of me. It takes way too much time of my everyday life, literally 24/7. It is constantly on my mind. When I wake up, it's there. When I go to sleep, it's there. Even in my dreams, it's there!
"Am I sitting right? Am I standing properly? Did I say something stupid? Oh no I shouldn't have told them my opinion, now they are going to think that I am a "now-it-all" and never going to talk to me again. She is probably thinking why I can allow myself to eat food because I'm so fat. He is probably wondering why a person can be as ugly as I am." and etc.
It's tiring. It's tiring to never be good enough. 

Bad day

I'm tired. Tired of everything and everyone. I'm gonna call it tonight and lay down in my cozy safe warm bed and watch HIMYM before I fall asleep.
I'm trying to hold on to hope, but it keeps slipping away.
See ya tomorrow, hopefully more motivated and in a better mood.
-M

Born again

Today I haven't done much else than math and well, eat ;)
For breakfast I made banana and Cocos pancakes, for lunch I had leftover wok from yesterday's dinner and for midday snack I had chocolate cake which is one of my worst fearfoods, but I'm still alive ain't I? So I guess it wasn't too dangerous :)
For dinner I'm having Swedish meatballs and spaghetti, also a fearfood of mine, but I guess I'll survive that too :D
I'm feeling really motivated atm and it feels like I'm being born again!!
Love it!
-M