Anniversary!!!

Today, 15th of December it is exactly HALF A YEAR since I last overdosed! And oh my god how thankful I am for that it didn't work, although at that time it felt like yet another thing I failed at.
I did never imagine that I would live to Christmas and now they are just around the corner. That is a HUGE achievement on my behalf!

You may think that you can't live another day in this life, but YOU CAN! You may not be able to see that right now and it feels like a cliché (?), but before you know it, it will GET BETTER! I promise!

Find something to do, something to keep you occupied. For me it was working at a hotel, sewing when I got home and read. I didn't allow myself any sparetime to sit and just think. Ofc that happened from time to time, but when that happens  try to make sure you are not alone. You don't need to talk to anyone about what you're going through if you don't want to, just sit with someone, small talk, get something yummy to snack on and keep your mind occupied with other than negative thoughts! Those negative thoughts only destroy you, and you've got to destroy what destroys you, right?

Keep fighting, I believe in you Xx

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. 

I do not need

I do not need
empty stomachs,
shrinking skin,
children’s clothing,
or dropping numbers;

I do not need
icy hands,
sunken eyes,
falling hair,
or jutting bones;

I do not need
distant thoughts,
blacked out vision,
hospital beds,
or a dying pulse.

I do not need validation:

I do not need
to die again
to be deserving of
coming back to life.

Positive outlook on what is left to come

I like writing my pain away. Why you may ask?
Well, it is relieving, it calms me down, it makes me see things from another perspective, I get to know myself much better by reading what I write, and at last but not least: I get to read it later in life and see how much I've grown and how far I've come from being really ill. I sure hope that sometime in the future I can look back and think how thankful I am for not being in that place anymore. Because I am sooooo done with being this way!
I want to be healthy, I want to be normal, I want to be able to stick to plans and not backing out because of fright, suicidal behaviors, destructive thoughts, purging, low energy, having to exercise, chest pains, depression, panic attacks or the bipolar being in action (which it always is, but sometimes it is hyper active).

I want to say good bye to my ED and all the other mental illnesses for good. I am working my way towards that, and someday, sometime I will be able to proudly declare that I in fact am HEALTHY!

I have an appointment with an ED specialist on Tuesday and I can't wait! She is so nice and I really think that she will be able to help me. I don't know if I've written about her before, but she comes all the way from the city (1 hour away) just to talk to me! That is so unreal for me! I've till now, been the patient that no one really cares about. That doesn't get informed when her appointment has to be reschedule (happened to me once, and I had traveled with bus for more than half an hour just to be informed that my therapist was sick... and yeah, that sucked) or everyone, and by that I mean EVERYONE she talks to get's sick or don't have enough time for her... But now, there is a psychologist actually interested in ME! I can't believe that!! FINALLY am I going to get the help I need here in Norway!!!

I am scared of what's coming, but I am so excited as well. Such a weird combo, but I know that I am going to make the appointments with her matter. Not just sit there silently, not willing to open myself up and talk openly about Ana.

Right now, my Ana thoughts are so strong. She is telling me that  I shouldn't eat anything because I have to be "sick enough" to deserve the help I'm getting. That I should restrict and not give a damn about what anyone thinks of that. That I have to be thin, thin as a skeleton to deserve being helped. But you know what I do to concur this *bitch* ? I challenge the hell out of her! Brownie, coffee cake, hot chocolate, chocolate, pizza, apple pie, ice cream and other things have been stuffed down her throat the past 3 days, and I am pretty damn proud of that :) Even though she is mad and making me feel miserable, I know that it is her, the disorder, not me. I am gonna write another post about those thoughts soon

Lost. Again.

She’s sneaking up on me. Again.  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I want to fight, but at the same time I know that I’ve got to. I’ve been arguing a lot with myself lately, should I eat /can I eat / do I deserve to eat / am I allowed to? I want to, but I can’t. Food is on my mind ALL the time, I can’t seem to catch a break. I feel all alone. I feel left behind, hidden in my own soul while everyone else carries on. Why, I don’t know. I was fighting so hard and I was doing so well, but all of a sudden I take maaaaany steps back on the road to recovery. It wasn’t my intension, it was the disorder. I lose more and more control by every day, and I hate losing control. I lose control over my mind, my body and my strength, focus and thoughts.

Where does it end this time? Does it end with a being hospitalized again? Does it end with death or can I be saved (aka. Get help to save myself)? I am definitely not getting the help to help myself at the moment. My therapist doesn’t know a thing, he says weird things that only trigger me, he doesn’t really want to help me and he seems to not see the seriousness in my case, even though I came straight out of the hospital to him WITH my primary contact. The second appointment he was asking me about my diagnosis and what happened this summer and etc. and when I told him that I had been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa earlier this summer his response was : “well, you don’t look like it.” I was really struggling with the weight I had put on during being inpatient for a month eating breakfast (slice of bread with a lot of butter / big bowl of yogurt with cereal/ big bowl of oatmeal with sugar), snack(a fruit and orange/apple juice), BIG warm lunch (just like dinner)+ big desert, afternoon meal (biscuit/cake and a slice of bread with topping), BIG dinner + a big desert and then the same snack as evening snack + I was wearing three layers of clothing since I was freezing my ass off even though it was 20+ degrees outside (Celsius). You could say that I was “slightly” triggered by this. He has said so many stupid, triggering things to me and I so badly want to get rid of him. I can’t have him as my therapist anymore, I won’t survive it.

I need help. I need help soon. I don’t have any control myself anymore and I don’t want to get worse. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have the energy to fight. If I hadn’t had my mom supporting me on every step of the way, I wouldn’t even want help. I wouldn’t want to fight and I would just give up.

I have to be able to fight this by myself, others can’t fight the things in my head for me, but they can be my armor and help me to protect myself from myself, and that’s what I need. 

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?

Falling whole into a black hole

I’m falling. I am falling fast and deep into the unknown. Not exactly the unknown though, because I know it way too well. The kind of well no one should know. I need help. I desperately need help, and that fast. I don’t like asking for help, but I don’t have any choice. Not now. If I don’t ask for help, it will get worse. Way worse. I need someone to catch me, because I’m not able to do so myself. I have tried. I know it all comes down to me, but at this moment, I’ve tried everything. Literally everything and I am exhausted. I am exhausted of trying, but I don’t want to give up. I don’t have the energy to fight against those demons by myself much longer, and it hurts. It hurts that I am not doing well. It hurts because I feel like I am disappointing everyone around me. I am supposed to be better now, but I am not. I can’t take care of myself anymore because I simply don’t have the energy. I don’t know what is going on and it scares me. It scares the hell out of me. I try to put on a smile though because I feel like I am failing and I don’t want to bring everyone else around me down with me. I just want to be normal, the kind of normal where I don’t have to fight off big scary monsters every day to survive. Where those thoughts and voices leave me alone and I get to be myself fully and truly.

Everyday, there are tears running down my chins while all I want to do is to scream. My head is screaming. It is loud and it’s hurtful. I’m constantly battling the shame, guilt, disappointment and evilness in my mind. I am mad, I am furious and I am frustrated at the world and most of all, at myself. Everything around me, included myself, swirls into a black hole. Especially in the evenings when I know I’ll be alone for a long time, too many hours. Hours where I can’t distract my thoughts by surfing the internet, talking to people that make me feel better, looking for advices to fight even harder through the day or watch something fun. I will be alone for a long long time, all by myself.  All I want to do is to curl up beside my mom, feel her comfortable smell and fall asleep where I know I am safe. Where I know that if anything happens she is there to safe me. Even it is in my nightmares, she will be there by my side holding my hand, helping me battling off the monsters that attack me because she is the best mom in the whole entire world. 

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 2

What does recovery mean to you?
Late winter nights, fudgie brownies, warm cocoa while it's snowing outside.
Late summernights, barbeque, baked potato with cream cheese, soda, icecream and not be freezing in 20 degrees Celsius.

That is what recovery means to me. I want to get my life back, be able to enjoy every moment like it is my last, without thinking and worrying about food and calories. I want to be able to go out on a Friday night with friends and get whatever I want, no matter how many calories. I want to live a normal teenage life where overdosing on chocolate won't kill me and drinking to much soda won't mentally drown me.
I want to get my health back, mental and physical. I want to get rid of chestpains, stomach cramps and hurting joints.

In short terms: I want to feel alive again!

When a mental disorder takes over your life

When a mental disorder takes over your life, you just simply got to fight to get it back, because eventually it will take your life away. Maybe in the moment you are depressed that sounds pretty great. The thought of something taking your life away seems relieving. But in the moment you are NOT depressed, you can´t think of not being alive. Depression is like most other mental disorders, a disorder which you can recover from.  If you try hard enough, you will recover and learn to love life again. And when you’re recovered you will be thankful for being alive, I can promise you that.

When I was at my worst, I had pre-heart attack symptoms. I had chest pains and felt like there was a ton lying on my chest. I had constant back pain in my upper back, toothache and pain in my left arm, which are all known as pre-heart attack symptoms. I got help in time. Thankfully! I can‘t believe if I had gotten a heart attack, only 17 years old! 17 year old and a heart attack don‘t simply fit with each other.

An eating disorder CAN take your life away. No, you are not allowed to think that „nope, that won‘t happen to me, I‘m not sick enough“ because that´s bullshit. If you don‘t fight back, it WILL take your life away! And once it does, you can‘t get it back because, well, you´re dead. Everyone has their own struggles and have to fight through the day. If you want to live, you have got to fight twice as hard as them, because here we are talking about life or death.

 If you restrict, you can lose your life, even though you are categorized as “normal weighted”. If your body lacks nutrients and food in general over a long time, you can get serious complications which can lead to a tragic death. Reports of the 1981 hunger strike by political prisoners against the British presence in Northeast Ireland indicate that 10 individuals died after periods of between 46 and 73 days without food. Think! 46-73 days, that’s a pretty short time! You won’t survive much longer than that, and chances are that you won’t even survive that long!

My mom told me about a woman who worked out at her gym. She was there 24/7, usually on the skiing machine or the treadmill. She was thin, but not as thin as the pictures that come up on Google when you search for Anorexia (apropos, very few people who suffer from anorexia look that way). Nobody was fascinated or admired her of her stamina for running for hours. They looked at her and thought “poor lady”. Eventually they had to ban her from the gym. She was forced into several treatments, but once she was “better”, she came to the gym and was back to where she began, running or skiing for hours. Few months later, she died. She wasn't as thin as the anorexia pictures on the internet, but her body couldn't bare the restriction and over exercise any more. It gave up.  

That could be you. Think about it. Is this disorder gonna win, or are YOU going to win this fight? I bet on you.

Health comes 1st!

I’m exhausted physically and mentally! I had a whole school-day today, from 8 to 15:30, so I wasn’t at home from 7 to 16:30. A looooooong day! Thursdays will be the only whole day (7,5 hours) at school from now on since I’ve decided to take “high school” (don’t know what to call it, it’s 11th, 12th and 13th grade) over 4 years instead of 3. It’s sad, but I hope it will help me to not get a nervous breakdown like last year. This way I can pay more attention to the subjects I have than I else would be able to.

 I’m starting with cutting only one subject out of my schedule and then I’ll just have to see how thing goes.
If you’re wondering what subjects I have, I’m in chemistry, biology, Norwegian, history, entrepreneurship and science math. The subject I cut out, or well, I will have it during next year or the extra year, is physics. And yeah, I’m supposed to have PE as well, but I’m not allowed to L

It’s sad to not be going to university at the same time as everyone in my class, but it’s the best considering the situation. Health comes 1st, school second!  If you don’t have health, you can’t be at school as much or get good grades. That’s just logical, isn’t it? Health is the foundation of almost everything, or when I think of it, pretty much everything.

Take good care of yourself and you will be able to take care of the rest of your life.

The university I'll be attending in 2 years :)