Is it too much to ask for?

Like I've said before: I haven't been feeling very well. I was at home from school yesterday and today and the plan was to do some schoolwork, but I just couldn't get myself to do it. I couldn't consentrate. I haven't even been able to to a sudoku or watch TV for more than 3 minutes. I am totally constipated (again!) and it hurts! I am cold, and I am really struggling with eating my meals. So staying at home, trying to get my mental and physical self back on track is probably the best choice I've taken in a while. I don't like being home from school, but when the situation is like this, then I have to put my health before anything else.

I just want to get better and be healthy again. Is that too much to ask for?

I've walked around with a piratepatch all day, due to I've gotten a lazy eye thanks to lack of nutrition and vitamins over quite some time. Gotta love it. When I bought the pack, I got some "tattoos" to put on the patches and I thought: "Ok, If I'm gonna do it, I might as well take it all the way and have cute animal pics on them as well?" so yes, that's what I did :-) 

Sorry for my swollen face, recovery is really paying it's toll...

Yeah, I had a photoshoot with myself earlier today hehe, always as much fun hehe. Ehm, no. Much more entertaining to take pictures of others... and that doesn't kill the little self-esteem I have left. I feel really stupid to post these, but I feel like I have to express myself in someway so here it goes:

It's like I am "Ana" in this pic. It shows how dark, creepy and terrifying the disorder is.

I'm really really constipated, like you can see....

Please, no hate. I'm sorry if it's triggering. That was not the purpose of this post!!! 

-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. 

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 ♥

Day 4

What are factors that contributed in your choice to recover?

I hated seeing my greatgrandma and grandpa cry and pray for me. I don't want them to worrie about me, and the only way to do that is to get better. They love me and they will always care. I didn't want to hurt them by pushing them away like everybody else; believe me, sick me tried to...and I'm so not proud of that!

My grandma was so worried and cried while begging me to get better. That had a HUGE impact on me. She's my favorite person in the whole world and I love her soooooo much! She loves me more than anything, and saying no to her when she definitely was dying of worries, felt cruel. She was so worried of losing me. She had already lost me into the disorder, and was terrified of losing me completely. 

I want to recover for them. My grandma, great grandma and great grandpa do not deserve this.

I recover for the people around me, but first of all do I recover for myself.

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. 

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)

My food

Recently I started to upload photos of my meals on instagram (margrets_recovery). Here are some of them:

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!

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?

Thank you

I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes. I can’t believe how sweet people can be! All the things they say to me really make a difference in my life. They motivate me and help me to see that I am worth it, and it’s not always I think I am. I’ve gotten to know so many fantastic people through this process, it’s almost unbelievable. Or well, it is unbelievable. The nurses, other patients, people through tumblr and Instagram  and etc.  

It is quite funny that my new friends are the one that are my most supportive friends. Maybe that is because they know. They know what I am going through and either have been through it or are going through it. We don’t affect each other negatively, not at all. We motivate and support each other. I love it and I LOVE them! Worst part is that they live very far away, mostly in other countries. But we send packages and letters to each other to brighten up each other’s days :) 

There are so many people I am thankful for that the list would never end! My family members, close friends and not so close friends. I’m first now realizing how many people actually care about me, and it’s a fantastic feeling. My ED made me think no one cared, that I was unloved and unwanted, but that was just the ED talking. Sometimes that feeling comes back, but I manage to beat it down, distract myself by watching TV, surf Tumblr and instagram or do other things I like. Sometimes I even feel so strong that I eat! Unbelievable but true.

Stay strong! ♥
-M

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

Jeff Dunham

I'm on my way to go see a Jeff Dunham show in Oslo with my lil bro (nickname I use on my little brother). I'm so excited! I love Jeff Dunham and doing something fun is really what I need right now!
Since it's fearfood Friday I ate some white bread. Proud! Bread is a major fearfood of mine, and white bread is/was on my "banned-list". I'm proud, and I'm feeling quite confident I'm going to make it this time!
Lots of love!
P.s. Jeff Dunham must be ready for me, because here I come!

Might be triggering; I'm glad to be in recovery!

It’s terrifying that it only took less than 4 weeks to lose 15 kg… That shows how incredibly strong an eating disorder can be! I’m so glad to be in recovery now, for the second time. 

I had Anorexia in 2009/10 and I lost 20 kg in 6-7 weeks, I fully recovered in the beginning of 2011 by myself and I thought I would never go back, but then this MAJOR relapse came and I ended up with IV drip as I didn't drink or eat.

I’m far away from fully recovered, but I’m NEVER going back to where I was! I've come so far, and I'm NEVER looking back!

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. 

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