Recovery is life

CHRISTMAS TIME, MISTLETOE AND WINEEEE (I don't like wine so) MISLETOEE AND VODKAAAAAA. ANYHOO it's 14 days until christmas.... That's like 13 sleep, oh my god I'm excited. So yea, I know plenty of you are sat there worrying about Christmas, chocolates, dinner, cake, festivities! Everything. I know I used to worry about it. And it did take over my Christmas, I used to sit there, staring into nothing, whilst in my head there was uproar about the day, planning and planning and counting what I'm going to eat. It was horrible, I hated it, I just wanted it to get out of my head. What happened to waiting for Santa, and opening my advent calander all at once. Why was I now worried about one of the most amazing times of the year? You have to remember that this isn't you, it's not your mind telling you to do these things! You want to enjoy yourself, you want to be free! There's just something inside your head stopping you. Free yourself. Let yourself b...

hello lovelies, okay so eating disorders usually involve alot of anxiety, around food, public, sociailising and relationships, and sometimes overcoming the anxiety is the hard part, for me it was anyway. I was diagnosed with depression before my eating disorder, and once i was diagnosed with anorexia they also treated me for depression and anxiety. its really hard, and its hard because youre not only isolating yourself but youre also wanting to get involved and push yourself but you cant do that because you dont have the motivation to do anything. i was always told that i would never fully recover from my eating disorder (which is a really stupid thing to tell people because everyone needs hope and re-assurance) but i knew that it was possible and i kept myself going even though i never knew if i could wake up one day without the ache in my stomach and the thoughts in my mind. (id like to tell you all that it is completely possible and to not listen to anyone who tells you differe...

HEY THERE. i havent posted a blog in forever so i love just doing an update on recovery, life and the future. okay so as many of you know i am starting university in 19 days. im studying childhood and early years development for 3 years and if all goes well i want to do a year pgce to become a primary school teacher. recovery is fabulous. i learn more about myself everyday. i know i can be an emotional wreck sometimes as i naturally overthink everything but thats okay and i can accept that because after my hour of sobbing i realise that everything ive just been upset about is in my head. (my poor boyfriend is so confused when im crying without a reason) i push myself everyday. im fully recovered now and i class myself as 100% mentally and physically recovered but everyday little things i overcome really impress me. just stupid little things, but everytime i overcome something i feel more like myself. im proud of myself. my parents where able to book a holiday to Greece together an...

i receive alot of questions and queries daily about how to stop calorie counting. and yes its one of the hardest things to get yourself out of. i did struggle with this. because being ill i spent alot of my free time in supermarkets revising nutrition labels and ingredients (sad i know right) but thats what i did to make sure i knew exactly what i was eating. which was hell. and now i dont even look at labels, i eat the food thats put in front of me, i pick food from a menu without giving the 'light bites' menu a second glance and i do that without a care in the world. and it wasnt easy to get here but it isnt impossible. okay so even when i left inpatient i was still calorie counting, not as bad but i was still doing it. and i just had enough like many of you, my brain was exhausted, it was constantly on the go just overthinking everything and i didnt need it on top of everything else. so when i decided to stop it was nearing up to christmas time and we had endless tub...

okay so when you're recovering/recovered relapse is always going to be there. its always going to be present. you think you look big in that dress.. oh i know i can just go back to the way i was.. no. this is when you fight, this is when you turn around and say you are worth more than your appearance as you are stronger than to cave in and go back to the shitty life you used to have. every time you get these demanding thoughts (and they are intrusive and rude and play a huge part in your everyday life) you remind yourself who you are now. the life you have. the love you give and receive. and then remember who you used to be, the shell of a human, forced to live by numbers and rules set by anorexia. you dont want that life, if you did heck you wouldnt have started recovery int he first place! so why did you recover? why did you choose that you didnt want to suffer anymore? was it because it was ripping your family apart, or because you lost all your friends, constantly cried an...

anorexia is not as simple as 'they basically dislike food and you loose weight'  wrong.  anorexia is turning your own mind and body against yourself, watching yourself slowly disappear and loving it. feeling your bones stick out and rub against clothing and your mattress until you are covered in bruises and cry yourself to sleep. anorexia is ripping your family apart and allowing them to see their own child fall to pieces without being able to help. its being so severely hungry that you start to hallucinate and collapse walking down the street.  its being in a constant battle with your own mind about what you can eat and what you cant eat, what you can do and what you cant. over exercising to exhaustion, not for fitness. looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing nothing but a shell of worthlessness. its the feeling of preferring to die than eat. its never feeling good enough, never feeling deserving of life and enjoyment.  why do people think its all about yo...

i remember i used to spend hours every day mourning the way i used to be, like i was dead. but why was i so worked up on the fact that i was no longer the same person? why couldnt i just let go of all of that and start fresh and become the person i knew i was inside. i just couldnt let go. i couldnt let go of anorexia. (like we were joined twins or something) but there is always a part of you that wants to keep it around. you dont want to be free because its scary as hell! like the only life you know is the one were calories are the most important thing and exercise is the law to you. you only know a life in hell. and imagining it being any different to what you are so used to is so scary! step 1: wake up and not give a fuck. well for me anyway the first thing i did when i woke up was calculate and stress over breakfast. but why, where did that get me? that just spurred on my illness so i just 'let it go'. i woke up and i thought about something else, i texted my frien...

you know when you just sit for hours and think about every aspect of your life (mainly when having a shower)? thats been me for like the past 2 weeks. like everything is falling into place, exactly the way i want. this time last year i was inpatient. i was sat alone in my room crying over having to eat an apple or something, but now, im a different person. im 5 stone heavier and the healthiest ive ever been. i feel confident and radiant. i have a boyfriend. we go on dates to restaurants and i order what i want. something that i believed would be impossible. i go out with my friends and get drunk. last year i couldn't even hold a conversation with somebody. ive attended interviews on my own and i have a place at an amazing university to do the course ive always wanted to do. i got a full time job, on my own. everything changes for the better, you just have to believe that you can do it. whats stopping you? theres nothing in the way except your insecurities. push them a si...

As requested on instagram I thought this topic was highly important and I should talk about it. weight gain is going to happen, the sooner you accept that the better. (that sounds really harsh but it is the reality of the situation) p.s i totally just burst a blister on my thumb that i got whilst sharpening pencils, the pain! anyway, your body. it simply can not function at a low weight, your mind cant work, you are freezing 24/7, your legs struggle to walk up a flight of stairs, your hair falls out and your skin turns grey and lifeless! Thats your bodies way of telling you how unhappy it is. why should we fear gaining weight? we arent even gaining, we are just getting back what we lost! we have been a healthy weight before so why are we so scared to reach it again? i struggled alot with accepting weight gain, but the more i focused my mind on other things and actually started enjoying what i was eating and what i was doing with my life the less i thought about it! i got mys...

okay so before my whole eating disorder began i was diagnosed with depression. i was stuck in this dark place mentally and nothing could bring me out of it. i lost my appetite completely and all i used to do was just lie in bed, i even missed college for weeks because i couldnt get out of bed. but its true when people say your intake is affected by your mood. its different for everyone, like when im in a fabulous mood and feeling really good i tend to eat alot more than usual and it doesnt bother me in the slightest. but when im in a really down mood i really struggle to eat. i loose my appetite and i overthink everything. its awful. but like i said, its different for everyone. but food really does affect your mood. did you ever notice when you were in the depths of your illness that you were the most annoyed, lifeless shell of a human? thats because you had no fuel to contribute to your mood. food gives you energy, the energy to contribute to a conversation, or to make you l...

my main goal throughout recovery was for a happy future. i imagined myself dating the perfect guy, we'd go out for meals and eat popcorn at the cinemas. id have my own house, that i would have worked hard for after spending 3 years doing my dream course at university. id make new friends and be like the social buzz of everything, be involved in everything communal and basically be this queen of england or something. obviously i know i'm not going to be the queen anytime soon, due to the lack of relatives in the royal family and the fact that i say 'put t' kettle on love' or 'ite mate' it just isn't in my favour. buuuuuuuuttt, what is in my future for sure is university, im hoping to go to the university of Manchester and study there for 3 years doing Primary Education (i know i know, why the hell would i want to spend the rest of my life in the company of screaming, diseased children? but its fabulous k). i really wanted to live in halls at uni, i ...

My whole anorexia started with being addicted to exercise. I have been for years and i didnt even know it. It was never a problem, id run twice a day because i enjoyed it and i ate eough to never loose weight from my activities! But once i started restricting my calorie intake i upped my exercise and i had to do it, it becomes your way of life. I planned everythig around my exercise routines and it became more of a chore rather than something i genuinley enjoyed. Its obsessive, its not just the feeling of 'oh i should probably go for a run' its the 'i cant do anything else until i have over exercised' its not just going for a run around the block until your tired and want to go home, its being so exausted but not having the ability to stop. It in itself is a disorder. Its not a healthy way to live. I struggled with exercising for years and even when i was bed bound id still sneak out of the house to go for a run, it came to the point were my dad would run after me a...

i think the hardest thing for me about recovery is the dreaded body image. waking up and seeing yourself a completely different person to what you actually look like. but that is such bull crap. even at my lowest weight i never saw myself for what i truly looked like. fitting into tiny jeans and tops and still thinking i was overweight? its stupid really how messed up our minds get! its so unrealistic. the worst part is how we hate ourselves. why shouldn't we love ourselves? our flaws, our imperfections, our quirks, our personalities. some people look at us and see someone who seeks knowledge and happiness, is beautiful, has life behind their eyes. so why can't we see it that way? one day you can wake up and look in the mirror and absolutely love what you see, but then an hour later you see someone completely different staring back at you. its annoying and i'm fed up of it. so ive been trying this new trick, to just not listen to what my mind tells me. how to...

I have an instagram account, one of those addictive recovery accounts and all i see day in and day out is people posting their food. But what catches my attention are the foods people eat. I follow over 500 accounts and there are about 10 accounts that i an truly say eat normal food and whatever they fancy. But what i do see is the same foods repeated by everyone, 'salads, questbars, lowfat sandwiches, chickpeas, protein powder, protein pancakes, protein and egg white oatmeal' i just dont understand! Its easy to get caught up in whats needed. Like wheres the chocolate, the sweets. The essential fats your body needs to survive! You are depriving your bodies of what it needs, it needs foods that you wont eat! How can you live the rest of your life when you have to measure out everything, get up at ridiculous hours to prepare your food. The answer is that you cant! You need to have normality in your diet. You need to wake up and eat whatever you want and however much you wan...

Im one of them people that sits for hours and literally thinks about their entire life. I actually get really upset about it, like not because of who i used to be but because of the time ive wasted. In a way im lucky, i have suffered from anorexia for just over a year. Some people can suffer for years and years making it hard to look back on a life without anorexia. Even now im at a healthy bmi of 20 i still do struggle some days, some days you do want to be 'the thin girl' again but where the hell would that get me? In hospital. You can not live a life and maintain a low weight, it just doesnt work like that! In order to regain happiness you have to gain weight, you have to help your body repair itself! You cant restrict in recovery because thats not good physically and mentally! You have to allow yourself the foods you want to eat. And also facing fears along the way. Because right imagine yourself you have spent the night over at a friends house and you wake up in the ...

you are going to change, your body will change, your brain will change. this is fabulous, you shouldn't fear it. why be a bag of bones when you can have a bum, and boobs, and legs to die for and a healthy glowing face, and long thick hair like a lion and bright eyes and.. right you get the point. ask yourself, have you ever felt good enough? has loosing weigh ever made you feel good? has being severely underweight ever made you feel skinny or thin enough? no. your eating disorder feeds you lies. the worst part is that you believe them. your eating disorder is your friend right? wrong. when has it ever made you feel good, when has it ever showed you kindness. i cant count one time anorexia was my friend, or made me feel good about myself but i have lost count of how many times its put me down and made me feel terrible. learn to love yourself, you curves, your legs, your personality, your querky smile. you need to embrace it all. why live a life hating yourself whe...