Firstly I want to begin with saying thank you for the undying love & support from Family and Friends and those who I’m no longer in contact with but have checked in and showed support. This difficult period of my life has become increasingly hard and however big or small the support, the easier it is to be able to focus on my end goal and achieve what I want to achieve. Because after all, all we all want from life is to feel happy and comfortable in our own skin.
People have asked a lot about where I am, what I am doing, and how long I’m going to be in hospital for, the answer to that is I simply don’t know and being in here I have come to realise you cannot put a time frame on anything and that you will get there when you get there because its a marathon not a sprint.
I’m currently being treated in an Acute Specialised Eating Disorder Unit Clinic which is set within a house making it a home from home living space for the treatment of Anorexia Nervosa / Purging / Emetophobia disorder. As most people are aware in recent blog posts I have been struggling with this for a very long time, but when you don’t know why your feeling this way or why this is happening it is extremely difficult to open up and be honest with what is actually going on, especially when you’re unsure of what is triggering this awful illness which has consumed a big part of my life.
“When you feel like giving up on recovery, remember why you have held on for so long”
Since being at this Clinic it has triggered many emotions, some of which have been extremely difficult to understand and regulate causing an awful lot of anger and frustration being built which has caused me to feel the need to punish myself hence squaring myself up too a wall and punching the hell out of it just to relieve the build up of the many emotions this place fills you with
I cant even begin to describe how difficult its been from having to stop visits from family because of not being able to face seeing them as you just want to walk out the door with them at every giving opportunity because you miss them so much and just genuinely being with the people you love the most. It’s a completely different world in here, new routine, different types of people and all suffering with similar difficulties which is sometimes a good thing because they understand the struggle but on the other hand it has the polar opposite effect and is very difficult to live with certain characters who do not share the same perspective and morals.
My time in here really should be spent on myself but its completely unsettling to find away of accepting this is how its going to be for a long period of time and that you cant just see your family or your friends or do the things you enjoy because being here all that is taken away. All your coping mechanisms, your routine, your career, everything you can possibly think of is gone as soon as you walk through that door and I cannot even count on my hands the amount of times I’ve just wanted to go sod it and pack my bags and leave…. but reality is you know your here for one reason and that’s to get your life back and enjoy all the above.
It’s extremely hard work and increasingly difficult to focus on that everyday when your faced with so many different challenges and the main one being food!!! There is also lots of therapy starting of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) and DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) to get to the very route cause of the struggles I’ve been dealing with throughout my entire life but never understood why. There is also group classes everyday comprising of working on different parts of the illness; Managing Meals, Body Image, Living with Emotions, CBT skills, Perfectionism to name a few all which build up to why we are all where we are today.
I’m not going to lie when I say its extremely difficult speaking about your thoughts and feelings in group situations and feeling like your back at school sitting up a table working but when you take yourself out of the equation and look in you can fully understand why these are put in place. Deep down in my heart of heart I know each one of these comprise up my illness and struggles so to get the most out of this journey it is to participate and engage as best you can in hope that your end goal can be reached.
Recovery from this dreadful illness isn’t easy, it takes time and hard work, sometimes more than you think your willing to do. But each hard day, every tear, every moment of frustration, every terrifying moment it will all be worth it. It’s worth it because the trade off is you learn to let go of your eating disorder and you get your life back. The word recovery does scare me as so many people in here have had it for years and have been in different clinics and relapsed so you do sit there and think is this all worth it if it’s going to come back and haunt you all over again. I know you shouldn’t look or judge other peoples journeys towards yours but you do have an awful lot in common some more than others and it is completely scary too think in 6-7 months time its still there knocking at the door.
But i do need to fully focus on ME and what my recovery looks like and that begins with
R – Realising that you are WORTH IT E – Experience true HAPPINESS C – Caring about YOURSELF O – Overcoming your DEMONS V – Validating your own SELF-WORTH E – Eating without REGRET R – Relapse could happen it is inevitable but it’s okay Y – Yearning to LIVE
So basically that is where I’m at in a small nutshell for those who have been asking and writing down your feelings and thoughts can be helpful in aid of recovery of which I have had no choice in doing because once you say NO to an eating disorder behaviour you’re infact saying YES to something else – To a HEALTHY choice and another step leading you closer to freedom.
Please don’t take offence if I don’t get back to individual messages or do not reply for sometime or feel up to visitors just because this journey is very difficult and for once I need to take a step back from what life was and to what it now currently is and to focus fully upon myself and getting my life back. When the time is right and ready I will make sure all you lovely people get the credit for support you truly deserve but for the moment respect this is infact a small chunk of the hardest part of my life but eventually I will have the tools and skills to be able to deal with this in a better way.
I have learnt a lot already from my time in here and have built friendships with people I never thought I would but the positivity that people show you really is what you need. People come and go and some people leave a mark more than others and have told me to never be afraid to stand up for what you believe in and that I have a heart that I should listen to, and use my head to carry out its wishes and that most importantly it’s okay to ask for help to beat this and come back better than before.
She left her mark and finished with saying when life knocks you down and tramples on your feelings, pick yourself up, dust yourself down and kick life’s but and to trust life and let it take you where it wants you to go and most importantly stand strong!
“Breathe – This is just a chapter, not the whole story”
The Mind Diary 