A New Try

So… I could come here preaching about how I’ve found my way back into recovery and how I have so clear on my mind what to do to stop bingeing.

I could just say “I’ve been through a rough time lately but now I’m doing good!”. But what would be the point of it?

The truth is that I relapsed badly, I started bingeing again almost like I used to and thanks to an injury I’ve had to stop working out so it’s been getting harder for me to deal with my stress.

Well I don’t remember if I mentioned this before but I was trying to apply to medical school… And I got rejected. So you can tell I’ve been pretty successful lately.

I guess I needed a break from blogging, social media and even a break from recovery. A break from trying too hard. I’ve been feeling like I was trying too hard to be an “example” of what recovery is, just trying too badly to do everything well. Typical me.

And in the end there are a lot of ways to recover, there really isn’t one failproof way that’s going to fix every eating disorder in the world. Not at all.

At first I just stopped my therapy and taking my meds, eventually I started overeating and then bingeing again. A part of me thought that maybe this time I could do it on my own, the other part was just rebelling (I think). I was probably using food to hide my frustration at not being accepted into med school, at having to decide between studying a career I didn’t like or having to prepare the stupid test for a whole other year.

I managed to accept that I couldn’t do it on my own. Yes, a lot of people have overcome BED on their own by reading books, meditating, or by eating intuitively. But that’s not me, what really works for me is therapy and a flexible meal plan that gives me structure. So I’m going to try that again but without meds this time.

I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting my blog and instagram, I can’t really promise that I will posten more often. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I just want to stop trying to be so perfect and start trying to be more human, or well, more like myself.

I hope you’re doing well 🙂

Pol

#thestruggleisreal

After a few posts with no mention of my ED, I’m writing one about only that topic. If you follow me on instagram you may know I haven’t been doing very well lately, so as usual, I started posting less often and ultimately decided to take a break from my recovery account.

I’m the kind of person who finds it very hard to share her struggles. Some people like venting (nothing wrong with that) and talking about their problems, I’m just not like that. It’s not that I’m hiding anything or lying to you, I just don’t really feel like sharing anything at all when I’m not well, not until I find a solution.

I want you to know that I relapsed badly on my binge eating during this month. I had real binges and frecuent episodes of overeating. I went completely out of control, and that’s the problem. No matter how hard I tried, I just kept unconsciously trying to restrict. I kept trying to be in absolute control of my eating and my body. I kept checking if I had eaten too many carbs, compensating. Forbidding myself foods, only letting myself eat some kinds of them. So eventually all that resriction firebacked. And I ended up bingeing again. I kept cooking some delicious dishes that I love to other people, intending not to eat them, because of course I didn’t “deserve” them. Somehow in my twisted mind I just couldn’t take the risk of gaining weight because it meant I would be less worthy. Naturally I ended up bingeing on those foods, and hating myself for it. I felt like I was in an eternal diet, and that wasn’t the original plan.

Almost unconsciously, I started restricting my food again in order to compensate. And I ended up bingeing again. After lots of tears and “I’ll never do this again”s I figured something had to change. I decided that I neded a radical change of mindset. Instead of keeping my mind stuck in the “eating x amount of carbs and fat a day” I needed to switch to a different, healthier one.

I have to say, that when you’ve done so well for a long time (I had about 9 binge-free months, maybe more) relapsing really, really sucks. It makes you feel like you’re never really going to heal. Or that maybe it was all a dream and you eventually had to wake up. But the truth is that for as long as I didn’t find my answer, what really worked for me and healed my relationship with food and my body and I wasn’t getting anywhere.

So I started searching for answers. I’ve said before that intuitive eating didn’t work for me, and maybe I wasn’t ready (or maybe I wasn’t ready to let go of the “control” I had by then). But maybe this time it would. If I was going to do this thing, I had to do it well.

Someone recommended me to read the books Gennen Roth wrote about emotional and bigne eating. Since I live in Chile and I don’t have full access to buying all the eBooks I want, I picked the one that sounded the most appropiate “Breaking Free from Emotional Eating”. I crossed my fingers hoping it wasn’t bullshit. And it was not. In fact it’s being a great read, it has consistent arguments and it really makes you analyze the way you eat, the things that apparently don’t make sense (but that ultimately have a purpose) and a lot more. It’s really changing the way I behave and feel around food.

(Yes, this is my recommendation to you to read this book.)

From one day to another I started ignoring all the rules I had been self-imposing for so long. And well, the first days were CRAZY, I wanted to eat nothing but sweets and chocolate. It was like “woah I really want to have a lot of chocolate for my afternoon snack, ok let’s do it” or “I want to have lots of cereals for dinner, ok I’ll do it”. I started eating what I wanted BUT when I was hungry and until I was full (that is the hardest part). While during the first days all I wanted to do was eating all the things that were before forbidden to me as the days went by it started becoming easier and easier to listen to what my body really wanted.

I’m eating a lot more than before, yes. But this process has been really freeing from my restrictive and very punishing old mindset. I will probably gain weight (I have probably gained already), but it’s time I understand that choosing to be thin instead of being at peace with myself is a very sick decision. It’s time for me to grow-up and embrace who I am instead of wanting to change everything about me all the time.

It’s time to finally understand that I’m not becoming less-worthy of anything if I gain a few pounds and that I’m allowed to let my weight fluctuate like a “normal” person does.

I’ve said it a hundred times but it’s time to act like it: my self worth isn’t measured in numbers.

Pol

Not-So-Nice-January

Hi guys! I know I’ve been awfully missing in action lately, and I don’t really have a reason for it. I guess it’s really hard for to me accept when I’m not doing well, it’s way easier (and nicer) talking when I’m doing well, but I’ve figured it’s time for me to admit my mistakes and talk about them.

Let’s say that January wasn’t very kind with me. First because I received the results of my application to university, and even when everything seemed to indicate I was going to be accepted at medical school… I was not. I admit that it was very painful to get those results, it was hard understanding that I won’t be able to start studying what I wanted to this year and that I will have to try again. For now I’ll be studying nursery and I’ll try to be admitted to med school again. Also, a few week ago I was robbed for the first time, thankfully, nothing serious happened to me but it still sucked. The feeling of insecurity after having your things stolen from you is not nice.

And about my eating things haven’t been going well. Saying this is really hard for me but from the start I promised to myself I would be honest on this blog. I relapsed.

There were moments during my recovery that I felt like I was never going to relapse, sometimes I felt like I had beaten binge eating for good and that it was never coming back to me. I thought I would have to work really hard for some time and that after doing it I would never have to worry again (naive, I know). And as you can guess, I was wrong.

But deep inside, I feared a relapse more than anything because I thought it would mean I’d lose all my progress and that I’d have to start form zero, or worse, that maybe I could never get back on track again (black and white thinking again?).

I expected hard days, I expected my weight to fluctuate (like it does in “normal” people), but I didn’t expect to binge again, not after having to face even restriction urges.

Now looking back, I can tell that it was actually something really likely to happen. Compulsive overeating had been present for so long in my life that it couldn’t really be that easy to stop doing it.

I was doing very well again, having almost no binge urges, eating mostly healthily. But then I went on vacations. By then I took the decision that I would start trying to eat intuitively, I felt ready. It was something I  thought I had to do. But I rushed it. My “mindful eating” slowly started turning to over-indulging more often than before. I didn’t really notice (or didn’t want to) until one night I wanted to eat chocolate and couldn’t stop after the first one, so I had another, and another, and another until I “woke up” and figured that I had lost control. I couldn’t really stop because I didn’t see it coming, but the signs had been there for a while. Self-sabbotage is a hard thing to beat for me.

After that I had a couple of weeks of over-indulging and about two days ago a big binge.

What I can see now is that I wasn’t ready to start eating intuitively by then. I still think it is the best way to go, or the way I’d love to eat. But for the time being, I’ll stick to a flexible meal plan and I’ll just see how it goes. It may not be the best thing, but it gives me the structure I need not to lose control and the flexibility I need not to get bored. I will also start working more on my daily meals, I’ll try to cook nice and healthy things so I can keep my cravings at bay.

I’ll see how it goes, maybe I’ll flexibilize certain aspects of my eating on the go as I was doing some months ago. But slowly.

I may or may not be prepared in the future to eat intuitively, but I just won’t worry about it anymore. I’ll do what I know works for me right now. I’ll try to stop focusing on food as much as I can too, I want to start unattaching my identity with my eating disorder. I believe that’s going to help me at this point. I need to work on my self-esteem and “sticking” to my ED is not going to help.

I’m going to enjoy my life with or without an eating disorder.

 

Pol