About My Tendency To Disappear

Oh I know I neglect my blog, sorry about that. I should probably post more often but the truth is that whenever I think about writing a post it feels like something I have to do. For some reason I feel like I set a specific tone in this blog and know I’m kinda trapped in it.

With this I mean that I became very self-demanding (as usual) and started caring too much about making good quality posts, so whenever I wanted to write something “lighter” or maybe a little more personal I started having this “it won’t be good enough feeling”.

I had been writing very elaborate posts, and I actually feel very good about them. There was also a good amount of work behind them (also English isn’t my first language so I keep debating if what I wrote makes sense or not). I felt like I had to keep publishing stuff like that, when sometimes all I really wanted to do was to vent, or communicating silly things. It was like this blog wasn’t mine anymore you know, like I had committed to a job that I loved but became a little overwhelming.

Don’t get me wrong though, I DO love posting about eating disorders and mental health, and whenever someone tells me my posts have helped them I feel very fullfilled. I’ve learned that making a problem visible is really helpful, especially when we’re talking about an eating disorder that’s been hidden under the carpet (and minimized) for so long.

It’s just that falling into the mindset of trying to please everybody, or trying to “be enough” is just too easy for me.

But I’m trying really, really hard not to be so self-demanding. I’m learning that I’m not in control of everything, that being who I am is ok, that some days I’m just not going to check every item on my to do list. I’m learning that I have needs too, and that it’s absolutely valid for me to let people know what I need and want.

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So, moving on to another topic… I’ve been doing really well on my recovery lately. I’m happy to say that I haven’t had a major binge since June, although I have had some overeating episodes. I’m not doing perfectly though, when it comes to how I’m eating right now, I was probably doing “better” last year (AKA “healthier”).

But the one thing I’m really proud of is that I’m absolutely off my meds. I’m not taking any kind of antidepressant right now, nor any kind of drug that makes it a bit easier to recover.

I swear, I used to be absolutely and completely convinced that I would never be able to recover without my meds. I used to think that I just “didn’t have in me” to recover without chemical help. But here I am today, and now I see how wrong I was.

(I’m not saying that I’m recovered though, but I have come very far in spite of not being medicated)

I also see that I’m not even that special, anyone do this! And there’s not one correct way to recover! There are many ways! It’s just about finding what works for you and sticking to it. I am a firm believer in neuroplasticity (in very simple words: the ability our brains have to change). So we have to keep trying until we find our path, and then: REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT 😉

I will be writing a post about how I’m dealing with my eating disorder without medication, and about the tools that have helped me the most in this new stage of my recovery. I will probably post more often, and about different things (recipes, personal stuff, etc)… So let’s see how that works out.

(As I type this I’m feeling HUGE anxiety about this post not being good enough, but you know what? I’m publishing it anyways.)

Sending all the good vibes,

Pol

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

Update (Or Lots Of Rambling)

Hi there!

I know it’s been a while since my last post, but if you follow me on instagram you probably know that these weeks have been very busy and that I’m focusing a lot on studying for a test, so I just haven’t really had the time to write.

Please excuse the randomness of this post, I guess I just wanted to write and let some things out.

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Since I started my treatment I have changed inside and out. And people around me notice. I have lost a significant amount of weight, I am not overweight anymore. I am much more social than I used to be, I talk more to people and just speak my mind more often than I used to. I dress in a completely different way than I used to and I take more care of my appearance now. Some people tell me that I “have gotten pretty”. I’m eating like a normal human being most of the time and when surrounded by people I don’t pay as much attention to food as I used to. I’m less anxious, less nervous and feeling overall better.

And I’m not bingeing anymore.

I’m also not restricting. Finding an equilibrium between the two of them has been one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do during my recovery. I’ve come to understand that I can eat very unhealthily one day and that I’m not going to gain weight because of that. Now I know that I don’t have to “make up” for what I ate and most importantly, that even if I gained weight, it would be alright, because that doesn’t define how much of a good person I am.

I’ve learned how important it is to focus, or actually not to focus on things. Because when we dedicate all of our time in eating healthy, or worrying about how much we exercise, it’s almost natural to forget to look at the bigger picture, it’s easy to forget that those are not the most important things in life.

a yummy dinner I had the other night

When I’m with my friends it’s not rare to hear them telling me that they would like to lose weight like I did, and I do understand them, because living surrounded by all those ads telling us that being skinny is normal, and that there are some patterns that should be followed makes us want that, and in some cases we want it too much.

I’d love to make them understand what has been so hard to learn for me. That they are great just as they are, they don’t need to change one bit to be worthy of anything. I wish everyone who is suffering because of this would stop trying to change themselves and understand that just the fact that they are unique in this world is amazing.

We seriously need to stop criticizing ourselves so much and start loving ourselves unconditionally. We need to become our own strongest and most important ally, not our biggest enemy.

this is the kind of lunch I have on a daily basis

Though I may look completely recovered and you may think “she’s already done it”. I know I’m not done. I still have a long way to go. There are moments when the ED voices fill my head and I forget that my main goal still is to recover. Even if it looks like “I’ve got my crap together” I have to choose to keep fighting against my demons. I keep choosing not to compulsively overeat, not to bring myself down, not to punish myself if I fail at something, not to restrict if I feel the urge to. I keep choosing these things everyday because I believe that one day I will completely leave this disorder in the past. Recovering has become to me, my only option.

And even if I don’t achieve full recovery, even if a small part of me has to keep fighting for the rest of her life, this is so much better than being the slave of an illness.

My battle may not be as evident as before, and it’s definitely not as hard as before, but it’s still real.

Also about two weeks ago I published on my personal Facebook that I’m on a treatment for my eating disorder. It was a hard decision, I used to feel very ashamed of it but I want to encourage people to seek professional help, and I want to contribute my two cents to reducing the stigma of mental illnesses, it felt contradictory not to talk about my own issues, so I just did it. And I’m still me. People haven’t changed towards me and somehow I feel liberated. I had a very nice response from my Facebook friends. Also people who I had no idea that were struggling with these same problems spoke up, which is the kind of thing I wanted to cause in first place.

And no, this is not an easy path to follow. It’s not all “look at the desserts I had yesterday” and using the #recoverywin hashtag like crazy. It’s actually hard, but when you’ve figured out that you want to get better for yourself, nothing can stop you. And I am no special case, anyone can do it (seriously).

And I can’t tell you too many times how worth it is, the words I write here are not enough to describe the weight I’ve stopped carrying on my shoulders, how freer I am, how much better I’m feeling…

So if you’re feeling hopeless, please hold on. Please keep trying, because I swear you can do it. I never thought I could, I thought I would die having this disorder… But here I am, more than six months binge-free, and on my way to recover.

yeah, that’s me in a fitting room (you can see the overall’s tag)

 Pol ♡

Not Sure If I Was Bingeing!

Hi there! Happy October! 🙂

Many people have asked me about this topic on my instagram lately so I figured I would write a post about it since it seems important when it comes to overcoming BED or any kind of disordered eating.

Has it ever happened to you that you didn’t really know if you were bingeing or not? Well, it surely happened to me before I started my treatment, and I would spend a lot of time stressing about it. So I will try to explain the differences from having a full blown binge and binge eating.

A binge is doing “too much of something in a short period of time”. So if we apply this to food it is theoretically very clear what is a binge, and what is not. But in real life there are some days that while you aren’t clearly in “binge mode” (eating a large amount of food in a short period of time) you somehow, in a different way, end up overeating and feeling guilty, but you don’t know if it what you did was a binge or not.

Let’s put an example: You may be mindlessly snacking during the whole day, and at night you notice that you ate way more than a “normal” person would have in a regular day so you feel guilty. But there wasn’t a moment in which you consciously thought something like “This is it, I’m bingeing again”. So you end up wondering “Was that really a binge?”

While it probably wasn’t the common definition of a binge you do feel like it wasn’t normal eating, you do feel like something wasn’t right there.

The truth is that while the amount of the food you ate probably was inferior to the one you eat when you binge, what you need to recognize is if the underlying behavior is the same one. If it was, then it wasn’t a binge, but you were binge eating. Which is compulsive overeating, eating more than you should, and feeling like you can’t stop, it is part of BED.

Now you may find this cycle hard to break, and hell, it is. But there are some things that make it way easier. First, try to analyze how are the days when you keep mindlessly snacking. Did you have breakfast? Were you stressed? Did you drink enough water? Did you seep enough hours the night before?

The following tips have helped me enormously, since they are habits, you just have to get used to them, and they help with the snacking vicious cycle. The binge-urges are another story although they tend to be fewer, but what comes to the habits, those are easier to change. Also remember that this requires consistency, you can’t expect it to change from one day to another without putting work to it, this isn’t magical.

Having structured meals:

This is very important. If not the most important tip to break this particular vicious cycle. Having breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, a mid-afternoon snack and dinner. If you have been binge eating for a long time you probably have problems recognizing the signals your body sends you when it really is hungry or when it is having a binge urge. Having proper meals will help you reconnect with your body, it will help you re-learn to know when you’re hungry, when you’re satisfied and you’re full. And it has to be non-restrictive, because if it is you’ll feel deprived and due to our black and white thinking this will probably lead you to a binge.

Many people believe that you can start mindfully eating straight from binge eating disorder, I’m not going to say that it never works, because some people have recovered from doing it, but I’m convinced that the best option to reconnect with your body is this one. Doing it one step at a time. If a nutritionist can help you with a meal plan it would be even better.

Things you should stop doing: Having just one or two big meals for the whole day, or just mindlessly snacking through the day instead of having proper meals. Crash dieting (or skipping meals).

Stay hydrated:

I know that everybody says it, and you may think “oh this bitch, I’ve read this everywhere” but believe me. Sometimes you feel hungry at an odd hour and start feeling desperate, you drink a glass of water and it fades away. It’s real. Carry a bottle of water, it really might save you from overeating.

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So, I hope you found this post helpful. If there’s anything else you think I should add or if you have any questions just let me know through the comments or instagram 🙂

Pol