Breaking up with Ana

  Through the 12-step program, sobriety = abstinence from your addiction.  Come January 7th, I should technically be "3 years sober". I've been thinking over the past year how comfortable I feel in using the term sober, because I certainly have not abstained from old eating disorder behaviours. I feel as though if I claim to be 3 years sober, it would ultimately be a lie. How can I write about it being okay to have blips and talk about the fact that recovery isn't linear, while at the same time talking about sobriety? It's dishonest and misleading.  I've decided that for me, I no longer want to use the term sober. It doesn't reflect the reality of recovery for me. So for now, 3 years in recovery is how I will approach January 7th. It'll be 3 years since I accepted that I had an eating disorder, 3 years since I started to give up control, and educated myself on the realities of what I was doing to myself and other people. Recovery is so so hard. Especia

 Hello beautiful humans The end of the year always goes something like this for me: October = Mild panic. It's my birthday in November and usually pictures are taken - best look reasonable for them. November = Pretty decent panic. It's my birthday, pictures will be taken. Do I look okay? have I gained weight from last year? Will people comment on my body? Oh shit it's Christmas next month. December = Major panic. I had photos taken at my birthday, and people will compare them to the pictures from Christmas.* Food. So much food. Lots of people. Stressful family times. Diet talk. Help. This year for sure is turning out no different, apart from the fact that we are in a global pandemic, and lockdown is being re-implemented. So no biggie really 😉.  For me, the added stress at the moment is the fact that people are already panic buying. Around Christmas time is when I like to stick to my safe foods, even if throughout the rest of the year I am relatively relaxed. Safe foods m

I've been relatively quiet about the governments latest scheme and plan to introduce visible calories  on menus. My mind has been racing, and I think I have felt every negative emotion under the sun; however I've just not been able to write anything that I am happy with or that I believe truly showcases why this whole thing is absurd. I decided to stop trying to write a perfect piece on the absurdity of the situation and just write an honest letter. Dear Boris,  Every time your government has mentioned helping people with their mental health, I've always wondered how much they actually understand the extent of the UK's mental health crisis. I've put my optimistic hat on and chosen to believe that you've done your research and are truly invested in improving our countries mental health. I have never believed however that your government know how to "tackle obesity". They are clearly clueless about the fact that as human beings, we can be 'fat' a

Happy 12 th (?) week of lockdown! I hope those of you who still read this blog are all keeping well and having a restful time if you haven’t been at work. I honestly thought I would write on here loads, but I really haven’t had that much to say – nothing that is particularly useful for myself or others anyways! I’ve had questions from people about how to deal with the lockdown if you have an eating disorder. The honest answer is that I wish I knew, because I am struggling. So if anybody knows, please message me!! I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to work for about half of lockdown, but other than my beautiful bunny Meredith, I’ve gone home every night to an empty house. There have been days in a row where I haven’t physically had to open my mouth to talk. It’s just been the weirdest thing. I’ve found it really tricky, especially as my normal coping mechanism when my mood gets questionable is to get out the house and see people. I don’t do well living alone. I mean, Meredith lis

Full - It hates that word. Whether you're full with emotions, or food It hates it. It cannot stand the sensation of fullness And therefore proceeds to empty you. Empty- A word it thrives on. To the outside world, emptiness is associated with negativity and malnourishment But to it, it's seen as an achievement something to be proud of. Pride - Usually something you fell after doing something well, right? But what if that thing is actually eating away at you slowly? It will do that. It will slowly take away everything that makes you, you. You don't realise and with time you become scared. Fear - A negative emotion. It knows that fear will keep you in it's grasp. Fear of the unknown, fear of imperfection, fear of losing control. It recognises these and pulls you into a fake sense of security. It makes you believe you'll be okay if you just trust it. You won't be though. In order to be truly okay, you need to take control of it. Pu

On the 20/04/2020, BBC2 aired a program called ‘Horizon’. ‘Horizon’ is a restaurant whereby, and I quote “every calorie eaten must be burned off”. As someone in recovery from Anorexia, I am of course biased in the fact that I think this is disgusting. However, I do feel I have a good reason to feel this way. I spent way too many days in hospital, at appointments and in inpatient settings to just let this go. This program is so so dangerous. It is very easy to say “Just don’t watch the program”, however if you have ever struggled with an eating disorder, you know it is not as easy as that. There is a little piece of your mind that wants to self-destruct, and sometimes it is completely out of your control. I am grateful to be in a position where I managed to distract myself during the evening with other things, but others won’t have been in that position. There are many reasons why this program is absolutely not okay, but the main reason that I will continue to preach until I

First off, apologies for this going up SO late. I needed to just chill out today and just take some time for myself! On another note - THANK YOU so much for all the support you've been giving me and my friends this week. Although this is the final post in 'this series', and although it is the end of EDAW 2020, awareness is always needed, and people are always suffering, so please keep talking about it.  Supporting a friend with an ED This is one of the tougher topics to approach for me. Friends are so so important in recovery, but with that there needs to be boundaries - to protect both parties. This is something I am still very much still learning about, despite being 2 years into recovery now. It's quite tough. I've been the friend to someone who is struggling, and I've been the one struggling and leaning on a friend, so I understand it from both angles. Libs and Katie - my two BIGGEST supports. Love you x I've spoken to some people in the p

Hola my sweets! My friend Jack has very generously offered to write a blog post on relapse in ED recovery - which may I add is a very normal thing to go through in recovery, and not something to be ashamed of. I'm very proud of this man! Thank you, Jack!  Recovery Is Far From Linear Relapse. It’s a word dripping with subtext. A word that, to the eyes of the public, comes with connotations of failure, regression and backwards steps. This couldn’t be further from the truth, however. ‘ Recovery isn’t linear ’ – it’s a phrase bandied around every other mental health circle like it’s going out of fashion, but it’s done so with very good reason. It’s true . The phrase is grounded in complete truth and objective fact. Having finished treatment for my eating disorder just over half a year ago, I thought, naively it must be said, that that was that. That I’d had this hurdle in my life, but that it was now firmly in my rear-view mirror. Even when my therapist made the poin

Hello Hello! So this is a tough one for me. Initially, I made the decision to not involve people's opinions or thought processes on my own sickness and recovery period because I thought it would be too difficult. However, my beautiful mum has written a piece about what it's like to have a child with an ED and her experiences with my recovery journey. Forever grateful for the incredible support of my family. Love you mum x "Hello, I'm Hayley, Daisy's mum.  I wanted to write a bit about what being a mother of a child with anorexia is like. Daisy started with what we thought was asthma at the age of 11 years old. She daily would come in with her hands cupped over her nose and mouth saying, “I can't breathe" Trips to the GP only resulted in giving her a Ventolin inhaler. I used to feel so helpless. It took until she was 15 years old to work out that this wasn't asthma but panic attacks.  Around that time our family broke a part and we her pare

Disclaimer: I am writing this as someone who lives in the UK, so I cannot comment on treatment options in other countries. Hello! Todays post is focusing on getting help and treatment in the UK. Again, this won't be an overly long post, however I just wanted to be able to signpost people the best that I can! If you want any more information, please look at BEAT's website :) BEAT: BEAT are a UK charity dedicated to helping those suffering with an eating disorder, and those around them too. They have a lot of amazing, disorder specific help and advice on their website , that can really help you understand what you, or someone you know might be going through. They also run online support groups that are tailored to specific age groups, and struggles - these groups got me through a relapse and are so incredible. BEAT also have a help-line(0808 801 0677), a student-line (0808 801 0811) , and a youth-line (0808 801 0711) - I have used all of these lines at some

First off, thank you SO much for your support on yesterday's post - you are all incredible humans! Hello beautiful humans! Today's post is going to be focusing on how to cope with an Eating Disorder or recovery from an ED at university. This is something that personally I have had to tackle with, and still have to do on a daily basis - but when I first started uni, there wasn't much support or advice out there. It's not going to be a very long post, because I don't want people to get bored haha, however I have been able to chat with a number of people about their experiences with an ED at university, and they have all GEMS and provided me with some advice to pass on in this post! University can be a prime time for ED's to develop, or come out of their sneaky hiding places. Most students move away from home, meaning that their ED's are given the opportunity to sneak in. Especially when you are cooking for yourself, and not under the watchful eye of

Hello! So today, I want to focus on something that isn ’ t really looked at within the media – men with eating disorders. Despite eating disorders predominantly being associated with women, men certainly don ’ t escape them. I interviewed a friend of mine recently who has suffered with an eating disorder. He happily agreed to share his journey. I really hope that this can maybe bring comfort to someone.  Ed - Looking Dashing Hello! Do you mind introducing yourself and giving me one cool fact about yourself?  Hi, I’m Ed and I’m a violinist - is that cool? I honestly don’t even know? When did you first develop your eating disorder? I think I probably started just before I turned 17 but I really didn’t realise what was going on until I’d developed some really unhealthy and self-destructive habits. Do you feel there was a particular trigger for your eating disorder? I can definitely pinpoint a couple of key moments during sixth form that acted as catalysts but I

Hello! So this week is eating disorder awareness week, which is basically a week in which awareness is raised on eating disorders and their treatment/lack of treatment. Last year I got involved with the media quite a lot, and shared my story with multiple different people. However this year I want to do something that is more inclusive and helpful on my own platform, as sometimes it's hard to relate exactly to what a specific person is going through, as ED's are so so different and present differently in different people. It's so important to remember that there are so many types of eating disorders out there, some more well known than others. Because of this, I kind of just want to explore each one in a little bit of detail. I don't really like labels or labelling someone as 'Bulimic', or a 'binge eater' etc, but for the purposes of this I'll talk about each condition with its generic labels. Even if you cannot relate completely to one of these

Hello lovelies! So today marks 2 years in recovery for me. 2 years since I decided that I no longer wanted to be controlled by my eating disorder and that I wanted to commit to the best of my ability to living a life that is full of self care, love and looking after my inner child. Granted, this isn't always the case - as I like to remind people, recovery isn't linear so there is no possible way that over the past 2 years I would have been in 'recovery mindset' 24/7. That's unrealistic. Someone once said to me that it takes double the amount of time you suffered with an eating disorder to overcome it, so given that, I'm in such early recovery still, therefore i need to give myself some slack. It's not all doom and gloom though! Yes I've had weeks, and sometimes a couple of months at a time when I've really struggled, but on the whole recovery has always been on my mind. No matter how bad things have got, I've continued to go to therapy w