Just do it

What everyone suffering from an eating disorder needs to realise is that you will never be completely ready to recover and if you wait around for that day to come, then sadly you will most likely never recover. Its awful, but very true. No matter when you choose to get better, its going to be just as painful so I believe you might as well try and recover sooner rather than later, so that you dont waste anymore of you life unwell then you need to.

You may waste 6 months, 6 years or 6 decades of your life in that awful 'existing but not living' anorexic state we all know far too well. Personally, I spent about 2 and a half years there, before I realised I was going to do what ever it would take to make myself well again, no matter how painful it would be. Now, I wish I had started my true recovery sooner so that I didnt waste those years of my life, miserable like I did. I told myself at the time that I was trying to get better but now I can see that I wasnt really. I did want to get better but I wasnt actively fighting for me recovery like I needed to do.

I promise, being recovered is so worth every bit of pain that you go through during recovery and if I had to do it all over again to ensure I would end up as happy as I currently am, then I would without a doubt! No matter how hard things get whilst you are fighting your eating disorder, just keep reminding yourself of what you are fighting for and remember that although it may not feel like it, fighting tour anorexia cant actually kill you, only listening to your anorexia can do that.

After hospital (Part 2)

I know that it has been a while since I wrote the post After hospital (Part 1), but I have finally decided to continue my story. So this post is all about the time leading up to when I actually decided I wanted to turn my life around and recover.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, when things got to hard with mum at home, I moved in with my dad and brother. It was awful having to leave my sister but Ireally had no choice but to leave. My dad was managing a farm in quite an isolated part of Tasmania and my brother was living with him so he could travel to college in the city each day. I have always been extremely close to my dad so was happy to be moving in with him.

A typical day for me

8:00 Get up and make Breakfast
8:30 Go back to bed and eat my breakfast while watching a series on my laptop
10:00 Get up and go for a shower
10:30 Read
11:00 Go for a very brisk walk around the farm
1:00 Have lunch and watch another series
3:00 Fill in my food diary
4:00 Have something for afternoon Tea
4:30 Write in my diary
5:00 Go for a drive to find phone reception so I can check facebook ;)
6:30 Have Tea
7:00 Watch Telly with dad and luke
9:30 Go to bed

As you can see my days were extremely boring and didn't change all that much for the few months I was living down there. I was only eating 5500 KJ a day and was exercising so I was obviously losing weight. At the time I honestly wasn't trying to lose weight anymore, but I was too terrified to eat anymore as I though it would make me gain weight.

A typical days food intake

Brakfast: 3 sachets of oats prepared with water
Lunch: 2 Mountain bread wraps with ham, lettuce, 1 slice of fat free cheese, redbeet and capsicum and a Soliel diet chocolate mousse
Afternoon Tea: 1 chicken noodle cup of soup (only 180 kJ) and a small packet of rice wheels
Tea: 1 cup of terriyaki flavoured rice with pumpkin and frozen mixed vegetables (carrot, peas, corn, potato, broccoli and caulliflower)

In my diary entries from this time I wrote alot about exercising and trying to increase my metabolism. I never had any energy at all but would still force myself out into the freezing cold each day to walk. In one entry I wrote;
'I have become a bit of a fanatic when it comes to exercise. If I don't get some decent exercise I feel really guilty and feel as though Ineed to make up for it by lowering my food intake for that day. I couldn't do much exercise yesterday as I had to drive to the ity so ate less than I usually do. I also made sure I went for a really goood walk today even though it was absalutely freezing. I went for a brisk walk up and down lots of steep hills and it only took me 47 minutes, even though it ususally takes me 50. I planned to do 13 minutes of skipping this afternoon so that I could get my daily exercise up to one hour but my dad came home early so I couldn't :(

My brother found a baby Pademelon wallaby while I was living with him and dad who I rared. He needed lots of attention and was absalutely gorgeous. I had to feed him every 4 hours, even at night but he gave me a reason to get up out of bed in the mornings and always managed to make me smile.
















My dad had given up on trying to give me advice or trying to make me eat as he knew there was no use. He knew that he couldn't help me until I was ready to help myself. One night while I was lying in bed I checked my heart rate and was shocked to find that it was only 30 beats per minute which is much lower than it should have been. Suddenly I was terrified as I didn't know if I would actually wake up the following morning or not. That is the moment that I realised that I needed to change if I wanted to survive.

I moved back home with my mum and sister as I knew that my dad was going to be moving home shortly after. From than on I was actively making some effort to recover although it proved to be an extremely slow process for me. My plan was to try and get to a healthier state before starting university the following year. I will share the rest of my journey since deciding I wanted to recover in a later post! :)