My thoughts on a Readers comment

You have done and continue to do an amazing job Karly. Pleases remember that although you are at a low end of healthy weight you are still actually very slim and just border line of healthy. There are some thoughts which won't go away until you reach your set point and feed yourself for long enough. You need to ask yourself if you are truly at your set point or if you are sub consciously stopping yourself from going further than you want to. I am so proud of how far you have come and utterly in awe of your fighting spirit. I know that if you do need to keep going with your weight, that deep down you will know what the right thing to do is. xxx

Firstly, I just want to say thank you so much to the person who left this comment. I have taken in everything you have said and I appreciate your honesty so much. :) Your comment has made me think a lot about my current stance in recovery and has made me question whether I am weight restored or not. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on this with everyone as everything always seems much clearer, when I write it out in a post. I would also be very interested to hear some feedback from some of my other readers too. 

The  person who left this comment was so right when they said I am only at the very low end of a healthy weight range. Sometimes I forget this as I am so much bigger then I used to be but I really am still quite thin. Since my bmi is only 19, and anything under 18.5 is classified as underweight, I am basically at a minimally acceptable weight for my height. I guess I have been kidding myself a little though as just because my current weight is 'acceptable,' this does not mean that it is my natural set point weight. 

It's just so hard to know what my natural healthy setpoint weight is. Genetically, I am not supposed to be a very big person. In fact, both my brother and dad are underweight and my mum is very thin also. In saying this, I know I shouldn't use this as excuse if it just means that I am sub consciously stopping myself from reaching my set point weight. Afterall, if I am stopping myself from reaching my natural healthy set point weight, then I am only hurting myself and my recovery.

I am still eating 2500 calories per day, which is classified as recovery amounts of food for some. I figured  that if I was still not yet at my healthy set point, I would continue to slowly gain whilst eating this amount and that if I was already weight  restored, I would maintain my weight at this intake. I know I  shouldnt just assume that I am weight restored because I am no longer gaining weight though. Afterall I am very active and do a lot of walking which could prevent me from gaining weight, even if my body still needs too.

Sub consciously, I guess  I could be stopping myself from gaining weight because the truth is, I like my body the way it currently is and dont want it to change. Yes, it may be my anorexia making me so frightened of gaining weight but I remember back to how unhappy I was with my body before I developed anorexia and I am terrified of ever feeling that way again. I am currently able to accept my body the way it is and this really is the most wonderful feeling for me.

I hope that I am not making any of my readers dissappoointed when I say that at this stage I do not plan on making any big changes to try and gain weight as I honestly dont know if I actually need to or not. The reader who made this comment bought up an incredibly important point when they said that certain thoughts would not go away until I was at my natural set point weight. I can still feel myself getting stronger and making recovery progress all the time at this stage but if ever a day comes that I stop making recovery progress and I still have anorexic thoughts, I know that I will then need to gain more weight in order to get rid of them.

 

Helping others recover

Without a doubt, the thing I love most about having a blog is getting the chance to help others suffering from Anorexia. Ever since developing anorexia, I have been horrified by the lack of professional support there is out there for people suffering from anorexia. I think the main problem is that such little is known about anorexia and other eating disorders, that many doctors simply do not know how to help sufferers. 

When I went to hospital, the staff got me to gain weight but did not help me with my actual anorexia at all. The only reason I ate was because the staff basically threatened my anorexia with more calories if I refused. The 6 weeks I spent in hospital therefore served as my planning time for how I would lose the weight again, when I got out of hospital, which is exactly what I did. 

Ever since I have tried to get help from psychiatrists, psychologists and other 'specialists' but none of them have been able to help me at all. None if them could offer recovery advice or even give me any kind of hope that recovery was even possible. I honestly felt as though I was much more knowledgable about eating disorders then the people who I have been reffered to, so decided I was wasting my time by seeing them.

One psychiatrist even told me there was no point in going to see her, if I wasn't 'willing to try.' The problem was never that I was unwilling to try, but more that I had no idea how. People were telling me that I needed to get better, but they werent offering me any advice at all about how I actually could do that. 

So ever since getting sick, I have felt very unsupported and this has only made me want to help other sufferers who are going through what I have been through and who have felt the complete desperation I have felt. While I hoped I could help others through my blog, I had no idea just how much I would be able to help others. 

Since starting to blog, I have gotten comments like;

'Thank you, thank you! I wouldn't/couldn't be doing this without you!'

'Karly you have no idea how much easier recovery has been for me since I found your blog. Your posts and your emails have been a life saver, really.'

'This post has been so helpful, Thank you :)'

'You are such an inspiration for everyone recovering......If you can do it, I can do it.'

'Thankyou so much Karly'

'You continue to inspire and motivate me everyday'

You will never know just what these types of comments mean to me. I feel like crying everytime I read something like this as I feel ao overwhelmingly happy that I am making a positive difference to peoples lives. Comments like these have now become my main motivation for my own recovery, as I have realised that people are relying on the strength and determination I demonstrate in my own recovery, to help them in theirs.

Everytime I feel as though things are too hard, I think of these kinds of comments and remember that I cant give up. I need to keep recovering and fighting, not only for myself but also for all of the people out there who believe in me. I feel as though my blog has given my life more purpose and that is only thanks to all of the wonderful people who read it, so thank you. You all say that I help you in your recoveries but you help me too, more then you will ever know.

Rainy day, missing comments and Thank-you

It is raining at the moment so I wont be taking Tess for a walk this morning if it doesnt stop. If I am completely honest I do feel a little bit anxious about not going for a walk with her this morning but I havent let this stop me from doing the right thing for me and my recovery. As I was making myself breakfast this morning, thoughts popped into my head telling me that I didnt need to eat as much because as I wouldnt be going for a walk this morning. Fortunately I was strong enough to push these thoughts aside and made myself my usual breakfast (with some extra peanut butter, just to annoy my anorexia even more ;)).

So while I was anxious at first about the thought of not being able to go for a walk, in a way I am kind of feeling grateful for the rain now. This morning the rain has given me an extra chance to fight my anorexia, bringing me that little bit closer to recovery. If I cant go for a walk today, I will not let myself compensate in any way as I promised I would not listen to my anorexia anymore and compensating would be doing just that. I know it will be hard to do this, infact it would be easier just to give in, but sometimes the hardest path in life is the right path and this is one of those times.

If anyone has noticed anything weird going on with my comments it is because I accidently deleted by latest 50 comments last night. I was so devastated as it means so much to me when you all comment on my posts so I have tried my best to fix it. I have spent quite a few hours since then going back through the notifications I recieve via email whenever a comment is published on my blog and have manually re entered each of them onto my blog. This was obviously quite difficult and I could have quite easily missed some of them so if you notice any of our conversations have disappeared please let me know so I can find them in my mailbox and repost them. :)

I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all of your support. As I was reading through all my comments it made me realise just how lucky I am to have so many wonderful people by my side as I try and recover. My blog just wouldnt be the same without all of you and you all mean a great deal to me. I Really cant thank you enough.

Have a great day everyone. Be strong and keep fighting.
<3