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! :)

After hospital (part 1)

After sharing with you all my Inpatient experience, I think that it Is now important for me to share what happened to me once I was sent home.

As I said, my frame of mind was not much healthier when I left hospital  then when I went in. And my anorexia was just angrier as I had been forced to gain weight that I thought was extremely unnecessary. I compromised with my parents and agreed that I would try to stabilize my weight, but this didn't work. I was scared of most foods because I was scared they would make me gain weight which led to me under eating and losing weight.

I will share with you a part of a diary entry from when I first got home. You will probably notice that this entry is not angry like the last one I posted. Obviously my anorexia was not angered at the time I wrote It.

xxxxx

21/11/2012
So I am home, which I'd good.... I think! I have decided to concentrate really hard on stabilizing my weight. Although I know this will be hard as I will have to eat more than I am comfortable with, I would rather eat the food here then in Hospital where I will have to gain more weight. I would love to just be able to stay the size I am and avoid going back to hospital. 
The only reason I don't want to go back to hospital is because I don't want to gain weight. Besides that, I think I prefer being in hospital than at home. Mum is truly horrible. She constantly talks about what I have given up, as if I chose to get sick. She says that I no longer care about my future, just because I don't know If am ready to go straight to university next year or not. I just want to have a chance to get happy and enjoy myself. 
I feel like mum is laying down so many laws and being really controlling again which is a part of where my eating disorder began. Constantly rubbing in what I have lost through having anorexia doesn't help anything. It just makes us fight and makes me feel bad about myself.

xxxxx

Things were difficult with my family at home, just as they had been before I went to hospital. My parents were told by the hospital that I needed to continue eating the same meal plan but there was no way I was going to listen. I argued that if I continued to eat the sane amount I would continue to gain weight. They new I should be drinking juice and milky drinks still but I completely refused. Meal times became a disaster, especially tea. My mum tried to cook things she thought I would be comfortable with but I didn't want to eat anything. I Would argue with mum about how much I would have dished up on my plate and insisted that a small piece of fruit was enough for each snack.

The next month or so was all a bit of a blur. I can't really remember much about this time but I do remember arguing with my mum a lot. I know It would have been hard for her but our relationship had been rocky for a long time, even before I got anorexia which made listening to her even more difficult. I moved in with my nan on boxing day night and stayed with her for two months. In these two month, for the first time I was a relatively normal teenager. I worked as as waitress, hung out with friends, went camping, went to first few parties and became more confident.

I lost a bit of weight but was getting away with it. I prepared all of my own meals and my grandparents weren't concerned by what I was eating as I ate quite a lot of food but it was all very low calorie food. I was happy with how I looked and I honestly wasn't trying to lose weight anymore. I unintentionally under ate as I was scared that I would gain weight if I ate any more. I moved back home and my GP told me that if  I lost anymore weight I would have to go back to hospital so I did start eating more again. She also made we give up my job so I could just concentrate on looking after myself. My weight stabilized for a while but slowly I reduced my calorie intake. I stopped going to my GP so no longer had to worry about her threatening me with going back to hospital.

I ate a reasonable volume of food but all the foods I ate had a very low calorie density. I intentionally chose foods that would be filling and that had a Low gi so I wouldn't feel hungry. I became obsessed with food and would try and make my eating time as long as possible. I ate with tiny cutlery and also ate only tiny mouthfuls of food at a time. I ate a huge bowl of oats for breakfast each morning which took me over an hour to eat. I also ate a lot of tinned spaghetti and soup. I was extremely bored and spent my days Watching TV, doing chores around the house and thinking about food. I was only eating about 5500 kj a day and didn't think I was losing any weight. My dad had to move away for work and only came home on the weekends. Eventually I moved out of home and went to live full time with him when the fighting with my mum got to much.

To be continued.....