Please, just ask

I know that the types of posts that I write has changed a fair bit since I first started my blog and I guess this is because my life has changed so much since then. I used to write about various topics and issues that were relevant to my anorexia at the time but now, those types of things are not really relevant to my life anymore, so I forget to write about them. I guess that this is a good thing really as it shows just how my life has been turned around and it shows just how much progress I have made.

In saying this, I do not mind writing about those types of things that used to effect me and that I used to write about in order to help any of my readers out. I have been thinking and have realised that there are probably a lot of you who are in a much earlier stage of recovery then myself and what is relevant to me, is not necessarily relevant to you. I honestly don't mind writing about anything at all from my past or present, all you have to do is ask :)

You can also go back and read my old posts that I wrote in the earlier stages of my recovery as well if you are looking for any guidence or advice about a articular topic. Other then that I will try to remember back to what life was like in the earlier stages of my recovery and I will try to write a bit more about overcoming various challenges I was faced with.

Some people may question whether it is healthy for me to be thinking back to when I was sick so much as in a way it may be stopping me from moving forward but I honestly dont find it harmmful to me at all, at this stage of my life anyway. If anything, remembering back to the bad times just reminds me of how terrible life used to be and makes me never want to go back to that. It also makes me appreciate how wonderful life is at the moment, now that I am so much closer to making a full recovery.

Initially I made my blog mainly to try and help myself in my own recovery and I honestly believe that my blog has served this purpose extremely well. Now however since I am in such a good place, I feel as though the most important role of my blog is to help others others. So please, if you have any ideas about how Ican help you or anyone else, I would love for you to share them with me. Don't be shy, just comment any ideas or questions below or if you would rather, you can email me at: karlygraham94@gmail.com

 

Day 29: A confession

One particular confession I have was from when I as a child was that sometimes I would intentionally give myself nose bleeds, just for attention. I am incredibely ashaimed about the fact that I did this now and feel terrible however at the time, I honestly just think that I wanted to be noticed. I was an incredibely insecure child and felt better when I was noticed and people were concerned about me. I was a part of a big family and I didn't seem to get any attetion at all.

I was very prone to getting nose bleeds anyway however I found out all that I had to do was tap the end of my nose (which barely even hurt) and then my nose would start bleeding. The nose bleeds would be extremely heavy and I would actually loose a lot of blood. Because I had nose bleeds nearly every day, this led to me being extremely tired all of the time as I was loosing so much blood. 

Eventually I went to hospital and had day surgery to have my nose cortorised to stop the nose bleeds. This involved having the vein that was too close to the surface of skin on the inside of my nose being sealed so it would not burst and start bleeding as often. Even though I would have needed this operation whether I had given myself some of those intentional nose bleeds or not, I stil remember thinking as I went into the oerating theatre 'what have I done to myself'?

I don't know what caused me to act in this way as a child. I think it is sad that I was willing to harm myself in that way, just to get some attention and have people look after me. Maybe I was just an attention seeker, or perhaps this attention seeking went deeper and was actually related to my anxiety and other insecurities. One thing is for sure, I am not at all proud of what I did. This is the first time I have told anyone about wat I used to do to myself as a child but it really does feel good to get it off my chest.\

Cape York School trip 2011

In 2011 (the year before I got sick), I went on a school trip to the Cape York Peninsular which is at the very top of Australia. This focus of this school trip was to exeperience the indigenous culture within Australia, as most of the people living at Cape York are Aborigines. While white people (Anglo-Saxon Australians) have only lived in Australia for less then 250 years, Indigenous people have been living in Australia for 40000-60000 years.

In the early days of white settlement, the Aborigines and white people did not get along very well and the aborigines were treated very poorly. This has always seemed unfair to me, considering they were here in Australia first but I think that it is now time for all Australians to come together and stop resenting one another. I dont think it matters what colour you are or what country you originated from, at the end of the day we are all Australians and need to learn to get along and respect one another.

After flying from Tasmania to Cairns we drove in a troopie up to Cape York.

 Covered in mud after mud Crab hunting. Mud Crabs are almost a delicacy in Australia but since were were with Aboriginal people, we were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to go.

Ella, Marda and I. Marda is the aboriginal girl who travelled with us fir oue entire trip

Playing with some aboriginal children when we visitedvtheir school. 

My friend Ella and I on a hike we took with an aboriginal man. He told us all about how the aboriginal people lived completemy off of the land.

Swimming with friends: we had to be careful when choosing where to swim as they gave fresh and salt water crocidiles in Cape York.

The 6 students who went on the school trip to Cape york with Marda

In the troopie after Akul hunting. Akul shells are shellfish that aboriginal people search for in the muddy mangroves. We made a campgire to cook the akul shells we found and then ate them.

We had a fantastic time in Cape york and I learnt so much about Aboriginal culture. When we got home, we decided to raise money so that we could bring some of the children we met up in Cape york, down to Tasmania, so that they could experience our culture too.

Gillena, an aboriginal girl who stayed with me for the 10 days they were staying in Tasmania

Overall this was a truly amazing experience that I will never forget.

Day 14: Think about yourself 1 year ago, how have you changed?

Then vs Now

Weighing every single bit of food I ate
vs
Eating nearly every food without weighing it first (there are a few exceptions)

Needing to know the EXACT calorie count of everything I ate
vs
keeping a rough idea about how many calories I eat (so I know I am eating enough)

Seeing exercise as something I had to do every day no matter what
vs
walking my dog twise a day when I can, otherwise I dont exercise at all

compulsively counting macronutrients as well as calories
vs
having absalutely no idea what macronutrients I eat each day and not caring

Being absaluteltly terrified of gaining any weight
vs
Feeling dissapointed if I fail to gain weight

Feeling as though recovery is impossible
vs
believing that I can recover

Eating less calories then what is reccommended for the average women
Vs
Eating far more calories then what is reccommended for the average man

Refusing to eat food prepared by anyone else
Vs
being able to push myself to eat food prepared by others

Compensating for eating more at one meal or being unable to exercise by restricting
vs
Realising it is perfectly ok to eat more or exercise less without compensating

Refusing to drink anything but water and coke zero
vs
drinking Up and Go meal supplement drinks, juice and hot chocolate as well as water

Looking for foods to eat with a really low calorie density
Vs
Looking for foods to eat with a high calorie density

Still thinking that being thin was the answer to my problems
vs
Realising that being thin would only make my problems worse

Being completely socially withdrawn and miserable at university in the city
Vs
Being back in my home town and happily socialising everyday at work

Spending atleast an hour on my calorie counting app each day planning meals
Vs
Not even opening my calorie app most days (and if I do, I look up only a single food)

Letting my anorexia call the shots
vs
doing the complete opposite of whatever my anorexia tells me to do

These are just some of the differences between the way I was living one year ago and how I am now living today. I could go on writing but the list really does seem endless. I am almost a completely different person now. I have a whole new attitude about life and recovery and am now ready to start living the life I know I deserve to have. Seeing just how far I have come in the last year, reminds me of what I am capable of achieving over the next year of my life and this excites me very much. BRING ON RECOVERY!

Questions and Answers (part 1)

What are some of your pet peeves?

- when people open up a packet of something i.e. a packet of biscuits, take one out and then they dont wrap the packet back up so that the rest of the buscuits go Stale

-when people always leave just a mouthful of food in their bowl or on their plate.

-when people dip a dirty knife into a spread jar or container i.e. getting butter mixed in with the jam or getting toast crumbs in the butter

-people chewing on gum with their mouth open

-when people (particularly old people) tell you the exact same story every time they see you

-when people get a dog but never take them for walks. they just leave them tied up all the time

-when people think its ok to call someone skinny, but not fat

-when people are really friendly and speak to you when they are on their own but completely ignore you if they are with other people

-when someone starts watching a movie with you but then get up and leave only 5 or 10 minutes before it finishes

-when males refuse to do the washing up because they think that it is a females job

Favorite foods?

This is a really hard one for me as I honestly love food but my all time favourite foods are pretty much everything in my meal plan. My favourite snacky foods are Cashew butter, cakes, creamed rice, fresh fruit, chocolate bars, apple pie, pudding, icecream and custard. My favourite main meal foods are oats, fresh bread, pasta (lasagna, carbonara, ravioli, pasta salad), vegetables, chicken parmigiana, rice, and hot chips. Growing up I only ever ate very basic foods so still do now. The only things I really drink besides water are Up and Go's, hot chocolate and coke zero.

Do you think you'll keep living in Australia or move somewhere else some day? 

I honestly have never considered moving outside of Australia, probably because I have never even travelled outside of Australia before. Of course if my future husband needed to move to another country for some reason I would go as well but at this stage I probably dont see myself living anywhere other than Australia otherwise. If I did move over seas I would want to go somewhere that spoke English as I cannot speak any other language and I really am terrible at trying to learn new languages. I think that Australia really is a wonderful place to live and I feel very lucky to live in such a safe and fortunate country. 

What where the main reasons too decided to recover?

I guess the main reason I wanted to recover was just because I was so fed up and exhausted with my life the way it was. I wasnt 'starving' myself for about 18 months before I decided to recover but I was very underweight and my life completely revolved around my anorexic thoughts and behaviours. I hated the way I was living and knew that if I did not want to be miserable for the rest of my life I needed to make a change. I was also tired of hurting the people around me, particularly my dad. I could see that I was breaking my dads heart through being sick and couldn't bare to do it to him any longer.

Day 8: if you could go back in time (before your disorder) what would you tell yourself

I have so much I would want to tell myself in the hope that it would stop me from going down the terrible path I took which led to me developing my anorexia. I had no idea about how awful eating disorders were until it was too late. Perhaps if I had known how serious eating disorders are and how hard they are to overcome, I would have done more to prevent myself from developing one.

If I could go back I would tell my myself that being skinny does not make you happy. I was so convinced that I would be happier if I was thin but this definetely was not the case. In fact I was much unhappier once I lost 20 kg through my eating disorder then I was to begin with. Now I realise that if you feel uncomfortable with your body, losing weight is not the answer. The right answer is to change the way you feel about yourself by learning to love who you are.

I would tell myself that there are other non harmful coping skills that I can use to deal with my anxiety other than by controlling my food and weight. Afterall, starving yourself only makes your anxiety worse. I would make myself realise that there was nothing wrong with my body before I got sick. I was never overweight or fat. I was always healthy and fit and more importantly, I was always happy. I can see now that I didnt need to change anything about myself.

Me at my heaviest ever weight. No I wasnt super skinny but I was healthy and happy which is so much more important.

I would tell myself that nobody in the world is perfect and that I shouldn't expect myself to be either. Trying to make yourself look 'perfect' will only ever lead to dissapointment because there will always be things about yourself that you aren't completely happy with.  I hate the way society makes everyone feel as though they need to be super skinny in order to have the perfect body and be successful. If I could go back I would tell myself that society is wrong, that there is nothing perfect about being skinny.

While it would be nice to have a time machine, unfortunately I dont. I do not feel as though worrying about could've or would've beens now can help me in my recovery. Its time to stop dwelling on what has happened in the past as it is too late to change it now. We can however learn from the past and use this knowledge of past experiences to help us in our present day lives and into the future. It took me 3 long years to find the strength I needed to fight my anorexia. Without having anorexia I would have never found out just how much inner strength I have. My illness has shown me that nothing is impossible and that we really are the creators of our own destiny. I feel as though as long as I am able to fully recover, getting sick will actually allow me to live a better more successful life in the future as it has shown me the meaning of life and what is truly important.

Binging in Anorexia Recovery

I know that it is quite common for people who have suffered from restrictive eating disorders to experience binging after they start eating larger amount in recovery and this is something that I am really scared of. When I talk about binging, I don't just mean eating lots as obviously this is what all anorexics need to do while they are recovering. While I have stuck to my meal plan really well so far and have never felt as though I have lost control over what I am eating, I still worry that it could happen to me as it is so common in recovery.

One of the reasons I am so terrified of binging is because I know how guilty and awful I would feel and this may lead me feeling as though need to purge. While I haven't purged over the last 3 years, I did do it very early on in my eating disorder and it was by far the most awful thing I have ever done to myself. I honestly think that my anorexia started as the purge type anorexia and then transformed into the restrictive type. When I was admitted to hospital early on in my illness I made a promise to myself that I would never make myself vomit again and that I would not put myself in a position so that I would feel tempted to do so ever again either.

I try not to think about it too much as was so awful but it was extremely painful and made me feel very ashamed. For me, it wasn't easy to make myself vomit so It would take me a long time to get rid of what I had eaten. When I finished my stomach muscles would be really sore, as was my throat and my hand. I still have a scar over my knuckle from where it repeatedly rubbed over my teeth as I made myself vomit and I am really surprised no one ever noticed it when I was purging as it would have been an obvious give away for anyone who had any knowledge about eating disorders. 

I understand why binges happen in anorexic recovery and if you want to learn more about it, you should click here. I get that it is a natural response when your body is reintroduced to food after being deprived for so long, but that does not mean I want it to happen to me. While I know that the extra food consumed in a binge wouldn't necessarily be bad in terms of my physical recovery, I know that it it would be very damaging psychologically For me. I am finally really enjoying food again and I dont want to make myself feel bad about eating it, which is what would happen if I binged. There is also always the risk of developing a secondary eating disorder like Binge Eating Disorder which I obviously want to avoid as well.

Does anyone else have these types of worries while recovering? Or does anyone have any advice about how to prevent binging in recovery?