I will try to fix you...

Fix. When something goes wrong, there is a requirement to adjust the situation and revert things to their natural order. It is never clear which route is the right one to take in order to achieve the sense of harmony there was before and more often than not there are multiple paths to choose from. However, the problem arises when wanting a quick route out of the situation. There is never a happy ending quick fix. In the case of finding a treatment for Anorexia, seldom will sufferers find the same route to recovery the right one for them. This is what makes it so difficult to treat an eating disorder; trial and error can take months if not years. Breaking out of fixed habits however is a necessity. Recovery can be slow but it is also achievable with perseverance.

 After having finally accepted that I was not yet strong enough mentally to cope without antidepressants, I started upon a new course of medication in the New Year. It was not a decision neither my GP nor I took lightly. Antidepressants, as many would be led to believe, are not an easy way out of dealing with rough patches in ones life and are to be taken as a serious way to help people manage with depression. A subsequent effect to suffering from Anorexia is often depression and for me I was led into a viscous circle of originally not having the strength to once more fight and win against my Anorexia. Since then I am proud of my achievements. I have come on leaps and bounds and have once more started to be the person I have always strived to be. Of course I am not in denial that things are still tough and I still have a lot yet to fix, but in the last 3 months, I yet again cannot compare myself to the person I had been over the Christmas period.

The hardest thing about reattempting recovery is the weight restoration. I constantly kick myself that I allowed myself to once again lose a significant amount of weight, as putting it back on is a lot tougher than it seems. I currently feel as if I am constantly eating and snacking in order to achieve the extra 2500 calories it takes to put on 1pound in a week. I wish I could snap my fingers and my body would be back to what it was over summer when I was at one of my happiest and most confident. Yet, at the same time I NEED to take this slowly and readjust to my body building up again. I am on the same restoration diet I was on when I initially lost the weight but I have yet to see what benefits it has been having. I continued losing weight despite my increased calorie intake and at first this was disheartening. But why give up? Why admit defeat? I managed to restore my weight once and therefore am perfectly capable of doing it again; I believe I have finally reached the upward spiral. I have turned the curve around.

Skiing has always been my outlet, despite going barely more than one week a year. When I was first recovering 2 years ago, I came back from a week away in the mountains feeling rejuvenated and ready to fight. So this year when I joined my family for a brief holiday away I challenged myself as I had never challenged myself before. I had pastries for breakfast, I had hot chocolate on the slopes, pancakes and I even had a pizza. I even went for a hearty 3 course meal and ate it all to which my dad admitted had made him so happy to see me eat so freely again and enjoy it. I came to accept that it would not hurt my body to have such calorie dense food once in a while and that I actually needed it to sustain my body after physical exertion and the cold. I will admit these are feats I will not be repeating again very soon, but it broke a barrier in my brain that I had for so long been fighting against. 

Coming back to university was the biggest surprise for me. I ditched the calculator and have officially stopped religiously counting my daily calorie intake; something I had not done for over a year. I used to fix my calorie intake so that it would always fall below a target amount. Naively I had yet again let my Anorexia poison me into thinking it wouldn’t do me any harm but would empower me and make me stronger. I was weak. I was cold. I was losing weight.  I read Biomedical Sciences and am well aware of the implications of starvation, yet I did not let that logic apply to myself at the time. Realising I had fallen back into the noxious delirium created by the Anorexia, I had to push through my clouded mind and once again recover. If anything this has now made me stronger. I can admit this as I sit here thinking about things other than the number of calories I will allow myself to eat today.

With a newfound determination to recover, came my desire to once more go out and socialise. I realise that I cannot yet be spontaneous with plans and that they do still revolve around my meal times, yet I have allowed myself a lot more flexibility. It still makes me anxious breaking out of my comfortable eating habits, but if I want to live a normal life, I must challenge it. Meeting a like-minded person, who also supported me every step of the way, has been of a huge benefit to me. I have found someone I can just relieve all my anxieties with, without the fear of being judged and I find that comforting. It has allowed me to take the baby steps in my recovery and slowly immerse myself back into a healthy social life, without being pushed in to the deep end. Of course that is not to say that others around me and back at home have not supported me too. I am always in constant awe of how much people really do care.

I have always set the bar high for myself, so not seeing immediate effects of a recovery can be very discouraging to me. However, I have learnt to use the pressure I put on myself in a positive way. I utilise it in my challenges and in my need to achieve. It can be frustrating at times to not wake up without having to worry about having enough calories in the day, or being socially anxious about going out and leaving my comfort zone. I am 21 years old and I should not be afraid of going out and having fun, but the run up can seem like such a chore as I push myself to not back out of commitments. I have so much to look forward to and I know they can only be achieved through my continued fight against Anorexia. It will be slow and I will feel like I’m going nowhere at times.  What I must always remember however is that one-day I will be fixed.