First video!

Here is my first ever video
JJ asked me if I could show some footage of Honey and Lea
So I though I would do a test shot
Honey is in the background
I think she stole the show!

Enjoy.......

Never give up

They say that there are 5 stages to when we want to make a change
Pre-contemplation
Contemplation
Preparation
Action
And maintenance



This is true of any change we decide we want to make
Big or small
Whether it's changing your car
Or recovering from an eating disorder

For the longest time I was stuck being the first two stages
I wanted to want recovery
I was thinking about it
But not doing very much

I think in the last couple of months I have moved on to preparation
I've made the decision
I've chosen to pursue recovery
And I have taken some action
But there is still so much more to do

Things have improved greatly recently
My mood has picked up to the point that I actually feel something approaching happiness
Or contentment at least
But  am aware that there is still so much to do
I have reduced the purging
But it is still there
On  a bad day I can still purge up to 5 times

I had been eating regular meals up until recently
Now I have slipped back and am not eating at the table or eaating regular meals
Then there is my meds
That is an on going problem
As you know I am on quite a lot of meds
Realistically I don't need to be on all of them
And there are some days when I misuse them

Technically I am clean and sober
I don't take the drug that I wa addicted to
But I rely so much on my meds
Even when I take them properly they still make me very drowsy
I'm ashamed to admit that I  enjoy that feeling
It reminds me of the feeling of heroin
That's not good

Every Monday morning I collect my meds
Then I go straight to a hotel bathroom to take them
This  morning it struck me that I used to do this when I was addicted to heroin
I used to travel to Dublin
Get my drugs
Then go to a public bathroom to use them
Is what I am doing now any different to that?

It's not that I am in geeat pain any more and I am trying to avoid it
I take the meds because I find reality hard to deal with
I find it boring and monotonous and tedious
A day is a long time and I like being able to zone out when ever I want
How ever I worry that I am so reliant on my meds
My methadone is being reduced at the moment
And because I am not taking it properly the detox may not work properly
I could be leaving myself open to going to in to withdrawal

I want to be clean and sober
I really do
But I also really enjoy the effect my meds have on me
The make me sleepy
Numb
Comfortably numb
I feel stuck in a kind of limbo
Somewhere between my addiction and recovery
It's not a nice place to be

I want to live
For the first time in a long time I feel hopeful and positive
But I have a tendency to self sabotage
When things are going well it is so unfamiliar that my instinct is to fuck up
I've done it my whole life

It's Monday today
And I don't usually make goals but today I feel I need to
First I want to take my meds properly
I'm not going to get well if I keep doing what I'm doing
I'm going to stay exactly where I am
Stuck
Second I want to get to three meetings this week
They are essential if I want to be drug free

I'm on a slippery slope
As I type this I can feel my meds taking effect
My body feels warm and relaxed
My eyes feel heavy
It's such a nice feeling
But is this what I want?
Is this how I want to live my life?

I can't have the life I want and misuse my meds
I can't help others if I can't help myself first

Thins are not perfect
Far from it fact
I'm still incredibly weight conscious
My ED still has a certain hold over me
But I will keep trying to do the next right thing
I will still try not to hurt myself or anyone else

I will continue to fight
I will continue to keep hoping and believing
I will never give up

June 8th

I spent the day with my mother and my uncle
And of course Honey and Lea who are never far from my side
I could write all about it but here's some photos instead......

The water was so calm today

Mum and Uncle Dom

Honey is such a camera dodger
Lea on the other hand loves having her photo taken

The carnival is in town

God do I really look like this?

Lea on the hunt for some water

Finally got a shot of Honey!

Street art

What's this?
Girl with ED eats cake?

Ok so I didn't manage to finish it
But I gave it a good go!

A very welcome cup of tea

Hope you enjoyed........

Where are they?

I was just going through my blogroll
And I've just realised  how many bloggers have stopped blogging
Some have deleted their entire blogs
I wonder what has happened to these girls
Did they recover?
Did they finally tell their EDs to fuck right off?
Did they go in to treatment?
Did they die?
Where are they?

A lot of the bloggers that were around when I first started blogging have now disappeared
I miss them
And I worry about them
I wish I knew what had happened to them
Rayya?
Anna Stone?
Emily?
Katie?
The Lovely Bones?
And Thinderella who I had become very close to seemed to vanish off the face of the earth
I hope the fact that some of these girls deleted their blogs means that they finally saw how empty this way of life is and they moved on
I hope they have let go of their need to lose weight
I hope they are living their lives in spite of their ED

And of course for every blog that disapppears
There are two that pop up
I feel conflicted about this
I love to find a new blog that I really identify with
But I hate the fact that there is one more person fighting this battle

We have a unique community here
Not everyone understands it
But for us it is vital
It's so important that we have a place to vent
A place to be heard
A place to identify with others
A place we can reveal our darkest secrets without fear of rejection or judgement
Some of us write openly
Some of us anonymously
But we all do it for the same reason
Because we are eating disordered
We are hurting
We feel a pain that is almost unbearable
We need to know that there are others like us
We need to know that we are not alone fighting this cruel illness
We need each other

I had a good friend that I met through blogging
She used to blog in this community but stopped after she got well
She always told me that I should get out of this community
That it was unhealthy
But I write because I have to
I literally have to
These days I have so much to write about that I write every day
Sometimes more than that
My head is just so full of thoughts and ideas
I can barely contain it
And since my health has improved so has my clarity of mind
I make sense of the world through writing
I clear my head through writing
I live through writing





I was wondering about you
If you blog why do you blog?
Why do you write?
What do you get from blogging?

Is honesty the best policy?

A commenter on my last post made a very interesting point
That us eating disorder folk seem to fall in to two categories
Those that can't seem to open up at all because they can't bear to face their problems
And those and the other end of the spectrum
Who are impulsive and open almost to a fault
Obviously this is a generalisation and we all don't fit neatly in to one of these boxes
But in my experience it is mostly true
I've seen it in treatment and with my own friends

For a long time I was type one
When I was strictly anorectic
My life revolved around rules and regulations
And God forbid if I ever broke them
My day was always planned out
Exercise
Food
Everything
I struggled to express myself at this time
On the surface I pretended that everything was fine
But underneath there was a massive amount of turmoil and distress
I found it very hard to be open and express myself
I was worried what others would think of me
A huge part of me wanted to be perfect
A perfect person
A perfect size
No flaws whatsoever
It's truly exhausting being this way
I can remember crying at the thought of all the exercise I had to do
Then don't do it I hear you cry
But I had to
My ED said I had to so I had
No matter how   tired or sore I was
It was a horrid existence

Over time my ED morphed  in to bulimia
And with that came a lot of change
I had been regimented for so long and it just wasn't sustainable
I couldn't carry on any longer
I can remember when it started
It was when I was using drugs and didn't eat at all
When the drugs ran out I would go home to recharge my batteries
My appetite would then came back and I remember going to the kitchen and being so overwhelmed by all the food
This was when I started to binge
Then quickly discovered purging

As well as my ED changing my personality also changed
I became more impulsive and compulsive
It was like I couldn't control myself any longer
I became a lot more open
A lot more willing to talk about my issues
This had probably a lot to do with the fact that my family began to talk about things a lot more openly also
But I was honest almost to a fault
I trusted the wrong people
Let people take advantage of me
And left myself very vulnerable
Where as it's very admirable to be open and honest I think we have to be careful who we trust and who we let in to our lives

I remember when I first started going to meetings
I used to share absolutely everything that was going on in my life
Until a kind stranger took me aside and gave me some friendly advice
That I should get a sponsor
And meetings weren't the place to sort out such issues
I appreciated that because there are a lot of sick people in those rooms

So that brings me to my blog
I started writing this blog two years ago
Reading back on my most recent entries I can see that I was pretty open from the get go
And started posting photos a few months in
My blog has continued in this fashion
I've always written it like no one is going to read it
Whether that is right or wrong I'm not sure
I guess I love using photos as they can say so much more than words

Over time I have become more and more open
And as more and more people started to read this blog I had to go back and delete posts that I thought could come back to haunt me
Recently I received a comment saying that I am becoming increasingly open
And I was
I was being very lazy and had posted photos of other people
I quickly deleted those too

It seems in blogging too there are two kinds of people
Those who give little away
And those who share their entire lives
I think I definitely fall in to the latter

For me I think it's about wanting to be liked and accepted
More than a narcissistic thing I think it's very human to want others to like us
I've always been a bit like this
I was bullied as a child
And since then I've tried very hard to never let that happen again
But then I was trying so hard to be liked that I was forgetting to be myself
When I lived in Dublin I tried so hard to fit in and even acquired a Dublin accent in my attempts to be liked

I guess it is a spectrum and we are all on it somewhere
The ideal I think is to be somewhere in the middle
Open enough to be honest
But not so honest that we leave ourselves vulnerable






I was wondering about you
Where do you fall on this spectrum
Do you think there is such a thing as being too honest?

Walking the walk?

After some thought I decided to delete my last post
I didn't feel right after I posted it
I felt like I had given away too much information
I thought that because I was trying to recover that I shouldn't keep any secrets to myself
And my weight was a big secret
But now I can see that I don't have to share every little bit of information
Weight is a very personal thing
Even people with out EDs don't go around broadcasting their weight
Not sharing my weight is not feeding in to my ED
It's taking care of myself

Some kind commenters pointed out that taking photos of weight and posing in the same clothes is feeding in to my ED
It's looking back and not  forwards
You are so right
I guess because my weight is a big issue for me at the moment
I kind of got caught up in what I look like
And it really wasn't fair of me to ask you to compare those photos either

I think that has always been a problem for me
Sharing too much
I am an open person
But I forget that maybe everyone isn't
And maybe some people are uncomfortable with that level of honesty

I don't even know if I can say that I'm in recovery
I still purge
I'm very mindful of my weight
It's hard to know if I am in recovery or if I just wish I was
I talk the talk alright
But do I walk the walk?
I talk about feeling better
Improved mood
Wanting to live
But am I living?
Or do I still have one foot in my ED?

I was at my mindfulness class last night
The guy who gives the class really is inspiring
He talks a lot about how life is so short
How we need to live in the now
Instead of ruminating about  the past
Or projecting in to the future
I forget that we have a finite time on this earth
This isn't a dress rehearsal
We get one shot at this thing we call life
So we better make it count
And a life dedicated to anorexia or bulimia or addiction is not a lived
It's a life wasted

I wonder if I am fooling myself that I am in recovery
Do I think that I am better than I actually am?
I guess I thought that when I regained weight that everything would magically fall in to place
But weight re gain is only one small if essential part of recovery
The real work happens in our minds and thoughts
I've been at a place where I've been weight restored but still had an anorectic mind set
It's a truly horrid place to be
I don't want to be there again
I want to not care about the numbers
I want to like my own body
I want to look in the mirror and not want to smash it
I just want to be free of this thing once and for all

I feel like I am in a very strange place at the moment
Some where between my ED and recovery
It's time to pick one once and for all

Here's where I need your help
How do you know when you are in recovery?
How can you tell that you are not in an ED frame of mind?
I really need to know as I can't tell right now
I feel so confused at the moment

There's something about Mary

Mary rang me yesterday afternoon after the meeting to arrange our next appointment
I asked her if it was true that she is leaving
She said it is
She said that it's important I come to all appointments until then
The service Mary works for is called C.A.W.T
Co-operation and working together
It's a cross border service between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland
It's funded by the EU
But the funding has been pulled so Mary's job is no more
Her new role is in suicide prevention
She starts September 1st

This news came as bit of a shock
I've been seeing for more than two years
She has helped me massively
I can't even put in to words how much of a support she has been
The past two years have been rocky to say the least
But she has been a constant positive force in my life
She never got frustrated
Was endlessly patient
When I overdosed a couple of months ago, she was the one that sprang in to action
She has saved my sanity and my life many times

The fact that the funding has been pulled really angers me
This service is badly needed
Mary was always so busy and her role was vital in helping people suffering with EDs
But that's just typical of this country
It pulls resources from the people that need it the most
The say you can tell how well a country works by how they treat their most vulnerable
Well in that case this country sucks

I don't know where that leaves me
As of September I will have no counsellor
Mary specialized in eating disorders
A general counsellor just isn't tuned in to the way a person with an ED thinks
I will miss Mary terribly
She believed in me
She always told me that it was possible to recover
She was so positive

She's leaving at a critical time
A time when I need a lot of support
Things are just starting to turn around for me and I do need all the support I can get
Mary has so much experience in this field
She will be a great loss not only to me but to the service and many other people suffering

The thing about Mary is that she goes the extra mile
If I cancel an appointment she will always ring to make sure that I am ok
When I overdosed she rallied the troops to help me
She has such a good insight in to the mind of someone with an ED
I could tell her anything

As well as helping sufferers Mary is a great support to families
She brought Bodywhys to this area and set up a support groups for families which my mother attends

I just feel really sad that she is leaving
I'm sure there are many other people like me who will miss her dreadfully
I guess I will have to start looking for another counsellor
That sucks
I will have to start from scratch all over again
I've seen so many counsellors and therapists over the years
Mary was by far the best

She kept me accountable
She helped me see that there is a life beyond my ED
She helped me believe in myself
That I can recover
That I can reclaim a semblance of a normal life
I just hope that I can hold on to the progress that I have made
I know that things can nose dive quicker than you can say relapse
I know my ED will try every trick in the book to lure me back in
I have to stay strong
I have use the tools I have been given to live life on my terms
It's going to be hard
The hardest thing that I will ever do
But I am willing to do it

I was blessed to have has Mary in my life for so long
I'm so lucky to have  had the chance to work with her
She was one of a kind
As for me
I hope that I will be ok
I will lean on my other supports
I will continue to fight
Continue to battle the thing we call ED
I won't let it claim another young life
I'll do it for Mary