Book hooked

Anorexia: a stranger in the family

I love reading. But finally, I've decided to come out of my less mature, teenage world and explore boundaries past vampire romance, high school teenage life and fiction. Having been so down in the dumps the entire week, I decided to look for some motivation and inspiration to help me get back on track. This section was a stranger to me, and browsing through books with titles like "eating disorders", "how to cope with anorexia" made me feel embarrassed and when people walked past, I would hurriedly turn away. There was even a book called "Eating Disorders for Dummies", man I should have tried reading that one :3

Anyway, this book caught my attention. Its basically the life story of a girl, Katie, about how her New Year's Resolution to lose weight turned into anorexia, and how she fought and recovered. I finished the book in a day and let me just say: I am so inspired. It's amazing how much I could relate to many of the things she wrote- Her feelings, what she did, the causes, the effects. While she definitely suffered worse from ana's restraints than I have and than I ever will, it opened my eyes to reality.


She was an inpatient in 2001, and I think they were more lenient then than now. I've heard that being an inpatient now requires you to complete your meals within a certain time frame or have to add more to that meal itself, which is honestly scary. She didn't have that rule implemented on her. But the harsh reality of being an inpatient, being forced to do so many things against your will; gives me motivation to stay away from that place. Forever. The main focus of the book though, I feel is when you can literally see how her happy, healthy relationship with her parents and siblings turned sour when ana took control of her life. The social and family distancing that she underwent, is very applicable to me. The tantrums, mood swings and arguments over the smallest things were effects of ED taking toll on our body systems, and even I admit that it has happened to me countless times. How many small, petty fights have I had with my parents over food, portion sizes, unwillingness to eat? How many outings with my friends have I screwed up because I was so picky over what I wanted? And most importantly, seeing the effects of ED on the body itself-lanugo, hair loss, protruding bones, brittle nails. It is really being reminded of the fact that I'm not the only one going through this disorder, that I am not one of the worst case scenarios, that I still have a very likely chance of making a full, proper recovery, and that if Katie can do it, SO CAN I. And I am sure that so many others out there have recovered as well, why not me?


Do you want recovery?
Someone asked me this, when I was at my lowest point last week. I had to think long and hard about it. While my answer was obviously 'Yes', having to put my words into actions had been proving much more difficult than I thought.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have been updated on my progress; I've gained 0.5kg in the past week to reach 47.5kg. This is very near to my original weight when I first got diagnosed in the clinic-where I relapsed and lost weight after that to my lowest 44kg. This has been my highest weight in almost 4 months. When I first saw this number on the weighing scale, most of me was shocked, guilty, horrified. I felt fat, heavy; I felt this number was too big. I ended up really depressed the entire day and I will admit now that ED won the entire day. I ate a small breakfast, fruits for both snacks and lunch. I ended up finishing a 400g bag of salted cashews and 100g of peanuts for dinner/supper(i don't consider it a binge because I wanted it) And that was when I realized how prominent ED still was in me. I discovered how easy it was for ED to just take over, give her full control and decide for me to eat just nuts and fruits the entire day. It scares me how fine the line that I am currently walking on is; one wrong movement could result in my falling off the wagon, completely going back to my old ways. Those thoughts have crossed my mind so many times, i've lost count. Whats wrong with filling myself up with fruits? Why do I have to eat rice/noodles? There have been so many occasions where I just wished I could go back to how I used to eat, be able to control myself when I wanted to binge. I miss those times.

"Recovery is worth it" so I've been told, or so I have been telling many who are having difficulties. While I agree with this, the results are taking so long to show. When will my hair start growing back again? When will my lanugo fall off? When will I be able to stop feeling the guilt with everything I eat? For the past few weeks, all I've been seeing is my stomach area getting bigger and bigger, my shirts and shorts getting tighter, and my mind still obsessing over every single thing. So is recovery really worth it? Think about it. Would I be happier if I were still 44kg? While the weight would probably have answered that question "yes", being at 44kg meant not being able to exercise, it meant I would still feel cold half the time, it meant I couldn't do sit-ups or crunches without my buttbones becoming black and bruised, it meant my hair would still fall out in clumps with each tug. It meant I would still be thinking about what my meals would be every day, meant I would obsess over how much exercise I had to do in order to "earn" the food I ate, it meant I would still be cutting out the most essential food groups from my diet. Comparing the number of cons to a single 'pro' that there is to being at this weight, I'll rather be at my healthy weight, thank you very much.

Tokyo Banana Cake!

I challenged myself to this treat over the weekend: a Tokyo Banana Cake, imported straight from Japan. Despite having been abstaining from sweets for god-knows-how-long, I finally decided to take a step forward and just challenge myself. But right now, I don't know why it's so hard to challenge myself anymore. I don't want to leave my safe zone. I don't want to try new foods, to me everything else is unhealthy. I find myself so cowardly now, I'm incredibly disappointed in myself. I want to do better. I want to be stronger. I want to beat this disorder. Why must recovery be so hard? Why must it be the only thing on my mind now? How do I get better from here? So many questions, zilch answers......