Throughout my time with anorexia, I have been through what I thought was recovery more times than I care to admit! The in's and out's of in-paitent treatment, hospital appointments sometimes 4 times a week and not to mention the endless 'plans' I have tried to write down for myself swearing each time that this would be the one that would get me better...but coming up to 11 years later from that 13 year old teen when I was first diagnosed, I am not recovered.
Looking back in hindsight, I can now see that despite all of the help I was being given to treat my anorexia, I just simply didn't want to get better. And thats the key really to making any recovery attempt work...wanting to recover!
Now that I'm soon to be turning 24, I have finally discovered that I do want to get better and have more than this shadow of a life I thought I was destined to have forever. So, now I know I want to get better, how do I go about making it work this time? Sadly I don't have the answer to this because if I did i'd be a pretty rich Yorkshire lass, not to mention much more healthy and happy!!
But what I can try to establish is learning from the past and not repeating the same mistakes over and over. Obviously now that I am in the wanting mindset and not putting up all my barriers, options that I have rejected in the past may now be helpful or maybe I can take things that I think would be helpful for me and not put my attention to the ways which I know won't be good for me.
Recovery is not a set way and there is no one formula, meal plan or routine that will work for everyone and I think I thought this at one point. I think I thought that because someone has told me to do something whether that be a doctor, parent, therapist or someone else in recovery that what they say is ABSOLUTELY what I should be doing and if I don't then I am 'wrong', 'unhealthy', 'lazy', 'not good enough' etc. etc.
Of course when you are in a critical position like I have been a few times over, you have to be forced to do things and have your own self control taken from you...but this is totally different and most of the time when you are at that point, you don't really want to recover and you need that little bit of a boost (in whatever way that may be) in order to realise and discover that you for yourself want to recover.
As I mentioned, sometimes even what professionals say to you/plans given to you aren't always what is best for YOU personally and you don't always have to stick to a certain way 100%. I am defiantly guilty of this and still struggle with this today. In a particular in-paitent unit I was in, we were given 2 walks per day everyday. Now I know to some people this may sound like not a big deal at all but for me and the anorexia side of me, it was such a 'must', something that I felt I had to do every single day for the exact time length we were given (or more) even when I was out and at home. I felt that I had to do the walks because the unit had given us them and they were professionals right? They were 'health' experts and I was in a medical setting, surely doing these walks is the best thing for my health and medical state? Surely if I am in a unit were the main aim to to gain weight, then surely I need to always do these walks everyday at the bare minimum?!!
All of these thoughts and more still go through my brain today and I still battle with feeling like I have to go for the walks because I did them in hospital...but is that healthy to think that way for the rest of my life??...No, it certainly is not! I hate that the unit actually made my relationship with exercise worse and created a routine harder for me to break then I went in with! And this is where I am starting to think that 'recovery is different for everyone' and you need to take what is beneficial for you and leave out what is not and in this instance, having to force myself to go for 2 walks everyday just because an in-paitent unit told me I could does not mean that it is right for me!
This is just one example of how recovery is different from person to person and therefore you can not think that a set plan is going to get you better. There will always be parts of any plan or anyones version of recovery that is not right for you. Even though all anorexics suffer from the same illness - anorexia, it does not mean that they all are going to get better with the same set of strategies.
Now that I am properly in recovery and actively doing things to aid me in the weight gain department whilst trying to treat myself more kindly, I am discovering that a lot of the ways I have been told to recover in the past are not as helpful to me. Again they are habits/routines set in an in-paitint setting and thinking about it now, I feel a lot of these things given to patients in units (not all units might I add, just a lot) seem to not really set some one so deep in their disorder free and my create new habits and obsessions that weren't there before...and I must stress that this is what I personally think and have observed but like everything, I'm sure there are cases were it worked effectively for some sufferers and this is great.
I feel like I could do a whole different post on why I think that in-paitent units are not always the best for recovery in terms of getting you back to normal living and what is healthy to do when coming back into your real life outside of the unit...watch this space for a post on this! ;-)
Just like everything in life there are going to be parts to recovery that will be harder for some and easier for others but its knowing in yourself what feels right and listening to your gut instincts as to what will make you healthy and happy if real recovery is what you want.
The overall elements to recovery are the same in that everyone needs to gain weight, be ok mentally with resting more, have a healthy relationship with both food and exercise, improve physical health, improve mental health, learn to have more self acceptance/love, create healthy habits that don't rule you and in general just be comfortable with who you are...but it is how we go about doing these things that will differ.
Its absolutely fine and in my opinion helpful to turn to others for help, guidence and inspiration but if something they say or do isn't true/right to you deep down, then you have to be able to do what is right for you, whatever that my be.
Recovering from anorexia is defiantly a different journey for everyone. Im learning now how to listen to my inner self and hope that one day I can look back and reflect on my personal process.
Its tough business this recovery! Tough business indeed.
Now that I'm soon to be turning 24, I have finally discovered that I do want to get better and have more than this shadow of a life I thought I was destined to have forever. So, now I know I want to get better, how do I go about making it work this time? Sadly I don't have the answer to this because if I did i'd be a pretty rich Yorkshire lass, not to mention much more healthy and happy!!
But what I can try to establish is learning from the past and not repeating the same mistakes over and over. Obviously now that I am in the wanting mindset and not putting up all my barriers, options that I have rejected in the past may now be helpful or maybe I can take things that I think would be helpful for me and not put my attention to the ways which I know won't be good for me.
Recovery is not a set way and there is no one formula, meal plan or routine that will work for everyone and I think I thought this at one point. I think I thought that because someone has told me to do something whether that be a doctor, parent, therapist or someone else in recovery that what they say is ABSOLUTELY what I should be doing and if I don't then I am 'wrong', 'unhealthy', 'lazy', 'not good enough' etc. etc.
Of course when you are in a critical position like I have been a few times over, you have to be forced to do things and have your own self control taken from you...but this is totally different and most of the time when you are at that point, you don't really want to recover and you need that little bit of a boost (in whatever way that may be) in order to realise and discover that you for yourself want to recover.
As I mentioned, sometimes even what professionals say to you/plans given to you aren't always what is best for YOU personally and you don't always have to stick to a certain way 100%. I am defiantly guilty of this and still struggle with this today. In a particular in-paitent unit I was in, we were given 2 walks per day everyday. Now I know to some people this may sound like not a big deal at all but for me and the anorexia side of me, it was such a 'must', something that I felt I had to do every single day for the exact time length we were given (or more) even when I was out and at home. I felt that I had to do the walks because the unit had given us them and they were professionals right? They were 'health' experts and I was in a medical setting, surely doing these walks is the best thing for my health and medical state? Surely if I am in a unit were the main aim to to gain weight, then surely I need to always do these walks everyday at the bare minimum?!!
All of these thoughts and more still go through my brain today and I still battle with feeling like I have to go for the walks because I did them in hospital...but is that healthy to think that way for the rest of my life??...No, it certainly is not! I hate that the unit actually made my relationship with exercise worse and created a routine harder for me to break then I went in with! And this is where I am starting to think that 'recovery is different for everyone' and you need to take what is beneficial for you and leave out what is not and in this instance, having to force myself to go for 2 walks everyday just because an in-paitent unit told me I could does not mean that it is right for me!
This is just one example of how recovery is different from person to person and therefore you can not think that a set plan is going to get you better. There will always be parts of any plan or anyones version of recovery that is not right for you. Even though all anorexics suffer from the same illness - anorexia, it does not mean that they all are going to get better with the same set of strategies.
Now that I am properly in recovery and actively doing things to aid me in the weight gain department whilst trying to treat myself more kindly, I am discovering that a lot of the ways I have been told to recover in the past are not as helpful to me. Again they are habits/routines set in an in-paitint setting and thinking about it now, I feel a lot of these things given to patients in units (not all units might I add, just a lot) seem to not really set some one so deep in their disorder free and my create new habits and obsessions that weren't there before...and I must stress that this is what I personally think and have observed but like everything, I'm sure there are cases were it worked effectively for some sufferers and this is great.
I feel like I could do a whole different post on why I think that in-paitent units are not always the best for recovery in terms of getting you back to normal living and what is healthy to do when coming back into your real life outside of the unit...watch this space for a post on this! ;-)
Just like everything in life there are going to be parts to recovery that will be harder for some and easier for others but its knowing in yourself what feels right and listening to your gut instincts as to what will make you healthy and happy if real recovery is what you want.
The overall elements to recovery are the same in that everyone needs to gain weight, be ok mentally with resting more, have a healthy relationship with both food and exercise, improve physical health, improve mental health, learn to have more self acceptance/love, create healthy habits that don't rule you and in general just be comfortable with who you are...but it is how we go about doing these things that will differ.
Its absolutely fine and in my opinion helpful to turn to others for help, guidence and inspiration but if something they say or do isn't true/right to you deep down, then you have to be able to do what is right for you, whatever that my be.
Recovering from anorexia is defiantly a different journey for everyone. Im learning now how to listen to my inner self and hope that one day I can look back and reflect on my personal process.
Its tough business this recovery! Tough business indeed.