When in recovery from such a restrictive eating disorder like anorexia, the process really is much more than the number on a scale. Throughout my ten year history with the disorder, my weight has gone up and down by being in and out of hospitals and various in-patient units with most of the time my weight 'ups' being a short lived experience due to me just putting the weight on to 'get rid' and go back to restricting and lose what I could of it again.
Time and time again I have repeated this in and out process and it has done nothing for my mental state. It is not until recently in my recovery that I have been able to identify what I've been doing and seeing that the process I was doing will not get me anywhere remotely good in my life and this depresses me greatly to think it will keep on this way and I so don't want this for myself any longer.
Now I am becoming older and more (hopefully) wiser, I am wanting much much more for myself in life and therefore anorexia can not take the lead. Recovery has to fully take over!
Anorexia is ultimately a mental health illness. Yes it has many physical elements to it leading some people (both sufferers and non sufferers) to think it is merely a simple case of gaining weight to be recovered, but unfortunately this is only part of recovery. A crucial, non negotiable and essential part of recovery that can not be avoided.
Although like I say the illness is mental, I myself (and many other sufferers I'm sure) need to not get tricked into thinking that because it is mental that we can just try to work on our minds and therefore push away the step of the need to gain weight as lets be honest...its scary as hell for any suffer of anorexia to gain weight. Anorexia will try and use any excuse to delay the need and surrender to the weight gain. The simple fact of the illness being 'mental' feeds the anorexic voice and is a manipulative way for this voice to make excuses about it not being about having to gain weight BUT...I am not succumbing to the fact that even though a lot of mental healing and thought re-training is part of the recovery process and getting better...GAINING WEIGHT IS WITHOUT A DOUBT NEEDED FIRST for this mental side to work and to keep working.
Yes. you can have a good starting point in your mind, a realisation, an inspiration or the wanting of change, but in order to do a lot of the things that you want, that I want, you have to gain weight and keep it up until you are at your healthy place again. Stopping or purposely suppressing this is not going to be true recovery and you'll never be set free.
I am finding that I keep coming across things that i want to do (wear nicer clothes, have energy and true want to do enjoyable exercise and not feel like I'm doing it forced to earn food, reach for a career I am passionate about, have a relationship, heal my body in particular my digestion!!!) or I keep planning things to do once I'm more recovered (the list is huge and grows every week!)...but when it come down to it, the answer to enable me to get started on any of these things is...to gain weight!
I think part of me (the anorexia part) for so long has just thought that I can do these things as I am and its probably down my mood or motivation that day as to why I'm not doing these things, but its still just 'tip-toeing' around getting on with adequate, constituent and necessary weight gain that has to come from ME wanting to gain it for my own happiness and not just using it as a 'get out of jail card' for hospital treatment like it has been for me in the past. I mean, even if mood and motivation are factors holding me back, its WEIGHT GAIN that is going to fix those things too!
So you see, although anorexia is a mental health condition, there is absolutely no way you can recover without putting on weight to a healthy state.
I really need to focus on this'd put 110% effort into continuing to gain back weight even though it is freaking me out and making feel pretty disgusting. I need to see that it is the critical key in moving my life forward.
Now I am becoming older and more (hopefully) wiser, I am wanting much much more for myself in life and therefore anorexia can not take the lead. Recovery has to fully take over!
Anorexia is ultimately a mental health illness. Yes it has many physical elements to it leading some people (both sufferers and non sufferers) to think it is merely a simple case of gaining weight to be recovered, but unfortunately this is only part of recovery. A crucial, non negotiable and essential part of recovery that can not be avoided.
Although like I say the illness is mental, I myself (and many other sufferers I'm sure) need to not get tricked into thinking that because it is mental that we can just try to work on our minds and therefore push away the step of the need to gain weight as lets be honest...its scary as hell for any suffer of anorexia to gain weight. Anorexia will try and use any excuse to delay the need and surrender to the weight gain. The simple fact of the illness being 'mental' feeds the anorexic voice and is a manipulative way for this voice to make excuses about it not being about having to gain weight BUT...I am not succumbing to the fact that even though a lot of mental healing and thought re-training is part of the recovery process and getting better...GAINING WEIGHT IS WITHOUT A DOUBT NEEDED FIRST for this mental side to work and to keep working.
Yes. you can have a good starting point in your mind, a realisation, an inspiration or the wanting of change, but in order to do a lot of the things that you want, that I want, you have to gain weight and keep it up until you are at your healthy place again. Stopping or purposely suppressing this is not going to be true recovery and you'll never be set free.
I am finding that I keep coming across things that i want to do (wear nicer clothes, have energy and true want to do enjoyable exercise and not feel like I'm doing it forced to earn food, reach for a career I am passionate about, have a relationship, heal my body in particular my digestion!!!) or I keep planning things to do once I'm more recovered (the list is huge and grows every week!)...but when it come down to it, the answer to enable me to get started on any of these things is...to gain weight!
I think part of me (the anorexia part) for so long has just thought that I can do these things as I am and its probably down my mood or motivation that day as to why I'm not doing these things, but its still just 'tip-toeing' around getting on with adequate, constituent and necessary weight gain that has to come from ME wanting to gain it for my own happiness and not just using it as a 'get out of jail card' for hospital treatment like it has been for me in the past. I mean, even if mood and motivation are factors holding me back, its WEIGHT GAIN that is going to fix those things too!
So you see, although anorexia is a mental health condition, there is absolutely no way you can recover without putting on weight to a healthy state.
I really need to focus on this'd put 110% effort into continuing to gain back weight even though it is freaking me out and making feel pretty disgusting. I need to see that it is the critical key in moving my life forward.