Yes you, the one who can’t stop thinking about food but can’t eat it either, the one who won’t sit still, the one living in the fog, the numb one, the exhausted one, the irritable one, the angry one, the one wetting yourself, the one who just wants it all to go away…..Perhaps all of this rings true and life feels so shit, but you don’t recognise this as you?  Who are ‘you’ anyway?  Do you know what ‘you’ looks like?  Do you know what ‘you’ feels like?  Do you know where ‘you’ are?  Do you know where ‘you’ has gone.

When I first started treatment there was a big focus on self-care as being important for recovery.  This is because when you have an eating disorder, you don’t really give a shit about it.  I certainly didn’t allow myself to ever stop for a second; there was too much to do and too little time.  Exercise was my mood booster and my ‘me’ time, and cooking and baking (for others) was my hobby. What else did I need? The thought of twiddling my thumbs on a spa day was my idea of hell. Relaxing in the bath? No thanks.  When it came to discussions around self-care, it turned out I didn’t even really know what it is, let alone how to do it.  Apparently, it’s way more than pampering yourself.  It’s nurturing social connections and keeping the company only of those who support you, it’s setting boundaries and saying no to demands that drain your energy, it’s recognising triggers that impact negatively on mental health and taking action to manage stress and anxiety, it’s recognising and understanding emotions, it’s learning and personal growth, it’s nurturing your spirit and having self-compassion.

Intertwined with self-care is mindfulness which was another nonsense to me.  Sure I’ve tried it; I’ve tried to appreciate the long grass swaying gently in the wind, noticing the warmth of the sun on my face whilst birds tweet beautiful music around my ears.  You sense the cynicism and get the gist. Within seconds my mind would be overcome by obsessive thoughts around food and exercise, thoughts telling me I’m not deserving, and planning how I could compensate.

I went into treatment with an open mind towards all that I was to be taught because I wanted to recover, and so whilst in early treatment I really struggled with the notions of self-care and mindfulness, I persevered because I was ‘trusting the process’.  Gradually it all came to make a little more sense, especially when I learned that there is a science based theory as to why it works and it’s not all just fluffy stuff spoken by incense wielding, floaty skirted folk (no offence!).   I now understand how practising self-care and mindfulness help to regulate the nervous system. I now realise that I had been living with my sympathetic nervous system constantly in action for as long as I could remember and I was so deep into fight or flight mode, that a few minutes star gazing of an evening was not going to fix me overnight.  This was something I needed to persistently chip away at and incorporate into my daily life.

Now that I have completed the treatment programme, I am using the final few weeks before my return to work to hone on this aspect as one of my goals.  And I have to say, I feel like something weird is happening. The cacao ceremony I went to a few weeks ago as a bit of a giggle, has led to a morning ritual of mindfully making and drinking ceremonial grade cacao as my very first activity of the day.  I’ve spoken to others previously about how I generally wake of a morning with a ‘grey cloud feeling’ and it takes me a while to shift it.  From the first inhalation and sips of cacao, I now feel my spirit lift and I actually go to bed looking forward to waking the next morning.  If the moment calls for it, I step outside to listen to the sounds of daybreak and smell the morning air.  I saw a shooting star yesterday.

I’ve been dipping my toe into guided meditation which I am finding easier to focus on than sitting with my own silence.  My brain still tries to wander frequently and so it’s useful to have someone to guide you towards points of tension, where to let go and acceptance.  It has made my cry which I don’t do freely.  I have had fleeting moments of feeling as though alongside my physical body and my mind, there is ‘something else’.  I first noticed it when being guided towards healing dissociation and reconnecting, by acknowledging that despite what I have put my body through, it has done its best and adapted to keep me alive and protect me.  If my body has been keeping ‘me’ alive, then ‘me’ must be more than my body.  Having learned a phenomenal amount about eating disorders, I now understand that the running I thought was a hobby, was actually a compulsion driven by a fear of weight gain originating from the primitive part of my brain. I also now understand that this same fear was driving me to restrict food and that my preoccupation with thinking about all things food was mental hunger, and so too, in part, was my baking hobby.  So even the ‘me’ that I thought I was, I’m not sure was actually ‘me’. 

I feel as though I am being awakened to the truth that ‘me’ has been on pause in recent years.  Call it my spirit, my soul, simply ‘me’ or whatever; in the last couple of weeks I have observed exciting sensations of ‘me’ being woken up.  Maybe my mind, body and soul are starting to reconnect.  I’m not sure what it is, but it feels a little bit magical.

And so back to you. My ‘me’ is your ’you’. You are in there somewhere amongst the fog, you just need to find the plug socket and plug you back in.  Please trust that weight restoration, rewiring your fear of weight gain, trying the new hobbies, restoring social connections and practising the self-care and mindfulness; all of this together, bit by bit will get you there if you are persistent with making recovery focused decisions. 

I even thought I saw a UFO this morning!!!!!!