Little steps

Being such a young age and in a unit was very scary. I would get very home sick and want to go home, there was a time I tried to make my mum ask if I could become a outpatient but the doctors wouldn't let me. I had several hard times there, times where I wanted to get better and other times where I didn't want to get better. At times when I saw my weight going up I would start to panic which would make me anxious about getting better. Still to this day I panic if I see I am putting on weight but I know how to deal with it a lot better. When you are recovering and your weight goes up quick it is scary and you think you are getting fat but I have learnt you're not. The doctors and nurses know how it works and they just want to get you up to a health weight and for you to maintain, but when you have anorexic thoughts in your head it is harder to believe. Now I can see it clearer what the doctors and nurses where doing when they were helping me put on weight. It does seem you put weight on quickly but it is only because you have starved your body for so long. I did find it hard to cope with at first, but I sat down with the dietitian and told her how I felt about my weight. She told me they wanted me at a healthy weight before they would put me on a meal plan to maintain my weight.

As I was getting better I would feel excited about meal times, as I was really hungry. When I was face to face with the food I panicked, but I managed to learn how to cope with it. My family would sometimes have to come in for a meal practice. So I would get used to eating with them as a family again.

Above are a few photos of some pages from my diary that I kept when I was in the unit. As you can see I had my good days and I had my bad days. There would be days I was happy I put on weight so I could go home for the weekend and then there were time I wasn't so happy. In the unit if I did well with eating and put on a bit of weight or maintained the doctors would let me go home for the night then they would increase the stay if it went well. Also every time you maintained or put on weight you were allowed a to do some exercise for a certain amount of time. I have scribbled out my weight in the photo in my diary as I don't want someone who is in recovery or is suffering from a eating disorder to compare as I know that's something I would do a lot with people when I was ill.
Recovery isn't easy, you get your good and bad days. With the support of my family and all the staff in the unit I got through the bad days. It was hard in the unit especially when I was away from my family but it was for the best.

Everyday I would receive cards and letters through the post which helped me see there were people out there who cared about me and wanted me better. Receiving letters and cards from my family where the best part of my day as it would cheer me up and give me hope, my little sister would always send me pictures she drew or little letters which made me smile a lot. Looking back at them now they make me smile and cry happy tears, to see how far I have got and to see how supportive and caring my family were and still are. To read back over the letters my sister wrote are emotional as she was at such a young age writing them but would write such lovely and positive things to me.

Below is a photo of some of the cards, letters and pictures I would receive from family members and family friends.

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Contact: recoveryleadstopositivity@outlook.com

Gemma

x

The devil

Hey guys sorry I haven't updated my blog recently, I have been really busy with work and have started a counselling course at college.

Food to me at that point was the devil, I couldn't look at any kind of food because it would make me feel really anxious and annoyed inside. It was like I saw red every time I would see food infront of me or if anyone tried to give me food. The ana (anorexia) would make me think everyone around me were trying to feed me up,which I at that stage started to believe. It made me fall out with my family as I would have the ana inside my head telling me they were trying to make me fat. I would start feeding my sister all the time which made myself feel better as I wouldn't be eating but made others eat. All of that caused me and my sister to argue all the time, at one point my sister had to go to stay with my nain for a few days. Back then I didn't realise how bad I was and how much stress I was putting on my family.

Ana (anorexia) is an evil illness, it manages to isolate you from everyone close to where your most important relationship is with food. All I would ever think about was food, weight and calories. It was all an obsession, but then I didn't realise as I thought it was normal. Now I realise that it wasn't healthy to be thinking all of that. Everyday I would have anorexic thoughts in my head, calling me fat and stopping me from eating. Some days I would be so hungry but I would stop myself from eating as I would get anorexic thoughts and voices, sometimes I would cry it all got too much. Anorexia didn't just ruin my life it also ruined my family, but it also affected my body.

Some of my side effects whilst going through anorexia:

• Periods stopped
• More sensitive to the cold
• Fatigue 
• Bowel problems

When suffering with anorexia or any other eating disorder you might feel good about being thin and not think about the damage it does to your body. I know when I suffered with it I didn't think of all the damage it was doing to my body, all I could think about was weight loss and making ana proud. 

Before getting ill with anorexia I wouldn't care about the calories or how much I would eat, but when I got ill I would be feeling guilty every time after eating or even thinking of eating. Sometimes it feels like you are trapped and nobody can save you, ana is in your head calling you names and pulling you further down. Looking back now the eating disorder isolates you from your loved ones, so it just has you to itself. I isolated myself from my family, I would hide in my room away from everyone and would just be thinking about food, weight, exercise and calories. I found it all so hard at times and wouldn't know what to do. 

Going into the unit was the best thing I did, because I don't know where I would be now if I didn't get the help I did. Any kind of eating disorders are scary and hard to fight but I promise anyone going through one or someone who has to see someone close to them go through an eating disorder it will and does get better in time. At first I didn't want to get better, but eventually I started to want to life again and wanted to get better. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Keep fighting and stay positive to anyone who is suffering from an eating disorder and is reading this.

Any questions or if anyone just wants to speak e-mail me:

 recoveryleadstopositivity@outlook.com

Thank you for reading 

Gem x

Flashbacks

On this page I am going to go into more detail about my experience with anorexia and some stuff could be triggering for people currently battling through eating disorders or those who are in recovery. If you find it too much just skip the page.

As a child I loved food and loved baking, but as I got older my relationship with food changed. I always remember how everything started when I got ill. Sometimes I would get so hungry in school but at the same time I would feel guilty, I would eat a cake but I would always spit it out in tissues. The feeling of guilt would hit me as soon as food went into my mouth. At the start I would eat but spit things out straight away and throw them in the bin, I would start cutting my meals down and leaving food on the side of my plate. I didn't tell anyone about how I was feeling towards food, I kept it all to myself until my mum confronted me. My mum would drop me off at school sometimes and I would start crying because I wouldn't want to leave her, she would pick me up at lunch times and take me for lunch to make sure I had lunch. I started leaving more food every week that passed by, I was loosing my energy and would fall asleep in lessons.

I remember my family were out and I decided to go running in the rain so I could loose weight. I didn't care about the weather all I cared about was losing weight, that's how bad the anorexia had got. I would be constantly doing some kind of exercise and I was obsessed with it. Nobody knew how much control the voice in my head had over me, every time I would try to eat the voice would be there telling me 'you are fat, don't eat'. The voice would be with me all day and night, every time before bed I would be doing exercises, I wouldn't stop until the voice in my head would go. The voice in my head was like a bully, controlling your life and making you think things that aren't true. I would always look at myself in the mirror and feel disgusting, but everyone around me would tell me I was not fat. The voice in my head disagreed and would make me think that everyone was trying to make me fat. It was so hard at such a young age, I believed the voice in my head and I started to hate food. My mum would want to make me food but I would flip out and run to my room because I didn't want anything, my mum did get frustrated with me at times but that's what the anorexia wanted for me to fall out with everyone close to me. I did isolate myself from everyone and keep myself in my room, at one point I couldn't watch television when food programmes or food adverts were on. I found it too hard to look at food, even the smell of it made me feel sick. My taste buds all changed, I couldn't drink tea at one point as I thought it tasted horrible. I would weigh myself everyday,the numbers would scare me at times. My mum had to hide the scales from me at one point as weighing myself became a obsession. There was a point where I would wear a certain hoodie and jeans, I would live in them as they were baggy on me and I couldn't wear anything tight.

My periods stopped a few months after I stopped eating, but in my head I was happy because it showed I was losing weight. But now looking back I can see how dangerous it was and that I am lucky to be here today. It was scary not having periods, I didn't have any for over a year. When I was recovering they started back and I was happy when they did.

Anorexia or bulimia breaks families, it is hard on the person with the eating disorder but it is also really hard on the family. As I know that it caused many problems in my family, I remember my dad having to force feed me a banana but I wouldn't take it. He got really frustrated, I could see he was upset and I didn't want that. My mum would be crying, my siblings would also be frustrated of why I wasn't eating. They all helped me at my worst and I will always be grateful to them.

I hate having flashbacks of everything that happened, but sometimes it makes me a stronger person. It has also made me realise how far I have came over the past few years.

Gem x

Difficult times in the unit

Few weeks after being ill with pneumonia I started struggling and picking up new tricks from other patients. At that point I no longer wanted to get better, I had lost hope. Knowing I had put on weight had started to get to me, I really didn't want to put anymore weight on.

Every meal time started to get harder, I would start to take my time eating again. I would start crying because I didn't want to eat and was scared. The nurses would sit and watch me eat, I hid food in my mouth but the nurses caught me out and would take me back to the dining room to swallow the food. My mum was informed that I was struggling and picking up new tricks from patients. She told me if I carried on she would take me out of the unit and get me better at home.

Days would past by where I would wish I wasn't alive, I would rather die than eat. I banged my head several times, a bruise appeared on my forehead. My mum was not happy and knew I was copying other patients. It took a while for the bruise to go down, below is a photo of me in the unit a few days after i bruised my head. The photo was taken by another patient, that day I was going on holiday with my family as the doctors and my mum thought it would do me good to get away from the unit.

I didn't want to go on holiday but my mum wanted me to go as I was picking up tricks from other patients. All throughout the holiday I just kept to myself and pushed my family away. Today I can see that I ruined that holiday as I was difficult and nobody could really relax. Before I used to love going on family holidays, but back then I didn't enjoy the holiday. I just wanted to go back to the unit I wanted to hide away. I remember having loads of arguments with members of the family, nobody could understand why I didn't want to get better anymore. Deep down I was drained from everything, I was tired of pretending everything would get better. The photo shows me smiling but that smile hid a lot of emotions, I felt trapped in my own body. The holiday was nearly over and I was excited to get back to the unit, looking back now it wasn't healthy how excited it was to go back to the unit.

I arrived back at the unit, from that day things got worse.


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