I have been struggling to get back to where I need to be with food. The struggle has taken the form of bulimia (and naming it still remains hard). It had been scarily easy to revert to old forms of behaviour (2 years of recovery have very little on 17 years of illness) and scarily easy for the damage to re-emerge. A bloody mouth and shaking hands are worrying but not quite enough.

For the first few months, I tried to return to the strategies that helped me recover the first time round. Planning, preparation, distraction, pick a date, share your intention, put things in place. The strategies didn’t seem to work this time; and, more worryingly, I seemed to kick back against my attempts to enforce a structure. It has taken me a while to realise what this backlash was about.

The first phase of my recovery bound me in structure and routine; and, whilst this swaddling kept me alive, it did not let me fully live.

So this is the tension and the question. How to find recovery in the real world. How to regain control of the food without relinquishing the delight I have experienced in going with the flow. In loosening the rules and routines. In moving away from breakfast at 6:45, lunch at 1:15; bed at 10:37; and next days’ clothes laid out before dinner. Don’t rock the boat with anything too emotional; pick to pieces every decision; kid glove treatment; no rather than yes – and sometimes the other way around.

My life is heading in the right direction; it is only the eating disorder that is trying to yank it back.

And so I think that this is the next phase of recovery, although it is painful and not wholly certain, yet, which way I will tip. It has been suggested that I’m nearly ready to let go and jump in the world – and that it is the snagging of the last remaining traces of eating disorder that are holding me back. I think that this is accurate, given that the immersion does not feel as deep nor as depressing as it has in the past…but as behaviours can quickly suck you downwards, I still need to watch out.

And so I am writing this post as an acknowledgement of where I am, and because I wondered whether this was a common experience for anyone else. Whether after the first part of recovery when you’ve got back to health, there is a wobble as the scaffolding comes down; and, if this is the case, what’s the best thing to do next? I am working along the lines of balance (hooks to hold onto rather than ropes to bind me down) and also refusing to go back (because if I have fought tooth and nail for the life I have built), but this is all new territory and I’d love a little extra support.

I stopped because I am not sure, yet, what I’d like to say.

That, of all psychiatric disorders, Anorexia Nervosa has the highest premature mortality rate. That the mortality rates for Bulimia and eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNOS) are equally terrifying.

That part of the complexity of eating disorders lies in the fact that no experience is exactly the same. That there are resonances and similarities, but each person’s experience is unique.

That I am deeply worried by the closures of units that I keep hearing about, especially those that I have known. That I am also scared by the growing number of sufferers and, particularly, of younger – and older – and male sufferers.

That it is as important to focus on awareness of recovery as it is to focus on awareness of being ill.

I don’t know.

All of these – and nothing. A large part of my life has been stolen by an eating disorder and I do not want to give it anymore time –

No. This is not quite true. Part of the taking back is choosing to give it time. It’s just that the time is spent in a different way.

I have had a rough few months. I try and skim over it because it is easier that way. Because there is less room, now, between me and my blog, and it is therefore much harder to hide. Because the time has been golden, too, and it’s hard to reconcile the magic and the struggle. Because even with 18 years of experience and a good whack of intensive treatment, an eating disorder can still ambush, ensnare and baffle. Can re-emerge, when you think you’re on the straight and narrow; or slip in when the routines that you’ve built to keep it out get perturbed –

And so this is my message.

Not that an eating disorder haunts forever – but that it is a difficult battle to win.

That it needs to be talked about for these reasons. Because it is a difficult battle to win and a difficult experience to talk about; and because the complexity of eating disorders means that they are difficult to understand. Because we’re not winning yet and we need to work together. Because recovery is very possible, and it’s important to tell that story as well.

There’s lots of stuff going on this week. beat have released a much needed report on the use of images in the reporting of eating disorders; there’s a busy schedule of online and offline events; Men Get Eating Disorders Too have launched a new membership scheme; we’ve got a cool Facebook page focusing on the positives of recovery –

And I’m using the time to touch base with myself and think a little bit about how I’m going to move things forward in the coming months. How I can make sure that I win my battle, and continue enjoying the amazing things that recovery can bring.

Bottom left. Extraction. Root-canal filled Crown. Chronic recession (back and front). Gum graft. Fractured tooth. Lower interior filling.

I can’t stop thinking about my teeth. Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and check that the fracture has not fractured, or that the teeth are still there.

They are inescapable, as is the damage. It has already been done, although it is now being compounded; one sugar coated acid blast at a time.

If they crumble I do not know what I will do –

And yet the fear is as strong a trigger as it is a disincentive, which is how an eating disorder maintains its hold. That, and the sense that you can not share what’s really going on in your head.

It’s partly because I haven’t been able to find the words to say what I am feeling; and partly because I’ve had to change my get-back-on-track strategy. I am trying to squeeze the eating disorder out with activity, this time; and have learnt that, without flexibility, I just keep going round and round –

It has been a case of the doing the same thing and expecting different results phenomenon.

What helped me the first time I stopped the bulimia doesn’t quite fit with where I now am. The feelings and challenges are similar – but the context is totally different; and so, as a very wise friend pointed out, the solution I had proposed no longer matches up.

It has taken a while for the penny to drop.

I have moved through frustration (“why can’t I do what I need to do?”) to fear (“I don’t know how to change things”) to acknowledgement (“I am still not moving in the right direction”) –

I can hold onto the fact that I’ve done it before – I just might need to do it differently this time round.

This is a both liberating and terrifying realisation. It has also taught me a few things about the recovery process that I did not fully appreciate before….

Adaptability is fundamental. If the first approach isn’t working, then it’s not a matter of failing – it’s about trying other things until you find a way that works.

The slip-ups are not, as I had positioned them, gaps that will become openings for the eating disorder. They are, instead, opportunities to spot the weak points and make sure they don’t trip me up again.

I have known that recovery is a dynamic process, but never seen it so clearly, nor managed to step away from the disappointment when it does not go to plan. This is the other lesson in there.

Recover a bit – more forward – slip a little – learn something new and recover a bit more – move forward –

I am growing stronger, I think, although it has felt like I have been getting lost.

I am stopping today.

I decided, a few weeks ago, that I needed a date because that was how I did it last time. I know that it doesn’t work like that for everyone; but for me, bulimia has always been all or nothing. I need clear rules and high boundaries or I spiral quickly out of control.

And so, I am writing this to mark the moment and capture the learning. There has been some, even though the lesson was hard.

I have learnt that…

The dam broke, earlier this evening, and the magnitude of my devastation has finally come out.

Before I gave up smoking, I read the Allen Carr book. There was a passage in it that has remained with me. It was about the fact that each ‘last cigarette’ re-ignited the desire for the next one, keeping you trapped in an illusion of ‘just one more time’.

It is the same, for me, with bingeing.

Each time gets me a little more hooked. Each craving that is satisfied sets up the cycle again.

And so I am sucked in and spiralling down and watching all the things that I have worked so hard for over the past year teetering –

And as they hang in the balance, I realise just how much I want this life that I am building. Just how much it means to me, now that there’s the chance I might lose it again –

And so I am devastated. Devastated. That despite a two year abstinence, and in spite of the self awareness, and after all the pain that it has caused me, the eating disorder can still slither in and assert, oh so quickly, it’s iron grip –

And I am terrified, to my core, that I will not be able to turn it around; because I keep saying that I will, and yet when I am standing at the fork between my future and my past, I do not seem able to chose which road to take –

In the split seconds, I lose my sense of navigation, and it is only in the aftermath that I realise I have been misled.

I do not want to go backwards.

I, Melissa, am so indescribably excited about what could lie ahead –

But the longer I remain in the cycle, the more I lose sight of which way is the front.

* * *

This is a secret. It is a secret that I also keep from myself. I like food. I particularly like food that I don’t feel comfortable eating. One of the reasons why I found it so hard to challenge my bulimia was that it seemed the only way I could imagine allowing myself to eat. I thought I’d miss the pleasure that I got (albeit on a decreasing basis) from the bingeing, and that, after gorging myself so regularly, it would be impossible for ‘normal’ to feel like enough.

The body is a miraculous thing. I found that, as my body got used to eating regularly and as I slowly gained the weight back, the cravings started to lessen and I was able to feel satisfied eating the things that would have been a starter for my binge.

It is impossible to realise this when your body is starving – sated – starving – sated and your mind is craving food, and emotion, and relief. It is impossible to disprove the fear when you give up bulimia without making sure that you are eating enough. It is impossible to maintain the stability if you don’t deal with whatever’s going on underneath.

* * *

Shortly after writing this, I slipped, and I am now experiencing the same fear that I was trying to placate. I am back in “just one more time” territory, and had forgotten how difficult it is to face this challenge when the trust has gone and food has become divided into safe – and unsafe – again. It is hard to disentangle yourself when the physical effects of bingeing, the chemical highs and lows, really take hold –

Because there is nothing to hang onto. Nothing to suggest that the experience of food might be anything else.

A few weeks ago, I read an article that relates to this chicken and egg situation. The interplay between the physical and the emotional that I sometimes lose when I am busy being analytical or trying to think myself out of the situation.

The article was about the need to gain weight in order to recover fully from anorexia, and it reminds me of the leap of faith that you have to take around stopping bingeing. The knowledge that it is impossible to see the wood from the trees when you are submerged and trapped in the behaviour, and your mind is so consumed by the physical effects of the food.

This passage, particularly, struck me –

“for the anorexic, gaining weight is the prerequisite for mental recovery, rather than vice versa. Put another way: you can’t make an anorexic want to put on weight until he or she has begun to do so. Put yet another way: the mind may make the body sick, but only the body can help the mind be well again”.

- and, whilst there are differences in the processes of weight restoration and stopping bingeing, the initial step into the dark is not dissimilar.

And so, I am reminding myself now of the words that I was writing to someone else. That even though I can not imagine it being okay, it’s hard for me to see clearly at the moment. And even though I am hoping for the lightbulb moment, it is unlikely to come.

But if I give myself a chance, it will.

I know the exchange is not that simple; but I have become acutely aware that

Every minute spent dashing between shops and every moment spent slumped over a toilet bowl is time, stolen, from the life that I am building for myself. 

It is tempting, at this point, to let the guilt and the taunts of “wrong choice” imprison me, but - 

Every wall that is created when I creep around or attempt to disguise what is going on; and every inch of self respect that is snatched when I find myself wearily cleaning up the aftermath is a direct result of the thing that is trying to convince me that I would like it back in my life again. 

No. 

I understand that it is not a simple this or that decision; but sometimes the complexity blurs the fact that I am clinging onto something that is responsible for every crumbled tooth and swelling gland and aching rib. That will steal, without a backwards glance, time and money and thoughts; consuming energy and confidence and the headspace that I’d much rather devote to far more important things - 

And this is a reminder, not a self attack. 

This is my ammunition, not its. 

That every hour it claims belongs, in fact, to me. Every minute it negates has a value that I don’t want to give up. And every promise it makes is exposed when I consider the reality of its price. 

This week has felt better. Not perfect, but a marked improvement – and it’s because I’ve focused on doing it through the discomfort, rather than waiting for the feelings to go away.

I have learned the lesson before, but some lessons need a little re-iteration, particularly those that demand you to act on blind faith.

And so, I have fixed up a busy calendar and over-ridden the misplaced anger which comes from the subsequent obligation – and, within an hour or so, found that I’m having a brilliant time.

And, I have sat with the meals that I didn’t feel like eating and through the urge to remove the feeling – and slowly re-built the boundaries that, a few months ago, were keeping me safe.

It has not been easy.

It has meant that I have had to go back into pulling myself away from what was becoming an unhealthy form of normal; and there was a tension in the switch –

But each change reinforces the new direction, and each piece of practice takes a bit of the discomfort away.

Not perfect, but there have been some gaps in the clouds; and I am learning to let these, and the clouds themselves, be.

This has been the important bit that I had nearly forgotten how to do.

Sit with the discomfort for a little bit in order to acknowledge whatever’s going on and then learn that it passes.

Wedge a few crucial seconds in between thought and action so that I can think about whether I really want to do what I’m about to do.

Give the moments where I sit though the former and walk away from the latter room to breathe so that I don’t crush the good bits before they’ve had time to grow -

Let it be. 

So simple, and yet so hard when impulsivity and fear have been leading the way.