I wanted to write something this evening. Not out of a sense of obligation or because a blog “should” be updated regularly, but because I have missed writing and I wanted the sense of comfort of coming home. It is interesting, upon reflection, that a blog or the act of writing can feel like coming home. It has only been a few days since I last wrote, but the changes have been immense and so they’ve distorted the sense of distance. I feel like I have travelled a million miles and been gone for a mini lifetime. In reality, it has been 48 or so hours, and 9 junctions around the M25…
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Posts Tagged ‘change’
Travelling
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010All Change?
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010I have gotten myself in a state over the past few days. My six weeks off miraculously accelerated in the last quarter, and I found myself going round in circles – and then burying my head in the sand. Because fear has this terrible habit of growing, the more you give into it, I nearly forgot that I was excited before I got scared. And, because I’ve been concentrating on all the momentous things that I haven’t achieved in the past month, I’ve overlooked the million smaller things that have shifted, and sparkled, and probably had a much greater impact on where I currently am…
So this is a reminder.
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Food and the Move
Sunday, August 29th, 2010I haven’t written about food for a while. Partly because I’ve been doing really well with relaxing around it; and partly because my mind has been addled by other things. Food is, however, back on the agenda at the moment, and yet again, it’s linked to ‘the move’. I think this move might throw up a lot of skeletons in the next few weeks, so I apologise in advance…
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Significance and Stuff
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010I have just come back from yet another trip to the dump. I am finding this clearing out my flat thing hard. It’s not just the slight OCD-tinged tendencies towards hoarding that are so difficult to deal with; it’s the fact that so many of my possessions have been coloured by my past. They are throbbing with association and each wrench aches.
I guess this is normal.
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Letting go of the edge
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010I have a desktop of half-finished blog posts. They are driving me insane. I am not sure that they will ever be completed because at the moment I seem to be in a state of constant change. Things are moving so quickly that each post is elbowed aside mid-flow, and I rarely reach a clear conclusion before the next thing comes along. It is quite disorientating.
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Bright Lights
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010We walked through the West End at the weekend. The streets were heaving. Tourists, undeterred by the shiny pavements and spitting skies, were out in force, and the atmosphere was Theatreland electric, the excitement irresistible. The sky had cleared by the time the performance had finished, and we made our way down to Trafalgar Square, past buildings that I’d seen a thousand times and never noticed. There were people scrabbling over the lions and magical fountains and statues gleaming against the dark backdrop; then Whitehall glowing a rich historic cream.
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The Flipside of Fear
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010This is a blurt post.
There’s stuff going on in my head that I can’t quite seem to work out. Passing snippets that have paired themselves off without quite explaining the pairing, and insights that still remain partially hidden. There is one common thread. It is the word fear.
Fear.
I’m scared.
Belly scared. Paralysed scared. Scared silly….yet not quite sure of the source (there’s so many); nor, if I’m honest, of the emotion (it’s just what I always feel).
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Girl Stuff. Again. (Last time).
Friday, August 6th, 2010I haven’t written much this week because I’ve been incredibly tired. My body doesn’t quite feel like my body at the moment; and, whilst I’m delighted that it’s clearly recovering, the whole hormonal re-start has caught me left wing. It has been a little scary, to be honest, which sounds pathetic now that I’m 30, rather than 13.
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When I Stop Wobbling…
Monday, August 2nd, 2010I whinged on Twitter all weekend. After a fortnight of heady excitement followed by a colossal nosedive, I think I might have been driving my poor followers mad. I got myself stuck in a bit of a vicious circle: feel bad – complain about feeling bad – feel bad about complaining that I feel bad – feel even worse – complain about feeling even worse…. and so it went on.
The truth is, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed; and, because I’m overwhelmed, I’ve been temporarily blinded by a kind of white blanket of fear. It has seeped everywhere. In the cracks between waking and sleeping; when I step through the door after being out with friends; in the moments when I am waiting for the kettle to boil…
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Two Days
Thursday, July 29th, 2010I wobbled last weekend. Amidst all the pride at reaching my second year anniversary and after the giddiness of a jam-packed-life-changing week, I had a sudden panic, standing on the beach at Brighton, that the gap between the world and I is still too chasmic to bridge….
It is not the food that has turned out to be the hardest part of my recovery – it’s discovering how far I have removed myself from life.
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Second Chances
Friday, July 23rd, 2010On Sunday, it will be two years since I last binged and two years since I last threw up.
When I stopped, it felt as though I was wrenching out my heart. Now, it feels like I unclamped it.
I do not miss it at all. It does not cross my mind, apart from when some small, unpleasant reminder, like a shattered tooth or an unexpected flashback, make an unexpected appearance – and these certainly don’t tempt me back.
The first year was about existing through the days and the evenings; this year, it’s been about life. I do not need the film subscriptions and elaborately planned meals and scheduled phone calls to distract me any more; in fact, I rarely have enough time.
Even in my wildest imagination, I did not think it could be like this…
And so, I’m celebrating the occasion – as I did last year, and will do next year – as my unofficial birthday or the date that I allowed myself to come back to life.
It is, inevitably, tinged with sadness and a strange dusting of betrayal, though I could not say who betrayed who –
It does not matter.
The point is that I have had a second chance and I am starting, finally, to feel alive.
The Transition
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010I am leaving my job tomorrow.
I’ve been harping on about it for ages, but I’m now feeling rather scared.
There’s lots of stuff about bad employers and discrimination. Mine have always looked after me rather well.
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Heading For a Fall…
Sunday, July 18th, 2010There is a little voice at the back of my head that thinks I’m heading for a fall. I have been feeling quite happy recently, so it’s tugging on my elbow, desperate to be heard. It has been clinging on for years, like a leech, and I think it’s time we parted. I will never be able to feel pleasure, or enjoyment, or pride, whilst it’s still hanging around.
This morning, when I was swimming, I imagined it hurtling through space, cartoon-like.
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Trusting the process
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010A while ago, I wrote a post called Clinging on to the Past. It was a difficult post to write as I had to acknowledge that I might be holding onto my eating disorder; and also, because I couldn’t see how the situation would be resolved.
At the time, a comment was left suggesting that I would know when the time was right to move on. It was a comment that touched me deeply, and has stayed, therefore, alive in my head. I couldn’t see how the miraculous transformation would materialise – but the hope made me feel warm and that was almost enough.
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The Then – Now Continuum
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010I flip-switched myself into the past yesterday morning. The side streets of West London and places that I didn’t think I’d been.
I had.
About ten years ago.
I got off the train and was giddy-kneed with the memories. Things that I wish I hadn’t done and the horrible weight of wasted potential. Youth and possibility, yet I had my finger firmly pressing the self destruct.
It was not the best way to begin a few days that were all about laying the foundations for the next steps in my life, and I nearly turned around and gave up then… but, as I made my way home on the sweaty train this evening, I realised that this is probably how it is going to be. Shadows that try and pull me down; and a battle between then – and now – that I’m going to have to engage in, in order to win.
It has been an amazing few days, on reflection.
As part of my plans to change my life, I’ve decided on a new career; and the past few days have been spent at an exhibition trying to find out more about what’s going on. I have learnt a heap of things and my head is still buzzing; but it is the internal shifts that have made the biggest impression on me.
I noticed, yesterday, that I didn’t think about food. That I ate, because I needed some energy; but the worry was lessened by the excitement about what was going on around me; and, the obsession was softened by the other ideas and thoughts sparking around.
Today, I realised that, for the first time since year one in secondary school, I have been in a new learning environment and my whole brain has been totally engaged. That during school, and university, and my working career, the ‘activity’ has always come second to the food; and, suddenly, it’s the other way round instead.
My friend joked, last night, that this was “normal”, and this has been the third revelation that I’m still trying to digest. “Normal”, now that I’m actually doing it, is not quite as terrifying as it had come to mean in my head.
I have been distinctly “normal” over the past few days. Have been a virtual nobody. Have worn the same clothes as a lot of the other attendees; eaten the same food; made the same small talk….and I’m happy, for the moment, to disappear into the crowd.
Three lessons in two days is not bad going for anyone, but I have another message that is echoing around. It is something about getting the balance between the shadowy regret and the excited progression; about pacing, and not going with my tendency to leap, absolutely, from one thing to the next.
I am writing tonight for this reason. To join the dots up between where I have been – and where I am – and where I am heading. To break the pattern of separating my life into discreet chunks and then burying them away until a random memory winds me. To keep myself grounded, and whole, and coherent, so that I don’t knock out the scaffold and find myself crashing, alone, again.
I’m not going to dwell in the stabs of regret that I experienced on Tuesday morning, nor let them stop me from fighting, now, to move on. I’m just going to try and hold the two parts together, because they’re both part of who I’m starting to become.
p.s. This, as you can tell, is part of my ongoing blog bit! The re-structuring has been temporarily waylaid by the above and my inability to differentiate between blog / web. This weekend is set aside!…
A Backbone of Steel
Thursday, June 17th, 2010I have a fractured tooth. It is a front one, which I’m finding quite hard. They have bonded it, for the moment, but it’s only a matter of time. The others are likely to go in the same direction.
It has been 23 months, almost to the day, since I last threw up; but the damage has been done. There is a little network of cracks spiderwebbing from my teeth to my ankle –
But I do appear to have developed a backbone of steel.
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Intentions
Sunday, June 13th, 2010I have heard the word “intention” mentioned in three different contexts over the past few days. This can’t be coincidence. There’s clearly something I’m meant to explore. It’s another one of those occasions where I have taken a rather long and protracted route to arrive at a common psychological concept, this being we are more likely to do that which we intend to do –
And that stating it makes it real.
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Flashbacks
Thursday, June 10th, 2010Sometimes I will do something little – like flip the lid off a glass bottle – and the ‘pop’ will send me catapulting back, again; to nights standing in the kitchen, screaming with frustration, because I’m desperate desperate desperate to binge.
And sometimes, when I have to go back to the places that it has dominated – like stations, and supermarkets, and hospital waiting rooms – then a smell or a sound can leave me winded, because it carries, still, the panic and chaos and ice cold despair.
Sometimes, an innocent action – like a friend adding an extra splash of oil – will trip the switch into the old ways of thinking; and my stomach will twist and my head close in and I won’t be able to what am I going to do don’t make me
Breathe.
And then again.
It is as impossible to run away from the flashes of memory as it is to run away from ourselves.
We can only notice them, from the safety of distance, and thank God that things are no longer the same.
Finding the Spark
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010I have been on a mission for the past few days. Been fired up and propelled forward on a burst of energy that has added a spark to my eyes and a new sense of purpose to my thoughts.
I think this is called ambition.
And I am trying not to be scared.
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From Talking to Walking…
Sunday, May 30th, 2010Things feel a hundred times better now that I have finally started moving. The anticipation is always far worse than the action – and yet each time, I seem to forget.
Change often happens this way for me. The fear paralyses. Then comes the frustration. And, finally, the elastic-band-snap of emancipation and whoosh, I’m free –
Come what will.
I went through the same process in my recovery. The same wheel-spinning-yet-not-going-anywhere, until it felt like a miracle that I didn’t implode. All talk, I seemed – and no action. All words – and nothing behind them but fear.
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Doing Things Differently
Friday, May 28th, 2010I am a great believer in the value of doing something differently. With a track record of making the same mistakes, over and over again, I also know that doing things differently is, for me, incredibly and infuriatingly hard. Einstein hits the nail on the head, so I expect that I am not alone:
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
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Dwelling in Uncertainty
Monday, May 24th, 2010I went to a School of Life Sunday Sermon, and heard a neuroscientist, called David Eagleman, speak. If I’d got round to any pre-event research, I would have gained a little insight into the stuff he’d be talking about; but I was, instead, hooked by a one word title.
“Uncertainty.”
Anything that might illuminate a concept I grapple with, on a daily basis, is guaranteed to grab my attention.
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“Am I Still the Same?”
Thursday, May 20th, 2010Last night, I bumped into someone from my past; and I shocked myself, when it came to saying goodbye, by nearly asking a question I’ve been grappling with for years: “am I still the same?”
“Am I still the same” is my “do I look fat in this?” question. The reassurance seeker that I continually seem to ask. “Do I look the same?”, and “Am I still the same”, or “How am I different?”. And please answer that I am not.
I have resisted, more recently, from externalising the discussion, but the variants have been tingling, slightly unpleasantly, on the tip of the tongue
Up until now, I haven’t bothered to unpick why this staying the same has been so important. What, exactly, I am staying the “same” as; and why it matters if I am “different”. There is a vague link to weight in there, and an outdated attempt at subtly asking the “do I look bigger?” question – but it is the underlying implication that has left me slightly more disturbed.
If it matters that I do not look different and is important to remain the same, then I am pretty much destined for failure; because if there’s one thing we can all be certain of, it’s change.
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Re Dis-covery
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010I started to write an eloquent post about the semantics of the word “recovery”.
It has stuttered and spluttered, for the past few weeks, and I have made myself feel misunderstood. I do not want to write about it nicely, at the moment. I don’t want to phrase how I’m feeling in pleasantries or flowery terms.
To be honest, I’d rather just sit and cry.
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One Life
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010Last week, I was asked what the key turning points in my recovery were.
There were quite a few – my teeth, another close call, the isolation, the increasing social disconnection, my brother, despair – but one powerful motivation which seems so obvious (now) that I rarely reflect on it, and seldom give it much space –
We have – that I know of – only one life.
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“I am an engineer and an artist”
Friday, April 30th, 2010“i am an engineer and an artist. #iamnotmyweight” (@thisisMEssy)
I have favourited this tweet. It couldn’t be a more timely reminder, as I am struggling to figure out how life without an eating disorder works, that the words we use to define ourselves might help to change the positioning.
Given the name of my blog and the reason I started it (“this is the story of finding an identity and giving an eating disorder up”), you’d have thought I already appreciated this; but I have focussed so hard on what I’m giving up that I have neglected what I am finding. (more…)
A Few of the Lies My Eating Disorder Liked Me To Believe
Thursday, April 29th, 2010My eating disorder was a consummate liar. It had a few lines that always kept me stuck. I tried, (when I was feeling brave enough), to argue the point; but there was always an element of “what if I’m wrong” that made me play along.
It is hard to challenge something when you’re cowering under its threats. These ones stick out.
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Stepping Out –
Monday, April 26th, 2010I have stepped out of my comfort zone. I didn’t realise what a leap it was, until I reached for cover – and it had disappeared. I am still, it seems, hiding under my eating disorder; and not quite sure whether without it, I am enough.
This time it was my writing, which shows just how far the illnesses’ influence extends.
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Who’d Have Thought?
Friday, April 23rd, 2010Who’d have thought, a few years ago, that I’d be doing the things that I’m doing now.
It is important, every now and then, to stop and reflect on the progress, even if the process remains hard.
We forget, sometimes, just how far we’ve come, because we’re worrying so much about how far’s left to go.
It is limitless.
So, I’m taking a pit stop and coming up for air –
Because, who’d have thought, a few years ago, when it felt like I was “all talk”, that I’d be sitting here writing stuff down for people to read? And who’d have guessed, if they saw me frantically dashing between food shops, swollen cheeked and skeletal handed, that it was the same person calmly sitting here today.
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Beyond the M25
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010I am going to Vienna for two days on Friday.
The excitement is bristled through with anxiety, or maybe it’s the other way around.
I am still getting used to the fact that I can leave the 30 mile radius that my eating disorder deemed comfortable, let alone the country. There were too many variables in travelling to make it feasible. The anxiety of the unknown and the uncontrollable, compacted by the need to be within arms-length of my doctor / dentist / therapist, meant that I spent ten years or so within the confines of the M25* – and I’m still getting used to being free.
There is a whole wide world out there to explore.
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The Frontiers
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010Blogging has been a step out of my comfort zone for me. Not all the time, I hasten to add; but sometimes, when I’ve hit on something critical, or written a piece that’s a bit more open to contention, I can feel myself pushing a little – and then waiting for the backlash. It is something like putting your finger near an electric fence and seeing how close you get before the shock burns.
I was describing this to a friend last week, when she was trying to help me make sense of how I move forwards now, and she had a slightly different take on the experience. For her, the shock was electrifying, not an electrocution. It was about energy and finding my frontiers and sparky positive things.
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Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010Since going to see Alice in Wonderland, I have been completely taken by the idea of believing in “6 impossible things before breakfast”.
I have also realised that even getting to one is quite a challenge for me.
Despite my best attempts, a rather annoying voice chimes in and points out the irrationality of my thinking – and that’s before we’ve got anywhere near to blue caterpillars and talking cats.
“Today will be a great day” is countered by “you’re setting yourself up for a fall.” “Anything’s possible” is “provided” that things like rain, and ironing, and traffic jams, don’t get in the way. And, “crazy” ideas are negated with a “but”, or abandoned, mid creation, “because that would be ridiculous” –
Alice would disapprove. This is not at all what Lewis Carroll was talking about and my current approach is fundamentally flawed. I am vetting what’s possible – or not – before it even becomes a thought, let alone something I’d consider believing in.
So, in order to meet the target, I’m putting in a little preparation and trying to….
1. Create some space.
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Recovery In Context
Friday, March 26th, 2010A couple of weeks ago, I had a spot of writers block.
In one of the few weeks that I had lots of time to write, nothing was coming out.
This was incredibly frustrating. Every evening after work, I’d turn on the computer; lock my front door; give my head permission to run wild – and come up with nothing. And, the longer I came up with nothing, the harder it became to access what I was thinking and to imagine ever having anything to write.
It took me a week of staring at a blank screen to realise why I kept coming up with nothing. In the pursuit of thinking about something to write, I had pressed pause on the thing that normally gets me going –
Life.
In this instance, removing the context definitely didn’t help.
I approached recovery in a similar way; and, unfortunately, it took a bit longer for the penny to drop.
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The In-Betweener
Thursday, March 25th, 2010My sister has just informed me that the little package I didn’t recognise at the bottom of her bag is a tampon. Things must have changed a bit since 1996, which is the last date that I remember having a period; or maybe I’ve just forgotten. I’m not even sure that we made it to first name terms.
It is embarrassing, at 30, to be informed of what a tampon looks like; and I am beginning to get a bit concerned now, that even though I’m weighing in near normal, they have not made a reappearance. It feels like a kick in the teeth. After I have done so much hard work and changed myself, beyond all recognition, my body still won’t play ball.
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Spring
Friday, March 19th, 2010I know that England’s got into the habit of snowing in March and there is still a chill in the air, but it is starting to feel like spring.
Winter always seems to last an eternity; but, as the days grow longer and the warmth slowly creeps back in, something starts to lift and it all begins to seem a bit brighter.
It has reminded me, this unthawing, of a bus journey that I took, several years ago. It was September, so it must have been nearing Autumn; but, because it felt like an awakening, or the dewy freshness of a new beginning, the memory has become intrinsically associated with spring.
Life is full of these stops – and starts – I think. Wintery deaths and then the ridiculously unexpected arrival of spring.
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Small Steps
Monday, March 8th, 2010I noticed, this morning, as my sleepy eyes slowly sharpened on the drizzling rain, that I hadn’t checked the forecast for a while.
This is progress.
The need to know – or control – or anticipate the future seems to have loosened; and, instead of checking in to BBC weather at hourly intervals, I have obviously found more interesting things to do, or just realised that I can manage, come rain or shine.
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The If-Then Voice
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010There is a little voice in my head that likes to make connections between totally unrelated things. I call it the if-then voice, because this is its favourite line.
If you don’t do that – then this will happen, OR, if you do that – then this will be the result.
It likes to predict the outcome, does the if-then voice. It likes to consider any action – or non action – in terms of what will come next and in line with its own, mysterious, agenda, which is mostly around controlling me.
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Maintaining Factors
Monday, February 1st, 2010I have been asked to talk about the things that kept my eating disorder going for so long. The ‘maintaining factors’, in medical speak.
It is difficult to answer this now, when the reality of so many lost years feels like an open wound, and, if I could go back and violently shake my previous selves, I would.
It is hard not to turn to myself and say, yes, Melissa, what exactly did you think you were gaining from choosing an eating disorder over the things that most people aspire to, like jobs and husbands and families and friends…
Maintaining factor 1: Oblivion
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The Self Help Sceptic
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010As a self help sceptic (reformed), the irony inherent in my blog has not been missed.
If you’d given me a web address or a self help book a few years back, I’d have turned my nose straight up.
There was a certain arrogance to my eating disorder (what would they know?) that sneered at self help (like it’s that easy) and people who claimed to “understand”; an automatic scepticism towards shop brought solutions and the hollowness of a few positive words that couldn’t possibly appreciate my pain –
I might have been wrong.
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Leaving Behind in 2009
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009There are a few things that I would like to take the opportunity to leave behind in 2009, starting with a strange little habit that I have of separating each meal into its constituent food group and then knocking them off, one at a time, in the prescribed order: green (vegetable), orange (carbohydrate), red (protein).
Whilst New Years is traditionally about making new resolutions, I’ve decided that breaking old ones is equally acceptable; and, there are a few lurking habits that I’d like to shrug off as the clock strikes midnight –
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December 28 th (Part II) – Stopping Smoking
Monday, December 28th, 2009As I may have mentioned (!), it has been a year today since my last cigarette; and, whilst, I may not have uncovered the secrets of nicotine abstention, I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping myself on the straight and narrow.
A year ago, life without cigarettes felt unimaginable and totally unappealing; so, if you’re going through the same struggle, here’s a few things that made the impossible, possible –
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New Year, New You?
Monday, December 21st, 2009I am not great with new years.
I tend to find the ending, daunting; and the expectations, a little too much to take.
I get a little scared that I will wake up, on the first of January, to a completely alien landscape –
Or that it will be completely the same.
For a few years, I worried that I wouldn’t wake up at all.
I’ve clearly brought into the ‘new year new you’ hype and the inevitable annual apocalypse; so, this year, I’m getting prepared, and I’m trying to enter 2010 on a more positive footing –
It is an opportunity, and not an ending.
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Feeling the Fear – and Getting Better
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009Sometimes, getting better is far scarier than staying ill.
Sometimes, the apprehension and the expectation and the uncertainty can stop you from changing your life. We’re far more comfortable with what we know –
It will be okay.
It might feel scary, but you’ll be okay.
There are no certainties – but it will not be as bad as you expect.
It just takes a little courage and a few deep breaths; and, when you’ve got through the first challenges, you’ll be looking back and wondering what took you so long –
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The Proof is in the Pudding
Saturday, July 11th, 2009I couldn’t resist. I know the subject (re-learning how to start eating normally) is serious but I’d rather lighten the tone, ease the tension a little.
And it’s not just an empty pun. It’s exactly what I had to do. Prove that food isn’t what the eating disorder said it was, start building up a little evidence, find a little ammunition to challenge 17 years of negative associations.
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Giving up bulimia
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009Giving up any addiction is a challenge.
Giving up bulimia feels doubly difficult because you can’t just take food out of the equation.
I don’t think there is one hard, fast and proven-to-be-effective way out of bulimia. It is a strange and precarious mix of circumstance and determination and planning and support and being prepared to go through the uncertainty and the unknown.
It’s hard to get it right first time round.
Saying Goodbye
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009Piece by piece, I am slowly letting go.
Step by slow step, I am gradually saying goodbye.
It is a long and painful process. I have been here before, but not this far down the road, not this close to freedom, not this scared and strangely empty.
Stepping off the hamster wheel
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009OCD is like being a hamster on one of those running wheels. You know that you’re not really getting anywhere but getting off feels near on impossible. The only difference – and this does make some assumptions and ignores the benefits of exercise – is that you’re acutely aware that you’re a hamster running in a wheel.
It’s incredibly frustrating. It’s horrible to realise that you’re engaged in something so futile. That the future, in a ghoulish parody of groundhog day, simply holds more of the same futility.
Deviating from the prescribed route would be fatal.
Staying on it would be equally fatal.
Tomorrow
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009“It’s all right. Tomorrow I’ll be pretty again, tomorrow I’ll be happy again, tomorrow, tomorrow…..”
Jean Rhys, ‘Good Morning, Midnight’
If you’re a member of the tomorrow brigade, stop now.
Tomorrow will never come.
It took me fifteen years of waiting for tomorrow to learn this.
Tomorrow, I won’t throw up. Tomorrow, it will be okay to eat. Tomorrow, I’ll start again. Tomorrow, I’ll feel different….
Keeping Busy
Sunday, June 7th, 2009The transition between illness and recovery can be a little uncomfortable.
There’s a particularly awkward stage when your head is still on auto-repeat – but you’re trying to ignore the programme.
Where you’re so consumed by the process that you don’t have the headspace – or the inclination – to do any of the things that you’re looking forward to doing a little further down the line.
Where the agenda is simple: get through the day.
It doesn’t last – although it can feel like a lifetime – but it helps when you can escape into other things for a little while.
Welcome to the wonderful world of ‘distractions’ – the things you do to keep yourself busy when you’re thinking about things that you shouldn’t be thinking about.
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