Posts Tagged ‘change’

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New Year, New You?

Monday, December 21st, 2009

I 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, 2009

Sometimes, 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, 2009

I 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, 2009

Giving 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.

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Saying Goodbye

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Piece 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.

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Stepping off the hamster wheel

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

OCD 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.

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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….

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Keeping Busy

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

The 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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