Taking time off to recover

thisedrecoveryblog

In December 2018 I realised I had to make a choice. I could not manage to continue with recovery (and I had literally just started on that journey) AND keep doing all the things I was doing. I was teaching flying trapeze, dance, fitness classes, rehearsing, training and basically moving all the time. I had no days off. If I was going to keep my jobs (and I do love my jobs) I needed to take a break to let my body do some very necessary healing. The thought of taking time off was scary! I worried I would lose all my muscles, I was worried I would not be able to come back to my job, I was worried about my body changing and on and on and on. But though of not being able to properly go into recovery was more worrying to me than all the other things (luckily). 

I made the decision that I would go to stay with my family in Norway for a while. I had a ticket booked for December 19 and was supposed to return to NYC on Dec 28. I decided that I would stay in Norway for at least all of January and possibly also February. I thought about it for a few days and then had to make a decision. I had to let my jobs know, find a sublet for my room etc. It was a few crazy days making it all happen. I also had to tell my parents what was going on. They had no idea (they knew I had struggled in the past but thought I was doing well – as far as I know) but were luckily very supportive of the decision and let their almost 33 year old daughter live with them for a couple of months. 

I knew it was the right decision for me but that does not mean that it was easy. While I was home I had weekly Skype meetings with my ED recovery coach. I also put all movement and exercise on the back burner. This was extremely difficult and I did slip up a few times, not going to lie. My body was very happy about the break though. Once it had the permission to do nothing, it ran with it and I became so so so tired. Absolutely exhausted. Walking up the stairs took so much energy. All I wanted to do was sit on the couch, which is what I should be doing anyway. Now, this is a difficult concept for people – abstaining from movement. We are conditioned to believe that movement is good for us and it IS. But NOT for an over worked body that needs to heal from years of malnutrition and over exercise. 

I also had to start rewiring existing thought patterns and beliefs that had manifested through the 17 years of dealing with a restrictive eating disorder. This is such an important part of recovery that I had no idea about until I found Tabitha Farrar’s blog and youtube channel. I got her book on ED recovery which is called “Rehabilitate, rewire, recover” (you can find it on Amazon and it is absolutely amazing – recommend 10/10) and that was very helpful. It was also helpful for my mum to read parts of it to understand what I was working on as well. It was lifesaving for me to take this time to let my body heal. I do wish I would have been able to be a little more open with my parents during my time at home though. I did open up about some things but I wish I could have been a little more open with what I was struggling with. But hey… it is what it is. 

I returned to NYC in the very end of February 2019 and dove straight back into work and training. Now, I do not recommend  this. Actually, if I could do it again I would have started a little slower than I did. Continuing to move forward in recovery and at the same time being expected to keep up with an extremely physically demanding job is very difficult and not ideal to be honest with you. I did have to make some hard choices though. I decided I had to quit dancing with the company I had danced with for the last three years. Rehearsing two evenings per week and performing did not seem to be a smart idea. I wanted to make sure I had some time off to rest as well. 

Honestly, after coming back, taking time off to rest my body has been one of the hardest things. I have a hard time saying no to things, and the truth is that I needed to work as much as I possibly could to pay rent, living expenses as well as for weekly sessions with my recovery coach and dietician (#adulting). I am still striving to find a place of balance with this. My default is always to do more rather than less. It is a work in progress. Although I am further towards recovery than I have ever been, I still have a lot of work to do. 

First post!

thisedrecoveryblog

First post! 

So… I decided to start a blog. I am keeping it anonymous for now because I am just not quite ready to share this with the world yet. I think I will be one day soon though – I really want to spread awareness about what ED’s are (and what they are NOT). There is a lot of misinformation out there – and a lot of it I have believed as well so I am not judging anyone here. 

I have also found it very helpful to read about other peoples experiences as I have been navigating though my own recovery. And I am still navigating though that. So maybe my experiences can help someone else. And it is also helpful for me to write some of this stuff down. 

Alriiight. So. Let me share a little bit about myself. I am a 33 year old female, I am originally from Norway but have been living in NYC for the last few years. I am a dancer and dance teacher but have transitioned into fitness and circus arts the last few years. I am still dancing and performing but not as frequently as before. I also do a lot of other things on the side – I design/make/repair costumes which I really enjoy! I first developed an ED at age 14/15 ish and I have had periods where I have considered myself “recovered”. And it has definitely looked like I was but I have still had a lot of food rules, body image issues and there has always been restriction present in some shape or form. I will go into more of my journey in a different post.  

As I have been learning more about ED’s and recovery I have discovered many things. For example HAES (Health At Every Size) which I had no idea was even a thing as well as the research into eating disorders being a biological response to perceived famine. I will go into this more in a future post. It’s a whole world out there with lots of helpful information. So many amazing blogs, youtube accounts and instagram accounts. 

I hope someone finds this blog helpful – and even if no-one do, I am happy to have this place to jolt down some of my thoughts and experiences. 

ED memories – it is certainly NOT glamorous

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I am putting a Trigger Warning on this post. It does mention some ED behaviors so if you are in recovery yourself and feel like talk of certain behaviors is not beneficial for you to read I would stop reading this post now. 

I am writing a little about some of the things I have done in my years of dealing with an eating disorder. This is really just the tip of the iceberg and goes to show how fucked up this shit is.

Diet pills

When I was at university, I decided I wanted to try diet pills. I think I read on some forum (probably a pro-ana forum – I am embarrassed even thinking about that now) about diet pills that contain ephedra, at least I think that is what it was, and how that could be helpful in weight loss. Actually, I think they were marketed to “shred” body fat or something. So, I decided to order a bottle on the internet. They are illegal in Norway, so I remember I was super nervous about getting arrested or something for ordering them. I got them a couple of weeks later in the mail and they were labeled as “computer screws” or something like that. Probably to explain the rattling. Now, I am already on medication for my ADD so that was already increasing my heartrate. I decided to try them on a day off to see how my body would react – I was still going to school that day to do some practicing (dancing) on my own. When I got to school and started warming up in the studio, my heartrate got really fast. And I got a pounding feeling in my chest – like my heart was trying to beat through my ribcage. It was very uncomfortable and scary. I decided to NEVER take them again. Although I did hold onto them for another two or three years before I had the heart to throw them away… Because what if I really needed them? 

Laxatives

When I attended musical theater school in England, I got into trying laxatives. To this day I cannot remember where I got the idea. I did not have a computer at the time, and the only surfing the internet that I did was at the library, so I sincerely doubt I got the idea from the web. But I remember when I started taking them, the feeling of “emptying” myself out felt so good. I felt clean. Pure. Like I got rid of all the bad things. Of course, after some time I started taking more because in my head it was more laxatives=more weight loss. Even though we all know that laxatives do not give you real weight loss. But for me, if the needle on the scale moved down, that is all that mattered. I also found laxatives in chocolate form – now I could eat chocolate AND get the shits. Fanfuckingtastic! I was lucky enough to be able to stop this before it went too far. One evening I went to the corner store to buy something and was running back home. As I was running, I could feel myself losing control of my bowels. I had just shit myself! How humiliating! Luckily, I was not far from home and was able to make it home with my dignity relatively intact. But from that day on I never used them again. I never wanted to risk shitting myself in public ever again! 

Purging

I lived with my parents for a few stints after I graduated university. I was very happy that they let me do that and it was practical for me in terms of work etc. However. I have struggled with purging quite a bit during my ED and this became a challenge when the house where my parents were living at the time was A: tiny B: the bathroom was right next to the living room. So, if I was not home alone, purging in the bathroom was definitely not an option. But my room was relatively sound proof so I would purge in plastic bags in my room at night and as I left for work early the next morning, I would sneak the bags out with me and throw them into trash cans in the city center. Thinking about that now makes me very sad and at the time I didn’t even think of it as much of a problem to be honest. 

I continued to purge on and off through my years of dealing with my ED. The binging at night (and the purge that would follow) would definitely get worse when I restricted more during the day. And thinking about that now, it makes total sense. When I was in the middle of it, I just thought that I had no self-control – no self-discipline. I was very ashamed about that. Not so much about the purging, but more the lack of control/discipline on my part. 

What is it like to live with an eating disorder?

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I was looking though some old files and I found something that I wrote when I was at University. On this particular day I was investigating how much time I spent thinking about what I would eat (or food and eating in general) and what I looked like. This was an exercise a therapist made me do (whom I promptly quit seeing soon after this because… I even though this exercise was kind of eye opening I was not ready to REALLY admit that it was a huge problem).

A typical Tuesday

05.30am:alarm rings

06.00am:Time to get up… Put my arm up in the air to see how fat my over arms are in relation to my elbow. Are my fingers any closer to each other than yesterday when I grab around my arm? Lay there for a few minutes thinking about what to have for breakfast. (8 minutes).

06.10am:Get up, stand in front of the mirror and look at myself from every angle. Do my ribs stick out more than they did yesterday? Are my thighs bigger? My butt? I measure with a measuring tape around my over arms (in two places), around my elbow, upper body (around my ribcage and waist), hips, thighs, over my knees and around my knees. Go to the bathroom, weigh myself (four times – just to make sure it is not ”tricking” me). (15 minutes)

06.25am:Sit down to eat breakfast – 2 slices of whole wheat bread with banana. Try to cut the banana in as small pieces as possible so that I don’t have to use all of it because there are so many calories in bananas. I try to take my time, chew slowly… Very full when I am finished, but try to think that it is ok because I have dance class this morning. (20 minutes).

07.00am:Try to figure out what to wear – “this leotard or the other one? Which one do I look the thinnest wearing?” Try four different ones in front of the mirror. Are my legs skinny enough today to wear pink tights or do I need to wear black ones? What pants should I wear? Oh, can’t wear those because they make me look like I have gigantic hips. Sweater.. hmm…. Try five different ones… decide to wear the 2ndone I tried because it makes me look the thinnest out of the five (in my eyes). (25 minutes)

07.30am:Walk to school. Look at my reflections in windows I walk by just to check if my thighs look very fat. Think about what I am going to eat at school today. Should I eat an apple or a small yoghurt? Well, we have a dance class after lunch so I guess yogurt is the best as it will give me the most energy. Try to walk fast so that my walking to school will become a little workout. (25 minutes). 

08.00am:Get to school, walk into the dance studio and look at myself in the mirror… Yuck! I look way too big! Start warming up… Am thinking about lunch. Xxx walks in. How does she manage to stay so thin when she eats so much??? If I would eat like that I would probably weigh xxkg! (20 minutes)

08.30am:Ballet class. Find a place at the barre so that I can look at myself in the mirror both from the front and from the side. “I look wider than yesterday! I will definitely have an apple to lunch!!” I check out what my arm looks like in the mirror during the first exercises. I think it looks a little bigger but at least I can see my some bones on my chest… I try to concentrate about doing the exercises correctly and use the right muscles, but the whole time I am thinking about how I look, “am I too fat? Fatter than yesterday? Why cant I just manage to become thin???”

During every exercise my mind goes to how big I am at least three times…(45 minutes)

10.00am:When class is finished I am extremely tired but very happy that I managed to keep my energy for the whole class. Walk out into the hallway to stretch. Look at my arms to see what they look like now. Are they fatter than before?? (10 minutes)

10.15am:Walk into the cafeteria to type my handwritten notes from last week onto my computer. I look at people walking by – “oh, she has nice skinny legs… I wonder what she eats…” Thinking about what I should eat for lunch. I am very hungry right now but my next dance class is not until 2pm, so eating now would be stupid. Try to think about something other than food but keep looking at what other people eat. “Imagine eating a baguette with cheese and ham – they must be idiots!!! Imagine the amount of calories in that! And probably lots of butter!”(60 minutes)

12.00pm:Meeting with student representatives and some teachers (I am the student representative for my class). No particular cases to discuss today… Can feel that I am very hungry now but look down at my thighs. They look very big!!! And there across the table is Xxxxx eating a huge packed lunch. Good. For. Her. (jealous!!!) (15 minutes)

01.00pm:Eat a small yogurt. To make it last longer I make a triangle shape in it with my spoon. Then I eat small pieces from the triangle before I make a new one. It takes me 20 minutes to finish the yogurt. (30 minutes)

2.00pm:Jazz class. When I was changing my clothes before class I had to check my reflection in the mirror to see if I look very big. My thighs are way too fat!!! And does my arms look bigger too? While the class is happening I am very aware of my size in relation to myself and others and these thoughts go into my head several times during each exercise a(nd especially between exercises.) When we are doing movements that we suddenly stand up or something, I get very dizzy or “see stars”. Very amusing… (30 minutes)

3.45pm:start to walk home from school. Try to walk fast to burn some calories. Walk by the grocery store to pick up a few things: soft waffles (easy to throw up), diet soda (has taste but no calories – hurray!), apples and skim milk. Walk around the store for a while just to look at all the different kinds of food – things I won’t let myself eat. Imagine that people buy all this kinds of things just to eat it. If I am going to “pig out” it is important that the food tastes good and that it is easy to throw up. Ice cream is awesome like that but I had that yesterday. And as we all know, a varied diet is very important. I also check the amount of calories on many food items – trying to see if there are differences between different brands etc. (30 minutes)

4.30pm:Get home and I am very hungry so I eat three pieces of home made pizza that I made this weekend. It tastes so good, but as three pieces is way too much I need to throw it up. So I might as well eat some more. Have 6 soft waffles and drink a lot of water in between. Go to the bathroom and throw up. It is such a shame that I do not have the willpower to just not eat, but sadly, I love food too much so then purging is the only solution right now. I hate doing it, but I have to. If I would let all this food just sit inside me, I would get even more fat!

Feel “lighter” after purging, but quite dizzy and need to hold onto the wall as I walk back into the living room. 

I try to do some homework, but it is so hard to concentrate so after a while I give up and turn on the tv instead. (60 minutes)

6.00pm:I go into my bedroom to measure myself like I did this morning. Check my measurements three times just to make sure. At least I have not gotten any bigger, thank god!

(30 minutes)

7.00pm:I am starting to get hungry again, so I eat another slize of pizza, some soft waffles, a yogurt with musley and a chocolate bar. My stomach is popping out like a balloon. I go to throw up again. Once I start eating, it is so hard to stop! (30 minutes)

8.00pm:Eat three bowl of corn flakes with skim milk, the rest of the waffles, and two pieces of pizza. Throw up… (30 minutes)

9.30pm:I go put on my pyjamas. Am very happy about having been able to throw up most of what I ate tonight, so I eat an apple and fall asleep on the couch. (15 minutes)

This equals 498 minutes which is about 8,3 hours. Well, it looks like having an eating disorder is a full time job! 

Deciding to recover

thisedrecoveryblog

Long post alert!

In my 17 years of dealing with my eating disorder I have had moments when I thought to myself: this is no way to live, maybe you need to get some help. And I tried (although probably half-heartedly) to get some help. I reached out to a teacher I trusted when I was in musical theater college and she sent me to a dietician. I can’t remember what she said or what came out of that honestly… I also went to a GP while I was at that college a few times – my roommate dragged me there after hearing me purging repeatedly in the bathroom. I can’t even remember if I really wanted to get better at that point. But I do remember that I felt miserable living the way that I did. 

I also reached out to the counseling services at my university (where I went after musical theatre college) and did see someone there a few times.  I can’t quite remember what happened with that honestly, but I decided to quit relatively quickly for some reason.… 

I think that I never saw myself as “sick enough” to really need or deserve help. After all, I was managing, right? I also would get annoyed by them asking me about my childhood/trauma etc. But honestly, the trauma I experienced in my younger years (severe bullying) was something I felt had absolutely NOTHING to do with my eating “problem”. I had put those experiences behind me and felt no emotional reaction to those things whatsoever. This made me question therapy: how could it possibly help if my ED (when I even would call it that) was not caused by trauma? 

I also had long periods where I managed to eat relatively normally, and my weight stayed in the “normal” range. In these periods I did consider myself as recovered. And sure, I was eating (although I had a lot of food rules) and not exercising too compulsively (at least in my mind), but the thoughts of changing my body was always there in the back of my head. I also had the idea that I would always have to struggle with these kinds of thoughts, I would just have to manage them as best I could.

But that’s just sad, isn’t it? The thought of always having to live with this shit going on inside your head sounds very unmotivating. And I know I have heard that idea from people who have struggled with an ED and probably read it somewhere as well. What’s the point in recovering if you still have to struggle with it? Why put in all that work and live in a body you don’t “want” if all the mental shit is still there? 

Fast forward to present day:

The last three years has been very exciting. I got my artist visa, moved to New York, made new friends, found a new passion (circus) and made a new life for myself. However, I got into a severe energy deficit as I was training to do a show (my first aerial show) and from then on, all the ED thoughts and behaviors came back in full force (even thought they had never really left, just been a little less strong). 

My identity got wrapped into being the “fit” one. I had a lot of muscle and very little body fat. I also worked in fitness and was constantly praised for my appearance. It was part of my identity. I worked a lot, never took a day off, trained hard seven days a week and was obsessed with food, calories and how my body looked. 

It came to a point in September/October 2018 where I decided that I had to do something. And I wasn’t even sure about recovery – what did that even mean? I had considered myself recovered before but had still felt trapped by all this crap. So what should I do? I started to do some research online and somehow, I stumbled across a blog that looked at eating disorders in a way I had never heard of before. The author of the blog talked about eating disorders being a biological response to a perceived famine. A migration response. For people who have the genetic predisposition for an eating disorder, when going into energy deficit, your “caveman brain” will think that there is food scarcity. When there is not enough food, you need to migrate to a place where there is food. When migrating you can’t eat a lot because you need to keep moving, moving, moving to get to the place where there is food. The problem is – there is actually no food scarcity. But your caveman/reptile brain does not know that… So, it will keep telling you to move and eat very little. You get scared of food because it is not helpful to eat too much when you have to keep migrating. No time for that. 

This is of course a very abbreviated and simplified explanation (on my end). 

When I started to look into this, it just made so much sense! I mean, that explains why I would get even more anxious, rigid and “crazy” the more I got into energy deficit. It explained why I had constant thoughts about food (your body needs to get to a place there is food – number 1 priority). It explained why I would constantly think about food but wasn’t really that hungry – the body doesn’t prioritize sending physical hunger signals when other things are more important. It sends you mental hunger signals instead because your number one priority should be to find food. 

I would fantasize and think about food basically 24/7. It was mentally exhausting. It also led me to binge at night sometimes (and then consequently purge to “make up” for it). This is also very normal I have found out. I just thought that I had no willpower – no control. But that is not true. At a certain point you can’t fight your biology. Your body wants and needs food and will do anything to get fed. 

I think I got off on a bit of a tangent here. Anyway, I started to look for ways that maybe I could get some help. I did not want therapy – I did not think that would work for me. I mean, I know people go to therapy for years and their ED is still there. I mean… Like what? And often people go to inpatient or residential treatment over and over again. Obviously, something is wrong with the treatment system? (Of course, this is NOT true for everybody, but it seems like it is very common to be chronically “in treatment” and when it doesn’t work for so many people, there is not that there is something wrong with people’s desire to recover, it is something wrong with the treatment model!). So, I wanted to try something different. I found out that there is a thing called Eating Disorder Recovery Coaching. I was intrigued. I found one and stalked her blog and YouTube channel for a while before I decided to reach out. I was nervous as fuck. What if she didn’t want to work with me? Was I even sick enough to get help? All of the doubts were thrown into the mix by my ED. Luckily, we did end up working together. She is no-nonsense, right to the point and knows her shit. She is herself recovered from an ED so has lived experience which is so so so helpful!

I started working with her in the very end of November 2018. I realized after a couple of weeks that I could not continue to fully pursue recovery and still be working and training as much as I was. I needed to do something. I decided to go home to Norway for a couple of months to get a “kick start” on recovery. That way I would be able to take it easy – and in fact I was heavily encouraged to abstain from any exercise for a while since this was something that I did obsessively and compulsively. It was important to let my body rest and heal. 

It was a difficult time and committing fully to recovery was more difficult than I could have ever imagined. I returned to NYC at the very end of February 2019 and went straight back to my very physically demanding job. This was not easy, and I had a hard time adjusting to my “new” body and how it moved. I also started working with a dietician because I knew that with my highly active lifestyle, I needed to be on top of my food intake, something that I found difficult. 

As I am writing this post in mid-May 2019 I am still working on recovery. I will write more about the process and different challenges that has come up in future posts, but I feel like this post is long enough as it is. 

I believe that full recovery is possible and I can’t wait to get there!