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ED recovery through chronic illness
It was all going so well. I had gone through therapy, weaned off antidepressants, and quit smoking. I was learning to deal with emotions, hate my body less and treat it better. But gradually, I started to feel more tired, have pain in my hips, ankles and feet, until walking up the hill to my…
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Learning to live with anger
Of all the emotions I buried with food, anger was the one that scared me the most. It seemed so destructive, so terrifying. I had this image of myself exploding with fury and releasing vitriol on such a scale that I would destroy everyone and everything around me. This, of course, was to be avoided…
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An apology to my body
Body, I’m sorrySorry for starving youFor not nourishing youFor not giving you what you needed Body, I’m sorrySorry for overfeeding youFor sometimes purging youMy mind said it was what I needed Body, I’m sorrySorry for ignoring youFor not listening to youWhen you told me what you needed Body, I’m sorrySorry for hating youFor physically hurting…
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Who Am I Without My Eating Disorder?
I was around 8 years old when I developed binge eating disorder symptoms. Those behaviours continued for 40 years, sometimes with purging, and with varying levels of restriction. Sometimes I went for a while without bingeing. But basically, BED (and all the other stuff that goes along with it) has been a constant throughout my…
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It’s been 2 days since I bought a tub of ice-cream and I haven’t eaten it
I should explain. Ice-cream is my ultimate binge food. Not in the way that movies portray it, that cliche where the skinny actress turns to it after a breakup. No, for me it was much more than that. It was capable of consuming my every waking thought. On a bad day, I would plan my…
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Stigma and Time to Change
This blog was written for a local council to mark Time to Talk Day 2021. A 2015 parliament paper* describes Mental Health stigma using Time to Change’s definition: “the set of negative attitudes, pre-judgements, prejudices and behaviour that can make it harder for inviduals with mental health problems to live a normal life”. Time To…