In recovery from an eating disorder, it takes constant vigilance to keep the momentum of recovery going. And when life starts to get more involved again after years of illness and takes over in other wonderful ways, it can be easy to take your eye off the recovery ball and not instantly notice that recovery […]
Category: Restriction & Fear Foods
Currently, when we talk about recovery from a restrictive eating disorder, the term ‘all in’ is often used. ‘All in’ refers to an approach where the person eats to their body’s real demands. They do not eat to a meal plan or to another form of prescribed amount of food, but instead really give in […]
Inspired by a recent conversation with a couple of my ED bashing colleagues, I thought I’d write a little post about the importance of changing our actions before expecting our thoughts or beliefs or fears to change. And I believe this is what we call ‘rewiring’, but we talk a lot about rewiring in eating […]
This week was always going to be a more challenging one for me, with situations to face that the eating disordered side of my brain finds very hard to cope with. And so, perhaps it was inevitable that the very persuasive and convincing eating disorder generated anxieties, thoughts and beliefs that I experienced would be […]
Over the past week or so I have been experiencing more extremes in my mood and anxiety levels than usual. Some days and evenings I am on a high – life is feeling possible and I feel that the world is opening its doors to me. I want to be in the world and I […]
You know what? I don’t think I’ve eaten a restaurant meal in almost a decade because of my eating disorder and in this last week I have eaten a proper meal in a restaurant without huge anxiety and without compensating and with being able to be present with the company I was with on more […]
One of the most common questions about eating disorder recovery that I get a lot and that I asked myself when trying to work out how to approach recovery is do we address all the fears… the eating more food, the resting, the stopping all the other weird s**t we do at the same time..? […]
Over the past week or so my anxiety has risen, my mood dropped, life has felt more overwhelming than it has for a long time and I have felt more physically and mentally exhausted. Doing battle with the illness in each moment has been much more of an uphill struggle and I had become filled […]
**This post was originally written for my Instagram account** Slowly in recovery, I am learning more about my body’s hunger signals, gradually trusting them and that they will change and ‘normalise’ in time, when my body is ready (a long way yet!). For years due to the eating disorder, I did not eat according to […]
You have committed to recovering, decided you are going to eat and rest more, ‘try’ to accept weight gain (sigh!) and you have set out on making brave changes. You are muddling through how to make yourself eat not just more but ‘enough’…. yet there is also still an intense fear of eating ‘too much’. […]
The past few days I have had growing levels of anxiety and tonight it culminated in a bigger scale break down. Tears, frustration, anxiety and ongoing feelings of being very overwhelmed with life and with recovery set in. I sobbed and I hurt deep inside and I felt foggy about what I was even trying […]
This morning I woke with low rumbling anxiety and my eating disorder brain is using my growing body as it’s ammunition for the day and making my expanding flesh much harder to cope with. This is translating as much stronger urges to restrict, move and avoid anything that could lead to even further weight gain… […]
I wish I could claim to have come up with the phrase of being ‘held hostage’ by the eating disorder with the foods we have at home but I can’t. However, it is something I have found myself regularly falling victim to and I think others might relate… This term refers to when you are […]
For many people a picture like this of delicious food depicts a happy occasion and a relaxing time… To me, a picture like this depicts hard work, pain and my version of exposure therapy! Most people who first learn that restrictive eating disorder treatment entails having to rest a lot and eat a lot of […]
I feel I am at a strange stage in this eating disorder recovery. I have done the early bit where what you have to do is incredibly complicated in an eating disordered mind but really very simple – eat more food, rest and forego behaviours. The what you eat, where, when or how does not […]
RECOVERING NOMAD 