An excerpt from a text conversation this week, between me and maybe the only person who I'm really able to tell all the nitty gritty of this journey to, without fear of judgement or invoking shock and undue worry to...
Them - How are you doing?
Me - I'm ok. Ted's a bit stronger today but I think that's just with it being the weekend. Also I feel hungry so that's making him put up a fight I think.
Them - I thought he was...what do you do when you feel hungry? Does he tell you that you don't need to eat?
Me - I feel tense mostly, because he's telling me to fight the feeling. Not nice.
Them - Remember, deep down...you are actually stronger than Ted. If you're feeling hungry then you must actually be STARVING. You must be because your body is used to surviving on hardly anything...so tell ted that I say fuck right off and let Katie eat.
Me - I'll tell him but I don't feel stronger than him most of the time. I win the odd battle which I know is better than nothing but he still wins more often than not. The rational side of my brain is saying that I should just eat something to make me not hungry but then Ted says 'don't be greedy, you didn't do that yesterday and if you do it today, you'll feel like shit all weekend. So it's a bit lose lose.
Them - In what way would you feel shit if you did eat?
Me - I'd feel anxious and low, like I'd failed.
Them - Failed who? Failed at what?
Me - I don't even know, just know I'd feel like shit and a failure. It's fucked up I know.
This is probably the best and easiest way of describing how mine and Ted's daily dialogue goes. And the clearest way of describing how my relationship with food is at the moment.
So, back to the here and now...I've identified a pattern I think. I start each week at the moment feeling quite strong, not able to drown out Ted all together but sometimes, for a good couple of hours at least, able to resist his nasty words and his shoving me away from the fridge or cupboard. I'm able on these days to retaliate by adding a little something extra to my food intake, something I know provides the fuel I need and sometimes even, this something extra consists of a food that doesn't fall under the 'safe foods' banner.
By Thursday, Ted's really pissed at me for thinking I'm bigger than him, shouting louder than the days before and so making me have to work twice as hard to have that something extra. Sometimes he does have more fight than me on these days and sometimes not, but either way I feel a bit crappy and anxious.
Then by Saturday, I'm back to the safety of my little nest at home and seeing more glimpses of 'normal' Katie again than I ever dreamed possible a few months ago. There's a feeling of being liberated for a while, I can go hours without Ted being there and it's literally the most calm and free I feel all week.
Saturday nights have become the day when I will try and cook something completely outside of the 'regime'...last week was butternut squash lasagne and this week, a beef ragu which is currently bubbling away. This IS progress, particularly as I have not then spent the following day/s hating myself for being so wild as to eat something different. Nor have I felt compelled to counter these meals with restricting thereafter.
The plan now, I suppose, being that if I can manage to do this more and more, then just maybe in time there will be no good and bad foods, just food. I literally dream of getting back to that time when I could have a normal response to a hunger pang or craving, with my brain and stomach being in tune enough with one another to have a conversation a little bit like this....
Stomach - 'I'm hungry'
Brain - 'No problem, that's normal, you're human after all and humans need fuel. What would you like to eat?'
Stomach - 'I quite fancy a bit of pasta and then maybe some cake for afters'
Brain - 'Mmmm that sounds pretty good to me, let's get cooking then.'
I'm currently able, on a Saturday night, to push Ted away enough to have a version of this conversation and eat something I crave (craving foods in itself is a mini-victory compared with a few months ago, my brain was so engrossed in my illness that there were just no cravings for anything - a weird feeling for someone once such a foodie). And, little by little, I want these conversations to take place every day, every meal time, and again, be afforded that luxury of just eating when I'm hungry without the internal dialogue between Ted and I that's become my norm.
....................
A day later...
Well, I managed the beef ragu and pasta last night and then I managed some of the Christmas cake that I've weirdly, always allowed in small portions as one of my safe-ish foods. And then Ted said to me 'well, you've fucked it now, go to town on that jar of sweets in the cupboard'. So I, being the obliging / stupid person I am, agreed to Ted's idiotic dialogue and it got me into all sorts of trouble last night...
My dietician has told me that one of the (countless) ironies of eating disorder recovery is in the fact that while I need to of course up my food intake, I shouldn't (even if I could!) go back to a normal diet immediately. Essentially, resuming normal eating too quickly could send my system into all kinds of shock and this is when you hear the horrible stories of heart failure and so on. I'm not trying to be dramatic here but there's also no point shying away from the facts, and today I feel more aware than ever of these facts.
Because, post-sweet jar binge, I sat in bed to read but within half an hour was experiencing the worst heart palpitations yet along with a tingly left arm (don't google this like I did!) and for the next 3 or 4 hours felt terrified, with my dietician's words ringing in my ears.
Like I say, I don't want to shock or worry but there's no point me talking about the victories and the 'didn't I do well?' bits if I don't also talk about the dark moments. Last night was dark, but today I woke up and was thankful. Thankful that I'd woken up and thankful that I've been forced to realise what this illness and the negative voice that I allow to control me is doing to my poor, depleted body.
I need to fight harder.
I sat in bed last night and just couldn't fathom how I'd got to that point. I'm 29, with a good life for the taking, and I cannot let this illness take that from me.
So, today I have to commit to doing as the dietician says and this means every day, having one of the protein shakes she's prescribed me, on top of my standard daily calories.
I am going to do this.
I am going to do this.
I am going to do this.
Sunday, 14 July 2013
Sunday, 23 June 2013
Tikka versus Ted!
So, you know that nervous anticipation-excitement you felt when exam day arrived after a week or two of revision cramming? That's a bit where I am today. I've done all the preparation I can, I've put in the groundwork to ensure my head is as relaxed as can be, and I awoke this morning to my first thought being...today's the day.
All sounds terribly dramatic, doesn't it? And clearly there's no exam to be sat today (or ever, those days being long behind me for good reason - I was rubbish at them!). No, today is the day I have booked to go for a curry with three of my dearest, to pretend to be a bit normal, and try and enjoy the one food I have recently started to hanker for.
Is she for real, I hear you ask? What's the big deal with going for a bhuna and a poppadom or two? And quite right you are too.
But the mere fact that I've started to crave something outside of my 'safe' foods is noteworthy in itself, and then proceeding to plan it in to my weekend and book a table...well, if you aren't out of your seat and giving me a standing ovation by now, may I suggest you do please.
As you're all undoubtedly aware, I've more or less cancelled or excused myself from every food-related social engagement in the last year, allowing Ted to convince me that there was nothing to be gained from attending these things but fear, anxiety and a whole heap of self-retribution. And while Ted was pretty vehement mid-week (during a wobble induced by tiredness, work-related stress, and a generous dose of self-hatred) that I would have to again make my excuses ahead of this outing ('Why would you ruin our hard work by gorging on a curry, you idiot? You have no idea of the calorie-laced ingredients they'll be using! Stick to what you know and everything will be ok'), it is happening.
To revert to the exam analogy for a second, I've prepped myself for it sufficiently so I'm as calm as I can be, I've talked back to the anxious part of my brain telling me I'm going to fail and I'm 'tooled up' for whatever it can throw at me. Of course, as with all these things, life may throw me a curveball and tomorrow I may incur an anxiety-ridden backlash but well, I'll just have to ride that out as and when.
Because as my clever little sausage of a brother said to me this week, 'just don't listen to the voices, you like curry and you want to eat one.' So, take that Ted, I'm doing it and if you don't like it, well then my big, strong, wise brother will be coming after you!
To digress slightly, my wonderful Jack is my voice of reason more than he realises. He can, in one straightforward sentence, re-ground my thoughts where previously my head's been a whirring mass of over-analytical thoughts, set on the high speed function. Too many an evening, my mother and I (both afflicted by the need to psycho-analyse just about everything) have whiled away the hours, chaining coffee and cigarettes while fancying ourselves as kind of modern-day Freuds with our ability to pick apart and analyse the human psyche. And then along will come Jack, with his insightful, linear intelligence, and in one sentence will bring more logic to our discussions that we would have arrived at in a month! Basically, if you haven't already got a Jack in your life, you should get one.
Anyway, back to me...it's been a mixed bag of a week, with my tiredness and overdoing it culminating in a mini-crash on Thursday. But I picked myself up off the floor and I sometimes think these blips are the body's way of saying 'enough already, you're neglecting me and need to refocus.' I needed to hit the wall in order to regroup, to realise that I was a bit exhausted and that I wasn't paying the due diligence to my head and body that I was a few weeks ago. A constructive telling off from Mum and my recently acquired guardian angel, Shani, also helped push Ted to the side a little in favour of more rational thought.
I need to remember (hopefully not always aided by a crash!) that if I'm to continue to be afforded the luxuries of my independence, being able to work and enjoying life, I have to consciously work hard at it. So that's what I'm trying to do, one curry and skinny latte at a time.
All sounds terribly dramatic, doesn't it? And clearly there's no exam to be sat today (or ever, those days being long behind me for good reason - I was rubbish at them!). No, today is the day I have booked to go for a curry with three of my dearest, to pretend to be a bit normal, and try and enjoy the one food I have recently started to hanker for.
Is she for real, I hear you ask? What's the big deal with going for a bhuna and a poppadom or two? And quite right you are too.
But the mere fact that I've started to crave something outside of my 'safe' foods is noteworthy in itself, and then proceeding to plan it in to my weekend and book a table...well, if you aren't out of your seat and giving me a standing ovation by now, may I suggest you do please.
As you're all undoubtedly aware, I've more or less cancelled or excused myself from every food-related social engagement in the last year, allowing Ted to convince me that there was nothing to be gained from attending these things but fear, anxiety and a whole heap of self-retribution. And while Ted was pretty vehement mid-week (during a wobble induced by tiredness, work-related stress, and a generous dose of self-hatred) that I would have to again make my excuses ahead of this outing ('Why would you ruin our hard work by gorging on a curry, you idiot? You have no idea of the calorie-laced ingredients they'll be using! Stick to what you know and everything will be ok'), it is happening.
To revert to the exam analogy for a second, I've prepped myself for it sufficiently so I'm as calm as I can be, I've talked back to the anxious part of my brain telling me I'm going to fail and I'm 'tooled up' for whatever it can throw at me. Of course, as with all these things, life may throw me a curveball and tomorrow I may incur an anxiety-ridden backlash but well, I'll just have to ride that out as and when.
Because as my clever little sausage of a brother said to me this week, 'just don't listen to the voices, you like curry and you want to eat one.' So, take that Ted, I'm doing it and if you don't like it, well then my big, strong, wise brother will be coming after you!
To digress slightly, my wonderful Jack is my voice of reason more than he realises. He can, in one straightforward sentence, re-ground my thoughts where previously my head's been a whirring mass of over-analytical thoughts, set on the high speed function. Too many an evening, my mother and I (both afflicted by the need to psycho-analyse just about everything) have whiled away the hours, chaining coffee and cigarettes while fancying ourselves as kind of modern-day Freuds with our ability to pick apart and analyse the human psyche. And then along will come Jack, with his insightful, linear intelligence, and in one sentence will bring more logic to our discussions that we would have arrived at in a month! Basically, if you haven't already got a Jack in your life, you should get one.
Anyway, back to me...it's been a mixed bag of a week, with my tiredness and overdoing it culminating in a mini-crash on Thursday. But I picked myself up off the floor and I sometimes think these blips are the body's way of saying 'enough already, you're neglecting me and need to refocus.' I needed to hit the wall in order to regroup, to realise that I was a bit exhausted and that I wasn't paying the due diligence to my head and body that I was a few weeks ago. A constructive telling off from Mum and my recently acquired guardian angel, Shani, also helped push Ted to the side a little in favour of more rational thought.
I need to remember (hopefully not always aided by a crash!) that if I'm to continue to be afforded the luxuries of my independence, being able to work and enjoying life, I have to consciously work hard at it. So that's what I'm trying to do, one curry and skinny latte at a time.
Sunday, 16 June 2013
An open letter
Dear self-destructive thoughts,
I'm making myself write this blog and catalogue my feelings, for the reason that the last thing I feel like doing right now is writing this blog and cataloguing my feelings. The (non-literal) clouds are hanging heavy and low over me this last few days and so this is probably the time I should be writing and trying to get you, the bad thoughts, out.
I didn't see this coming but then I never do. The week before last was a really good one, I was facing things head on and had so much fight in me, I was surprising myself. Then, with the tiredness I suppose, this past day or two has seen the fight leave me, tears never far away and an internal dialogue of 'what's the point of all this?'. I fight and I push and I work to be rid of you and this illness, and for what? To have a few good days and then, each bloody time, for the hope brought by these good days to be utterly shit on when the proceeding bad days come.
I don't want you to feel sorry for me, and I know there's no choice but to keep fighting and believing that things will be good again. This week I'm going to have to commit to being kinder to myself with less exercise, less stress, and more nutrition, and precedent tells me that the lighter days will then follow. The problem being that when I'm low and tired like this, I don't have the fight to resist your mean dialogue, telling me to push on with restricting and exercising. These things feel like the only things able to restore a bit of balance in my head, while simultaneously draining the life out of me.
So, I beg of you, please please please work with me this week and go a bit easy on me for once. I can't keep fighting you and when you're as strong as you have been the last day or two, I have no choice but to listen. And where's that going to get us?
Katie x
I'm making myself write this blog and catalogue my feelings, for the reason that the last thing I feel like doing right now is writing this blog and cataloguing my feelings. The (non-literal) clouds are hanging heavy and low over me this last few days and so this is probably the time I should be writing and trying to get you, the bad thoughts, out.
I didn't see this coming but then I never do. The week before last was a really good one, I was facing things head on and had so much fight in me, I was surprising myself. Then, with the tiredness I suppose, this past day or two has seen the fight leave me, tears never far away and an internal dialogue of 'what's the point of all this?'. I fight and I push and I work to be rid of you and this illness, and for what? To have a few good days and then, each bloody time, for the hope brought by these good days to be utterly shit on when the proceeding bad days come.
I don't want you to feel sorry for me, and I know there's no choice but to keep fighting and believing that things will be good again. This week I'm going to have to commit to being kinder to myself with less exercise, less stress, and more nutrition, and precedent tells me that the lighter days will then follow. The problem being that when I'm low and tired like this, I don't have the fight to resist your mean dialogue, telling me to push on with restricting and exercising. These things feel like the only things able to restore a bit of balance in my head, while simultaneously draining the life out of me.
So, I beg of you, please please please work with me this week and go a bit easy on me for once. I can't keep fighting you and when you're as strong as you have been the last day or two, I have no choice but to listen. And where's that going to get us?
Katie x
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Frappe freak-out
The title suggests I’m making light. I suppose I am. It’s a
ridiculous and self-contradictory set of characteristics that this illness
bestows on you and thus, it deserves to have the piss taken out of it.
Yesterday, I was at work and talked Ted into allowing me a Skinny Frappe Latte. This is unchartered territory, at least over the last year or so, and I thought I’d sufficiently reasoned with Ted to make it possible for me to drink this summery lushness in a cup without it causing too much bother. Ted assured me he was cool with it, it was skinny after all. He lied. I had a few anxious sips, got no more than half way through it, and had to throw the rest in the bin if I was to have any hope of shutting out the voice telling me ‘WHAT THE SHITTING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? THIS ISN’T IN THE PLAN. YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER 15 MINUTES TODAY TO COUNTER THIS LITTLE COCK-UP!’
Yesterday, I was at work and talked Ted into allowing me a Skinny Frappe Latte. This is unchartered territory, at least over the last year or so, and I thought I’d sufficiently reasoned with Ted to make it possible for me to drink this summery lushness in a cup without it causing too much bother. Ted assured me he was cool with it, it was skinny after all. He lied. I had a few anxious sips, got no more than half way through it, and had to throw the rest in the bin if I was to have any hope of shutting out the voice telling me ‘WHAT THE SHITTING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? THIS ISN’T IN THE PLAN. YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER 15 MINUTES TODAY TO COUNTER THIS LITTLE COCK-UP!’
I didn’t run for an extra 15 minutes, so I suppose it’s 1-0
to me in that sense. But this torturous dialogue did run through my head all
afternoon, pushing my food anxieties and the accompanying queasy feeling that
takes residence just below my ribcage to the fore after a good few days of
being able to function almost normally, without a good chunk of each minute
revolving around food and Ted.
I HAVE to, at these moments, push push push to focus on how
far I’ve come and consciously choose not to fixate on the feeling that this is
just one never-ending hamster’s wheel that I’m destined to be stuck on for
eternity. So, tiredness and overall weariness at being on this journey, be gone
– I have a mountain to carry on climbing don’t you know!
Sunday, 9 June 2013
Weighing in on the size zero debate
I've done a bit of a 180 on my stance regarding this particular topic. It's a difficult one to take a rigid view on. And not to paint myself as some kind of eating disorder authority but I've seen enough of them, in their various guises, to have a pretty good idea on the causes and more importantly perhaps, the psychology that tips one from strict diet to ED territory.
Seeing what I've seen both in me and close others, I have to now surmise that magazines and advertisements portraying size zero's are not the cause here.
Certainly they may have some part to play in perpetuating the issue, but do they overnight turn a psychologically sound person from normal to tissue-eating, cocaine-addicted anorexic who thinks diet coke is a good source of nutrition (as those scaremongering 'journalists' at the Daily Mail would have us believe is what constitutes anorexia)? Absolutely not. If these distorted, photoshopped images are making a marked and dangerous impact on someone's psyche and diet then I would argue this person is more than likely beyond rational thinking when it comes to food, their weight and body shape and indeed, have sometime beforehand already passed into the land of fucked up eating habits and super-strict calorie controlling.
Even the Guardian this week rehashed the old 'magazines are the devil and solely responsible for anorexia deaths' misconception (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/01/size-zero-campaigners-london-college-fashion), a publication I can usually rely on to offer a more balanced argument. Thankfully, the voice of reason here came in the form of the 200+ reader comments in response to the article with the best arguments perfectly summed up in these thought-provoking words -
'Anorexia is a symptom of mental illness, not an aspirational attempt to look like a fashion model... What is causing women of all ages, and some men too, to starve themselves sometimes to death? It sure as shit isn't Vogue.'
And then...
'I think part of the problem is that the term Anorexia, like so many psychiatric disorders, is overused in popular discourse. It's a bit like how someone who is feeling down is described as 'depressed' (which they're probably not, at least not in the clinical sense) or how someone who feels the need to check at least twice that they've locked the door is referred to as 'OCD' though chances are they're not. So too a teenaged girl who's constantly on a diet because she wants to look like a fashion model probably isn't anorexic - she just wants to look like a fashion model.'
In short, there exists absolutely no evidence of a causal relationship between fashion and anorexia. Fact.
Do I spend hours pouring over pictures of fashion models in an attempt to justify and maintain my under-eating? No. Do their ill-looking frames and hollow faces adorn my bedroom walls? No.
Now ask me whether I consume hungrily the recipe sections of magazines; or obsessively read cookery books; or lap up the images of food posted on Pinterest, and the answer is an unequivocal yes.
You can keep your Glamour mag, and the Marie Claire that I used to subscribe to, with their unrealistic images, sometimes so photoshopped that the figures shown are literally anatomical impossibilities. I would purchase every food and cooking magazine currently gracing the shelves if it wasn't for the fact I knew what mania this represents. I still now have to curb the part of my brain which would happily go back to visiting 4 or 5 supermarkets a day, spending an hour at each one, just taking in all the choice, calorie checking the foods I would buy if only I could, and then leaving with very little or sometimes nothing at all.
There is so much more to this mental illness than 'the diet gone wrong' that the media idiots would have us believe. Sure, it more often than not is instigated by a diet and it was for me. BUT it becomes an illness, in my non-medical opinion of course, because a) this person has some pre-disposition towards mental illness, b) as my previous post explored with the starvation study, the brain has been starved for a sufficient amount of time causing rational thought and normal life to have been abandoned and replaced by obsessive control and thoughts around food, or c) as is applicable in my case, a combination of A and B. An eating disorder is bugger all to do with vanity, or an aspiration to be catwalk thin, or even actually wanting to be thin. The main stimulus in driving the anorexic or eating disordered person to continue restricting and purging is their total inability to relinquish the control they feel they need to possess over their food intake. It's of course an entirely false, paradoxical sense of control because the one thing you think you're in control of (ie. your strict diet) is, in fact, controlling you. But you really do feel that, if you can just stick to the safe foods you've allowed into your life, you will maintain the control you so desperately crave, while everything else in your life feels like it's spiralling out of control.
Of course this is ridiculous, the one thing causing all else to spiral out of control IS the thing you're maintaining such control over. And even though I have always been able to identify and articulate this fact, it made no difference. In short, while I was / am restricting, I feel like I'm winning. Winning at what, who bloody knows. But the alternative, losing control over my diet fills me with a sense of guilt, failure, anxiety and losing.
I've probably lost you by now. And I'm aware how complex and contradictory in nature this whole issue is. I struggle to understand it myself sometimes with all it's backwards logic and absurd intricacies.
It really is time however that we tried to better our understanding and appreciation of the complexities of mental illness per se. One in four of us will be affected by it in our lifetimes so its kind of in our interests to become a little more learned on the topic.
We're in 2013 and we've not moved all that far away from the days when sufferers of depression or eating issues or any mental illness were consigned to the local mental institute, dosed up on enough mind-quelling meds to fell an elephant, allowing everyone else to get on with their lives, safe in the knowledge that the 'loonies' were safely boxed away. Another article published recently highlighted this fact - a washed up popstar, keen to eek out his 5 minutes of fame, was presumably hoping we'd all rush out and sympathy-buy his shite music when he spoke of being 'hooked' on Prozac.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for celebrities talking about their mental health issues in the public domain, presuming it's done in such a way that furthers helpful conversation on the subject, in the way that Stephen Fry did this week when he talked about his suicide attempt last year and ongoing battle with bipolar. But would we talk about someone with asthma being 'hooked' on their inhaler? Or a diabetic being 'addicted' to insulin injections?
Prozac and the many other forms of anti-depressant, if prescribed in correct dosages, do nothing more than stabilise the clinically depressed person, in much the same way as insulin works to stabilise the diabetic's blood levels. It simply works to reattach the wires that have come a bit loose in the depressive's brain, there's no 'high' gained from taking them and life doesn't suddenly take on a rose-tinted, dream-like quality. All it does is restore the balance, putting you on more even grounding to better address the underlying problems.
The difficulty comes I guess in the fact that mental illness doesn't manifest itself in an obviously physical way (though to the trained eye, it's not so hard to spot in the dead eyes, lack of energy and concentration, proneness to irritability, and overwhelming lowness and anxiety, to name but a few of the symptoms a depressed person battles against).
As the brilliant Stephen Fry highlighted in a recent interview (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-victim-of-my-own-moods-stephen-fry-reveals-suicide-attempt-in-2012-adding-tv-producer-saved-his-life-8646378.html), depression and it's symptoms are often met with 'but what have you got to be sad about? Theres people far worse off than you'. And as he so eloquently sums it up, "That's the point, there is no 'why?' That's not the right question. There is no reason. If there was reason for it, you could reason someone out of it." We should no more be asking why someone suffers from depression or anorexia or any mental illness than why someone becomes diabetic or gets cancer. They just do.
Moreover, emphasising to the depressed person that they've nothing to be sad about and therefore implying they're wrong or selfish not to appreciate their lot, only further perpetuates the shame spiral they're most likely already stuck in. To bring this back to my situation, even at my lowest points I knew all too well that I'm blessed with a good life - I've a wonderful network of family and friends, have progressed quicker and done more things in my job than I could ever have hoped for, and don't really want for anything. But, as flippant and selfish as this may sound, when stuck in the maelstrom of depression, these truths mean nothing. I knew there was a good life out there to be had and I could see others living it, but being so consumed by darkness and overall despondency, I could in no way visualise myself living this good life again.
I don't have the answers, I only have my experience to speak of. I've not got it nailed by any stretch but it shouldn't be the case that a person needs to first hand experience mental illness to understand and empathise better.
And so here ends my thought / rant for the day.
Oh, just one more thing of relevance, I've signed up for the Royal Parks Half Marathon in October and I'll be running to raise money for Mind. So I'll soon be tapping you all up for some pennies to help this indispensable mental health charity continue their amazing work (this blog post hasn't just been an elaborate way of guilt-tripping you all into donating I promise!!). More to follow...
Seeing what I've seen both in me and close others, I have to now surmise that magazines and advertisements portraying size zero's are not the cause here.
Certainly they may have some part to play in perpetuating the issue, but do they overnight turn a psychologically sound person from normal to tissue-eating, cocaine-addicted anorexic who thinks diet coke is a good source of nutrition (as those scaremongering 'journalists' at the Daily Mail would have us believe is what constitutes anorexia)? Absolutely not. If these distorted, photoshopped images are making a marked and dangerous impact on someone's psyche and diet then I would argue this person is more than likely beyond rational thinking when it comes to food, their weight and body shape and indeed, have sometime beforehand already passed into the land of fucked up eating habits and super-strict calorie controlling.
Even the Guardian this week rehashed the old 'magazines are the devil and solely responsible for anorexia deaths' misconception (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/01/size-zero-campaigners-london-college-fashion), a publication I can usually rely on to offer a more balanced argument. Thankfully, the voice of reason here came in the form of the 200+ reader comments in response to the article with the best arguments perfectly summed up in these thought-provoking words -
'Anorexia is a symptom of mental illness, not an aspirational attempt to look like a fashion model... What is causing women of all ages, and some men too, to starve themselves sometimes to death? It sure as shit isn't Vogue.'
And then...
'I think part of the problem is that the term Anorexia, like so many psychiatric disorders, is overused in popular discourse. It's a bit like how someone who is feeling down is described as 'depressed' (which they're probably not, at least not in the clinical sense) or how someone who feels the need to check at least twice that they've locked the door is referred to as 'OCD' though chances are they're not. So too a teenaged girl who's constantly on a diet because she wants to look like a fashion model probably isn't anorexic - she just wants to look like a fashion model.'
In short, there exists absolutely no evidence of a causal relationship between fashion and anorexia. Fact.
Do I spend hours pouring over pictures of fashion models in an attempt to justify and maintain my under-eating? No. Do their ill-looking frames and hollow faces adorn my bedroom walls? No.
Now ask me whether I consume hungrily the recipe sections of magazines; or obsessively read cookery books; or lap up the images of food posted on Pinterest, and the answer is an unequivocal yes.
You can keep your Glamour mag, and the Marie Claire that I used to subscribe to, with their unrealistic images, sometimes so photoshopped that the figures shown are literally anatomical impossibilities. I would purchase every food and cooking magazine currently gracing the shelves if it wasn't for the fact I knew what mania this represents. I still now have to curb the part of my brain which would happily go back to visiting 4 or 5 supermarkets a day, spending an hour at each one, just taking in all the choice, calorie checking the foods I would buy if only I could, and then leaving with very little or sometimes nothing at all.
There is so much more to this mental illness than 'the diet gone wrong' that the media idiots would have us believe. Sure, it more often than not is instigated by a diet and it was for me. BUT it becomes an illness, in my non-medical opinion of course, because a) this person has some pre-disposition towards mental illness, b) as my previous post explored with the starvation study, the brain has been starved for a sufficient amount of time causing rational thought and normal life to have been abandoned and replaced by obsessive control and thoughts around food, or c) as is applicable in my case, a combination of A and B. An eating disorder is bugger all to do with vanity, or an aspiration to be catwalk thin, or even actually wanting to be thin. The main stimulus in driving the anorexic or eating disordered person to continue restricting and purging is their total inability to relinquish the control they feel they need to possess over their food intake. It's of course an entirely false, paradoxical sense of control because the one thing you think you're in control of (ie. your strict diet) is, in fact, controlling you. But you really do feel that, if you can just stick to the safe foods you've allowed into your life, you will maintain the control you so desperately crave, while everything else in your life feels like it's spiralling out of control.
Of course this is ridiculous, the one thing causing all else to spiral out of control IS the thing you're maintaining such control over. And even though I have always been able to identify and articulate this fact, it made no difference. In short, while I was / am restricting, I feel like I'm winning. Winning at what, who bloody knows. But the alternative, losing control over my diet fills me with a sense of guilt, failure, anxiety and losing.
I've probably lost you by now. And I'm aware how complex and contradictory in nature this whole issue is. I struggle to understand it myself sometimes with all it's backwards logic and absurd intricacies.
It really is time however that we tried to better our understanding and appreciation of the complexities of mental illness per se. One in four of us will be affected by it in our lifetimes so its kind of in our interests to become a little more learned on the topic.
We're in 2013 and we've not moved all that far away from the days when sufferers of depression or eating issues or any mental illness were consigned to the local mental institute, dosed up on enough mind-quelling meds to fell an elephant, allowing everyone else to get on with their lives, safe in the knowledge that the 'loonies' were safely boxed away. Another article published recently highlighted this fact - a washed up popstar, keen to eek out his 5 minutes of fame, was presumably hoping we'd all rush out and sympathy-buy his shite music when he spoke of being 'hooked' on Prozac.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for celebrities talking about their mental health issues in the public domain, presuming it's done in such a way that furthers helpful conversation on the subject, in the way that Stephen Fry did this week when he talked about his suicide attempt last year and ongoing battle with bipolar. But would we talk about someone with asthma being 'hooked' on their inhaler? Or a diabetic being 'addicted' to insulin injections?
Prozac and the many other forms of anti-depressant, if prescribed in correct dosages, do nothing more than stabilise the clinically depressed person, in much the same way as insulin works to stabilise the diabetic's blood levels. It simply works to reattach the wires that have come a bit loose in the depressive's brain, there's no 'high' gained from taking them and life doesn't suddenly take on a rose-tinted, dream-like quality. All it does is restore the balance, putting you on more even grounding to better address the underlying problems.
The difficulty comes I guess in the fact that mental illness doesn't manifest itself in an obviously physical way (though to the trained eye, it's not so hard to spot in the dead eyes, lack of energy and concentration, proneness to irritability, and overwhelming lowness and anxiety, to name but a few of the symptoms a depressed person battles against).
As the brilliant Stephen Fry highlighted in a recent interview (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-victim-of-my-own-moods-stephen-fry-reveals-suicide-attempt-in-2012-adding-tv-producer-saved-his-life-8646378.html), depression and it's symptoms are often met with 'but what have you got to be sad about? Theres people far worse off than you'. And as he so eloquently sums it up, "That's the point, there is no 'why?' That's not the right question. There is no reason. If there was reason for it, you could reason someone out of it." We should no more be asking why someone suffers from depression or anorexia or any mental illness than why someone becomes diabetic or gets cancer. They just do.
Moreover, emphasising to the depressed person that they've nothing to be sad about and therefore implying they're wrong or selfish not to appreciate their lot, only further perpetuates the shame spiral they're most likely already stuck in. To bring this back to my situation, even at my lowest points I knew all too well that I'm blessed with a good life - I've a wonderful network of family and friends, have progressed quicker and done more things in my job than I could ever have hoped for, and don't really want for anything. But, as flippant and selfish as this may sound, when stuck in the maelstrom of depression, these truths mean nothing. I knew there was a good life out there to be had and I could see others living it, but being so consumed by darkness and overall despondency, I could in no way visualise myself living this good life again.
I don't have the answers, I only have my experience to speak of. I've not got it nailed by any stretch but it shouldn't be the case that a person needs to first hand experience mental illness to understand and empathise better.
And so here ends my thought / rant for the day.
Oh, just one more thing of relevance, I've signed up for the Royal Parks Half Marathon in October and I'll be running to raise money for Mind. So I'll soon be tapping you all up for some pennies to help this indispensable mental health charity continue their amazing work (this blog post hasn't just been an elaborate way of guilt-tripping you all into donating I promise!!). More to follow...
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
Finding my voice
I
dreamt about my ex last night (not an altogether uncommon occurrence
unfortunately) which always unsettles me. And so I’ve been damned with a generous
dose of anxiety today.
This always makes me want to call him, text him, write to him, anything to maintain some contact, but I put him through enough already. Luckily he didn’t get to meet Ted, but there were a few preceding versions of Ted that Jim did get to meet. And time and time again, wonderful, selfless, heroic Jim managed to breathe life back into me when these demons were dragging me under.
This always makes me want to call him, text him, write to him, anything to maintain some contact, but I put him through enough already. Luckily he didn’t get to meet Ted, but there were a few preceding versions of Ted that Jim did get to meet. And time and time again, wonderful, selfless, heroic Jim managed to breathe life back into me when these demons were dragging me under.
It’s
been 18 months since we split up and 8 months since I last saw him. He has a
new girlfriend and is deservingly happy. I can’t intrude on that with my
starry-eyed ideas that just maybe we’re meant to be together. I left him, I
suppose, thinking that life owed me more than the neat little life we’d made
for ourselves in Brighton. There was an element of me starting to believe my
own hype – I was powering along at work, embracing London life, and was under
the spell of all the shiny, sparkly glitz that it offered (infact to be read as
all that superficial bollocks that has no bearing on the grand scheme of things
with less fickle beings than myself being able to recognise as much).
There
was no moonlight flit, there was six or more preceding months to our break up
in which I to’d and fro’d between staying and going and this fact is now my
only assurance – I made a considered decision which I believed was right at the
time. But (and it’s a big, pain-in-my-heart BUT) this last six months have
brought me down a peg or two (I did need it, in fairness) – I’ve (over)analysed
myself, reconsidered what’s important to me and what it really is I’m searching
for on this weird old journey they call life. And what do you know, it’s that
modest, uncomplicated, contented, cushion-y warm life that I crave. I always
knew this I think, but I pushed it to one side in favour of pursuing an
existence that gained me the approval I so needed from others.
Yes,
I was that girl from little ol’ Hayling Island who was doing all these glittery
things. And I thrived on the Oooo’s and Ahhh’s that recounting my stories of
this life achieved.
But
inside I was drowning, the thrashing about to keep my head above water becoming
more and more of a struggle until I came all too close to losing my grip in
December. Then along came my wonderful wonderful Mummy, Daddy, Jack and Lucy
with their lifeboat, dragging me aboard and, as gradually and sensitively as I
could cope with, resuscitating me.
I’m
garbling, aren’t I?
If
I have my optimistic hat on, I can see that the last six months or so have
given me a gift. Admittedly, it’s the sort of gift that you don’t really
want/need/never-in-a-month-of-Sunday’s-would-have-bought-yourself but force out
an over-exaggerated smile upon receiving because you don’t want to upset Nana!
But on reflection, it really has given me something wonderful (alas the same
cannot be said for the ‘fun’ jumper Nana knitted and gifted me, worn once to
appease her before returning to its rightful place in the loft!), it’s made me
take one f*ck off almighty huge step back and take a painstaking look at the
life I’d forged.
I
picked it apart and for a while there, wasn’t sure I would ever be able to
weave it back together. And even if I could, did I want to reconstruct it as it
was? The answer – No. Because, to again quote that wise woman’s words, all I
really found I wanted was a bit of peace. And, more importantly, to find a bit
of peace in me.
Just
the last week or two, I really really can feel it too. I feel lucky in a way for
the journey I’ve been on and am still on. Every single day of it has mattered,
even and perhaps more so the ‘how the shitting hell am I going to get out of
bed today??’ ones, because every single day has been a meaningful step in
getting me to this point where I can finally start to, without constant need to
approval seek or people please, just be me. Probably a kinder, stronger, less
angry me too.
And
really, nothing illustrates this better than my blog. I couldn’t have done this
before. Sure, I had a voice and a pretty loud one at that. But I didn’t feel
worthy of it being published and put out there for all the world to see. The
wannabe writer in me thought about it a hundred times but I never felt I had
anything truly valid to say.
But
it finally struck me this week - my voice is valid, I’m valid, with or without my
words and doings being authenticated by anyone else. Because if no-one reads
this drivel but me, that doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy of being heard.
Saturday, 1 June 2013
I've got my mountain climbing boots on...
I had a blip. I'll have more blips. And that's ok.
It took me a few days post-binge to get myself together and summon back the fight in me and the last few days have blessed me with some more glimpses of normal Katie, my first NHS meeting with the dietician I've been pushing for, and some much needed sunshine, so I'm in an ok place right now.
I had a moment yesterday as I was walking home from a long day in London, returning to my little safe cocoon with Mum and Jack, it was late evening but still light, slightly muggy and a beautiful sky, and I experienced that fleeting, life-affirming feeling, just for a few minutes, of everything being ok with the world. Do you know what I mean? You're probably thinking 'oh Christ, she fancies herself as some kind of hippy!' and I suppose those moments do feel kind of spiritual but I can't describe how much it meant to feel that again. And to know I could feel like that again.
Work is doing me all kinds of good. Yes, it's tiring, and yes, it brings some additional anxiety occasionally when Ted will try and tell me I'm failing at it. But to feel part of the normal world again, to be able to focus on something other than myself and Ted, and to even sometimes go a full hour without thinking about food and my issues, is something I'd hoped and worked for, but honestly couldn't visualise being able to do a few months ago.
And the dietician session helped me get a little bit further up that mountain I think. She told it to me straight and sugarcoated nothing but also gave me some realistic goals to kickstart normalising my diet and nutrition levels again. There's no other way than for it to be a slow process (my body, let alone my mind, I was told couldn't cope with too much too soon after being used to operating in starvation mode for this long) but treating my body a bit more kindly and introducing some additional calcium (hello again skinny lattes!) and complex carbs (a work in progress) felt like a big step. Consequently, I've felt stronger in my body and mind, with my runs becoming more of a joy resulting from some extra petrol in the engine.
I must also share something which has equally fascinated and comforted me this week. The dietician shared with me a study on the effects of starvation on behaviour, which was undertaken by the university of Minnesota 30 years ago (it definitely wouldn't get funding these days and you'll understand why with this excerpt...)
'There is a remarkable parallel between many of the experiences observed in victims of semi-starvation and those found in individuals with anorexia or bulimia.
An experiment on the effects of starvation on behaviour involved restricting the calorie intake of 36 young, healthy, psychologically normal (just to butt in at this point, take note of this bit in particular - the subjects had no known predisposition to mental illness) men who had volunteered for the study as an alternative to military service (God help them!!). During the first 3 months of the experiment, they ate normally while their behaviour, personality and eating patterns were studied in detail. During the subsequent 6 months, the men were restricted to approx. half of their former food intake and lost, on average, 25% of their original body weight. This was followed by 3 months rehabilitation, during which the men were gradually re-fed. The individual responses were varied but overall, the men experienced dramatic physical, psychological and social changes as a result of starvation, many of which persisted in the rehabilitation stage and thereafter.
An inevitable result of starvation was a dramatic increase in re-occupation with food. The men were unable to concentrate on their usual activities, plagued by persistent thoughts of food and eating. Food became their principle topic of conversation, reading and daydreams. They began reading cookbooks, collecting recipes and developed a sudden interest in all things food and cooking related, with one man even rummaging through garbage cans in the hope of finding something he might need. This general tendency to hoard has been observed in starved anorexic patients and even in rats deprived of food.
Despite the men showing little interest in culinary matters pre-experiment, 40% of the men mentioned cooking as part of their post-experiment plans with some even changing occupations to become chefs.
During starvation, the men's eating habits changed radically. They spent much of every day planning how they would eat their allotment of food, with much of their behaviour centred on prolonging ingestion. They ate in silence and devoted total attention to consumption.
The subjects often demanded food to be served really hot and made unusual concoctions with a tremendous increase in the use of flavours and spices. Their consumption of tea and coffee also increased dramatically.
In terms of emotional changes, many reported periods of depression, a less tolerant disposition, irritability and outbursts of anger, as well as anxiety as a result of semi-starvation.
Socially, they became progressively more withdrawn and isolated, becoming reluctant to plan activities, make decisions and participate in activities. They spent more and more time alone.
As is apparent from the preceding description, many of the symptoms thought to be specific to anorexia or bulimia are actually the result of starvation. The starvation study illustrates how a person becomes more orientated towards food when starved and how other pursuits important to his / her survival become secondary to the primary drive for food.'
Back to me - every single one of the traits, habits and character changes described above have been adopted by me (and Ted!) at some stage during my illness, many of them still persisting. And I find it strangely reassuring to realise that these habits which have become too engrained in me aren't perhaps an indication of any pre-disposition I have to mental illness, it's simply my body's natural reaction to starvation. The same reaction which would likely be displayed by anyone put under starvation conditions.
Needless to say my dietician was rightfully angry that diets such as the Cambridge diet (which arguably, with it's advocacy of putting one's body into a state of ketosis to lose weight, started me on the road to becoming ill) are allowed to exist and who knows whether I'd have ended up here regardless of the diet.
For me, this study I suppose reaffirms what an amazingly complex machine the body is. And when put under such extreme, unnatural conditions, will react accordingly to change your entire character and thought processes in order to try and focus you on reinstating a normal food intake.
I'm finally starting to realise the truth in my body being a machine which needs fuelling properly if I'm to continue being able to do the things I do and have a full life once again. Like a say, a small step but a significant one in my journey to the top of the mountain.
It took me a few days post-binge to get myself together and summon back the fight in me and the last few days have blessed me with some more glimpses of normal Katie, my first NHS meeting with the dietician I've been pushing for, and some much needed sunshine, so I'm in an ok place right now.
I had a moment yesterday as I was walking home from a long day in London, returning to my little safe cocoon with Mum and Jack, it was late evening but still light, slightly muggy and a beautiful sky, and I experienced that fleeting, life-affirming feeling, just for a few minutes, of everything being ok with the world. Do you know what I mean? You're probably thinking 'oh Christ, she fancies herself as some kind of hippy!' and I suppose those moments do feel kind of spiritual but I can't describe how much it meant to feel that again. And to know I could feel like that again.
Work is doing me all kinds of good. Yes, it's tiring, and yes, it brings some additional anxiety occasionally when Ted will try and tell me I'm failing at it. But to feel part of the normal world again, to be able to focus on something other than myself and Ted, and to even sometimes go a full hour without thinking about food and my issues, is something I'd hoped and worked for, but honestly couldn't visualise being able to do a few months ago.
And the dietician session helped me get a little bit further up that mountain I think. She told it to me straight and sugarcoated nothing but also gave me some realistic goals to kickstart normalising my diet and nutrition levels again. There's no other way than for it to be a slow process (my body, let alone my mind, I was told couldn't cope with too much too soon after being used to operating in starvation mode for this long) but treating my body a bit more kindly and introducing some additional calcium (hello again skinny lattes!) and complex carbs (a work in progress) felt like a big step. Consequently, I've felt stronger in my body and mind, with my runs becoming more of a joy resulting from some extra petrol in the engine.
I must also share something which has equally fascinated and comforted me this week. The dietician shared with me a study on the effects of starvation on behaviour, which was undertaken by the university of Minnesota 30 years ago (it definitely wouldn't get funding these days and you'll understand why with this excerpt...)
'There is a remarkable parallel between many of the experiences observed in victims of semi-starvation and those found in individuals with anorexia or bulimia.
An experiment on the effects of starvation on behaviour involved restricting the calorie intake of 36 young, healthy, psychologically normal (just to butt in at this point, take note of this bit in particular - the subjects had no known predisposition to mental illness) men who had volunteered for the study as an alternative to military service (God help them!!). During the first 3 months of the experiment, they ate normally while their behaviour, personality and eating patterns were studied in detail. During the subsequent 6 months, the men were restricted to approx. half of their former food intake and lost, on average, 25% of their original body weight. This was followed by 3 months rehabilitation, during which the men were gradually re-fed. The individual responses were varied but overall, the men experienced dramatic physical, psychological and social changes as a result of starvation, many of which persisted in the rehabilitation stage and thereafter.
An inevitable result of starvation was a dramatic increase in re-occupation with food. The men were unable to concentrate on their usual activities, plagued by persistent thoughts of food and eating. Food became their principle topic of conversation, reading and daydreams. They began reading cookbooks, collecting recipes and developed a sudden interest in all things food and cooking related, with one man even rummaging through garbage cans in the hope of finding something he might need. This general tendency to hoard has been observed in starved anorexic patients and even in rats deprived of food.
Despite the men showing little interest in culinary matters pre-experiment, 40% of the men mentioned cooking as part of their post-experiment plans with some even changing occupations to become chefs.
During starvation, the men's eating habits changed radically. They spent much of every day planning how they would eat their allotment of food, with much of their behaviour centred on prolonging ingestion. They ate in silence and devoted total attention to consumption.
The subjects often demanded food to be served really hot and made unusual concoctions with a tremendous increase in the use of flavours and spices. Their consumption of tea and coffee also increased dramatically.
In terms of emotional changes, many reported periods of depression, a less tolerant disposition, irritability and outbursts of anger, as well as anxiety as a result of semi-starvation.
Socially, they became progressively more withdrawn and isolated, becoming reluctant to plan activities, make decisions and participate in activities. They spent more and more time alone.
As is apparent from the preceding description, many of the symptoms thought to be specific to anorexia or bulimia are actually the result of starvation. The starvation study illustrates how a person becomes more orientated towards food when starved and how other pursuits important to his / her survival become secondary to the primary drive for food.'
Back to me - every single one of the traits, habits and character changes described above have been adopted by me (and Ted!) at some stage during my illness, many of them still persisting. And I find it strangely reassuring to realise that these habits which have become too engrained in me aren't perhaps an indication of any pre-disposition I have to mental illness, it's simply my body's natural reaction to starvation. The same reaction which would likely be displayed by anyone put under starvation conditions.
Needless to say my dietician was rightfully angry that diets such as the Cambridge diet (which arguably, with it's advocacy of putting one's body into a state of ketosis to lose weight, started me on the road to becoming ill) are allowed to exist and who knows whether I'd have ended up here regardless of the diet.
For me, this study I suppose reaffirms what an amazingly complex machine the body is. And when put under such extreme, unnatural conditions, will react accordingly to change your entire character and thought processes in order to try and focus you on reinstating a normal food intake.
I'm finally starting to realise the truth in my body being a machine which needs fuelling properly if I'm to continue being able to do the things I do and have a full life once again. Like a say, a small step but a significant one in my journey to the top of the mountain.
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