moving on from a bad day...

yesterday was horrible. Completely horrible. So many things were just a huge challenge and in general I was fairly overwhelmed by workload and stressload and bad news from home etc. I was mostly coping outwardly, then  in the afternoon I had GP placement so I hoped it wouldn't be too stressful or difficult and tried to look forward to it...I had missed the workshop a few weeks ago when we looked at the cardiovascular examination, and the GP in charge of me was aware of that (I said straight away) and made me do it anyway - but I just had no idea. Doing that on a real patient, who was already quite upset because of the nature of her visit just made me feel awful - I didn't want to mess her around, and I was going into the examination blind - having just watched a video about the procedure a few weeks ago. I managed to fumble through it - obviously unsure - but she was patient and lovely about it all. I was so unbelievably relieved to have finished, and managing to hold things together to get through to the end of placement (we had about half an hour left) until ten minutes later he made me do it again. I actually declined verbally several times but he wouldn't take no for an answer. I'm honestly so proud that I didn't cry in front of the patient - I came so, so close. Just managed to keep outwardly mostly composed...only by grace!

In that kind of a situation,  I don't cope very well. My confidence is quite shaky, and I can be very 'all or nothing' with my thinking, so when I'm in a position of being pushed beyond what I genuinely believe my limits are, I can go into shutdown. My whole mind just fills up with how much of a failure I am, how awful I must be in every way, that I should just hide away from everyone in the shame of being such a horrible person and such a mess... Once my head's full of all that going on to that extent, I just can't function properly and aspects of the situation I would usually be okay with just fall apart, and it all becomes a cycle again. I hid out in starbucks and listened to a song (which I'll post at the end) over and over...it was a real blessing to get that space.



I then went to team night at church, feeling pretty rubbish. Held it all together there (very challenged though to make a huge decision that is not at all easy about my life - more on that one later..) but when I got home I was just overwhelmed by self-destructive thoughts and skipped the second half of my meal plan for the day, then made myself sick (totally pointlessly even in terms of food).

I then spent some time on the phone to a friend who said something very useful:
'we all have a level of stress that we can take - except my 'bar' is constantly filled halfway because of my eating disorder and all those thoughts and emotions that I constantly have to work through in the background that most other people don't. Because of that, I can go beyond my limit maybe more than other people - but that's totally to be expected, and I shouldn't beat myself up about it. It is how it is, and it won't always be that way...'
 True: so reasonable, and so true.

Looking at the situation this morning, I can see the facts so much more clearly:considering I had missed a workshop and not learned or practiced properly, and I actually probably did quite well. I'm good at building relationship with patients and was kind to them and hopefully able to put them at ease. I managed to take her blood pressure (which I'd only ever done once before on a fellow student) and remember most aspects of the examination.

A bad day is a bad day. It was horrible; it was painful; I messed up; I made mistakes. But I'm human. God's grace is more than enough for me - more than enough.I have a presentation this morning that I've not had time to prepare; my kitchen is a mess because of flatmates not tidying up their dirty plates/pans etc (and I promised not to clean other people's things - as much as I like to); I'd really quite like to not follow my meal plan today. All these things cause me lots of anxiety but today is a new day. His grace is sufficient and He loves me, despite everything.

Off I go! This is the song that helped me survive yesterday:

ten thousand reasons...

This morning I had a good devotional time, something I've not been too great at keeping up the last week or so - things have got seriously, seriously busy around here with exams every Monday (goodbye weekends, which are now basically made up of revision and stress), module essays due in, lectures all day/every day

Today I am going to make good choices. I'm not going to be perfect - because I'm not perfect, and I never will be. I'm flawed and broken and a little bit rubbish - but actually that's okay. God is perfect and whole, and He takes my attempt at a day that glorifies Him and uses it for my good, and the furthering of His kingdom (good old Romans 8:28), so why should I be afraid of this day and the imperfections it'll inevitably include?

today I choose to:

• eat 3 meals and 3 snacks 
• go to medical CU and the main uni CU in the evening, despite being behind with my reflective essays
• phone the eating disorder clinic and ask why I haven't heard from them in 2 weeks/had my meal plan sent through yet
• go to my lectures but be kind to myself in my expectations with them
• accept the special consideration I've been offered for today's exam...pride is just silly!

 This week has been rough, but I was so happy on Saturday morning at the blueness of the sky, and the chance to play guitar and chill....beautiful moments and flamingo plasters are lovely...

Sunday was also massively blessed - it was hard, yes. I struggled and failed and cried. But the morning service doing the babies was gorgeous. This little girl was crying, and the worship was being piped up to our room so I decided to dance with her - I gave her a rattle thing and we danced and sang and I rocked and she rattled to '10,000 reasons'...then she snuggled in. Major cute points. Still jigging and rattling until I heard a crash and felt the rattle hit the floor near my feet - she fell asleep on me, and stayed fast asleep through the rest of the music and my singing. When it finished I kept singing to her - 'like an avalanche' and 'your love reaches' a cappella. Beautiful, precious moments!

 

 Then I went along to the evening service to worship - for the first time in a couple of weeks (due to snow/stress/Monday exams) and the worship and teaching was incredible. God really spoke to me through the song '10,000 reasons' as I worshipped - with the line 'sing like never before': each time we worship, we truly should sing like never have before - because each time, God has blessed us in more ways than the last time we worshipped - He's constantly just pouring love onto us, whatever else is going on. So each time we come to praise Him, there are new reasons to do so. Amazing. God is just incredible!

 I found this picture the other day, from the first weekend I was at uni and we went on a night out as a flat. At the time, I remember feeling fat - in fact, I didn't put this particular picture on facebook because I thought I looked 'too big' in it. But now I think I look so gorgeous! So well, glowing and healthy ('well' is not a word I'm friends with, but it's true - and it's a good thing!).

As opposed to now...I'm kind of sick of looking exhausted and pale all the time, and my hair being so thin that it just looks stupid when I straighten it so it's either frizzy or totally flat...don't even get me started on outfit choices - total nightmare.

I want recovery. I want recovery. I want recovery.

I want to worship God with my life, through my daily choices that glorify Him.

-

a new start

Since I got back to uni, things have been rough. Food stuff got harder and harder and harder, until my previously 'allowed' miniscule intake seemed impossible huge and I was skipping whole afternoons to cry into a pot of fat free yoghurt three hours after I should have had lunch...I had a few rock bottom moments; a few days where I honestly didn't know if I'd make it through. I gave up a little bit. Resigned myself to shrinking and failing until I spiralled so far that someone would rescue me from myself...the thing is, it doesn't really work like that.

I did try though, - and beauty did come in lots of different little ways

Then yesterday, I had my first appointment at the eating disorder clinic. I got up while everyone was still sleeping, wrapped up (although that voice was there, berating me every outfit choice because they all made me look too fat for the clinic – why would anyone there want to help me in my chubbiness?!) and slipped out into the frosty January morning. I was surprisingly calm, listening to worship music and walking across campus to the train station. As I tackled the stairs towards my train, the first few flakes of snow began to fall, getting heavier and heavier as I tensely looked out of the window with unfocused eyes, flicking through my songs.

It was amazing. I was so nervous, but my key worker was lovely and made me feel understood, and that I wasn't crazy, that other people had had the same thoughts and same behaviours and really, truly were able to change and move on...finally it felt like someone had the tools to properly, practically help me. They're going to give me a meal plan, help me to gain some weight, offer me different group therapy sessions, keep seeing me individually and teach me how to cope more healthily.

While I’d been in the assessment, the snowfall had got heavier and heavier and I looked out of the window as I got ready to leave to see a road transformed into a stereotypical winter scene. I left, a little in wonder at how everything had changed so deeply. I’m a bit of a romantic at heart: I like finding symbolism, and snow is the perfect new start.

 The rest of the day became a bit of a crusade. I deleted myfitnesspal, messaged my flatmates letting them know for accountability, emailed my mum and told her everything. I went to Co-op with my friend Poppy (who is the biggest recovery inspiration ever...incidentally she had to buy herself a new tub of nutella while we were there because she'd fancied eating it all with a spoon earlier on!). I bought chicken, hobnobs and a bounty. It felt amazing.

 It was so scary. I had to do a lot of breathing, a lot of praying, play a lot of guitar. But this was my new start, and I was so determined. I had a few teary happiness moments and a few panicky moments but I fought through it. I don't know how many calories I ate yesterday, and that truly terrifies me. It probably even isn't enough to gain weight on, but it felt like so much...

Funnily enough, Hobnobs dipped in tea are pretty damn tasty.

Ephesians 3:20 'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us...'

Christmas 2012

I haven't posted much lately - it always seems as if my mind's been quite jumbled and my standpoint a little ambivalent to create a strong theme for a blog entry, but this morning it felt right to at least document that.

The time around Christmas has been full of blessing, as ever. My God is good. From sweet mugs of liquorice tea to a lovely night at Winter ball; from Phil Wickham's Christmas album to beautiful frosty mornings; from pretty knitted socks to the lovely people I am lucky enough to spend time with, I have so much to be thankful for...

Christmas day itself was rather special as well...after a disasterous Christmas Eve when I cried every five minutes at the most ridiculous things and worried my parents horribly,I wasn't holding out much hope to be any use with the worship for Christmas day... Proved wrong again by my God who does immeasurably more, I rocked out that tambourine and had an absolute ball singing praise to my amazing God...it was a special morning. I really do love my church family!

Christmas dinner was, of course, a big challenge. But I completed my goal of eating as much of it as I could (at least 2/3 of this HUGE portion) and munching on some Christmas chocolates as well, with no exercise or being sick. It was stressful and I was pretty panicky but I'm proud of myself. It makes me realise how well I could do if I put my determination fully into something more positive...

 I just got back from a lovely two days staying up in Teesside with my boyfriend and his family. It was sooo nice but I need to get unpacking now and also get stuck into the essays I've been avoiding!

a letter to myself...

      Sunday 18^th November 2012

Dear self,

This is hard. I so desperately want to be better - I don't want to hate myself for eating anything – however tiny or healthy, or be constantly number-crunching in my mind to the extent that I'm not fully present in my daily life...I don’t want how I see myself be determined by the verdict of the scales each morning; I don’t want to sit with my head down a toilet having a panic attack because I ‘ate too much’. I don't want to force myself to miss social events to be alone in my room and do jumping jacks so long I get carpet burns on the soles of my feet, or ‘have to’ keep running even though everything hurts and I have blurred vision and a spinning head.

. My BMI is still by some criteria technically in the healthy weight range. But I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. And my eating disorder is impacting a lot on my health at this weight – so I hate to imagine what it would be like at an ‘unhealthy’ one. In the last week, I’ve thrown up blood; been horribly dizzy and nauseous; had palpitations and panic attacks; fainted (having eaten a perfectly healthy amount that day); had a constant headache and have just felt exhausted in every way. I don’t want to be like this anymore.

But I keep lying to myself. Saying ‘you can really recover when you’re sick enough to recover’; ’when you’re thin enough to recover’; ‘when you get to x-weight’; ‘when you beat your lowest weight by enough’; ‘when  you can see another rib; and another’… it never ends. I’m realising that I’ll never be ‘thin enough’…and even if it was it’d just have to be a longer and longer road to recovery when I actually start…because here’s the thing:

With an eating disorder there are two options: recovery or death. You can be stuck in the in between misery of just going through the motions of life with it for a while, but ultimately you either recover or die... I’m pretty sure which option I want to pick!!

I love life. I love God and my family and my friends. I love church and worshipping my amazing God, and I love Autumn (and Spring, Summer and Winter!).  I want that John 10:10 life back. I need to stop being so ambivalent and ultimately choose recovery. It’s so hard, but I need to start making better decisions. I hope this letter can motivate me to make those decisions…

With love,
Me

creating a beautiful day..

Although I've been struggling quite a bit with food and exercise-related things the past couple of weeks, I had an absolutely LOVELY bonfire weekend at home last weekend: I saw my church family, got to lead worship again, bought a cute new onesie, had a breakfast date with my mum, saw my parents and had a mini-induction to the job I'll be doing at christmas when I'm home (cleaning the golf club). It was beautiful:

However, I ate so much. It probably logically was a really normal amount, but because of the way I've been eating at uni lately (having smaller meals more frequently each day and tending to have the 'safe' option and do it all myself), it was really scary to have 'big' meals with a starter and main course with side dishes etc - and to not be in control of preparing them. I was so caught up in the emotion of seeing everyone that I managed fine at the time, but had a bit of a panic on the train home and have been struggling more since...

But this morning I decided I was going to create a beautiful day.

I don't like Thursdays. We have a symposium most Thursday mornings (essentially 4 lectures back to back without a break), and today we even had an extra lecture scheduled for after the symposium: 9am-1pm in a lecture theatre hearing about cancer isn't the most fun, but this morning I made the conscious decision to make today a good one. How?

1) I prayed. My alarm was set for early for extra time but I pressed snooze too much (silly dozy Anna is a bit selfish with her sleep apparently!) and only managed to get up about 15 minutes early. But I had a flick through my Bible and took the time to commit the day to God in prayer; to tell Him that I couldn't do it in my own strength but that I wanted to glorify Him today - and would He be able to help me? 

2) I made a wholesome, healthy breakfast the night before. No decision anxiety required; no portion panic to begin the day - I just took my glass of muesli and yummy additions out of the fridge and sat down to eat it.

3) I reminded myself of what I was doing. As I sat in lecture, I had a verse that had been stalking me on social networking this morning (think Romans 12:12 was the youversion verse of the day!) written on my hand during the lectures as a constant reminder...

...and the results were brilliant! I was able to listen and stay pretty much focused the whole way through the (slightly painful) morning of lectures - which is unheard of for me in a symposium! Usually I've given up trying to understand it an hour in!

also, little unexpected blessings made me happy - Alice returned to me my orange pen I thought I'd lost. Not a big deal to most people, but I love my colour schemes (to a worryingly OCD extent, but that's a different story) so it got rid of some anxiety that's been floating around my notes for the past week or so.

I'm still messing up, of course. Today I've done lots of things I probably shouldn't - calorie counting, body checking and loads more things. But I'm pretty happy with how the day's going: I feel like I've created it beautifully within my constraints: God is good and I am so blessed.

Recovery: an analogy

Sand Dunes:

Recovering from an eating disorder is like running up a sand dune: the moment you stop, you begin to slip backwards. And you know that you should want to be at the top because the tide's coming in  - the top of the sand dune, despite the fact that you can't see over the crest, represents safety and future - it's where your family and your friends are and they're calling down to you to keep running upwards...

...but you're so tired. The sand keeps shifting and it seems like the easiest thing to sit down and just let yourself slide. And when you look down at the beach, it looks so appealing. Despite the danger, it's so tempting and it seems beautiful. Maybe if you just slide down onto the beach, you can get a better run up? Maybe if you're in enough danger the coastguards will come and rescue you?...because you don't think you can get up the sand dune on your own....

(So when I thought of this, I didn't even consider 'Footprints in the Sand'.

No coincidence, in my opinion...because God is good.

All the time.)