This is not real life

I can’t really talk about any of this in my “real” life. My partner, family and friends either wouldn’t understand or I’d just be too embarrassed to explain any of this. I don’t want to disappoint them. I don’t feel I can talk to my doctor (my GP or my psychiatrist) because I don’t want to acknowledge that this is a genuine problem, it’s not real if I don’t say it out loud and I don’t want yet another psychiatric label. I already feel unsure/unhappy about the ones that I already seem to have. My colleagues are lovely, but I strongly feel that work boundaries need to be maintained for me to survive professionally – my immediate line manager knows that I see my doctor fairly regularly and take medication, and one particularly close colleague knows that I had fairly serious mental health issues “when I was younger”. But I’ve always referred to my problems using the ubiquitous term stress and I try very very hard to limit any impact on my workplace functioning. I’d like to think I mostly succeed.

Also - and probably more significantly - admitting to any of the above people what I’m doing would mean that I wouldn’t be able to continue unobserved. The idea that someone would be actually watching out for my behaviours and monitoring my weight terrifies me. I’d actually have to actively try and stop what I’m doing and change these behaviours or get a lot better at hiding them. I feel very ambivalent about all of this. I don’t want an eating disorder; but I don’t want to stop this either. I guess that’s part of the craziness. Starting this blog is hopefully my first step to actually challenging the behaviours and maybe stopping this. I want to think I have the strength to get myself out of this; but if not I need to build up the courage to open up to someone. The anonymity of a blog makes me feel ok about opening up here anyway, and I guess that is a start.

Now realistically, even if I don’t talk to someone, I know that I won’t be able to continue unseen indefinitely. Since the start of November, when I started restricting my food, I’ve lost 30lbs. This has taken me from the higher end of healthy weight to the lower end. I’ve had a lot of complements and congratulations on my sudden and dramatic change. Though I have also now had one or two comments about how I shouldn’t lose any more weight. Warnings: to be careful. I’m sure that my partner will at some point soon tell me I'm too thin, or will eventually notice one of the many tricks I’m using to avoid food and will stop being supportive of my “healthy diet”. If I can’t get control of this myself I’d like to at least have control about when people find out and I’m hoping writing here will help me do that. So I can ask for help before someone notices and tries to help without my asking.

I’m hoping that putting my jumbled thoughts into words, into sentences, into paragraphs, and so on, will help me order my mind and find a way out of this. I want to see the wood through the trees. I want to be able to reread what is written and see my situation from an external point of view. If I can remove myself from my mind quagmire I’m hoping things will start to make more sense.

"For now we see through a glass, darkly"