The thoughts were fairly bad last night and I did end up purging. I weighed myself this morning and haven’t lost any more weight and the dial even wavered on saying I’d gained weight. My scales aren’t very good and can vary depending on where they’re placed in the bathroom. What I normally do is weigh myself several times and then assume that the highest weight I get must be correct. I’m really quite upset now. It’s taken a lot of my emotional reserves to actually come to work today and not just go straight out and buy some new scales or find a chemist that would have accurate scales to weigh myself on. Uncertainty about my weight has resulted in some self-destructive urges have been quite bad at points today and I very nearly purged today at lunch time, which is normally my one safe meal. I did manage to stop myself in the end (I used the wait five minutes, then another five minutes, then another five minutes, tactic).
I also seem to be deliberately jeopardising myself a lot. Several of the women in my office are on diets and I’ve been getting involved with their discussions on diet tips and tricks. And during my lunch break I watched a diet show on YouTube (10 Thing You Should Know if You Want to Lose Weight). It’s frustrating how socially acceptable it is to diet, even if you’re blatantly not doing it healthily. Surely it’s obvious to most people that it’s not a good thing that I eat exactly the same (very small and not particularly nutritious) thing every day for lunch. But instead I’m applauded for my will power. The UK
With purging last night my plan on convincing myself to talk to my GP isn’t going well. I counted how many pills I had left I have 22 days. So I’ll probably have a doctors appointment either on the 21st or 22nd of February. More likely the 22nd as it’s easier to book time off work on Tuesdays. I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop purging just like that (I’m currently purging at least once a day) so I think this week I’m going to try and purge no more than five time, the following week three and the final week once. If I can do that without ramping up other eating disorder behaviours to compensate, then I won’t talk to my GP. If I can’t do that then I’m somehow going to have to find the courage to speak up when I’m at my appointment*. (This is absolutely terrifying so I really really really must succeed in fighting this by myself.)
Things I will do to prove I’m not giving into the eating disorder completely
- I will stop looking online at new scales I could buy
- I will not stop at the chemist on the way home and weigh myself
- I will cook and eat a meal when I get home tonight
- I will try not to purge tonight
- I will try not to weigh myself tomorrow morning
* I don’t even know how I’ll go about broaching the subject so any suggestions would be extremely welcome.
Ooh, I think I may be your first commenter :) lucky me. I'm Katie, I saw your comment on Carrie's blog, looked through your posts and decided to say hi. I am also from the UK, also suffer from mood and anxiety issues, and am in recovery from anorexia. The ED/recovery community is a friendly one, I'm sure you'll find lots of support soon enough. If you ever want someone to talk to you'd be welcome to email me, it's katie_cullinane@hotmail.com :)
ReplyDeleteI have read all your blog entries, and it does sound like you need help. I know it is nice to think you can just get over it by yourself, but often that just leads to things getting worse. I do think you should tell your GP what is going on, even if you are doing a bit better by then, which I hope you are. Telling someone you are struggling is always really difficult, and I don't know if there is any easy way. I guess the options are just to come out and say it 'I have been purging X number of times a week for X length of the time, I have lost X amount of weight, I am weighing myself multiple times a day and doing X and X' etc, but that definitely takes guts. You can be more evasive and say that you have been having problems with your eating and then try to expand on that, but that does have the risk of not actually managing to tell them everything you want or need to. An alternative is to write it down and give it to them when you go in, if that feels easier than saying it. Take care. xxx
ReplyDelete@ themilkfreeway. Thank you, and *yay* first comment :). I've tentatively been looking around the online blogging community and everyone seems very friendly. I’ll drop you an email.
ReplyDelete@ Bippidee. Thank you for the practical advice and I will definitely take in on board. The writing things down idea may be a good one as it might prevent me from chickening out. And thanks for reading. x