It's been a while since I posted here and I really have missed having an outlet where I can talk honestly about what's going on in my head. After my last post I managed to keep an even keel for several weeks and then recently everything's deteriorated again. It was almost like I ran out of fuel and couldn't keep "recovery" moving forward any further. Currently things are worse in some ways but better in others.
In the things-are-better camp - I finally gathered the courage and told my boyfriend what was going on i.e. purging/ED thoughts. He didn't react that well at first, but has been very supportive since then. He told me I had to tell my psychiatrist, which I managed to do a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't as awful as I thought it would be, telling either boyfriend or psychiatrist, that is. They didn't over or under react, which I think was my biggest worry. I'm being referred to a clinical psychologist as my doctor thinks my anxiety is behind a lot of the self destructive behaviours I've relied on for years. But I have no idea of the timelines for this.
So, being able to open up to people in real life has been one of the positive changes. Another positive is that since telling my boyfriend I've managed to keep a lid on the purging. He was shocked and amazed that I'd managed to get away with it for so long, and since I'm apparently so "good" at hiding it I probably could carry on even at home, but him knowing has made it easier to resist the urges.
On other positives, things at work are currently going well and my concentration seems actually quite good, despite background obsession with ED/food related type stuff. My house and garden are for once fairly tidy and organised - partly because I'm distracting myself from purging thoughts by cleaning, and also YAY SPRING IS HERE!!!
On the negative side of things the lack of purging has left my finding it very hard to actually eat anything. Because I don't feel that I have the option of purging anymore it's very very difficult to eat without complete panic. I'm not really eating at work at all and at home I'm either pretending to eat (by leaving out plates with crumbs/dirty cutlery etc) or putting very little on my plate at meal time and then sneaking half of that to the pets. I also lied to the psychiatrist about my weight/weightloss and said that I wasn't purging to try and lose weight, it was more about decreasing my anxiety/stress. Which is only partly true, but I didn't really want anyone paying too much attention to my weight.
My antidepressants have been increased back to their previous dose at my request and with the agreement of my psychiatrist. Though what I (deliberately) didn't say to my doctor is that the reason I requested upping the dose is because they have a massive appetite suppressant affect on me. Since upping the dose a couple of weeks ago I've lost 6lbs, despite not purging, and this has dropped my BMI to 17.5. Obviously this pleases me in a ED-type way and worries me in a i'm-sane-really-and-know-this-shouldn't-please-me-type way. I'm also now two pounds away from a weight that I said "I'd stop if I weighed that". And part of me doesn't want to test that theory, but I don't really feel as if I have a choice.
This, I guess, leaves me with waiting for the psycologist referral to come through and trying to eat and not purge. I hope that the steps in a positive direction outdistance the steps in a negative direction, but I think that only time will tell.
