Where
to even begin...
My name is Holly and as of 2 days ago I am officially
25 years old.. yup that's right, I am officially a quarter of a century old and
I am in eating disorder recovery! (FUCK YES!) It is first important for me to note that it
was only last year that I finally FULLY accepted that my life was being ruled by
an eating disorder. So yup, it took me 6 long years to acknowledge that I even
had an eating disorder to begin with, and to then finally talk to my family and friends and
basically say 'I NEED HELP'
My
story starts way back to the fresh faced 19 year old girl who somehow got
snowballed into what I can only describe as eating disorder (ED) hell. I was working my first ever job in a
little pub round the corner from my family home and I was enjoying life of a
legal adult. It was here however, in this very pub that not only did my eating
disorder story begin but also my first ever relationship (this shall be discussed another time).
I Like to believe that my eating disorder began 'by accident' but after a lot of
counselling and hypnotherapy I now know this is not entirely true, but we can
talk about that also another time (My god I have a lot to say).
My ED began with A LOT of cardio and skipping
meals. It was easy for me to skip meals as I was working 12 hour days where
family had no idea whether I had eaten or not. I would gym in the mornings only to then spend all day on my feet in the bar. People would occasionally say to me
'you must be hungry' and I would lie and say no- but in reality, my god was I
starving which only led to the feelings of faint and fatigue. At 5ft 3 I weighed
around 49kg and thought I had to maintain this in order to look pretty and
'desirable'.
This continued for 2 years, I was in a very
complicated first ever relationship which to some extent settled my ED for a
year or so.
Then
at 21 I packed up my belongings and moved to Bournemouth University to study
Adult Nursing. With the stress of university my mind was taken off of food and
focused on work for a while so I put on some weight. However, I then suffered IBS
(irritable bowel syndrome). The pain and the bloat I was now experiencing
brought back my ED with a vengeance! I began restricting again however, this
turned into a cycle of binging on thousands of calories worth of junk food all
in one day only to be followed by restricting my calorie intake for days after.
Yes this was often followed with purging (making myself sick). This continued
throughout my training, my ED thrived under the stress.
I was reading a post on pinterest not long ago about
how different people referred to their eating disorders and this one just
really hit home.. ''It's like being in an abusive relationship where one minute
its spewing hateful comments at you and then the next it is apologetically
promising that if you listen to what it says you will achieve happiness''
SO, what changed? I got help.. REAL help. I admitted I had a
problem and I finally admitted to myself that everything I was doing to my body
wasn't healthy. I barked on the journey of recovery, I did the deeply
uncomfortable work. Half a year later I am still learning,
So join me on my journey to recovery, I promise their will be some laughs along the way.
