Bad days

It seems like as soon as things start to look like they're getting a bit better (in general, not just with food although that's what it's usually about), they suddenly come crashing down.

 

Today was my last family therapy session at the day program, and it was supposed to be a positive time, seeing how far I'd come over the last 4 months or so. I was supposed to be weighed on Friday, my last official day of the program but when I got there today suddenly my parents decided to make me get weighed.

 

I didn’t want to get weighed today, not because of any anorexic reason, but my parents thought that it was just because of anxiety about the number that I was not wanting to get weighed. I actually didn't want to because I then spend the whole day wondering what I did/didn’t do to make that number happen, and I was already feeling sick and didn’t really want to deal with it today.

 

Anyway I tried explaining this but my parents didn’t want to listen and just said: "either you get weighed now or you don’t get to play sport for two weeks. Decide now or that’s it." This made me super upset because getting weighed didn’t have anything to do with food or exercise, I feel like they just use food and exercise to get me to do what they want because they know id rather do anything than have more food or no exercise. This wasn't an anorexia issue, it was about my parents trusting that had good reason not to get weighed today! 

 

So now its really awkward with my parents because I told them I hate them etc. I don’t mean that now but at the time I feel so trapped and it makes me think of doing harmful things to myself (sorry to be a downer) and just giving up on recovery all together. After all the challenges I've overcome this past few months they still don’t trust me to make my own decisions and I'm almost 18. Plus, I really don't think that they can punish me for something I am supposed to have the choice over anyway (you're medically responsible for yourself at 16 unless you can't make the right decisions for yourself, as is the case when you're consumed by anorexia). 

 

I guess I'm just sick of other people telling me what to do all the time, I just need time to be left alone sometimes. Then people would see that I have resolved that I can't lose weight if I want to have a family someday and have a social life etc. which I really do. Sorry about the rant but yeah.

 

Photos! 

I'm not a school bathroom selfie kind of girl but since my dad took down my mirror to stop me looking at it all the time it's the only full size mirror I have, and I don't want to go to my family "hey can you take a photo of me" so yeah this is the best I've got :)

Mum gave me so much pasta! Freaked out a bit but got through it :)

I think I'm getting better

I know I've been the worst blogger ever in the past few months and haven't really given this thing my best shot but I've been dealing with stuff that is more important that writing posts. 

This Friday is my last day at a day program, after 14 long weeks. The program was so hard with food of course but also because I missed out a term of school in my final year :( it's been pretty hard trying to keep up with everyone else but I'll get there eventually (I hope!)

Even though I didn't really like the program itself, I was with a really supportive group of girls who are all super keen to recover and get their lives back! At the beginning to be honest I didn't really want to recover, I was just going to the program because my parents made me and I was still 7 kilos below my goal weight. 

They made us eat the hardest foods too! We had pizza, burgers and chips, subway with 4 meats, cheese and mayonnaise, doner kebabs, kfc etc, huge chocolate muffins etc. it has been the most upsetting and hardest thing I've ever had to do, and I still would never  choose to eat any of those foods, but at least I know now that if I ever have to eat them I will be ok :)

I also conquered a major challenge the other night at my friends 18th birthday party. I chose to eat ice cream cake and nobody was watching me. I could've said no and I really wanted to but I wanted to do it for my friend because she had made te cake herself. (I shared this slice with a friend)

And in the meantime I have reached my goal weight! While I hate being at this weight and I feel disgusting all the time for eating and not exercising I am coming to terms with the fact that this is the weight I need to be in order to be healthy.

I am now able to overcome the thoughts a lot of the time and I think a major part of this has been getting a bit of my social life back again and realising that if my friends can have pizza and ice cream than it must be ok for me to eat it too if I wanted it. For the first time in 2 years in not trying to lose weight and I am not measuring every little piece of food an exercising whenever I get the chance, and I'm the happiest I've been in a long time. I thought I'd share my progress over the past 15 weeks with you: 

And at goal weight:

Out for dinner

Not sure if I already posted about this but I won a hospitality careers competition a little while ago and one of the prizes was a tour around a group of restaurants, a mocktail masterclass and dinner to the value of $200 with 2 people. 

At first I was really freaked out about it all because I was scared about dinner but I've been having to have massive dinners to put on weight anyway so that made the night a bit easier. I ate some noodles, dim sum, duck and pork, and some fruit for desert.

It was a this really nice asian restaurant and we had a lovely French chef which was cool. I took my dad and sister and I think they really enjoyed it because I didn't freak out or start crying or having s panic attack in the middle of the restaurant. 

I didn't really want any of the food but I'm slowly starting to realise that as much as I hate food, I have to stop convincing myself that I don't need it to survive, because it's a basic fact of life that I do.

Then, as I was having a shower, I thought you know what, who is proud of me when I lose weight and look super skinny. Me. That's it, everyone else is sad and disappointed. I used to be so worried about what other people think and I still am, but the one thing that anorexia tells me they want in order to accept me what isolates me from other people.

Here are some photos of tonight:  

Meal plan on the program

So here is what my original meal plan was at the hospital on day program:

Morning Tea/Afternoon Tea: 

1 Dairy (custard, yoghurt, milk)

1 Carb (crumpets, raisin toast, 12 Jatz and 2 slabs of cheese, normal toast - all with butter, 4 sweet biscuits)

1 Fruit

 

Lunch: 

2 Sandwiches with a meat/cheese and butter

Juice

Dairy

 

At home I have:

Breakfast-

2 weetbix and around 2/3 cup milk (full cream)

1 piece of toast with butter or jam

Smoothie on f/c milk with berries, banana and greek yoghurt

 

Dinner-

A portion of something high calorie (pastry, lasagne, pad thai)

 

Supper:

Meal supplement drink

However, I didn't put on any weight the first week so I got moved up a meal plan which means an extra carb at each snack and mum and dad also doubled my dinner portion :O this week I put on 700g in 4 days so freaking out a bit! I have 4 more kilos to gain till I'm at goal weight now but I already feel so big! 

Tonight's dinner was a huge helping of chilli pork with rice :(

Also, this is random but I HATE CHANGEROOMS. It always makes me feel so horrible looking in those mirrors...

Life on the program

So I've been on the actual day program for a week and four days now and its been really hectic so I haven't had time to blog or anything but I thought as I am in the car on the way home it would be a good opportunity to do an update

 

So the aim of the program is to increase weight and challenge a lot of fear foods while at the same time working through some of the psychological issues we have with Anorexia.

 

Every day we have school for three hours, and then after lunch we have group therapy and activities for three hours, which I think is a bit long considering I am in my last year of school and I'm falling way behind in everything.

 

So I have 5 kilos to gain till I get to my goal weight, which is freaking me out because I already feel MASSIVE! And at the hospital all the food we get is really bad and we have a really short time to eat it in so it doesn’t make me feel very good about myself. 

 

On thursdays we have social eating day where we have to eat takeaway for lunch!!!!!!! Last week it was a huge plate of pad thai and today it was a subway with bacon, ham, turkey, cheese, mayo and salad on white bread and a white chocolate and macadamia cookie.

 

This was super hard as I haven't eaten chocolate in a year and a half and I never eat the other things unless forced by my parents….although my relationship with them is getting a little better.

Although I was not happy about tonight's dinner- lasagne 

Or pad Thai the night before...

 

In group every day we talk about things like unhelpful thinking, mindfullness, how to manage anxiety etc. 

It does help but sometimes I get sick of talking about how I feel all the time and I just want to chat or play a game.

 

Tomorrow we have lunch with our parents at the hospital and I'm really nervous….they're probably going to bring something really bad. Last week I had to have two thick multigrain sandwiches with butter vegemite and cheese on one and mayo, ham and butter on the other, as well as half a litre of juice. It was horrible and I felt disgusting.

 

Anyway that's all I have for now 

 

I will really try to post more regularly I PROMISE!

 

 

 

3rd day of the program

I thought since I told you about the first two days of the multi family week program I might as well tell you about the others. 

So on the night before this day mum and dad asked me if there was a fear food I would like to choose to try for this day. A food I used to eat a lot but don't anymore is feta cheese so I found a recipe for a pumpkin salad with feta (though the only salad thing was a few spinach leaves). And they made me have lasagne for dinner!!!!!! :O

Anyway at the program it was the sibling day so the activities were whole family focused.

First we had to describe a time when things got really upsetting and then trace back to recognise the steps that led up to it. We then came up with ideas of how to prevent things from escalating which was helpful.

Then we separated into parents/siblings/unwell people and came up with things that are helpful when it is distressing. These are some things we came up with:

- give us space to process what we are being asked to eat

- make sure after meals we aren't left alone to our own thoughts (distractions such as this playing games or watching tv)

- don't always treat us like anorexia, listen to our suggestions and how we are feeling. 

- tell us what you expect us to eat before we have to eat it; no surprises

These are things we found help to prevent major distress.

Picture from my young happy days that I hate looking at now :(

Then after lunch we were in a group and one of the other girls was picked to make a family sculpture to visualise the way she saw her family at the moment.

She put her parents standing over her while she was on the ground and her brother was standing far away. This represented her parents making her way and taking away all her independence and her brother being distant and never being home. It was really sad to see how anorexia can put strain on family relationships and my family is no different. I'm constantly angry at my family and I can't stand it if they try and touch me or anything. 

It really helped her brother especially though to realise he hadn't been there for her and he really wants to do that now :) 

After we went home mum and dad had said to me they were choosing a sweet fear food for me to have on Friday.

However once they went to talk to me about it they had decided I had to get a really fatty chicken subway so I felt betrayed and angry that once again they had changed their commitment to me :( 

Anyway life keeps going... 

Program Day 2

Yesterday was the second day of the program. It was not a great day... I had some major upsets so I'm just going to unload. Get ready for the verbal diahorea! :P

Btw super tired this morning ....zzz

The psychologists on the program are telling our parents to challenge us with foods etc. and because I'm sill in phase 1 of maudsley I don't get to choose anything I eat... But my parents don't even tell me what it's going to be.

It was the morning when we were going and I asked what was for lunch. Obviously planning something scary, mum wouldn't tell me and was saying "I'll tell you after you eat that" but then it would be the same as the next thing I had to eat. 

I was getting really anxious because I didn't want to eat anymore without knowing if they were adding things, which they had already promised they wouldn't. 

Mum had then been making all these wraps (white with meat and cheese!!!!!!) and I asked if she was going to make me have one and she said nicely "don't worry, I haven't made yours yet" when in reality she had already made mine and it was in the fridge.

Eventually they told me right before we were going and I normally just have a chicken sandwich on wholemeal bread so you can imagine I was upset with a white wrap with chicken and cheese (white bread and cheese are major fear foods). Mum then told me that the wrap was less than the bread I normally had which I then ran and checked and it wasn't. 

I get like I couldn't trust what they say to me and what they give me and I still feel like that now, which isn't a good place to be...

So yeah not a great day but I do like it with other girls there who understand what I'm going through because I don't have to put on a front and pretend that everything is ok. 

Stay cool kids and keep fighting! (This is one of my favourite pictures ever. We were having a family holiday at Christmas ad this guy came all the way down the lake wishing everyone a merry christmas is was so weird but funny)

Day Program Day 1

So the day program sort of started today. Well not exactly as the firs four days this week are a family therapy thing. There's 8 families and you go during the day. Your parents are in charge of the food etc. I thought I might tell you guys a bit about how it went... (I got an ulcer on my tongue!) 

So first I went and got weighed this morning. I've gone up 3 kilos in a week and five days and I was still missing some things so I'm sort of freaking out. when I got weighed a week and a half ago it was a surprise weigh in and I was dehydrated and wearing something really light so I get it should have gone up a bit but not that much! Aahh it's so bad but I guess it's gotta go up some way or another so I'm trying to stay calm and keep doing what my parents are saying. 

Although at this program there's the added pressure of other girls being there that are skinnier than me :( it doesn't make anorexia happy and I feel really bad about myself. However I am trying to turn these thoughts into positive ones that I am one step closer to recovery and freedom. 

The actual program was ok... Most of the girls are a bit younger than me and the two that are my age aren't really similar to me but oh well, im sure we'll find some common ground over the next ten weeks. 

Dinner tonight made by Grandma: corned beef and potato and veggies 

Today we all talked about how anorexia was affecting our family and then the kids and parents split up and we went and drew anorexia and then did a thing where we wrote to ourselves from a year in the future where everything is going great. It was good to do these activities I guess but it didn't make eating any easier.

It doesn't help that the parents are all talking about food behind our backs. I feel really disconnected and like everyone is trying to force things on me that I'm not ready to do yet and it's making me resent my parents and stuff which I really don't want. 

I might upload a picture of my anorexia and my letter to myself later :) 

It was also weird because I'm the only one with younger siblings and the only one with more than two siblings! Only two other girls brought 1 sister so it was a bit embarrassing and too much to deal with having three tween/teen siblings who don really get it there, so only my 15 year old sister is coming tomorrow. 

Here's some photos of me from the other day to make this post more interesting :) 

I'm back

I haven't blogged in ages.... It's been holidays here in Australia and I've just been super busy. Today is the first day back to routine and school so I thought I should probably get back into this as well.

Unfortunately I'm only going to school for the first two days though. After that I'm going to a new day program for a term. I still haven't told my school friends that I'm going because I've never actually told them what I have, even though they probably already know from seeing me/visiting me when I was first in hospital/ going out to eat with me... I think I'm just so ashes of myself that I can't actually bring myself to say it.

I'm afraid they'll think I just wanted to be really skinny or that I'm different now and can't be the person I was before... So I have to figure out today what I'm going to tell them tomorrow. 

I'm also really worried about how my school work will be affected by going to the program. It's my final year at school and my school is really academic. We only do three hours of school at the program compared to 6 at normal school. I'm coming first in English so far and doing really well in everything else and I don't want my schoolwork to suffer. Plus year 12 has heaps of fun stuff and I don't want to miss out on doing stuff with my year group.

Now comes the bad food part of the program. We went in to the hospital yesterday and they we're saying "she needs to be challenged a lot more" which I really really don't want. Plus they make you have takeaway once a week!!!! I'm freaking out so I've been minimising this week because I'm so worried I'm going to go way over. That and I know it's stupid but I don't want people thinking I'm not sick enough to be there....

So yeah just my messed up thoughts for this morning. Have a lovely day :)