The last two weeks have been good. I've worked out 6 days out of 7 both weeks and ate healthily. I haven't binged, purged or starved myself. My fibro symptoms don't feel like the constant burning flames they usually do. I've had the dieters ideal couple of weeks, I've had my idea two weeks except it's still there. I didn't think 'it' would go away completely but I'm doing it the right way, the healthy way yet my old habits have been replaced by new ones making my eating disorders voice still as present. It happens every time, regardless of how I'm eating, the disorder adapts itself to whatever I'm doing. It's there when I purposefully go to sleep late so I wake up late and I won't have to have breakfast because the thought of 3 full meals a day makes me feel sick. It's there whispering 5 more minutes when I'm at the gym, over and over again. It's there when I look in the mirror everyday and my hands automatically start pinching at the fat. It's there when I think about the amount of calories in everything I eat and if they're worth it. It's there when I work out how long I need to exercise to burn off at least half the calories I'll have consumed in a day. It's there when I do choose to indulge making me feel guilty for every bite. It's here as I write this, furiously picking at my skin and bringing tears to my eyes. It's not here in the way it used to be though. It isn't here telling me to binge or to go buy a bunch of food. It isn't here telling me to have another biscuit because it doesn't matter. It isn't here telling me that I will be fat forever so I shouldn't work out or take care of myself. It's different. And I can't decide which voice I prefer. They both tell me I'm fat, worthless and my body will never be good enough yet they do it in such different ways. Ultimately, they're both horrible and both lead down a slippery slope. I'm trying my hardest to resist going down it but after 8 years of this, I know how it works. The other day I was in the shop looking at alcohol, I had decided to go out that night. It was a bank holiday the next day and I just wanted to have some fun. I went early on in the day and spent over 25 minutes googling the amount of calories in certain drinks to then figure out how long I needed to exercise for. As I was doing it I knew it was crazy behaviour, I even laughed about it with a friend because I sounded so silly. But in the back of my head, IT was telling me a night of drinking would make the 4 pounds I had lost that week all come back. And I believed it. So I set out on a 4 mile walk. It was all a numbers game, I burnt 700 calories on my walk, calculated the walk home later that night and the dancing that would most likely occur to make sure I had burnt over 1,000 calories that day. And yes, I realise that isn't how most people would prep for a night out ;) It's like that every single day, numbers flying around my head and silently whispering horrible things. I knew it wasn't going to go away in 2 weeks of living "normally" but I've stopped binging and that's a huge victory for me. Yet if I've been restricting then maybe I'm not being a healthy as I think I am. But at what point do I admit it's a problem? The voice is so incredibly powerful. More powerful than people could imagine possible. Some of the things I do may seem like poor choices but I am not underweight or malnourished or critically ill so it's okay, right? I'm eating healthily and exercising. I'm eating healthily and exercising. I'm eating healthily and exercising. I have said this to myself over 20 times today to silence the voice and as a way of proving to myself that I'm okay. Except I haven't eaten healthily, my only full meal today was dinner and even then I wondered how many calories I was consuming. It's a constant war between knowing how to lose weight the healthy way but my disorder knowing how to do it faster. I'm sure tomorrow will be a normal day. It comes and goes in phases, much like everything else. This, this right now is not a relapse, I tell myself. It is simply a bad phase and they're destined to happen. That's the thing about eating disorders, it's always at the point when you feel most in control that you really start losing it and realise you never had any of the power. Maybe I haven't got this under control...
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Hey there, I'm Jasmine, your average 23 year old working in childcare and living in England. Maybe Tomorrow follows my journey living with mental health issues and multiple chronic health conditions, all whilst trying to have some fun along the way.
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May 2020
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