Rounding the corner of 2013

It's time for the obligatory end-of-year post where I mull over one random timespan and project film and tv depictions of young adult life/insecurities about what my friends on facebook are getting up to while I for the most part sit eating yoghurt and chocolate raisins/all of last years low points and failures onto another random timespan in most likely a vague, predictably clichéd and unrealistic way. 

I'm not under any lofty illusions that last year was the best. year. ever. and that next year will be the best. year. ever. where I solve the Arab-Israeli conflict and get 55254 likes on a photo of me on a beach, jumping in the air, silhouetted against a sunset, with arms outstretched and inexplicably perfect hair as if to say 'I have reached my full potential in 2014. Years from now people will look back and say: 'Ah, 2014, that was Esther's year'' I always get annoyed at myself for writing such long sentences when I blog. Here's a short sentence.

I think the first thing to say is that this year has flown by and was characterised by big changes. Although I started at university in 2012 it feels like this last year was when I really came to terms with it and stopped entertaining ideas of dropping out.

Centre: The frepping team for Collingwood Freshers' Week 2013 - October; Clockwise from top left: Dressed as Barbie for a Toy Story themed fancy dress formal - November; with my three housemates before Summer Ball - June; being 'proposed' to on Collingwood Day - June; a Lumiere installation - November; after dip-dying my hair pink - February; seeing Stornoway in Newcastle - November; 'Refreshers' event in Newcastle - January; fulfilling my childhood dream of going to Hogwarts - August; Stornoway - November; in charge of college gay pride weekend - November; Collingwood Day with my housemates - June; Winter Solstice with the President - December; outside the European Parliament in Brussels - September; Lumiere installation - November; seeing Les Misérables on the West End - April; with friends on the beach at Aldeburgh - July; photobooth at Winter Solstice - December; Atomium in Brussels - September; Durham Cathedral upon my return - September

2013 marked changes in terms of moving into a student house, as well as starting all my new modules this September. I went on my first holiday without parents, went to my first concert, saw a musical for the first time and broke up with my long-term boyfriend. It also marked a change with regards to my attitude to problems, I feel like I've been facing them rather than avoiding any troubles that pop up. The year also saw me making a load of new friends, passing my uni exams, putting on weight and feeling a whole lot better in myself, feeling closer to my family, getting more involved in charity work and being a fresher rep in September for my college at uni - truly one of the best, if most tiring, weeks of my life.

Obviously each year brings with it its difficulties - uni wasn't always particularly easy, I didn't ask for help when I needed it and breakups can be a bit naff in some aspects. Looking back though, despite sometimes feeling like I was really low and hating life there are surprisingly few negative points to make about 2013. I perhaps spent a bit too much money and let my worries hold me back a little bit especially when it came to going to events/parties. I could have worked a bit harder at times and been a better friend. I also failed to turn into Jennifer Lawrence/Beyonce which is the ultimate disappointment.

The next year is shaping up with various meetings already booked into my beloved filofax. It'll see me turning 20 (dear God please no, it's a slippery slope from here onwards and I REFUSE TO GET OLD),  battling with essays and exams that actually count - God help me - going to Germany on a field trip, stumbling my way through attempts to have some form of love life, taking part in my college's production of Grease and trying to put a bit more weight on and tick off the last few things on my fear list.

I don't do resolutions, so all I can really say is that I hope by this point next year I'm happy with how I've responded to whatever has been thrown my way, I've done a bit more exercise and gone to a few more parties/events instead of avoiding them because of petty worries, I've started applying for jobs FUTURE ESTHER YOU NEED TO APPLY FOR JOBS NOW  and I'm a bit heavier.

Goodbye 2013.
See you next year,
Est
xx

Eating Disorder Revisited

This post could trigger some people. Please take care, but what I'll do is put all the tricky bits after a jump break, if you don't want to read anything that may upset you then stop there.

It comes as no surprise to you, I hope by now at least, that my relationship with food is not always a-ok. I thought I had everything relatively under control (aha I spend my life controlling myself) but living out this year - instead of in catered college accommodation like last year - is presenting me with new challenges. Now I don't mind a challenge, bring it on, but I won't pretend that I'm always enthusiastic about facing challenges related to eating head on. Some days, like today, are calamitous. Good word. Today was bad for specific reasons I won't go into now for fear of triggering someone but suffice it to say my diet was silly and that I'm now wide awake at quarter to 2 thinking about it incessantly.
 I can easily find myself wanting to throw things (preferably lots of pieces of paper-that always looks dramatic) into the air and scream 'To hell with this!' but that option isn't really there for me. If I run away from a problem today, I will only have to confront it tomorrow. I know I'll have good days and bad, but at times when every day is just plain average it quickly becomes demoralising.
The issues I'm having with food at the minute are complex. There are practical problems like how much I'm spending on food, it's so expensive-who knew? I tend to quell this worry by thinking that in the future when I am saddled with debt I highly doubt I'll be ruing the days I bought fresh meat and lots of fruit, more likely I'll be regretting buying quite as many jumpers/scarves. Seriously though, Durham is cold, I can justify those purchases.
Also fresh food needs to be used up quicker than I anticipate so perhaps some forward planning from me would help to map out what I'll eat when and ensure food doesn't go past its best sitting in my fridge. This could help get me to stick to eating full meals too, as if I've made the commitment in writing that I'll be eating salmon and veg on Thursday I'll be more likely to keep true to my plan and do it. The actual cooking of the food is fine, despite a few frantic calls home about how much spaghetti constitutes a portion. I'm impressed at my abilities, in particular my Thai Green lemongrass and ginger prawn curry. *Awkwardly waits for applause*

 On the whole I'm fine but I worry about how varied my diet is, in a way I suspect other students don't have to. If I have a day, or worse a few days, where I don't eat much I get intensely anxious that I'm getting ill, whereas my housemates given the same situation could just accept that they weren't particularly hungry. Some days, like today, I struggle to eat meals and instead just snack aimlessly in the hope I'll eventually take in enough. Obviously that's hard given the nutritional value of most snack foods. I can see that some of my habits aren't healthy, but don't necessarily know how to fix them, and quite frankly can't be bothered with the effort. If I can coast by like this, then should I? Equally - I worry that when I go back home my routine is going to be thrown way off course, having just settled into one here.
Overall I feel I've reacted to the stresses this term has given me pretty well, in fact I've gone full circle and have been eating more when I'm stressed than ordinarily. Shocker. I can't help fearing that as my tell-tale troublesome familiar stresses peak over the next two weeks (academic stress is the absolute worse for me) I won't be as successful with managing it. I can feel it happening already but don't feel able to do anything about it. Accepting a relapse as an inevitability seems like I am an utter failure though. I am so tired of it that I could cry. Hard times indeed.



This is why today was bad, don't read if you're going to find it difficult to see what I ate today, please please please.

Dwindling Motivation and Poorly Skippy Hearts

I am really struggling at the minute to even get through a day without wanting to nap or curl up into a ball and pretend the world doesn't actually affect me.
Perhaps it's because it's the holidays and there's nothing much to do although I have internship work to be getting stuck into and could/should be reading up early for next year's degree course.
Perhaps it's because I am perpetually shattered considering it's currently 2am and there is no hope of me being able to sleep due to my mind whirring like a machine this trend will likely continue.
Perhaps it's because you know what I am fed up of doctors having had 19 doctor/nurse/psych/hospital appointments since coming back home at the end of uni and I am weak and feeling oh-so grandly sorry for myself.

It's bizarre.
I have always been a hardworker.
Not even that, I've always been a work-herself-to-the-bone worker (yes I understand the cringe of the to-the-bone reference) and yet I've found myself so.....meh....about doing anything.
Then I sit here.
Lay here.
At night and mull over how useless I am for wasting a day.
A day that could be used to be a better person. A smarter person, a happier person, a prettier person, a more popular person. Somehow.
I have no motivation to leave the house.
Or to be happy.
Or to eat healthily. And with that I wonder why do I even need to care about eating healthily? Should I care about eating healthily? Is this a bad thing to care about?

I'm not even sure how I feel.
I hate doing nothing.
But right now I don't want to do anything.

The doctor fandango is exasperating. I feel like I get passed from person to person to person, and that more often that not they see eating disorder and blame whatever I'm seeing them about on that. I've now been given tablets for my stomach which has been causing problems for years now but I can't even motivate myself to take the pills. I'm still waiting for someone to take my heart seriously. It trembles and skips and flutters and pounds and pauses and tightens, not like panic attack palpitations, like it genuinely forgets how to beat properly. It does this for maybe 15 minutes at a time every few days. It's starting to scare me, but worrying about it won't help.

Being thin is not the answer. Video.

So I probably shouldn't post two videos in a row (profuse apologies, some proper writing will be on its way) but I'm in this one, spot me if you can - really not that hard, I hold up a sign with my name on....

I answered a twitter call to help someone with their project on eating disorders for their YouTube channel, and it's not a bad video, if a little long and difficult to read sometimes!

Here are my pictures from the video, 

Now off to finish re-reading HP (PoA).

The Big Black Cloud of Low Self-Esteem

self-es·teem

 

noun

1.

a realistic respect for or favourable impression of oneself; self-respect.

I spend most of my days repeatedly mulling over negative thoughts about myself, and continually feel like I am just 'not good enough.' What it is that's indicative of my unsatisfactoryness (no, not a word, but we'll go with it) varies on a regular basis, it's sort of cyclical. Be it my academic pursuits, my body, my general appearance, my mind, my social life, my job prospects or anything else that can be applied to me I promise you I've felt like it's unworthy of the slightest bit of praise. I've never really put my finger on why my self-esteem is frankly non-existent but it's probably (partially) due to my perfectionism. If it's possible to get a better mark, to be prettier, to be funnier, to be kinder or more liked then that - in my head - is a sign that I'm nothing special.
It would be a relief to have one day where I'm not weighed down by the burden of disliking myself, or wishing I were a different person altogether. The number of times I've dismissed compliments or refused to go out because I don't want to be seen/spoken to is mounting up as time goes on. Having low self-esteem wears me down, I wake up already ill-equipped to face the day with a cloud of self-loathing looming overhead and it makes me more vulnerable to low spots and panics.
It was when I was completing a CBT exercise recently, that asked me to focus on one thing I was proud of and happy with about myself a day that I realised something that could be a bit of a game-changer....*whisper it now* I actually do quite like a fair few things about myself. Shocking.
My hair, though not what it once was -sigh, screw you eating disorder- is alright, actually. My skin, though not perfect, is quite good, my eyes are ok, although I kid about wanting a nose job there are no glaringly obvious faults with my face and my body is pretty well proportioned. Tall and slim. People go on about wanting this sort of figure all the time. And yeah, I wish my chest were larger, and I'm really not keen on my arms, but am I ugly? I don't think so. I'm ok. Ish. Whilst I've never thought of myself as intelligent people tell me that's the case, and I've achieved academically, if that's what you choose to measure it by. I love my degree, take pride in my work and got a 2:1 for first year *fist-pump*. I've got friends and a boyfriend, who I'm happy-as-larry with, and I am eventually learning to like the person I'm becoming.
It seems the problem I've had has always been what other people thought of me, or rather, me second-guessing what other people thought of me. When I get down because of my appearance it isn't because I particularly dislike the way I look, it's because I dislike what other people may think of me. I don't like that other people may think I'm a bad person or that I'm stupid or annoying and I take that worry and extend it to the assumption that people do think badly of me, they must think badly of me.
All this focus on what other people think is tiring as hell. Especially when in all liklihood I slip past without them noticing my bad hair day/that I mispronounced Morgenthau. Plus if someone doesn't like me, for whatever reason that may be, do I really want to spend copious amounts of energy worrying about that and trying to change his/her mind? Do I want someone in my life if they're going to be negative? Of course not. So if I apply that to myself...do I want the negative part of my brain in my life if it's only going to be negative? No ta.
I've never liked the techniques I'm sometimes told to use of telling yourself 5 happy affirmations a day or sticking positive I-love-myself notes all over the place, it just seems too self righteous. But maybe I could start detaching myself from other peoples' opinions by focusing more on me and what I want, not running through 'oh but what will people think?' before each trivial decision I make.
Wisdom done and signing off for the night.
xx

'The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.' - Mark Twain

 

The curse of returning home

A personal post

I am starting to think that I will never be free from what my brain is inflicting on me.
Being away at university obviously has its plus points. Independence, meeting new people, a fresh start, discovering new things and exploring new ideas, immersing yourself in a subject that truly interests and excites you, having fun while you're young and all that #YOLO stuff. What I'm feeling at the minute is the backlash from coming back home. It happened at Christmas and Easter, and I am fed up. Change in routine is not great for me, it shakes up everything I've settled down and calculated for myself and effectively feels like starting again every few months. The contrast in environments puts a weight on me each time I switch, and all I really want to do is shake it off entirely.
Going away with - as my mum puts it - 'eating wobbles' was never going to be a walk in the park, which is a shame, because I love walks in parks. The whole process of applying for university in the first place was marred by the state I got myself in. At one point I wasn't sure if I'd even be finishing Year 12 let alone getting A-levels and going off to uni like everyone else. I had no clue if I'd be well enough to go 2012/13 or if I'd have to wait at home and watch all my friends move on from our sleepy little town because I wasn't well enough to go, and I couldn't begin to predict what sort of grades I'd get given the stress I was putting myself under. I only considered unis that had catered facilities, as no one really trusted me to make food for myself, which meant ruling a lot of places out.
There were days away from home where I didn't eat as much as I perhaps should have, but generally it doesn't particularly cross my mind. I feel in control and able to choose my actions, not dictating my day or social situations around food and comfortable plodding along at my own pace. I feel like the best steps I've made in getting better have been as a result of being at uni. The food in college isn't always great, let's put it that way, but I eat a fair amount and spend a huge sum on biscuits, yoghurts and other snacks to keep me going.
Every time I come back home it's a massive step backwards. Because most of my family are out all day I'm usually in charge of my own food, which even though I could sort out I inexplicably don't. I don't feel hungry at home, I don't particularly have any desire to eat any food here, all my old anxieties bubble up to the surface again, eating socially becomes difficult. I'm worried that my life's going to stay in this crappy cycle of steps forwards and backwards. Like a hope-inducing, misery-inducing, emotional pendulum of disordered eating. No sooner than I feel like I've made progress is that snatched away from me. It's tiring having to go over the same old ground and problems repeatedly. To be honest I'm giving up hope where I once was optimistic and convinced of eventual success. Putting in the monumental effort to eat when I simply cannot bring myself to is proving too much of an effort to maintain day in, day out.
I really want to know that one day this will all be over.

Reasons to Recover

A personal post

If you've read the little About The Girl tab, or some of my other posts, you'll know about my EDNOS diagnosis. In brief, it's an eating disorder that began from long term deep-rooted issues with food and reared its ugly head in sixth form. In contrast to the other conditions I suffer from, it's one that I strongly feel the desire to eradicate from my life. But as many of you will know, unfortunately you can't just click your fingers and be done with a condition once you decide to overcome it. It feels like it's taking forever and often I forget how far I've come. Sometimes I just want to give up entirely and this is the list of things I remind myself I want to change by leaving disordered eating behind me.

Without struggle there is no progress

• I want to know I will always be able to eat at a restaurant/at someone's house without feeling sick
• I want to be able to eat in front of anyone, and not have to revolve/organise my life (or other peoples' lives) around my eating problems
• I want to stop the panic attacks
• I dont want to be ashamed of myself, or feel that others are embarassed of me
• I want to stop wasting food due to not being able to finish it
• I'm fed up of my hair falling out and constantly feeling freezing cold
• I want to be able to have more confidence in myself and my abilities, and be more comfortable with the way I look
• I want to live the life I had planned out for myself before I got ill
• I want to be able to go out and be around people without constantly comparing myself to others and fearing being judged
• I hate feeling hungry, faint, and nauseous
• I want people to stop feeling sorry for me and worrying about me
• I want to be healthy and have more energy and motivation
• I want to break the cycle of being consumed by negative thoughts and living life in misery
• I want to have children, one day
• I want to be able to look behind me and know I conquered everything that was thrown my way
• I want to help other people