Treading Water

I am in a good place.

I have a great new job – where I feel challenged, motivated and engaged, but most of all, where I feel at home. My weight has been stable for 7 months. I exercise if and when I feel like it and my mood is generally good these days.

When I read these words, I feel good about where I am. “This is a good place I think. “I could pitch a tent here and make myself comfortable for a while.” This is the story I tell myself most days. But just as I am telling myself this story, there is another one playing out in my mind.

You see, to stay in this place takes a lot of work…I mean a lot of work. It is quite similar to treading water, legs beating frantically to keep your shoulders above water. You start off confident, proud of how you are doing and how strong you feel. But, no matter how good you are as a swimmer, eventually, your legs will start to give out a little. You get tired, frustrated that you are not moving forward and, honestly, you feel like you are battling for nothing. Eventually, you are faced with 2 options: stop and sink to the bottom or swim.

To anyone looking at me function on a daily basis, everything would appear to be normal. In fact, I would appear to be back to where I used to be 3 years ago before things started to really unravel.

And, in terms of actions and behaviours, I pretty much am. The difference is simple: my thoughts. You see, the recovery journey brings an enhanced awareness that I never had before. In the past, I went through my life, vaguely aware that some of my thoughts and behavioural patterns were not the healthiest. On the whole, I was in denial.

Now…well…not so much.

As a result, every day is a battle. A battle against my impulses to restrict or delay my eating.

 

“You’re hungry, eat.”

–        “Ah…just wait a little bit.”

“Ok, just a little. But then I’ll have my English Muffin.”

–        “You sure? Maybe you should have a granola bar instead.”

“No. that is not enough. No backtracking…”

–        “Fine…but I’ll try to convince you again tomorrow.”

“Lunchtime!”

–        “You sure you want to eat that? You are going out for dinner tonight!”

“I brought this for lunch. I’m going to eat it.”

–        “Really? Are you sure? You are gonna regret it.”

“Well…maybe I could just have…NO NO NO. stop it! Go away.”

 

Sigh…

I am happy to say I make the right choices the vast majority of the time. And, if these battles were infrequent, it would be tolerable. Sadly, they occur multiple times a day, every day, leaving me bruised and battered and thoroughly exhausted every night.

The impacts of feeling like this are far-reaching. Inevitably, they affect my home life. I have less energy, I am less patient and I withdraw from the world. The daily battles in my head regarding my eating turn into daily battles about living in general. I have spent quite a bit of time and energy in the past few months negotiating with myself throughout the day.

 

“You just need to get to Friday and then it will be the weekend,”

“You just need to get through the next 2 hours at the office holiday cocktail and then you can relax,”

“You just need to…”

 

For a while, I didn’t think much of this process. Powering-through is my go-to reaction to most things. And, I kinda thought that most people go through life like this. My therapist assures me that is not the case. So then I started to imagine keeping this up for the next 40 years. That is when I got really tired and, if I’m honest, when depression started to creep back into my daily life.

I know time is running out on treading water in my life. I can maybe tough it out for another year, or two, or three. But if I keep at this pace and change nothing, I will hit another wall eventually and start to sink. And, there are no guarantees that the next time this happens, I’ll be able to save myself.

So, I am making a few changes as a start. I am back on a low dose antidepressant in order to avoid a tsunami of depression. It is working at the moment so I will embrace this. I am also looking into other treatment options for my eating disorder – not because my anorexia is out of control but because I need some help in getting to the next level of recovery. They key is to ensure the anorexia does not get stronger so that I avoid having to re-scale the part of the mountain I have already climbed a few times in my life.

I am not sure what comes next but I am getting ready to swim…I’ll probably start with the doggy paddle but hey, it is less about technique and more about moving forward.