Do you ever recover from an eating disorder?

This blog is my opinion, I am sure it’s different for everyone but this is just my thoughts on the issues. I will also be talking about Eating Disorder thoughts and behaviours in this blog, so reading on with caution may be advised for some people.

So I am now 39 and have lived with an eating disorder since I was in my teens, it developed at the same time as my bipolar sort of as a coping mechanism for me to deal with that. It’s varied in severity over the years; like in the beginning it was very mild and I would just skip the odd meal or two when I was feeling bad. All the way through to when it’s been at its worst and I was restricting to 500 calories a day only eating certain food; which resulted in me dropping to a BMI of about 16.

It has always been there, some times more prominent than others but looking back it has always been a constant in my life. It has normally flared up at high stress times in my life such as bad break-ups with people. But also having bipolar has made it hard too, as anyone who knows about anti-psychotic medication will know that the majority of them cause weight gain.

So when my bipolar got really bad in my mid 20’s and they put me on a huge dose of med’s, I put on a lot of weight and went from having been an athletic size 10 all the way up to a size 18. This really messed with my head, and every time I saw my shrink I was always telling them about the distress the weight gain was causing me. But they were always dismissive about it.

This did cause me to restrict quite heavily at this time but I couldn’t fight against the meds and for someone with anorexia; this was a living hell. It was really this that contributed to my worst episode and dropping the most weight I have ever dropped.

As I eventually got a shrink who was understanding about the weight issue and at first we tried a few different meds to see if any would help me lose weight. This lead to a suicide attempt because I was just hating how I was and my life at the time.

Once I got over that and my shrink thought I was stable, we decided that the only way I was going to lose the weight was to stop my meds but have more contact with her. So that is what happened, I stopped my meds and increased my appointment frequency with her so we could keep an eye on my mood and do something if it went wrong.

But it was during this period she left to do something else within mental health and I got a new shrink. My appointment frequency dropped back to every three months and I was left on my own to do as I wanted.

This is when the anorexia really took over, even though my bipolar was stable at that time. I went on a major restriction and exercise push and was on average dropping a kilogram a week; and I felt great all the weight that the meds had put on was coming off.

But once I got back to where I was, I was fully in the grip of my anorexia at that point and didn’t stop. I carried on to the concern of everyone around me and ended up substantially underweight. This lead to me being sent for therapy, fortnightly appointments with the nurse where I would be weighed and have my blood pressure taken, monthly blood tests and so on.

Once they got me to accept that there was a problem and I needed to do something about it, I was put on horrible weight gain drinks to supplement my diet. Then guided by medical people slowly back to a healthy weight. Though it was a real fight for me to do that as I was still in two minds if I wanted to do it or not. But eventually I got back there.

Since then I have had two relapses, the first one came out of the blue and I lost 7kg’s in 6 weeks. But people saw this and stepped in and encouraged me to stop and eat as normally as I could. Though also at this time something changed in my life and that change sort of gave me the motivation to get it under control. The other one I blogged about a few months ago which you can go and read if you want too.

At the moment I am in an ok place with regards to it, although there is still the thoughts in my head about my body and how I look and my weight. Some days they are loud other days not so, but it does not appear that they have gone away. Like my bipolar and mood swings, it’s something I have come to accept that I live with.

In total I have had 9 anorexic relapses in my life, and I am almost sure that there will be more at some points in the future. I see it as being a case of when not if they will happen for me. All it would take is some stress and it could easily be triggered off.

I know that might seem quite a pessimistic view to have about it, but unlike a lot of people with anorexia I didn’t get any intervention with it till I was on relapse 6 or 7. So by then it was an ingrained coping mechanism for me for dealing with stress or bad situation.

Now, yes, therapy helped a bit and did give me some tools to help deal with it and to try and stop it. But since then I as how I have said relapsed a few times, so even though I have new tools I have still resorted to form under pressure.

Maybe if it had been picked up earlier things might have been different, like if it was picked up in my teens when it wasn’t so bad I wouldn’t have had the same path through life I have had with it. But we will never know, as I was good at hiding it back then, as I only skipped meals people couldn’t check up on if I had eaten or not.

So I sit here typing this thinking that I will probably never properly recover from it and it will always be a part of my life. One that I will just have to learn how to live with and learn how to manage and if I see it happening ask for help before it gets out of hand.

Although that being said that isn’t as easy as saying it, as eating disorder care is the underfunded part of the mental health care system which itself is underfunded. So yeah you can imagine how hard help is to get, with that being the case.

Though for me I find that confusing, as eating disorders do have the highest mortality rate of most mental health conditions. So you would think that they would prioritise care for people with them, but unfortunately that is not the case. Unless you get really unwell you are generally left waiting for a long time for help.

I do know in Manchester that to get inpatient care you have to have a bmi of 14 or under, which for me would mean dropping down to 42kg’s. Which if I hadn’t had any intervention at my worst point would probably have happened, as back then all I wanted to do was to lose weight and watch the number on the scales drop lower each day.

I do think some people can get over an eating disorder and live a normal life, but I think for me and some other people we are stuck with that voice in our head. The one that say’s don’t eat that it will make you fat, you need to lose weight because you are fat and ugly, you don’t need to eat as it’s disgusting and food is bad for you. Along with a lot of other things that it spouts.

So for me I just put on my metaphorical armour and try my best to fight that voice every day, some days I win other days I don’t. But the main thing I have to try not to give up that fight for as long as I can; because I know the day I don’t the next relapse will start without a doubt.

I do also do my best to control things in my life in other ways to minimise stress and negativity so I don’t reach for that as a coping mechanism. But again I know looking at the past it will probably happen to me at some point in the future and I will have all the fun of another relapse, no matter how hard I try.

For me as I said, I think it’s just one of those things that will happen like any other person with an addiction having a slip up. As I guess for me the control it brings me, even if it is a false form of control, is like an addiction. Because it gives me a feeling of bliss and happiness and the misconception that I am in control, even though I am causing myself harm mentally and physically.

If you are reading this I don’t want you to worry about it, I am not close to a relapse at the moment. I feel like I have it under control and even though I still have a bad relationship with food; in that I still only eat a small selection of things. I am eating enough daily so I am not gaining or losing weight.

While I know that I am not happy with the weight I am at, I know I can’t do anything about it. Because for me I know if I start a diet it would start off sensible, but then when I knew the weight was coming off the anorexic thoughts would kick in and I would go down that path and you would have the next relapse there and then.

So I am resigned to this being my life and how it will go, but that doesn’t bother me as I know there are people out there who have it worse than me. Plus I don’t want to let it get bad and end up with a tube up my nose.