Feeling Low in Lockdown?

Around this weird time it is normal to feel low. Having to be forced to stay inside and away from your friends and family is a tough situation. Feeling down in times like this is okay, just know that you are not alone. Yes, it may feel like no one understands because no one is there to listen, but trust me in saying, everyone across the whole world is feeling somewhat the same as you right now.

This is a tricky time, especially for those suffering with mental health issues. Do not let yourself fall into a rut doing nothing and getting stuck in your own thoughts. Keep yourself busy, learn a new hobby. Who knows what you will become a pro at during this lockdown? You have the time to do that thing you have always wanted to do, keep your mind busy. During this time I have retaken up reading and trust me in saying I have plenty of books to keep my mind busy. Reading helps my mind wander from the harsh realities of what is going on around us and it takes my mind off missing my friends. Now, I have taken up writing again, 100th time lucky? maybe I will actually stick to it this time for longer than a few weeks. I do these things because I know if I do not keep busy, I will most likely go insane stuck inside, and this is coming from a naturally introverted person.

Some calming hobbies

• Reading 
• Painting 
• Colouring
• Embroidery 
• Working out
• Go for a walk
• Learning new things 

You will get through this sad time, just remember you are not in it alone. There are things you can get out of this weird situation we are living.

An Eating Disorder 7 Years On

When I first developed my eating disorder I was around the age of 13. My body was going through many changes and me having a perfectionist attitude towards most things, including the way I look, I found myself wanting control how I looked. I was consumed by my anorexia to the point where I wasn't sure of my identity without it, food was controlling me.

I am now 20. Back when I was in the depths of my recovery I didn't think I would ever gain weight and be happy. Now 7 years on I am a healthy weight, I enjoy working out for my health and I enjoy food. I can go out for food and I can miss a day of working out without feeling guilty, most of the time. Yes, I still have bad days, there are times when I feel my self going for the lower calorie option, giving into the voice residing in my head. This happens even though I am recovered, but I do not see it as a failure, I move on and try to do better next time. I still sometimes feel guilty about what I have eaten. I sometimes still look in the mirror and not like what I see, but that is ok.  I do not believe I will fully get over my past with an eating disorder. I accept it is probably something I am going to have to live with for the rest of my life, but the difference is I am no longer consumed by those negative thoughts. Now I fight those thoughts daily and keep winning, every time you do something against what the voice in your head is telling you, it is a win. I refuse to go back to the shell of a person I once was. Back when I was 13 I used to think the way a person looked was everything, I wanted to look the way models looked, even though for my body that was not a healthy ideal. I have learned what was healthy for my body and for me. Even three years ago, years after I was 'weight restored', I still had fear foods, I hated eating out and stuck to healthy foods. As time went on I grew as a person and now I can eat out multiple times a week and feel comfortable with my curvier figure, I enjoy treating myself now, I am less harsh on myself for having a treat.

What helped me throughout the years was seeing the variety of body shapes seen across the media today that are seen as beautiful. There is not only one perfect body, it should be healthy and make you happy, screw the outdated stereotypes, every shape is beautiful. Back in 2013 there was few if any curvier girls in magazines or on social media, all of them were stick thin. Though yes that figure may be attainable, beautiful and healthy to some people, a 13 year old girl seeing exclusively thin girls online at such an impressionably age can deem harmful and for me it did, that along with other reasons led me to be taken into the darkness of an eating disorder. It is not the way you look that is important, it is the way you act and treat people that truly matters, if you are a good person you are truly beautiful.

Today the world is changing and adapting, it is accepting eating disorders more widely as a serious condition. I hope that in the future less people will find themselves in the position I once was.

The Reality of an Eating Disorder

Eating disorders come in many shapes and sizes. It is always regarding a persons hatred towards their body, turning them towards self destructive tendencies. It is a way on control, when the person feels like they are spiralling. It is a voice inside their head leaving them blind to what is actually going on.

Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating and Orthorexia to name a few.

All are eating disorders, all are very different, all evolve around control. Eating disorders are not something someone choses and it is not as easy as 'just eating a cheeseburger', or to 'eat normally', eating disorders are a routine to the person suffering with it. Everything revolves around their food. Plans with friends revolve around their meals. Strategic planning and manipulation comes with eating disorders, ways of hiding food, planning meals to the hour, skipping meals or avoiding situations that involve food. It is an isolating experience where you feel alone. 

Anorexia. The condition where a person quite literally starves themselves to death to achieve the ultimate goal of being skinny, but once it starts the person does not realise when to stop. They are never skinny enough in their eyes, no matter how many times you tell them that they look ill or too skinny. They want to see their ribs poking out because to them that is beautiful to them it is an achievement, they have warped sense of what real beauty is. All they see in the mirror is someone not good enough, a fat figure staring back at them, never skinny enough. The voice in their head tells them they should eat less and less. Even once a person is weight restored, the voice may still be there. It is a constant battle inside your own head. One voice telling you to not eat the pizza, for the fear it will make you fat, the other telling you it is okay and that you are stronger than your eating disorder. It is like a tug of war, however which side you let win every day is your choice, but you have to let your own conscious be stronger, not the voice of ANA and then overtime the voice will quieten.

The reality of Anorexia is that you are tired all the time, no clothes fit you properly, you fall out with your family and friends, you lose your period and your hair can fall out. No, it is not glamorous. 

Eating disorders make the person suffering isolate themselves, they think everyone is working against them. Time and patience with someone suffering from any one of these conditions is the only way a person will recover. Get them the help they need, even though sometimes they will not want it. Sometimes they need to come to the realisation themselves that they are killing their body. Recovery is possible as I have shown it. Yes there are days when I still battle and I do not know how long that will go on for, but what I do know is I do not want to go back to the shell of a person I was all those years ago. Now I try to love myself for who I am and the body I was given.