At first glance it might seem that I am just a happy, normal girl who loves to bake and walk her dog. However, I have suffered with an eating disorder since I was 13. It was only in May 2014 when I realised that this Voice in my head was slowly but surely trying to kill me. And so began the long, hard, and painful journey which is recovery...

I want My Cocoa Stained Apron to be a special place...a place for reflection, memories, shared stories...and of course a little bit of cocoa-staining ;) Recovery might be the hardest thing you ever choose to do in this life. But it is also the bravest and best decision you will ever make.:)

Sunday 13 August 2017

The Hunger for More...

And so, it's back, again. Back again like a fluttering moth, one that refuses to go away, no matter how many times you flap your hands in a vain attempt to ward it off. Ignoring it doesn't help, either. But you don't want to hurt it because it's not there to harm you, exactly. It's not like a wasp with its malicious sting, or a blood-sucking fly which wishes to prey upon your blood. Both of those insects make me think of Ed: remorseless, predatory, parasitical. But this moth is slightly different. My old friend, the "extreme hunger". I groan and sigh and bemoan its presence in my life, once again. But yet I cannot condemn it. Because I know that it's there for a reason.

Since coming back from Mas Banyeres, the extreme hunger also returned, and in force. It was with some gloom that I duly acknowledged its presence, having naively assumed that Barcelona had seen the end of it: that niggling, yearning desire for more and more, even when I'd eaten enough to be physically stuffed. It's something I only really get in the mornings, but this is a fact that I have quickly started to hate, and deplore as much as its actual existence. Because the mornings are the one time when I like to write Morokia. Since coming home, I've barely written anything. And one of the main reasons for that is the fact that in the mornings the EH is proving slightly more than a bit of a distraction.

Take this morning for example.I woke up and then about half an hour later I had sat down to breakfast. The bowl of weetabix was quickly consumed, followed by a slice of toast and a load of peanut butter. After a portion of cheese I decided that it was time to stop and try to write for a while. Give me the next item, please, the hungry voice screamed in desperation, already eyeing the next food on the list which hangs in my mind every day, the all-too-familiar meal plan. Half a toasted bagel with seeds and spread, and then a soft boiled egg or some baked beans. No, I shouted back at it, in frustration. Just wait a couple of hours, darn you!! I want to write, I don't want to spend all of my wriitng time just eating....!!

About half an hour later - and with one sole measly paragraph done - I finally gave in, and ate. And was very quickly not just full, with food, but with self-disgust and and self-hatred, as perusual.

At the fact that I couldn't hold out and wait until everyone else ate, as a normal person would, insert quotation marks here, as that's what the voice in my head says in my brain. Not to mention at the bloating of my stomach afterward.



In Spain, the EH was still there, though, of course. Just not as sharply prominent; or rather, I was more effectively able to ignore, even defy, it. In the mornings I gladly thrust myself into jobs and tasks which would divert me from it. I did not eat as much there as I do at home at breakfast. And weirdly, by doing so, it was almost as if the EH was suppressed. Whatever the case, I was not eating as much, and didn't experience any cravings to do so, either. But now I am back home, on my meal plan again, and now this. What's going on?? How do I respond to these cravings and mental hunger?

No point trying to deny it, there's a hunger...for more.

But also there is a different sort of hunger. A hunger, a desperate need, to defeat ED once and for all.

So does that mean giving into the extreme hunger...and actually, really doing it, this time. Not just eating that wee bit extra, but actually making a conscious, concrete effort to increase amounts throughout the day.

But there's so many challenges and obstacles preventing me from doing this. People's comments spin in orbit around my head. You look well, Emmy. You look the picture of health. You look so much better now. And then, last year, one evening in my library, the stranger there. What chubby cheeks you have. That one still lingers in my memory, slowly twirling on a sharply pointed axle.

My heart's telling me I should try to gain a little more weight, to go beyond this...minimum. But doing that is so, so hard, when the world tells me that I look "healthy" as I currently do.

But can they see what's happeneing on the inside? Can they see my weakened bones and nutrient-deprived ovaries??

Having a hunger for true recovery might well mean....ignoring everyone's else's interpretations of me, the way I look, and behave. It's not about them, after all. It's about, well, myself. And my body, which I alone know more than anyone else.

But the path ahead is dark and covered in shards of ice. I step upon them, and a shiver runs through my body, at this pitiless, icy coolness. And I am afraid that that ice is going to crack, and that I will crack, along with it.


4 comments:

  1. Hey Emmy.. I know it's rather a horrendously difficult time for you since you don't feel like you eat normally. I'm in that phase too.. as soon as I finish eating, I find myself yearning for more. I want to each lunch, dinner and desert in one meal.. and more, I assume, is never enough. But I try my best to meditate for that split of a second and imagine the extreme hunger a floating thought within my consciousness.. and my mind just sitting there at the shore watching it float away.. it really does help.. it allows me to stay present; watch my thoughts from a different perspective until it just drift away. After that, I see it like an obsession or a fanatical though rather than a need.. and it perishes. It takes practice.. it takes time to trust your intuition to discern whether this hunger is real or not.. but you will get there, eventually. We are humans in the end, deliberately flawed. Thank you for your posts, they're beautiful. :)

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    1. Thank you ever so much for your comment! I really love the sound of this technique of which you wrote..I think it might also be helpful with any kind of negative, intrusive ED thoughts or impulses.. thank you so much for sharing with me your insight and wise words. And please, no need to thank me..it is I who wants to thank you for reading and sharing with me.xxx

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  2. My dear Emmy, I have written to you before, and I don't want to say too much, because it is not like I have all the answers. I want you to know you are loved and supported by people who do understand something of what you are experiencing -- don't forget (and in truth I think you don't forget!) that the people who make the kinds of comments you mention do not understand, there is a world of difference between what they imagine, and the reality.
    The weight gain, and the food obsessions, are perhaps different things, even if they have some relationship to each other.
    As you know, weight gain is probably still very much needed. It is most likely that if you continue to gain weight people won't really notice anything, or if they do they will still think you just look lovelier and healthier. Now and then I have also read of people who had to face others being critical of them as if there were now a new problem -- which is utterly unhelpful and lacking in understanding but that is par for the course in AN recovery, part of it is getting able to deal with what other people think, and listen to it when it is helpful, and have strength of mind and independence when it isn't. Those people that I read of were ones who rode it out and got to true health. Weight gain is probably necessary still, and it is probably best not to measure it, but let your body do it -- it needs it, and don't forget how lovely it will be to have a healthy body, and how much there is to value in your body apart from what it looks like.
    The food obsessions are horrible, but they will go in the end. I didn't handle them well, so I don't want to say so much, but even not having handled them well, they still got better in the end.
    I think the world of Marokia sounds absolutely beautiful, and I think you are doing wonderfully with recovery too. That mountain that you wrote about in your last post. Take care. Lots of love from your reader-friends.

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    1. thank you so, so much for your comment! It was so helpful and really did mean alot to me today <3 And I think I needed to hear those words..and you are so right, deep down, I know what is true and right, and that people couldn't possibly know how hard it is for me to hear, and cope with, these sort of comments. And also that it is a very important part of ED recovery, to learn how to deal with such comments and not let them affect one negatively.

      Thank you so very, very much for all your advice...I really do appreciate it, and your message really left me with a sense of comfort and hope, and feeling alot better. I'm so very grateful!! Take care and thank you so much again for what you wrote! <3 xxx

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