As some of you know, I've had an eating disorder in some form or another for almost ten years now. I was formally diagnosed as anorexic in 2009, after I had a minor breakdown when being asked repeatedly to gain weight post-liver transplant discharge. After several years of outpatient appointments at The Barberry, which is the QE's eating disorders/mental health/mother and baby (it covers an odd spectrum of things) unit, with a doctor, a dietitian and a nutritionist/therapist (the therapy lasted the longest), I was finally discharged last year. I don't talk about it a huge amount, because it is not such a threatening issue for me any more, but I am having rumblings and if I write about it, I need to explain why. I only really started recovery after being in treatment for several months, possibly even a year, when I just decided that I didn't want to be sick anymore. It really was almost an overnight decision. I was in hospital with the flu, and I had been weighing myself every day until then but in hospital it seemed pointless as it wasn't consistent. When I was better from the flu, I went home and actually started to actively try and get better. I started eating three meals a day and telling my dietitian and nutritionist the truth about what I was eating and doing, and started gaining weight and feeling okay about it.
Anyway. I have been constant at around eight stone for over a year now (I have purposely not mentioned my lowest weight or put up any pictures because I know how anorexics who might come across this think) and while I was poorly in September/October, I lost about ten pounds, and have been struggling to regain it since. Over Christmas, I have managed it and more, and now I am in a very weird mental place of trying not to gain any more weight, without consciously restricting my intake and denying myself things, because as soon as that starts happening, the whole anorexic mental processes will begin again.
So I may start mentioning food or weight worries, and this is why. I'm trying to lose a couple of Christmas pounds without losing my mind. And it's not going to be easy.