AM I NORMAL YET?

I quite often forget that I am and will always be in recovery. Whether it's from an eating disorder or dealing with anxiety and depression, everyday it is something I and many other people have to deal with. I suppose it's a good thing I forget because it means I am growing and progressing every day and it's not always on the forefront of my mind.

My anxiety is a relatively new thing to me so I think about that a lot, I know what triggers it, I know how to manage it, and I know when it's getting better or spiralling out of control. I'm distracted, distracted by the ins and outs of anxiety and how it works, so I become forgetful about the past issues I have had, but really, even if they may be tiny now, they are issues I still have. The one in particular I am talking about, my eating disorder.

Generally I would say I have it all under control and I live a happy balanced life. I no longer obsess over food or calories and restrict myself every day, but that doesn't mean I don't think about it. Subconsciously, no matter how hard I try, I will ALWAYS know how many calories are in a bowl of pasta, or my chicken and sweet potato salad at lunch time, or my afternoon chocolate treat. It's probably still deemed obsessive and unhealthy the amount it comes up in my head, but this difference is, I am now aware of this and refuse to let it control my life.

Saying this, I was recently reminded that having an eating disorder and mental health issues is not something you have for a while and then one day just get rid of. It is a life-long, ever changing illness, that has ups and down. Some days it can be the only thing on your mind, while others it doesn't even pass as a thought. On my family holiday in Croatia at the end of August it became clear to me how easily my mental stability can change, and how quickly I can drop back into old habits.

Living on a beautiful yacht for a week, sailing round the most incredible islands in Croatia - I mean come on, dream come true right?... Wrong! Being unable to move my body and run, or exercise meant I had no way to get rid of any negative thoughts that came up, and when you are lying on a boat in a bikini surrounded by my gorgeous perfectly carved family, it's only natural that I started to lose every bit of confidence I had when I stepped onto the plane only 24 hours before. It was bizarre, really bizarre. I felt more confident and happy when I left England for my holiday than I had in months! I'd just started my new job and was absolutely loving it, my friendships were great, my housemates were perfect, and I'd just thrown an absolute tosser of a man in the bin! I felt strong, independent, busy and happy. So what the bloody hell changed and how?!

Everyday of the holiday I felt like I was letting go of a tiny bit of my new happy self and picking up huge parts of my rather chequered past. I felt trapped, I felt ugly, I felt like a failure, but most of all and this was the biggest shock to me, I felt guilty. Guilty for eating food. Normal people on holiday just enjoy each day and every incredible meal and treat given to them. I did the same, I ordered all the meals I wanted just as everyone else was doing, but I ordered and ate them with a huge wave of guilt. Every ice cream or bowl of chips, made me feel worse and worse, but it became a vicious cycle of emotional eating. I ended up bursting into tears one evening, I couldn't explain how I felt but I knew it wasn't right. I was so upset at how quickly my opinion of myself could change when in reality, nothing physically had changed. I hadn't put on any weight from my holiday, I hadn't lost any strength or fitness by not training for a week. I was identical from the outside, just not on the inside.

It sounds ridiculous how much exercise affects my mental health, but it really does. In one of my first blogs I wrote about how and why I got into fitness, my answer, ‘it’s the only thing that stops me going mentally insane, so fuck off!’. This is a phrase I had completely forgotten about. I love training, I love running, I love throwing very heavy weights around a gym, I love yoga, I love walking... I love anything that helps me move, but as it's been over three years now where I have religiously trained or done some form of exercise five times a week, I realised I had forgotten what happens when I don't do it...and Croatia was my not so gentle reminder! You'd think after so many years it had just become part of my life and the reason why I started was not the reason why I still do it. I was wrong, it is the reason, and my mental health will always be the main reason I do it. Obviously it brings me more joy than almost anything else in the world, it is not only a passion, but a necessity for me to stay alive - sound dramatic? Just get inside my head during a bad phase and you will see...

Yet again you're probably all thinking, christ why are you always so over the top, exercise is just exercise, GET OVER YOURSELF, but with me, when that goes out the window, so does every other part of my sanity with it. This is when I doubt myself, my brain goes crazy and I can no longer fight it. I will sit and eat my way through any kind of emotional pain and as you all know in the past, would throw it back up again 10 minutes later. I am not bulimic anymore, as a rule, I refuse to let it get that bad again, but in the last few months it has been something that has popped back into my head and that is something I cannot and will not allow to get the better of me again. It took me five years to kick that habit and I'm strong enough now, most of the time, to fight it off.

I don't want you all to think i'm outrageously spoilt and ungrateful as that is not the case at all, my holiday was absolutely incredible and I loved every other part of it, especially spending so much time with my family, it was just really sad that I didn't feel like myself on such a special holiday. When we landed back in England I already started to feel better, I knew all I needed to do was get out and run. We pulled into the drive at home and within about four minutes I was out on my feet running up the South Downs for an hour. I just needed air, away from everything and everyone to reflect on the past week and do everything I could to make sure I didn't get back to that again any time soon. Within a week I felt like myself again, nothing had change physically as I said, but I felt like me. Happy.

Times like this remind me how far I have come in the last few years. I was in such an awful place during that week but I have built over time, the strength to push myself harder and further, out of my comfort zone and out of my rut. It's like a defence mechanism - the minute I feel myself falling into a downward spiral there is something inside me that triggers and makes sure I turn it around before it's too late. It used to take six months, then three, and now I can do it all in under two weeks. I would say that's progress and definitely something that inspires me to keep battling my issues whenever they resurface. I will never be normal, I will always have problems, i'm not ashamed of my past or my present as I would be half the woman I am today if I hadn't gone through it all.

This holiday was such a shock to me and I have found the last few months really difficult in every aspect of my life. Before, I was miserable in my job but pretty content with other parts of my life, now, I love my new job, but honestly have found the transition really hard. Suddenly everything else became difficult and I felt like I didn't belong anywhere, whether it was the right friendship group, my love life falling apart yet again, or not being part of my gym and second family after I moved jobs so couldn't train there everyday. It's a really crazy time in my life and transitioning jobs whilst juggling boys and friends and everyday life is never easy, but it's something we all have to do, and can do!

I think I am now finally finding my feet. I feel more settled than I have done in a long time and I am pretty sure I've got my eating disorder under control again. I've come to realise, as long as I accept my mental health and eating disorder as a life long issue and something I will always have to manage, then i'm OK, maybe even verging on good!

I will never be normal! Far from it, but who cares?!... normals boring!

Lots of Love,

Tabby

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