Answers (sort of)

I was asked a simple question the other weekend by a very good friend – “what was it like?” he asked me. “When you had, you know, an eating disorder? I’m not sure I really get it.” And it struck me how hard a question that was to answer. 

It felt like it should have been simple. But my mind went blank. And then it filled with thoughts… but they were all tangled up like a messy ball of string. How did I pick which thread to start with, which ones to explain and which to leave? I stuttered my way through a few examples of moments in time, and the conversation moved on.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My answer hadn’t done him, or myself, justice.

At first I tried thinking about what the time was like for me… But that was a hard one, it had spanned over such a long time frame, with such a range circumstances surrounding it. It was everything from wonderful to terrible. With swimming, I was injured, and then I wasn’t, and then I was and finally I’m not again. I was training anywhere from 0 hours per week to 30, be it the pool, gym, or the hills of Sheffield on two feet or two wheels. Chemical Engineering was a distraction that was a saving grace, but also added challenge to the whole debacle (and no easy one at that). Time and again when I thought things might be back on track life through me hurdles, be they in the form of reactor design, or a Range Rover, or other items that shall remain nameless. I was sick and tired of picking up the pieces, and the hardest pieces to put back together were eating and enjoying life.

Before I really started seeing a dietician I couldn’t have put a finger on what my feelings were. There wasn’t really a typical day (with food or otherwise), I had a LOT going on; some great and a lot not-so-great. And with a lot on my plate (no pun intended) I certainly didn’t identify a lot of my own feelings as related to restricting how much or what type of food and drink I was having.

It’s only in reflection I can start to think about a typical day. I’d wake up in a morning, sometimes hungry, sometimes not. I’d always grab breakfast. Well, first I’d spend a while thinking about how much I ‘could’ eat (which would involve mental maths about what I thought I might be eating for the rest of the day… and my mental maths is terrible – us Engineers always have a calculator to hand!). Quite stressed, I’d get around to eating anything from a wholesome bowl of porridge to half of a banana (the smallest I’d managed to find in Tesco), and a few spoons (diet) yoghurt. If training I’d have a (small) snack afterwards… (pre-prepped and calorie-counted the night before, the amount I then ate would correspond to how hard I felt I worked). I was petrified of eating ‘too much’ in mornings and ‘not leaving enough calories’ for later that day. Onto Uni. Then lunchtime (again pre-prepped and counted). Sometimes I’d really look forward to lunch, sometimes I’d put it off as long as humanly possible, sometimes I’d forget to eat. Then more uni, and training. I’d probably have a small snack too, knowing I needed to eat before training… but this always took a lot of thinking to work out how much to eat. How was my body? How much had I done that day? How much would I do in that evening’s session? If I was doing a difficult session I knew I’d need more food, but I was scared of eating loads in preparation only to be able to manage a small session. Finally home for tea, or sometimes I’d lose myself in some task or other and forget about tea. But at some point I’d eat, if only something small. Tea’s size would again require careful thought and counting depending on how much I’d eaten already, how much I’d exercised, how late I planned to stay up that night. I found sleep came a little easier if I didn’t eat too much for tea. And it was all that, without telling anyone about it, or letting anyone realise what you were doing, or noticing that anything was off.

That paragraph was written how it was, but the above paragraph doesn’t justify how terrified I was… think of your biggest fear. Getting mugged? Burgled? Walking down a dark alley in a foreign city with a hooded figure following you is what that fear of the plate in front of me felt like. That heartache when you miss a loved one you haven’t seen in forever is what it felt like when I couldn’t enjoy the food that friends could. The exhaustion after your first week back in work/education that makes it feel like you never had a holiday is how I felt constantly.

That paragraph was written how it was, but the above paragraph doesn’t justify how terrified I was… think of your biggest fear. Getting mugged? Burgled? Walking down a dark alley in a foreign city with a hooded figure following you is what that fear of the plate in front of me felt like. That heartache when you miss a loved one you haven’t seen in forever is what it felt like when I couldn’t enjoy the food that friends could. The exhaustion after your first week back in work/education that makes it feel like you never had a holiday is how I felt constantly.

So, what was it like, that eating disorder thing? It was a full-time job… thinking about food, counting calories, deciding what to make and eat, doing so, more thinking about food, maybe making and eating more, or not, but thinking about it, making life based around calories, then treatment for it, ‘homework’ to help me get better, yet more thinking about it, talking to people who needed to know and keeping them updated, inventing excuses to get out of things, calculating calories of purchases before buying anything ever, checking menus, reading food packets. I’d be great at a calorie-related pub quiz.

It was exhausting, anxiety-inducing, upsetting, depressing, and heart-breaking. It was at least some of those things for the people helping me through it too. I missed out on opportunities with so many friends, coursemates, colleagues, acquaintance. I lost some of those friendships. I let myself down. I hurt the people I love the most in the world. Despite doing extraordinarily well in my degree (despite everything, if I do say so myself), I didn’t do as well as I might have with a fully-functioning brain and body. I slowed down a recovery process from injuries that hindered my recovery for swimming. Stuck in bed for months after getting hit by a car was then an even more ginormous stress to deal with than it would be for most people. I’d describe myself as in recovery, there’s still days where it’s mentally too tricky for me to be able to drink a pint, or have a pudding, or have a meal out without it becoming a chore. Just last night I got very stressed over the concept of an entire pizza (I had half). My physical health still isn’t fully restored. But I did find some really amazing people who stuck by my stubborn, temperamental and irrational-at-times side. Big love to you, and to anyone out there still reading my ramblings, and especially to anyone going through something similar. It gets better, I promise you.

This piece has been thought out (a little, believe it or not), I structured it with at least some logic (for an engineer). But that’s not what an Eating Disorder is like. An eating disorder is going to the toilet to slow your heart and breathing rate because someone has offered you waffles. It’s almost fainting at Unit in front of all of your friends because you accidentally ordered a plate of food that’s way too big for you (big up to Unit, who saw how stressed I was, and gave me my meal for free). It’s ordering a starter and a main because your friends do, then only eating the starter and boxing up your entire main for another time (sorry for all the Florida restaurant drama, guys). It’s your boyfriend making you a gorgeous pasta and sauce that you’ve both been looking forward to for ages, him serving you a portion, and you running outside sobbing because he’s already mixed them together and they didn’t have the ratio of pasta:sauce that you wanted (sorry, honey, it was delicious). It’s spending an hour frozen in the kitchen deciding what to eat for tea. It’s sitting on the floor in tears after a night out because it was your first night out in over a year and you’ve lost track of the calories that were in your alcohol and that’s terrifying. And nowadays… it’s managing an entire pizza and being proud. It’s going on holiday and not ruining it for yourself by being paralysed by fear every mealtime. It’s celebrating because you’ve eaten a pretzel without feeling guilty, or made a meal choice based on preference, not calories. It’s having a friend’s birthday cake and actually enjoying it. It’s managing your first meal out that isn’t a stress. It’s going on holiday without being petrified of every plate. It’s accepting that some days old fears are going to creep in, but sleeping sound (on a full belly) in the knowledge that the monsters under the bed aren’t coming back to haunt you again.

That’s enough of my monologue, wishing you all the best on World Mental Health Day. Please, today and everyday, ask someone how they are, and really mean it. That ^ was a lot of serious, so have a slightly more light-hearted peek at what it was like for me, in the throws of eating disorder irrationality:

Amber in ED Recovery	Amber… Before and During (and Occasionally Still)
A pint? Yeah, alright, go on then.	A-pint-oh-my-god-do-you-know-how-many-calories-…-what-food-do-i-skip-so-i-can-have-that-pint
Lemonade sounds nice.	Argh, a drink would be nice, but I need to know how many calories are in it and that’s not exactly something I can ask a waiter so I guess I’ll just have some tap water.
Do I wanna grab lunch? Sure.	Do I wanna grab lunch? HELP. NO. “Yes, I’d love to.” Okay, now I just need to make sure that I plan this day and the days before and after so that I can go out for lunch. And I need to check the menu first, and the calories, and estimate them if they’re not on the menu.
A night out? Ugh, I’m too old for this… but okay, I’ll just need some caffeine beforehand.	God I wish I could. But then I’d have to drink, or I could do shots, but there’s still calories. And I know clubs lie about having diet coke sometimes and what if they give me Coca-Cola as mixer, that’s sooo many calories. Also, I’ll be awake more hours and then I might get hungry. What if I get desperate and get food on the way home, and eat, and ruin this day?
Birthday cake, yay!	Cake… ummm… I don’t know/hadn’t really planned for this. Maybe I could just have a tiny slither so I’m having some, but not too much.
A weekend away? Yaaass, sounds amazing!	Ohhh, I’d love to. But what are their food plans. It’s a bit weird  if I ask what they plan on eating first… I wonder if there’s any way I could make my own food whilst I was there instead. Maybe… I don’t know.
You’ve ran out of *main I was going to eat*? Damn, okay, well…	Oh my god, all my planning out of the window… What do I do… What can I order? I don’t want anything else. ARGH, can I just vanish into thin air please?
Ugh, I’m way to full, I need to lie down.	Omg I’m so full, this is a disaster, I didn’t want anyone to notice I was struggling with food so I stuffed myself and now I don’t like myself. Lie down? Nonono, hmm, when am I next gonna be on the bike?