OVERCOMING A ONGOING BATTLE OF ANOREXIA WITH GOD.

The Holiday To London.

Holiday.

My first family holiday to London since having Anorexia = Relapse.

I did something tremendously and ironically dumb despite me in the previous chapters expressing how; I  was filled with remorse for developing anorexia and how it was out of my dominance and will. I also stated how I'd start taking recovery seriously without being sluggard and make things right.

To give an explanation, I was told that we were going on a week out to London. My dad had said he had many fun activities and adventures planned. He also explained how he chose London as it was the closest eventful place to us and my mum didn't think I was capable of going on holiday yet as a key part to holiday is eating out and walking around. Fear arose inside of me as I informed about this holiday. I felt my mum was correct, not only was it about having to eat out but I also was scared to go our of routine. This was very odd as previously, before anorexia, my family and I would always go on holiday in different countries and I would always be so excited to leave the house, I would also never fear eating their cuisine; in fact, I never even thought about the countries food when being told about the holiday as I just let everything flow.

Linking back, I was scared of going on holiday at first. However, later on I remembered how we would probably be walking around a lot and I got excited for the freedom I would have.#

The holiday ended up being amazing as we; went to a theatre, went to a Billie Eillish clothes show case, bought concert tickets, went to Selfridges to shop, walked around a lot, swam around, had a spa day, went to the sauna and tried chipotle, a place I always wanted to try before my ED.

I felt the holiday was good as my mind was distracted however, despite this I realized I had been relapsing. 

My dad had told me before the holiday: 'forget your meal plan, obey what your body wants, use this holiday as a excuse to eat a lot without guilt'. I remembered this throughout the holiday and somehow used it as a way to undereat.

For further explanation, when my dad stated 'forget the mela plan', I literally left the hole structure of the meal plan despite deeply knowing he meant it as a positive way. I did not snack at all. When we went to breakfast I would have a small bowl of fruit and porridge. I would secretly count the calories and know it was way under my breakfast intake but I had permission to 'forget' the meal plan right.

Then I wouldn't snack after breakfast or throughout the day. We always went out to eat and whenever we would choose somewhere, I would choose the lowest calorie options in each restaurant being a bit over half the intake my meals was meant to be. All these things meant I was undereating my meals as well as not having snacks. In addition, when we went to chipotle, I had fruits and a toast in the morning which was low in calories and for lunch I had a plain low calorie chipotle bowl with no protein, fat or sauce; I got full half way and convinced my parents to let me eat the other half for dinner. 

I had no idea why I was doing this. 

My eating disorder convinced me I was doing the right thing.

I would track the calories secretly to see it was half my requirement and go to bed as if I didn't know. I also told myself 'it's holiday so I don't need to do the meal plan'. I also never got hungry so I was 'listening to what my body needs' like my dad advised. However, what I forgot to do is obey the last sentence when he advised me to, 'eat a lot'. My ear picked what to absorb and what to throw out.

I was doing it all wrong. With anorexia we obviously might not have cravings or a appetite but we still need to eat to regulate out bodies and nourish ourselves. Undereating was causing me damage and I just let it be.

Not only was I undereating. I was walking more than 12k steps a day. I was burning a lot of calories that I was barely even consuming. I was damaging my body even more unconsciously as I never thought anything through.
My dumb self was happy my parents weren't realizing. 

My dumb self, felt good to be active not even thinking about how I was damaging my body.

When we swam before going to the sauna. I swam for more than a hour as I loved the feel of the water. When exiting the sauna, my mum saw a scale and told me to stand on it without looking at the number. My mum, knowing my weight from the week before, examined the number on the scale and her smile dropped. 

Her whole face dropped.

She told me I had lost a lot of weight and she thinks it might be the walking and the swimming. She begged me to take it easy and she just wanted us to leave the holiday but I told her I am enjoying the holiday as I am free.

When coming back from the holiday, I oddly started emptying my bowels every day and felt everything was going right.

To also add with all honesty, when returning back, I completely forgot about snacking as I grew the habit of not snacking on holiday and undereating. Therefore, I continued to do this habit for 2 whole weeks. I also knew I wasn't seeing CAMHS in 2 weeks.

It then started approaching the day where I would need to be weighed and have physical observations in CAMHS and my sensed returned.

I started to have deep regret for everything I had done.

It had hit me that I had relapsed comfortably.

It had hit me that I did my biggest regret all over again instead of working to make things right again as I had said.

I looked in the mirror and saw how slim I had looked compared to 3 weeks ago. 3 weeks ago I was underweight and I was even more underweight now.

I started to feel weak and faint.

I had lost the strength I was gaining back and enjoying.

I had lost myself again and control.

It was ironic when it was closer to my appointment that my real senses came back.

It was all odd, it felt like my ED was in control for the past 2 weeks and I wasn't.

I was a slave to anorexia again.

My body was giving up again.

I had damaged myself.

I had disappointed God.

I don't know how I got to this stage at all.

I was back to stage 1. 

I had relapsed.