Hello anybody reading, I hope you’re having a good weekend!

I move to Wales in a week’s time, which means I have a little over a week until the ball really gets rolling in terms of my recovery. Although I’m confident that it’s what I want and need, I am slowly being filled with more dread and anxiety with each passing hour. I am absolutely terrified about what’s to come.

When I agreed to get help once I was in Cardiff, I began recording a food diary as something I could show the doctor. I’ll usually calculate what calories I’ve consumed throughout the day on my phone, then delete it all at before bed once I have my total. However, keeping a more permanent record on paper that I would go back to day after day, being able to compare the data, felt very different, and somehow it made me feel worse about my ED than ever. The log only lasted five-and-a-half days before the anxiety over what I was putting into my body became too much for me.

Everyone has different guilts about their eating disorder. Some people are fine eating unhealthier food, while for others it’s a huge no-no. Other people are happy eating small amounts throughout the day, while I on the other hand prefer to eat slightly more but only once a day. Something I had never previously felt guilty about was ‘liquid calories’ from hot drinks, alcohol and sodas (somehow smoothies and juice felt too much like food for me), but when I started seeing them logged, my opinion on them swiftly changed and I started to understand why other ED sufferers hated ‘empty calorie’ drinks.

The first two days of logging, I didn’t eat, depending instead on diet lemonade and energy drinks, coffee and tea, and spirits. I felt fine looking back at it, and although going days without eating doesn’t faze me much anymore, I felt proud that I had managed to have a couple of days where I didn’t feel enormous amounts of guilt. As I broke my fast and began eating again over the next few days, that’s where I began to struggle more.

The next day, I ate my usual breakfast (a wholemeal toasted sandwich thin with hot sauce instead of butter), along with a weight loss ready meal for dinner, and a low-fat Babybel cheese later that night. Looking over it before bed, I felt like I had eaten too much and that I was just faking my eating disorder. I believed that no-one with an actual problem could eat as much as I had, even though the total calories was less than 400.

So the next day, I started replacing my breakfast toast with a coffee instead. I had some puffed carrot crisps (found in the baby aisle of my local supermarket) dipped in hot sauce, and immediately felt guilty for eating them purely because they tasted too much like normal potato crisps. I had another weight loss ready meal later that night, and although it was still under 300 calories, the portion size was bigger than most of my other meals, and it wasn’t until the next morning I stopped feeling completely self-loathing over it. The total calories for the day was under 550, and even though my ED usually allowed me to eat up to 700, I could hear my brain screaming at me for eating so much.

Determined for a better day, the next day I drank a diet energy drink, three coffees, and had a mug of minestrone soup. Although I was beginning to feel guilty watching all the calories from my coffees add up, I didn’t feel bad about anything else. A part of my brain clicked, and I began believing “you won’t hate yourself so much if you just replace every meal with coffee”.

The final day of my food diary was two days ago, when I had travelled to Cardiff to visit the city with Alex and to sign the tenancy contract for the new flat. Again, I made sure to drink only coffees, but I knew I had to try and eat something in front of Alex. We ended up that evening in our favourite fast food restaurant, Five Guys, whose grilled cheese sandwiches and fries I had been craving and literally dreaming about for weeks. I managed to eat a sandwich and half a portion of chips, matching what he was eating, and I felt good knowing that Alex appreciated that I was trying (especially after staring at the menu for a solid 10 minutes trying to find something to eat that I wouldn’t kill myself over).

We drank more coffees that evening and walked around the city, but when it came to writing it all down in my log, the calories from the meal and amount of coffees began adding up, and I wasn’t able to write anything else down after the fries. I felt greedy and fat, and that Alex must have thought I was faking my eating disorder.

The next day, more coffees were had and we went for lunch at a small café down the street. I had a veggie sausage and cheese panini, which I just about managed, and knowing that I would have to start getting over my fear foods at some point, ate the small portion of crisps that accompanied it. Big mistake. I immediately felt disgusting and greasy, and became convinced that I was going to have gained weight. The rest of the time in Cardiff, the two-hour train home, and the entire coffee-fuelled evening was spent freaking out about the ten crisps at lunchtime.

I began thinking about the doctors, which lead to me overthinking it. What if they don’t think I need help because I’ve eaten all this food? What if they think I’m fine because my coffee has so many calories? What if they dismiss me completely? How much are they going to make me start eating? What if they make me eat my fear foods? WHY DID I DECIDE TO START RECOVERY?!

Those thoughts ran through my head all night, throughout my dreams, and up until the point of writing this.

I know everything I’m thinking and believing is illogical and irrational, however it hadn’t stopped me from being scared of it. My daily average for the week was less than 500 calories, a quarter of what the average person should be eating on a daily basis, yet somehow I still feel guilty and a fraud because of it. 1200 calories is the minimal amount a person should eat daily to safely lose weight, yet for a huge amount of the ED community, consuming that amount would be seen as a ‘bad day’.

Even now, I don’t fully understand why I feel so guilty, or why, when I am fully aware of the facts mentioned above, that anything over 400 calories feels like I’m overeating and that I’m a horrible, selfish person. It’s something I hope to explore more in the future, when I have some sort of idea or reason behind it.

The things that I want to try and force myself to remember though, whether I believe them or not, are as follows:

• The amount I eat at the moment is not healthy. I can consume all the calories I want through my endless orders of “large skinny latte with sugar-free caramel syrup”, but at the end of the day, it’s not the food that my body needs to survive. I need nutrients and vitamins that can’t be found in milk froth and cigarettes.
• If I go to the doctors with issues surrounding eating, then it is their moral and medical duty to try and help me, or provide me with the appropriate information of a service or alternative specialist who will be able to. As long as I’m completely honest with them about my behaviours, thoughts and feelings towards food and myself, they will offer me the help that I need.
• Recovery is absolutely terrifying, and that’s okay. Eating disorders end with two options: I die still afraid of food and still hating myself, either early from complications of ED, or later on, having spent my life feeling miserable and hungry; or I recover, being able to live a life that may still be wobbly, but one that I end up enjoying a whole lot more. I know exactly which life I’d prefer to lead.
• My eating disorder is valid, and my behaviours are dangerous; Alex is in his right mind to be worried. He’s aware of how mental health and eating disorders work, and if I eat then he knows that it doesn’t mean that a switch has been flipped and I’m suddenly completely recovered. He knows that I made an effort, both for myself and him, and that it was a huge and daunting task for me. He’s thankful and proud that I’ve acknowledged that I need help, and that I’m beginning my journey.
• Finally, for the love of God, Finley – a small side of crisps is not going to make you gain weight. Out of all the things in life to be scared of, fried slices of potato shouldn’t be one of them!!

For anyone reading this, please remember that you are valid, and if you have any issues with eating, then people will help you if you reach out to them. It’s understandable to feel scared about the future, but as long as you’re setting yourself up for a life that you will enjoy living, everything is going to be okay.

Finn x