stop the clock!

Wait, what?!? How on earth is it tuesday already?!!?!?

Im not quite sure where the time has gone, but i seem to have 'mislaid' a few days! what have i been doing?! where have i been?! im not even sure myself.... could this be a form of short term alzheimers perhaps :-p

I got to thinking about time and how we spend so much of it rushing around, doing our own thing and not really stopping to chill out and have some down-time. Dont get me wrong tho, i love that my job keeps me on my toes, thats how i like it... im naturally a busy person with a very short attention span! so that keeps my mind busy. but sometimes i think maybe i need to slow down, y'know. In a "stop and smell the roses" kinda way!

I think my tendency to get so absorbed in whatever project im involved in at the time might have contributed to my getting into this ED related situation that i find myself in now. For a long time after i was ill with the post viral ME, i neglected to put myself first. I lost touch with my body and basically forgot how to recognise the signs that it needed help. I now know that i cannot run on adrenaline alone, i need fuel and i need downtime. Two things that im sad to say, i went without for quite a while. 

Im alot more aware of how my body works now, i know that my stomach has shrunk and therefore i dont get hungry that often.... beforehand i would respond to this by not eating. "if im not hungry, why eat??" but NOW i realise that my body has got so used to being refused food when it asks for it, it just doesnt bother anymore. This makes me so sad, it reminds me of that advert where the baby is quiet in its cot, because its learned that nobody comes whether he cries or not.... i dont want my body to feel like it isnt loved or valued. i want to make up for the damage ive done to it and i think (or i hope!) that when it trusts me again, it will become strong and healthy and i will feel connected to it again, rather than feeling like i do now, a stranger in my own skin....

Anyway, back to time (and away from referring to my body in the third person-i was getting abit confusing there, so sorry if you are reading this thinking, whats this girl ON?!?!) 

I think i need to try and slow my pace down, try to chill out abit. Im in the process of starting a long road of recovery and healing... i dont want to neglect my mental state by focusing only on the food side of things. (eat eat eat) Lately ive been thinking alot about who i am, what i want from my life and why this particular illness happened. Was it accidental?? Or is it possible that it was pre-meditated?? The say its down to genetics, (my sis had an eating disorder) so was it bound to happen, even despite our very different personalities? I personally dont think so. Our situations are so vastly different and im pretty sure my ED was triggered by my previous illness and a feeling of being let down by my fragile state... but its def something to think about. And i think that its something i would like to touch on in therapy. Im actually looking forward to seeing a therapist. its about time i fed my mind aswell as my body :-)

So anyway, sorry ive rambled on. I just needed to go through some of the stuff in my head! Sometimes i live in my own little bubble of time, where i go about my business and my routines and occasionally, i forget that there is a whole world out there. Other people, be it friends, colleagues, strangers... all running about their own daily lives. I find that im so enclosed in my own safe-places. my job, my homelife, my routines... that i never really push myself mentally. Im so preoccupied with trying to challenge myself with 'fear foods' and gaining weight, that ive totally neglected to challenge myself in other ways, like going out and socialising or doing things outside of my comfort zone.

Do you ever get so involved in your 'own' world that you lose track of what's going on around you?

My aim for this summer, apart from to get to a healthier weight (im worrying that im running out of time till t-shirts and shorts season and i still look like a stick, anyone know how long weight restoration takes?! pregnant belly and twig arms/legs, sooo not a good summer look!)

But i want to get to a better place, mentally. I want to understand what causes me to think the way i do and how to control the things that trigger me. Then i want to do all the things that make summer so fun. liiiiike:

going out drinking without worrying about 'empty liquid calories'.... 

going to the park and having a picnic... 

going to the beach and having an icecream.... 

going out without worrying about taking a jumper in case you get cold....

going swimming without scaring children with your bikini body....

im sure there are plenty more, but im kinda typed out!!!

What other fun summer things are there that ED doesnt let you do?!?

happy tuesday people

(if it really is tuesday... knowing my time-judgment its probably friday by now!!)

xxx