Help

Giving help is always easier than asking for it. At least that’s my experience. I prefer to provide help instead of needing it. I’m also bad at asking for it. I feel shame and failure. I feel like I should be able to do things on my own. I’m smart enough, strong enough, I should be able to do this on my own!

So when I reached out for help with my food issues, it was definitely a very uncomfortable step to take. It was followed by many more steps that I’d rather not make. Like video calls, I hate those so much! But it was for a good cause. And then the help I was told I needed got declined.

Unknown triggers

I’ve not been doing too well. I felt like I was for about a week. And that was it. I slipped up and things went from being ok to being badly. I chatted a while lot with my Lesser-Buddy Alana and she tried to support me, for which I’m very grateful!

There’s triggers I do know about. I’ve learned about them as I got older and learned more about myself. Many triggers are connected to things that happened to me as a kid and young adult. Some triggers are newer, created by my relationships with people who used me more than they seemed to love me. I need to recover, but it’s hard. And I have no faith, no trust, no feelings that things will ever be OK 😔

I finally did it

Edit: a reader brought to my attention that this post was shared after the fact. True, I made a scheduling error, my honest mistake. I did have the appointment already on May 3rd 2023. Thanks for letting me know I made a mistake 😉

I got the GP appointment I’ve been dreading to make. I went to their office and scheduled a meeting with my GP. The assistant told me that they had not received the information the institute had promised to share though 😔 so unfortunately that was a bad trigger for me, allowing my eating disorder to have another excuse to overeat…

But I have the appointment. I emailed the institute asking them to share their findings and suggestions, as they promised they would do several weeks ago. I wish they would have just done that. But instead of just declining me as a patient, after telling me I would definitely need help, they didn’t even keep their end of the bargain. I did all they asked, they promised one thing and didn’t even do that! Ugh…

Journal – Week 17, April 2023

A new week has begun. The last week of April. Can’t believe it’ll be may when this post goes live. Time seems to fly, especially without any lockdowns and such… No real plans for this week, besides the PT on Tuesday afternoon and hitting Germany on Thursday morning. Hopefully some gaming, maybe reading as well? Let’s see how I will feel with this colder and wetter weather.

Wet, colder, weather 😔 was hoping, as we slowly head to May, that the weather would be better. It looks good for next week, but if that’ll stay… We won’t know for sure yet!

Following my own advice

I wrote about this a while ago, the first post can be found here Advice. It’s always easier to give than to follow. And that’s why I always aim to follow my own advice as well. What is good for my friends could also be good for me, right? 😊

But it’s hard. Sometimes I feel like I’m not worth the effort of trying to succeed. If that makes sense… But I feel like I am worth less than my friends. Having been told I wasn’t worthy so many years, there’s still bits of me believing that firmly and I can’t always get past these feelings of old. Something, however small, may trigger it and I slide… I feel like I should help my friends because, obviously, they’re worth it. But not me. I’m born to be a failure, right?

Going bad, awful, worst…

Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes it extends to several days. And then, before you know it, you had a horrible week. A week where your goals weren’t met. A week where you disappointed yourself on a daily basis. Where you said ag the start of each day that you would do better today. Only to mess it up again. Ugh… Why?

That’s what I do keep asking myself. “Why do I keep failing every day?”. I know my goal, I know how I can reach them… And then it feels like I’m pulling the rug from beneath my own feet, wanting to trip myself and fail again. Why? Maybe because the cause of failing is producing a great feeling, while it lasts? Yeah, addiction is a stong motivator. And it can be hard to deny when it has so much strength to fight you all day long… 😔

It’s not rejection!

I’ve been chatting a lot with Alana, since about 6 months ago, when a mutual friend of ours took her own life. She was a very important mental health blogger and we were so shocked to learn she had passed away. We got in contact and exchanged emails. Then we got to know each other better and we switched to mobile numbers as we could chat with WhatsApp, she being in Texas and me in the Netherlands.

We’ve become each other’s “Lesser buddies” (more on that link to lesser buddies). Every evening for her and early morning for me, we chat. We talk about life, about our addictions, how were coping, how were doing good or maybe how we messed up. We’re human, it happens. More than we’d like to admit. And a while ago we chatted about me needing help with my eating disorder. And it got me thinking loads of things. Some I’ll share here. More on Alan’s struggles with her addiction, she shared on her blog Life goes on.

Journal – Week 16, April 2023

Only one appointment this week, on Monday for my loud hometrainer. On Thursday of course I’ll take mum to Germany for groceries. But for the rest, just my usual routine… 😊 Hopefully some gaming… Maybe some relaxing as well, besides the gaming. I’d love to be able to read on the balcony again, but it’s not quite warm enough yet… 🤔 Owww on Friday I finally heard from a friend that I could visit on Saturday, he had forgotten to tell me sooner. So I have something to do then 😉.

All sorts of weather expected for next week. Warmer, colder, sunny and wet… Let’s wait and see what we’ll really be getting 😉

Struggling with the known

It’s easy to think that when you know your enemy, you can easily defeat it. I know food is my badness. I know I have an addition. So it would be easy to think that I can beat it because I know. I am certainly aware. And I’m finding ways to batrle with it. But it’s not like flipping a switch and being off food then.

I sometimes do think like that. Like “I’ve had enough so now my body and mind need to be content”. As, unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. I see the numbers and know I did well. But there’s still that longing. That little voice saying “a little more won’t hurt you”, or “but you’re still hungry so it can’t have been enough, surely”. And I’m learning. And trying. And sometimes failing.

Does it help me?

If not: stop doing it then.

Sounds like a plan. Sounds easy enough. Plain and simple. If it’s helpful then by all means keep doing it. But if it’s not, just quit doing it. But sometimes the bad things feel so good at the time!

For me it’s eating candy. It feels so good. Or gives me some sugar dopamine rush that I love to experience. It also gives me a blog of a belly and a big behind 😂. But when the dopamine is kicking in, you don’t really seem to care about our pants’ size! You just want that kick to keep happening so you best keep eating!