It is somewhat ironic that the day I have decided to call a total write-off day is the day that I eventually decide to start writing this. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but never quite knew how to start. I’ve had a lot of other things in my mind too. Not that today is any different. In fact, today the things going on in my head are as vicious and as annoyingly persistent as ever, and new voices are appearing from all directions. No wonder I have a headache and am tired. It is exhausting trying to rationalise, challenge and ignore each one of the chatter boxes.

I’m the first to admit that I spend a lot of time trying to avoid thinking about the voices. It’s so much easier to give in to their demands and get on with the rest of my life than it is to take a step back, think, question, rationalise and challenge them. I’d never get anything done and life would be one endless slog. So, I keep myself busy. Leaving no time for me to be alone with them. I can see the logic in doing this. When given the choice between devoting whole days, weeks, months and years to retraining my unhelpful thoughts or packing lots into each day to try and forget the nagging voices, I don’t think I am the only one who chooses the latter.

 “Oh Helen, can you not just sit down for a few minutes, do nothing and relax?”

I want you to understand that to sit down for a few minutes and do nothing would be far from relaxing for me. The voices would be at their loudest and they would give me nothing but misery. Right now, my solution is to keep myself busy. It’s not the solution, but it is my solution. My solution now. Distraction and busyness are my saving grace, but they are also my nemesis. For it is my continual busyness that prevents me from facing the voices head on. This is how I have lived the last 20 years. I’ve seen numerous professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists and CBT experts. Have been prescribed various anti-depressants and been through different forms of therapy, from counselling and family therapy to cognitive behaviour therapy, and received support from specialist eating disorder services. Throughout this I’ve continued to function as a seemingly successful hardworking individual who, to people who barely know me, appears to love living a full life. It pleases me to think that this is how I can be perceived. This impression is in no way false, but there are many other layers that make me the complex individual that I am.

Which brings me to why I am writing this.

I’m writing this because I do not think that I am alone in my struggles.

I believe there is value in sharing experiences.

I’ve witnessed enough misunderstandings, heard enough untruths and experienced the consequences of enough unhelpful reactions and behaviours to know that not being open about eating distress and related mental health does no one any good. I want to change this. I want to help you to be able to help people like me, and in doing so I also want to help myself. I want to stress that what follows relates to my experience. I am speaking my own truth, from my perspective, in my own voice. There will be many different experiences of living with eating distress. So, for those who do not know me, please bear in mind that my experience is not the onlyexperience of eating distress, and there is no one experience fits all, so to speak.

I’m writing this for you, (my friends and family, for those who don’t know me, for those who are in the midst of their own eating distress and mental health difficulties, for those who know someone who is experiencing eating distress and mental health difficulties) and for me.

For you, because I want to give you an insight into the inner workings of my mind. I am hoping that it will strengthen my bond with you. (Although I am aware and do fear that in revealing some of the truths about me, you will want to flee from me.) My hat goes off to you already for sticking by me.

I hope that it will help explain some of my quirks, peculiarities and the reasons for doing or saying what I do. I am aware that it must be difficult to cope with and that you may find it difficult to figure me out at times.

“What is she doing?”

“Why is she doing that?”

“Does she not know what she is doing to herself?”

are questions I hear you cry.

I feel your frustration as you watch me engage in behaviours that you regard as being utterly pointless. I wish that I could see those behaviours the way that you do. Utterly pointless. For if I could, then there would be no need for me to do them. I would save so much time, have so much more freedom and find life a heck of a lot easier. 

I am hoping that by sharing this with you, it will help you understand and appreciate why living with and trying to eradicate eating distress is so difficult.

Why I cannot simply
snap out of it.

Why it is not a case of
pulling myself together.

I’m not trying to be difficult or upset you. I didn’t ask to be this way. I am not purposefully going against you or not listening to you. It is simply that I am imprisoned by something that has a great hold on me. I am hoping that with time, and with your support (for that is what I need), I can gradually build up the extent to which I am able to ignore the voices in my head that are so very demanding and unhelpful. Who knows, by reading this, you may think of new ways in which you can help me and others with their struggles. Hopefully you will be better able to believe that, even now, daily, I am challenging the inner demands. I just haven’t defeated them yet. But I have started the journey, and I am hoping that you will continue to have patience.

I am not facing this struggle alone.