Eating Disorder Awareness Week

Eating disorder awareness week was a couple weeks ago, so apologies in advance for posting this now but I’m going to write as if it’s still ED awareness week, so as not to overcomplicate things.

This is a hello from Beat society and a thank you to Mental Health Matters because we’re very grateful to have been granted this platform to promote our charity and society! It won’t be as boring as the adverts on ITV, I’m simply aiming to do what it says on the tin and spread awareness. So here we go…

Eating disorder awareness week in general as a ‘thing’, can be problematic. I never know how to feel about it because over the last few years what I’ve felt about everything has changed so much. It’s difficult to remember that the me from three years ago would rather die than be the me I am today. This makes me feel both sad for myself then, and sad for myself now. The first ED awareness week I took any notice of, I coasted feeling like a superhero, looking at before/after recovery pictures and feeling smug that unlike those individuals, I had made no attempt to leave my eating disorder behind. And now fast forward to today, and I’m writing about how I was wrong, that I didn’t have some superhero power that made me superior to everyone else, and that I was just unwell. And that feels a bit like admitting defeat, admitting that those years were a waste, that my life so far has been a waste. ED awareness week makes it obvious that I’m more estranged now from my eating disorder than ever before, but it also forces the recognition that sometimes, even now, it feels like I would give anything, literally anything to go back. So I’m just not overthinking it this time, because it’s already complex stuff.

This year I have decided not to think about ED awareness week in terms of before and after or skinny and fat. I’m thinking about it in terms of miserable and happy, and weak and strong. Try not to use the week as a point of comparison to other weeks or other years. Instead use it to reflect on small things, the good things. For me this was cooking a creamy sauce potato thing earlier- white sauces being something I usually rule out. Or how when I fry things now I use oil and think it’s unbelievable that I used to never fry anything but cabbage, and I’d fry it in water… how very un-tasty. So if you have an eating disorder and don’t know what to think about during this week, think about little progresses.

At the same time as encouraging this, it’s also important to discourage measuring any eating disorder progress in a linear way. Recovery is never linear, you wiggle about at different points, dip down, up, sideways - you can’t really predict what shape it will take for you. So don’t expect anything instant, or even anything that makes any sense, because eating disorders muddle sense for everyone. As much as I do things now I would never have done a year or so ago, I also do things that I very much used to do, things that aren’t healthy or ‘progressive’. And that really is ok, it’s frustrating but it’s ok. And normal. The nature of recovery is back and forth so don’t feel disheartened when you have a slip - an ex smoker might have a drunken fag on a night out and I certainly wouldn’t then tell them that quitting was a total waste of time. So be nice to yourself.

How can I get help?

As I am currently focusing on ED awareness week in terms of sufferers, I’ll talk about the services available for people who are worried about their eating, people that are already diagnosed and looking to recover, and people that get caught in the crossfire, (family members/loved ones).

Eating disorder services are complicated, and they are not all going to work for every individual, so there is really no harm in trying anything and everything. My only advice is not to see a doctor’s diagnosis as the be all and end all, because it really isn’t. There is an element of ‘qualifying’ for an eating disorder, which due to stretched resources is unavoidable. This means that in order to be diagnosed, you usually already need to be in a pretty bad way, leaving some people suffering at an early stage without any help at all. A diagnosis is also in its very essence problematic, because for some it can act as the shock that makes them realise they’ve got a genuine illness that needs to be overcome, whilst for others, it can become a motivating factor. The fear of not living up to your diagnosis is a very real thing, the fear of being a ‘fake’ anorexic can motivate you into being a ‘better’ one. For me, being able to call myself a certified anorexic became almost a struggle to retain a title, a crown. I finally felt like I had achieved something, which made me more terrified of losing it.

What I’m trying to say, is that you don’t need a doctor to tell you you’re not well if you know you’re feeling wrong. If you think you need support then trust yourself and get it, you don’t need to earn it by being ‘ill enough’.

So what are the other options?

I will link (at the end) some of the helplines you can call and the University Student Access to Mental Health Support (SAMHS), that you can find on the Uni website, is somewhere you can book one to one appointments and discover the offered group workshops that people really recommend.

Another port of call is the official Beat UK charity website, which offers loads of alternatives to face to face contact. You can sign up free for their newsletter! I’m looking at the website now and there’s an entire section dedicated to recovery, who to talk to, tips and tricks, and maybe most important of all, genuine recovery stories. People whose stories might sound familiar, talking about the things that wishy washy recovery books fail to mention. I’ll give one example, because it’s savage and straight up, and talked about on the Beat page - weight gain. In all the cheesy recovery stories I have read, none of them have actually mentioned getting heavier, which does tend to happen. It was what prevented me most from making any attempt to get better, because the onset of my eating disorder came at a fairly ‘beginning of puberty’ time, (as they often do), and it meant that I had no idea what my ‘normal’ adult body actually looked like. Because I’d tried so hard to stay thin, I’d never let myself properly grow and so imagined that when I started eating again it would be like Alice in Wonderland - that I would never stop getting bigger. This of course was not the case, but one of the many examples where reading someone’s fairly similar experience might have squashed at least some fears and reservations.

What services are available for family and friends of a person with an ED?

The only other specific aspect of the Beat website that I will mention as I feel like it’s one of those things that is easy to forget, is the section for the people affected by an eating disorder who don’t have one themselves. It’s a hard pill to swallow but the illness I fell in love with is the very same that tortured the people around me who were forced to watch me deteriorate. It is the same for everyone; the people who love you will be torn apart by your disorder, because they love you. Nevertheless, it’s not your job to feel sorry or sad about that, because you already have enough on your plate (or not enough, lool sorry couldn’t resist). But that’s where you can direct people to Beat, where they can get the emotional support they need and figure out how best to help you. Everyone with an eating disorder will have, on more than one occasion shouted at someone, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND what I’m going through!!!” And it’s true they don’t, why should they? How could they? Eating disorders are at once the most logical and illogical paradoxes, and a ‘normal’ brain cannot truly understand, which is fair enough. So take advantage of the service provided by Beat, because it makes people more AWARE!

So, I suppose the all-important message I’m slowly stumbling towards is that there are people worth getting in touch with out there, you’ve just got to know where to look. And that’s what eating disorder awareness week is all about! If you need advice then do not hesitate to take advantage of our great union and our great society of course :-)))

Frankie Gibbs

SAMHS Website- https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/mental-wellbeing/registration

BEAT Website- https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

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