Judy2

when the anxiety hits, sometimes it's as though there simply is no future - like it's all grey, all lost, endless suffering. it helps to remember that there is, in fact, a future, and there always will be, and i'll be here, i'll stay with me. and there'll be good moments throughout this, too - again and again.

do i relax my eyes by closing them, or is there a different technique you recommend?

i do listen to music:) some time ago i also tried doing maths with my speed, time, distance - but my maths brain stops working when i'm running (which i guess is the whole point). yes, walking is fine - but with running the need for fast-paced distractions seems more urgent. hence why the same podcast i enjoy during a walk won't cut it when i'm running. i remember having a discussion with you about noises at the gym, and what you said implied they shouldn't bother me. fact is, though, they do, and i feel especially vulnerable when i'm trying to exercise....not just running, but this seems to be a related issue. it's mentally tougher to push my muscles till failure, for example, when certain triggers in my mind and environment are on, causing me to feel like i'd much rather recoil and lay on the ground than put stress on my muscles while staying nonresponsive to triggers in that environment.

@LastThursday yes, i generally enjoy it. i just notice my mind getting in the way at times... for example, when i'm thinking about some stressul events, personally i'm more prone to enter freeze-mode. but when my mood and the music are good, i enjoy it. it would help if somebody could observe me while running and give feedback on my posture, though.

@bazera i don't remember, maybe 30 or 40 min. my brother mapped out a 5km route for me to practice on, and at the gym i usually go on the treadmill after strength training, so i usually only do 10-15 min, 30 min on special occasions. the 13 km this summer will be a first, but i think that should be manageable. the organisers said i should aim to run relaxed for 60 min before the race, and i can work my way up to that in the months to come. 13 km sounds like exactly the right distance for it to push my limit but still be fun, so i'm excited:) maybe i'll do more the year after, who knows.

yes...i'd like to get a fitness watch at some point. i wonder if professional athletes know some sort of mental techniques for this...maybe they start labelling the colours they see while running and get into some kind of Zen state, who knows.

okay i can't keep up anymore:)

... maybe sometimes i'm a little too honest. i'm trying to be kind to myself today, though. every now and then, when i'm relaxed, i manage to remember to love myself. i'm trying to do more of that. trust, relax, have faith. and it can't hurt to be a little more aware of my body, my thoughts, emotions, sensations, whenever i have a minute. maybe it's as simple as strengthening this muscle whenever i can. i'll be okay.

... earlier today, i felt good when i ran my last few minutes on the treadmill and then Lana Del Rey came on... thought i should write that down to balance things out a little. i also felt good reading my book, and talking to a friend.

who i am now isn't bad enough ending a life over, but who i am now is definitely not living up to the hype of "surviving anorexia", as though that'd be a guarantee of being good enough. like, that was pretty tough to let go of, if not an impossibility in many ways....and yet i did it, did the impossible.....and i shouldn't have, because look at me! nowhere near as genius as what this should have led up to.

again, i also wonder if i'm the only anorexia survivor thinking every now and then that i wish i hadn't. not even because my life is that miserable now, but because it can't quite live up to the grandiosity of having survived something so deep, having experienced such peak goodness when i was at my lowest. i'll never be as beautiful as i was when i was dying. just for purely selfish reasons, i would have maintained more personal integrity if i had died skinny. mission accomplished. i would have missed out on a lot, but people would have come to my grave, fantasising about all the good, beautiful things i could have been, had i lived on. - but now, as a "survivor", my life is everything but pretty, i lack perspective, none of it is really worth it, it's a struggle most of all - and it would have been the better option, to die young and beautiful, with all that glimmering potential everybody would project right into my deathbed. that's everything i would have been - endless, beautiful, gentle potential. - not this miserable, ugly pile of a mess that i am these days..... (apparently the dichotomous thinking is coming through again, there we have it.) i simply shouldn't have survived. that would have been better for me, better for my soul, overall.

irrespective of the communication with my parents....i feel a bit of sadness, regret, just circumstantially speaking, that my choice was taken away from me. no one took it, but when i was 18 years old and decided on my undergraduate degree, i was barely able to make an informed, future-oriented choice. i was 60-sth lbs and barely able to think clearly, and just thought E lit sounded good, basically, with every fibre of my being focussed on how to survive the now....without a single thought spent thinking about my future self, and then the years after that i felt quite unwell, too. (maybe i should have died [when i knew i was good, looked good, in that moment....should have died young and beautiful...if i'd died when i was starving, there would have been no time left for me to become corrupted in any way....i would have died pure and beautiful and innocent]....now i'm stuck with the burden of a life to live, decisions to make that will shape me and my lived experience...a pile of mistakes to sort through...) i'm trying to be smart now. people say i'm still young - i'm also quite old, but i also like to think i'm worth a second chance, my life is worth a second chance, for me to still re-think my choices and opt for something that may end up being fulfilling. i don't know...the situation is far from ideal.

i felt anger, and now i feel hurt. why does he not care enough about my emotional well-being to stop pushing when it's obvious things are getting too much for me, when i am explicitly telling him it's getting too much? i kind of want to be so sassy as to tell my parents, hey, maybe if dad knew when to leave me alone, i wouldn't have started self-harming, i wouldn't have become anorexic. they still blame it on Germany's Next Top Model... and they'd be real shocked to hear that they did, in fact, have a part in all this. which is somehow a truth you're not supposed to tell the parents of mentally afflicted people. i kind of want to tell them, every time you don't know when to stop pushing, i want to run upstairs and look for ways to hurt myself. maybe i should...not sure. that would be antisocial on my end, typically not my style - but it doesn't mean there's no truth to that. i hate how they always pretend i'm the crazy one, and they're fine and too old to change.

i am experiencing self-harm urges because my dad kept asking questions about what i want to do in terms of university/getting my degree, the matter is already complicated enough when i spend time thinking about it on my own, and his insistent questioning made me feel bad. i'm trying not to act on this, but thinking about the emotion now, maybe i will. dad is especially triggering when i set a clear boundary and or become visibly agitated, and he keeps pushing.

okay, thank you:)

i wish someone could tell me to stop consuming all diet-, weight loss-, and fitness-related content. i can tell how that's always working within me, day and night, and it's not good for my mental health, only making certain struggles worse... but i also feel like i don't have permission to look away, and maybe i shouldn't "need" to look away....i should be strong enough to face the truth of it without letting it affect me like this. but maybe the kinder thing would be to allow myself to focus on different things, at least for some time. ugh, this is heavy. i feel bad about myself, and alone. this is always such a silent struggle i'm dragging along at the back of my mind.

me? i don't know if this is the healthy thing for me to do right now.

yes. i wonder how so many people (politicians, Leo, other public figures,...) are brave enough to publicly say anything at all then. how can you speak with confidence if you know that 20 years from now, you may disagree with what you said, at least partially? how do people write books and give advice or pretend to understand life when it's clear their views will keep changing?

that is pretty smart though

@Joshe isn't it a shame that we're either young and 'stupid', or old and wise? i think that's so tragic.

sorting through my relationship with food i don't know where to begin, but i had the spontaneous urge to note down some of the thoughts i have been having on the topic. first of all, i am thinking back to the dbt ward i was on last summer. i am not exaggerating when i say that probably half the women on this ward were overweight, if not severely obese, while the other half or so was underweight or at least quite skinny. evidently, at least 90% of these women with emotional issues were also having a hard time with food and their bodies. because of this, it breaks my heart to see that in our society, some sub-groups lack very fundamental understanding and compassion for the ways in which food is a deeply psychological, emotional thing to handle, and not just a matter of knowing how many calories are in what food. i wish people had more compassion for the ways in which eating disorders are an emotional issue, above all. - education about nutrition is important, but emotional regulation is, too, and i find it concerning when i see the 'fitness bubble' neglecting the very real emotional side of eating problems quite often, then demonising the people experiencing these problems - not always, but often enough for it to be harmful, i feel. maybe i am biased in that regard - but i know many people have that same bias as they are experiencing similar problems, and so i feel that more compassion definitely couldn't hurt. self-compassion, and compassion for the experience of other people and how struggles can be very real to some, even if they are non-existent to others. more questions i have been asking myself: in an ideal world, would i be counting calories and macros? - the conclusion i have come to is that, when perceived neutrally, calories and macros can be important information to help me decide what's good for me. nevertheless, i have to find a middle ground between intuition, flexibility, and making educated decisions. which is something i am still working on. practically speaking, i think sometimes knowing the numbers creates more harm than good for me personally, at the current stage i am at. in an ideal world, would i weigh myself? how often? - yes, i can, but not compulsively - again, i can treat this as neutral information. in an ideal world, would i eat processed foods? would i have any active dietary restrictions (e.g. low carb,...) in place? - to that, the most honest thing i can say is that i do not know the answer. i am aware that with my eating disorder history, an additional layer of complexity must be considered here. i don't know if excluding certain food groups entirely will ultimately help me overcome certain ed-struggles or worsen them. that's the most honest i can be for now, even though there are billions of people out there who seem to have set opinions on that. i'll have to figure it out myself and experiment a little. it's okay that i don't have it all figured out yet. i can be kind to myself anyway. in general, i think it's important for me to strengthen my appreciation of food - how it is grown, harvested, prepared; what it looks like, how it smells and tastes and feels. in the long-term, i'll have to make peace with food for life to be good, as food is such an essential part of being a living and breathing human being, and that can only happen when i allow myself to see its goodness. i also have to be able to focus on other things, though - but find balance in this regard, most of all. and just don't use it for emotional regulation, essentially... which i acknowledge is hard right now - whether i eat or don't eat, i can tell there's too much charge to the whole topic, be that subtly or not so subtly. there are also way too many thoughts about different body sizes, which only adds to the problem.... don't know how to handle that, tbh.

and what are matter and spirit? where do you know that from?

@Rigel i watched some videos about that online, most of them by this woman: but tbh i think this supersedes my skill set and i feel like i'd need a coach to observe me and help me implement the above (and all the rest that's explained in the other videos).

i am not sure if that is healthy for my mind.

my brother told me about that. but i think it'll drive me mad if i have to count 1,2,3, 1,2,3 for thirty minutes or longer.