Hello! My name's Lawrie (as you can probably tell), and though I've been lurking around a bit on the old site I've never really introduced myself or made many posts, and I want to try and change that. I feel a bit icky making a thread about myself but there are some questions I want to ask and specific support I would like and I don't think anyone can provide that without some background. Don't worry, I will try and give something back as well!
I don't strictly speaking have an ED, but have struggled for the last two years with body image and food, and for a while last year I was restricting very heavily and lost *lots* of weight... The heavy restriction started when I made a concious effort to stop self injuring...
Now I'm a lot better, but still have really low self esteem, and think I'm 'fat' even though logically (looking at BMI) I know I'm not.... sometimes I can override those irrational thoughts, but not all the time, and recently I have been struggling to maintain weight, and not restrict.
Another major problem of mine is that I cannot seek help; I've been told many times that I should go to the doctor or whatever, but I can't do it. I feel I don't deserve help, and that I'm 'not that sick', something I have only just realised I probably am, but the thought of asking for help still fills me with nasty feelings. I feel bad just typing this
I guess what I'm looking for is:
- Any tips on how to think more positively, and how to actually believe it.
- Any help on trying to eat normally; I've read the normal eating info on the old site (can't seem to find it now... I guess everything is still up in the air to some extent), but that doesn't seem to translate into real life for me; any practical tips would be great!
- If anyone has had any similar experiences with not being able to seek help and if they got over it, any tips on me doing the same.
I tried to make this as clear as possible, so any replies would be really appreciated, but also if you think I'm out of line then please say so!
P.S. I'm not totally sure about trigger labels, and so I labeled this to be on the safe side, so could someone let me know if it actually needed one or not, because I don't think it is, but like I said, just wanted to keep everyone safe!