Hi lovelies,
Today we are moving onto Part 2 of my exercise series. If you missed the first part, you can find it here.
This post covers my experiences with exercise during my eating disorder and talks a lot about what I was feeling and my reasons and rationale behind my decisions at that time. If you are triggered by discussions of disordered thoughts about exercise, maybe this post isn't for you. xxx
Last time I pretty much gave a run down of my early experiences with exercise and I finished up with me being happy and jolly while doing Tae Kwon Do. However, unfortunately, that wasn't going to last.
After I had been doing it for about 2-2.5years, things started to head downhill. At this point, I was heading into my eating disorder and was a very stressed person. At first, Tae Kwon Do was a lifesaver for me. I was somewhere I went, twice a week and escaped every other bit of my life. The people that I met there were amazing, amazing people and were completely different from anyone else in my life. There were very few, if any people my age (16-17 years) and so I spent my time with a couple of girls and a boy about 13-14 and a few older men and women (probably in their late 30s or early 40s). This was so extremely valuable to me because these were people with whom I had very little in common with in regards to everyday life. I don't really care what other people say, there is a world of difference between the everyday life of a 13 year old and that of a 16 year old. The fact that they both go to high school is fairly negligible.
And those that did go to school were at schools that were very different from mine. One girl went to the local public high school and was in a constant battle to pass her subjects so that she would be allowed to stay on the triathlon team. For me, this was world's away from my struggles, although equally challenging, and it was a relief to be around these people. People that didn't care about school in the way I did and people that were just lovely, lovely people.
So, for a while, Tae Kwon Do continued to be a benefit to me. However, the problem was, as my eating disorder developed, I no longer saw Tae Kwon Do as just a fun way to unwind and relax, a place to run around, let off steam and enjoy myself. I began to see it as an opportunity to burn calories, to push myself to the brink in order to 'become healthier'. I remember times when I would be doing patterns, and instead of focusing on the pattern, on the motions, I would be instead frantically calculating approximately how many calories I had eaten today and how many calories I had approximately burned off today, and how I could make sure my sure my calorie deficit remained a deficit at the end of the day. Of course, I still liked it, but I had some unhealthy reasons for liking it as well now.
Going into year 12, my perfectionist levels shot through the roof, and these need and desire to do everything to the absolute best of my abilities trickled through into Tae Kwon Do as well. I had always been a perfectionist (although would have adamantly denied it if someone had asked me), but they got to never before seen levels of ridiculousness that year. Whereas before, I had been eager to improve, to learn more things, to advance and to better myself in Tae Kwon Do, I had done it in a healthy way. I admitted that I didn't always want to go and run around for a couple of hours, I was exhausted, or sore, or sick or just not interested. Of course, the times when I was made to go anyway by my parents far outnumbered the times when I was allowed to stay home, but the point was I had admitted I wasn't feeling 100%. So I went, but I didn't really try. If I was feeling not great, I didn't push myself. I just went along with the motions, but didn't over do it.
The problem now was, I couldn't admit to myself that I wasn't feeling 100%. I refused to admit that I was tired, or sick, or just not feeling up to Tae Kwon Do that day. I forced myself through it because the anxiety levels that I got if I didn't go were just too much for me to handle. I pushed myself to the limit every session because I felt that I needed to be better, I had to be the best I possibly could. Also, energy, energy, energy! The more I burned off at Tae Kwon Do, the better I felt. Of course, it didn't help that a lot of the messages I was sending myself about perfectionism, pushing myself, fighting through the pain were ones that were being enforced by my parents, particularly my father. I'd always found to hard to win praise from my dad, but my efforts in following his beliefs and ideals helped a lot in that regard. And that only served to make me believe more fully that what I was doing was the right thing.
I became very dependent on Tae Kwon Do. Because of my super busy schedule with school, homework, study and my many extracurriculars, I didn't get much time to exercise. I became very, very dependent on having at least those two exercise sessions a week. I became very anxious and ridiculous whenever I physically couldn't make those sessions, mostly because I had school concerts or extra long rehearsals but the anxiety and stress I had to deal with when I was given a choice over whether I should go or not was ridiculous. There would be times when I would be bogged down with homework and stuff I needed to do because I hadn't got home from school until 5:40 that afternoon (Tae Kwon Do started at 6) and I would be tired and just wanting to do nothing but sleep and yet, part of me wouldn't accept that. I'd call myself weak, pathetic, a quitter. My reasoning was that nothing good will ever happen unless I work for it. I can't just not go because I felt tired. For me, that wasn't a good enough excuse. And so, cue the next 10 to 15 minutes of agony for me, alternating between 'I have to go' and 'I can't go'. It generally ended in my mum getting angry at me and me crying hysterically while half dressed in my uniform.
It wasn't until much, much later, when I was properly into recovery, that I even realised that what I had been feeling, the need to exercise and the inflexibility in which I approached it was exercise compulsion, or Compulsive Exercise. I'm not going to go into the definition and science-y part of Compulsive Exercise because this article does it much better than I ever would, so check that out if you're interested.
But, back to me in the past. As I started recovery, I kept up with my Tae Kwon Do and I fought to keep doing it. My mum and therapist started out suggesting that maybe I should let it go for now, even for a month or so, but I rebutted their suggestions with the claim 'but it makes me happy!' With me not budging a little bit on the topic, and insisting it was good for me to keep active and fit and healthy as I recovered, they dropped the topic.
But of course, it wasn't healthy. I was still pushing my body to extremes that it couldn't cope with. I justified it by saying I was doing it for fun, because it made me happy, because it calmed me down, because I wanted to be healthy, but I wasn't really doing it for any of those reasons. When I had to eat more, I exercised more, it calmed me down because I was burning off energy and calories, it soothed my anxiety.
I continued like this for probably about two or three months into recovery before I managed to stop.
I was lying on my back, stretching my torso, when I realised that I couldn't stretch properly because it was too painful. Moving my legs required an entire body shift because otherwise my hipbones dug too painfully into the floor. Every time I moved my legs I could hear and feel my hipbones grating against the wooden floor of the gym. And in that moment, I realised what I was doing was going to kill me. If I continued like this I was going to kill myself.
It wasn't easy to stop. I had to deal with a lot of anxiety and stress and scary-awful feelings. But I kept going, kept pushing myself through the anxiety because I had made the decision to recover and to live.
Eventually I did break the cycle and now I don't feel any anxiety when I don't exercise. The problem is now, exercise is a scary concept for me. But, we'll cover that in the last part of this series. So I'll see you then. :)
Also, if anything I covered in this post gave you cause to worry about yourself or a friend, please don't ignore it. Feel free to email me with questions on comments you might have, no matter if they seem silly. If you are looking for further support or information on eating disorders, please check out YourEatopia - I can't recommend it enough. Please take care of yourselves.
Part 3
Today we are moving onto Part 2 of my exercise series. If you missed the first part, you can find it here.
This post covers my experiences with exercise during my eating disorder and talks a lot about what I was feeling and my reasons and rationale behind my decisions at that time. If you are triggered by discussions of disordered thoughts about exercise, maybe this post isn't for you. xxx
Last time I pretty much gave a run down of my early experiences with exercise and I finished up with me being happy and jolly while doing Tae Kwon Do. However, unfortunately, that wasn't going to last.
After I had been doing it for about 2-2.5years, things started to head downhill. At this point, I was heading into my eating disorder and was a very stressed person. At first, Tae Kwon Do was a lifesaver for me. I was somewhere I went, twice a week and escaped every other bit of my life. The people that I met there were amazing, amazing people and were completely different from anyone else in my life. There were very few, if any people my age (16-17 years) and so I spent my time with a couple of girls and a boy about 13-14 and a few older men and women (probably in their late 30s or early 40s). This was so extremely valuable to me because these were people with whom I had very little in common with in regards to everyday life. I don't really care what other people say, there is a world of difference between the everyday life of a 13 year old and that of a 16 year old. The fact that they both go to high school is fairly negligible.
And those that did go to school were at schools that were very different from mine. One girl went to the local public high school and was in a constant battle to pass her subjects so that she would be allowed to stay on the triathlon team. For me, this was world's away from my struggles, although equally challenging, and it was a relief to be around these people. People that didn't care about school in the way I did and people that were just lovely, lovely people.
So, for a while, Tae Kwon Do continued to be a benefit to me. However, the problem was, as my eating disorder developed, I no longer saw Tae Kwon Do as just a fun way to unwind and relax, a place to run around, let off steam and enjoy myself. I began to see it as an opportunity to burn calories, to push myself to the brink in order to 'become healthier'. I remember times when I would be doing patterns, and instead of focusing on the pattern, on the motions, I would be instead frantically calculating approximately how many calories I had eaten today and how many calories I had approximately burned off today, and how I could make sure my sure my calorie deficit remained a deficit at the end of the day. Of course, I still liked it, but I had some unhealthy reasons for liking it as well now.
 |
| Source here |
The problem now was, I couldn't admit to myself that I wasn't feeling 100%. I refused to admit that I was tired, or sick, or just not feeling up to Tae Kwon Do that day. I forced myself through it because the anxiety levels that I got if I didn't go were just too much for me to handle. I pushed myself to the limit every session because I felt that I needed to be better, I had to be the best I possibly could. Also, energy, energy, energy! The more I burned off at Tae Kwon Do, the better I felt. Of course, it didn't help that a lot of the messages I was sending myself about perfectionism, pushing myself, fighting through the pain were ones that were being enforced by my parents, particularly my father. I'd always found to hard to win praise from my dad, but my efforts in following his beliefs and ideals helped a lot in that regard. And that only served to make me believe more fully that what I was doing was the right thing.
 |
| I felt very trapped by my exercise. But also - why does this picture even exist? It's really weird. Source here |
I became very dependent on Tae Kwon Do. Because of my super busy schedule with school, homework, study and my many extracurriculars, I didn't get much time to exercise. I became very, very dependent on having at least those two exercise sessions a week. I became very anxious and ridiculous whenever I physically couldn't make those sessions, mostly because I had school concerts or extra long rehearsals but the anxiety and stress I had to deal with when I was given a choice over whether I should go or not was ridiculous. There would be times when I would be bogged down with homework and stuff I needed to do because I hadn't got home from school until 5:40 that afternoon (Tae Kwon Do started at 6) and I would be tired and just wanting to do nothing but sleep and yet, part of me wouldn't accept that. I'd call myself weak, pathetic, a quitter. My reasoning was that nothing good will ever happen unless I work for it. I can't just not go because I felt tired. For me, that wasn't a good enough excuse. And so, cue the next 10 to 15 minutes of agony for me, alternating between 'I have to go' and 'I can't go'. It generally ended in my mum getting angry at me and me crying hysterically while half dressed in my uniform.
It wasn't until much, much later, when I was properly into recovery, that I even realised that what I had been feeling, the need to exercise and the inflexibility in which I approached it was exercise compulsion, or Compulsive Exercise. I'm not going to go into the definition and science-y part of Compulsive Exercise because this article does it much better than I ever would, so check that out if you're interested.
But, back to me in the past. As I started recovery, I kept up with my Tae Kwon Do and I fought to keep doing it. My mum and therapist started out suggesting that maybe I should let it go for now, even for a month or so, but I rebutted their suggestions with the claim 'but it makes me happy!' With me not budging a little bit on the topic, and insisting it was good for me to keep active and fit and healthy as I recovered, they dropped the topic.
But of course, it wasn't healthy. I was still pushing my body to extremes that it couldn't cope with. I justified it by saying I was doing it for fun, because it made me happy, because it calmed me down, because I wanted to be healthy, but I wasn't really doing it for any of those reasons. When I had to eat more, I exercised more, it calmed me down because I was burning off energy and calories, it soothed my anxiety.
I continued like this for probably about two or three months into recovery before I managed to stop.
 |
| Source here |
It wasn't easy to stop. I had to deal with a lot of anxiety and stress and scary-awful feelings. But I kept going, kept pushing myself through the anxiety because I had made the decision to recover and to live.
Eventually I did break the cycle and now I don't feel any anxiety when I don't exercise. The problem is now, exercise is a scary concept for me. But, we'll cover that in the last part of this series. So I'll see you then. :)
Also, if anything I covered in this post gave you cause to worry about yourself or a friend, please don't ignore it. Feel free to email me with questions on comments you might have, no matter if they seem silly. If you are looking for further support or information on eating disorders, please check out YourEatopia - I can't recommend it enough. Please take care of yourselves.
Part 3
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