 Hi again from Pookie and Buddy. Today's video is answering a question that one of my YouTube subscribers sent me, which was what are the five things I most hate about anorexia? I thought long and hard about whether to make this video, and I'll be honest, I've tried to make it more than once, and it's something I found really difficult. There are a few things to bear in mind here. Anorexia is the kind of illness that people most notice about me when I'm unwell, but it's really kind of a symptom of a bigger thing, so I suffer with PTSD or what would have formerly been known as complex PTSD. I'm not really in a place where I want to talk about the ins and outs of what caused that at the moment, but yeah, so anorexia is kind of a symptom as is self-harm and the suicidal ideation and stuff. But it's a fairly major thing and it's the thing that's been the biggest threat to my life, so that's important. And the other thing is that whilst I found myself talking about the things I hated about anorexia, I found it quite hard to talk in depth about the massive impact that it has on my family and on me as a mum and my relationship with my children, because I'm really in a place where I'm trying to look forward at the moment, and my girls are absolutely amazing, they're brilliantly resilient, and actually I think my interpretation of things and theirs would be very different, although it's been a really hard time for kind of all of us. But so with those kind of caveats, I guess, I'm going to try again to make the video about the five things that I most hate about anorexia. And one further caveat is that this is just one story, so I can tell my story, I can't tell everyone else's, so don't assume that these would be the same things for anyone else, but hopefully they'll give you a bit of an insight into what's a really quite cruel and horrible illness. So the first thing is that anorexia made me into a habitual liar, so I am someone who is honest to a fault, whatever is in my head comes out in my mouth, I'm known for it, pookie, no-filter, night-smith is what my husband tends to call me. And so yeah, I'm really honest, except when I'm suffering with anorexia, that really takes a grip of me. I think of anorexia as this kind of like external, extra being, kind of an extra person in my relationship with self, and it's kind of like a bully sitting on my shoulder. And yeah, so I guess the anorexia makes me lie. And that's because anorexia, when it kind of takes a grip, when you become quite malnourished and your brain isn't functioning well, then you get to this point where all you want to do is to desperately hold on to this illness. And I can't explain the whys and wherefores, but you do, it's really addictive. And so you lie, I became a habitual liar about whether I'd eaten, whether I'd exercised, how much I'd eaten and when and with whom. Yeah, just in order to work my way around people. And I feel awful about that. I don't lie now, I'm now in a place where I'm incredibly honest about all things to do with everything really, but especially including things like my weight and how much I've eaten and exercised and that sort of thing. The next one is that it made me unable to be the person that I want to be in terms of a work colleague, in terms of a parent, in terms of a wife, in terms of a friend. I couldn't live up to any of the standards that I set for myself and perhaps my standards were too high. But the point at which when you are unable really to do anything except kind of lie in a hospital bed all day and everything revolves around food and trying to regain the weight that you've lost. It's very hard to be a good friend. You don't have the energy to do work. You can't be a good parent. There's no running around in the park and mucking about in the swings or even just having a laugh with your kids. It's really, really hard. And as for being a good wife, I just really was just a worry for my husband. He's been absolutely amazing. But yeah, I wasn't able to be a good wife to him. I'm a good wife that I'll make up for it now. Yeah. And it stopped me doing all the things that I enjoyed. Just anything period. So at its worst, Anorexia did have me hospitalised and bed bound. So I was able to do really, really very little. So yeah, I hated that. I hate that even though there have been lots and lots of times when I've been able to be kind of high functioning with Anorexia. There have been, even in those times, I've not been able to do things in the way I would have wanted because there's always been those nagging kind of thoughts and loathing and fear of food and that kind of thing. But yeah, at its worst, Anorexia has literally stolen months of my life that I will never, ever get back again. It also really isolated me. So even though, so again, going back to the time when I was in hospital, the staff always used to joke that I was the most popular patient they ever had because I was really fortunate. Loads of you came to see me, which was wonderful. But even despite that, despite the kind of, yeah, lots of people in my life, either actually or virtually, I felt very isolated because you kind of become in this complete bubble where nobody makes sense to you and you don't make sense to anyone else. When you're at the point where you're losing weight rapidly and you're still refusing to eat and you can't bear the thought of eating and it terrifies you, then it's really hard for people around you to understand you. And it's like you're in a different, you know, talking in different language. I felt at times like I'd been transplanted into like a completely different country and culture and that none of the normal stuff around me made sense. Yeah. And so that was really difficult and really isolated. So even when there were people around me, I felt really alone in my illness. And I really, really hated that feeling beginning to kind of reconnect with people now and be able to be a better friend, a better mother, a better partner, a better colleague. It's something that's nice as I kind of work through that sort of recovery process from anorexia, although the other kind of impacts from PTSD do still sort of somewhat limit that. I have many days where I find it hard to go out because anxiety is stopping me. But yeah, so the isolation was what I hated. Next one, I guess the physical consequences. So a previous cut of this video I made and I showed it to one of my best friends and he just said, I think you really underplayed the physical consequences because what I mentioned was like my hair. So people comment about my hair cut now and they say they like it and I like it. I love short hair. It's really fun. I would have preferred if I hadn't had to cut it off because it had all fallen out. So that was kind of one. Another was that I had to have a tooth taken out and then I kind of mentioned briefly about not being able to walk. But yeah, the physical consequences I guess were far more long lasting and far reaching than that. And there were points at which I didn't know whether Anorexia would actually kind of take my life. I was completely hooked up to Aegean machines at one point. And yeah, I wasn't very aware of what was going on at that point. I'll be completely honest and I was so consumed by Anorexia. But yeah, it really took a massive physical toll on my body and particularly so I've kind of had a series of mini relapses with Anorexia in the last few years and this most recent one was the one where my body just kind of went, no, I can't hack it anymore and kind of went into shutdown. And I wasn't at my lowest weight but it was the most physical toll that it's ever taken. I think just my body got really unable to manage after repeated, repeated, repeated relapses with never actually reaching a healthy weight in between. Yeah, and lots of other people do suffer a lot more physically from their illness than I have. I've actually been remarkably lucky and as I am now a healthy weight, have been for six months, which is something I'm really proud of. Then I'm finding that a lot of the physical symptoms are kind of going away. And lots of them I didn't even realize were symptoms of Anorexia just because I've been chronically underweight for such a long period of time, even during kind of supposed periods of wellness. So things like this winter, as we're going into winter, I'm learning that it's not normal, necessarily to have completely numb fingers and toes all the time. I just thought that was a winter thing. I really realized now that's an Anorexia and circulation thing. And actually this winter, I can feel my toes. I can feel my fingers and they're not white all the time. So, yeah, the physical complications are wide and varied, different for different people. But yeah, for me, that's one of the things I hated. And then finally, and this sounds like a very strange thing to say, but Anorexia felt like a game I could never win. And it did feel like a game always. I wrote a poem about it once. I'll maybe put a link to it somewhere that was about how when you play the game of Anorexia, then you kind of make a decision each day to kind of, you know, how you're going to play your pieces. And it is a horrible game of manipulation. As I said before about the lying and stuff, you're manipulating the people around you. You're in this kind of constant cycle of trying to lose more weight, trying not to eat and all these things. And yeah, and it feels like this, this massive game that you're playing with self, but when I say it felt like a game I couldn't win, that's because I had this very, very strong sense of the only way that I could win at Anorexia was if it killed me. And that anything less than that meant that I hadn't done this as well as I possibly could. And the kind of perfectionist mindset that comes along with Anorexia meant that that really kind of was with me every day, the fact that I was failing at this illness. And it's hard actually, looking back now and thinking how absorbed I was in playing that game and what a dangerous game it was playing and actually how kind of close I came to winning, if you like. And I guess how glad I am that I didn't. Yeah, it's just really difficult to talk about even just to myself in a camera, not sure whether I'll ever put this live and if I do please be kind. I think it's important that we do talk about these things. And I think for me, at the point where I'm at in recovery now, where I have reached a healthy weight for the first time in my adult life and I've maintained that healthy weight for six months, over six months now. And these are things I'm really proud of. As I say, it's all part of this richer tapestry and I've still got a lot of work to do in terms of the PTSD and I'm still very much trying to learn to be the person I want to be in terms of a wife and a mother and a friend and a colleague because I've never had a chance at trying to do those things without my various mental health issues. So there's still a long road to go, but yeah, basically in short, anorexia, yes, I'm now at a point where I can look back at that time and I can say I hated it. I can look forward to the future and hope, beyond hope, that it's not a coping mechanism that I turn to again. It's a really unhealthy coping mechanism that I've turned to again and again and again. And in its most recent incarnation, it made me realise that it might be the coping mechanism that kills me. So I hope not to go there again and so maybe I will share this video as a reminder to self, if ever I find myself slipping again, that healthy weight pookie, even though you're struggling now, anorexia is not a good coping mechanism. Ultimately, you hate it, you hate it, you hate it. Okay, I'm going to stop there. I feel this has been really rambling and yeah, quite close to the bone. If you are in a similar situation, if you're struggling with an eating disorder or another mental health issue and you want to share your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences, the things that you hate about it and your motivations for recovery, then please leave a comment below. And I'd love to know your kind of thoughts on this really, if there's anything that you take away from it. And as I say, this has been really incredibly hard to create this video. So please be kind. I'll be back to normal in my future videos. I mean, I'm always happy to answer questions about my own mental health so please don't hesitate to ask. But on the whole, most of my videos will be about more practical, professional stuff. So do subscribe. No, subscribe that way. And then you'll get notified of the next videos I make, which will be much more practical. What to say when you go to see the GP? How to support anxiety? How to support someone who's having a panic attack? All that kind of thing. So yeah, please subscribe if you'd like more of that. Thanks so much for watching and thanks for the support, which I'm sure I will get in response to posting such a personal video. Bye.