The power of a category

Thursday 2nd April 2015.

EDNOS. Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Something is wrong with you but we can't figure out exactly what so we'll make this category for you and a million other people who are going through issues completely different to yours.

OK, so that last part might not be true, but who knows. The point is that no one knows. People know what bulimia is. People judge skinny people as being anorexic. But eating disorder not otherwise specified? Nah, you're not that bad, you'll be fine, just be in this category and you'll figure it out.

I don't know about anyone else who has been diagnosed with EDNOS but when the OT told me that that's what she thought was up I literally felt my heart not sink but twist really tight, like when you are wringing out a wet towel or piece of clothing.

And then I got angry. How dare you tell me that what I am going through hasn't got a name? How dare you tell me that what hangs over me everyday, what governs my every movement whether it has even a remote link to food or exercise or not, isn't important enough to be categorised independently? Honestly, I know the OT meant well and I know she is good at her job, but surely there is enough research into mental health to tell us that you probably shouldn't just tell someone they're in a category of non-categorised problems when they have sucked up the guts to tell someone out loud even a portion of what they are going through.

Psychologists have told me that I have a goals-orientated, hyper-motivated personality obsessed with achievement. Yes, I think that hits the nail on the head. So that apparently means that I want to be the skinniest, the best looking, the most fit, and to do so I put severe restrictions on myself that inevitably I am going to break (I'm human after all). I'll then punish myself for breaking them and so the cycle begins with even bigger restrictions.

Honestly, I don't even care where this illness came from. All I want to figure out is how to be healthy again. How to not stress out and consider every little detail when a friend invites me out for coffee (not even lunch) or for a drink at the pub. To be able to enjoy said drink or a bowl of pasta or a normal meal without thinking that it's the beginning of a slippery slope and going home and bingeing because I've already f*cked it up for the immediate future.

I first started my obsessions after I got into fitness following a big break up in 2010. It was a gradual slide; being able to run a kilometre, then three, then five, then reading food blogs, then eating low carbs, no sugar, etc etc. I feel like from that first moment I entered a gym thinking 'this is going to be a new beginning; this is going to make you release happy endorphins and not be sad about your break up'' that that was the moment I opened pandora's box.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and never had opened the box. But most of the time I don't. I have come far enough in attempts and therapy to know that health and fitness is of huge interest to me and some of it I am really good at and that makes me proud. I just need a way of balancing this with a normal life. Just because I run 8km in the morning doesn't mean I have to not eat processed carbs FOREVER or just because I eat a small piece of cake with sugar I don't have to go home and eat two packs of lollies and a tub of ice-cream because the whole day is shot. A balance is what I am trying to achieve. It probably would have helped if someone had said what was going on in my head was worthy of it's own category.