These are my counters for things I don’t want to eat.
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Feeling you on the ice cream, I literally ate 2 smaller tabs of ice cream in two days 
Not alone though!! I shared with my bf and his mum but I definitely had the biggest portion 
I was already thinking to pop at the shop today to refill but the heat also makes me lazy thankfully so it’s (likely) not happening.. At least I bought a very nice ice cream which isn’t the cheapest but I very much like it.
Otherwise quite ok … It’s so hot that I wore only a sports bra & shorts today. God I felt uncomfortable looking at my “big belly” all day long. I don’t feel sexy at all, I don’t like the part of my body since forever. I tried and there are days when I feel my belly is close to my ideals but surely not lately. I doubt that I’ll be ever satisfied with this part of my poor body. It’s so no good, I could be only bones and skin but I would still see the belly and that makes me not to eat properly and then binge. It’s 2 days ago when I saw a photo of myself from a cycling trip and I look so bloody skinny in there. I don’t like how skinny I look in the photo. Yet, I have a belly. It’s like if everything else is small but I am pregnant or what. I hate it so badly 
I don’t know how to make a peace with this part of my body, or how to see it differently. Everybody else says I don’t have a belly, I don’t believe them, because I do see it 
But then I am thinking that maybe I have a body dismorfia? 
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Day 1661 : No binge today. 
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I think it is just the normal slight roundness women have over the uterus, unless they are significantly underweight. But I understand obsessing over a body part. Mine is my cankles. Now I have to wear skirts/ shorts I think about them at least 10 times a day.
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Day 2: success 
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588 sugar
452 UPF
326 gluten/dairy
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Day 1662 : No binge today.
Congrats on day 2, @ErinTheSideOfCaution! Keep it up! 
@acromouse Getting closer to a year without gluten and dairy, amazing work! Keep it up!
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Day 3: success
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@Aleyadaisey Thank you. Dairy is the only thing on my list I am willing to have in a tight food situation.
589 sugar
453 UPF
327 gluten/dairy
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Day 1663 : No binge today.
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Starting from scratch again with my day 0 today 
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Day 4: like 90% success. I ate a tiny bit of something im trying to avoid right now but didn’t binge and circumstance was tough so im deciding to be kind to myself.
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You are doing well 
Keep it up!
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590 sugar
454 UPF
328 gluten/dairy
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Day 1664 : No binge today.
Happy 4th of July if you celebrate it! 
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Day 5: Success
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591 sugar
455 UPF
329 gluten/dairy
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Day 1665 : No binge today.
Doing great so far, @ErinTheSideOfCaution! Keep it up!
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Day 6: success had my first social gathering since starting back and I knew there’d be food/drink there so I brought the food/flavored water that was already intending to have and just stuck with that 
it felt really encouraging to do so
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11 days no ice cream.
8 days no takeaways, no sugar.
5 days no crisps, no binge-eating.
@Jana1988 it makes me so happy to see you doing well, I’m proud of you and also grateful your acid reflux has almost gone I know how awful it is, I used to get it after bingeing crisps, it would wake me up in the night burning and coughing, and recently I had aspiration from the acid which entered my lungs, and a very sore throat for days from where the acid burned. It really put me off, I have only binged crisps once since that episode, which was the worst I’ve ever had it, and I think it was bc I hadn’t binged crisps for almost a month at the time (bc I’ve been having takeaways instead), so my stomach was not used to it at all!
Therapy being cancelled that I mentioned in my last post -bc of the containment in a therapeutic relationship, they can’t really arrange for me to see anyone else, even if they could, I doubt another psychiatrist would be available at the last minute. (Also, the psychiatrist I am seeing on Fridays doesn’t even work for the Adult Eating Disorder Service anymore, or even in the same hospital, but he did during the first year I spent with him back in 2022-2023. So when I was referred back to them bc my ED hadn’t improved 18 months later, the lead psychiatrist who I had my assessment with (and the first time I was referred to them too), reached out to him bc he thought it would be better for me to have further therapy with the psych I’d already worked with for a year previously, rather than start from scratch with someone new, and the psych agreed). Even with my Monday therapist, she had been off with a broken wrist, I hadn’t seen her for 14 weeks, and since my last post I received a call from her manager, and she informed me that the therapist has made the decision not to return to that job, due to her healing not going as had been hoped. They offered me to start with a new therapist, and I’ll be having my third session with her on Tuesday. The annoying thing is, the “higher up” people have only agreed to extend my end date by four weeks, even though there were 14 Mondays without sessions, three of which were bank holidays, so they should really extend it by 11 weeks, but I didn’t feel able to challenge it since she said the decision had been made higher up, before I had chance to.
I tried atleast 4 times to arrange to visit my brother and his family, to take their wedding anniversary card round on the 25th May, but they ignored my question every time, so I felt very rejected, it really is like my family don’t ever want to see me, and they only do so when they are more obligated on special occasions where we all get together, never just me visiting on my own. I decided to save their card until next year, bc by the time I saw them for father’s day, it had been three weeks since their anniversary.
if you don’t know me, or about Prince, or don’t want to read the rest of his story, you may wish to skip the next part
I took Prince to his neurology consultation on the 27th May. I told her all of his symptoms, including the new ones that had started since his check-up at the local vets, which was concerning me the most as he definitely seemed to be suffering after he ate or drank anything, he was excessively chewing and then pawing at his mouth with one paw, then two paws at the same time and losing his balance, and since I first started typing this post weeks ago, he had been doing it to such an extent that he caused an open wound on his face below his eye. I was annoyed bc they made me starve him from 10pm the night before, due to the MRI on the day of his consultation, and that he’d need to have overnight hospitalisation due to the general anaesthetic, but none of that was true, he wasn’t having his MRI until the following day, so I’d starved both of my cats from 10pm the night before, for no reason, and I knew he wouldn’t eat, drink, or use a litter tray whilst he was there bless him, and then she said I could collect him an hour after he woke up from the general anaesthetic! So I was annoyed bc if they’d have done the MRI on the Tuesday after his consultation, I could have waited for him and bought him home with me, and saved atleast £200 from not needing the overnight hospitalisation. But it was what it was, and I went to collect him the following afternoon. His MRI looked all okay, so unfortunately there were no answers re his occasional episodes. They also did a CT scan of his mouth/jaw bc of the new symptoms I described in the consultation, those results had to be sent to an external radiologist, and all that showed was something called FORL, but neither the specialists, nor his local vets, believe that was what was causing his symptoms. She also checked his mouth whilst he was under GA, and she showed me some photos, and he did have some redness on the roof of his mouth, which she said he may have to go back for an abdominal ultrasound (another £800+£consultation+£any treatment), bc apparently some mouth issues can be caused by an issue elsewhere in the body. Then she said if that didn’t show anything, she will just instruct the local vets to continue to prescribe pain medication, but it’s really did not go very well with him resisting me adminstering the meds, I said liquid would definitely be better, bc he just used to make himself vomit if I ever managed to get a pill down him. So at that time, no answers, and the issue he was initially referred for was likely to have been there since birth and is quite common for his breed, so if he didn’t have his other symptoms, she wouldn’t have even admitted him for an MRI. I’m glad he was under their care though, it felt like the right place, they seemed to genuinely care, even the reception staff. I am honestly amazed at myself for all the driving there and back on the motorways, especially as it was absolutely chucking it down with rain both ways, both days, I could barely see bc of the spray from all of the lorries, so I was terrified, I struggle to see when it’s raining heavily, even on normal slow roads, let alone at high speeds on motorways with heavy traffic too. So yeah, I have definitely had exposure to my phobias. Prince was then referred to another specialists, who have a specialist dentist, his appointment was on the 17th of June. I was seriously hoping she might have a better idea of what was going on with him, he really wasn’t eating much at all, and he wouldn’t let me medicate him sufficiently, no matter how/what I tried. The barrier was that I only had a certain amount left on the credit card I was miraculously accepted for, so I was worred that if the treatment quote was more than I could afford, it might have come to me having to make a decision. Until then, past 2 months had felt like my heart had been slowly breaking, and I’d been very emotional and so stressed. I was really hoping for answers. We went to his consultation, and going by the CT images I convinced the Neurologist to send that she had taken, the specialist dentist said that she would remove the rest of his teeth, but that if that didn’t resolve his symptoms, it would quite like bd something called FOPS Feline Orofacial Pain Syndrome, which she said she didn’t believe was real whilst she was working in America (she was American), but since working in the UK she now believes it is 100% and the only treatment would havd been lifelong pain medications (which he refused). The quote she gave was £1.5K+ more than I could afford, but they agreed to take a payment of £2K, with an informal agreement to pay the rest in 3 monthly installments of £509.50. So we went ahead. During his surgery she called me, and said that after removing his teeth, and doing the intraoral xrays, she really didn’t think the redness on his upper left gum was from the issue with the teeth, so she asked if I wanted to consent to a biopsy (of course I said yes). I collected him the same night. I didn’t have any prescription glasses bc I was waiting for my new lenses to be fitted in my existing frames, but I had a paid of sunglasses in the prescription I had been wearing. However, his surgery was delayed and I didn’t get to collect him until 9pm, and we didn’t end up leaving until after 10pm, so it was pitch black and I obviously couldn’t wear my sunglasses, so I was driving without any glasses at all, in the dark (which is difficult even with glasses bc I have astigmatism, so when other cars are driving towards me, it looks like they all have main/full beam on, plus the main motorway was closed, so there was a major diversion, so it took 1.5 hours to get home, instead of an hour. They also sent him home with a long cone on, and told me it was really importanf that he kept it on for atleast a week, but during the last 20mins of our journey home, I could hear him going absolutely mental in his carrier, when I opened the car door to bring him inside, I could see that he’d managed to get the cone off 
So bc she’d said it was so important that he kept it on, I trapped us both in the kitchen, and battled with him to get it back on, I did the best I could, but only mamaged to get one of the two fastenings together, and not the string at all. Then I let him of the kitchen and omg I have never seen anything like it, he went ballistic zooming all around the flaf in every room bashing into everything and eventually stopped behind the cabinet in the bedroom. I thought I have to listen to him, and prevent him from breaking his neck, so I removed the cone. This event completely traumatised my other cat, Wolfie, to the extent thst he hid behind the sofa for 48hrs, and I was worried he was going to die purely from dehydration bc he refused to eat or drink anything, and he is usually food obsessed. He eventually started to come out to eat and drink in that room, but not the kitchen, but when he did start coming to the kitchen, if Princd came to the doorway, Wolfie would bolt back into the lojnge and hide, he was completely terrfiied of him. The following two weeks, were me trging everg single brand and style of cat food, fresh fish, and Prince still refusing to eat. I eventually maanged to get him eating cooked chicken breast, and he are a few pieces of that, broken up into small pieces, atleast once, sometimes twice a day, as well as some cat milk for adult cats. Two days before I received the results of the biopsy on Tuesday 1st of July, he refused to eat the chicken breast, but I managed to get him eating broken up bits of cooked drumstick chicken legs. He ate quite a lot of that, as well as some of the skin. But then came the phone at 11:30am on Tuesday this week, and the results came back as sarcoma (cancer), and she said due to his other symptoms/behaviours, she also thought he had nerve sheath tumors in his face/mouth/jaw. She said we could throw another £20K at it, and it still wouldn’t work, and that she’d spoken to their Oncology team (cancer spscialists), and they’d said there was really nothing they could do. She said if he would take medication, she could have prescrbed palliative meds, and he might have had another two months, but because he refuses, then it was time to say goodbye. 
I said goodbye to Prince, my best friend and soulmate, the next day, Wednesday 2nd July, at around 15:15. It was the hardsst thing I have ever done, and will ever have to do. Heart-broken doesn’t cut it, not even close.
As you can see from my numbers, despite all of this, I haven’t engaged in my ED behaviours since Monday night/2am Tuesday morning. I fear it’s mostly because, for the first time in my life, I have found myself unable to eat. So I’ve only been eating one meal a day at around 9/10pm, when the physical hunger overides the emotional absence of hunger. It was my birthday on Friday, but of course there was nothing to celebrate. I met my Auntie, Uncle, and a family friend, outside of my flat by their car, bc they wanted to give me their cards, and we chatted for around 15mins, then I came back in to shower and get ready to drive to therapy. In the total of two years that I have been working with the psychiastrist for therapy, I have never been able to cry in front of him, even when my eyes have welled up and I’ve had a lump in my throat. So because I had been bawling my eyes out in private, I gave him a heads up as I walked in the room and sat down, I said ‘just as a heads up, if there was ever going to be a day that I cried in front of you, today would be the day, I had to say goodbye to Prince on Wednesday’. He took the biggest deep breath, and did the biggest sigh I’ve ever heard, and said ‘I’m so sorry’, and I genuinely felt like he meant it. I was able to state a few facts like I usually do, but then I absolutely bawled my eyes out, and was fighting through them for the rest of the session. I haven’t cried in front of anyone since I was about 19. I’m 38 now.
I won’t bore you with everything that has happened since then, but now that I don’t have Prince by my side, or on my chest, demanding my attention, I am hoping to be around here more consistenly. I certainly need the distraction!
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