Just a little warning that I’ll be talking about anxiety disorder, autoimmunity and somewhat disordered eating/thinking towards my body so please don’t read it if that will make you upset ❤️
Hello,
I’m a bit nervous to post this but I’ve been stuck in a rut for a while now and even though I don’t think anyone will really have the time to read this I’d like to write it out anyway.
For a little bit about me: I am 21 years old and studying a conjoint Law and Arts degree in New Zealand - In my Arts degree I am majoring in International Relations and Classical Studies. In my free time (if there is any hehe) I love reading (mostly fantasy books) and streaming on Twitch (my favourite games are FFXIV and Subnautica, amongst many others),
In 2018 I had just started University and I was in a really dark place mentally, I failed all my courses that year and basically spent most of the year in bed. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that was eating at my retina (is still a problem today) and told that my sight would never be what it once was, and that I couldn’t get glasses until the condition stabilised. Since then I have been on steroids, immune suppressants and several medications to supplement those heavier duty ones and the effects they have had on me.
In 2019 I decided I needed to make a change. I started eating healthier and getting up early every morning, I spent entire days at Uni and I ended up passing all my courses with A range grades, and to this day I still have a an A range average in both my degrees.
During that time I lost a lot of weight and as of June last year I was 48kgs. I am 5’2, and now that I look back I think that I was underweight but at the time I still thought I was extremely overweight.
In June last year I was diagnosed with severe panic disorder. It was, without a doubt, the most difficult thing I have had to face in my so far short lifetime. I initially ended up in the emergency room at one point because I had been is a state of severe panic for over 10 hours and they had to sedate me to get me to come down. The next 6 months were a constant battle. I was almost always panicking, could not sleep, and had adverse reactions to many of the medications I was initially put on.
Despite this, I still managed to get through my Uni courses and get to where we are now. Throughout that time I still worked out a little bit but I was still convinced that I was extremely chubby and that nothing I was doing was helping at all. Even though I had dropped from 58kg to 48kg I wasn’t convinced at all. I could even see the muscle toning in my body and it wasn’t enough for my brain apparently.
Obviously, throughout that journey with anxiety disorder which is still ongoing (I still have all the health issues that I have described and my eye condition has not stabilised) I somewhat had to pull back on a lot of things, I’m a very highly strung and highly organised person who tries to control literally every aspect of my life and I had to let go lest I make everything worse - this meant I had to stop forcing myself to workout 5 times a week with the heaviest weight possible, I had to stop obsessively managing my calories and worrying about what I was putting in my body and let myself have the box of donuts (I have a big sweet tooth, chocolate is my life) and I had to accept that I was going to gain a little weight, which my doctor said was actually a good thing,
Now I am 54kg and I am struggling because all I can think is that I have failed in everything that I had once achieved. I live in constant fear that I’ll get into the 60s. I know that I’m tinier than my friends so I can’t complain to them because I don’t want them to feel bad, even though I think they’re all gorgeous and I have never thought of them as overweight, I’ve always thought I was the least beautiful.
I know that I am a small person and that I am a healthy weight, but all I can think is ‘I was smaller and I should be smaller because I got there before and I have to be there to be good enough’. It’s a really toxic mindset I know.
Anyway, I’m summarising quite a lot here but the crux of the issue is this. I am finding it extremely hard to get back into healthy habits, it feels a million times more difficult than it ever did. I keep trying to simplify it down to ‘Eat 3 meals a day, have a snack if you’re hungry, go for a walk and do any kind of workout that you can, and get enough sleep’ but instead my brain keeps spinning about the nutrients in every food and how many calories something contains, whether I should be doing HIIT and Strength or just Strength because HIIT triggers my anxiety disorder a lot of the time.
I can’t simplify it down and it’s driving me insane 😞
I feel so useless, and as though I’ll never get back it the place I wanted to be,,, I recently bought FB Plus so I’m going to try and do the FBStrong 2 week challenge because FBStrong was my favourite once upon a time but I know I’m going to have to do it with way less weight than I used to and it’s really hard to reconcile that loss of progress mentally and not beat myself up about it…
That’s the story anyway… if anyone has been through anything similar, especially if you’ve had to take immunosuppressive medication and steroids and anti anxiety meds, etc please let me know.
It’s really hard to see how to do this now. I really want it to just be about moving and being healthy but all I can see is the fat that I’ve gained in the mirror 😅
Bit of a sad post - usually I’m a very cheery and hyperactive person but there’s not really a cheery way to put this 😂
I hope you’re having a lovely day ❤️
P.S. Sorry for any typos, I wrote this out pretty fast 😅
Also you can’t gauge my weight at all in the photo but it was taken the other night and I thought context of what I look like might help 😅🤣
Starting Over
Just a little warning that I’ll be talking about anxiety disorder, autoimmunity and somewhat disordered eating/thinking towards my body so please don’t read it if that will make you upset ❤️
Hello,
I’m a bit nervous to post this but I’ve been stuck in a rut for a while now and even though I don’t think anyone will really have the time to read this I’d like to write it out anyway.
For a little bit about me: I am 21 years old and studying a conjoint Law and Arts degree in New Zealand - In my Arts degree I am majoring in International Relations and Classical Studies. In my free time (if there is any hehe) I love reading (mostly fantasy books) and streaming on Twitch (my favourite games are FFXIV and Subnautica, amongst many others),
In 2018 I had just started University and I was in a really dark place mentally, I failed all my courses that year and basically spent most of the year in bed. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that was eating at my retina (is still a problem today) and told that my sight would never be what it once was, and that I couldn’t get glasses until the condition stabilised. Since then I have been on steroids, immune suppressants and several medications to supplement those heavier duty ones and the effects they have had on me.
In 2019 I decided I needed to make a change. I started eating healthier and getting up early every morning, I spent entire days at Uni and I ended up passing all my courses with A range grades, and to this day I still have a an A range average in both my degrees.
During that time I lost a lot of weight and as of June last year I was 48kgs. I am 5’2, and now that I look back I think that I was underweight but at the time I still thought I was extremely overweight.
In June last year I was diagnosed with severe panic disorder. It was, without a doubt, the most difficult thing I have had to face in my so far short lifetime. I initially ended up in the emergency room at one point because I had been is a state of severe panic for over 10 hours and they had to sedate me to get me to come down. The next 6 months were a constant battle. I was almost always panicking, could not sleep, and had adverse reactions to many of the medications I was initially put on.
Despite this, I still managed to get through my Uni courses and get to where we are now. Throughout that time I still worked out a little bit but I was still convinced that I was extremely chubby and that nothing I was doing was helping at all. Even though I had dropped from 58kg to 48kg I wasn’t convinced at all. I could even see the muscle toning in my body and it wasn’t enough for my brain apparently.
Obviously, throughout that journey with anxiety disorder which is still ongoing (I still have all the health issues that I have described and my eye condition has not stabilised) I somewhat had to pull back on a lot of things, I’m a very highly strung and highly organised person who tries to control literally every aspect of my life and I had to let go lest I make everything worse - this meant I had to stop forcing myself to workout 5 times a week with the heaviest weight possible, I had to stop obsessively managing my calories and worrying about what I was putting in my body and let myself have the box of donuts (I have a big sweet tooth, chocolate is my life) and I had to accept that I was going to gain a little weight, which my doctor said was actually a good thing,
Now I am 54kg and I am struggling because all I can think is that I have failed in everything that I had once achieved. I live in constant fear that I’ll get into the 60s. I know that I’m tinier than my friends so I can’t complain to them because I don’t want them to feel bad, even though I think they’re all gorgeous and I have never thought of them as overweight, I’ve always thought I was the least beautiful.
I know that I am a small person and that I am a healthy weight, but all I can think is ‘I was smaller and I should be smaller because I got there before and I have to be there to be good enough’. It’s a really toxic mindset I know.
Anyway, I’m summarising quite a lot here but the crux of the issue is this. I am finding it extremely hard to get back into healthy habits, it feels a million times more difficult than it ever did. I keep trying to simplify it down to ‘Eat 3 meals a day, have a snack if you’re hungry, go for a walk and do any kind of workout that you can, and get enough sleep’ but instead my brain keeps spinning about the nutrients in every food and how many calories something contains, whether I should be doing HIIT and Strength or just Strength because HIIT triggers my anxiety disorder a lot of the time.
I can’t simplify it down and it’s driving me insane 😞
I feel so useless, and as though I’ll never get back it the place I wanted to be,,, I recently bought FB Plus so I’m going to try and do the FBStrong 2 week challenge because FBStrong was my favourite once upon a time but I know I’m going to have to do it with way less weight than I used to and it’s really hard to reconcile that loss of progress mentally and not beat myself up about it…
That’s the story anyway… if anyone has been through anything similar, especially if you’ve had to take immunosuppressive medication and steroids and anti anxiety meds, etc please let me know.
It’s really hard to see how to do this now. I really want it to just be about moving and being healthy but all I can see is the fat that I’ve gained in the mirror 😅
Bit of a sad post - usually I’m a very cheery and hyperactive person but there’s not really a cheery way to put this 😂
I hope you’re having a lovely day ❤️
P.S. Sorry for any typos, I wrote this out pretty fast 😅
Also you can’t gauge my weight at all in the photo but it was taken the other night and I thought context of what I look like might help 😅🤣