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Ana Machado

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Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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  • #110990
    Ana Machado
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I myself never thought of finding so much support and, unfortunately, so many people going through similar situations. I am very glad my words did not only lift up some of the weight I feel on my shoulders, but brought some light into your life.
    As you said exactly, that is my way of taking some control over all that is going on inside my head whenever food comes along. It is knowing that life is great and full of many situations in which I will mostly have no control over (pregnancy here pops up as an amazing example). What I do control is my actions: and if I was able to stop smoking cigarettes (I was a 7 year smoker) in the most stressful situations, I will too control my feelings on this obsession with food and weight, no matter hiw skinny or fat I get.
    Yesterday and I say this publicly, my boyfriend left the house. He packed a huge suitcase and he left, saying that he could no longer withstand living both with me and my anxiety, having “no room in the bed” for himself. Since last night, I’ve come to realise how empty I really feel and how I use food as a distractiom or cover up for it. Since he left I haven’t done anything but eating. I can’t entertain myself with anything or feel deeply his absense.
    Today I realised finally, that I have to start filling up my own voids with me – finding things I’m good at, that I take interest in, I enjoy doing and redescovering who I am…

    So I guess that we all have out mechanism broken Anita, and we might all work in different levels. What is important is that the solution you find fits you πŸ™‚ and truly helps you in pursuit of who you are!

    Mary K x

    #110841
    Ana Machado
    Participant

    Hey Katie,

    Thank you for some of your ideas into giving out into the world, in order to “feed” your inner self a bit more. I think I will try to follow a few of them myself, even with doing some sort of volunteering or something of the kind.
    I think it is difficult at any age to go through these issues, but believe you when you say most therapies or informations are more teenager focused… I have come to believe that for these matters, there is nothing better than the privacy of a therapist who gets to know you personally with no judgments. After I took on all the professionals I previously mentioned, it took me around 4 months to actually start gaining weight and it was a very slow process. Let’s say that in the 7 months I have had with my nutritionist, I gained 6 kg, most of which came all together in the past two months, due to working out and relaxation techniques that wouldn’t allow me to go back into the black hole of “I don’t deserve the food I put in my mouth”. Mostly, forgiving myself for what I have done to myself started being the step I wanted to take, more than anything else in the world. Weight just came alongside with it.

    Thank you so much for your tips and sharing them with us.

    Here follows a link with a very delicious chocolate mousse sugar free, low carb, healthy recipe written by a lady from your country, who taught me how to make myself some “gifts” for everytime anxiety doesn’t take over or when I am actually able to give back into the world somehow πŸ™‚ : http://deliciouslyella.com/the-healthiest-chocolate-mousse-vegan-gluten-free-dairy-free-sugar-free/

    Big hugs from PT!
    Mary K x

    #110838
    Ana Machado
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Thank you for listening and writing back!I have been feeling quite alone in this disease by myself and the country I’m from there’s not much explicit help in these matters such as group meetings or other things of the sort unfortunately… This is my way of communicating an SOS into the World, as were the professionals I decided to seek back then. To be honest with you, I don’t. EVERYTIME I eat, the thoughts come back. What eases them is the following:
    1. Knowing I lost all notion of what is normal and what isn’t – when I gained a few kg’s, I really thought I was getting obese. That’s when I started wearing different types of clothes that wouldn’t be too tight (I am currently not very far away from a Gandhi type of fashion. When I went to my nutritionist she weighted me and said “Wow! Because of workout you gained 2kg of muscle alone!” Which first of all, is half of what I saw I had gained and second, there was a scientific evidence I was in fact as skinny as before, fat-wise.
    So, everytime I have those thoughts I realize my self-imagine is entirely distorted and does not depict reality;
    2. The professionals around me are of great help: good food habits aligned with good workout is the perfect way for you to be certain that you will gain/keep/lose weight in an healthy way – not something as random as “eat lots of cookies and you will be fine”. Trusting them and following their regimes will slowly take you back into place. This also answers your questions on restaurants and cafe stores: my nutritionist put me on a “gluten free, diary free, sugar free” sort of diet which will allow me to gain good weight and not fat, so I’m restricted from eating almost 90% of the bullcrap the offer me in those places, which helps A LOT;
    3. This is the most important aspect for me: what if I ate too much? Will that give me an extra kg? I get very anxious when I have those thoughts, I won’t lie to you – I have an anxiety disorder related to the idea that if I get fat no one will love me anymore, starting with myself (although I suspect I didn’t before, to starve myself like I did and go through all the pain and illness it caused me). So I started realizing, with all my unhappiness, that being underweight and overweight both caused me a lot of pain and I was’t happy in any of those circumstances. Everytime I think those thoughts I try to realize this: “What if I gain weight? What if I gained fat? I cannot control all things in the Universe and if by any means I gain more fat than what I wanted, at least I can go to the gym, talk to a Personal Trainer and lose it back properly. I can rely on the professionals around me to help me go back to the weight I want, but most importantly, in the meantime, I have people who love me unconditionally of my looks and behavior (whether I decide not to work for months, not using the intelligence and capabilities God gave me or if I decide to dye my hair blonde, which would look awful on me). I just have to start doing the same to myself I guess…

    I hope these ideas helped, share with us your feedback if you have tried them before and whether they worked or not.

    Mary K x

    #110784
    Ana Machado
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I too use the same tricks as you do. In fact, I stopped having any kind of food measurer what so ever at home (not even for cocktails) and neither do I own a scale of any sort. I weight myself once a month with my nutritionist, who owns a PROPER scale and who tells me what the best way to gain proper weight is, without me feeling like I am becoming a puddle of fat. Exercising also has been helpful, although I have to control myself not to go more than 3 times a week, so it does not become more of a bulimic reaction towards calories, rather than a search for a balanced health state.
    I also stopped buying clothes at normal stores from normal shopping malls… I’ve also been buying handmade/second hand clothes that are mostly one size fits all.
    Nonetheless, I advise you to take such measures in your life like I myself did and helped me release some of the anxiety I felt everytime I had to eat a proper meal.

    I’m still searching for hope everyday, and am more than willing to talk about this as much as necessary, if only to feel understood and a little less insane.

    Thank you for sharing your struggles πŸ™‚

    Mary K x

    #110783
    Ana Machado
    Participant

    Hey Katie,

    It’s very difficult for me to hear other people suffer from the same thing, because I would never wish this to anyone, not even to people who have harmed me in all kinds of ways!
    You too are not alone here and, just like you mentioned, we both have to keep focusing that we are worth all the positive things that happen in our lives, even the smallest ones like having washed clothes in our wardrobe and a ceiling covering our heads.
    If you don’t mind me asking, what type of help are you giving back to the society? Volunteering directly with elderly and children, for instance? I have given this a thought and have considered it before, but was fearful of it no being helpful but rather even more self-destructive.

    Again, thank you so much for sharing your personal experience and I hope that whichever Hell you’ve been through, diminishes with every sunrise!

    Hugs from Portugal, both to you and to the UK, which I miss very dearly everyday of my life! :’)

    #110782
    Ana Machado
    Participant

    Hey Inky,

    Thank you so much for the tips on websites and blogs! From all the research I’ve done, which I admit hasn’t been much since I have been keeping this situation to myself till recently, I’ve only found very disappoint pro-Ana chats all over the web. This actually made me question the value of Internet on matters of health care, since information nowadays is so deceiving – I am now eating properly, exercising regularly both with a professional physician and by myself, I have a nutritionist and dedicate some of my own time into doing a small course in this matter (afraid more Internet will get in the way between me and healthy food habits again!). I also have a psychologist who is helping me out all of the anxiety problems.

    I hope one day soon I will have the consciousness of self-worth again, without any body standards getting in between.

    πŸ™‚ thank you so much for your wisdom and sharing it!

    Mary K x

    #110750
    Ana Machado
    Participant

    Dear J,

    I think that wherever we go, we will ALWAYS find something/someone which will try and make our life hell or who we won’t get along as well as we hoped we would. I think here you should just keep going with your life, if this is taking you towards your dreams (teaching abroad according to what I read? πŸ™‚ that’s beautiful!) and ignore all those negative ideas. They should and cannot define you, because you are so much more than the person selling shoes or the employee leaning against a rack.
    Do something you really enjoy doing everytime you leave work, to remind you not only of your worth but of all the faΓ§ades there is to you! Go to the movies with a loved one, take some hobby with a shared class like painting, do something that calms you down and brings you joy and, most of all, reminds you – you are not the high school person, you are not the daughter, you are not the employee, you are not the painter or the friend. You are all of that and much much more! πŸ™‚ Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

    #110747
    Ana Machado
    Participant

    Hey Aschristyseesit,

    While turning 20 I developed anxiety disorder and started having panic attacks as well. I had just broken up my 4 year old relationship with my boyfriend, which was intoxicating and demanding on me and was finally free and happy out of something poisoning. Myself, just like you, had EVERYTHING to be happy and still anxiety caught me in a corner. Now, at age 24, it came back under a different shape, with a constant sense of anxiety rather than sudden anxiety rages as before.
    Most people here will probably be able to give you some real practical advice over what you are going through, as I personally am here just to show you that this is more common than anyone in the world can imagine and you are not alone. Something that helped me before was realizing that I had an emptiness inside of me I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, till I recognized it was my own.
    So my anxiety is definitely related to my lack of self-esteem, self-confidence and fear of taking my life forward. And knowing this process always starts from the inside out and it’s an emergency alert status your soul shows you in order for you to fix a major piece of that which is broken…

    I hope I could help πŸ™‚ and thank you for sharing your fears with us all!

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)