Kathryn,

There’s so much in your post that it’s difficult to know how to unravel all that’s been happening:-

Relationships – food, family, fiance, friends, feelings, functioning, fatigue, fear, focus, framework.

Feeling like you don’t really belong happens in childhood.  It’s where we lay our roots and foundations down.  Now you’ve uprooted by moving 2500 miles away.  How are you going to give yourself a place of belonging?  My way would be to repeat over and over to myself that “I belong on Earth”.  I would do that every day of my life.  I would walk through nature, connect to the roots of the trees, and plant my feet firmly on the ground in confirmation of that statement.

Food is just one medium of having control over ‘something’.  You know that what you are putting in your body is ‘feeding’ yourself but are you aware that what you are putting in your mind is also ‘feeding’ you?  Nurturing yourself through your thoughts is just as important as nurturing yourself through food.

I wonder what the attitude of your family was towards food that you don’t want people to see you eat, that you feel ashamed, that you have to hide away and eat in secret.  Were you criticized for your table manners.  Eating weird combinations might just be your body telling you that you need the vitamins that those foods supply.  You will not function properly if you are not getting enough vitamins.  Do you take any vitamin supplements?  Fatigue could be caused through lack of iron in your diet (fairly common with women) or lack of the range of B vitamins.  They get used up fairly quickly when we are stressed.

Do you enjoy cooking?  Experiment with different recipes to give you a feel for healthy eating.  Make that pasta at home.  ‘Imagine’ that you are eating out in a restaurant surrounded by friends.  Our imagination is a very powerful tool.  One day you’ll be doing it for real.

Friends can come and go.  Some people make friends for life (rooted in friendship), some people realize that as they change, they become less compatible with their old friends and develop new friendships.  Those words from your best childhood friend must have been very hurtful at the time but you can look back at them from an adult’s perspective and see that you are anything but ‘dumb’.  It was just something she said that had no real meaning.  It is not the truth.

Depression is the opposite of expression.  It comes from anger and/or grief that has not been expressed.  Loss of friends, family members, old relationships even the loss of a childhood counts as grief.  Releasing all your pent up emotions through tears is not necessarily a bad thing.

You are 30 something and you are questioning whether or not it is normal to lay in bed, relax, read, meditate, be sedentary.  It is OK to do all of these things some of the time.  In simple terms, your body needs just three things to survive 1) food and drink 2) rest/relaxation/sleep 3) exercise.  I would suggest putting a time limit of, say, 2 hours per day apart from sleep on your sedentary activities and maybe increase the amount of exercise you take, making some of it a little more challenging.

I suggest that you construct a rough timetable for your day to give yourself an element of control so that you can discipline yourself to have a reasonably well balanced life including work/home/leisure making sure you do at least one thing a day which gives you pleasure.

Dwelling on the past is never a good thing.  Focus on all the positives you have in your life right now and all the good qualities that you possess.  Living in the present and loving what you have in your life right now is the key to your recovery.

Best Wishes

Peggy