Bad time’s follow us all now and then, had a bad week myself and an even worse weekend, but never mind, gotta keep on fighting. I know food is a nightmare but we really do have to face it.

I have a friend of mine in work who is an alcoholic and been fighting it for years, he went to see a hypnotherapies last week and hasn’t touched a drop since. This woman is supposed to be brilliant, and has practices all over the country, I wondered if it would work with someone like me, an ed is much like alcoholism, I’m going to leave it a few weeks and see how my friend copes, he has a wedding to attend and a few other important do’s with alcohol around, if he can cope with them then maybe I can cope with food everyday.

I don’t know yet.

Your parents are only concerned for you, you can’t forget that and when they see you restricting your food and exercising everyday it’s bound to make them worry. If you do carry on to exercise every day try and eat a little more.

I know it’s very hard but we both must try.

I remember what it was like when I exercised for hours on end without hardly any food and I used to start blacking out. That’s not good.

But if you eat and exercise it burns 15% of that food straight away, so that is good.

Please take care and I’ll talk to you soon.

Love Dawn…

Hi there,

sorry I wasn’t round to chat, but haven’t been well all weekend, hubby keeps seeing this advert on the telly about diabetics, going to the loo all the time and being constantly tired, and he thinks that’s me. I don’t know, I think it’s more due to the fact of my eating patterns although they have been better there’s last few weeks.

I’ve just been feeling very sick, light headed and can’t focus on anything, surprised I could put the computer on now actually, but never mind.

I’m sorry you are feeling so bad I have lots of nightmares especially about food and being sick, and couldn’t really suggest anything to help with them. My dreams are vivid and really wild, I find keeping a dream diary helps me to cope with them, if I write everything down as soon as I wake, they don’t seem so bad.

I used to have a friend called Lightning in my dreams, he would be a sports car, to come and rescue me if I needed him and a friend who I could talk to. I used to think he would be around for ever, as my dreams were really bad, and I would whistle and he’d come.

To some extent you will find with practice that you can control your dreams, you do have a conscious side even when you are asleep.

My friend Lightning, disappeared when I got married and that was the scariest part of being married, I felt like I had been abandoned by him, and my dreams were terrifying for the best part of two years, I had lost all control.

I have in the last six years only seen him twice, and never for very long. Guess he knows I am settled now and safe with my husband, he needs only to keep an eye on me and not protect me like he used to.

I feel dreams are a very significant part of our lives and have their own meaning for each of us. Maybe Lightning was a part of my childhood I had to let go, I don’t know.

Sorry to ramble on, dreams are of course very personal, and I feel very real.

If you think I am a bit strange I don’t mind, keep thinking positive and take care, Dawn

First post on eating disorder self help group.

Just to let everyone know a little about me without me telling everyone the same thing.

When I left school at the age of 16, I didn’t know my weight, I used to baby sit for a friend and before they went out on a girlie night they weighed themselves, when they had gone and the kids were in bed I decided to weigh myself. I knew I was big but didn’t know I was that big; the scales nearly went all the way round, 19st 2lb. I was devastated, and needed help, but had no one to turn to. My mum and dad were going through a bad patch, and I managed to persuade her to take me to the docs.

I started to lose weight properly with the nurse, but as the story goes, my weight started to plateaux. twelve months later, even though I was working, I then lost my job and turned to exercise, and not eating much, in fact not much at all. My weight dropped. Started work again and my weight loss slowed down once more, I then started making myself sick.

When I met my first boyfriend Paul, no one knew I suffered as I did and it was very hard for me to tell him, no man had ever shown any interest in me before and I was scared, with his support I went to the doctors and went to an ed unit. I got a lot better, and was left with an open appointment; I even came off the antidepressants.

Then I hit a real bad patch a few moths later in 2000, I came off my motorbike and injured my knee, I was off work in total 6mths, and piled the weight on as I was comfort eating.

I attempted suicide, and admitted myself to the local hospital, as I was so depressed, I needed to get away from my whole life, sort things out in my own head. Everyone asks do I regret doing it, I say no. I regret the hurt I caused, as you don’t think of that at the time, but it was a turning point in my life. I was in for a week and came out fighting, it took twelve months for me to get something like normal, and have been about 80-90% better ever since, with the odd bad relapse.

Hope this isn’t too much, but it tells you the sort of person I am today. A FIGHTER… Take care everyone… luv D