The voices in my head

'I feel really uncomfortable in my body today’ 

‘I never feel good enough for the dance world’

‘Why am I always so tired, always experiencing some injury or niggle?’

‘I don’t know why I’m struggling so much more than everyone else’

‘I feel embarrassed to complain again or to tell my director that I have another injury’

‘I’m worried that people will see me as weak for feeling so emotional’ 

These are the voices that consumed me as I battled with REDs. Something always felt wrong, I struggled to cope with my emotions and my world felt like it was falling apart. I stopped being able to do the activities I enjoyed and lost my personality, sense of humour and laughter. I was at a low point and I really needed support to change this and most importantly to recognise that this wasn’t me and it was possible to feel better. I really didn’t know if it would go away and most days I felt like the voices in my head were stuck there forever. 

Maybe you have heard some of these voices before, or know someone else who has experienced this. Now that I am on my journey to recovery I know that it does get better and these voices were only symptoms and were not something that defines me. 

Battling with my emotions 

The voices in my head led to many negative emotions. The emotions that I felt strongest looked like this:

Perfectionism 

When I was trying to recover from REDs, every single day felt like a challenge to get the recovery plan ‘right’. 

The weight of feeling a pressure to recover quickly or to do it ‘correctly’ was very heavy. 

I was worrying about whether I was taking the right steps to restoring my energy and constantly assessing everything I was doing and eating. 

Instead of taking on this pressure, finding support can help so much. Trusting a nutritionist to help with a fuelling plan, trusting that rest is also productive for you right now and accepting that some days are harder than others is all part of the process to getting better.

Blame 

I felt ashamed that I had ended up in this situation, I blamed myself for not recovering quickly enough and for ending up in REDs in the first place. 

I look back and I am so proud of the fact I made the decision to recover, the choices I made to get to this point and this helps me on days when I am struggling.

Low confidence 

REDs really took away my confidence, both in my ability to dance, my appearance but also generally, in my self-worth. 

I often felt worried that my body wouldn’t be able to get through my training sessions and performances and this lack of trust in my body was challenging. 

However, remembering that I was on a journey to recovery helped me a lot. Each day I could choose to fuel more and help my body get stronger again and now that I have recovered, my confidence has come back too. 

Worry 

I worried if I was eating enough, if I was eating too much, if it was the correct time, or the correct thing. I worried if I was going to lose strength if I reduced my training or that I was damaging my recovery by over-training. All of this over-thinking was exhausting! 

Doing little things that I enjoyed and could distract me from my worries helped me so much.

Sometimes that was a gentle walk, cooking for my family, seeing a friend for a coffee or reading a book. After a period of time, the worries faded, as my energy restored and I was able to train again and feel strong. I no longer had to analyse everything. 

Finding the right support

Struggling through REDs alone and without a proper recovery plan is incredibly daunting.

As much as I tried to battle through it alone, it was only when I finally accepted that I needed external support that I started to heal and turn around the voices in my head. 

For everyone it is so different, however, reaching out to a psychologist was the missing piece that I had been needing to recover. 

When I first started working with a psychologist, I felt reluctant to share how I felt and I was honestly quite sceptical about the voices in my head ever going away. It was only through the gradual changes and working together every week that I realised my life was starting to improve and I was getting my personality back. 

Accepting that I needed external support and to commit to making changes to my lifestyle was probably the hardest but also the most crucial stage to accepting recovery. 

This is part 1 of a 3 part series by Alice Abbott. Read part 2 of the ‘voices in my head’ series.