“How My ED History Impacted Me At Farm Animal Rescue” 3rd and final part ( will post part 1 & 2 ).

Getting into the habit of making and eating breakfast was the the first change for me when I arrived to the farm, it was something that I had to actively remind myself to do every morning because I usually skip breakfast and as a result my body was not used to digesting food so early. When I had breaks I would eat crap like crisps or noodles because I knew that I would not finish anything of actual sustenance and I could throw it out if the guilt of eating got to me which it did, more often than not. On the other hand, sometimes I would work through breaks rather than rush a job or stop for food, or that is what I preferred to do anyway. I would work faster if I had another task that I had to move onto, but not if it was just a matter of making time to eat, that I did not care about. Eating at night was the worst for me, probably because I don’t sleep well if I eat late, it makes me feel bloated and disgusting and resentful. When I was in hospital or at home I used to get up in the middle of the night and make myself sick in the bathroom, regurgitating all the food that I had eaten during the day and the sense of release and relief that I felt was overwhelming. I still hated myself for it, but it was like I did not have control of my own body. I could not stop myself. I just needed to feel empty before I could sleep. However, I did not want to bring past behaviours to Farm Animal Rescue. It did not feel right, in fact it would have been akin to taking several steps backwards, metaphorically speaking. I did not work on my mental health for so long only to regress while I was volunteering at an animal rescue sanctuary, something that I always wanted to do but never thought would happen due to my self -sabotaging patterns. To adapt to feeding myself everyday was a work in progress because I had to actively think about it first, whereas most people do not have to think about it at all. It became force of habit which surprised me, especially since I had lost the ability to feel hunger pangs a long time ago, my body does not recognize or respond to hunger signals anymore ( this is something that happens to many people with eating disorders ) which is why I had to mentally tell myself everyday to eat, but even that started to feel natural rather than anxiety – provoking like it did when I first started at the farm. I stopped obsessing over what I ate and how much, or I was not stuck in my own head trying to memorize everything that I ate in the day so far as we drove down the back. I just stopped caring; and the animals were a big part of that. I don’t know how or what it was about them, but the more I interacted with them the more I grew to adore them and then to love them. They were beautiful, sentient beings who made me feel like I did not have over a decade of living with anorexia and bulimia behind me, whereas I often feel like I cannot talk to people about it because they think that doing so is a ploy for attention or sympathy, but animals are not like that. They don’t make me feel like I’m under a microscope. They’re creatures who do not need to do anything in particular and yet I still feel free to talk to them about anything, and I did. I would talk to them about my family, my friends, my ED history, relationships, even my therapist. It is ironic because I went to Farm Animal Rescue with the intention of learning about the animals and taking care of them, but in the end I feel like they did more for me than the other way around.