Friday 27 March 2015

A trip to the dentist means I will be hungry for a few days

After having surgery on my wisdom tooth a few months ago I realised that there are very few foods that I eat which are soft enough to be eaten after such a procedure.

Today I had another wisdom tooth pulled, although I had it pulled in the regular fashion rather than the surgery I had to have last time to remove just part of it. I am hoping this will mean a quicker recovery than last time.

I also had some work done on an old filling but since that tooth has no nerve I don't expect any problems with that one.

I am in a decent amount of pain despite taking the strong painkillers I take for my back. I cant take anti-inflammatories till at least tomorrow because its still bleeding a little and they thin your blood. I hope by tomorrow it stops bleeding and I am able to take my mega-strong anti-inflammatories because that would hopefully allow me to eat something.

Thursday 26 March 2015

Losing the battle

I have not updated the blog for a while, partly because I have been really busy offline but mostly because I really have nothing to say.

When I started this blog I intended to help educate people about selective eating disorder and write about my struggle to try and eat healthier. Recently I have not been doing well.

The amount of hours I am working just now while also trying to write an essay and study for an exam are making planning and cooking ahead of time very difficult and I have slipped back into the habit of eating the same things over and over again because I know they are safe.

This is not how I want to be. I don't want to eat the same unhealthy junk every day, I want so badly to be healthy, or at least healthier. I accept my limitations and I know my diet will never be completely healthy but I honestly thought I could improve and I have been trying so hard.

Thursday 12 March 2015

I tried a new food - it didn't work out

As I said in a few of my earlier posts, I am really struggling to find food that I can take to work with me. I tend to take the same few things over and over again and none of them are healthy.

I went to the supermarket today, and decided to try one of their pre-made pastas, the ones you just eat cold out of the tub. I have only tried one such thing before and I didn't like it but this one seemed like something I would like, just pasta, chicken, bacon and mayonnaise.

I checked the ingredients to make sure there would be no nasty surprises like onions and decided to buy two. The reasoning being that I could try one today and if I liked it then I could have it for dinner on nightshift tomorrow night. I came home, put the shopping away and sat down with my pasta.

I actually wasn't worried about it at all, I knew I liked everything in it and I have had some success with trying new foods which are combinations of foods I know I like. I figured this would also be a success and put a tiny piece of pasta in my mouth.

It tasted horrible, like onions. I have no idea how it tasted like onions because I made sure there was none in there but that's what it tasted like. I immediately had to spit it out and I kept heaving like I was going to throw up. Luckily I had a glass of pepsi max to hand and I was able to wash away the taste before I was actually sick but I haven't been able to eat anything else all day. Since I hadn't had anything before that either that means I have had nothing to eat all day.

If you ask me that's a big part of the reason I cant lose weight, all the experts these days say you need to eat regularly to lose weight - at least three meals a day. I could count on one hand the amount of times I eat three meals a day, sometimes when I am working I may eat three times but I certainly wouldn't call them meals. When I am at home I sometimes manage twice a day but often only once.

I still see today as a sort of accomplishment because I wasn't too scared to try this new food, I just wish I had been able to like or even just tolerate it.

Thankfully I am all to used to not liking things and I have a back up plan in place. I have my dinner for tomorrow night cooking away in my slow cooker as I type, perhaps I will even manage something small to eat before bed.

Wednesday 11 March 2015

This article just really upset me

I was doing a bit of research, partly for blog post ideas and partly because I like to look for stories of how people have overcame their picky eating (these stories are few and far between) or how they have managed to lose weight in spite of their issues.

I came across this article https://munchies.vice.com/articles/i-infiltrated-the-online-community-of-adult-picky-eaters The title made me think that the article might be poking fun at people like me and I decided to give it a look over and see what it was saying. I am not against contacting the owner of a site and putting them straight, in fact I did so recently where a TV company had written a 'factsheet' on Selective Eating Disorder. They had used a really inappropriate image for the article and many of their facts were incorrect so I emailed them to let them know. They didn't change the facts, but they did change the image.

Anyway back to the article we are actually talking about here. The article itself was actually in no way upsetting, I actually think it did a reasonably good job of explaining picky eating, online support groups and how important they are to people like me. The comments were what I found upsetting.

The site the article is published on has a policy of not censoring comments. Their policy is none of my business but it wouldn't be the way I would go. After all as site/blog owners its up to us to make sure the content of our site/blog is not offensive or illegal, whether we wrote it or not. Their unwillingness to moderate comments means that this article is full of comments that are really offensive to picky eaters like me.

I have a thick skin, always been that way. Something to do with being an only child, growing up in a very small town and working in a pub for a little short of a decade I think. However even I was a little upset by some of the comments on this particular article.

There are a lot of the usual 'these people are like that because their parents let them away with being fussy as a kid' and 'if you were mine I would have just kept putting the same meal down over and over again, you would have gotten hungry enough to eat it eventually' type of comments. Those really don't bother me that much, I have heard them all before and a whole lot worse.

The ones that bother me are the ones where people like me are actually being verbally attacked for being the way we are. One particularly vile commenter also asks the person above them if they also wet the bed and still live with their mum, calling their behaviour childish. All the person had done to warrant this 200 word plus rant was point out that putting the same food down to them time and time again hadn't worked for them.

I just don't understand why people can't be a little more respectful to others. I know that people like me have eating habits that others don't understand but what I don't get is why we attract such vile hatred from people. No one would ever attack a person with anorexia or bulimia in the way they attack people with selective eating disorder.

I understand that it's because selective eating disorder or avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder as its now medically known isn't as well known as other eating disorders. In fact here in the UK if you were able to get a diagnosis it would likely be 'eating disorder not otherwise specified' but that doesn't give people the right to attack us. Just because our disorder is not as well known as other eating disorders doesn't mean its any less real.

I just wish that people would take just a minute to think about what we actually go through. I don't doubt for a second that every single person with selective eating disorder would do anything to just have a 'normal' diet. Many people have tried everything from hypnotherapy to exposure therapy, which by the way is very distressing for someone like me, in the hope that something will help.

If you don't understand what we go through then I invite you to do some reading, this is a great blog: www.mealtimehostage.com and actually the page I visited that first made me realise that there were actually other people like me out there. If you don't want to read about it then ask us a question, most of us are more than happy to share our experience to try and better the understanding of our disorder.

If you don't want to do any of those things that's fair enough but remember the old saying 'if you have nothing nice to say then say nothing' and please just leave us alone. We struggle more than enough daily without vile insults on the internet being directed at us. We know all the things you are going to tell us already - we have an unhealthy diet. We are fully aware of that and people online pointing it out over and over again does nothing to help us.

For the selective eaters reading this I encourage you to read the meal time hostage blog and even join one of the many online support groups. They are safe places for people like us where we can discuss our struggles without anyone firing insults at us.

Monday 9 March 2015

Do you have any dietary requirements?

This was one of the questions on the form for booking tickets to my graduation ball in November. Thankfully I have taken charge of booking my table's tickets or I would never have known about this box.

I simply entered 'would appreciate a call/email to discuss' I mean how on earth am I supposed to explain my food issues in a tiny box?

Normally I don't bother, I just eat what I can of whatever arrives and leave the rest but the tickets are costing a fortune and its an all night event where I doubt I will have a chance to sneak out for alternative food. Since I am paying a fortune for the tickets, I feel I am entitled to at least make sure there is something I can eat.

I have no idea if they will even bother to call me, and if they do I have no idea what on earth I am going to say. I have only ever been to one black tie event before in my life and I was given no option of what to eat. It was one of those fancy five course things and I still remember that the starter was salmon mouse which I couldn't even look at. I don't like salmon let alone salmon that's blended up to the point where it resembles baby food! The main was chicken which was actually edible but then gave the whole office food poisoning and the pudding was something weird and wonderful that I didn't even taste. I have no idea what the other courses were but I am guessing I didn't eat them.

I am hoping that they do call and that when they do I will be able to ask them what the planned meal is, that way I will be able to decide if its edible or not and what I can do to modify it. I think that would be better than trying to list all the things I can and can't eat.

Saturday 7 March 2015

I need to try and plan better for work

Being on four nightshifts this week has made me realise that I really need to plan my meals better for work. Where I am is nowhere near the canteen, not that being near the canteen makes a huge difference - hospital canteen food is usually barely edible to me anyway. So I need to take my own food in with me. I have access to a microwave and toaster in work which helps a lot since there are not many cold foods that I can actually eat.

The problem is that there are just not many foods I can eat that can be taken to work for lunch, its not easy to take a full meal in, heat it up and eat it within half an hour. Most people bring sandwiches or snack type foods, the rest bring ready meals.

There are only two ready meals I know of that I can eat and I don't just want to eat the same two meals over and over again. I need to get more organised, especially if I want to stick to my healthier eating plan. I am going to make a shopping list tonight and stick to it when I go to the supermarket tomorrow.

I also haven't been to the gym this week which isn't making me feel too good about myself, but I just haven't had time with the four back to back nightshifts. I will try and fit in a wee hour or so in the gym tomorrow as well if I can, I will also check my weight. In theory I should have lost some weight since I have been so much more active over the last two weeks running about a massive hospital ward. However I don't think that will be the case, I have never lost weight on a placement, mostly because all I can eat when I am there is toast and junk food.

I also plan to spend some time tomorrow coming up with ideas for more informative blog posts. When I started this blog my intention was to try and convey how difficult it is for someone like me. How difficult it is to cope with social engagements that involve food, how hard it is to eat on the go, and how much of a struggle it is to lose weight. I wanted to tell people what selective disorder is and what it is really like to suffer from it, I also wanted to help people who are dealing with the same thing or have children who are. I feel all I have done recently is babble on about my own struggle, which was a part of what I had planned to do as I think it demonstrates how hard life can be with an eating disorder like mine, but that was never intended to be the blogs main purpose.

Perhaps it would help me to have some questions, so if you have any please leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer them in my next post.

Friday 6 March 2015

Nightshift is a nightmare!

I actually normally really enjoy nightshift, it's not as busy as day shift (although still busy in my current ward) which means I get loads of time to chat to the qualified staff and ask them questions. It really is a good learning experience and I am quite lucky that staying up all night is not a massive problem for me.

However on my run of four nightshifts in a row the last four days I have had a massive problem. One of the auxiliary nurses has been bringing food for everyone. The first night she brought pasta with loads of veggies and stuff in it, last night she brought baked potatoes and chilli, I cant even remember what she brought on the other two nights but I know I couldn't eat it.

It's really hard to refuse food that someone has went to the trouble of preparing for you, she had made sure she had extra for me being there so there would be enough for everyone. People don't understand, I know that and I actually don't expect them to. I just wish people wouldn't get offended when I cant eat what they have brought. In fairness to her I don't think she was offended but people usually are.

What bothers me more than that though is the attitude of the other people eating, people always think its so strange that I am not eating the food that's been brought in preferring to eat my own food. I don't understand why what I eat bothers anyone else, surely its not their problem.

Anyway, I am very tired having done four nights in a row and not slept yet today. I apologise for not updating much this week, I do normally update regularly but this week has been a bit difficult for me. I plan to take a nap just now and then maybe try to make some dinner that's at least a little healthy. That's the other problem with nightshift, you eat rubbish no matter how hard you try not to. For some reason you are always hungrier and someone is always making toast or handing out chocolates, although chocolates aren't actually a problem for me as I don't like them but toast is another matter - I love toast.