Well hello there fellow Waffle Chops!
Lovely to hear from you!

Glad you're feeling positive. Bask in that minute, my friend! Bask!
Glad to hear all is well with the bloods.

Could the tiredness still be authentic though? I mean, do you think it could be a physical symptom of mental strain? (anxiety, stress and depression can be exhausting!)
Yay to sunshine!

Yay to theatre! What did you see? I love the theatre! Darrrrrrling!
My week?

Spent all day Monday and Sunday in a mad panic wanting to make the house 'perfect' for when my parents returned home from their weekend break. Thankfully my therapy session had prepared me for the inevitable criticism.
I had made sausage rolls. They're my mother's absolute favourite. She said 'they won't be the same in the microwave. They will taste awful!' within 20 minutes of being home. Then she started saying they hadn't had a very good time away together and they argued moments after. Later, my mother wanted the one stupid little tiny thing I forgot to pick up. Honey, of all things.
Yesterday, she noticed that I had cleaned the oven. I spent ages doing this Monday. Anyone would have thought the world was ending!

In all fairness, I used a highly flammable product to clean it.

She isn't happy that I stopped my ESA. She isn't happy that I am washing dishes. She called me a 'skeleton' and a 'scarecrow' and is the only one who gives me the reality check if how much I am locked into anorexia.

She said she has had enough and that she wishes I had joined the community (long story. I was due to join a convent in India with a very strict order that didn't see family for ten years at a time. I was accepted and everything but spent time volunteering in a different community environment in Bosnia months before and ended up with depression, that led to a full mental breakdown.... and here I am today. It took me AGES to get over the pain of not joining but I am okay with it all now. Whistle stop tour there.

) She says I NEED help but the ED services are just non-existent.
I've surprised myself with how I've responded to this though. The negative thoughts about failing and being rubbish have not been entertained. In future, I am not going to overcompensate and go to the extreme about making everything 'just so'. I will do the basics, but nothing will ever be approved of so my energy will be better spent elsewhere.
My mother just wants to see me weight restored. I have been experiencing a very weird sense of detachment for a long time. I believe it's the medication but perhaps it's living in anorexia too. Like being lost in my own little world. I don't even feel anorexic. The CMHT have honestly verbalised to me 'you look so well and right as you are', and the ED team have disappeared off the face of the earth. People at Church who have watched me slip into anorexia have recently asked me to make sausage rolls for them for Christmas (my mother is very against this), and nobody at college, church, work or in the family ever mentions it, suspects it or comments on my weight or eating habits. When my weight was dropping to this point, everyone was concerned. But at this level seems to be accepted. I therefore wonder, 'Am I even I'll?', 'Am I even anorexic?', 'Is there anything wrong with me?'

I don't even feel real. I feel alright. Not bad. Just.... not real.
What the heck?! Random waffles left, right and centre.
Hm, so criminology....

Three out of six have dropped out. The only person remaining that I clique with couldn't face it last week because one man there triggers her. She argued with him the previous week!

She said she had had a bad day and knew she would likely end up exploding at him!

He is very disruptive, takes up SO MUCH class time and is too intense. At college, I was speaking to the tutor when he bursts in the classroom, butts in, cuts me off and starts ranting about his personal life?!?

Then when we are given fake crime scenes to try and figure out, he really loudly is going 'HM! HMMM! HMMMMMM!!', scribbling down notes at top speed and scratching his head. The whole atmosphere had changed. The content of the class was quite unpleasant and I just thought that with that man (I don't even know his name!

) dominating the class, my brain was NOT in a place to even attempt the work. So I politely asked to leave. I feel sorry for the one remaining student I left behind with him!

It's a shame because he is ruining the course! I will go next week (hopefully the nice lady who I travel in with will be going!!) and if it's the same feeling then I may finish the course when it runs again or see if I can complete the assignments at home. Only five sessions left so it would be a shame not to get the end qualification.
Work is going well. I like the people and it goes quickly. My mother and my therapist are concerned about the hours so I told my boss how I tend to 'run before I can walk'. I asked to work less (maximum 20 hours weekly) not because I don't want to work but because I DO. I will have to tell a small porky pie lie to my mother that I am only working Friday night instead of Friday day and night (she's at work in the day).

I find it SO HARD to be assertive.
If you've made it this far, congrats.
All the best with reducing the meds. Just take it one day at a time. Keep me posted.
Until the next waffle,
Your chatterbox chum xxx