u/starburststan

Hi all,

I’m having a real issue with finding my weigh-ins at the ED clinic really triggering. The reason for this is because my appointments are really random - sometimes it will be at 8am so I won’t really have eaten or drank yet, and sometimes it’s at 4pm after a full day of working, eating and drinking. I’ll also be wearing different clothes so sometimes my full work uniform (heavy trousers and a sweatshirt) vs leggings and a t-shirt.

This means that my weight fluctuates pretty significantly but my team don’t seem to factor that in. If I’ve ‘gained’ even 100g, they will congratulate me on having a good week even though I’ve explicitly told them that I’ve still been restricting and losing weight. I get the impression they think I’m exaggerating if I try and push back on this and say that it’s not accurate.

This makes me feel like I need to restrict even more in the day or two leading up to my appointment and even restrict fluids so that I’m not carrying any water weight to my appointments. I’ve even (embarrassingly) rushed to change clothes after work so that I always get weighed in the same thing.

Is there anyone else who has a situation like this? How can I get my team to understand that a week-by-week change with so many factors affecting my weight just isn’t a reliable indicator of how my weight and eating actually is?

I’m a Maths teacher so heavy on whiteboard use. I’ve done pretty well this year and most of my equipment is in tact but there are still pupils who do things like break pens, leave lids off whitepens and on the floor, snap the corners from whiteboards, rip whiteboard rubbers into pieces etc. I had folders on desks with equipment in that have been doodled all over and so on.

It’s partially been my own silly fault for leaving the equipment out on desks when other staff/cover and classes are using my room so I will be making sure to pack those away every time next academic year. However, it’s definitely been happening during my classes too as it only takes one kid who doesn’t have any respect for you or your things to destroy a whole pack worth of equipment.

How do you guys manage equipment like this especially with challenging classes? I want to take more pride in my classroom next year and hold students responsible for doing the same.

I have been really unwell with an eating disorder for almost a year now and I am about to start a day patient service in two weeks. I’m really keen to recover, like genuinely excited and ready to commit fully, but currently not in a place where I’m able to manage it well on my own. My struggles are very obvious to others at this point due to how I look and how my eating habits are. I know that my colleagues are aware and have discussed this about me but they’ve never broached the subject with me out of respect, I imagine.

The issue is that I have a colleague who seems also to struggle with eating but is open in talking about it in our staff room and the rest of our colleagues rally around her giving her sympathy and support. She’s never explicitly said that she has an eating disorder but she won’t eat very much at meal times and everyone is around her encouraging her to eat and so on. She alludes to the fact that she doesn’t eat much in general pretty often.

I can’t help but feel a bit invalidated because nobody is like this towards me. I know it’s because I’m not open about my disorder and people don’t want to just assume and make me uncomfortable but it’s insanely triggering watching someone get upset about not wanting to eat their lunch and being given floods of support every lunch time while I am also struggling to eat. It’s like being inpatient but I’m at work!?

Any advice on what I can do? Is the solution to eat lunch away from the staff room and miss out on social interaction with colleagues? I don’t want to make a big deal out of it and make her feel like she can’t talk about things. I’m worried that this will be really hard to navigate when I get out of day patient and have to try and maintain my new eating habits and could lead to skipping lunch which is how this all began for me in the first place…

I’m a reasonably new leader (~ 1 year in post). I’m responsible for driving improvements in performance in a team of 12 which involves coaching cycles, running professional development, launching initiatives in line with company priorities and also all of the other additional admin that comes with being a leader.

At the same time, I still work a significant amount of hours in the same role as my team and because I am a leader I invest a lot of time into refining my practice and making sure I am doing an excellent job to set an example.

Trying to find the balance between these two things is really difficult. Around 3/4 of my working hours are accounted for so that I have to be working my ‘shop floor’ role during which I cannot get anything done as it requires 100% of my attention, and then the other 1/4 is my own time to direct which I can choose to spend either on my leadership responsibilities or on planning and organising my own workload (which is high because the role itself requires a significant amount of work).

I feel like I’m having to constantly decide between being an excellent leader or being an excellent employee which I don’t want to do - I want to be excellent at both because I don’t see how I can be a good leader if I’m not excelling in my own work. This means I’m working 12+ hour days on the regular and also often have to do work at weekends too.

Any tips from anyone else who works in a demanding, high workload field and had to strike a balance between managing that alongside being an effective leader? Is it just a given that you will be working an insane amount of hours in your early years as a leader?

I’m really flip flopping on recovery at the moment because I think I feel normal and fine. I know objectively I am unwell and I certainly don’t look normal and fine and this colours my interactions with other people, however I am still holding down a high pressure job, I still have energy for things, I still have hobbies and I still go out and do things.

I’m starting day patient treatment this week and I want to commit to it fully but I’m so scared that there’s ’no point’ as I feel fine. What if I recover and I just feel the same as now but in a body I’m uncomfortable in?

I guess I’m looking for perspective from anyone who is further along in recovery who also believed they felt fine and were keeping up with life but has realised since making steps in recovery that they now feel much better? I believe that I probably think I am fine but I have just forgotten what it feels like to not feel this way.

Recently I’ve attended two weddings, a bridal shower and a 30th birthday. At all of these events I’ve been in photographs that I know my face and body looks really unhealthy in. I just feel really awkward and embarrassed about the fact that if someone looks at the picture of what is someone else’s important event they’re likely to take note of the sick looking woman standing at the side. I just feel like I’m ruining important photographs for other people. Is that weird?

Hi everyone. I have an admission assessment meeting coming up very soon and for some reason I find myself so anxious about being invalid because they said they were going to ask me questions about where my daily intake is at and I feel like it’s high so they might think I’m not serious enough to need the extra help.

I exercise a lot and only restrict at a moderate deficit. I’m severely underweight and still losing and do accept I have a problem but I also feel like I’m not ‘that bad’ because my intake isn’t drastically low these days and I don’t restrict any food groups or fast or anything.

Please remind me I’m being silly!

I’m waiting on an inpatient admission. It’s NHS so it’s… slow. Like, I’ve been waiting for weeks kinda slow and still haven’t got even a rough idea of an admission date.

I’m struggling so bad trying to conduct my life business as usual while so unwell. I’m at work full time because I need to save any sick pay allowance for when I’m actually in hospital. I’m still having to take care of my pets and my home and just keep on top of general life.

I need a break so bad. I feel like I’m on a knife’s edge between holding it together and completely losing my shit.

I used to be really outgoing, social, friendly and fun. I’ve always loved being around other people and been the sort of person who could strike up a conversation with anyone.

Now, I find myself unable to think of anything to say, barely having the energy to concentrate on the other person and feeling embarrassed of how dumb I sound whenever I do speak. I avoid social occasions because I know I’m not fun to be around and I haven’t got the energy these days to mask how much effort everything takes.

This is genuinely my main motivation to recover. I feel like I’m watching myself from the outside and seeing my personality fade away more and more over time. I really dislike that the same people I used to laugh and joke with now look at me with pity and don’t know what to talk to me about other than my illness.

I’m going into PHP this week and I truly am ready to feel like myself again.

I am being admitted into a day patient programme (UK NHS) next week. I am really struggling to come to terms with the need for this - it took me a lot to convince my psychiatrist to do this rather than inpatient and I do hope that I am able to give it a reasonably good go.

However, although my BMI is very low, I am eating a pretty ‘normal’ amount of calories. I won’t share numbers but it is a good amount above the minimum recommended amount for dieting. I exercise a fair amount (walking and on my feet a lot) so this works out at a modest deficit for me and I have still being losing weight although more slowly these days.

The problem is that I don’t feel particularly unwell because of this. I know there’s no ‘sick enough’ and so on, however my energy levels are good, my concentration is good, my sleep is good and my mood is fairly good too. I feel for the most part like I’m on a regular diet with the caveat being that I’m extremely underweight. If I wasn’t underweight, nobody would consider my diet or behaviour to be disordered at all.

I previously restricted much more than I do now and felt much worse, so it’s weird to me that I’m about to access a higher level of care even though I feel okay. I don’t feel like I need to change anything because I feel much better now than I did then and I feel that this is sustainable for me long-term and compatible with me living a pretty full and rich life too.

Anyone else experience their disorder in a similar way to this? How can I get out of this mindset and accept that there’s a need to change?

Hi all,

I’m in quite a predicament. I have a serious health issue that I took six weeks off for earlier in the year and this used up my sick pay entitlement. Unfortunately my academy trust does not subscribe to burgundy book ‘carry over’ of previous years service so despite being a teacher of many years I receive the sick pay for a first year teacher. I didn’t know this until this happened because it doesn’t say this in the policy explicitly but… fine, whatever, that’s not really the issue.

The problem is that my health issue has significantly worsened and I am currently very unwell and under a lot of pressure from medical professionals to undergo hospital treatment which is likely to have me out of work for several weeks. I wanted to delay this until the summer holiday but there is a big risk to my life in doing so as things have become markedly worse.

I am at work currently although on (slightly) reduced hours as I’m in reality not well enough to be working but financially have no choice. I have been told that if I go off sick due to being admitted to hospital and am still off on the last day of term, I will not be paid in the summer as my sick pay entitlement has run out. I practically begged the school and submitted an appeal to allow me to ‘return to work’ on either the last day of term or the first day of summer to prevent this loss of pay over the holiday period as I am the breadwinner of my family and we will not be able to afford the mortgage if I am not receiving my full salary.

They wrote me back today to say: we have considered your appeal, and have decided not to agree. I feel like I am in an impossible situation where because of the poor timing of my hospital treatment I could potentially lose out on 8+ weeks worth of pay rather than just 2-3 weeks.

Does anyone have any advice? I suppose I just have to suck it up, get on with it and hope we can scrape by but god I feel so incredibly stressed by all of this. I have always been a really hard worker and gone above and beyond for my school and the knowledge that they are not prepared exercise discretion in this instance just to pay me over the holidays has really upset me, perhaps naively.

Hi all,

I have a student in my Year 10 class (Maths) who is currently working at a very secure grade 9 (as assessed by two full sets of mock exams this year) and has knowledge that we haven’t covered yet which I presume he has accumulated via independent learning and revision at home. I believe he has a parent who is a Maths teacher that has supported with this.

The problem is that I have a class ranging from students barely scraping a 4 all the way up to students who are working at a 7-8 aiming for a 9. For this reason, pitching the content in a way that isn’t going to just be boring for him is very difficult. I don’t want him to lose love for the subject but I’m not sure how to make it challenging enough without losing the rest of my class in the process. At the moment, I pitch content at around a grade 6-7 (ha ha) and provide challenging exam questions as an extension for the higher achievers but it feels uninspired.

Anyone ever had anything like this and how did you provide the correct level of challenge for that pupil?

Look, I want to recover. I fundamentally want my life back and to not feel so sick and exhausted all of the time. I want to be fun to be around. I want to be kinder to my loved ones. I really, truly do.

However - when there is a plate of food in front of me or an opportunity to engage in excessive exercise, it’s like that part of my brain switches off completely and is replaced by a different part that is fully committed to remaining in a deficit, losing weight and not interested in recovery. I cannot white knuckle through this because it is genuinely like … a different part of myself in that moment. This ‘me’ that wants to recover is GONE and replaced by this stubborn voice that says NO. There’s no reasoning with myself. I just will not do it.

I know recovery has to come from me but I feel so confused and exhausted by that sentiment. I feel so trapped inside of my own head and behaviours. This has been going on for months and I am at risk of serious medical complications and death now due to my weight and exercise levels but it still isn’t enough to override that part of my brain that kicks in when it comes to actually taking the actions required to recover.

It’s genuinely making me feel borderline suicidal (I will not actually do this) because I don’t know how I am supposed to be the one responsible for my recovery when I am not always in the driving seat and I can’t keep living like this, it’s destroying me and the people around me.

How do you do it?

I’m feeling really, really frustrated at the moment. I’m currently awaiting an admission into inpatient and have been struggling with coming to terms with this on top of my eating disorder being really strong at the moment. I won’t go into detail but I am very physically and mentally unwell at the moment.

Despite this, all of my support seems to have been dropped by my outpatient team and I’ve been left in a weird gap between services to fend for myself. I was in intensive outpatient prior to my admission referral which happened almost three weeks ago. My usual therapist has been off sick for three without a replacement so there hasn’t been any input from her and the team keep telling me they will call me on specific days for check-ins and to give me any updates but then forget to make contact and I have to email to chase it up which is making me feel like I’m being really demanding and annoying. I’ve had no weigh-ins or health monitoring for the duration of this period too.

The whole thing is just really disheartening and putting me off engaging with the process. I feel really alone and unsupported, just … waiting and deteriorating all on my own.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently waiting for an inpatient bed in the midlands - I was referred yesterday morning but haven’t been given a rough time frame and haven’t had any updates yet.

Has anyone got any experience with NHS wait times for an inpatient bed? I know it’s different depending on location but I’m just trying to prepare myself on whether it’ll be a matter of days, a couple of weeks, a month or whatever.

TW BMI
I’m not sure if it’s relevant but my BMI is in the ‘extreme AN’ category and I am experiencing heart-related complications so I don’t know if that would expedite this process or not.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently waiting for an inpatient bed in the midlands - I was referred yesterday morning but haven’t been given a rough time frame and haven’t had any updates yet.

Has anyone got any experience with NHS wait times for an inpatient bed? I know it’s different depending on location but I’m just trying to prepare myself on whether it’ll be a matter of days, a couple of weeks, a month or whatever.

TW BMI
I’m not sure if it’s relevant but my BMI is in the ‘extreme AN’ category and I am experiencing heart-related complications so I don’t know if that would expedite this process or not.