Since reading "Eat Pray Love" at 14 years old (I know, I'm a massive white girl), I've wanted to travel by myself ✈️ I fell in love the idea of being an intrepid explorer, a fearless eater of all cuisines, a free spirit who'll try anything once, if only for the story 🌎 For many anxiety-related reasons, I am NOT that person. I'm fretful and I overthink and food is still, after many years of eating disorders recovery, scary. BUT despite my neuroses, today I'm fulfilling my dream of travelling *solo* for the first time ever 💫
.
I'm going to New York, the big bad city I grew up watching in such classics as "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" and "The Devil Wears Prada" (again, white girl, sorry) 🗽🌃🌉 I'm very very lucky to be able to do this, and it's a huge deal for me. Just yesterday I was freaking out about American food and feeling overwhelmed by the thought of a border guard barking questions at me 🙃 But here I am, feeling the fear and doing it anyway 💪
.
A friend once told me their favourite quote: "A ship is safe in the harbour, but that's not what a ship is for"⛵ I love this. It reminds me that even if something is scary, even if it feels overwhelming, even if I'm convinced I will not be able to handle it - if I want it, I have to do it. And it will be fine. Perhaps not perfect, but it will, in the grand, metaphysical sense, be fine 😌
.
[Image description: Abi stands in front of an aeroplane on a blue-skied morning. She wears glasses and her hair is in plaits. She looks tired, but she's smiling]
.
#travel #anxioustraveller #anxiety #mentalhealth #eatingdisorder #recovery #anorexiarecovery #wellbeing #recoverywin #anxietyqueen #newyork
⛔✋BREAKING NEWS: you deserve to eat what you want and NOT feel guilty 👏😎
.
This is ✨rare footage✨ of me actually enjoying a meal. At this point, I've experienced disordered eating for 11 years - that's a LOT of meals that have been ruined by all-consuming anxiety and guilt. That's also a LOT of social occasions that have been avoided or barely engaged with because I couldn't cope with eating unfamiliar foods, eating at different times, eating in front of people. And it's a LOT of hours of my life spent obsessively calorie-counting, compulsively exercising, aggressively body-checking, when I could have been reading, writing, making music. I can't get those hours back, and that sometimes makes me really fucking sad 😔
.
But I CAN change my future. I CAN empower myself not to let that anxiety and guilt get the best of me. I CAN choose to feel the fear and do it anyway, so that when I'm 80 and a wacky old lady who wears quirky hats, I can say I lived a damn good life, full of joy and new experiences and fulfilment 😌
.
You deserve better than a life lived under the weight of all that guilt 🤗 You deserve to feel full, physically and mentally 🤗 You deserve the help you need to get you to a place of freedom with food, so you can make true choices based on appetite, intuition, ethical principles - not fear 🤗
.
PS the liu sha bao (salted egg custard steamed bun) are SO LEGIT at Din Tai Fung 😋 The also have dim sum options for folks with vegan/veggie and allergy requirements which is a rare and beautiful thing 👌
.
[Image description: Abi is sitting in a restaurant eating a steamed bao, which when she bites into it, oozes runny golden custard. She looks really happy about how good it tastes]
.
#eatingdisorderrecovery #foodguilt #disorderedeating #fuckdietculture #eatingwell #eatup #anorexia #anorexiarecovery #weightrestored #bao #dimsum #dintaifung #intuitiveeating #health #mentalhealth
It's an honour to walk beside you 👫 Sometimes it baffles me that on a planet of 7 billion people, we 2 met each other in a flat in London on a drizzly October day.
.
We come from very different places - physically and metaphorically. He grew up in Singapore 🇸🇬, I grew up in the UK 🇬🇧. He attended private school 🎓, I attended comprehensive school 👔. He grew up in a large extended family 👨👩👧👦👨👧👦👨👩👧, I barely ever see mine 👨👩👧👦. He's a Millennial 💾, I'm Generation Z 📱. And yet we both found ourselves at the LSE, in the same year group, making friends with the same person, who inadvertently connected us that one drizzly October day in London 🤷♀️
.
The world is baffling and I'm grateful for its mysteries, for they brought me you @wahluns 😇
.
PS photo creds to my dad who was highly embarrassing and ran around us thinking he was sneakily getting a picture when we all knew exactly what was happening 😄
.
[Image description: in the first picture, Abi and Will walk away from the camera. In the second picture, they walk towards the camera with smiles on their faces. They are dressed formally: Will wears a grey suit, forest green shirt and purple tie, whilst Abi wears a yellow dress, leather jacket and floral high heels.]
It's OK to sashay away from people/places/things that no longer serve you 🤸♀️
.
I'm a sucker for an inspirational quote and my fave one recently has been:
.
✨ The woman you're becoming will cost you people, relationships, spaces and material things. Choose her over everything.✨
.
(idk who said this btw - does anyone know who to credit? 🤔)
.
When I started recovery, I was terrified of myself 😳 For years I had wrestled to be something I wasn't - a quieter, gentler, less ambitious, less opinionated woman. I believed that being this smaller version of myself was the only way I could ever be valued and loved 😔
.
My distorted beliefs were reinforced by toxic people in my life at that time 🙇♀️ An ex-boyfriend told me my intelligence was "intimidating" and asked me to stop talking about things he didn't understand cos I "made him feel like an idiot". My former best friend told me I was "intense" and if I just "chilled out" then other people would like me. I existed in an echo chamber of negativity that made me hypervigilant, watching every word that came out of my mouth for fear I was being "too much" or "not enough" 🙊
.
A major break through in my recovery came when I realised those people were wrong. Another came when I cut them out of my life for good.
.
Sometimes the only way to move on with YOUR life and YOUR journey is to let go of those who want to change you or change the path you choose to take 👋 It's not easy - I lost my entire friendship group when I stood up to my so-called best friend. It was a deeply painful time that still haunts me, but despite it all, I wouldn't change my decision for the world.
.
The woman I'm becoming deserves more than to be silenced and minimised and bullied. I will honour her no matter the cost 😌
.
What do you need to let go of to grow? ❤️
.
#recovery #quote #personalgrowth #anxiety #edrecovery #anorexiarecovery #wellbeing #wellness #selflove #acceptance #movingon #inspo #travel #mhaw #mentalhealthawareness
In my natural habitat 🌳☀️💃 I know every corner of this woodland back to front. It has been a vital part of every stage of my life:
.
👶 When I was a kid, my family would bring me to play pooh sticks in the stream that wound through the valley.
.
🤸♀️ As a teenager, I'd come here with my friends to while away lazy summer afternoons, and "revise" for our exams.
.
🙇♀️ Whilst I was sick with anorexia, it was the place I took out all my pent up anger and anxiety and restlessness, stomping around the fields and up and down the hills until I felt human again.
.
🧘♀️ On my trips home from uni, I savoured the wide open spaces and peace and quiet here, retreating from the noise and pollution in London and taking refuge among the trees.
.
👩🦰 Now I'm living at home again and this woodland helps me energise and unwind on my commute to and from work. It's also the place I insist on bringing my boyfriend everytime he visits, because I love the way the pathways and fields and nooks and crannies that I'm so familiar with can surprise him.
.
I am very lucky to have access to such an amazing woodland, right on my doorstep. Living in London really made me appreciate how glorious getting out in nature can be. I need these green spaces for my mental health and sense of being connected to the world 😌
.
What helps you feel connected and grounded? 💚
.
#nature #woodland #forest #outdoors #wellbeing #placetovisit #wellness #mentalhealthawareness #mhaw #mentalhealth #recovery #anorexiarecovery #eatingdisorder #eatingdisorderrecovery #edrecovery #greenspace #environment
