Can I fix my life?

LegacyUser

Im 37 now(male) and when I was 18 I developed an eating disorder. It developed in response to me retreating from people and the world which in turn was a response to a fairly traumatic life I'd had up until that point(Pretty violent childhood). It was more of a binge eating thing, where I'd starve myself mon- fri and then binge sat & sun. I never put on any weight, well I never became overweight or anything. I used exercise as a purging mechanism, so it was a form of bulimia. It went all throughout college, where my life consisted of starvation, bingeing, exercise, study, that was it. I never developed friendships in college as a result of being completley consumed by the binge/purge cycle. I graduated, got a job but I hated it and then decided to abandon the field I had studied completely. I got kind of a menial job and there I stayed til now basically.
I have however overcome the eating disorder. It has taken a lot of years. I really started to battle it in 2003 and so its taken that long to whip it. But I have beaten it and I feel great physically. But as a consequence of overcoming the eating disorder I have removed my defense mechanism that protected me against how isolated and and empty my life is. I dont have a family, that imploded many years ago(and I think was one of the reasons I developed the eating disorder in the first place) and so it feels like I have this big gaping void inside of me. As a result of being disconnnected from people and life for so long, I have no real friends and little or no social network. I dont have a girlfriend, in my adult life I've had one relationship and that was a disaster as I was still very much in the throws of the eating disorder at the time and I dont think I was able to have a healthy relationship with anybody. That was 6 years ago.
I worked really hard to overcome the eating disorder but now that its gone I feel really exposed. Its only really been in the last year that I've fully been able to stop the behavior but Im looking at my life and Im thinking, Holy crap Im in a bad situation here. I need to re-build a career and a social life and its a daunting task. I've tried a few things, I joined a club and people were nice and all but everybody seems to be sorted in the friends dept, theres no hanging out afterwards or anything like that. Christmas is almost here and I love this time of year, always have, but without my eating disorder to protect me I feel the full brunt of my situation. Everywhere I look Im reminded of what I dont have, families, groups of friends, couples, you cant get away from it. I try to stay positive but its painful. I dont want to turn into one of those people who hates christmas or just turns bitter and angry because they dont feel loved but I can see how that could happen to a person. I dont want to end up like that, I dont want to be the guy who ends up alone at christmas for the rest of his life. I accept thats the way it is right now but I want to change things and ultimately create my own family but right now I just dont know how Im gonna get myself out of this mess Im in. Is it even possible?

I guess my question is can I fix this and create the life I want?

boomchicawawa

Firstly, well done on conquering your eating disorder. To be honest, if you whipped that problem, you should be capable of building a new life for yourself. But the advice is, just do it in small chucks, you're not going to get a perfect family set up instantly. You need to build the foundations and work on it from there.

Joining a club was a good move, if there is something missing in that club, join something else. I always feel that volunteering is a great idea if you're feeling a bit low, you will see that your effort is appreciated, not necessarily in a verbal way, but it does the soul good to give something without getting something in return. You may also find really genuine people in these situations, people who are happy to reach out to others including yourself.

We all beat ourselves up with what we don't achieve, you should take stock of what you have achieved and use the same 'can do' attitude you found to shake off the eating disorder. Everything else will follow naturally, don't give up...by this time next year, things may be very different, there are many lonely people out there like yourself, vow to achieve just one thing this year and place all your energy into achieving this. I wish you the best of luck!

Sleepy

Are you in Dublin OP? There's a boards beers on Saturday night (details on After Hours forum) that can, in my experience be a great place to make new friends. Hell there's been quite a few boards.ie weddings at this stage...

And of course you can fix your life: you've already done the hardest bit!

donkey oatey

Wow, well done OP. What a huge accomplishment!
I've moved country a few yes and felt that feeling you describe of coming into a situation where everyone is friended up already. In the past I've found that if I looked again there was someone not friended up too; look for people going out for cigarettes frequently or jumping from chat to chat with different people. They may "seem" sorted for friends but those people are either the social hamsters and always like to meet new people or are hoping that a chat will reveal shared things.
When you do find someone to chat to and you get on, I have a couple of lines prepared to make sure contact can be kept (it's very frustrating when you meet a nice potential friend and then strain the conversation with 'so, can I get your number? Not like that, you just seem nice so I thought we could meet up and chat some more? Not like a date!' Unfortunately, certain questions sound like you're asking for a date. So I offer to send info about something we talked about via Facebook or something like that.
Have you seen meetup.com? It's a great site for doing interesting things with random people.

donkey oatey

Wow, well done OP. What a huge accomplishment!
I've moved country a few yes and felt that feeling you describe of coming into a situation where everyone is friended up already. In the past I've found that if I looked again there was someone not friended up too; look for people going out for cigarettes frequently or jumping from chat to chat with different people. They may "seem" sorted for friends but those people are either the social hamsters and always like to meet new people or are hoping that a chat will reveal shared things.
When you do find someone to chat to and you get on, I have a couple of lines prepared to make sure contact can be kept (it's very frustrating when you meet a nice potential friend and then strain the conversation with 'so, can I get your number? Not like that, you just seem nice so I thought we could meet up and chat some more? Not like a date!' Unfortunately, certain questions sound like you're asking for a date. So I offer to send info about something we talked about via Facebook or something like that.
Have you seen meetup.com? It's a great site for doing interesting things with random people.

stickybookmark

Hi OP, I was in your position at one point in my life, and I found that making positive lifestyle changes helped. Now that you conquered that eating disorder why not take your health to the next level and start getting involved in sport or running? It's easy enough to find a 5a side soccer team or a group that go running/training or cycling together- start with googling it! Other things I found useful for boosting social life &friends:
-housemates, instead of living on your own try renting and sharing with like minded people, that seem like the sociable sort
- work, I see people in work striking up new friendships with each other even in their 50s! It's never too late
- clubs/activities: ok you tried 1 and it didn't have what you were looking for, but either give it more time (these things need time to grow) or try other clubs and different types of groups. There's alot out there if you-re willing to put the effort in:
Volunteering, amateur drama, evening classes, meetup.com, tag rugby (you don't need to be able to play any sport to start), boards.i.e nights out.
You'll have to be proactive but you'll get there eventually!

TheBully

No ur focked

Neyite

Thebully, welcome to PI. Please read the charter before posting again

LegacyUser

Op here, thanks for the replies everybody, sorry Im only responding now. Christmas was good. I got invited to a house party on stephens day which was really nice. It was an eye opener for me in that I got to see something I thought only existed in the movies. It was with the family of a friends girlfriend and it just highlighted to me how dysfunctional my own family and upbringing was. The sense of togetherness and love they had for each other was unreal, they made me feel very welcome and part of their family, only if it was for just one night. I got to see how stand offish I am and how little I trust people, even though I was surrounded by nice people I felt very uneasy and had my guard up most of the time. When somebody was nice to me I was confused. I was thinking, why is this person being nice to me? I kept waiting for the moment when somebody would take a swing at me or slag me off at the very least, but it never happened.
Anyway I see that I have a lot of work to do. I feel optimistic though, I keep telling myself I can do this, I can turn things around. I definitely feel like its a choice, that I can choose to let my life stay as it is or I can make it into something I want it to be. Im still not sure how Im gonna do this but Im gonna try at the very least.