College Stress and Eating Disorder

LegacyUser

Hi,

Apologies in advance if this post is a bit all over the place and incoherent but I'm not really sure where to start, all I know is that I'm in desperate need of some advice.

I know this is the time of year where there are 101 new threads about college worries and I'm no different. Basically, I sat my leaving cert 2 years ago and while I did very well, I missed out on my dream course by 5 points and for some ridiculous reason I didn't repeat or take a gap year and apply elsewhere. After a very unhappy and stressful year and a bit of doing my second choice I decided to drop out and this year I applied again to what I really wanted to do; and I got in. I was absolutely thrilled and after a month and a bit I know I made the right choice.

This is where the problems begin, after barely having done any studying or real work since my leaving cert I cannot seem to motivate myself at all to do any work. My course has 30+ hours per week and a heavy workload on top of that so I simply can't afford to fall behind so this is all causing me quite a bit of stress. I simply do not know how to get back into the way of studying regularly.

Which leads me onto my second issue, in 6th year in school I developed bulimia, I put a lot of pressure on myself to do very well because I knew I was capable of it, but overall the year was a nightmare, I came out with brilliant grades but looking back, it really wasn't worth the damage to my health and mind it did. Over the next 2 years I went to a couple of doctors and therapists and I managed to stop the 'purging' aspects of my eating disorder but I was still binging. And still am.

This is starting to really worry me that I can't get through it, I don't believe I need more therapy, at this stage it feels like the binging is purely habit, I have done it for the last 3 years and my brain thinks its normal. The reason why I say I don't need therapy is that I am happy with pretty much all aspects of my life (or should be at least), I have great friends, family, studying my dream course and I have really worked on my self-esteem issues and I don't feel like that is a problem either. My eating disorder is starting to negatively affect my new course as well, some mornings after a 'binge day' I will feel so upset and low that I won't go in at all and end up missing quite a lot. I just don't know what to do about it anymore, is it just willpower at this stage?

That was a lot longer than planned sorry. If anyone has any advice at all I would appreciate it enormously. Thank you for reading this.

limerickbound

Look up 'brain over binge', its a blog and a book thats available to buy online. It completely explains what you've said about the binging being a habit you need to unlearn rather than a coping mechanism for when things go wrong.
The author herself went through what youre saying, in that there was nothing wrong with her life causing her to binge, except the urges to binge themselves! highly recc it, reviews online are fairly positive too. Hope that helped

Rubberchikken

I know you said you don't think you need more therapy, but woukdn't talking to someone help break the cycle of binging?

It's great that you held out for the course you want and if you got the bullemia under control, i think you would then find the focus for the course worl


Sorry not to have any great answers but i wish you the best.

Emme

OP I know you had therapy for your eating disorder but have you spoken to student counselling in your college? Have you spoken to your tutor about your workload? Student counselling should be able to advise you on managing your workload and coursework and managing your health.

Do you do any exercise, eg go for a walk or a cycle every day? Are you mixing and socialising with other people in college?

LegacyUser

OP here, thank you for all the replies.

I will look into that book, I've actually heard of it and I read an excerpt from it but I just felt it seemed almost too good to be true (which sounds stupid I know)! I've been binging for so long that I don't know how I could just stop completely all of a sudden after trying so many different things for several years. But I think I will look into buying it, thanks

I haven't really thought about going to a counsellor in college, I never found them beneficial before, I just felt I came out of the session feeling more upset and negative about everything because I'd basically spent an hour talking about the things that were going wrong in my life and I never felt the therapists really provided much advice.

I do try to get exercise but to be honest I haven't really since I started college, as I said I have very long hours and there is a lot of work to do on top of that so when I finish in the evening it is normally around 5-7pm and all I want to do is get home and relax and my commute takes me about 1hr 15 mins or so. The socialising aspect is going ok as well, I feel like I've settled in quite well but again (and I don't want to seem like a broken record) the workload and hours of the course have slightly stopped me joining many societies and our course will go out together when we can, but not too often.

Again I feel like that was a bit of a long rambly post but I'm just feeling very overwhelmed and at a loss as to what to do at the moment.

Thanks again for your replies