Bridget abroad: a fresh start (summer abroad)

Maybe the best thing for someone with a food disorder is to start again. Go somewhere be some else, something else. I’m not quite sure what of where but anything. For me this was Portugal, and I couldn’t have needed it more.

Moving for a short while, takes you out your comfort zone. You can’t count calories, you don’t have access to the kitchen, you can’t watch everything being made. You have to eat what’s provided and go out. It is a holiday too so you want to indulge.

I was at a stage where I was better and less focused on picking myself apart. I didn’t need to exercise every day. Being there I could justify not going to the gym because I walked everywhere and the hills. Then I really enjoyed running again when I restarted. I had nothing to prove, only immerse myself in enjoyment. I was slightly hyper focused in food still, but I couldn’t have usual foods or the same ones as home.

A chance to hit fresher and wipe the slate again. I wonder what it would be like had I not gone. What would have happened had I done summer at home.

The time and space healed me and my relationship with food and exercise. I didn’t tell people about it either, that was also refreshing. You are what I think I am and what I want to conduct myself as. The time and headspace was a break.

I can’t lie the first two weeks I’ve never felt so spacey and dizzy and lost, from pure overwhelm of new places, people, experiences, routines, jobs, tasks, food. I felt shattered everyday. I felt wired but also sleepy. It was over stimulation at its finest. Nothing quite beats being challenged.