Stressed doesn’t even begin to cut it. My dissertation is so hard, I just feel like I can’t do it. Every situation I enter into I feel like it isn’t possible for it to be more stressful, but it is! I spent half of May, the whole of June and most of July carrying out the testing for my dissertation. This meant practically living at uni or at my local athletics track to get this done. I barely spent any time at home and it was a very stressful couple of months. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I went back to work at my old job in the tea-room. Don’t get me wrong, I liked being back to see all the people again and I didn’t actually mind doing the job, I just took on a bit too much. The stresses of trying to get my testing done, alongside the job and all the masses of reading I had to do for when I write up my dissertation just became overwhelming. So I kept telling myself that once I got my testing done it would get a bit easier. Now my testing is done….and I am more stressed than ever.
But there is some good news in-amongst. After hundered’s of applications, dozens of interviews and feelings of continuous disappointment and hopelessness, I actual got offered an internship at a football club as a sport scientist. This was back in June and I was so happy. I had my first day on the 9th July and I am enjoying it. I am there 3 days a week and learning a lot. I had to leave my job again because trying to fit in work with an internship, with a dissertation would really have been too much. And even now, trying to juggle the internship with the dissertation is very difficult.
 |
| Me on my first day at my internship |
For years and years, I have had a huge fear of doing a dissertation, convinced I couldn’t do it. And now, in the middle of it all, I am still convinced I can’t do it. It is so bloody hard. And with trying to do my dissertation and my internship – I feel overwhelmed. Not helped by the fact that my weight is still continuing to increase for no apparent reason. My eating regime has gone to pot. It is not healthy, I know it is not healthy and that I need to change it but I’m stuck in a routine.
Because of being so busy with testing in May, June and July, I stopped eating during the day and just ate dinner in the evening. I still ate the same amount of calories, just all in the evening. And that is the routine I am stuck in. But trying to change it just adds to my stress. So it’s a routine I stick with. But I seriously do need to change it. And I am going to try. Over the next few weeks I am going to try and introduce lunch again. Whether I succeed or not is another matter. But I will try.
It is noticeable in my mind though how the more stressed I have got, the stronger my desire to lose weight and be thin again has also grown. I haven’t acted upon it, which is good, but the desire is strongly there. Anorexia does try to convince me that life would be so much easier if I was just thin. None of this other stress, just be thin. It is tempting, very tempting. But I cannot go back there. At the moment, I have to give every last will of body to trying to do this dissertation. If I ever manage to do it, it will be a bloody miracle. But God loves a trier. And one thing is for sure – I’m a bloody good trier. And I want you all to take hope from this blog – with dedication and determination anyone can achieve. I never thought I would get an internship and yes, although an internship is only the very start of my pathway, it is a start. And not only has it taken years of trying to apply myself in the sport science world, but it has also taken many, many years of trying to manage my eating disorder to get to this position of thinking about jobs, careers…a life.