Some days are just coffee and cake days,

No reason, no compensation planned later….

Just being able to stop at a coffee shop and order what I feel like in the moment, that is one of the many gifts recovery gave me….

But it wasn’t always that way…

During my eating disorder I didn’t suddenly just stop liking cake, in fact I never stopped liking cake….I just couldn’t allow cake as it had become one of the foods on my long list of ‘no goes’…

There would be days when all I wanted was a warm cup of coffee or hot chocolate and a slice of cake with a friend, to sit in a warm cosy corner of a sweet little coffee shop and talk the afternoon away….

But instead, I found myself wandering the town in the cold, looking into the windows of coffee shops full of people doing just that.

This could never fill the void I was feeling, the loneliness. For a while there, my eating disorder had given me these rules and they had felt sensible and gave me what I thought was control when everything else seemed so out of sync in my life.

I could walk past the coffee shops with my teeth chattering with cold and my fingers numb, feeling so very empty inside and tell myself that I was actually so in control of my life and this was the way I could prove it by doing what I thought was the hard thing….

It really was hard to stick to until it really wasn’t and I found that there was an invisible forcefield between me and the entrance to the coffee shops….I literally could not go into one.

I had become so used to NOT going into these snuggly little hubs of connection that I no longer thought about it….until friends started to question why I was never available to meet up in one.

Why did I always insist on meeting and going for a walk or just hanging out at someone’s house?

It got really awkward when a good friend of mine actually called me out and I had no excuse good enough…

At this point, I had decided that I wanted to recover from my eating disorder but there were still so many scary things to get through.

The first time I set foot in a coffee shop again was to meet this friend….I had agreed to go and in my head, I would prove to her that I was absolutely fine with being there….the day came and I got ready, I was going to step through the forcefield of fear into that place I had shut off from for so long…..as I approached, so many thoughts raced through my head…..’You could just call and tell her you are unwell’….’You don’t HAVE to do this, who is she to tell you that you are avoiding being social and avoiding eating with others?’

‘Maybe I can just do it another day, on an easier day, when I feel more ready’

As I was getting closer to the meeting place, other thoughts started to come up….’But what if it’s never an easier day? Will that mean that I never go into a coffee shop again?’

‘You’re not unwell so you would be lying and if she found out, that could really ruin this friendship…..’

‘Is she right about me avoiding being social? Why is it bothering me that she has pointed it out?’

‘Could it be true…really?…well actually, thinking about it, I have not been out and met up with anyone for so long…but I have been busy…’

‘Or have I?’

I was so deep in thought that I almost bumped straight into my friend at the door, or the forcefield….how was I going to walk through that door?

My heart was beating so fast and my mouth felt so dry…

Could I just turn and run?

No, I had to do this.

We found a quiet table and sat down and I decided that it was time to let someone in….I told this friend about my eating disorder, I told her everything and watched her, thinking that she would bolt out of there at some point….but she didn’t, she listened, she didn’t interrupt, she let me talk and talk.

As I was sharing, I could almost physically feel a massive pressure lifting from inside of me. It felt that I could breathe again.

My friend stood up, this was the time she was going to leave, she was going to run, to go out and share everything I had told her, I would never be able to show my face again in town, she would never speak to me again……

She didn’t….she placed her hand on mine and gently asked me

‘What would you like to try to have here today?’

I was so shocked and really didn’t know how to respond….

Eventually I asked for a coffee, just a coffee….

She went and ordered and came back and sat down, then slowly explained to me that she had known that I was struggling but wasn’t sure how to help me.

She asked me what it was that I would need…

She was the first person I could lean on who seemed to sort of get it, she didn’t judge but wanted to support me in which ever way I needed her to….

She became my ‘coffee shop buddy’

We would meet weekly, at first for just a coffee, then a coffee and a cookie to share, then a coffee and our own cookies, we met for cake on birthdays, hot chocolate in Winter, iced coffee in Summer…..

Setting the intention each week wasn’t always easy and there were some weeks I really didn’t feel up to it but having someone to meet me was so helpful….it got to the stage where she could no longer meet me every time and I had to go alone, I vowed to keep on going every week, to practice and practice until it was something I could just ‘do’…

Coffee shops are now a weekly part of my life, whether it’s meeting up with a friend and having a latte and cake or grabbing a coffee on the run, brunch with the family or one of my favourite things to do…..meeting clients for meal sessions so that they can break through that forcefield of fear too and don’t have to stay looking in from the window….