Wooo! Hello everyone! This is my first time blogging, and I’ve kind of got a clearish plan of what I intend on blogging about, but I have a really annoying habbit once I get typing (or talking) of just rambling, so please, bare with me!

I’m a new volunteer here with DWED – since September 2011. I’m in recovery now following battling diabulimia/ED=DMT1 for most of my teenage years. I only fairly recently became aware of DWED and the online support groups etc. In fact, I didn’t even realise that there was such a thing as Diabulimia until maybe about a year ago? Don’t get me wrong, I knew from reading diabetes stuff that sometimes diabetics avoided insulin injections in the hope of losing weight, but I always perceived myself to have taken this to the extreme, and always felt completely unique in what I was doing. Due to feeling it wasn’t a known issue, I kept it to myself, and just tried to get on with it. I don’t really know what drove me to recovery, it has certainly been spurred on by finding out I have retinopathy, and developing retinopathy. I guess I just realised suddenly there was more to life than feeling shit 24/7, being keotic all the time, having no energy, shit skin, and constantly needing to pee, no matter where I was. Recovery has had its ups and down, as to be expected. When I discovered DWED I was over the moon, and when I went on to find that DWED was looking for volunteers I jumped at the choice.

This festive season was the first I’ve had where I’ve been involved with DWED, and also where I’ve really been fully aware of diabulimia (ED=DMT1) due to thinking I was alone in it before. I always found Christmas/New Years hard in terms of there being lots of pressure to be happy and jolly, and the temptation of there being tons of chocolate/snacks etc readily available, almost begging to be eaten, as well of course as seeing everyone else stuffing their faces. Before Christmas DWED produced a list of coping tips for the festive season which I thought were really good. Around the time of New Year I was being quite reflective about the pressure that this puts on people to “change themselves” and suddenly become this “new, better person”. It seems to be a long written tradition that at New Years we must all make these massive resolutions and then stick to them, although most people seem to give up after a few days. It struck me just from reading through social network feeds, at how much pressure there is on people to make these resolutions. This lead to me to think, well why? I mean, it’s just another date, in reality. People are still people, and life just goes on. The amount of pressure out there is just ridiculous. Why should resolutions have to be made at new years? Maybe instead of making them at New Years, people should make them when they feel ready to? I just think, if you make a resolution simply because “it’s the thing to do” then it’s just going to be a negative feeling if you don’t stick to it. Seems kind of pointless! I think resolutions can be made at any time, and in terms of diabulimia/ed-dmt1/diabetes care, that’s where I hope DWED can help to support people. This work is continuously being carried out on the boards, supporting people to either make the first few steps towards recovery, or make more steps through the journey of recovery. I always call it a journey, because to me it is, it’s not something you just wake up one day and just automatically decide you’re recovered, but it’s more a gradual process. As a new volunteer, it is great to see the amount of support that’s available to people on the boards etc, not just from DWED staff, but other members of the group. I can not even begin to try and put in to words the value of this support, the power of it is just incredible.

This is going to be the year for DWED, it really is. 2012 has already seen a brand new shiny intranet for DWED, which Jacq has been busy training up staff on how to use. Jacq has been a real star doing this, and gradually everyone’s getting the training sorted, so we’re all set up and ready to rock and roll with it. DWED has lots of new exciting work in the pipeline, including training to get the helpline up and running again, getting some much needed fundraising underway,  as well as there being focus on getting some solid professional advice available for members to download. All in all it’s all getting rather exciting, we certainly have a busy year ahead of us, bring it on!!