This is my time

So I have been struggling a lot lately. I have not been following my meal plan exactly and my mental state is not the best. I know that my boyfriend is worried and if I am being honest with myself I am worried as well. I am trying hard but my mind is not my ally right now. I know that I need to continue working on reframing but I'm getting lazy about this. Well, it's time to shape up and recharge because I know that if I let it go and ignore it I will just slowly end up back where I was and I have school coming up. It's my senior year and I do not want to spend it fighting with myself and destroying my body. I know that I am very uncomfortable in my body right now and that my eating disorder is telling my that I weigh too much and need to lose weight. Well, F you, ED! You are not in charge of me. I am not going to use you as a means of communication with my mother. I do not need to destroy my body as a way to tell her that something is wrong. I do not need to hate myself any more. I do not need to fear being a woman. I do not need to shrink myself to deal with life. You have served your purpose and I am done with you. Yes, you helped me cope in high school but I am an adult now and I do not live with my mother. I am my own person. I am responsible. I am a student. I am a learner. I am curious. I have a lot of different traits and I will NOT allow you to take that away from me. I will not let you steal my personality. I will not let you hold me back. I want to LIVE MY LIFE and I WILL! This is my time. I have an amazing boyfriend and go to a good school. I will be a graduate in a year and I hope to have a job. I will be a person and not a shell of a being walking through life with as much awareness as a zombie. I will not blindly follow my eating disorder. I will stand up for myself, both within myself and with other people. I AM ENOUGH!!

Recommitting myself to recovery

Okay. I haven't been doing well lately as I have written in past posts but tonight I really got hit with why I want to recover so badly. Yes it is hard and my motivation wavers and I will accept that that is part of the process. I am sick of being sick. I am sick of feeling disconnected and alone. I am sick of pushing the people I love most and care about most away. I want to have energy. I want to feel alive. I want to simply  feel. I know that feeling emotions is hard when I am home and that I often close down so that I don't have to feel but there are people I can be open and honest with and I want to do so. I am making a commitment to follow my meal plan exactly tomorrow. No cutting things out. I want to be healthy. 

Home?

Tonight I felt something that I have not felt in a long time. I felt fear, loneliness, lost, and homeless. Honest emotions, not related to my eating disorder or other issues. I caught myself wish that I could go home. Well the thing that made me sad was I am home, or what is supposed to be my home. Yet it does not feel like a safe place. It does not feel like a loving place. Yes we have laughs at times and we have fun sometimes but that is not the overall feeling of the place. No, it is full of tension and disagreement, anger and frustration. The controlling atmosphere is toxic. I feel myself going a little bit crazier every day and wanting to retreat further into myself. I see, understand completely why I am having so much trouble staying healthy here; it is not a healthy environment, not a loving environment. I try to get out of the house and distract myself, keep busy and not think about it but honestly, it does not help. While I still live here I will feel this way. I wonder how I will be able to come back here during school breaks. I feel trapped and suffocated. My defenses are constantly up. It feels unsafe to let emotions through. I keep trying and trying to fight these urges. I want to get better but it is so hard to do here. I just can't fight off everything. I just want to find peace and happiness and I can't do it here. I am overwhelmed and scared and I hate these feelings. These are feelings it has not been safe to share here for the longest time. I just don't know what to do for the rest of the summer. I can't let my eating disorder take over again, I know I can't. I don't want it to. I don't want to go back to treatment. I want to finish my last year of college. I want to get my degree and live on my own/with my boyfriend. I want to get married and have kids. I want a life. These are the things that I have to hold on to or I will lose myself in oblivion. 

Struggling

Okay, it's time to admit it to myself: I'm struggling. I am really, really struggling. I have already started to cut back on my meal plan. I know this is heading down a dangerous path. I know I am playing with fire. It is going to be so hard to get back up to my meal plan and I don't know how I will do it. I am so anxious about it. I just want to keep restricting and I desperately want to start exercising again. I wish I could engage in my behaviors without any consequences, but I know how it will go if I do. I have to find a way to get back on it. Every day is a new start, a fresh start. Tomorrow, I am doing to do my best to follow my meal plan and I am going to keep trying and trying and trying. I know it will be hard but I want to do this. I don't want to be torn all of the time. I don't want to be thinking about food and calories and exercise all of the time. I hate it. I hate it so much. I just want to be healthy. 

Letter to ED

Dear ED,
It is time to say good-bye. You have been there for me through a lot. You gave me a way to check out, to numb out, to ignore my feelings and helped me survive living at home. You gave me a way out. You gave me a sense of control and pride. When someone commented on how "great" I looked or asked me if I'd lost weight I felt so good and happy. You let me shift my focus from painful emotions onto food, numbers and weights. You were a coping mechanism. However, you betrayed me. You turned against me and used my weaknesses and insecurities against me. You made me miserable and increased feelings of guilt. You hurt me and starved me. You took away all control and consumed my time, my energy, my life. You isolated me and damaged my body. You made me cry all the time and wish I was dead. You abused me and left me begging for release. There was so much you kept me from but not anymore. I am taking my life back. I will struggle and may be convinced to come back but I am going to remain in the "self" and I do not need you anymore. I have other coping skills and, most importantly, I have my voice. You are no longer part of my life. I appreciate what you have done for me but it is time that you step aside and let me live my life.
                                                                                           ME

Reframed Thoughts

·      -   I am seeing myself through the filter of my ED and not as I am in reality

·         People say I am kind and nice

·       -  My ED makes me selfish and focus on myself and getting what I want

·         I was in the 15 of my class in high school and I got into MHC and maintain above a 3.0 GPA. If I was stupid I would not be able to do so.

·       -  The only person who is judging me is me.

·        - There are things I am grateful to be able to do with my body.

·         -I may not be able to love myself but there are many who love me.

·         -Every human being deserves a chance to be happy, healthy and have a life. I am not less worthy than others.

·         -No one deserves to be hurt or in pain, including me.

·         -I need food to live. It nourishes my body and helps me think and function.

·         -Fats are what my brain is made of and functions on. It is how I am able to do my school work.

·         -I do my best to be kind and compassionate.

·         -I am a bit creative.

·         -I have really close friends.

·         -I am human and therefore have worth.

·         -I know I am loved.

·         -I have been in recovery before and can do it again.

·         -I hate myself now but I can learn to love myself.

·         -Dan, Kari, Alexa, Sam, Stephanie, and others love and care about me.

·         -I go to a difficult school and am making good grades. While I work hard, I also have to be relatively intelligent to do so. My team at Klarman have reviewed my growth charts to determine my range. They closely moniter my weight and would not make me fat. Obviously Dan finds me, not only not ugly, but also pretty and beautiful or he wouldn’t be with me.

·         -I do my best and that is all I can do. At times I may feel like I fall short but I can always try harder next time.

·         -Academically I have not failed anything for as long as I can remember. In life the only time I can fail is when I do not learn from my mistakes and/or if I stay down and don’t get back up when I fall, or if I give up.

·         -I may not care about myself but others do. Also, just because it feels like no one cares does not mean it’s true.

·         -I need for to live and function. It is okay to eat. Eating nourishes my body and allows me to do things. My body need and can handle differing amounts of food.

·         -Food is good and allows me to function and be me. There are even foods I like and enjoy eating.

·         -I am uncomfortable in my body because I am in my range and I haven’t been at a healthy weight for a while.

·        - My thighs touch, yes, but that is okay. It is normal and healthy for some people’s thighs to touch. I am at a healthy weight. When my thighs did not touch I was very sick and unhealthy.

·        - I am at a healthy weight. If I lose weight I may easily slide back into behaviors use, become unhealthy and risk damaging my body even more.

·        - I feel like my body is too big but again I am at a healthy weight. Yes it is uncomfortable but I can sit with these feelings and thoughts and not engage in behaviors. I will one day learn to be okay with myself and my body.

·        - I am following my meal plan and on a maintenance meal plan. My body needs food and if left to my ED I would not eat anything and still feel like I am eating too much.

·        - I have been in recovery before and I can do it again. This time I will have more coping skills and knowledge on my side.

·        - I am at a healthy weight now. My old body was sickly, unhealthy and unattractive.

·        - My stomach is not flat but it is not flabby. It is just covered with skin.

·        - 80lbs is WAY, WAY, WAY too little to weight for someone of my age and height.

·        - People say I was too skinny at my lowest weight and that I needed help.

·        - I am in my range and need to stay there.

·        - I deserve recovery. Everyone deserves recovery. I am human and therefore not a piece of shit. I am in my range and therefore not fat. People find me beautiful.

·        - Because I am in my range I am not comfortable in my body. I hope one day to be comfortable in my body.

·        - People do not find excessively skinny/boney people attractive. Looking sickly and ill is not only unhealthy but also off-putting. Dan finds me attractive now and found me attractive at a higher weight.

·        - I will not stop losing at a few pounds. I will spiral out of control and it will always be ‘just a few pounds.’

·        - I am in the low to mid section of my range which is where my body wants to be and where I am healthy.

·        - It is more than the food. Therapy and journaling are good places to explore this. I have a strong sense of will and I am stubborn. These traits can be used to my advantage or disadvantage. I choose the former.

·        - Not listening to my ED and staying on my meal plan shows more strength, willpower, and courage than any other action.

My Voice

There is so much I want to say, and so much I want to do. While the words of my eating disorder run through my mind I remember what I talked about in therapy today. When ED talks it usually means that there is something else I want to say. It's hard being home and living under the same roof as my mother. It's hard to hold my tongue. It's hard to be my own person around her and that is where my ed comes in and says "I can give you an out." That sickeningly sweet voice plays over in my head, whispering false promises of hope, freedom and thinness. While I know that those promises lead to there is that part that still wants to travel down that road. There is a part of me that wants to throw caution to the wind and says "Yeah I can lose just a few pounds." The magic words "just a few pounds." They are such a joke because it is always just a few pounds no matter what the weight, no matter the number. Which is why I don't do numbers. I've never liked numbers and so numbers can go to hell and they will not drag me there with them. So what do I want to say? Well it's more like what do I want to scream, but I know that will not do any good and will, in fact, do more harm than good. 

What I want to say:

Mom, you are not the boss of me. You do not control me. You have no say in what I do or who I am. I have learned from you, yes, and I thank you for giving me my stubbornness, my determination, my strong will, some of my smarts and some good values. However, I am giving back your judgmental way of life, your anxiety, your anger, you insecurities, you inability to see reality and recognize other people's truths. I give you back your intolerance and your refusal to accept your role in any part of anyone else's life. I give you back your fear. I reject responsibility for your actions. I reject your shifting of truth. And I reject you method of parenting. I will not accept food in the place of your unconditional love.

When I am a parent I will not use physical punishment. I will not micromanage my children's lives. I will not dictate what they can and cannot read and if they wish to read something that I do not "approve" of I will read it with them and discuss the meaning/messages of the book. I will not force my religion on them but educate them in my beliefs and let them choose for themselves. I will show love and affection by giving love and affection. I will teach them tolerance and acceptance of others. I will act as a guide not a dictator. I will listen to them and understand where they are coming from and discuss things with them. I will be kind and reasonable. I will not force them to do what they hate. I will give them an understanding of compassion and courtesy. I will teach them manners but I will not use guilt to do so. I will teach them to have a healthy relationship with food and not use it as a substitute or method of showing love, but rather as a means of nourishing their bodies. I will respect their need for space and understand their sensitivities. I will not mock them or treat their pain as a joke, but take it seriously and comfort them in appropriate ways. I will talk to my daughter about puberty and be attentive to the signs and I will teach my children that it is okay to speak up when something is wrong. I will show them that it is okay to have feelings and it is okay to be mad or disappointed in me. I will praise their strong points and give constructive criticism. I will not make comments about body size or shape. I will be a role model for them and love them and give them their space and respect that.

I may garden and I may not. I may behave in ways you consider inappropriate but I will be true to myself. I am a student and I will finish college and, probably, go on to graduate school. I will be a partner to my husband and encourage him to go to bed when he is tired and not make him stay up with me if I am going to be up late. I will give him freedom and respect him. I will try to work out our disagreements in a mature way and will not go slamming the door and storming out. There is so much more but for now, that is what I need to say.

It really does help and now ed's voice is not as strong. It is still there but I do feel better. I will stay with my recovery and I will not be deceived nor led by a crazy person because I am my own person and I have a right to my needs and my opinions. Say what she might, my mother is not in charge of me and she cannot control me. I WILL outlive her and there is nothing she can do about that.

Sense of Self

One day I will stand my ground and say to those who call
I am not here for you to use or be the one to catch you when you fall.
I am a human being, with feelings, needs and other things
So take me not for granted
I am a friend to those in need who answer back in kind
But one way streets of tender care I will not walk again
I've seen the damaged neighborhoods and walked the broken path
I know how deadly storms can been and watched them when they've past
It does not do to stand outside when wind and rain destroy
So I have learned to shelter seek and hide out from the storm
A ray of light do I seek and hope in despair's hour
I will not stay any longer now within this ivory tower
It's time to run and join the race of humans far and wide
I know that I can no longer hide and wait for the shifting tide
Some people seek to suck us dry and make off with our life
But I will no longer play this game they seek to lure me with
And I know that I can stand upon my own two feet
I learn to sway and bend in wind, the breeze that blows the leaves
I will not snap or ridged forever remain.
It's time to loosen the call of freedom,
Declare my independence.
And on that day I will remain
True to my sense of self

Cats and other things

I am sitting here on the floor with my cat, petting him and thinking. Petting an animal, or even being in the presence of one, can make a lot of things better. There is nothing quite like the purr of a contented cat. As I observe my kitty his ears got back and his tail starts to twitch indicating that he might not be in the mood to be touched or pet. In this moment I am jealous of him. It may seem weird and stupid to be jealous of a cat but who among us has not been jealous of some animal at some point in our lives? Cats are in tune with their emotions and it shows in their body language. That is something that is soooooo hard for me to actually do, and honestly it's not always safe for me to do. Cats are also really good at being selfish, another thing I often struggle with. I am so concerned with other people, their emotions and emotional well-being, being liked and taking care of others and not hurting people that it sometimes gets in the way of my needs and my recovery. While I recognize this, changing it is so hard. I am slowly learning, or trying to learn, to trust my instincts and intuition because it is often right and to allow myself to have needs and do what is best for myself. It's been a long and hard road to get to this point and I know I have a long way still to go but the point is that I am traveling that road at all, something I would not have done a few years ago. I know that there are certain things that are out of my control and that other people's actions are included in those. As I learn and walk this path to recovery I have gone back over memories and realized that not everything is my fault, despite what some people may say. It is such a relief to know that I was not the source of fights and other people's actions/reactions.

As I grow and learn more about how to take care of myself, I take tiny steps in my recovery and towards being my own person. This is a wonderful and terrifying thing. I don't really know who this person within me is. I know my eating disordered self very well, we have been extremely intimate for years but I don't know this healthy self and this fear is holding my back. I need to find a way to get past it so I can move on and not cling to my eating disorder, something that I have been really struggling with lately. It's hard when there is a constant tirade going in my head saying "i'm fat, ugly, stupid, worthless, unlovable, mean, evil, a bad friend/sister/daughter/student/girlfriend/person/human; i'm evil; i don't deserve recovery, to live, hope, happiness; people would be happier without me around; i'm a burden, a nuisance, a bore, annoying; i don't deserve anything; my life is meaningless; i wish i was dead; i should die; i have nothing worth living for; lose weight, lose weight; just a few pounds; food is evil and i don't need it; who cares if i ever eat again; am i really going to eat that/this; do i really need all this food; life's too much; this is too much food; i'm obese; no one will ever love me....." It's so hard to fight this all the time and keep my head up, to challenge and ignore it, to just function. I know I need to and I have a cheat sheet that I can look at for reframes and challenges but it's so hard to believe. Yes I can challenge and reframe these thoughts but I don't know how often I actually believe them and that is the most important part. I wish this was easier. I wish I had never relapsed. There is so much I wish but wishing will get me nowhere. I have to work hard and push through this. I have to have hope and trust that I will be alright in the end. I have to have trust that my team knows what they are doing and will not make me fat. I have to be open and honest and true to myself, whoever that person is. I have to be willing to change and face my fears. I have to accept that I will have days where I may not be okay or follow my meal plan or engage in other behaviors but that does not mean that I have to do so the next day or the next. I have to be strong and determined. I know that I am a very stubborn person and I can and will use that stubbornness and determination to my advantage. I need to accept that this may not be the last time that I go to treatment but it may also indeed be the last time. I will take it one day at a time because I cannot know the future and worrying and obsessing about it will do me no good. I do not need to worry about the next possible relapse right now but get through this to recovery. I will focus on this moment now and getting through this one rather than obsessing about the next and that way I will get where I am going, find out where I want to go and take the next step to get there.  

I Made It Through the Day

Today is the first day that I have been home and have not thrown up! This is so huge for me. I now know for certain that I can make it through the day here without having to throw up. I want to again make one thing clear. I do not purge. It is just that there are times when I have what feels like no control and I throw up without meaning or wanting to and it sucks. So for me to have done this is so important to me. I followed my meal plan and kept my food down. I have to admit that I did cut a corner a bit with my wrap today at lunch in that it was more like 1.5 starches instead of the required 2 but I am checking off today in the win column, on MY side instead of my ED's. I may still struggle and I may fall on my face but the important thing is that I will always, ALWAYS pick myself back up and keep going.