This Struggle

There are times when I passingly wish I was dead. There are times when I feel so full of life that I am bursting. Now is not one of the latter. For some reason my brain likes to think that death would solve all of my problems, that I would be free of my struggles and worries, that I would be at peace with myself and the universe. Well, as many have said, suicide is a permanent fix to a temporary problem. And I'm not saying that I want to kill myself, so don't take it that way, but my mind likes to send the thought through it every once in a while. So it's something I have to deal with. For some people this might sounds crazy and I realize that in the spectrum of mental health I'm probably not on the upper end. The important thing is that I recognize this and as long as I am recognizing this then I'm not too worried. I can still find reasons why my death would be more of a disaster and loss than anything else. I know that there are people who love me very much and care about me and I would never want them to go through the pain of something like that. So I keep forging on, praying that this will get easier, that I will be able to keep fighting off my demons. Life is not easy, nor is it fair and these are facts that I accept. All I am asking is for it to be a little more tolerable. Yes I am struggling now but I am trying to hold on to the hope that one day I will not struggle as much. Since I have been home I have not always been entirely honest with myself and I am working on that. I do not know if there has been one day that I have been at my house when I have not spontaneously thrown up. It is so hard for me to admit this and I have to say that it is not just that I am here with my parents because it has happened when I have been home alone. Part of my problem admitting to this issue is the fact that it has been so often misunderstood as me purging. I am not purging, I just can't seem to stop myself from vomiting. (Sorry if this is triggering to any of you who are reading this.) The other thing that I need to admit is that I do not always make up for what I cannot keep down. Part of this is because I am afraid that if I do I will throw it up again and it will just make things worse. The other part is my eating disorder telling me that if I eat it then it counts whether I keep it down or not. So these are issues to bring up now in therapy and with my nutritionist. I know that it is important that I deal with this, not just because of the issues with food and that I am not following my meal plan technically if I am not keeping the food down, but also because I can feel the damage I am doing. Specifically the other day when I think I tore something. The chest pain I have been having for years now has been linked to this issue of not keeping my food down. Today I jokingly said that my body's expiration date may be sooner than expected and I know that this will be true if I do not address this and get help for it. The problem is the shame. Everything comes with the shame. I know that my therapist and team will not judge me but I judge myself and that is the worst. So I start with admitting it and the next step is to try to be a bit easier on myself. I would not judge someone else who struggled with the same issue and I deserve the same treatment I show others. Today (it is technically morning) I will work on accepting where I am and moving forward. 

Looking for Inspiration

“Spirituality leaps where science cannot yet follow, because science must always test and measure, and much of reality and human experience is immeasurable.” Starhawk

“Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions.” Starhawk

“As women, however, we need to look very closely at these philosophies and ask ourselves the hard-headed, critial question, "What's in it for me?" "What does this spiritual system do for women?" Of course, the gurus, teachers, and ascended masters will tell us that, even by asking such a question, we are merely continuing in our enslavement to the Lords of Mind; that it is simply another dodge of the ego as it resists dissoulution in the All." Starhawk

I know that my body is not a place to carry out my war on the world or my family. It is not the ground for my struggle with any opposing force. I have been through the therapy and know these things rationally but it is difficult to apply rationality in daily life. As a human I am not just a rational being but an emotional being as well and right now my emotions are just crazy. Life is just crazy and I have really been struggling. I am trying to look for the things and reasons for to get better and stay in recovery. Currently ED is very loud and resistant to leaving me alone. I have seen my doctor twice in two weeks. I see her again in a week. My weight has been stable for the past two weeks. My vitals are beginning to be affected. I know I can't keep going on like this but Can't seem to stop either. 

My doctor describes ED as a chronic disease which it is. I will have to live with this constantly and struggle with it. This knowledge makes me feel so hopeless about the whole thing. I don't want to be constantly battling my eating disorder. I don't want to have the comments constantly running through my head. I don't want to be thinking about calories, exercise, food portions and weight all the time. I spend too much time focused on numbers but I want to be more than just a number. I want to be more than my eating disorder. But at times I forget this or don't believe that it is really what I want. ED gets in my head and tricks me. I have a hard time distinguishing between myself and him. He convinces me that he knows best but I know he is wrong, so why does that not make ignoring him easier? The worst thing is that I know logically that it is bad and wrong but I keep using behaviors that will kill me if I do not stop. I do not know how to deal with this. I love my friends, family and boyfriend and do not want to cause them pain but I cannot explain what it's like to them. They will never understand, ever. They cannot understand unless they have been through it. They don't know how to support me in recovery and I don't know how to get support from them because I don't know how to make things better. 

I have a hard time remembering what it was like before ED. I don't remember that child-like wonder and self-love. It seems to me that I have always hated my body and been filled with self-hatred. I guess the depression started before the eating and the depression reduced my intake then I started losing weight and loved it. Right now I'm not losing weight and I don't like it. I want to be skinny. People tell me I am skinny but I have so much trouble believing them. I wonder what is wrong with me and just become more depressed. The problem right now is I don't know how deep I am in which probably means that I am in too deep and need to get out and will need help to get out. But I don't know if I want that help. I am acting like I do to my treatment team but I am just so filled with doubt. I find myself doubting everything. Yet if I continue I will lose everything. and I don't want that. I just want to be beautiful. That is partly how this started but now I don't know how to finish it but it may finish me. 

I don't want to die but I know that if I don't start getting better I will end up permanently damaging my body. I do not want this to happen, though it may already have happened. I need to work to find the motivation to get better. This seems so wrong that I have to work to eat and find the motivation to eat. Eating should be something that is natural. What happened to the world that this has become such a major problem? How did this happen? Life used to be so simple and now every day is a major struggle. I don't understand how this has gotten so bad. All I know is that ignoring ED seems impossible.