Why Now?

I have always known that my mind is a scary place. Lately I can get no peace. ED is holding my mind hostage. All I want to do is restrict and exercise. I feel like a totally different person. He is telling me to do whatever it takes to lose weight and I don't know how to fight. It has not been this bad for a long time which makes me wonder what has changed?

Right now my life is not bad. Yes there had been a lot of emotional difficulties recently. Friends in trouble, family issues, school stress but my life is finally starting to really come together. Perhaps ED sees that I am really leaving him behind and thus is trying to make his last stand. I have finally found the love of my life. My boyfriend and I are perfect for each other. He really loves me and has opened my eyes to how wonderful life really can be. He has shown me what unconditional love is and can be. My friends have been my family and loved me in the past but this is different. I want to spend the rest of my life with my boyfriend and he feels the same way. Why am I letting ED get in the way of that? Why am I letting him back in my when I've been doing really well over the past three or so years? I do not know why but I know that I need to find out and find out fast before I'm too far gone down a path that I will regret.

Bumps on the road

I have learned that the mirror lies. That love can conquer all if given the chance. That the scale is not my friend. That as much as ED tells me otherwise, I need to eat. 

I have been really struggling lately. ED has been fighting my recovery and doing really well. He has been coming between me and my boyfriend a lot lately. We've been having so many more fights. I can watch him take over and see the personality changes. This needs to stop now! I cannot keep living like this.

Failure

So often I feel like a total failure. A failure of a sister, a failure of a daughter, a failure of a friend and girlfriend. If I can't do it perfectly then I fail. I don't know when this sense of failure started. I know I can't have been born with it, so where did it come from? As a child I don't remember this feeling or the fear that I was not good enough.

I don't know when it started and I don't know why. I wish that I did so I could work on getting over this but nothing worthwhile in life comes easy so I will have to try to find another way to deal with these feelings. It makes sense the the pitfalls of perfectionism play a role in my feelings of failure. Closely tied to the feeling of failing is another well known emotion for me, guilt.

Failure, perfectionism and guilt are so interwoven that I do not always know where one starts and the other begins. I know that guilt can be good but too much is bad. Everything in moderation the saying goes. Yet I have to ask is there ever a moderate amount of perfectionism? -- But I am getting side tracked. Guilt permeates my life. I feel guilty for everything. Everything is my fault, or so I feel but that I one of the most self-centered beliefs I hold, another part of myself chimes in. Who am I to think that the whole world revolves around in such a way that everything bad that happens is caused by me? And so the cycle of guilt continues. I need to stop this cycle but I just don't know where to begin.

I look at my life and my feelings and everything and just feel so overwhelmed. Where do I start fixing myself? Where do I begin? How do I recognize what emotion I am feeling? SO many questions. I just get scared and don't want to deal with it. I run away and turn to ED because I know he will make things easier. With ED I can succeed. My success and failure is measured by the scale. It is tangible, clear cut. There is a solid answer to a solid question: did I lose weight, am I reaching that goal weight, am I working out? I run to ED because he is easy, he is known. There is certainty with ED that I have not found elsewhere. But I need to face facts and see ED for what he is. And I need not to be looking at life in terms of failure and success but look at it as something else. Failure is falling and staying down. I guess it's back to the basics, back to being a child because the little child learning to walk doesn't get discouraged when she falls but has her cry and then pushes herself right back up and tries again.

Perfection Is My Enemy

I heard this line in a song recently and was struck by the truth of it. I know that in treatment we are told this but honestly all the things in treatment don't really sink in until we are ready to accept them. Sometimes we have to make mistakes to see the truth in what we are told and fortunately for me I've made lots of mistakes. I am trying to fight ED but my will to fight is so weak right now. Every time I look in the mirror I just see how fat and ugly I am. I just want to shrink my body. I want to be skinny. I want to have not fat. I am keeping my intake just under a thousand calories. I know this isn't enough. I have ensure plus and that is what is mostly fueling my body right now. I hate it but when I try to eat I just hear ED screaming at me. I hear him all the time. I am not being honest with myself or with others.

Honesty is so hard right now. All I want to do is hide. I can't tell people what is going on. I need to keep it to myself because I know others will stop me and right now I don't want to be stopped. I just want to lose weight. I want this so badly. I can't stop these thoughts. I don't want to eat. I don't know how it got this bad again. I am lying to people again. I will do anything to not eat. I just want to be skinny. I know I need to fight this but it's so hard.

Courage

Courage, n. the power or quality of dealing with or facing danger, fear, pain, etc.
I find myself lacking courage lately. I have tried fighting this and I'm trying so hard. I am trying to fight ED but it's sooo so hard and a part of me doesn't want to. I want to live and yet I don't. It's like I'm split in two. I'm fighting myself. I know this is how ED works, how he operates. I know it's all tricks but I still believe him. I still trust him. I don't know why but I do. It just feels like I can't win. I'm overwhelmed and scared. I'm tired and lonely. All of the feelings I had three years ago and earlier are back. I don't want to eat. I want to go to the gym everyday and work until I drop. I want to run my body into the ground. I want to make it disappear; I want to disappear. Every day is so hard. Getting up, going to class, getting everything done that I need to get done. I feel like I have no time. I can't breathe. Everything feels like it's falling apart. I am away from home, things should be better. I hear so many of my friends are struggling and I'm jealous? I ask myself what is wrong with me? Why am I like this? I blame myself, and that is one of my biggest mistakes.

A bit over three weeks ago a friend tried to kill herself. I was the one there for her. She contacted me and I could tell there was something wrong. I called Campus Police, I rode with her to the hospital, I held her hand until her boyfriend showed up. I did my best to keep everyone involved up to date. This was important. And yet.... I feel responsible. I should have been able to tell that something was wrong. I should have checked up on her. I should have known. And worse, a week or less earlier, that could have been me. I keep asking myself, why wasn't that me? Why was it her? It should have been me being taken away. Maybe if I had tried to kill myself she would not have done so. But, I cannot blame myself. I could not have known. I did my best. I helped her as much as she let me help her and that is all I can do. Yet the guilt of this stays with me. One of my biggest struggles in my propensity to blame myself for things that are completely beyond my control. This is one of the major things keeping me from true recovery. I have tried to work on this but it's so hard and ED is so easy and ED seems like such a friend that I forget what He brings with.

I keep saying just a few pounds, just a few pounds but I know what that leads to. I know that just a few pounds becomes just my life. Sometimes I don't care that death may be the consequence. I keep saying I just want to be thin, but what is it that I really want? Why am I really heading back down this road? I went down it about a month ago and my boyfriend got me out and I'm headed there again and I don't care. I need to find that inspiration to get back on track but ED is soo persuasive and right now He's making sense. I need some comfort in my life and ED is right there saying I can come to Him for it just like I used to. I'm not drinking enough. I've started cutting back on food. I started going to the gym again today. Ed wants me to keep this up. ED wants me to go back to Him and He's convincing me that I do as well. I need to look at what I really want. I need to look at my needs and take care of myself but I don't seem able to do that. I wake up every morning and look at myself with disgust. I hate being in my body and I hate my body. I know that it is ED whispering these things in my ear, I know this but I lack the COURAGE to stand up, to stand in the rain. For now at least I'm still being honest with myself (mostly) and others. I need to beat this before the lying starts. I need to beat this before it takes over my life again but I'm SO SCARED. I'm terrified. I used to say that I had no fears. Oh how young and naive I was then, I was scared, I just wasn't admitting it. I cannot let my fear paralyze me and allow ED to put up those walls again and cut the ones I love out of my life. I need to try and yet I'm still scared.


Goddess, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.