This is MY life

This is my life. I guess someone who reads this blog contact residential life at my school to inform them of my self-harm problems. Not that I don't appreciate the fact that whoever you are, you care but it would have been nice to talk to me first. Anyway I don't particularly want to dwell on that.

Life has been crazy and ED/Ana has been really happy and excited. I am trying to fight as hard as I can but it is SOOO hard. I am so tired of fighting all the time. Sometimes I just want to give in just to have some peace but it's not real peace. Why does this have to be so hard?! I hate how I feel. I hate the voices arguing in my head like world war three is happening in there. I want to be skinny. People say that I am skinny, too skinny. But I can't see it. I cannot see it and I wish I could. I wish this constant anxiety would relent for just a few minutes, seconds even. I am sick of feeling so alone and scared. ED/Ana tells me I'm not alone, that I have them but they make me feel even more alone. I know what I need to do and I am trying to do it but it is so hard to eat. I want my life back. And yet I don't. I want to be free. And yet I don't. I am constantly torn in two. I hate this so much. I don't want to go back into treatment but I feel like I am going to be forced back. I am so confused and tired. I just want this all to be over and for me to get back to my life. Goddess help me please.

It's been a while and I'm still falling

I haven't written here in a while. I've been really busy with school, work and my boyfriend came to visit this weekend. As great as it was to see him and as supportive as he is, I still feel like I am wavering in my desire for recovery. I know it's an uphill battle and it is not easy but why does it have to be so HARD? I am feeling so tired all the time. I know that part of that is because of ED/Ana but part of it comes from fighting. I am tired of fighting. I know that I need to keep fighting and I will but some days I just feel like I need a break. If those tempting days where I need and take the break become too many then I know that I will be right back where I was and have to struggle all over again and that it will be even harder this time. I know it is okay to make mistakes but I also know that I do not have much wiggle room with this because I will be kicked out of school if I cannot get this under control which just makes the stress that much greater. I want a break. I want to just not think about food, calories and numbers. I hate numbers. I hate them so much. Why am I allowing numbers to rule my life? I do not understand why this is happening again. If I cannot understand how can anyone else understand? It just feels so hopeless. Is this how my life will be from now on? Never knowing when I may relapse? I don't want that. I want to have a life. I want to be free from these feelings. I am just having a tough time now but the storm will pass. I have to believe that. I have to believe that I can do this because the other option is not acceptable.

One step forward, Two steps back

Struggling to get my eating disorder under control has stirred up my other demon, self-harm. Now I have neither under control and I'm fighting both constantly. I feel completely unstable. At least while I was in my eating disorder state I had the other under control. I feel completely ungrounded, like I'm floating in darkness, lost and insecure. The depression is back. I can feel it in my mind, body and soul. This thing taking over and I no longer recognize the person I have been since entering recovery a bit over three years ago. I'm scared by what I know I am capable of. I feel like screaming but I can't find my voice and so I scream in the only way I know how, lashing out against myself. I isolate and hide so that no one knows what is going on. Long sleeve shirts cover up cuts and bones. I don't know why this is all rushing back now. It's like I'm back where I was four years ago. What lesson do I need to learn this time? What has brought me back to this place of darkness and despair? How do I escape the same fate that befell me last time?

Imbolc, Purification and Re-Dedication

To those who do not know, I am pagan and tonight at our pagan/wiccan collective meeting we celebrated one of our sabbaths a day early, Imbolc. It is a time of cleansing, purifying and dedicating oneself. As I have been struggling through the past few (or more than a few) months I have been uncertain of my desire for recovery. I have become so entrenched in ED/Ana that I could not see where I ended and they began. With the reality check of the possibility of needing treatment and the realization that this could not be done while working part time and remaining a full-time student I have had to confront this demon head on. Over the break my doctor and I made plans for when I would come back to school that were delayed due to the fact that during our J-term, a time which has traditionally been a time to take fun classes, non-academic classes and such, our health center was closed. This provided the perfect opportunity for ED/Ana to step into overdrive. And so I found myself at the health center meeting with my doctor who was talking treatment ideas and the possibility of doing IOP. Still reality did not fully hit me until yesterday when I had my first appointment with a nutritionist since the beginning of college almost three years ago. Reality dropped on me last night and after a few panic attacks I was still unsure of how this was going to go. I knew what I had to do, I know what I have to do, but was still uncertain that it could be done. Well tonight the night before Imbolc I am cleaning out my head and dedicating myself to recovery.

"I will give myself the chance, the choice to live. I will give my body a voice, the words to speak its needs and take the time to listen. I will not allow myself to be drawn in to being with another but will make my boundaries known. I will allow myself to need and to satisfy those needs. I will be present in my body without judgment or critique. I will be seen, heard. I will give myself permission to exist, take up space and have a presence."

These are the words I wrote during out ritual and with these words I dedicate myself to recovery. I say good-bye to the demon that has made my life hell, turned me into a liar and taken over so much of my time and energy. I will not allow myself to suffer at its hands anymore. I may slip up. I may have bad days. I will make mistakes but that comes with being human. I will not allow a slip up turn into an excuse to go backwards. I am done starving myself to death. I do not want that life because it isn't a life. I have goals, plans, things I want to do, passions I want to pursue. None of this can be done with ED/Ana in my life. I am ready, I think, to embrace life again. I will start by doing all I can to follow my meal plan. Whatever it takes I need to do because there is too much at stake to allow room for failure. Failure happens only when you give up the fight and I WILL NOT stop fighting. I can't, my life is at stake and there are people who love me and care about me whom I cannot let down. I am a stubborn person, one way or another I will find a way to follow the path of recovery and take my life back.

Scared and Uncertain

It's no secret that I have not been doing well lately. My weight has dropped and my caloric intake has plummeted. I am cold all the time and tired. I know this is bad but I can't seem to stop myself. A part of me has merged with my eating disorder and ED/Ana is holding on as tightly as she can. I just want to be thin I keep telling myself. I know that people say that I am too thin but I don't believe them and why should I? Ana doesn't think so and I know that what she says is the law. But then I look at what I have just written or often thought and realize how sick and twisted this all is. Slowly starving myself to death, is that really what I want to be doing with my life? I know there are people who care about me and I know it hurts them to see me doing this to myself and I know deep down that it is wrong, but there is that persistent nagging feeling saying no, no they are all liars. You don't need them. They don't tell you the truth. You are fat and ugly and stupid. Lose weight and everything will be okay. But it won't be okay. I know I won't be okay and I don't care. What is wrong with me? I thought that I was stronger than this but I am not. I am so tired that I just want to give in and make it simple, thinking if I give in eventually I may find some peace. I wish that were true but I know it is false and yet I still listen. Why? That is the question that everyone, including myself, asks. Why? I do not know and that scares the hell out of me. If I don't know why I'm doing this how can I figure out a way to get better? How can I fight this? When I stop and really think about it I am terrified of what could go wrong. There is so much uncertainty in my life. Is this one way to make something certain? That I know I can lose weight? Am I trying to take control of something, anything? Yes and no are answers to all those questions. When I went to the health center for my weigh in this week the nurse had me stand on the scale twice. I do blind weights but she didn't believe the number so she wanted to double check. Have I really lost that much weight since last semester? People say I don't look good but I don't see that. I look in the mirror and receive a tirade of all the things wrong with me and how fat and ugly I am. I feel like crap all the time and I would do anything to change that, anything but eat, says Ana. Do I dare disobey her rules? Do I have the guts to defy her? I don't know but I do know that if I don't start doing so soon I will have a lot more things/issues to deal with than I already do and I don't think I can handle that. So, I need to suck it up and start fighting with every ounce of strength I have and pray that it's enough.