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