Impact

The past month I haven’t been doing well. My head has been flooded with thoughts of hating my body, wanting to restrict, over-exercise, anything to not deal with the emotions I know are bubbling underneath the surface. I know the feelings are there. Not feeling good enough for people, feeling helpless and out of control in certain situations, guilt, overwhelming expectations, the list goes on and on. I’ve been painting a smile on my face, acknowledging I’m not dealing with anything, and white knuckling my way through my recovery. Sounds like a great plan right?

Today it all came to a crashing halt. I went to urgent care because I’ve been sick for the past week; I got on the scale backwards like I normally do and told the nurse not to tell me my weight. I guess she didn’t hear me because before I knew it she was uttering the numbers and I felt my world crashing down. I haven’t known my weight since the last time I left Castlewood; the number just messes with my head so much. And when she said that number out loud today all I could think about was what the scale used to say, and how I’ve let myself go. Calculating in my head how much my uggs and clothes weighed to get to the real number.

For the first time in a year I restricted my food today. I can use all the excuses in the book, I’m sick so soup is fine to have as a meal, but I know that wasn’t the reason I did it. I wanted to feel like I had willpower again, that I could control something, that familiar feeling of emptiness in my stomach. I feel lost, confused, angry, frustrated, and sad. Why am I doing this? Why am I letting this get to me? I know where this road goes. That voice in my head tells me I can just lose ten or fifteen pounds and stop there, still being healthy. And right now I’m too tired to fight it. Is this how my life is going to be, constant struggle in my head and having my eating disorder waiting in the shadows when things get tough? If it is then I don’t want to keep fighting it. I either want to be rid of it forever or reclaim it as my identity I knew for so long, there’s no in between.  

It’s going to get better, it’s going to be okay, and I can keep fighting. These are the words I’m going to keep telling myself until I believe them. Because I don’t know what else to do.

Guilt

I’m better. I’m cured. I don’t struggle anymore. I no longer have an eating disorder. These are things I say to myself and others everyday.

I hold so much shame around having an eating disorder, all of the things I did in it and all the people I hurt. I was a different person back then, a crazy person, a person I want nothing to do with. I try so hard to distance myself from that girl that I end up denying the fact that she was a part of me.

I don’t know if it’s the expectations I perceive from others or the ones I put on myself that makes me think this way, probably a little of both.

I’m really ashamed to admit this but the last few weeks I’ve been really triggered by a lot of things. I haven’t acted on any of it but my mind has been consumed with thoughts of thinking I’m overweight, needing to starve, over exercise, or take diet pills. Really anything to gain a sense of control and not feel anything that is going on around me.

What’s going on? I’m not supposed to have these thoughts; I’m in recovery, which means I’m past all of this right? Never struggling again. I know rationally that none of that is true but it feels so daunting to accept the fact that this is a battle I’ll have to fight for the rest of my life.

I know what’s really at the core of it but it’s hard for me to admit it.

One word. Guilt.

Seeing people around me struggle and not knowing if they’re going to make it consumes me with guilt. I feel guilty that I survived and others didn’t. I feel guilty that I’m living my life and others are fighting for their lives. I should’ve done something more, I shouldn’t have distanced myself so much, I should have given better advice, I should’ve been there.

If I could die and they could go onto live a normal happy life I would do it in a heartbeat.

These are the thoughts that overwhelm me daily.

I know God brought me out on the other side of this disease for a reason, and I know maybe someday somehow I will help someone. But right now I feel like a fraud and I feel helpless. I want more than anything in the world to use what I know best to numb out and stop feeling. But I won’t. I’m going to keep talking, writing, sharing, and asking for help. Because I’ve come too far to turn back now. And I have faith in the big man upstairs that He knows more than me.