The Darkness

It’s gotten easy for me to talk about my eating disorder. To talk about how I starved myself until my heart started to fail, how I counted my ribs to make sure I could feel each one, to talk about the feeding tubes that were put down my throat. I can talk to those who are struggling and tell them that it gets better. That there are bad days but eventually the good start to outweigh the bad and eventually you don’t start to detest every inch of your body. I can talk about that.

What is scary to talk about is the darkness.

The darkness that has haunted the better part of the last ten years. When I forget what joy feels like. But it’s time to talk about it. It’s time to stop being ashamed of it because as much as I try to disown it, it’s a part of me.

Not many know that I used to swallow bottles of pills and pray to die until I woke up in the hospital getting my stomach pumped. Or that I used to slice up my wrists with a razor because it was the only pain I could feel. Or that I would carve words like fat and ugly into my skin to serve as a reminder to what I was.

These weren’t one-time occurrences. I got used to hearing the sound of an ambulance and know it was coming for me. People around me no longer reacted seeing new cuts on my body. My roommates knew how many pills were too much and what I could sleep off.

My dad never got used to policemen knocking on our door in the middle of the night while he waited to see if they would say I was dead or just another person found me unconscious. He never got used to holding my hand in the hospital while I pleaded with him to just let me die.

I excise this part of my life and pretend it wasn’t me. That’s not who I am. But the scary truth is that it is, and sometimes the darkness still comes back. Sometimes I have days where I wake up and refuse to get out of bed because being under the blanket feels safer. I have days where I ignore my friends because I don’t want them to worry, to learn this part of me and leave because it’s too much. These days have been happening recently and it’s been terrifying. To want to slice into my arms for the first time in four years and to be crying on the floor after my friends rip the pills from my hand. It’s scary and I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t want to be the crazy girl anymore.

When I started this blog I promised to be honest and talk about what recovery is really like, every aspect. So here I am talking about the crazy. Owning that dark part of me. Because it’s the only way to get better. As cliché as it sounds after the rain comes the sunshine. And I have to keep believing that the clouds and the darkness aren’t going to last forever.

One in Eight

It was May of 2005 in Wickenburg Arizona and a therapist was talking to the group. "1 in 8 will die from this disease," he said. "Look around the room. Two of you won't be here in a few years"

I hate that he was right.

This is one of those weeks where I've felt completely helpless. Sometimes I have to take a step back and remember that this isn't a normal thing someone in their 20's go through. I spent about five years pretty consistently in different treatment centers and hospitals and the number of people I've met is in the hundreds. People that I consider my closest friends are scattered across the country. Usually the only way to know that they're okay if listening for the little changes in their voice on the phone when they're lying or their texts getting less frequent.

I asked my therapist today at what point and how many years out will I stop getting the phone calls that someone I know lost their battle with this disease. She gave me the answer I knew in my heart but was hoping she wouldn't confirm. Never.

Tears start running down my face as I type that sentence. It's scary to know that people you love are dying and you can't do anything about it. It's not a situation that you can understand unless you've lived it. Unless you've gotten your fifth phone call from ICU and gone to bed praying this time will be a wake up call for them.

It's not even fair for me to say that. In March of 2008 I was the girl laying in the ICU with doctors saying they didn't know my chances. I remember being angry when I finally woke up and realized that I was still alive and hadn't succeeded. I guess that's what makes it so frustrating. Knowing what it feels to be on the brink of death and come out the other side with a reason to smile.

And while this past week, month and even past few years have felt like a string of bad news I have to remember the good. Remember that I've ssen people who were barely alive when we met graduate college, get married, and start families of their own. I have to remember that I can't control who will die next. The only thing I can do is keep fighting and hope those still struggling can see that it is possible to find a reason to live. 

Something Worth Fighting For

I’ve always had a hard time looking into the future. It scares me to think about what life will be like three months from now much less three years. It’s always been safer to view my future self as in a casket rather than in life.

A few years ago that was a very big possibility. These days as I see small glimpses of what life can be it terrifies me. It’s scary to view a future for myself and not be able to achieve it. It’s scary to work towards something only to have my eating disorder come back in and take everything away.

It’s no secret that I’ve been struggling on and off for the last year or so. Ending up in the hospital as recently as a few months ago. Wanting things to be different but never really setting a bottom line and making it not an option to go back. Too scared not to have my only coping mechanism to fall back on. It’s funny that while I’ve been in the midst of feeling like I’m in limbo God has slowly shifted things in my life.

I’ve been able to open up to my friends in a way that I never have before. To let them know what’s really going on. The good, bad, and the ugly and having them remind me that they aren’t going to run away when things get hard. I’ve begun to set up plans for being done with school and leaving Oklahoma. And as recently as last week I had an internship kind of fall into my lap that I love and makes me feel so fulfilled.

As corny as it sounds, these things give me something to keep fighting for. Something to make myself wake up each day and eat three meals for, and something to look forward to. I can’t say that I have visions and goals for the next ten years but I’m slowly beginning to see a future for myself other than six feet below the ground.

"Don't cry over lost years and forgetfulness. The tales tell what they can. The rest is for us to learn"

I always get reminiscent around my birthday. Another year older reminds me of the years lost. It reminds me that I spent ages 16-22 in treatment centers and hospitals consumed with my eating disorder. It reminds me of all the milestones in life I missed out on. Of no high school graduations, 21^st birthday parties, and going on to college from my parents house. Nothing about my life was normal and I want more than anything to go back and change that. But I can’t.

At my birthday party last night a friend reminded me about this time exactly a year ago. How she remembers telling me I was getting too skinny again and how I couldn’t celebrate the joy of another year because I was in my eating disorder then immediately back in a treatment center. Two weeks after my 24^th birthday I was admitted to treatment. I’ve lost count as to what number this was. I wish I could say that I got myself back on track there and spent the rest of the year enjoying life and doing the things that I love but I can’t. I spent the entire last year obsessed with my weight, reverting back to behaviors I hadn’t done in years, and pushing everyone in my life away. This is something that I am just now coming to terms with. Admitting that I wasted yet another year of my life.

But right now I am vowing for this to be different. I’ve started out this semester on a better foot. I am doing things that terrify me and exploring things that I’ve never ever talked about. Life isn’t perfect and it never will be. I will spend the rest of my life fighting this. But as of this year, I am reclaiming the things that I lost. I am reclaiming the parts of my life that people took from me and vowing to no longer let them drive my decisions and behaviors. I can never change the fact that the guy in 10^th grade told me all I am is a beautiful face and I will never be anything more than that. I can never change my assault at age 20 or the people closest to me being a constant judge of how I look. But I can change how they effect me and try my hardest to stop letting them rule my life. I can remind myself that my hatred of this body is not because there is something wrong with it, but because I am constantly telling myself all those things that have been told to me over the years and believing them.

I cannot say this next year will be perfect but I can say that I am ready to reclaim my life.

We Are More Than What We Look Lke

“Need to starve myself so I look like a Victoria’s Secret model. Need to diet so I look good in a bikini for Spring Break. Almost summer, need to start working out so I look good in shorts and a tank top.”

It never ends. Girls constantly publically hating their bodies. Thinking that maybe if they say everything that is physically wrong with them and work to fix it will magically cure everything in their lives.

Well I can tell you it doesn’t. My anorexia didn’t start because I was upset with how I looked but then again it never does. We as a society become obsessed with our appearance, thinking if we focus so much on the things we can control we won’t be upset by the things in our lives in which we have no power in.

Thinking if we look like the girls on magazine covers then guys will like us, or more importantly one day we will wake up and like ourselves.

Why can’t we all just admit that we don’t like the choices we make, the sins we commit and the things about our personality that we would give anything to change. We can’t take back the horrible thing we said to the one we love so instead we focus on changing our bodies and our food intake.

Not everyone develops an eating disorder this way but I did. Desperately needing an escape from the things in my life and finding control any way I can.

What is so frustrating is girls think that just because they’re not in a hospital with a feeding tube it’s okay to talk this way. To publically hate their bodies and transcribe all the ways they are changing it. Putting on Facebook and Instagram their daily diets, current weight on the scale and images of who they want to look like. It makes me so angry, as we have come so far as women in society just to belittle ourselves this way.

As someone recovering from a deadly eating disorder I am not afforded the luxury to partake in these things. I have to fight the images shoved in my face by society daily and remind myself I am more than what I look like.

I just wish others could join along in this. Take a stand against dieting and trying to fit their body into some unattainable mold. Start being kind to themselves and praise the things they do well. Take pride in more than what they look like but for the things they can offer this world.

If we could all start to do this just a little more, we could redefine beauty and maybe change the world and impact others in more ways than we could ever imagine.

The Fence

I’ve been sitting on it for many months now. One foot in each world. One world is the madness of the eating disorder. Using every behavior I possibly can, resorting to actions I haven’t done in years. Letting the depression take over until I feel hopeless and unworthy of life. The other foot is in life. Going to school, being with friends, exploring new things and giving myself grace and compassion.

The problem is I don’t know how to find the gray area in anything. I swing so wildly between the two that it becomes a plastered smile on my face until I can sulk away and use the coping mechanisms I’ve known for so long.

I’ve been lying to myself. Saying I’m in recovery. Saying my using behaviors is only a one-time thing. That this is the last time I will go running until my chest hurts, and this is the last time I will purge until there is nothing left but stomach bile. This is the last time I will go a day without eating. I’m in recovery. I’m fine. I only do these behaviors once every few weeks so it doesn't really count.

The truth is I haven’t been in recovery. And last week my therapist asked me what it would take for me to get off the fence. To stop lingering in between these two worlds, having a foot back in my eating disorder life in case things get too hard.

I’ve thought for many days about my answer. And the only thing I could come up with is I want to want to get off the fence. I’m so scared to jump off the edge and throw myself back into life because I don’t want it to be from a false place. I no longer want to be that poster child for recovery and act like I have no struggles.

All I know is for the past 8 days I’ve eaten three meals a day. It may not sound like a big deal but I haven’t done that since I left treatment for the last time in April. I gave up my diet pills and diuretics and I’m taking it one day at a time. And for the first time in forever I actually feel like I am in control of my life again. And it feels pretty good.

Full Circle

On this exact day seven years ago I was on my way to Tulsa Oklahoma to check into Laureate. Leaving high school for the third time to enter yet another treatment center. I didn’t want to be there, it was just another place to put on weight until I could get out and starve again. What I didn’t expect was the girls I would meet and the friendships I would form. Granted, we may have treated it like summer camp, but those 6 months are filled with memories and life lessons I will take with me forever.

Fast forward to today, I watched a girl I met on that day seven years ago get married and begin to start a family of her own, while my Laureate roommate from all those years ago sat by my side.

How did we get here? I honestly don’t know. There were different phases of it all. Us wanting to hold onto our eating disorders while our parents tried desperately to keep us alive. Then watching the girls we spent those months with begin to lose their battles, and holding each other’s hands as we attended their funerals. And finally beginning to grow up and figure it out. We stumble and we fall but we’re there to pick each other up and say keep going when the road gets hard.

I can’t put into words how much I needed this weekend to remind me of where I came from and where I’m going. I may only see these girls every few years but they have always been my rock when I needed one.

I can’t wait for more future weddings so I can once again look around and think how did we get here? I may not know the answer but I’m so glad we did.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words

Well the words these pictures say aren’t always true.

You wouldn’t look at these pictures and think this is a girl who is starving herself. This is a girl who is running at 2am and throwing up in the bushes so her roommates don’t know. This is a girl who swallows half a bottle of pills just so she can get a few hours of sleep, but doesn’t care if she stops breathing in the process. You wouldn’t say any of those things, but it’s what is true.

I’ve had quite a few people privately send me a facebook message saying they know we don’t really talk but they also struggle with similar things and my struggle has helped them know they aren’t alone. It made me think about the image I put out to the world, particularly on facebook. I try so hard to make the world think everything is great, that I am happy and living an amazing life, that I no longer struggle with the demons of my past. I tell myself maybe if this is what I put out to the world it will eventually come true.

Well I can tell you the case is quite the opposite. The more you see me smile in public the more I am purging in the bushes in the middle of the night.

I am sharing this with all of you not to have you feel sorry for me or give me some words of advice, believe me I’ve heard them all. But to remind you that what you see isn’t what you always get. That maybe we can all start to tear down our perfectly painted walls and let people see that we’re not perfect. We’re all just trying to get by.

I am currently 11 days behavior free and I can’t tell you right now if I’m going to make it to day 12 or day 112. But I’m waking up each day and putting one foot in front of the other. Because that is all any of us can really do.

Let’s all stop painting a picture for the rest of the world and start to say what’s really going on. An old friend told me once that just because life is messy, doesn’t mean it can’t be pretty awesome.

Let It Be

I’m not sure what I want to say. I just felt compelled to write tonight.

A big part of me wants to shut down this blog. I am embarrassed by my struggles and so many years of touting pro recovery only for me to end up in a relapse this year.

I thought when I left treatment this last time in April that things truly would be different. That I had learned to love myself while showing myself compassion and grace. That I was confident in who I was and could go forward in my life, no longer struggling with this disease.

Like usual, I was wrong. In May, just a month after I left treatment, I was back to starving. I pulled myself out of it by focusing on my internship this summer and ignoring almost all negative emotions that were festering beneath the surface. Great, things are back to normal, I don’t have an eating disorder, and life is great.

August came. And so did the stress and soon following the starvation.

“Just go back to it Kelly, the anorexia is all you have. If you keep doing this for a few more months it will kill you and you won’t have to live in this pain.” This was something I told myself every night.

Then recruitment happened. I threw myself into another activity and forced myself to eat so I could participate. “Life is good. I don’t have an eating disorder.” This all too familiar sentiment became creeping back in.

Now I’m sitting here embarking on a new phase in my life. I’m alum in Alpha Xi; my friends are no longer built in at Monday chapter meetings. I’m getting older and having to make decisions about the direction I want my life to go. And if I take a moment to actually stop and let myself think I’m terrified. I’m terrified that I will keep falling back on my disease because I can’t actually do life. Terrified that I have to become an adult. Terrified of being happy.

It’s all so confusing and I hate that tears are dripping down my face as I’m writing this. I hate not being the strong confident girl that I portray to the world. But the truth is right now I’m in limbo and figuring it out as I go.

Maybe this semester will be great or maybe I’ll fall back into familiar behaviors but whatever happens I have to let myself be in it. I have to let go of the plans I have laid out for every minute and let it be.

I’m going to leave y’all with this quote that perfectly sums me up right now:

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.” -Charlie, Perks of Being a Wallflower

"In order to get from what was to what will be, you must go through what is"

I haven’t posted since I left Castlewood. Weird to think that was April 2^nd.  Life has been a whirlwind these past two months. Having periods where I’m back in the depths of my disease thinking there was no way out but death to periods where I’m truly experiencing joy and standing firm in my recovery. I haven’t told really anyone about either of these swings of emotion, but I thought I should put it out there. To remind people that going back to treatment does not mean you come out fixed and happy. Life is still hard and I’ve had to swallow my pride and ask for help. Help with the meals and sometimes help to just get through the night.

The last 2 months I have learned and gotten to experience so much through these highs and lows. I have been reconnected with old friends who have never stopped praying that I’d make it out on the other side. I’ve seen friends whom I knew in their lowest of lows experience the most magical days of their life. I’ve figured out what I want to do for a career and was offered an internship in that very thing. I’ve cut people out of my life who have treated me horribly, now knowing I deserve better.

The work I have ahead of me is a lot and can be downright daunting but I’m excited to see what the future has in store. Recovery will continue to be an everyday battle but with the people I have by my side, I know I can get through anything.

Definitions

Recovery. That is a definition that has changed in my dictionary over the past 6 weeks. 6 weeks ago I felt broken and lost, like I had failed. I was back in my eating disorder and questioning if I ever really was in recovery, or if it’s even possible. Maybe this will be my life I thought, a few years of maintaining no symptoms and then back in the hospital having failed once again. I came back to treatment 6 weeks ago feeling shameful. I shouldn’t be back here, I shouldn’t be having any struggles, and I didn’t even think I had an eating disorder anymore.

I have been reminded in my time here that this is recovery, falling, asking for help, and getting back on my feet. Before I came back I always felt like I had to be the poster child of recovery. Never having any problems or struggles, recovered, cured, must always have a smile on my face to inspire others. Unfortunately doing that is what landed me back here.

I am no longer the girl with the plastered on smile that helps everyone else in their recovery and doesn’t have any problems of her own. That’s not real, that’s not me. I am going to have issues arise, and I am going to fall on my face again. But doing that and talking to people about that is what recovery is. I will never be cured, or “over this” it is something I will need to be cognisant of the rest of my life.

I am returning home tomorrow a completely different girl than when I left. I am so excited to continue my journey. I know it will be hard but I am no longer scared because I know out of the struggle comes strength. I am worth recovery and I deserve this. And for the first time in a long time I can say that and truly mean it.

“Set backs are bumps in the road, they are not the end of the roads.”

I wish I could post a new blog about how great life is and how well I'm doing but that wouldn't be being honest. For the past two and a half years I've tried to have the perfect recovery and be an inspiration to others but it's getting hard holding myself to impossible standards. The past two weeks I've been restricting my food intake by a lot. I'm not proud of it, I'm ashamed and I've tried to keep it hidden from everyone so I can keep up this facade of the perfect recovery. It's so hard admitting that life gets hard, that I still have eating disorder thoughts and sometimes just want to run back to the comfort of a treatment center. But I refuse to give up. I refuse to have come this far just to put my life on hold again. I'm going to show myself and everyone else what real recovery is, having stumbles and then getting back on the right track. I'm going to start being honest with people and stop trying to do everything on my own.

So I saw this on my friend Jennee's blog and it is perfect for what I am going through right now and something I need to remind myself daily.

TO LET GO ~ 
Does not mean to stop caring, it means I can't do it for someone else.
To let go........
Is not to cut myself off, it's the realization I can't control another.
Is not to enable, but allow learning from natural consequences.
Is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
Is not to try to change or blame another, it's to make the most of myself.
Is not to care for, but to care about.
Is not to fix, but to be supportive.
Is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
Is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their destinies.
Is not to be protective, it's to permit another to face reality.
Is not to deny, but to accept.
Is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
Is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
Is not to criticize or regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
Is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
To let go.....
Is to fear less and love more.

~ author unknown


I'm ready to let go

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.

This is Recovery

I wrote this a couple days ago after getting into an argument with someone. I wasn’t going to post it because I was embarrassed that these thoughts were even coming into my head but I think I need to share it. Recovery isn’t perfect and I’m sick of the misconception that once you gain weight you’re “better” and “cured”. I will go on to say that I did end up having dinner that night and after I sat down and wrote about it I felt a lot better knowing I got these thoughts out and could challenge them and recognize their irrationality. Recovery isn’t perfect and though these thoughts will haunt me for the rest of my life, I don’t have to act on them. This is recovery

It’s amazing how I can tell myself I’m in full recovery, I never think about food or weight anymore and I never have eating disordered thoughts. Then just one little thing happens, I get in an argument with someone and get pissed off and the first thought that pops into my head is well I’m not going to eat dinner tonight. It’s terrifying but also comforting at the same time.

This is the one thing I’ve always had. No one can hurt me because I’m already hurting myself. If you’re mad at me I’ll just focus on my body and numb myself out so I don’t have to feel. I’ll continue to whither away and you’ll feel sorry and wish you hadn’t said anything. It’s so scary that even years removed from treatment centers and using behaviors this thought is almost automatic at times. But the most fucked up thing is that this comforts me. Sometimes I get so worried that I don’t have the willpower to go back to my eating disorder and I’ve become a weak person by being like everyone else. I don’t have anything unique about me anymore and I need that one-foot out the back door, just in case I want to run back to it all. Knowing that I haven’t forgotten how to do it. 

I am being insane right now. I know logically I don’t want to go back to it all but there’s a voice inside my head whispering, “Kelly life is way too hard, you need to go back to the comfort of feeling your bones protruding and everyone walking around you on tip toes. You can finally have control again and don’t have to live in this chaotic world.”
I know all of these thoughts will pass in a few hours but right now I’m terrified and intrigued at the same time. I need someone to come slap some sense into me.

Today I can look back on this and say I'm proud of myself. That isn't something I do often but need to start. I have the amazing life I do today because of small little everyday victories that I often overlook. It's time I give myself credit for what I've overcome and begin look at these mishaps as opportunities to grow even stronger.

Two Worlds

"You never come back, not all the way. Always there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier thin as the glass of a mirror, you never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad." –Marya Hornbacher

I love this quote. It really is two different worlds. Those in my world now don’t understand the madness I endured all those years. Spinning out of control with nothing to grasp onto. Waking up every morning hoping to feel my bones, because it was the only control I had. Seeing friends in their teenage years drop to the floor in cardiac arrest. Popping pills till my world went dark. Waking up everyday hating God for keeping me alive. This was my life and the only thing I was used to.

Now I am in the “real world” experiencing everyday mundane things. No longer taking care of friends in crisis, and especially no more worrying about food or weight. The drama in my life now consists of what I will wear to a party this weekend, or stressing about an upcoming test in class. 

I like to think I am no longer in the other chaotic world I once was, but truth is all it takes is a phone call to pull me back in. Not back into the behaviors, but into worrying every second of the day and wondering why I can’t save these people. Remembering the madness and wanting to pull them out of it like others did to me.

I am stuck in this parallel universe of wanting to be in life but hurting at the thought of my friends who aren’t. Racking my brain trying to think of something I can say or do that will make a difference. Tiptoeing on a tightrope trying not to fall back into that life. Will it ever stop?

I know like most things I must find a balance but right now it feels like a never-ending process. I will forever be pulled between these two worlds, trying to keep standing on my own two feet.

Grateful

Right now I am crying. No not because the rangers just lost the World Series, the reason I’d normally be crying for but because I’m thinking back on where I used to be and how thankful I am.

 Three years ago today I was admitted to Laureate at my lowest weight, out of my mind on ephedra, and wanting more than anything for God to end my pain and let my body give out from this disease I no longer had the strength to fight.

When I first got there I was confined to a wheel chair at all times, my heart had such a bad arrhythmia they were worried that even standing up to walk to the bathroom would cause me to go into cardiac arrest and die.

I didn’t realize how close to death I really was. How could I be? Three days ago I was performing a cheer routine and two days ago I was walking 2 miles in a parade, I was fine.

It wasn’t until now, years later, that I look back and am so grateful to be alive, for the people who chose to fight for me when I had let them down so many times before, and the Drs who didn’t give up when I kept telling them that I was a lost cause.

It is realizing all of this, how lucky I really am that I’m deciding to change the way I’m living. I’m not longer getting caught up in petty drama that doesn’t matter, I’m no longer staying in relationships that aren’t true friendships, I’m no longer letting people use me because I’m convinced I have nothing else to offer. I’ve wasted too many years of my life that I can’t get back and I’m done doing things I regret later.

So from now on this is a new Kelly. Done with the bullshit, done with the drama, so if that’s all you bring you are officially out of my life.

I’m ready to truly start living, because I deserve it.

Supposed To

I thought no longer being in hospitals or treatment centers, no longer being consumed by racing thoughts of food and disgust with my body everyday, and no longer feeling too weak to even get out of bed was supposed to make things better. Supposed to make me happier. Supposed to make me enjoy life again.

I wish I could say it has, but recently I’ve felt more defeated than ever. No I am not back to engaging in eating disordered behaviors or wanting to die, but I am wanting to curl up in my bed and shut the world out for a while.

The past 3 weeks have been hell, literally anything that could go wrong in my life has. I feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and sad. I want to stay in my house and cry for days until all the tears I’ve stored up have run out.

Things aren’t supposed to be like this. Bad things aren’t supposed to be happening to my friends anymore. I’m not supposed to be sad all the time.

This phrase “supposed to” has become a big part of my life that I can’t let go of. I tell myself there are so many things I’m supposed to be making up for, so many people to help, and so many experiences to have that I end up criticizing myself for wanting to sit in my house and be sad instead of doing these things. I’m not supposed to be sad though right?

Throughout my five years in treatment my doctors always told me that they reason bad things kept happening to my friends was because I surrounded myself with unhealthy people who were always in crisis or on the brink of dying. I cut every one of those people out of my life and filled my life with healthy “normal” people as much as I could. But right now I feel like things aren’t changing, bad things keep happening and I want to run away from it all. I’m starting to think there’s no such thing as a healthy person and people wanting to kill themselves or making unhealthy decisions will forever surround me.

I’m starting to think this is a lie the doctors and therapists told me, just like when my parents used to tell me that if I would just get better all of our family problems would disappear.

I don’t know how much longer I can do this, keep living in this world pretending to be happy and like everything’s alright. Pretending this world is so much better than living inside the confined walls of a treatment center. Because right now the two don’t feel much different, and I’m running out of hope.

How To Save a Life

If you’re a reader of my blog you know that my weakness is trying to save people. I’ve spent my life in treatment centers meeting people in crisis and having them come to me when they want nothing more than to end their life and cease living in pain.

I used to tell myself God made me go through this for a reason. That I was the girl who would need to sacrifice herself in order to save others because their life was worth living but not my own. I would stay up for days, calling my long list of sick friends to make sure they were okay and if they weren’t it was my job to convince them that their life was worth living. A lot of them didn’t make it.

After learning of their death I’d always blame myself. I didn’t do enough, I didn’t say the right things, and they’re dead because of me. I’d always get on my knees begging God to take me instead of them, because I deserved it and they didn’t.

Here’s where I got it wrong. God did make me go through this for a reason but it wasn’t to sacrifice myself in order to save someone else. A friend once told me “you can’t save someone else if you’re drowning.”

I didn’t realize what this really meant until I got in recovery. I truly saw that I couldn’t play God and it wasn’t my job to save anyone, especially when I was barely keeping my own head above water.

I stopped taking calls from friends wanting to kill themselves and started living my own life. It still pained me to see people I cared about in pain but I realized the greatest thing I could do for them was live my own life and be an example that people can change and living a happy healthy life was possible after years of struggles.

The other night I was put in a familiar situation. A friend came to me and told me she wanted to die, she had been making plans of how to do it and everything would be better if she was gone. I didn’t know what to do and my mind began racing with fears of losing another friend and it being my fault because I couldn’t do enough. Then a light bulb went off, I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t save anyone and there were never the right words to say to make someone want to live. I have been in that position before and had people tell me it gets better but when that switch flips in your head you don’t believe anyone and just want to escape the pain that is radiating through your body.

At this point I did something I’ve never done before. I admitted I couldn’t help her, that nothing I could say would make it better, and I took her to the hospital. I took her to the only place that could keep her safe, with people who can truly help her.

This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but for the first time in my life I felt like I really did help. I admitted I was powerless and got her help. I’ve always told myself when my friends die that it’s been my fault but I now realize it’s not. I am powerless and I am human, but by admitting that this time I might have actually saved a life.

Eating Disorders Kill

This is a fact. The National Eating Disorders Association reports that 10-15% of those with an eating disorder will die within 10 years of contracting the disease, whether by complications relating to their eating disorder, heart failure, or suicide.

This is something I remember being told back when I was 16 at Remuda Ranch. I remember bawling when I heard that and looking around that room and not imagining the world without any of these girls in it. That day was six and a half years ago and today I have lost count at the amount of friends that I have lost due to this disease.

I found out tonight that another friend has lost her life to this fight.
I’m still in shock as I write that sentence.

While it has been almost 3 years since the last time I entered a treatment center and am now living in a world outside of hospitals and residential programs, nights like tonight bring me right back to all those hopeless years when I felt so alone.

This is an entry I wrote in one of my journals on April 19, 2007

"I don’t know who I am or who my friends are. Anorexia is my only friend. Am I ever going to get better? What is it going to take? Someone tell me the secret. Fix me. Last night all I wanted to do was slit my wrists and die. I have no self worth. I am 102 lbs, that is GROSS. I just want this all to be over. I want to be normal again if there is such a thing. I feel like the whole world is against me. I surrender. Help me God, save my life."

As I read that I no longer know the girl who wrote it. That girl could not have been me, even though I know it was. 

Hearing another friend has passed away often makes me angry. Angry that they could be this selfish, angry that they gave up hope, angry that they didn’t keep fighting. These are the times I have to stop and remind myself I was that girl who didn’t have any hope and that wanted so badly just to die.
For some reason God decided it was not my time to leave this earth.

These are the times when I get so frustrated. I wish I could help everyone that still feels so hopeless, to find a way to tell people that it gets better, and that this feeling won’t last forever. That true recovery and a life not obsessing about your weight or food is possible.

I’m not one of those bullshit recovery speakers we hear so often at family week that tells you life is just peachy and perfect because it’s not. I have days where all I want to do is cry and run back to the safety and security of my eating disorder, but I push through it and remind myself that God has bigger plans for me in this world than living my life in hospitals hooked up to feeding tubes.

I’m not sure who all reads this blog or if anyone even reads it at all. But if you are reading this entry and are in that hopeless dark place please don’t give up. I know it feels like things will never get better but I promise it can. I was that girl who never believed it but now I’m living proof that things can change.

Don’t give up.
Don’t ever stop fighting.
You are worth more than this.
Recovery is possible.