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.