Journal Entry

I wrote this in my journal and decided to share it here.

I thought I was doing fine on my meal plan, almost "cured" because I was "following the rules."  Turns out that my ED behaviors are more ingrained than I ever thought.  It's not about what I'm doing on the outside so much as what's going on on the inside.  Old habits die hard.  I am taking this one day at a time.  Meal by meal, snack by snack.  Most days I wonder, will I ever truly heal from this?  I have to believe I can.

Can I stop body checking?  I find myself doing that all the time.  I have since I was in high school but it really got bad in 2013--when I lost a lot of weight.

Funny.  May 2013.  I draw a very distinct line between me before May 2013 and after May 2013.  What I once considered me "getting healthy," I now consider me "getting an eating disorder."

But May 2017, well there is another line I draw.  For four years I was on the quest to get a "perfect" body but instead spiraling into my eating disorder.  Four distinct years-- not all bad and miserable, but in relation to my body and food, very bad, sad, miserable, self-loathing years.

May 2017-- when it all came to a head and I knew I had to get help.  I couldn't stop obsessing about food, bingeing, exercising away the calories, hating myself, being mean to my body, engaging in destructive behaviors, going up and down in my weight, weighing sometimes multiple times a day.  All of that was on my mind 95% of the time, maybe 100%.  My life had become completely miserable.

By July, I thought for sure I was almost better.  But by early August I was spiraling again toward destructive behavior.  It's been hard coming back from that.  But the lessons I have learned from the awful relapse are invaluable.  It taught me that I need to rely on others for support-- to let people in on what I'm really struggling with.  It taught me that I'm sicker than I thought, but that I am getting exactly the help I need.  It taught me to freely admit that I need help and support.  Until now, I still did not actually believe I was "sick enough" to need help.  It taught me to own my actions, but also that this eating disorder DOES NOT DEFINE ME.  I can start fresh, start writing the rest of my story differently.  There is no erasing or re-writing of the past.  It's a part of me.  But I can choose where I go from here.  I can take a different path.

YES, I'm still struggling, but now I'm fighting harder than ever.

Thoughts for the Week

Taking it one day at a time over here.  I'm on day 3 of following my meal plan again the way I am supposed to.  I realized I wasn't trusting my treatment plan, my therapist or dietitian, or even myself.  I wish this could be easier.  I wish there was a magic wand I could just wave and be cured of all this.

Some things I've realized this week:

Although I have known I have a problem for a few years now, enough that I knew I needed to seek help... I still think I have been in denial about just how deep seeded this really was.  It's amazing what talking about it can do.  I realized I've really been struggling inwardly with not feeling like I'm actually "sick enough" (i.e. dangerously underweight, hair falling out, fainting, all the typical things you think of when you hear the term eating disorder) to need this much help.  I was actually starting to think maybe I blew this all out of proportion and I could just figure it out on my own.  Which is messed up, I know, because while you might not look at me and think I am struggling, there is a lot more going on that people can't see on the outside.

I've learned the last couple of weeks that for some reason, this part of me is broken.  My view of my body, food, hunger, etc, is completely distorted.  And I honestly didn't realize just how much until I truly opened up to close friends about it over the last couple of weeks.  Until now, there have been many aspects of it that I just didn't want to talk about with anyone because it was too embarrassing.  But sharing so that someone else can help me bear this burden has given me a new freedom and more strength to keep working toward recovering.

I need healing.  I need to take care of myself.  I want to feel like a whole person again.  I have a renewed hope that someday, I will get there.

I honestly thought I was doing so well a few weeks ago.  Like I was so close to being past all of this.  I felt good, I was eating every 3-4 hours throughout the day, felt satiated and the urges to engage in ED behaviors was very low.  The last two weeks have been the worst.  And all it took was one day of unintentionally engaging in behaviors to spiral me out of control.  Each day thinking, I can keep this up for just one more day and THEN I'll get back on track.

I feel so ashamed, embarrassed, and afraid to really share with anyone how hard this is.  I feel so ashamed that I cannot master the basic human function of how to eat.  I'm so tired of dealing with this and feel as though I will never get better.  I have to hope I can, and I am getting exactly the help I need to overcome this.  I am just so frustrated with myself, the process, and this horrible relapse I've been dealing with.

I'm thirty, and I'm still dealing with this shit?  Can't I just flip a switch and be cured already?  :(

I know this will get better, but I have to make conscious choices to get there.  I have to take responsibility for my actions.  

Relapse

Bad week over here, bad week.  But I'm ready to pick myself back up and keep going.  Or at least try.  I won't let one bad week define me.  One bad week can easily turn into two, three, four, etc, if I let it define me.

I realized this week that my sense of identity is going to have to shift a bit.  I get asked so, so often "What are you training for right now?"  Or receive comments of "You eat so healthy."  All extremely well-meaning, so I don't hold any of that against the people asking it.  But every time I get those kinds of comments, I miss that "old me."  And I feel guilty because I don't run anymore, and I have no plans to train for anything.  And I no longer believe in the same concept of "healthy eating" as I did before.  Because I'm learning that all foods can fit in a healthy diet.  Granted, I still don't know what foods fit in mine, but I'll get there.

This week I am struggling with my body image... desperately wanting to weigh myself, measure myself, see if I lost or gained.  I have reverted back to old ways, old habits.  Instead of listening to my body, I've ignored everything it has tried to tell me this week.  As a result I have barely slept, been completely unproductive, and feel as though I am back to square one (even though I'm not).  

Here's hoping things turn around.  But I have to put in the work.  I can't expect these things to heal on their own if I keep making the choice to go back.

Things I am leaving behind: diets, restriction, bingeing, feeling hungry all the time, counting calories, over-exercising, over analyzing my body, putting myself down.  But I actually have to CONSCIOUSLY make the choice to not do those things and it's so.damn.hard.