A Change in Plans

My therapist warned me that soon the eating disorder would begin rearing it’s ugly head again because I have been progressing so well in my recovery.  She said that it would put on a full-court press in an effort to get me to freak out and return back to anorexia.

I believe that the full-court is happening right now.

Let me explain.

Just three days ago I lost my job.

This was not in my plans.  It puts a complete wrinkle in my future and possibly could prevent me from going into ministry.  It means insecurity, uncertainty, and worse, too much down-time. 

I am beyond worried, beyond concerned, beyond scared, BEYOND freaked-out.

I am terrified.

Already I have started having a few vicious battles with my eating disorder.  I have started restricting again, convinced that I am STILL eating too much food and now need to cut back because I won’t be as active.  I have stopped all efforts of cutting back further on exercise because now it’s every man for himself and I feel that I have to get as much exercise as I possibly can or else I’m going to gain weight.  I’ve even begun regularly criticizing my body, standing in front of my mirror, cringing at my appearance.  I have rolls, I am certain.  My belly is still not flat and my butt is bubbly.

I hate it.

I hate the body bashing, the feeling of deprivation, the constant scrutiny of food and then the guilt after eating it.

I don’t want to do this anymore DAMN IT!!

I did not FIGHT FOR MY LIFE over the past 8 months only to have everything go rushing back down the drain again.

I worked too hard for this.

It is going to be tough, brutal, and painful.

But I am NOT GOING TO GIVE UP!  I can’t!!

Because I know that if I allow myself to be dragged back downwards, this time I won’t make it out alive.

Let it Out

I didn’t eat dinner tonight.

I was feeling really hurt, and upset, and angry at a fight that my mom and I had on Sunday.  I was hurt that she refused to listen to my side of the story and instead just walked out of the room in some immature fit, leaving the problem unsolved.  I hate when she just walks away from fights like that. 

In my session with my Christian therapist today we discussed the ways in which I was still holding on to my eating disorder.  I discovered that I still like to use my eating disorder as a weapon to manipulate others, and hurt others when I am not heard.  It feels good knowing that I have that kind of power over them.  Sometimes it’s the only way I can communicate that I am upset, because when they see me actively restricting then they suddenly take notice that there is a problem.

I also use it to hurt myself.

When I am hurt by others I like to hurt myself because I can’t hurt them.  Although now that I have learned to express my anger I end up doing a double whammy and hurting my family with my words along with still hurting myself by restricting.

My family is the cornerstone of the hurt in my life.  They really know how to hurt me.  They really know how to hurt the family.

I hate it.

After turning out the lights tonight I lay in my bed and reflected on the day.  I thought about what I was feeling and why I was angry and why I was hurt.  And then I thought about how my therapist told me that God is always here for me and how He understands my hurt.  And I started talking to God. 

At first I was just talking in my head, while still attempting to sleep.  But then I realized that if I was really going to get this out and deal with it, I needed to fully commit to praying.

So I sat up in my bed and I spoke aloud to God.

I told Him everything that was bothering me.  I told him that I was hurt by my family and how my mom didn’t listen to me.  I told Him that I was hurt by my job and my stupid boss and how my coworkers are so cold and unfriendly to me.  I told Him that I was hurt that I was so confused about my recovery, and my eating disorder and my ministry.  Then I dug deeper and told Him that I was pissed about how my dad constantly sits in front of the computer every hour of every day and how hurt I was that my dad makes that computer his world and never listens to me.  I told Him that I was deeply hurt that I don’t feel safe in my family and how I never want to be home and how I can never just have peace and quiet and silence because everyone is so loud and the three dogs are constantly barking.  I told Him, honestly, that I truly hated my family and didn’t want to be around them and how I was hurt that I even felt that way because it is just so awful to hate your family.  I got into a lot of issues, some recent, some that happened years ago but still bother me, and ended up just purging up this whole list of things.  I cried my eyes out and just let the tears flow.  And even though some of the things I said were mean and made me feel like an awful person, I didn’t really feel like God was upset.  I didn’t feel like He was judging me.  I just felt comforted by the fact that I could openly tell Him everything.

And He listened.

I didn’t hear His voice, I didn’t exactly feel His presence or suddenly feel like I had all the answers.  That usually doesn’t happen.

But eventually I felt this sense of peace suddenly come over me and felt like even though things were still bad and weren’t resolved, that I was just okay.

I really felt good to get everything out and fully feel the hurt I was feeling.  I realized that I often use my eating disorder in order to feel my emotions because it is just so awkward to actually FEEL.  I don’t really like crying, and I don’t like being angry.  Even if I do allow myself to be angry I always feel so guilty and awful afterwards, like I am a horrible person.  Also, most of the time I get criticized for expressing my anger which just makes me feel even worse.  But when I use my eating disorder to feel my anger, either through exercising or restricting, then it is truly a delicous feeling and I can be as angry as I want as long as I am only hurting myself.

But tonight when I allowed myself to cry, it felt good.  It was painful to experience my hurt and come face-to-face with it, but I know that God was pressing me to deal with my issues.  If I keep avoiding them I am never going to get any better.

After I was done purging, I thanked God for everything good that had happened lately.  I thanked Him for my friends and how they are the best friends I could have ever asked for.  I thanked Him for my new church and just how awesomely amazing it is.  I asked Him if He would please use me and told me how much I want to serve Him there.  I finished by thanking Him for always being here for me in every part of every day, from the smallest to the biggest moments.  I picked out one moment in my life today in which He had been there for me and thanked Him for that.  Then I thanked Him for just loving me and said Amen.  As I lay back down on my pillow, I felt refreshed, relieved, and just plain exaughsted.  Sleep sounded good.  But then a small thought popped into my head to turn on the radio.  So I did.  And the song, “Never Alone” by Barlow Girl was playing.

I listened to the lyrics and for the first time I truly understood just what they meant.

Never Alone by Barlow Girl

I waited for you today
But You didn’t show
No.No.No.
I needed You today
So where did you go?
You told me to call
you said You’d be there
And though I haven’t seen You
Are You still there?

Chorus
I cried out with no reply and
I can’t feel You by my side
So I’ll hold tight to what I know
You’re here and I’m never alone.

And though I can not see You
and I can’t explain why.
Such a deep, deep reassurance
You’ve placed in my life oh
We cannot separate
‘Cause You’re part of me
and though You’re invisible
I’ll trust the unseen

Chorus
I cried out with no reply
And I can’t feel You by my side
So I’ll hold tight to what I know
You’re here and I’m never alone

We cannot separate
You’re part of me
and though You’re invisible
I’ll trust the unseen

Chorus
I cried out with no reply
and I can’t feel You by my side
So I’ll hold tight to what I know
You’re here and I’m never alone

If you haven’t heard this song yet, I insist you check it out here.

You see in the Chorus when Barlow Girl says,

“I cried out with no reply
and I can’t feel You by my side
So I’ll hold tight to what I know
You’re here and I’m never alone”

It doesn’t mean that God is an awful God who doesn’t care about you or isn’t around.  That’s what I USED to think.  Rather, it means that even though we can’t always see God, we can’t always feel God, and we can’t always hear God, He is always there and He is always listening to us.

I believe that God purposely put that song on the radio in that moment, to remind me that He was here for me and He really heard me tonight.

I am so touched by His love for me.

I love when uses something as simple as a song to talk to me.

How Big is God.

Side note:  After hearing the song I wanted to go to bed, but immediately felt God telling me to write this post.  Even though it’s later than I wanted to go to bed tonight, I’m glad I did.  God is amazing.

Question to Ponder:  How has God spoken to you in your life lately?  What are some of the amazing things He has done for you in the smallest ways?

Revelation: Steps in Recovery

I’m kinda really mad right now.

I’m having a bad day.

Now, it wasn’t supposed to be bad.  In fact, it was supposed to be a freaking awesome day night, because I was going to hang out with my friends downtown and go out for a few drinks.  I was really excited about this and couldn’t wait to get all dolled up and go out.  Plus, there was beer involved, and well, I kind of like the taste of beer.

Um, yeah.  Guess my boss didn’t care that I actually had a life.  You see, even though he had posted the schedule a week ago he suddenly decided to come up to me today and ask me to work tomorrow.  Because there’s a huge event going on.  Which I was NOT supposed to work.  But I now am.  Which means I have to wake my butt up at 4 o’freakin clock in the morning, get ready, make a quick smoothie and be out the door by 5:30 AM!!!  in order to make it to work by 6:30.

Again.

Not.  Fun.

So after he decided to grace me with this blessed news (note the heavy sarcasm???), I was MAD, and UPSET, and HURT for the remainder of the day.  I ate a quick lunch, coasted through the lunch rush (I’m a server), and jetted my way to the gym where I had a quick post-workout snack.  And then, to make my day even BETTER, my mom called me just before I was going to go in and made me even madder because she can make the biggest deal out of the tiniest thing.  It is SO FRUSTRATING!!! 

By the time I hit the elliptical I was good and mad.  I fired up my I-pod, put on the angriest music I could find, and pounded away. 

Currently, I am sitting upstairs in my room, and surfing the internet while finishing off a dinner of french toast and a mango.  Delish.

HOLD ON A SECOND.  CAN ANYBODY TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE??????

Okay, I’ll tell you.  Here’s the big clue:

I’M ANOREXIC.

1.  My boss asked me to work tomorrow BEFORE my lunch break.  I still ate lunch.

2.  Even though I was still angry after work, I still ate my snack. 

3.  My mom made me super mad and hurt before I went to go workout.

4.  I did not over-exercise.

5.  I ate dinner.

Now do you see what’s wrong?

Even though I was extremely angry today and my feelings were really hurt, I DID NOT ALLOW them to cause me to restrict my food, or to increase my exercise.  I didn’t even realize how meaningful this was until I was driving home after the gym.  Just a few years earlier I would do exactly the opposite of what I did tonight.

When I was made I would restrict.  When I was sad I would restrict.  When I was hurt I would restrict.  I would also exercise more.  I like to hurt when I’m feeling hurt by life.  It’s the only way I know how to deal with pain.

I’ll admit though, it wasn’t easy tonight.  While I was working up a fierocous sweat on my elliptical, I was doing a lot of boss/mom/world bashing, and already making up plans for how I was going to skip dinner tonight and maybe just maybe put in an extra 30 minutes of exercising.  BUT I DIDN’T.  By the time my session was over, my head felt a lot clearer, and I felt a lot better (though still kind of angry), .  It was very therapeautic.  I love working out when I’m good and mad.

I believe that God, in His own quirky way, decided to use today’s events as lesson in how far I have come in my recovery.  Tonight I didn’t overexercise because I knew that I didn’t deserve it and I honestly did not want to hurt myself.  The constant pain in my right foot and knee also helps me to BACK OFF when I am feeling tempted to just do a little bit more.  Believe me, NOTHING is worth the pain.  I also didn’t restrict because I didn’t want to deprive my body of food and I kind of just wanted to have a nice, good, delicious meal that I could sit down and enjoy.  I kind of deserved it after my long hard day today.

You know what else I noticed?  I noticed how upset I got when I couldn’t go hang out with my friends.  In the past month, God has blessed me with a new group of amazing friends and I am doing everything in my power to hang out with them as much as I can.  Before, I would always balk at going out because I didn’t want to miss a meal or miss exercise.  Now, I would much rather just chomp on a quick snack and just go out and have fun!   Did you also notice that I said I liked beer????  LOL!!   That is such a huge step for me!!!  Before I was terrified of drinking because I didn’t want to have the extra calories!!!  I also have always hated the taste and smell ever since I was around this Budweiser booth at a fair.  But then a couple of weeks ago I just decided, “Hey I would like to have a beer!”  And so I tried it, and I LIKED it, and ever since then I always have a couple of sips whenever I go out!!

That is seriously the funniest revelation of all!!  I never thought that I would say, “I LIKE BEER!!”

So even though tonight sucked majorly, I’m grateful that God showed me how far removed I am from my eating disorder.  I really have come a long way 🙂

Fun facts: 

1.  My favorite beer I have tried to date is Coors Light.

2.  The CD I workout out to today was “Until We Have Faces” by Red.  They are my new favorite “workout-band.”  My favorite song of theirs is “The Outside.”  You can check it out here: 

3.  My I-pod’s name is Mortimer.  Don’t ask me why.  I debated over Peanut, and Garbanzo for a while but one day I woke up from sleeping and the name Mortimer just popped into my head.  So there you have it.

4.  I always eat a post-workout snack.  I’m actually kind of afraid to go without one because I don’t want to run out of energy.

Question to ponder:  What is a major step you have made in your recovery lately?

Trusting This Body O’ Mine

It took me a long time to get where I am right now in my recovery.  About 6 years too long.  I’ve been through it all, had a couple of relapses, and traveled through hell and back.  Yeah, it was not fun.

I’m actually pretty proud of myself for being able to accomplish so much and for never giving up.  I’m also amazed that God never gave up on me.

But I’ve still got some things I need to work on.

Specifically I need to learn how to eat restaurant foods and any other type of food that doesn’t fall into my “SAFE” category.  I’m fine eating anything that is all-natural and free of preservatives, additives, artificial ingredients and all that other junk.  But when it comes to eating anything other than these foods, I balk.  Although I love eating foods that are good for me and love respecting my body and treating it right, my fears still limit me from being completely free.  I want to be completely free, unafraid of any food in the world.  I want to get to the point where I can sit down and eat a piece of freaking cake without guilt, or freaking out or worrying about how it fits into my plan.  Even though it’s not a huge deal to only eat all-natural foods, for me this is not “normal eating” because it is still allowing my eating disorder to have some control over my life.

I also need to work on trusting my body.  And letting go of the scale.   I don’t weight myself religiously anymore or worry if the scale has gone up a little bit.  I have learned that our bodies will fluctuate in weight during the day and even over the week and that THIS IS NORMAL.  But I still worry about going over my set-point.  I’m afraid that if I cut back on my exercise my body will jump in weight.  I also find myself continually wanting my body to be lower in my range each time I visit my dietician and being upset during the week if I notice that it goes up.

In some areas I still want to be small.  I still want to have that skinny-ness factor, that reassurance that I’m special, and beautiful, and SAFE (there’s that word again)…..But I need to let that go, and just TRUST!

The last thing that I need to work on is exercise.  This is my biggest weakest.  The devil knows that he can jab his little thorns in there at any time and upset me if I don’t exercise.  I haven’t quite reached the point yet where I have taken a day off, but I know that eventually it is going to come. 

I’m kind of scared.  I haven’t been in touch with my eating disorder in so long that I don’t know how I am going to react.  Am I going to be scared?  Am I going to freak?  Am I going to be completely calm?  I’m actually more worried about restricting my food for that day because I don’ t know how much I would “need” to take out to count for the missed day.  But the thing is, I DON’T WANT TO RESTRICT!!  Just the mere thought of restricting my food makes me feel sick.  I never want to feel deprived again.

I also finally made the decision to just get my stupid knee in for an MRI and accept the results.  This is super scary for me because I know they are going to find something.  There has been so much pain lately that it is going to be impossible for them not to find something.  I just don’t know what.  I’m scared of having to stop exercise completely during this time.  It totally freaks me out.

But I know that my body needs to heal.  And I respect my body and want it to be better.  I’m tired of feeling like an 80-year old woman with arthritis pains, and wobbly knees.  So I’m going for the plunge.  I have to.

I believe that God wants me to go through this just so I can learn even further how to fully trust Him.  If I am ever going to be free and be useful in His plan for my ministry then I need to knock out this one last demon.

It’s going to be hard, but I think I’m ready.

If anything, I WANT TO BE FREE.

The Ministry Begins Now

For a long time I have felt that God has pressed upon my heart that He wanted me to minister to girls with eating disorders.  In fact, it was in the 11th grade that this thought popped into my head one day in biology class and I forever left behind my previous intentions of working with orca whales as a marine mammalogist.

This is what I want to do.  This is where I want to be.

I have such a passion for those that struggle with eating disorders.  I want to help them overcome their struggles.  I want others to understand what they are going through.  I want to empower women to feel good about themselves and about their bodies and to not worry about diets, or food, or weight, or exercise.  I want to make a difference.  I want to help. 

For a while I thought that my direction was to go into psychology to work with girls, but that idea was quickly discarded after taking a few classes and realizing that I don’t want to analyze a person but instead help them.  Then I tinkered around with a possible career path in nutrition with a side degree in counseling, but also quickly realized that I DID NOT want to sit in a chair all day and talk with a person.  I want to be vocal.  I want to be active and out in the community and making a difference.  So then my focus shifted into motivational speaking…something along the lines of what Beth Moore does.

But I think I have finally figured it out.

Or rather, I think God has finally revealed his plan to me.

This year, after some encouragement from my therapist, I started attending a youth program just for college kids.  My first night there, I loved it!  I later met some friends through a spontaneous facebook post, and have been loving and enjoying life ever since!  It is awesome!!!

A couple of weeks ago I found out that this church was hiring for an internship opportunity.  I was interested, so I checked it out.  The intership is for a program in which I would basically be mentoring college kids, and training for ministry.  I would work individually with them, live on-site, and organize programs.

I believe this is where God wants me to go.  I think that He wants to use me here, in this church, to start my ministry for helping girls with eating disorders.  I am praying that this is where He wants me to go.  I really want this.

To say that I’m excited would be an understatement.

I’m ecstatic.  Anxious.  Happy.

And honored. 

But most importantly I am ready.  In terms of my eating disorder, I have all but left it in the dust.  God has helped me conquer so many fears in my life it is incredible.  I only wish I had written more so that I could remember all of it. 

I can’t believe that God would want to use me in this way.  I pray that He wants to use me in this way.

The program doesn’t start until January, and I have yet to turn in my application.  I’m thinking that that will give me plenty of time to organize the rest of my life, get everything back on track and tackle the last of this pesky eating disorder.  In the meantime, I am going to start using my blog as a tool for my ministry.  I am going to post what I have learned, what God is teaching me, and what I am learning along the way.  I don’t think I should put this off any longer, and I feel like God is gently pushing me to start NOW.

I’m way excited.

So here goes.

The Ministry Begins Now.

Black and White

 

Post-reflection:  I feel that God led me today to write this post. It comes from a place of deep pain for me, but I hope that you can receive some healing from it. 

A lot of thinking has been going on in this here head for the past couple of days.  I kind of like that I’m back in the blogging groove again but I’m still unsure about where I want this to go.  I guess I’ll find out along the way.

I had a really good session with my therapist. I told her about how I am in the middle of an identity crisis and how I’ve struggled with it in the past.  I also told her how often times I just feel so guilty about my last relapse (last year) because I felt like I was the one who was controlling the eating disorder, rather than it being the other way around.  Although I kept insisting over and over again that it was me who was doing the dieting and changing my food plan, she forcibly told me that it was not true.  My eating disorder is the cause for my relapse, NOT ME.  There is no way on earth that I, me the healthy me, would have consciously ever wanted to be that skeletal.  She said that it probably felt different because we go through different stages of maturity.  When I first became anorexic, it was a whole new field.  I didn’t realize how wrong it was for me or how distorted my thinking was.  I, in my eating disordered mind, thought that I was doing everything right and everybody else was wrong.

Oh ho ho….how I love my ED’s irony.  Stupid thing…..

However, once I realized that restricting and dieting were wrong, my thinking became black and white.  If I was restricting then I was bad, whereas if I was eating then I was good.  So when I started to cut back on my intake again I felt so wrong, and bad, and disobedient because I knew that it was wrong for me.  But what I failed to understand is that it was also harmful.

You see, I believe that all recovering anorexics have a black and white thinking—

Restricting=bad

Eating=good.

We don’t really know an in-between yet, or at least I don’t.  For so long I lived in this mentality in which I felt extremely guilty if I listened to my eating disorder because of the beliefs that had been stuck in my head.   Bad means that I am a bad person, I am disobedient, I am a sinner.  Good means that I have all my ducks lined in a row, I eat all of my food, and I don’t skip overexercise.   As anorexics we lack the inability to grasp the reality behind the bad and the good, we just know that one is better than the other.   I know that I think that my behaviors are completely right for my body because they are preventing me from being fat.  Even though I can see the physical damage that startving does to my body, it’s like I am living in this separate world where I believe that it can’t harm me. 

I am invincible.

But what I experienced first-hand this year is the reason behind why one side is bad.  My vicious struggle with over-exercising not only caused me to lose so much weight that it caused me to look like a “concentration camp victim” (as my therapist likes to say) but it wrecked havoc on my body.  The more time passed the more that I noticed my body wasn’t functioning as well.  I would have trouble walking.  My knees would lock up.  I started having intense pain around my joints that was so bad it was all I could do not to curl up and cry.  The pain ended up being a good thing though because it forced me to BACK OFF.  Pain is always a good tool that way. 

But the damage didn’t stop there.  I found that I was so weak I had trouble climbing a flight of stairs.  I also severely lacked the muscular strength to lift heavy objects and found my wrists straining in protest if I even attempted the feat.  My ankles were so weak that if I STEPPED ON A ROCK IN THE ROAD, they would buckle and I would fall to the ground.  I was so weak I couldn’t even support my own body weight.

But the absolute low point happened one night when I was nearing home on my evening walk.  On a whim I decided to try something, a simple hop, a joyful leap.  It was something that I hadn’t done in so long and I wanted to try it.  Giddily I lifted my legs into the air to begin the act, and discovered something that still haunts me.

I COULDN’T JUMP.

I doubt I even cleared 2 inches off of the ground.

I’m not even kidding.  THAT was how weak I was.  I became so depressed after that.  It was an immediate wake-up that I was destroying my body.

THAT is why the black is bad, and the white is good.  Restricting and over-exercising do not make you a bad person.  They do not mean that you are a sinner or that you are disobeying.Yes, they are hurtful but no they are not condemning.  I don’t believe that God punishes you if you decide to restrict.  Instead I believe that He hurts when you do and just wants to wrap His arms around you and surround you with His love.  He LOVES YOU!  Even though at the time I felt that God was punishing me because I was struggling again, I instead believe that He was just trying to get my attention and get me to stop and show me that I needed to change.  Not because I was bad, but because I was dying.

And that is the cold hard truth here.  Even though being anorexic does not make you a bad person, it WILL kill you.  It may not be all at once but eventually, the longer and longer you let it control your life, it WILL end up killing you.

I urge you to at least think about recovering for that reason.  You are too beautiful and wonderfully made to allow a nasty little thing like an eating disorder to rob you of your life.  Please don’t let it.

Where I am Now

This post is inspired by my feelings of overwhelming guilt and depression for not going to church today.  I’ve been keeping a lot of this bottled up and it’s high time I faced it.

Every time I do this “recovery thing”  I always find myself confused at pretty much everything else in life.  I get lost in my relationship with God, I get lost in knowing myself, I get lost in relationships.  It’s like I don’t know how to function or how to view myself without being anorexic. 

I’m paralyzed.

During my last attempt at recovery I went through this time period in where I was trying to figure out who I was.  I found myself doing a lot of research on mental disorders and came to the conclusion that I was OCD.  This has been pretty much proved regarding a lot of behaviors of mine, but that’s  not the point.  The point is that I was trying to find something that was wrong with me.  I wanted to find something to explain why I am the way that I am.  I felt like I needed to have a reason because without that reason then I was inevitably either a).  a bad person, or b.)  crazy.    Of course I couldn’t accept even the idea that I was a bad person so I settled on the latter.

I was crazy.  I had to be.  I went so far as to convince myself of that and even lived believing it for a while.  I started having anxiety attacks and intense bouts of fear.  I foiund myself questioning absolutely every aspect evey tiny little inch of my life from past to present, until God pretty much knocked me upside the head and said, “Knock it off, that’s not true.”  Unfortunately I still believe it from time to time.  It’s like once the devil got his little thorns in there they remained stuck in my flesh and I am too spiritually weak to pry them out.  You know what they say about footholds……

Fast forward to the present.  I’m right back in the same place once again.  I feel confused.  I feel lost.  I feel foreign.  Right now my relationship with God is pretty much non existent.  I don’t really pray, I certainly don’t read my Bible, and I haven’t been going to church.  I feel extremely guilty about these things because I know that I can’t do this without Him but at the same time I feel like that’s the only reason I still hold on to Him.  I want to recover and be able to minister to other girls but I feel like I can’t if I don’t “know” Him.  Sadly, my relationship with Him has become almost a sort of obligation.  It’s not real, it’s not deep, it’s not even personal.  The only time I talk to Him is to ask Him for small things, to change my life or make it better, or to take bad things away.  And it is painful to realize that.  And everytime I start trying to connect with Him again and end up failing, I get discouraged and feel guilty because it’s related to my eating disorder and then pretty much give up altogether.  But I can’t despair.

You see, I so desperately want to fall in love with Him.  I want to pursue Him and know Him and talk to Him and have that intimate personal, deep deep relationship that I plunge myself into until it comes up to my shoulders.  I aspire to be like powerful women of the Word that I see ministering, like Beth Moore, Patsy Clairmont, and Nancy Swindoll.  I so long, nay, ache, to be that way but I don’t know how.   I want it to be genuine,  I want it to be real.  I don’t want it to be forced or done out of obligation or done out of guilt. 

I want it to be real.

So what do I do?  How do I be “REAL” in my relationship with Him.  I’m not quite sure, but I would like to keep holding on enough so that I can at least find out.

I know I can’t live without Him and I know I don’t want to.

Note:  I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned in my intro post that this blog was going to be raw, real, and at times painful.  Regardless of whether I lose readers or gain some, this is pretty much for me.  I need to get this stuff out and I need to face my life instead of always stuffing it inside.  It helps to have it public too, because I still want to help others and I also like hearing when others can relate to me.  It makes me feel normal.  So thanks.  I won’t apologize for the intense honesty of this blog though.  This is me.  I’m not going to censor that.

Losing my Identity

I feel lost again.  Somewhere along the lines I feel like the memory of who I used to be in my eating disorder and the reality of who I am now got smushed together and became indistinct.

I feel like I have lost who I once was, almost like I can’t remember that person anymore.  Frequently I find myself reading other recovery blogs and not being able to identify with their struggles, or even envying the fact that they still have food fears and challenges to overcome.  Why though?  Why do I do this?

As I’m writing this I actually think the answer is pretty straight forward–I miss it.  Honest to God, I miss my eating disorder.  I truly MISS being afraid of food.  I miss feeling skinny.  I miss the constant voice of my eating disorder whispering in my ear, causing me to shun every last morsel of food.  I miss the feeling of power and specialness that I got from being so skeletal.  I miss being anorexic.

But why?  Because I’m sick that’s why.  LOL.  Actually I think it’s because I place so much value and worth into my eating disorder.  I gave it so much power, so much control.  It consumed my being, both mental and physical, until it became my identity.  Truly I feel lost without it.  Lost, alone, scared, and confused.  Like I don’t know who I am anymore.  Sometimes I think that being eating disordered is the only person I can be.  I’m obsessed with it.  I constantly find my attention immediately averted whenever I see or hear about someone also having an eating disorder.

Strangely though, all of this–all of these feelings–is not new to me.  I remember feeling like this before a couple of years ago, and then again after my hospital release, and then AGAIN, the first time I relapsed.  I always feel like I let go of my eating disorder too soon, and jumped into recovery too fast.  I started eating too quickly, I gained weight too quickly, blah, blah, blah.  But…..these are all just lies.  I can’t ever have a perfect recovery because there is no perfect recovery!  It’s trial and error and error and trial and fail and try try try again over and over.  But for some reason I can’t seem to get that through my head!!   It’s like I am looking for the perfect recovery but I can never get there—just like my eating disorder!!!

I realize now that I am terrified of losing it.  I am terrified of forgetting my eating disorder and forgetting what it was like to be anorexic.  Being that sick fulfilled something for me I guess.  It made me feel powerful, special, unique.  And now….I’m not I guess.

I just feel so lost.  Can anybody offer any advice?

Grocery Run!

I love the grocery store.  It is one of my favorite things to do if I am feeling bored and just looking for an adventure.  I love nothing better than strolling down the aisles, looking at all of the different food products, and discovering new foods I have never seen before.  Since being in recovery from my eating disorder, I have had a lot of fun finding, trying, and then conquering new foods.  This is a huge accomplishment for me because there was a time when I was so terrified of new foods, that I wouldn’t dare stray from my usual fare.  It was safe.  It was calculated into my plan.  It was predictable and familiar.   No more!

In the past couple of months and years I have conquered so many new foods that I would have never thought possible.  It truly amazes me that  I was once afraid of dressing.  Psshh!!   Then one day I picked up a bottle, read the ingredients, and thought, “hey, I’m not scared of you.  I think I’ll give you a try.”  Now, I cannot live without my Goddess.  Amazeaballs.

And sweet potatoes?  With peanut butter?  *Drool* They are like my drug.  Don’t even get me started.

But I think one of my greatest foodie finds was none other than my beloved Fage.  Our love affair began one simple day when I was running late to work.  I had foolishly left the house unprepared and was in need of an easy dinner with protein.  Thinking quickly I ran into the grocery, frantically trying to figure out if I wanted to buy a whole box of veggies burgers or something else.  I was stuck.  Suddenly I spotted a container of Fage, and quickly snatched it off the shelf.   I remembered hearing about this stuff and was curious about trying it.  I was also scared.  But there was no turning back:  I was outta time.

So I ran into work and threw my makeshift dinner into the fridge.  When meal time came around I was still anxious.  What if it didn’t taste good.  What if I hated it?  Anxiously I cracked open the seal, dug my spoon in, and took a taste.

Mi amore.  It was love at first bite.  The taste was sinfully rich and decadent, thick and creamy like sour cream, but not as overpowering.  I dipped my spoon in again and again, devouring every last spoonful until the container was empty.

Since that momentous day, I have always treasured those special times when I can afford a few Fage’s of my own.  There are kind of expensive so it is a rare treat.  Sometimes I only get them once a week, sometimes once a month.  And then there was that glorious time when I was sent a package of my own and I was eating it every day for a straight 2 weeks.  Bliss pure bliss.

So today when I flounced into Kings lookin for something to round out my meal, I spotted a glorious sight on the shelves.  What’s this?!!!  Fage 0% in 4 new flavors!!  I couldn’t believe my eyes!

Blueberry Acai

Cherry Pomegranate

Mango Guanabana

Strawberry Goji

I was beyond excited.  Being the mango lover that I am, I immediately tossed the Mango Guanabana one into my basket.

I first tried the mango guanabana mixture by itself to really get a feel for the whole flavor.  Midly put, it was delicious.  The flavor was light and airy and danced on my tongue.  It wasn’t sickly sweet like honey sometimes is, which made it really enjoyable.  I could distinctly detect the flavor of the mango and I loved the little chunks of it that were in the jelly-like mixture.  It made me confident that I wasn’t just eating some highly processed, heavily sugared-up jam product, but was actually eating a real fruit that came from a real tree.  I was also happy to find that it was still just as delicious when I mixed it in with the Fage 0% itself, which gave it a nice sweet flavor.  I really enjoyed it. 

Fage once again you made my lunch stellar!

My only regret is that the cup only held about 2 tablespoons of these yummy preserves. 

And that I am currently too broke to buy a lifetime supply 🙂

Challenges

This week has been a little bit hard for me.  There have been a few days where I’ll admit I had more than my share of depression.  I hate being depressed because it really affects me.  I feel lethargic, slow, and just totally don’t care about anything.  I don’t even want to move.  It’s on these days that I am so glad I have my exercise because once I get into that gym and start pounding away, all of my worries just dissipate.

Anyways, work has been kind of a major pain.  I really don’t understand why these girls that I work with don’t like me.  I don’t know if I did something or what but they are just not kind at all.  I have tried holding numerous conversations with them but getting them to actually talk back to me feels like pulling teeth.  Eh. whatevs. I’ve just decided to pretty much ignore their rudeness as best I can, and keep as upbeat as an attitude as possible.  Then, once I can find another job, I am OUTTA THERE!

I wanted to highlight on one major thing that has been bugging me lately:  my weight.  No surprise there.

For some reason in the past two weeks I have noticed that my pants are feeling a lot tighter.  It is really uncomfortable and really scares me.  Here, I thought I was maintaining my weight but suddenly I am starting to get bigger.  Augh!! It doesn’t make sense!!  I talked to my therapist about it today in depth.  I almost started crying I was so upset.  I still really attach a lot of self worth and self meaning by the size of the pants that I wear.  I was totally fine with my body where it was two weeks ago.  I thought, hey this body is not so bad and I get to keep it.  I don’t have to worry about gaining more weight because I have reached my set point, and I can have this body forever.

Ummm….yeah…apparently my bod had other plans.  I actually went up about 2 pounds since 2 weeks ago even though I’m still maintaing.   I guess?  So now my pants are tighter.  Ag.  It’s not that I look fat or anything…I just feel bigger.  It’s hard but I’m working through it.  My therapist told me to just calm down, and take it easy, and give it some time.  So that’s what I’m trying to do.  I’m not going to lie though:  it’s still hard and I am noticing my little ed voice creeping back in again.  But Ihaven’t starved and I haven’t skipped any meals.  I have restricted a little by cutting back on my meal plan, minor but still it could be a problem. 

It was definitely good to get everything out though in therapy today.  I was able to calm down, if only slightly, and get some encouragement and hope that was much needed.  My therapist was just as confused as I was about the body change but she did suggest one possible theory:

I might be getting my period.

Yipes!