recovery

Recovery and Relapse

In Proverbs there is a scripture that talk about a righteous man who falls seven times, when he gets back up, he honours God. In the same sentence that he has fallen seven times God still calls him a righteous man and how honouring that is.

Trigger warning… Relapse.

I have been away for some time. I really put my effort into staying in recovery and I was doing good. I was able to have some things that i haven’t touched since I was a kid. When I was working out, it was to keep my body moving and feeling good, not to burn as many calories as possible. I was finally feeling free from Ana’s grip. She was always yelling but her voice sounded distant.

Recovery was something I thought I’d never achieve and yet I was doing it! As I mentioned I tried and enjoyed! a treat from childhood. Wendy’s fries and a small chocolate frosty. The memories came back with happy times. Times before fast food became a crippling fear. See, I’m rocking this recovery journey.

The question begs… So what now? Am I still doing great or did I drop the ball? I am sure by the title and the quote that you know I lost the plot.

An immensive feat was that i wasn’t on the scale using numbers to determine my worth for the day. I wanted at one point to simply throw it out but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I figured if I wasn’t getting on it as much no real point in throwing it away. A way to look in the mirror and laugh at Ana’s unnecessary attitude for me not getting on the scale.

So I am coming here to hold myself accountable for the relapse I am currently in. I’ve lost a decent bit within a very short amount of time and people are side eyeing me. At least it’s ridiculously cold for May. I have been able to get away with some extra layers without concern. It has been a battle after last week’s therapy session. My homework was to increase my calories by increment amounts to get me back on my way to recovery over the next few weeks. Lord help me as she doesn’t know that I’ve gotten worse and I don’t know how the hell I am going to increase when I cannot even bare to have anything but a shake. Solid foods are just not appealing. But wait there’s something else.

I started Wellbutrin two and a half weeks ago to help with the ADHD. Week one was absolutely a breeze. The second week was absolutely torture. I was on constant high alert always next to tears. I have the shakes which I’m fine with. I shake normally, this just intensifies it. While looking through some research and I found several websites and read the entire PDF information on Wellbutrin only to find that I, along with many others, aren’t supposed to be on this medication. Why you ask? Because anorexia and bulimia make us much more susceptible to having seizures with great consequence. Get this, Wellbutrin only intensifies our susceptibility to actually having a seizure even if you have never had one.

I decided that after all of that information I just read through, I felt the need to get ahold of my psych nurse and ask if it is true. As if reading the entire page from the drug maker wasn’t enough to make me believe it. Is it true that I shouldn’t be on this? Her response, stop taking it immediately. I found out the reason she even put me on it was due to the fact she thought my ED had been in remission for some time. So she called me out on the carpet letting me know that even if she doesn’t bring up any questions of ED behaviours, I need to be more forthcoming so this doesn’t happen again.

Understandable that she would want me to stop taking it. I am bucking at the idea because it has definitely blocked whatever appetite I ever had left and has kept me moving on this destructive relapse helping the numbers to continue to drop. Plus I am two and a half weeks in so it would be a waste if I don’t give it the full month. I am able to focus more but it is still not fully in my system to make a true judgment of its ability to help me with ADHD. However, I don’t want to waste medication and leave it in the box with everything else. Might as well keep going. At least finish the bottle.

The thing is, I am making a conscious decision to let her continue to be at the wheel only to continue to drive my relapse further and further down the hole. In three weeks I’ve lost a bit and in my mind with her it’s not enough. However, I know better than this and I should want to get her out of the car and shove her in the trunk. Yet, eating disorders have such a powerful grip that they start to bind you with zip ties knowing that those are the hardest to escape from. Why do I, as a grown woman, adult even, want to continue to allow such a childish, immature disease control my life when I have so many better things to do and things to think about?? How am I allowed to be an adult with a career when it is obvious I can barely handle my own mind and body.

To wrap this post, I am stuck between wanting recovery back and wanting to continue to be on this destructive path until I am finally sick enough to walk away. Recovery isn’t easy. It isn’t pretty and it is exhausting. I want to get better but I also want to stay sick. It is such a very weird dilemma I have found myself in.

I hope that this helps someone know they aren’t alone and that recovery takes time and effort. That it isn’t easy and we need to keep pushing through to what we know to be a better way to live. Eventually, we will find recovery and never look back.

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Physically Ill and Mentally Unwell

Having a sinus infection that I believed I had under control, ended up meaning I’ve been dealing with Bronchitis and the constant coughing fits. Due to my mental health meds I cannot take any over the counter cough medication beyond the original Mucinex and Claritin/ Allegra. So essentially just suffer through it.

With that being said, my time at the gym has been quite the minimal and it has really messed with my head. I’ve finally been able to get back in and I am feeling so much more myself both mentally and physically.

Thanksgiving was last week and I must say I am proud of myself in how I have handled my recovery. I had my therapy appointment with Holly right before and she made some great points. First, the scale is inaccurate no matter what the numbers are as it is our relation to gravity and not a true weight. It weighs our hair, fluids, if I’m on my cycle, food, etc. Second, a consistent reminder that the scale can move several pounds in one day and that it is completely a false reading other than the very first steps on in the morning. With that, just having a Thanksgiving meal will not make me gain any more weight and it will be okay to eat.

As Thursday came and went, we had gone to two meals and I nibbled my way through both. The weather the last few years has been oddly warm so I took full vantage of that and took a walk around the neighborhood while we were in-between meals. That walk is what I believe helped me the most. I wasn’t out walking to walk off the meal or to earn the next. I was walking the neighborhood enjoying the beautiful weather and seeing the neighbor kids out playing. A vast difference from what I remember as a kid; being bundled up with snow boots and hats. Now we are running around in near short like weather. It’s just weird and I love it.

As for today, I made it two miles on the treadmill at the gym. I wish I could have gone to the park to enjoy the sunshine but that wind and the fact that the temps dropped super quick from the time I left for lunch and when I came back.

I stood on the scale this morning and saw a smaller number. I was so damn happy. However, as the morning went on the more anxious I became. I don’t know if it was from me fighting a much needed fifteen minute nap or from Ana. Today I did not choose recovery. I was on and off the scale all day from work to the gym and back. Ana had every tiny little grip on me that she could get. I do not know when or if ever I will be free from her death grip. She stares and snarls into my soul reminding me every second of today that she is in control and I will never be anything without her. One would be in complete dismay when you would happen to overhear my 11:11 wish. Or should I say, her wish.

Tonight I go to bed with a heavy heart knowing I ate dinner and now the scale will be higher come morning. I’m beyond sad and so full of disappointment. Recovery is hard especially on days like this. I just want to be small and tiny. I am meant to be tiny.

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A Weight Not Lifted

Therapy today was productive and I took home a good amount of homework. Yet, as I drove back to the office, all 42 miles, which provided me enough time to realize how little of the truth I told simply in hopes of looking and sounding “better” than I really am. Classic move.

I pull into the parking lot, car park sounds so much better but I severely digress, weighing (pun not intended) all of my options. Do I send an e-mail in hopes it will go unnoticed for a few days? Do I shut up and move on with my day as if I hadn’t seen her just an hour before? Or… Do I send an e-mail letting her know that at the end of session when she asked if there was anything else, that in fact there was something else?

As I roll in my chair back to my keyboard I try to lose myself in work hoping I’d figure it out later and deal with it all another day. Ana didn’t want me to be honest. She didn’t want her secret out, that she is in power not me.

I’d say maybe half an hour in and my recovery side, the “angel” side, tried screaming over her telling me to tell H how much of a relapse I have been in, that nothing is okay, and how much I don’t want to do this anymore. Recovery side of me actually won and I sent her an e-mail with the direct link to my website here so that she can truly see what a shit show my life has really been. Maybe this is me willing to give recovery another chance. Maybe recovery me felt strong for essentially ratting myself out. Whatever it was in that moment, I sent the e-mail and moved on with my day. To say I didn’t stare at my inbox from there until I clocked out would be a terrible lie.

For now I choose to believe somewhere in me wants a better life than what Ana has provided me for so many years. I choose to try and see that, year after year and relapse after relapse, this isn’t what life is and how life has so much more to offer. I have to fight to live and be at least okay with the one body I have and will ever have. For today, I may have been in complete restriction, I am choosing to nourish tomorrow.

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Giving Up

Today I stood on the scale and I saw the highest number I’ve seen in over three years. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want recovery if it means being this big. I can’t do it. My trousers for work are starting to tighten and my shirts aren’t as flowy. It is heading into winter here and I’m not okay with that either. Thankfully I have a med change in a few days. That will help with the winter.

If recovery means me hating every single tiny millimetre of my body then I don’t fcking want it. I cannot stand this body I am currently in. I want out. I can’t do this anymore. I just want to be tiny. Screw being “normal” or “healthy” because I was healthy. I was happy. Just let me be tiny. I’d rather die than be fat.

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Behaviours

Today I woke up and rose to the occasion. I am not one to get up early and grab a full shower during the week, I’d much rather stay curled in my warm blankets than get up earlier. So I was definitely off to a really good start.

I get to work and I’m just riding this slap happy mood, not thinking a thing in the world. Maybe that is exactly why this happened. I was too chill and happy and she saw fit to sneak in. Sneak in she did.

I found myself cautiously slipping into the bathroom after a bit of breakfast and gave into a behaviour that I swore I’d never do again. I even have it written on a sticky note that this behaviour is NOT AN OPTION. Apparently today it was the only option. Like I was seeing myself engage in the behaviour as if through a glass. It’s not like I did it on purpose with all intentions. It was just weird. It felt normal and a part of my daily routine like in years past. It felt so normal and I walked back to my desk as if nothing had ever happened.

Once lunch time came around and I change for the gym it hits me like a brick. I did the one thing I said was not an option. I slid to the floor scratching my head trying to understand what I did and how it even happened. All I know is I let my guard down and she snuck her damn head in, having no business in my happiness.

I have a lot of work to do to figure out how and why that behaviour happened. I was under no stressful situation. I literally was humming and enjoying a nice morning. There is currently NO reason. It simply happened. By no means do I believe that something somewhere lead me to the event, i just have not figured it out.

Ana has been yelling so I am sure there are some weird underlying facets that lead to the event this morning. It makes me feel gross and dirty. I never enjoyed Mia she was just another friend I needed to function if I had no control of what or when I ate. She was always my plan B. Ana does enough damage on her own. Medical studies show heart damage and a new scientific article shows that prolonged anorexia does cause brain damage that may, may be possible to reverse upon recovery. That makes a lot of sense when I see how this has been going on for the last 16 years.

Recovery is such a struggle for me and I don’t know why. Do I want to forever spend my life striving to be the smallest? Do I want to spend my life hiding my body fully ashamed of the figure I have? I have a lot of work to do and I think my Friday zoom group meetings with Alsana and once a month therapy with Holly might not be enough right now especially since I am coming up on a med change since the seasons are changing and I hate, abhor really, the cold and the days get darker earlier, it just burns my soul.

With that being said, today’s lesson is, even on your best days, if you are not keeping guard, even the best days can fall victim of your eating disorder. Recovery is hard, and it isn’t a straight line. It’s okay to have slips but we have to stand back up and move forward. I choose to pick myself up and move forward to a new day.

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Recovery Process Loading…

Sitting here looking at my legs and seeing my stomach and feeling that they are there has me beyond uncomfortable. Once again she takes the lead and back down I go. I have to let her win because being in this body at this size is too much. I can’t do this anymore. I know this is a blog of recovery but most posts are of me giving over my power to Ana. When will I ever be in recovery? Is recovery even possible at this point? This all started when I was 15/16 when I was first diagnosed. I am now 32. That’s shameful right there. I should be over this.

By society’s standards of the “ideal” lb for 5’5″ woman is between x and x. I am on the higher end where should be in the middle and I prefer to be under the lowest ideal number. Why am I ever striving to be the absolute smallest I can be? Why am I chasing the need to be tiny, to be light, to not take up so much space?

My body has helped me carry my nephew through a rough hiking trail in the Mohican State Park. My body helped me climb the tower to the top of the castle and view the beautiful autumn colours. My body got me halfway up the fire tower even though my courage to continue to the very top ended at the fourth flight with still four to go. My body allows me to run for fun. All of these amazing things and the constant goal to be tiny is so bizarre. I deserve to take up space in this world. I have been blessed with a body that allows me to do so many amazing things so why am I hell bent on destroying it?

I think I need more therapy than just once a month.

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I’m back… Again

I’ve been on vacation and ever since I have been back home I’ve tried to really sit and evaluate my life. I went soul searching i guess you could say. Sadly, I quickly realised that when I really sat with myself in the quiet I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the quiet. I didn’t feel comfortable just sitting. My mind was slowly calming down but my body was on constant go. I spenty vacation enjoying life, enjoying the relaxation. What my mind couldn’t let go of was her. Constant body checking. Constant nagging of when I ate and how much I ate. A very intense battle knowing I need to leave her behind. I love hiking in the mountains but I hate that my mind always goes into how many calories I have burned and how much muscle verses fat has been distributed. She is constantly there. She is constantly challenging my will to live in recovery.

Here I sit so uncomfortable in my own skin. I am hyper aware of every breath I take, the fact that my legs need shaved, and the sound my stomach just made was enough to think careflight was passing overhead. That is her in and out. She always makes you hyper aware of every cell in your body. All I want to do is strap on my running shoes and just hit the trails.

Now that I am back home that all looks like a far away land I’d dream to go. It’s not though. It’s a six hour drive south of me. The beautiful Smoky Mountains are my home away from home. I think that is part of why she was able to follow me through the mountains and on those mountain bear country trails. She is my best friend but she is also a silent murderer. I need to be strong and take back my power. Since I have been home, I haven’t had the strength to let her go. One day she will just be a voice of whispering winds. One day I will get there.

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Breathless

It is a battle between physical health and mental health now. I feel my body slowly fading as my energy goes more and more towards her and even less towards myself. I am physically drained. The most mundane tasks are taking more energy then they have in quite some time. I cannot afford to slow down now. I am getting closer and closer to where I want to be.

This is what happens when you let her take over. She destroys your body. Slowly so you don’t really pay mind to it.

I am 31 and I already have my spinal discs degenerating. My chiropractor told me my entire body has been in flight or fight mode for so long that my pain threshold is through the roof. He said most patients would have jumped up when all I did was tell him it was fine. He coined me as his interesting case. This is what eating disorders do to our bodies. Whether we want to admit it or not.

That last sentence pains me to reread. I want to be tiny, I mean tiny. Yet, I don’t want to forsake my physical health to get there. My heart is beating in a bizarre manner that catches my breath and stops me immediately. It is an odd sensation and I’m not sure if it is just the daily stress bothering me or if my heart is really trying to tell me something. Should I actually be worried this time? I don’t see any reason to. I have GAD. So they will say it is my anxiety. I drink a lot of coffee. They will say it is the caffeine and to cut it back. My PCP even told me that he once had a patient go to hospital for an EKG and he was having a full blown heart attack but the EKG read normal. Where do I go from here?

My body isn’t small enough yet. I have too much going on in my life presently and especially in the coming months. I don’t have time to stop and turn course. I have to keep pushing through. I always say that pain is just weakness leaving the body, but what if the weakness isn’t pain, what if it’s a sign of something screaming for help? Can EDs really be that damaging? I dare not ask as I shouldn’t put that out into the universe.

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Simply Complicated

How do I stop attaching a moral value to food?

How do people just eat?

I stared at my nutrition shake for what felt like forever. I couldn’t do it. I felt that if I just pour it into a coffee mug then it would be easier to drink. Simple right? An expensive nutrition shake cannot be wasted that easily. What was easy just three weeks ago is now a mountain I cannot climb. I put it back in the fridge and walked back to my desk completely defeated and empty. I had nothing left in me and I mean nothing. I left work early because I just didn’t have anything left to give. I drove home in a flood of tears. What happened? How did it become so severe again? Where did I go wrong?

Today is a new day and I am going to fight like hell to give my body the energy and nutrition it so desperately needs. I did it! I ate my morning bowl of cereal. I am current fixated on Frosted Shredded Wheat. I poured that into the bowl and added the almond milk. Though it took time I was able to finish the whole bowl. Success for me. I did it. I fought back!! However, I start to feel that draining of my energy so I pop in both of my headphones and fall into Hillsong United’s 100 billion times, Know You Will, and Another In The Fire. As I fill my ears and heart with worship music and feeling the chills that these songs bring gave me the energy to keep pushing forward.

I let my guard down. I felt like I had a positive grip on fighting for recovery today. I took a walk on the treadmill at lunch. I had brought my computer to work so I could work on this blog. Needless to say that’s when I lost my grip. I added up every single calorie. I calculated the in and out. Since my FitBit took a crap I’m back to handwritten math. By the time I came back from the gym I knew I had to fight again. I have to keep fighting because I am worth so much more than this. I deserve to live a life that doesn’t revolve around numbers, food, exercise, and so forth. Yet, I caved. I forced myself after what felt like an hour to drink my nutrition shake, which had been in my line of sight this whole time. So I didn’t listen to her. I got a coffee mug and poured my chocolate Orgain shake into the cup. I took the first two sips. I did it! I am winning again.

Unfortunately, my brain had other things already set in motion. After successfully fighting her and drinking my shake a bit I put it to the side so I could keep working. That was all it took. As they say, out of sight out of mind. Though I could still clearly see it, I was immersed in my work that it became an after thought. I checked the clock as I was nearing the end of the day only to my horror that I still had a mug full. I broke. I tried to hold it in. I tried. But the first tear fell and a wave of anger and panic hit me. How could something so damn easy as drinking something I have been drinking for the last two years, albeit, begrudgingly for a solid eight months? Why am I different in that three weeks ago I would just open the cardboard like material box and drink the shake as if it were nothing? Fully acknowledging the nutrition I was getting through the shake that I wasn’t getting elsewhere. I lost that victory that I thought I had gained.

As I sit here I want to know how it feels to not have a voice, your very own voice, dictate a nonsensical moral value in regards to what you eat and how your existence in this world is meant for you to be tiny. I want to know what it is like to look at food as fuel and not a death sentence. If I continue to let her win I will die. Ana is literally the deadliest mental illness. It beats out Bipolar and Schizophrenia. An eating disorder, anorexia, is the deadliest mental illness.

I need to take my power back. Linda’s power, not Ana’s. Something so simple caused me so much paralysing fear that almost drove me to ask someone else to open the shake and to pour it into the mug henceforth not being able to back out of drinking it. You get 4 shakes for $9-10 dollars. That’s a lot to just pour down the drain. But I did it. I ended the day with the mug completely empty. I won.

Now as I close, can we leave some ways to combat the panic and fear surround meals or snacks? Let us know what has helped you. I want to be able to build a solid toolbox that me or you can reach into that can guide us in our recovery. Our ED thrives in secrets and hopefully with these honest posts we can each reach out to each other as we work to put ED behind us. I don’t believe in a full recovery in the matter that this will go away forever and that I won’t fall again into old behaviours that can lead me to where I am today. I do believe that as long as I choose to be transparent with my struggle and I ask for support that I can be I can reach a recovery where I will be without behaviours and without these chains that are holding me today.

Tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be a successful day. Let’s do this!!

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Pushing Boundaries

Another successful day for her and another loss for me. I lost my fight over breakfast. I only had an apple. For lunch I made myself drink an Orgain shake. I ran two miles and that exhilarating feeling getting off that treadmill is something unbeatable right now. Yet back to the office I must go. I want to be able to complete the full 5K by the end of the month.

I did have one win. One win for recovery today. I ate dinner. Not what most would consider dinner but it is better than last night… better than nothing.

One bite at a time. Recovery is my commitment. Am I on the right track? I’m trying to be. Will it all be better by morning? Absolutely not! However, by writing this, no longer hiding the secret she loves to be, I am able to fight for recovery whether or not I want it right now. I will get better eventually. For now it will be my daily struggle until it become natural once again.

One day I will be better. As of right now, I shall quote Emma from RBS: “I’m not better, okay, I’m not better and I keep waiting for someone to figure that out; and they don’t. I mean of course they don’t ’cause as long as I say the right thing and I act the right way they’re happy, because that means they cured me right?”

Right now I am not better and that is why I decided to write this. To share and to learn from others. There are many of us bloggers that are trying to recover and there are those that have blogs of recovery. I hope to be able to share my experiences and hopes for a recovered future and that one day this will be a blog of nothing but recovery.

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A Promise Broken

It was on the treadmill at that mile and half with two minutes to go before I had to get off, stretch, and get back to work. I hit that runner’s high. It felt so good to get to that point finally. Exhausted I stepped off but feeling amazing I stretched out and went back to work. Stepping back into the office and clocking back in it hit me. A promise had officially been broken. Not just a promise but a pinky promise. It was in that moment I felt utterly broken. If she finds out she will be undoubtedly disappointed.

As these words pour from my soul, tears pour down my cheeks. How did I get here again? I just want to be tiny. I didn’t want to give her her power back. I tried to keep myself from going this far again. Another day where my total intake was less than what a bird would eat. Yet, I have found a sense of peace in writing this.

I found this in a quick search for something else. There was that reminder. That one touch of hope felt so soothing. As it says there are only small steps upward. It is right. One small step towards one small piece of recovery is moving upward and out of the hole. That is where I need to get to. To a point where the mirror, the scale, the numbers simply no longer matter. That the only thing that matters should be the laughter and the smiles. That love should be the guiding voice and not that of her stealing those moments away.

One day, one bite, one less tear. One step at a time. I pray that I open my eyes and my heart tomorrow to a beautiful day where I choose to listen to love and let her go to the back where she can scream but hopefully it will be more like a whisper. I need to stop looking to be tiny and fragile. One day, I hope I reach that.

For now, Ana is in control and I am fighting to get that control back. I’ve already destroyed the pinky promise I made. I can only make the choice to turn around and try again. I need to make that choice as I don’t think my physical heart can take any more. The chest pains and missing/skipping beats have intensified again and it is that sinking feeling that the eating disorder is finally taking its toll. I don’t want to be another girl that died from anorexia or complications thereof. I want to live. I know there is so much more to life and I will be damned if I let Ana take that away from me.

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Chasing Numbers

I spent the weekend counting smiles and laughs. I got to be fully present with the ones around me. I tried to be fully in recovery mode, I really did. Was it a success? No. By no means. But that is okay. It is okay.

I made a huge mistake and I looked. The number I saw was beyond embarrassing and worse than I had imagined. That was it. I didn’t want recovery. Those smiles are just memories now. Moments have passed and here I am in the present. Her voice kicks up and she starts hissing her hateful words over and over. Here I am still in horrible back pain and I am running. I hit half a mile, then a mile, then two… forever chasing the next number. Searching for the runner’s high. If I could just run another mile then I will be okay but my legs can’t go another step. Next the weighted hula-hoop whose sound goes on and on as time goes by. Ten minutes and then twenty. Forty minutes in and I can no longer take the pain. I crumbled to the floor in sheer physical and mental agony.

It is a holiday, it’s the 4th. I should be enjoying the day. Given I am completely sunburnt from the boat trip, I should still have been outside enjoying the sun. Instead, I am inside counting every calorie, every minute, every second, every step, every pound. Back to the weighted hula-hoop I go. I push my body to forty minutes and again the pain is too much to push on to an hour. If only I could go for a run. It is just too hot. I will eat nothing. I will do whatever it takes to get rid of what I have allowed myself to become.

EDIT:

I have spent my lunch hour at the gym. I woke up this morning and the scale went down. It is finally working. Recovery can sit on the side lines until I am smaller. I refuse to be like this. I get on that treadmill and I push myself as far as I could just outside of that runner’s high. I missed out simply because my feet couldn’t keep on the treadmill without veering left or right. I nearly fell twice. No runner’s high. Just feeling defeated. I cannot be at this weight. I refuse to be. One half an avocado on toast for breakfast and a cliff bar for something to take my morning meds with. One Orgain nutrition shake for “lunch” and an apple. That’s it. Nothing else. Nothing. I won’t stop until I am tiny. I will be tiny. I do not want recovery any more. I have a pinky promise with someone very special to me and I am terrified when she finds out I broke that promise. The guilt sucks so much. I’m sorry.

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It’s Really Bad

I don’t understand how I got this bad this fast. Lying and sneaking. Losing almost 4 in two days has made it worth it. Feeling empty feels so powerful. I get to control this. No one else. Not even her. Ana has always been there and she always will be. Last night Mia stopped by real quick and I haven’t felt that gross in a long time. I definitely didn’t listen to her and give in to those behaviours. I really wanted to but I didn’t have the energy. It is sad to know that my intense back pain was the only thing that kept me from engaging in a nasty behaviour.

You know she is winning when you cry over the thought of your normal nutrition shake and a wonderful honey crisp apple. 250 for the shake and 48 for the apple. Count in coffee of 182 (creamer) and that is still under 500. These very two items have become a staple in my diet and now she has me crying. I don’t understand why. It is 3:00pm. So that totals to 480. My tdee is around 2,000 and my BMR is 1,400. So my journey in recovery reminds me that 480 for a daily total can be a death sentence.

But today, July 01, 2022 I choose to keep trying to climb out of the hole. Recovery is a wonderful thing. I just gave up on it. I gave up on me. I can either try again with recovery or I can die trying to be tiny. I want to live. I really do. I need to relinquish the need for control. I need to do better.

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Where is the White Rabbit?

Where is the white rabbit? I lost him. He went that way and I think he went down that hole. Oh dear Alice, don’t follow him.

Oh but I did.

Numbers, numbers, numbers. These have filled my head and dance in my vision. You take up too much space. You ate too many. You can’t eat today. You are too heavy. You didn’t run. You didn’t workout. You sat too long. You didn’t have enough steps. Your stomach growled too loudly too many times. You are just as broken as your Fitbit. Too much.

And so the road we know can be all too slippery. Once you get too close you will fall. Every single time. It isn’t that you fall but that you get back up and climb back out of that hole and move forward every single time.

Right now, I’m moving like a sloth so ever slowly moving forward.

I want to find my “enough.” But where do I find it?

I know you cannot find “enough” in being thin enough. I know you cannot find it by being sick enough. I know it will never be found in skinny enough. So, where do I find it?

Can someone lead the way? Right now it is too dark in here and I need someone to guide me out.

recovery

Uncomfortable

For the last two days, I have been beyond uncomfortable in my skin. I work out, I literally run for fun. Yet, these last two days I have been crawling out of my skin. The anxiety creeps higher and higher to the point I double dose my Atarax, which I am allowed to do, and an extra calm gummy. My weight continues to hover too high and I am not okay with this being the possible “set point” that my body has decided on. I would be okay say if it were like ten lbs less for my “set point” I’d be okay.

Recovery comes in waves and right now I am drowning again. She is being so loud and she is making recovery near impossible at the moment. All I want to do is restrict, restrict, restrict and exercise until I can’t anymore. I am fighting to stay above the waves but I am also letting her win. I don’t want to lose her. She is my best friend and safe space. I want recovery but I don’t at the same time. I’m tired of being at this higher weight and most days I just sit at work hating every tiny inch of my body. I just want to run. I don’t want to go out and eat. I don’t want to sit and be average. I want my small body back. The one where I didn’t take up space. Just let me be tiny.

I want recovery but then I don’t. I’m tired and I’m so tired of hating my body.

Can someone please just look the other way and let me be tiny? Can we keep it a secret just between us? Do I really need food? Can I just keep drinking Hyrdroxycut drink packets… I mean they do taste good? Can we not tell anyone that I still have the scale at work so I can check my weight throughout the day?

Can I just be tiny?

Can I just walk away from recovery for a little while?

Please?

Uncategorized

Starting a New Journey

Welcome to my resurrected blog. I used to blog a lot many years ago and it really helped me connect to the world in a way that I could share a platform and help others. This is solely for mental health and all related topics. If you are easily triggered by such topics or are easily offended please take note that all commentary will be heavily scrutinized to the last dot. I am not responsible for your choices.