Reality Check

While most of my posts are dedicated to the following topics: "F-YOU, ED!" or "RECOVERY IS AWESOME," today I am going to give myself a reality check about where I am currently.

I haven't fallen back into the grips of ED, but I also have not moved forward in quite some time. I tell myself that I can be doing "recovery" by checking off certain boxes: eating my meal plan, going to my appointments, etc,. However, after a hard Saturday last weekend I realized (well, it was pointed out to me) that I had been playing it very safe. Maybe I was eating all of my meal plan, but it was the same old foods. Yes, I would have my weekly desserts, but usually the same ones because somehow that had also become safe? 

After much contemplation (even though I already knew this in the back of my mind), I realize that I need to start challenging myself, not wait for my R.D. to call BS on me. I need to take control of my recovery and be pro-active in actually fighting ED, rather just coasting by in a state of "partial recovery," which I have been telling myself that I was way past. Reality check: I am not. Gotta keep up the good fight. 

Hi, my name is...Runner?

Running. I have written before about how this has motivated my recovery in the past, especially in the beginning stages. I would look up races and training plans online; basically salivating over reading the miles I would run. However, I have lived for so long without it, that it hasn't been a pressing motivator, but rather, a thought in the back of my mind: "I am a runner. Eventually I will get back to running."

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with my RD about it, and she was brutally honest with me. She told me she didn't think running was a good idea right now, and maybe not a good idea ever. I was shocked. What did she mean ever? This has always been the long term goal! Run half marathons. Be a runner.

She explained her concerns about how my Ed was so closely tied to running. And yes, I have recognized this and heard it (many times) before, but my counter argument has always been, "But I liked running before my eating disorder!"

She believed me and asked me a question I have been pondering since that day. "Do you really like to run or do you like the idea of running/being a runner?"

I was silent. I didn't know! Both..I think?! I began to journal and ask myself why I wanted to run. Since Ed had been my identity for so long and I no longer desired that, I think I latched onto the idea of swapping "girl with eating disorder" for "runner." Runners are crazy human beings who like to do something most people hate. It was a coveted identity (in my mind) for most people since it is associated with burning a high number of calories. I realized how similar wanting the 'runner' identity was to the Ed identity. Thinking it was special, above others, somehow superior (which is 100% false btw).

Something I have been told my entire life finally took hold: I do not need any identity outside of Christ. 

I am not going to pretend like this realization has made me forget about running. I still want to get back to running, without being obsessive about it......someday. But I do not need to make it my goal for life. Being a daughter of the King needs to be my sole/soul (get it?) focus.

I am working on accepting the fact that I might not be able to return to running without falling back into ed's grasps, and that is not worth the risk. If I never run again, I will be ok. That dream of running half marathons doesn't need to be my motivation to continue to be in recovery. I am in recovery because I was created to glorify my Creator!

Maybe in the future I will write a post about how I went running and hated it, or how I loved every second of it. Either way, I need to accept the fact that neither one of those outcomes affects my identity or purpose.