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. 

ED is Not Special

A few weeks ago, I went on a weekend trip with friends. I had a great time. It wasn't until after it was over that I realized how far I have come in recovery. I think it was more of a realization of how AWFUL my life (couldn't even really be called a life) was with ED.

I ate (and enjoyed) unplanned meals with my friends. Foods that were prepared by others, foods that I had not measured, and foods that certainly were not on my safe list. I'm not going to say I didn't have some anxiety, and ED was screaming at me, but I shut him down. He no longer dictates my actions. 

Thinking about the normal things I am now able to do, things that don't even seem like a big deal until I compare them to my past, I am shocked and saddened. It is hard for me to believe that I used to be that shell of a person.

I think the biggest lie I bought into for far too long was that ED was special, and that he was MINE. I was the girl with the self-control;the eating disorder that kept me skinny and safe and untouchable. Competition lurked everywhere. Is she skinnier? Why isn't she eating dessert? I was obsessed with making sure that ED only belonged to me. Even during my multiple  treatment stays the fact that ED wasn't solely mine didn't click. I accepted those in treatment as my ED equals, but anyone in my "real life" could NOT take that away from me. 

It wasn't until late in my college career that I started to realize how big of a lie that truly is. I saw so many people struggling with ED that he was no longer able to convince me that I was his only friend (captive). 

ED IS NOT SPECIAL and ED IS NOT MINE. 

The eating disorder literally destroys life-physically and mentally. In the depths of the disorder, I was so sick that I could not see how I had been taken away. The staff at my last treatment center told me how my voice even changed as I started to get better. 

I am thankful I can now see beyond the lies.