it's never simple, never easy

This might be the studiest thing I have ever said, but: do you ever get jealous of your cat? They wander around all day, loaf and sleep wherever and eat whenever. They don’t feel guilty or even think about their weight. I guess normal people don’t, but my sad, depressed, helpless, hopeless, nasty, anorexia-grieving self does almost every day.

I feel like all I ever talk about is grief.. but here I am, doing it again.

My whole life centers around the grief of my eating disorder, every single feeling I experience comes superglued to grief.

I wake up in the morning and feel my giant t-shirt caught under my hip: grief. I get on the scale before putting on my makeup: grief. I catch a glimpse of my profile in the mirror, face, and body: grief. I make lunch: grief. I stress out about the calories in my lunch: grief. I walk out the door saying I love you to my kitty and realize she’s going to lounge around all day and still be ten pounds forever: grief.

My entire day is filled with grief, and I’ve only been awake for 45 minutes.

The wild thing about my grief is that my eating disorder isn’t even gone. I still restrict, count calories, weigh myself, and use compensatory behaviors every freaking day. Honest to god, I feel like I’m losing my mind drowning in all of this grief.

One thing I have started to notice is how easily my eating disorder sneaks into my mind. I have hit this point in the year/in my job, where I am really missing college. I spend a lot of time wondering if it was worth it to rush my graduation and start working or if I should have stayed with the stable and meaningful life I was living. In college, I was a big fish in a little pond; I was a significant leader in many areas of campus life, passionate about what I was doing and thriving in all I did. I met any criticism about my performance or the work of my councils with passion and determination to pivot and make things great. At work, I meet criticism with frustration and the need to take up less space.

In college, I didn’t mind my flaws being pointed out because I had the passion for making a change and being the change, whereas now, I want to hide from anything flawed in myself or my performance.

Passion is something I have always struggled with. I have very few passions. The first thing to come to mind when I think about passion is anorexia. Passions are something you give every ounce of yourself to; they’re the things that are so worth it to you that you will fail 99 times because the 1 time you’re successful is a euphoric experience. They’re things that heal you and are there for you when it feels like nothing else is. They light up the deepest parts of your soul.

They’re anorexia in a girl who spends all her time at war with her own mind.

It’s not surprising that I grieve the parts of my disorder that feel lost.

Life feels hard; I am not enjoying my job, and I honestly cry every morning before going in. I love my boyfriend, I feel blessed to find someone I could spend every second of my life with, and I have unresolved pain from past experiences. No matter how many therapy sessions I go to, I never feel whole- I leave feeling like there are a million things wrong with me, and there’s nowhere to start making it better. I fear that my body is or will give up on me because of the trauma I have inflicted upon it, yet I still cannot force myself to eat. I hate myself every single second of the day.

There are so many days when I want to lie in bed and not think. Not think. Not eat. Not feel.

I feel like my posts have been less hopeful recently, which is not completely reflective of where I am in life. I’m doing many exciting things, too; I’m applying for Master's programs and going to hockey games all the time (my fav thing ever). I’m also exploring new areas in my city and investing in new friendships. It’s not all bad. There is hope, but grief comes too; I couldn’t be where I am now without my eating disorder and the life it gave me; sometimes, I don’t know which life feels better.

it only hurts this much right now

I don’t want to do it anymore.

I don’t want to chase this made-up idea of recovery. I don’t want food to be enticing or taste good. I don’t want to think about how far I’ve come. I don’t want to be this fucking fat.

My brain screams at me all day long, except when I eat. It’s the opposite of how life used to be. Now, instead of living in a numb world where I criticized every last calorie in, on, around, next to, or in front of my body, I blackout when I eat. I went from guilt before eating so I wouldn’t, to guilt immediately after, once the fat and sugar and carbs are already flowing right into my stomach.

I hate it.

I hate that no matter what I am flooded with guilt. If I’m going to feel this shitty all the time, I sure as hell would rather do it skinny. No one tells you that recovery doesn’t really exist and that the suffering just changes. It’s brutal.

Life feels so hard right now, I’m working a job that is good but not my forever plan. I’m in a great relationship but still hurting from unresolved past trauma and that’s impacting my ability to trust and love the way I want to. I’m hours away from my parents… I started that sentence as a positive but truth be told being away from them is sometimes the worst part of all this.

I miss being sick and not feeling anything but hungry.

Everything is so loud now. My brain never stops. There are nights when I literally cannot sleep because my brain won’t shut off. I lay in bed planning how I’m going to get my life together and that it will be the last day of living in my fat body - it’s weight loss from there on.

If I could, I would stop eating today. But my anxiety and OCD have honed in on my health. My greatest fear is death and my OCD says if I stop eating then my heart will stop- I’ve been too hard on it already and it’s catching up to me. In some twisted fucked way that is my life, my mental illnesses are keeping me alive.

In the same breath, they’re trying to kill me. All I think about is heart failure, cancer, and aneurysms.. did you know they can literally happen at any time for no reason?!

I’m not suicidal but I really do wish it would just stop sometimes.

Anorexia makes it stop. I was not this anxious or depressed when I was sick; I couldn’t be. What energy did I have to think? Believe me, I get it. I can’t starve myself to solve my problems, it will kill me, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean I can’t want to.

I don’t know how to make room for everything to exist. The pain, the suffering, the misery, the grief, even the hope. I feel like the person at a circus who somehow juggles five blowing pins while walking on top of a big ball. Except I can’t juggle or keep my balance.

But I have to learn. I don’t want to lose my job or have to leave it. I don’t want to lose another boyfriend to my illness.

More than any other factor in my life, I do not, and cannot, hurt my parents again. They deserve so much more from a daughter than constant hospital admissions and treatment bills. They really are my strength.

So I’ll have a shitty day or two, maybe even a week, a month, a year, who knows when it will stop. But, I’ll get it together, better is the only option. Sitting in the shitty feelings is part of healing. So I’ll sit, and sit, and sit some more. Breathing in. Breathing out. Breathing deep. And breathing through… ;)

it’s me, hi

Per the usual, I went MIA and haven’t blogged in months…

Life got hectic and a lot has changed, but the only thing that remains the same is that I am really struggling. From the outside, my life looks perfect; I have a job, I’m in a steady relationship, and I am more independent than ever.. but on the inside, my brain is screaming at me every second reminding me that I don’t deserve any of what I have and that at any moment everyone could see me for who I “really am” and all the good will be gone.

I feel like I stepped away from blogging because my words sound dumb, my thoughts are useless, and what does my experience really mean anyway. All I do is complain. I never get better, my struggle just changes and morphs as my life changes.

I am so mean to myself. I truly feel so worthless most of the time. I feel like I’ve lost my spunk drowning in depression and worthlessness.

I recently started with a new therapist, and by recently I mean we have only had one session together. Somehow, by the grace of the good Lord, I LOVE this therapist. We spent some time talking about where I’m at right now in “recovery.” I told her that my body is recovered to an extent, I have been weight restored for two years now, but my mind hasn’t spent a single minute of those two years in any state of recovery- it’s mostly just been angry. Part of why I already know I love this new therapist is because she is the first provider to not immediately say “Wow, you should be so proud of yourself, you’ve come so far. Be excited about your accomplishment of weight restoration.” Instead, she said “Wow, that’s big. I can imagine that has brought on new feelings you might not have had before.” And she was right.

So often when providers learn that my body has been in a state of healing for a while they assume that it is an accomplishment or that my mind is healed as well. Granted, it is an accomplishment, the alternative is death so I guess it’s better, but my issue with hearing about my weight gain as some major achievement is that in saying I should be proud you are assuming that this has been a positive experience for me. As we all know, “should” is invalidating. Telling me I should be proud of myself is putting shame on the fact that I’m really pretty fucking upset with myself.

I miss the hell out of my sick body. I go to bed every night in a 2XL t-shirt because I’ll be damned if I have to experience clothing squeezing my fat any more of the day than I already have to. I wake up every morning planning the pants I will wear that allow me to not focus on my less-than-sick body all day. I usually wear a dress because I just can’t do it; I can’t feel the pressure of a button on my jeans pinching into my belly, I can’t deal with the disgust I have with myself when my pants fit a little tighter after my morning coffee or lunch, I just can’t deal with it. I feel like I can’t deal with anything.

I’m in a deep stage of grief. I hate comparing recovery to death because I know there are way worse things to lose but I also hate comparing people’s pain so yes, there’s a part of me that feels like my anorexia is dead. I guess that’s a song for another time but it’s dark. It sucks feeling such a sense of loss. If there’s one thing I’ve never been good at, well beyond my disorder, it’s moving on. I like a good fairytale, I like perfection, I’m a romantic, I think if things are worth it, and I see worth in everything/everyone but myself, then they are worth fighting for.

I would fight day and night for what I love and the deepest love I’ve known is that of my eating disorder.

the ballad of love and hate

I hate myself. Shocker, right?

Less than a week into my current relationship, I told myself that I’m not good at relationships. I feel like I’m always letting my boyfriend down; I’m too emotional or too distant. I talk too much or I’m too much in my head. I feel like no matter what I’m taking up too much space.

The truth is, I don’t necessarily think I’m bad at relationships but, I do think they challenge me when I hate being challenged.

This past weekend has been one full of reflection. My boyfriend was out of town from Friday to Sunday and I was a bitch to him almost the whole time. Friday morning, when I saw him, I was really distant and in a horrible mood. Every single time someone I care about leaves, or I have to leave someone I care about, I become so distant. It’s like I’m trying to ruin the relationship in case we never see each other again. I even do it to my parents.

I have spent all weekend trying to identify what purpose that serves for me. I’ve thought of a lot of different ways it could, in some capacity, serve me but only one has really stood out and it is that I hate myself.

I grew up living a narrative (in my head, made by me) that I was not enough. I did not feel like I was good enough to be a member of my family, to be on the sports teams I was on, to get the grades I got- nothing. I was not enough. I have told myself that so many times that it is still a narrative I live out. I don’t feel enough for anything or anyone even now. It comes out the most when I’m alone.

When someone leaves, even if I know they are coming back, I’m worried that they’ll decide that I’m not worth it. My biggest fear is that other’s will see me the same way I see myself. When I think of who I am, I see a loud, obnoxious, selfish, pretentious, bitchy, entitled, girl who wears bright pink to get attention that she doesn’t deserve. I think so negatively of myself that it makes me physically sick thinking that others have to experience me. I don’t want others to see me in this ‘waste of space, lackluster, bratty’ way that I see myself.

When I am actively around people it challenges the beliefs I have about myself. My parents sure as hell wouldn’t put up with a kid like that and my boyfriend would certainly not spend time with me or date me if I was that way. In a sense, I have to believe that I am a better person than I think I am when I’m around others. But when I’m alone, there is no positive influence to combat the horrible thoughts.

I quite literally imagine the thoughts going through other peoples head that I am this disgusting being when they are not in my presence. The thought that someone else believes what I believe about myself is so unbearable that I either 1. seek constant reassurance that they’re not thinking about me so negatively or 2. I give them an “out.” In the case of my boyfriend, I’ll openly say that he can and should try to do better than me. That way we both have the space to agree that I’m a horrible person and he can get away to find the incredible woman that he sincerely deserves.

It’s never so black and white, though, is it?

Want to know where the truth lies? When my boyfriend goes on trips or I leave my parents, they’re not thinking negative things about me. They aren’t analyzing every inch of who I am and wondering how they got stuck with me. They’re trying to enjoy their lives. But, when my insecurity creeps in, without me even realizing, and starts throwing daggers in every direction it opens everyone up to see more negative sides of me. No one wants to constantly justify their feelings or deescalate situations that don’t exist. When I leave people without showing how much I care but instead pushing them away, I make them feel far less than loved. For someone who loves everyone, I am so terrified to show it.

I want to challenge myself to demand more from myself. I don’t want to need so much control or assurance. I want to sit in more discomfort. I want to be shocked when people leave, not when they stay. I want to be able to tell people how I feel about them before it is a crisis.

I have so much work to do on myself.

neda week

Happy National Eating Disorder Awareness Week from your favorite depressed anorexic!

!!TRIGGER WARNING AHEAD!!

This week has been hard for me. Eating disorders are becoming super trendy and all week I have seen people post about their “disorder”. Unfortunately, it has really made me tap into my competitive nature. It has made (mentally/internally) invalidate other’s experiences. In a sense, I feel like if you have not been hospitalized, you don’t have the same level of disorder as me and the girls I’ve gone to treatment with. To be completely honest, I feel superior because I have been more sick than the girls who are just randomly posting about how they hate their bodies and they miss a meal every once in a while so their doctor said they have an eating disorder. I even go as far as to tell myself that they don’t have an eating disorder, they just have disordered eating and just wish they could be as sick.

It’s pretty gross when you think about it and it’s certainly not something that my healthy self is proud of thinking.

I think it comes from a place of struggle. I have been weight restored for two years now. I went from the size of a second grader to a healthy girl in her twenties seemingly overnight and that sucks. It doesn’t take me saying it for people to know I’m super uncomfortable with my body. I feel like I’ve lost a lot of my identity by being weight restored and to be fair, I’ve lost a lot of support. A good deal of my sorority sisters used to check in with me and ask how I was when I was sick. They would share their experiences with me and express their support. Now that I’m weight restored, I don’t really hear from anyone and their compassion is completely gone. I’ve seen this happen in a lot of areas of my life.

Being a hospitalized dying anorexic is what I am best at. It is the best part of me and the part that gets my needs met the fastest. It is so fucking hard every single day to not be that girl right now. There are very few people that understand that or understand what it is like to put your life on hold to sit in hospitals for months on end just to learn how to eat again. So, I do get pretty emotionally aroused (I hate the word triggered) when I see people trying to claim my experience. At least, that is how my eating disorder views it.

This week, I am trying my hardest to avoid contributing to that narrative. I am forcing myself to keep my sick pictures locked away on my phone and not flashed all over Instagram. I am trying to keep myself from needing to prove that I was sicker. I am not playing into my eating disorder’s need for approval and validation. I’ve spent five years in treatment, I have that validation already. I am attempting to bring compassion to the girls who want to share whatever their story may be. I am trying to feel proud that they want to share. I am trying to find happiness in the progress I have made- even when I don’t see it as progress towards healing.

blushing all the way home

It’s my favorite day of the year! A day of everything red, pink, and heart shaped! For the first time, maybe ever, I won’t be spending it alone :) You got that right, I have a boyfrienddd… and he’s like really hot too.

I’ve recently started dating someone who might be the best person I’ve ever met. We are two (healthy) inseparable peas in a pod. He takes all of my sass and throws it right back at me, refuses to laugh at my dumb jokes just to tell even worse jokes, he makes me feel so much safer in a relationship than I ever have, he even lets me play all my Taylor Swift in the car.… it feels so good

But we all know my brain. It terrifies me. Happiness scares me.

I didn’t tell my parents that we were seeing each other right off the bat because I was scared. I didn’t really tell anyone because I was scared. I feel really happy right now; I feel like this is the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had… genuinely, I’m not even just saying it. I’m with someone who cares about me, who wants to be around me and only me, who isn’t only focused on my body or sex; someone who doesn’t make me prove my worth to him but instead, seems to just see it.

Naturally, I’m terrified it will go away. I have a huge fear of attachment and abandonment. I don’t want to get attached and end up abandoned, especially by someone who makes my usual heartless self get butterflies just thinking about them.

Honestly, it doesn’t come from a place of thinking he would do that. I don’t think he would just get up and leave one day- I think so much higher of him than that. It comes exclusively from thinking that abandonment is what I deserve. There is a huge element of me waiting for the other shoe to drop, like I am finally feeling really good so I have to be anxiously awaiting what will go wrong.

There has to be a catch.

Sometimes it feels like I am waiting for him to see me the way I see myself: as a worthless, annoying, gross being that anyone could do better than. It’s hard to accept affection and care when I don’t think I deserve it.

AND, it is something I am trying so hard to work on. More than anything, I do not want my insecurity and past traumas to ruin this very very great thing I have right now. I am, and will continue to, try so hard to enjoy it and enjoy this crazy man who decided that I am worth it.

I guess maybe my perception of myself isn’t always right. Maybe I’m not always right…. but if anyone ever claims I said that, I’ll deny it ;)

same old tired lonely place

I miss treatment, y’all. Everyone keeps threatening it and claiming it will take away all my progress, throw away all I’ve worked for, but nobody has stopped to think that maybe I want that.

Treatment is safe. People are quite literally paid to meet my needs, they have to listen to my sob stories, more than anything, I am removed from all of the external forces that feel like they’re working against me in the “real world.” I’m doing alright but I’m also just not loving things right now.

I constantly feel scared. I am terrified of catastrophe and I am always looking for threats. Often times it manifests as debilitating health anxiety and after finding three bruises on my body, with no clue where they came from, I have fully panicked that I could have cancer. My anxiety gets so bad that I feel nauseated and get scared to move from my bed. Those are daily occurrences for me.

Being the president of an organization that oversees more than 3,000 women is no easy task. I am learning that I don’t have to answer every text I get at 11 p.m. and that it is okay to delegate tasks. All the while, I’m trying to be appropriately authoritative while maintaining a calming, open, and warm environment. I know that I am a sweet, genuine, huge hearted girl, but often times I’m so scared of rejection or failure that I come across as a raging bitch- and I know it. Naturally, to combat that, I overuse all the happy emojis and exclamation points in every!!! text!!!! I!!!! send!!!!!!!

I’m really riding out my loneliness right now. I stopped talking to my not-so-healthy ex three weeks ago and some days are great, I don’t even think about him. Other days I spend hours trying to figure out what went wrong and why. Though, I do ᵐᶦˢˢ ʰᶦᵐ and I would describe myself as lonely, I have no real emotional hang up on anyone right now. Instead of being relationship lonely like the stereotypical sad girl who cries over men while eating ice cream, I’m just kind of numb-lonely. I don’t feel super connected to anything or anyone.

The problem with my perfect storm of stress, disconnection, and OCD is that it makes plenty of room for my eating disorder. I think, well I know, that a lot of times I romanticize the hell out of my anorexia. Some of that comes from the disorder itself needing to survive and some of it comes from wishing that there really was a quick fix. I so often think that “once I’m sick enough” all the other problems will go away; my mind will be so fixated on food/avoiding food that the anxiety and loneliness and OCD will go away. It never works like that.

My anorexia is making me pretty miserable now, too. Every freaking thought I have is about food, avoiding food, being mad that I ate food, wishing I hadn’t stepped on the scale, wishing I had stepped on the scale, wishing I hadn’t eaten whatever I ate six years ago as if that is the problem. My mind doesn’t shut up. It’s always something. So quite frankly, a little grippy sock vacation feels like it would do the trick. I could make sure my body is healthy, I would be forced to make my brain shut the hell up, I would be surrounded by people.

It’s a sad thing to desire but my dietician recently reminded me that no one can do it for me, “you have to choose it for yourself, you have to choose yourself.”

I wish I knew how to choose myself.

Track 5

Five years ago, to the day, I was pushing together two of the most uncomfortable white vinyl Ikea chairs to make what could easily resemble an adult crib, in an attempt to get cozy…

I forgot to mention during those same moments I was crying to the point of being nauseous while screaming on the phone at my parents demanding they come pick me up.

Happy Five Years of Treatment, Ashlyn!

Five years. 1,825 days since my anorexia lost her game of hide and seek.

A lot happens in five years; Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit the royal family, we had a whole ass pandemic, I’ve taken 100 and some odd hours of college classes, Taylor Swift has released four brand new albums and re-recorded two, I’ve dated three guys, kissed way more than three guys, cried about a million times, got matching tattoos with my mom, been to endless hockey games with my dad, spent hours having panic attacks, scheduled at least 200 doctors appointments… I could go on. But the one thing that remains constant is that I’m still anorexic.

It was funny for me to randomly realize, as I was painting motivational canvases, that it has been five years since my need for motivational canvas painting began. “Funny” in the sense that I had no idea that a day, which felt like it came straight out of a nightmare, would turn into five years of treatment hopping. “Funny” in that just yesterday, one of my providers decided I need more support because yet again, I’ve stopped eating. Definitely “funny” because when they asked me in high school where I saw myself in five years it sure as hell wasn’t here.

My lighthearted attitude comes from the fact that all of it really makes me want to cry. Anniversaries of my admissions make me long to be back in the safe place that is treatment, but they also fill me with rage about the normal life each admission took from me. Five years ago today was supposed to be the first day of my senior year (spring semester) in high school. Instead, it was the first day of falling academically behind. That year, I missed my senior prom, missed our senior award ceremony, my senior season of lacrosse, I missed having a relationship with any of my friends because I was locked in a hospital with a random cellphone that could really only call my parents.

Five years ago, it felt like my life shattered into a million pieces.

When I get down to the real, raw emotions of it all, my heart breaks for the high schooler who had to give up so much. Hell, it breaks for the nineteen year old college girl that had to give up so much. I have this horrible ability to feel like everything I have right now I deserve. I deserve to struggle with friendships and to indulge in men with questionable character. I deserve to anxiety attacks daily and to suffer from past trauma. But, in a uniquely compassionate but confusing way, I want to shelter the younger me who didn’t “deserve” those things. I want to take all the pain from her and carry it now.

I want to tell her to stop pacing, stop watching the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show like it’s a damn sermon, and go eat. Go eat the food you enjoy. Invest in yourself and not in the older boy you’re trying to impress. Stop trying to force your body to do unnatural things. You’re not above biology; your body can give out. I want to scream at this truly beautiful young woman that she is worth it. The mistakes made by her family when she was eight aren’t a reflection of her worth. The decision he made for her was not his to make. The girl who told you to “go eat carrots” in third grade was an asshole. The comments made about your body were disgusting but weren’t a reflection of you, they were a reflection of the person making them.

——————————————————————————————————————————

I hate my ability to be introspective. As I’m writing this I realized my point of view changed. The easier things to talk about came out in second person, like my current self is talking to my younger self. But the things I still cling so tightly to, the things that haunt me even now, were spoken in third person as if I have no say in them, like they are still happening to me…completely out of my control.

So much of my life the past five years has been about control and I feel farther from it now than I did then.

The truth is, anorexia will always be a part of my life, it’s not a disorder that seemingly ever goes away. It will always be the most defining factor of who I am. But, that doesn’t mean it always has to be what makes me special and it certainly doesn’t always have to be the way I find control in the midst of my chaos.

tolerate it

First I’m the queen of dialectics, now I’m the queen of ambivalence. Really, I’m the queen of self-proclaimed titles, but for now we’ll stick with ambivalence.

I love when things are black and white. Nothing makes me happier than a straightforward all or nothing plan and answer. I’m so good at following rules. Though most people don’t know this about me, I’m a very regimented person. I do things very habitually, very rarely changing any part of my process. It makes life comfortable for me.

Though this is not a news flash to anyone, not even myself really, I am horrible at tolerating discomfort. I’m not good at being physically uncomfortable.. hell I have an eating disorder. I’m not good at having people not like me and I don’t do well in conflict. I don’t like making decisions, especially ones that impact others. Oftentimes my biggest breakdowns are the result of not being able to escape discomfort.

Though it’s not a profound discovery, it is rather insightful for me. I can think back to my most recent really big emotional breakdown that happened with my mom. I carry a lot of emotions around all the time. There’s a lot going on in my life that really no one knows about and on top of that, I’m battling the worst anxiety I’ve ever had as I deal with new and intense OCD. I have an average of about three silent panic attacks a day, one’s where I can feel everything internally but someone around me might only notice that I’m not too engaged. In this breakdown with my mom, I had to make a seemingly easy choice: I could go to a store that was about 30 minutes away, get a specific item, come home, and go to an appointment or I could stay home alone all day and go to my appointment when the time came. I only had about three hours and I needed to save at least 45 minutes to get to my appointment.

I could not for the life of me figure out what to do. The shopping trip was going to take a max of an hour and 15 minutes but in my mind, I was convinced I wouldn’t have enough time to go and get to my appointment on time. On the other hand, I had only been home for winter break for a day and I really didn’t want to spend the whole day alone. To me, it was not a decision of what I wanted to do, but instead I had to pick which situation had the least amount of discomfort. Being late and being alone are two things that make me super uncomfortable. Being late lets other people down; to me being late tells others that they were not a priority or that I am not put together enough to know where I need to be when I need to be there. It feels like it is a complete refection of who I am.

Yet, so is being alone.

Being alone is not my favorite thing. I think we can all agree that I’m not really one who should be left with her thoughts and being left alone feels personal to me. It felt like my mom didn’t want to spend time with me, especially given that I hadn’t been home long. I will say that this particular incidence likely felt more personal and emotionally charged because my mom is my comfort person. She’s the one I go to when I’m drained from everyone else or even from myself. She hears all of my complaints, listens to all of my worries, and knows damn near everything about me. I can breathe normally when she’s around because I don’t have to put on a face or pretend to be anything that I’m not. So, when she made me feel down I didn’t know what to do.

What started as going to a store or staying home ended in screaming and sobbing. I couldn’t pick which type of discomfort was more tolerable. Ultimately, I ended up going but that came after about an hour long breakdown and a whole lot of chaos.

I hate myself when I’m uncomfortable but I also hate myself when I’m breaking down. Having these emotional explosions of sorts, is really hard on me. It causes me to think about every single thing that’s been bothering me since the last one. My emotions become a beach ball, the more I push them down, the harder they hit me in the face when they come back up.

That’s why I’m so conflicted in recovery right now.. if that’s what we’re calling it. I’m so freaking uncomfortable. I am still so emotional from a relationship that ended in May. It’s worse right now because this time last year we were in the heat of it and I know each day on the calendar that I saw him and how it went. I miss the hell out of that and missing people makes me uncomfortable; I want to feel like I can do everything on my own and that I never need anyone.

I’m seeing a really bad side of one of my favorite things; seeing the more competitive and defensive sides of people I consider my best friends. Conflict makes me uncomfortable.

I miss my parents, like I said before, they’re my safe place.

I’m just really uncomfortable with a lot right now and you know what soothes my discomfort… other than a mental breakdown? My eating disorder. The bliss of being completely consumed by my old friend, Anorexia.

As I say in the closing of so many blogs now: I don’t know where to go from here. I know this means I have an usually and often (for my disorder) unfortunate deal of self-understanding, but at the same time I just don’t want to be uncomfortable. I don’t want to feel it, I don’t want to sit with it. I want to escape any and all discomfort.

happiness

As another year comes to a close, in true Ashlyn fashion, I’m being rather introspective. I haven’t written much this year and I can only attribute it to the fact that as my entire life was coming together, it was also falling apart. I have written a million blogs in my mind this year but just lost the courage to share my feelings.

This time last year I made a list of things I was going to do in 2021. I pinky promised to show myself empathy, to own my body and learn self acceptance, to not apologize for my feelings. I did none of those. I still fucking hate myself and I’m really flirting with the idea of a relapse so I still apologize for everything because I hate the fact that I take up any type of physical or emotional space.

However, we can celebrate the fact that I did not meet my insurance deductible this year and not once did I step foot into an eating disorder treatment facility!

This year I felt a lot of things.. a lot of really shitty things. I felt betrayal and loss as I spent the majority of my year falling for someone who never once had the capacity to love me. I felt the most anger I’ve ever known as I waited everyday for that person to see how deeply they hurt me while slowly, and continually, coming to terms with the fact that it might not ever happen no matter how badly I need it. I felt pain both emotionally and physically. Early this year I went to the hospital with the deepest and largest self-harm wound I’ve ever given myself. I now live with a massive scar on my body that pretty much lets everyone know that I’m not stable. I’ve gone on and off my meds this year.. medically advised and not. I’ve experienced the most debilitating anxiety. I’ve made a lot of friends and lost some too. I’ve cried so much. I’ve listened to Taylor Swift’s All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) more than 60 times. I have hurt.

This state of recovery includes some of the most emotionally draining and miserable days I have lived.

In my ever-so-dialectical manner, I’m succeeding in ways I could have never imagined when I was staring out of a hospital window just two years ago. I took eighteen credit hours this semester and brought my GPA up a considerable amount. I moved to more of an “office intern” role at my campus job after receiving a pay raise. I worked in my first undergraduate research lab; I hated every second of it but still made a great impression on my advising professor and was invited to continue in the lab. I went from holding a director position on the council of my college’s largest all-female organization to being elected as the incoming 2022 president. That’s a big deal. I added a major so that I will now graduate on time and should finish college with a double major as well as a double minor.

From the outside perspective I’m kicking ass. But one of the few constants is that I’m not happy.

My life is so full- you should see my Google Calendar- but it feels so empty. My position titles and the important work I’m doing don’t feel like they mean as much to me as they “should.” I never feel full.

Something I’ve learned a lot about this year, in regards to myself, is that I desperately long for meaningful connection. I have loads of surface level connections but my entire being yearns for more. Yet, I really suck at fostering meaningful connections. I am the hardest damn person to get to know because I am convinced that any vulnerability I show will used as a blueprint on how exactly to hurt me. Without shaming anyone, my history shows that the people I am closest to are the people who hurt me the worst. So here I am navigating a world where I am trying to actively seek connection while also doing every last thing in my power to ensure my emotional safety. Those are two heavy loads to carry at once.

So that’s where I am after 365ish days. A successful, emotional wreck with a brain that says the only fix is to starve myself. But.. this year I am able to speak my truth without hiding the bad or ugly moments that aren’t so picture perfect.

now i see daylight

Yesterday, I was in a situation where someone asked me what I’m passionate about. My own answer surprised me.

I’ve been asked about my passions many times and I have never known what to say. I don’t have a ton of hobbies and for someone who has spent years in therapy, I don’t know much about what makes me happy. But this time, when asked what I’m passionate about, I replied saying, “I’m passionate about recovery.”

You may all pause to either laugh or close your jaw because I know it dropped.

Truth be told, I’m very passionate about recovery. I’m passionate about eating disorder recovery, substance abuse recovery, trauma recovery, all of it. I think when you get down to the bottom of it, we are all recovering from something. No one lives a painless life; things hurt, people hurt, and it takes time to heal.

What I’m coming to realize is that passions aren’t the things you’re perfect at. They aren’t the only thing you focus on or the thing you’re an expert at. Instead, they’re what make you feel something, things that make you appropriately angry and drive you to make positive change. For me, recovery means that there is more. In my life, recovery means that my parents still have a daughter and my brother still has a sister, it means that there is a diploma waiting to be printed with my name on it, and that there is some fineeeee piece of man out there waiting to love me.

Recovery is not defined by the amount of days I follow my meal plan. It’s not the number of therapy sessions that I openly divulge my feelings in. It’s certainly not never getting on the scale and waking up in love with my body every single day. Recovery is the continual, fearless pursuit of demanding more for myself than a life succumbed to pain.

I am not recovered. My demons are not dead, my mind is seldom a happy place AND I am a completely different woman than I have ever been. I have been weight restored for a year, I have friends who value me, and I throw myself into social situations that terrify me. I am powerful gal, not because I’ve do everything right but because for once in my life, I’m trying and I’m working to honor my own self worth. That’s recovery and that’s what I’m passionate about.

illicit affairs

I’ve always said “affairs aren’t fair,” it’s in one of my previous posts actually. But, I’ve always had that stance as a victim, never did I think I would be the perpetrator.

For all of my teenage and adult life I’ve thought the worst of people who were willing to cheat. I thought men who cheated were scummy, shitty, hurtful people and the women they cheated with were desperate, ruthless, selfish people. I never saw myself in those ways and I never wanted to be that girl. Now, nine months later, I’m realizing I wasn’t right and maybe that judgement wasn’t warranted.

This past December I found myself kissing a guy at a party, knowing full well he was in a relationship. The act was initiated by him, which he has taken responsibility for, but I was just as willing of a participant. I have a relatively guilty conscience so soon after the kiss, I asked why he would do that to his girlfriend. He replied saying that his girlfriend knew he “did things like that.” 

We spent the next four months sneaking around to each other’s towns, even sneaking off on a weekend getaway one time. It felt so wrong but so so right. It was the most serious relationship I’d ever been in. Going on dates, on trips, traveling to see each other, planning a future, buying each other gifts; I swear it was what I had always dreamed of. Every day I was falling in love with this relationship. 

The hardest days were the days he spent with his public girlfriend and there were a lot. I would wonder what they were doing, sometimes torturing myself with the thought of their intimacy. The blow would be softened when he sent texts complaining about her or outright saying he hated being around her. Those texts were enough to ease my mind until we could see each other again and our fantasy could continue.

I always held on to the hope that he would leave her even though he made no promise to. A lot of times, that hope was hard to find. I couldn’t understand why he continued to spend weeks at a time with her if he hated it so much. Or why he would be in a relationship that he didn’t like when he had a perfect relationship with someone he talked about spending the rest of his life with. But I thought I was falling in love and I continually told myself that if it was going to last a lifetime it shouldn’t be rushed. 

Four months after our relationship started, his public relationship ended. I was never allowed to know the details and I respected that. Prior to their impending breakup we talked about how on X date, we could finally be together: she would be out of the picture and it would be the two of us. Two days before that date he became distant, saying we couldn’t have our perfect relationship yet, he needed to heal and move on from her. More confusion for me. He needed to heal from the breakup that came after four months of cheating? He had already moved on so I couldn’t grasp why he needed that time but again, I told myself nothing needed to be rushed and I wanted to be supportive.

I didn’t know then that we’d have three more of those dates come and go. 

I don’t expect most people to care or feel bad for my continual broken heart but true heartbreak was my experience. When we met, while they were dating, after they broke up. I chased a man I could never have, constantly under the impression that we could be together and have a passionate, lasting love. 

I got shame and self-hatred instead. 

What no one says about being the other woman is that you're in a competition that no one else knows about. I analyzed every aspect of his girlfriend. I noticed the clothes she wore, how social she was, what her aspirations were, her academic success. I compared every part of the life she portrayed on social media to my everyday life. I found things I envied but oftentimes, I found undeniable similarities. It was painful to think that maybe I was just there to fill in the gaps of her that he was missing. Because none of this cured my eating disorder the way I genuinely thought it might, I compared her body size to mine and some nights, even still, all I can feel “happy” about is knowing that if nothing else, I am skinnier than her. 

But the competition never ended there, I compared her relationship with him to my own. Those tended to be the moments with the most envy. He would spend days with her and I would get no more than thirty-six hours. He would go out of his way to see her and when he saw me it was often out of convenience. She would get to show up unexpectedly and I certainly wasn’t allowed to. He would have to take her phone calls when we were together and mine would be silenced. The mascara I got on his shirt as we laid together hours before he went to see her became “dirt from a fall.” I watched him care for someone he said he hated being with without getting the same care in return.

When they broke up we stopped seeing each other as much. My thirty-six hour visits turned into twelve. Instead of texting all day he would wait hours between messages. Falling asleep and waking up together on Facetime turned into thirty minute calls I begged for. A trip to meet his friends turned into a trip with his friends, intentionally uninviting me. 

The woman I was, the woman I was finally proud of became the girl I despised. 

I did things that are disgusting. I involved myself in a situation that is morally despicable. There are people that think my actions will land me deep in hell and truth be told, I probably deserve it. But putting aside morals for a few seconds, I was a naive, lovestruck girl who thought she was being “picked” and who finally felt worthy. In a world where I never felt good enough, I was being treated like I was better than anyone else. I felt like it was possible for someone to love me. I felt wanted. 

In reality, I think I was being used to fill a need that his girlfriend couldn’t meet. I was falling in love with a secret that never had a chance at being anything more than just that.

And I guess, that’s the thing about illicit affairs...

miss misery

If there’s one thing I don’t do it’s move on. I don’t move on from my eating disorder, from old relationships, from things that don’t serve me. I give my all to everything because the alternative terrifies me.

I never learned how to move on. Many of the most important relationships in my life have seemed to vanish at random and maybe that’s part of it. I haven’t received a lot of closure in my life. There were friendships during my childhood that ended seemingly overnight and my best relationship ended when I left college for treatment. Even my eating disorder seems to vanish as soon as I step into a hospital. I have no trust that things will stay so I can’t possibly let them go on my own.

I don’t even know where to begin with a lot of it. wikiHow says the first step is mourning the relationship and I’m pretty good at that so maybe I do know how to start but I don’t know where to go from there. Step two is cutting off contact and that’s where I bow out. The thought of losing contact scares me. What if something bad happens and we need to talk? What if I find that I can’t do life without them?

I think a lot of my hardship comes from taking that thought one step father; what if I can’t do life without them but they can do life without me?

My mind always goes to the worst place no matter what the situation but I feel a particular emptiness thinking about the end of relationships. I envision myself alone in my apartment crying in insurmountable pain as I’m watching the world go on without me. These tend to be feelings I have even away from my made-up sad girl scinario. I’m at a place in life where my friends have graduated college but I’m still there, they have jobs and these grand opportunities to meet new people. I see it the same with intimate relationships, I’ve been seeing a guy who lives 200 miles from me, is constantly traveling, and has a life that could easily go on without me.

There are days where I feel like the loneliest person in the world.

I rely on people to tell me who I am. I rely on friendships to show me that people can tolerate my presence and validate that I’m a funny, easy-going, lively gal. I rely on relationships to show me that I’m valuable, lovable, beautiful, and worth the undivided affection of another being. I rely on my eating disorder to give me confidence, a sense of superiority and control, even if those are false senses.

When you get down to it, the only thing about me that comes from me is the process of altering myself. I hate that I can’t be the exact thing each and every person individually needs at any given time. I have a need to be needed, a need to be special. It’s so unhealthy, I know this, but it consumes me. I’m in no way saying that I’m an incredible, always selfless, giving person but I’m so focused on making myself fit into a role that I forget to check if I’m even supposed to.

Moving on is hard because I hate when I’m not the solution. I hate when I’m not the person of someone’s dreams or the lifelong best friend or the girl who can wear anything because she’s so damn skinny nothing could look bad. I don’t like being average, I can’t even accept being at an average weight, I have to be smaller and smaller and smaller.

At the same time that I’m trying to fit into every role, I’m trying to stand out as an individual.

WHAT A DIALECTIC.

I know with every part of my being that I have to let go of things. I have to accept that people move on and that I deserve to as well. I don’t need to live in fear of ten year or even ten day old haunts. I have to live the present life and that life has to be one I’m living to make myself happy.

But right now, I really feel like I have no idea how to.

apology letter

I feel like everyday I should be carrying around an apology letter to hand out to anyone I cross paths with. I feel the need to apologize to everyone for every part of me.

There are times when I’m walking around a store and I have urge to yell at people that I’m sorry for who I am. If I’m looking at clothes and someone sees me I want to apologize for my body and tell them I haven’t always been this size. If I’m looking at makeup I want to tell everyone that I just like to experiment and that I know I’m not pretty or good at doing my own makeup.

I wake up really late and want to tell my family that I’m sorry I’m worthless and lazy. I’m sorry that I’m depressed and can’t fathom pulling myself out of bed. I’m sorry for missing the first four hours of your day because I felt like I couldn’t handle them. I’m sorry for constantly being a financial burden and for always letting my mental health ruin your own.

I want to tell the boys I have relationships with that I’m sorry I care so much. I’m sorry that I need reassurance and that I’m so scared of being abandoned. I’m sorry that I can’t always trust that you find me attractive or want to be with me. I’m sorry that I overthink everything and frustrate you with my incessant thoughts. I’m sorry that some of my actions are scary and that I worry you all the time. I’m sorry I talk so much and hold on to every last word we share.

I want to tell my friends that I’m sorry I can’t always put a smile on my face and pretend like I’m having a good time. I’m sorry I drink too much when I’m sad and you have to come pick me up. I’m sorry I keep to myself and come out when I get too lonely. I’m sorry I’m a shitty friend but expect you not to be.

I’m sorry to my treatment team that I can’t just get better. I’m sorry I can’t put into action all the things that we talk about and I can’t just give up on the things that have made me feel whole. I’m sorry I’m a raging bitch in some of our sessions and that I sometimes come home and tell my parents that you’re assholes just because you challenged me.

I’m sorry I don’t post as much as I used to and that everything I write feels too stupid to post. I’m sorry you had to read this.

In all of my sorry I never stop to apologize to myself. I never say sorry to the girl who I have tried to kill every single day for six years.

I assume that everyone deserves to hear my apology because I’m a burden in their life. I know that sounds stupid but I assume that no one else would ever let themselves be this size or look this way or care they way I do or sleep as late as I do or complain as much as I do or ___ as much as I do so I apologize for being a way no one else is.

Truth be told, the only reason I would be burdening anyone else is because I feel like such a burden to myself. I let my insecurity be more important than fact. No one cares what makeup I wear, my parents wouldn’t support me if they didn’t love me, guys wouldn’t spend time investing in me if they didn’t want to be with me, my friends wouldn’t pick me up if they didn’t value me, my treatment team wouldn’t fight for me if they felt like I was a hopeless case. Yet, I still tell myself that when people see me, they see a waste of life.

When I choose to believe the voice in my head, I’m choosing to believe that I’m the only one that is right. When I believe that I’m the only one that is right and that I can’t trust others, I enter a vicious cycle of shame because I very truly know that a lot of times I’m wrong and I am self-aware enough to recognize that no one is perfect.

The shame brought on by cognitive dissonance ruins me and leaves me feeling confused. When I feel shameful, I feel apologetic and thus, the cycle continues.

://

I’ve been much more anxious than usual so I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly my anxiety means. My anxiety tends to start with a single intrusive thought that I give a little too much attention to. The intrusive thought that maybe the random waiter at a restaurant drugged my diet coke leads to tiny sips (if any) and an entire night anxiously awaiting symptoms of poisoning. I go back and forth wondering if I should tell someone. If I tell, people with think I’m batshit crazy, but if I don’t and I die, no one will know what happened. That’s only one of the crazy scenarios that consumes my mind on an almost daily basis.

So past the initial thought of these extremely unlikely life-threatening scenarios, what am I so afraid of? Why do I let my life be controlled by the fear of death? Why can’t I enjoy it without waiting for it to end?

Because I’m terrified I’ll never get to live.

Recently, I was working in a guided journal and a blank page sat with the prompt: what are you fearful of? Holy shit, what am I fearful of?? What am I not fearful of is the shorter answer. That question could have so many easy answers: death, poisoning, black holes, heart attacks, etc. But, I didn’t let myself answer so simply. What I’m actually fearful of is existing without living. I’m scared of always feeling like I’m riding in the passenger’s seat of my own life.

Without sounding pitiful or upset, a lot of my life has been used just existing. You can’t live a full life from hospital rooms and you certainly can’t live when you don’t give your body the fuel to. In my currently healthy body, I’m starting to notice all that I’ve missed. Watching everyone I grew up with graduate, knowing that I have a while to go reminds me of all the living I haven’t done yet. Spending months falling for someone who might not ever be capable of loving me reminds me of all the people I’ve missed and all the relationships I’ve ruined because I wasn’t alive enough to be in them.

I long for love and adventure and a happiness that is so great I forget what it feels like to hurt. I haven’t experienced that yet. I’m terrified I might not ever. Some of it is me not taking responsibility for living, I can hide behind my fear and never have to risk living a truly unfulfilling life. If I never try, I never fail and I can blame not trying instead of the possibility that who I am is a failure. Truth be told, I’m so scared that I’m unloveable, unworthy, and “too broken” that I punish myself by not allowing myself to live. I have to question every single relationship because I’m so convinced that I deserve abandonment so I run people off. My biggest fear is that people will see me the way I see myself.

doo doo butt therapy

As an avid hater of dialectical behavior therapy(DBT), it pains my soul to say that I use DBT on a daily basis. I’m continually telling myself that things will get easier when I accumulate positive experiences. Or that things will feel less anxiety provoking if I check the facts. I tend to disregard mindfulness as its become a wellness buzz word instead of a therapeutic practice but needless to say, I’m actively engaging in one of the modules constantly.

However, I’ve recently found a slight flaw in my DBT usage. I have found that eating disorder treatment might have caused me to be overly reliant on DBT techniques leading me to even more emotional distress. I mean lets be real here if anyone was going to overly engage in something good and turn it into something bad, we all knew it was going to be me.

Let me explain.

The initial shock that institutionalizing yourself to learn how to eat again doesn’t automatically cure an eating disorder is a lot, but you learn to make peace with it as time goes on. Chances are, if you’ve been in treatment, you’ve heard that your disorder might not ever go away but it will get easier to deal with. A win for the disorder, an agonizing thought for your healthy self. So from there, DBT teaches you how to cope ahead. You grow very accustomed to playing scenarios out in your mind and preparing for the worst. How will you handle it when you get asked to dinner? What will you do if you’re at a friends house and they want to eat ice cream? What will happen if the clouds fall out of the sky, we find out they were made of whipped cream all along, and the only way to go anywhere is to eat your way through them?

It might sound crazy but the fake scenarios we work through to learn about coping ahead can get pretty preposterous. Like sure, I’d be terrified, but I’m not really sure that Marsha Linehan was thinking about eating her way through a cloud of whipped cream when she created the curriculum for coping ahead.

Unfortunately, all the planning for things that could very well never happen has spilled over into my life outside of anorexia. Being someone with an addictive personality, seldom do I do things, good or bad, in moderation. Because I know that my eating disorder might always make my life feel really hard, I assume all of my life will be hard. Where I have learned to plan for the absolute worst possible eating scenarios, I have also learned to plan for the worst possible scenario in any part of my life. I feel like I have to be ready for the next painful thing so I feel heartache before I even need to. I feel let down by people who haven’t done anything because I’m so busy preparing for things to go wrong. I’m losing faith in others and pushing people away over “what if” situations.

This is one hundred percent my fault. I’m not blaming treatment or DBT but I am trying to process how interesting the DIALECTIC is that coping ahead can be so beneficial but also so detrimental.

As I learn moderation and I learn to be okay, I’m trying to learn that I don’t have to plan for everything. I don’t have to assume that pain is going to come. Ironically, I can check the facts and know that things aren’t always going to hurt me. I can be mindful of what is going on without having to fixate. And I can know that I will be okay if I’m not prepared for every last possible outcome.

shower floor sanctuary

I would be lying if I said I haven’t spent four hours in the last two days sitting on the floor of my shower. It’s mildly embarrassing as it is probably the most stereotypical sad girl thing to do, and I pride myself on being DiFFerEnT, but for some reason it feels good.

In case you couldn't tell, I’m going through a low spot with my depression.

Everything has been making me sad. I wake up every morning dreading the day. I set my alarm for an hour earlier than I need to be up so I can let myself ignore it; the only reason I end up getting out of bed is because I promise myself I can sleep again as soon as my responsibilities are over. I haven’t called my family as frequently because they can often hear my sadness and I don’t even know what to talk about. I dread my weekly appointments because the last thing I want to do is talk for an hour when I could be doing something to avoid reality.

I’ve started to notice that I avoid reality a lot. The amount of symptom swapping I do is pretty impressive. I chase the feeling of escaping from myself.

For those of you who don’t know, symptom swapping (in my life, in terms of my disorder) is when I move from primarily using restriction as a coping mechanisms to using other less than favorable behaviors. I’ve struggled with nicotine addiction, overusing alcohol, purging, self-harm… It’s like no matter what I do, it can’t be healthy. The problem is not at all that I don’t know any healthy coping mechanisms, I mean I could literally recite the DBT handbook word for word, it’s just that they don’t give me the high or the escape I crave.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Mainly because I know that none of these things are healthy or appropriate ways to deal with my feelings but it’s been interesting to think about why I need them. I think it probably goes without saying that alcohol is the most effective way to get away from myself and my feelings. Being drunk makes the bad things less important. But ironically, being drunk becomes the safest place for me explore those feelings. It’s where I can understand my sadness the most. The typical judgement I have towards myself seems to get lost when I drink. It’s like I do my best thinking then. I know that doesn’t make sense but I’d also be lying if I said that I didn’t have at least two glasses of wine in me when I write most of my blogs.

It’s like the wall of self- doubt falls when I start to feel tipsy. I’m not overwhelmed by the degree I’m pursuing or the future I have to figure out, I’m not hurt by the man who can’t decide if he wants me or not, I don’t remember the friend who made feel unworthy. I can sit with myself for a minute and understand her; I can honor the stress, honor the pain from unreciprocated love, honor loss.

Self-harm and eating disorder behaviors serve as the self-punishment. They don’t let me escape from myself but they let me hurt the way I tell myself I deserve. They’re the things that I tell myself will make me better in the long run but we’ve seen how that turns out.

I’ve been talking about these things with my treatment team and the truth is, I don’t know what to do with them. It’s sometimes more annoying to have awareness about the destruction I’m doing to myself physically and mentally but honestly, it’s a start. I’m finding that a lot of my life and a lot of growth happens through slow painful change instead of spurts of change from sudden epiphanies.

screaming, crying, perfect storms

I’ve spent a long time trying to take up as little space as possible. I starved my adult body to be the size of a child’s and that still felt like I was taking up too much space. The numbers were never small enough; I was consuming too many calories, my weight was too high, my portions were too big: nothing was ever small enough. But in that desire to be tiny I’ve found an interesting dialectic. I hate feeling emotionally small.

I’m in a weird situation right now that is constantly making me go against my values. I’m currently the cognitive dissonance queen but for the most part I can put that out of my mind. However, on the days when reality hits me, I feel so small emotionally. I feel like a child and I hate it.

There’s a lot to unpack there but when I first realized the dialectic or even irony, I was taken aback. A girl who lives her life trying to be tiny hates feeling small?? Granted, feeling small physically and feeling small emotionally are very different.

Through this unusual circumstance that has made me feel emotionally small, I have realized that “emotionally small” to me means feeling oblivious, feeling forgotten, feeling naive, and feeling left out. It feels like there’s an inside joke or a secret everyone else knows but I’m the one who doesn’t. It feels disgusting.

When I feel that way I want to run. I don’t care where I just feel like it is physically impossible to exist as myself anymore because clearly there is something wrong with me. When this feeling occurs, the core of my soul literally shakes as if it’s trying to escape this vessel of a body it is trapped in. It feels like an embarrassment to be who I am and I have to get away.

I think that comes from how I felt as a child. I was big growing up. I was never a skinny kid or even a normal size. Kids in school joked about me needing to “eat a carrot” and family members said getting braces could be a great time to diet and lose weight. Though I wasn’t acting on disordered behaviors then, those words had such an impact on me. Maybe that’s obvious as I can vividly remember them 13+ years later but I was insecure even at 8 years old. I was ashamed of myself and who I was. The feeling of wanting to escape my being was present then too. Then add the emotional trauma.

There’s not a ton I can do to fix this feeling, honestly. I could remove myself from the weird situation I’m in but truth be told, it’s not that easy to do right now (in my opinion, since my parents and therapist will read this and think it’s super easy to make better choices).

I don’t think dialectics are bad. I don’t think cognitive dissonance is bad. I think they’re huge tools to learn from. All we can do is learn. I’m never going to be perfect but the more I learn about myself, the more I can stop trying to run from her.

i don’t have a clever title

Loneliness is my biggest trigger. I’m going through a lot right now. I’ve recently loss the first best friend I’ve had since seventh grade. To be fair, we really didn’t have much in common except for our loneliness but either way, going from spending your weekends with someone to sitting alone sucks.

So yes, I am sitting alone at my computer on a Friday night listening to all my favorite sad songs. This blog comes after sitting in the bathroom crying because my life just always seems to fall apart. The loneliness is kind of on the backburner for this blog though. I want to talk about why it is my trigger.

For a few irrelevant reasons, this night has been all about me, myself, and I. The unholy trinity if you ask me. But the time alone with myself makes me think and if you haven’t caught on, when I think… it’s never good. I’ve spent a lot of my night looking at pictures of my favorite treatment center. I was looking at the google stock photos of it and picking out where I sat during process group, thinking about the seats people fought over in the common room, and even being disgusted that they advertise with pillows in the photos because we all know there’s no pillows!! People would throw up in the pillows (for those of you unfamiliar with the treatment world, throwing up in furniture like cushions is a real thing that I have seen with my own eyes)!! But why are those images so important? Because they represent the most broken moments of my life.

I romanticize my brokenness and not without reason. Those moments were the times I had nurses at my beck and call literally 24/7. They were times when I was surrounded by at least twenty other patients. They were when I knew my actions would have consequences. Right now, alone, things are not that way. No one is here. No one is around me. I very well might drink a whole bottle of wine and the only consequence is waking up the next morning feeling like shit. No one else is involved.. not that I really want anyone to be involved in that but the bottom line is that no one knows what happens when I’m alone. No one else sits in the pain. No one else stares at my body and longs for the day that size two jeans are huge again. No one looks at my pictures and runs to the toilet to throw up the low calorie cracker they just ate. It’s all me. It’s all my brain.

So I sit. I sit in the brokenness. I sit in the longing for a smaller body and a life I’m in control of. But I sit knowing that happiness does not exist if I dive into my eating disorder. I sit knowing that love and companionship cannot thrive when I’m solely focused on my body. I sit and I wait for tomorrow with the hope that it won’t be this hard. I wait for recovery to be second nature because I’ve come too far to go back now.

The images of treatment will always be sparkling in my mind. I’ll dream of walking into the bathroom, looking at my emaciated face and still thinking it’s too fat. But those sparkles come with the memories of trying to run away from treatment. From being so mad that I was willing to harm myself. Memories of sitting in the corner of rooms yelling at my parents to take me home.

So I sit and I wait for it to be easier. I know one day it will be.

full heart, can’t lose

I’m pretty sure we don’t get to choose who we fall for. I sure as hell don’t. I’m sure you’re shocked to hear I’m in the midst of another sad love story. But instead of boring you with the details of my impending heartbreak I want to talk about control.

I’ve spent so long feeling in control of my life. My disorder gives me so much control. My therapist would say it’s a false sense of control but I’m not too focused on the technicalities right now. When I get deep in my disorder, nothing happens unintentionally. My intake is calculated; no calorie enters my body without being strategically planned then recorded. My steps are tracked and every single day I try to increase the steps to “beat” the prior days record. My days are booked, whether its wallowing in self pity, showering, walking to class, walking to burn extra calories, weighing myself, etc. it’s on the schedule and we DO NOT break the schedule. In my disorder, I don’t have to worry about spontaneous social events or activities because the schedule doesn’t include friends and since we don’t break the schedule we don’t have to worry.. and we sure as helllll don’t have time to worry about men.

But welcome to recovered life bitch: a whirlwind of unplanned chaos. In this state of recovery, I have no idea when things will happen. Will I go out last minute on a Thursday night because everyone else is? Will I meet someone totally new and all the sudden have feelings that I never knew I was capable of? LITERALLY ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. Oh, and if the possibility of anything happening isn’t enough.. all of these things are happening. There’s no schedule so they start coming and they don’t stop coming.

Losing my sense of control is one of the hardest parts of my life right now. My sense of control has always been the thing I held onto the tightest when things got hard. If I felt like no one liked me, I would get so lost in the thoughts of starving that I couldn’t worry about other people’s opinion. If I had no plans, I would walk all over everywhere to focus on calories and not plans. There’s always been some behavior to control and distract myself. But now, there’s nothing. Well, it feels like there’s nothing.

If I don’t have plans on a Friday night, I’m laying in bed sad. If it feels like no one likes me, I’m laying in bed sad. When the screams of my eating disorder got quieter, the wails of my sadness got louder. Everything is intense now. The intensity of my feelings means I’m searching high and low for ways to calm them. I end up spending more time symptom swapping more than I do recovering. ((recovering from anorexia is more than just eating again!!!))

So what will real recovery look like? It’ll suck. It will be crying alone in bed on a Friday night because my friends didn’t communicate plans well. It will be falling for the wrong person again and again, feeling heartbroken and hopeless. It will be eating and regretting every last calorie, dying wishing I had gone to the gym for thirty more minutes or walked one more mile.

ANDDDDD it will be going out on the weekend making memories I’ll long to relive for the rest of my life. It will be laughing at all the guys I thought I loved only to look at my husband and know that they were preparing me for him the whole time. It will be enjoying food because part of life, happiness, and connection is eating.

So maybe my heart will get broken today or tomorrow or two months from now… but it’s also so full. I’ve never been happy to say any part of my body was full but here I am.