I made the mistake of reading my old diary tonight. There was a lot of horrible things in there. I had written regularly in that diary for years. There were entries about my father when he was healthy, my father when he was sick with cancer, entries about my father's funeral, about my first real love and how it ended. And there were entries about my eating disorder, but only 4 or 5 of them. I guess I stopped writing then. Actually, I stopped everything.
Reading over the forgotten words, they didn't seem like my own. Sure, they were factual and accurate. Places and names made sense, but the person writing did not. I used words I would never use now. Maybe part of it comes simply from growing up. The last few entries about food and dieting and weight loss were written when my anorexia was in its early stages. I didn't realize at that point what I was up against. I was still under her spell, naive and eager to please. I thought at first that reading about it all would make me tempted to backslide. I thought I would believe again all of those old lies. But I didn't. They seemed almost silly.
My head is clear now.
Calories aren't the worst things in the world.
I don't care that I'm not losing weight.
I lost too much of myself in the process.
I had to be rebuilt.
And I like this me much better.
but maybe it wasn't a mistake? I agree that reliving those experiences is very tough, but I think you made a very interesting and important point. You stop the diary when you became ill with anorexia, you 'stopped everything'. I think it's good to remember what it was like so that you won't go back to that point. I'm glad your head is clear now. life is so much better and you are so much stronger now too, after having to rebuild yourself. xoxo
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