Let's thrive

This post is for those girls and boys, those broken down women and men, the ones who think the way I used to think: that recovery is impossible, unnecessary, unattainable. That recovery is quitting, tapping out, giving up, giving in. I used to think recovery was for losers. Hacks. Sell-outs. Weaklings. The ones who weren't special or elite enough to reach their goals.

That was my disorder talking.

Does it sound familiar?

That is the voice of your disease.

By definition, disease is not a good thing.

I used to think that I could never recover, but I realize now, that's only because I didn't want to recover. I didn't want to be healthy. I thought healthy meant ordinary and there was nothing I could think of that I wanted less to be. The trouble is that those thoughts were not my own. My anorexia (and later my bulimia) made the decisions for me. I didn't want to recover because I thought there was no life after anorexia. I couldn't see a way out. I thought I'd carry my disease around forever, dragging her around like a corpse everywhere that I went. It was exhausting. And it was killing me. I realize now that there is life after anorexia. Better yet, there is only life after anorexia. Those years I spent sick were not living. I was only existing, and just barely.

I want to thrive.

If you are one of those people who thinks recovery is impossible or unattainable, I challenge you to reconsider. I challenge you to ask yourself what you have to gain by staying sick versus what you have to gain by getting well.

It's like that old cliche I've heard my entire life and never understood until now:

"You are what you eat."

Do you really want to be nothing?