How to break a promise

As far as my eating disorder goes, tonight was the worst night I've had in a long time. I have been feeling vulnerable for days. I have been feeling fat and disgusting (see yesterday's post). Tonight before dinner, the anxiety I've been dragging around finally exploded. It's silly how it started. My boyfriend and I were making dinner. I had fresh corn on the cob that I was cleaning up. I pulled the husks back from one ear and it was oddly shaped. I said, "Look--it's skinny on top and fat on the bottom." And my boyfriend said, "Yep. Just like you."


W h a t ?

Obviously he didn't mean it like that. He wasn't considering how my eating disorder would twist things around. He doesn't think I'm fat and I know that. My body is smaller on top and larger on the bottom. That's a fact. That's just how God designed me. Even when I was at the lowest and the highest weight of my life, I always had a slim waist and larger hips and thighs. And it's something I have always been self-conscious about. I know that my boyfriend loves the shape of my body. I know he thinks I'm beautiful. But he forget sometimes that it's hard for me to see beauty in myself, especially in the parts of myself I'm uncomfortable with.

After he said it he started backtracking, which made things much worse. My eyes welled up with tears immediately and he looked so scared and sorry. I ran into the bedroom and lay down and cried it all out. I hadn't cried like that in a long time. Of course, he followed me with tissues and kept apologizing, saying over and over again that he didn't mean it like that. I was never mad at him. I was mad at myself, at my eating disorder, at my body, at my heart for being sensitive, at my mind for twisting things around. The last thing I wanted to do was to eat dinner, but I reminded myself that he is leaving Monday for Boston and that I didn't want to ruin the last couple of days we have together before then. But then I did something very bad and disappointing. My eating disorder kept screaming for me not to eat. I told her I had to. I told her that I was fat and I knew it and this confirmed it. I promised I would eat like normal until he went out of town and then I'd stop eating altogether.

And she shut up.

And I ate dinner. All of it.

Of course I am going to break my promise. What about all of those promises my eating disorder made to me only to break them? Of course I am going to keep eating while he is gone. Of course I'm going to fight like hell to stay healthy. But tonight proved to me that it's not going to be easy. It proved to me that even after all of these years in recovery, the bitch isn't dead yet.

But guess what--

Neither am I.

It's frustrating, but I'm not going to let it set me back.

I can be rational.

I can be calm.

I can count on myself to take care of myself.

and I will.