(Re) cover ed

The last few days have been a whole bunch of blah. I've been super busy finishing up with grad school. (I graduate in two weeks! Yikes!) In addition, I've been sick with the flu or maybe just a bad cold. Regardless, I've been sniffling and sneezing around my apartment feeling down in the dumpster. I've had difficulties the last few days with eating. I've had no desire to eat. It's not that I'm not hungry, and it's not that I'm consciously trying to restrict. I just don't want food. It doesn't sound appetizing.

But I've been fighting.

Appetite or not, I'm eating anyway. I'm pushing myself. It's the right thing to do. Actually, it's the only thing to do.

Starvation is not an option. It's a horrible feeling. It's a horrible word. And there's simply no place for it in my life.

There shouldn't be any place for it in your life, either.

There is, however, room for health. There is room for happiness. And there's room for hope.

Today I forced myself to eat even though I didn't really want to. I ate chocolate "ice cream". I ate chips. I ate pasta. Holy cow. I know, right? I rarely eat any of those things, let alone all of them in one day. But guess what: It didn't kill me. The world didn't stop turning. I didn't throw up. I didn't work out afterward. And I didn't gain even a pound.

Not to mention, it was yummy.

I'm so tired of being a slave to my eating disorder. The bitch doesn't own me anymore.

I have regressed, restricted, revolted, reacted, rebelled, repented, reflected, rededicated, regrouped, revamped, readjusted, refocused, reconciled, renewed, rediscovered...

and am well on my way to being

RECOVERED.

"To be free, one must give up a part of oneself." Hedwig and the Angry Inch

I want to be free.

My eating disorder keeps me a PRISONER.

What do I have to give up to be free?

I have to give up the lies.

I have to give up the panic.

I have to give up the fear.

I want to be healthy.

My eating disorder keeps me SICK.

What do I have to give up to be healthy?

I have to give up the obsession.

I have to give up the pain.

I have to give up the bones.

I want to be strong.

My eating disorder keeps me WEAK.

What do I have to give up to be strong?

I have to give up the dependence.

I have to give up the doubt.

I have to give up the excuses.

To be free, I have to give up part of myself, but only the bad part.

What I have to lose is not worth keeping.

What I have to gain is everything.

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?