Facebook tells me how long it has been since I’ve updated this blog. ‘It has been 15 days since your last blog post’ so it tells me. Jeez, don’t make me feel bad! It actually reminded me of being a kid when you’re about to go for Confession and you have to tell the priest how many months it has been since you last confessed your sins. Really?! It has been that long since I went. Two years? Wow…I’ll have to sweeten it up a bit. Let’s round that off at six months. Nobody will know.
The difference with the blog is that, one: I enjoy doing it and two: you all know when I last posted! I would love to do it more often but sometimes life gets in the way of these things. In any case, apologies if I have been a bit slow with my updates.
This latest post is inspired partly by that kick in the ass by Facebook. However, it is mainly inspired by a conversation I had with a girl I know recently. This girl has gone through a similar journey to the one I have and is proving to be an absolute trojan when it comes to battling the ferocious ED (ED is my name for the eating disorder voice, in case you aren’t keeping up).
The conversation was about letting go of an eating disorder and the habits that come with it and embracing recovery. Much easier said than done, of course.
I figured a post on letting go would be helpful, both for people trying to do it and people trying to understand it. Of course, I can only speak from my own perspective but hey, feel free to chime in if you like!
When I began the recovery process and began making efforts to fight off ED and gain a few pounds, I was doing it more because I had to than because I wanted to. I had become accustomed to living with anorexia and all of the consequences that it brings. Odd as it sounds, it was actually a lot easier to continue living as I was than it was to try to get better. Getting better would mean letting go of my comfort blanket and facing up to the things in life that were leading me to cling to it.
Unfortunately for ED and fortunately for me, my family love me too much to give up on me so eventually, I was shoved onto the path of recovery armed with boxes of Ensure Plus and Fortisip (Google them if you are confused), a random self-help book and more self affirmations than you could shake a stick at. My family, friends and the few health professionals that were of any help to me stood all around the edges of the road so I couldn’t run away. The kind-hearted feckers!
My health began to improve, physically, and logically, I should have been jumping for joy. But what is logical about an eating disorder eh? Even though I was probably looking better and definitely in better condition health-wise, I still wasn’t feelin’ the love when it came to my new self. It didn’t matter what my loved ones said, or how many times they pointed out the benefits that recovery brings. After so many years of living with ED, I didn’t know life without him. Thanks to focusing so much time on food and exercise, I didn’t have the same interests I once had. So once I began walking that hypothetical road of recovery and left that obsession behind, I felt like I had nothing to show for myself. I was boring, useless and had no talent, or so ED shouted ahead at me from the start of that road. Being anorexic was the only thing I felt good at, the only thing I felt I knew how to do.
I think it is this feeling of being lost or without purpose that makes it so hard to embrace recovery and so easy to relapse. I often say that living with an eating disorder is like living in a bubble. You close yourself off from a lot of the world – mentally at least – and when it finally comes to stepping back out into it, it can be pretty scary. Somebody else once described an eating disorder to me as like a crutch. It helps you to balance and cope with life’s stresses but once you pull it away, you either need something else to replace it or you will fall.
To commit to recovery and appreciate its benefits, you need to find an alternative crutch. Something that helps you to move forward and cope with life, without being detrimental to your physical and mental health like an eating disorder is. That crutch can be anything you like. If playing the ukulele helps you to destress and feel good about yourself, then by all means do it!
There’s no rush to find your crutch and in fact, I think I am still testing a few for size. But I think that’s perhaps the most important thing to remember and try to focus on – that there is no rush. Don’t feel bad for having a half-hearted approach to recovery in the beginning. Don’t compare yourself to others in recovery who seem to be loving their Ensure and their meal plans. They are not you and anyway, everything isn’t always as it seems. I never enjoyed Ensure – it tastes like chalk mixed with paint mixed with olive oil mixed with strawberry milkshake. So I recall anyway!
Be patient and one day, you may find that you will appreciate your new-found good health. You’ll look back and find that ED isn’t even visible on the horizon anymore.
It may not feel good at first but if you can, try to trust in your loved ones and trust in the process until there comes the day when you trust in yourself 🙂
Amy.
x
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