My Own Path

Recovery... What does that word even mean?! I can tell you this; the words easy, fun, reliable, joyous and The. Best. Ever! Will not be descriptors of Recovery, I'm sorry, they just won't be. Messy, chaotic, emotional and frustrating are more likely to fit the mold. It's the most uncomfortable, confusing thing ever. The process in itself sucks in my opinion. Just when you think you're doing kinda okay... You're suddenly, without warning or excuse, kinda REALLY not okay. There is no Recovery for Dummies manual to read and adhere to. There are no rules, no shoulds, shouldas or shouldnts. People will tell you to just eat, just don't throw up, just don't exercise, just love life, just be okay and just get better already. Some will tell you they know best, that you are too far in it to make a good decision and you should listen to them. Some will leave you alone and let you make your own decisions. Either one may or may not work for you. What I'm trying to say is... You're path won't look like mine and mine won't look like yours. What works for someone may not work for someone else. The most important thing...? Follow our own individual path, find what works for us, above all else, find the drive within our heart to do better for our own lives. To give ourselves the love we deserve even though most of the time we don't believe we deserve anything remotely great at all.

I've chosen a path that is maybe a little less conventional. Writing is my release. I have more paper notebooks than any single person should own with sporadic writings in all of them. Oddly, not a single notebook is completed. I hit a point where writing for only myself was getting me nowhere and decided to lay my heart and soul on the line for the world to see. It has been my saving grace I think. I don't so much talk freely in person about all this, my blog has allowed me to talk without having to speak.

I can't explain why it helps so much, I'm not sure I even understand it, all I know is that I'm not laying on my bathroom floor curled up in the fetal position everyday crying, afraid to leave my house except to go to work. With that being said, it's still hard to leave every day. I've had a small glimpse into life enjoyment this last year and that is what is keeping me afloat for now.

Afloat... Maybe we can use that word loosely.

My chosen route through this has been a struggle for others in my life. It's hard to make people understand my not wanting to do some things and wanting to do others when it comes to treatment. Treatment is an intensely scary thing, something I'll touch on another day, and that I'm not ready for. It's been a slow process for some to handle and at times for me as well. What matters to me though is that I want recovery sometimes, and sometimes is better than never. The somewhat small successes I have had don't get the praise they deserve because contradictory, they are serious failures in my eyes in the moment. I know though that that's Ed's voice knocking me down and my selfish reasons for not wanting to give up my eating disorder for good. It's only when I can look back on weeks, months and sadly, years, that I see I'm not in the same low place I once was. I get really angry everyday that I'm not better, but it's the simple reminder to myself that after 15 years of being effected by Ed, I can't expect to be better today. I'm learning to find the fine line between needing to stay inside away from the world and needing to go out and walk for hours. I'm learning who's voice is speaking, mine or Ed's, and which one to listen to. I'm learning that today I'm good but tomorrow I may be back crying on the bathroom floor. That my next post may be how horribly horrible all this is and how I'll never get better and that I downed a box of diet pills and spent my entire day exercising, and the post after that will be how motivated I am to recover. I'm learning that recovery is a contradiction in itself. That recovery can't be defined at all. I'm learning... And for now... That's what matters.

I'd also like to mention sharing, in any form, is therapy. When you can't be kind to yourself, getting your secret out results in kind words from others. It just so happens I was pleasantly surprised when I read a comment on a previous post today. I don't know them but that's what the best thing about it is. I needed to read that comment at that moment. Reading the kind words from an anonymous stranger makes me realize there are some pretty fantastic people out there. So to whoever you are, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for caring and believing. And seeing what I can't yet.