Flawed

Lesson #1: Eat a surplus for 4 days.

Jumpstart your way to feeling human again. Seriously. By the 5th day I felt like I could someday be whole again.

Confessions:

I’ve been struggling with relapse again. This past month has been full of really difficult stressors, and I found myself binging/purging again. Mostly just once a week, but there was one week where it was almost every day. And when I say “once a week” I should be honest and say I really mean a whole day. I’m trying not to let the shame of this overwhelm me- I had almost a whole year clean from mia.

I’ve been putting a little weight back on. I know I need to, and that I’m still below my healthy weight. Though I struggle with the anxiety of watching that number creep up, the voice of resilience inside me is getting louder, and is getting better and telling the ED voice to stfu.

Lesson #2: Recovery: Do it for vanity.

I’m finally starting to recognize the face in the mirror again. It’s almost unbelievable that I continued to do that to myself when I think about what I looked like. I looked more than malnourished, worse than haggard. And my skin looked so thin, by body looked so frail...

Trying to get clean and stay clean is never easy. And sometimes we slip up along the way. For me, the regret of the relapse is outweighed by an unbearable shame, soon followed by that voice- “you ruined xx days of remission. you may as well just give up.” That voice doesn’t make any sense. That timestamp is meaningless by itself- what matters is that you want to get better, that you will get better. And yeah, it was nice to know that you had X days/months clean, and you had every right to feel proud of that milestone. One slip up doesn’t rob you of that. We can’t forget that moment when we decided for ourselves that we weren’t going to keep destroying our bodies, that we couldn’t live like this anymore. That strength is still in you. And that strength that pulled you back from an abyss that would have swallowed you whole- most people don’t understand what that takes. The enormity of it, the depth of it. That strength is still there, and we can’t lose sight of it.

Before I get into it, it’s important that I preface with the following- Just like anyone who gets sucked into any form of self-harm, I cannot blame anyone else. It isn’t anyone else’s fault- though there are definitely people in our lives who make the situation worse. The blame lies with that self-hatred that has been cultivated; the fault belongs to that voice in our heads that has convinced us, against all reason, that we don’t deserve a pain-free existence, that we somehow deserve the agony that we’re going through. That voice is not you.

Also possible triggers ahead- no specific numbers, but mentions of weight, calories, etc.

The last time he kissed me or expressed any physical interest in me was around December of 2017. This was around the time he became obsessed with getting fit- or more accurately, losing weight. He hardly talked to me at all; what little he did say to me usually had to do with weight loss or nutrition. Always commenting on everyone’s weight- we couldn’t watch anything without him saying something about how great someone looked because they were so thin. He started commenting about the calorie content of everything that he was eating and began cutting out a lot of foods as “bad.” And though he didn’t know the extent of my disorder, he knew that I had been struggling with an eating disorder for some time. I tried to talk to him about it, almost begged him to please watch what he said around me, that all this calorie talk was making it really hard to hold onto the last shreds of sanity I had at the time (which I would later lose- and will write about in later posts). And how did that conversation go? He said that he wasn’t going to censor himself or pretend to be someone he’s not, that I was being unfair, as if he was the victim in this. He was actually offended that I would even suggest it. (?!$?!!) Seeing that he had no compassion or empathy for what I was going through, that he didn’t even want to try, that he obviously didn’t feel any attraction to me anymore… More and more I would come to see how ego-centric he is. It’s not that he’s intentionally malicious; he genuinely doesn’t consider how his words or actions might affect another human being. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t think they have anything to apologize for if they didn’t mean to offend you, no matter how it made you feel. And I don’t think you can teach empathy. After a few months, he fell off of the fitness obsession. He started interacting with me a little more, he became more of a human being again. He gained a little weight, he lost a little weight (all perfectly normal). But he made comments about it all the time, about how he needed to lose weight. Looking back, I can’t help but think “are you fucking insane?? How could you say something like that to someone who looked as malnourished as I did?!” A couple months ago he lost a lot of weight because he was anorexic. Not anorexia nervosa, just literally not eating (apparently no appetite from work-related stress). This was especially difficult for me to deal with. Though I knew better, I would play a one-sided chicken with him- “If he doesn’t need to eat then neither do I.” It isn’t an exaggeration to say that it felt like a recovering drug addict watching someone use in front of you and trying not to use yourself. And btw I’ve described my eating disorder to him as an addiction (which it is) in the hopes that he might better understand- he’s a recovered opiate addict himself. Alas..

As I continue my journey through recovery, I would like to share what I’ve learned (and will continue to learn) along the way. I sincerely hope that it may be able to help anyone else who may feel lost out there.

Bloating/distention. This is a perfectly normal part of the healing process. Think of it this way- if you sprain your ankle, it swells. This is the body’s natural response to an injury and means that it’s trying to repair damage. Think about how complex our digestive systems are. All of those organs are injured and are trying to repair themselves. As we finally start providing our bodies with nourishment they will naturally use these resources to repair the damage we’ve done. As to the discomfort- yeah, it sucks. It will be painful at times. It sometimes feels like pins and needles in my abdomen, and it usually feels pretty stiff. I sometimes wear a compression undergarment to work on the days when I’m really uncomfortable. If you need to do the same, do it gently and lovingly- remember, the area is injured!

Keep eating! I’ve noticed that if I try to restrict even a little bit, the bloating will be worse the next day. This makes sense in the injury analogy- it’s like trying to run on that sprained ankle before it’s fully healed. Do not restrict, do not purge, do not use laxatives! Your intestines also need to heal and will eventually function properly, little by little.

Let your body rest. Believe me, I know it can be tempting to rationalize exercising because you’re eating more. Not only do our bodies need to rest in order to heal, but our hormones need a chance to re-balance. For the entirety of your illness, your body has been in a state of panic. It needs to learn that it is safe again, that it will be nourished. :)

I finally got my period back after about 8 months! TODAY. It’s strangely comforting to feel those old familiar cramps again, knowing that it means that my body is healing itself.

This has been a long, exhausting journey. And I will not dupe myself (again) into believing that I’m all better now. I want this year to be about allowing myself to heal, and learning to love myself with whatever I can muster. So much in my life the past few years has completely stripped me of any sense of self-worth. I owe it to myself to try to gain some of it back.