Proud of Myself.

I want to tell my parents how well I’m doing-but they are too busy.

Ah I did it already. Just that quickly. Condemned them and myself in one sentence.

To see both sides of the coin they probably have no idea why I keep calling and actually are busy. But not ‘too busy for me’ as that sentence above inferred.

But honestly I don’t think they’d get it anyway.

It being the magnitude of what I’m about to say.

I don’t think any of you normal people would get it anyway.

Which makes me belittle my accomplishments and makes me minimize my struggles.

And even though I know how powerful the urge to binge is and how I can’t stop until I purge. Even though I know at times it’s impossible to sit still during a meeting. Even though I find myself involuntarily clawing at my thighs when I’m nervous. Even though my heart stops and stomach drops when I see rice and beans inside a burrito I’m supposed to eat. Even though all of the challenges I go through each day are so real, I do not know what they look like to a normie.

This hinders my recovery.

But at the same time I know there’s no clear-cut solution either.

So you could get educated.

You could be my boyfriend (not really there’s only one of him and he’s doing a fine job) and be right there with me every step of the way. And hear the pain in my voice, see the tears in my eyes, feel my heart race and listen to my daily stories from treatment. And start to examine your own life and see where addiction and struggles paralyzes you. And you could begin to relate.

Or, as I fear, you could get your idea about what I go through from what the media tells you.

You could hear the jokes about girls who stick their fingers down their throats and ‘manorexia’. You could see the tabloids that tell actresses one minute they are too fat and the next that they are disgustingly skinny. You could read the magazines that bold words like “detox” “healthy” “sexy” and show you images of women who have been modified and managed. You could read an uplifting story about a singer who struggled got help in a treatment center in Malibu and is better now. She has a foundation in her name. Yay.

But that does not tell you what it is like to have an eating disorder. It does not tell you what that girl had to go through, what she had to face, what her past was like, how she is still fighting to this day.

I so badly want to know what you think of me and my struggle. More often than I expect you people surprise me. You make me feel ok. You make me feel less alone. Less of a freak.

As I said I do not know what you think of eating disorders, but I guess I need to say this for myself, that this is hard.

This is fighting every instinct in my body. It’s like doing your morning routine at night.

Get home from work and shower, makeup, breakfast, coffee and off to work.

Every bone in your body is saying no this isn’t right. This doesn’t make sense and you try to get ready for bed but everyone keeps telling you the recovery focused way is to get ready for work.

It doesn’t seem to make sense so at first you don’t want to do it. But then slowly you try it. Every time you reach for your dinner you’re given pancakes when you want steak. When it’s wine you want it’s coffee. When you want to wash your face you have to put your makeup on. When you want to go bed it’s off to your commute.

It’s backwards, it doesn’t seem to make sense and it goes against everything you’ve ever done so religiously.

THAT is what it’s like to break eating disorder habits.

I have a way I have lived my life for so long. I have thoughts, rules, mantras that were normal were my routine and now I’m told to do the opposite. And every bone in my body and my brain are screaming at me to do one thing while my heart is telling me another.

It is so fucking hard.

So this is why I am so proud of myself for not bailing on my friend when I woke up late and couldn’t put on makeup.

For not skipping breakfast.

For eating all of my lunch.

For going cake tasting—CAKE TASTING!

For not forcing myself to the gym.

For getting stools for my kitchen so I can eat normally.

For calling friends when I need help.

For looking my friend in the eye and telling her the menu was overwhelming me.

For trying on pants at the store and not crying.

And for having the guts to publicly tell you these little things that you could easily do daily are huge accomplishments in getting my life back. And I am so proud of myself.