Big Steps

I can't believe I'm writing this.

Reality is hitting me in waves of emotion that makes my heart stop and my stomach drop.
The feelings are fleeting and I'm shaking and my throat tightens and then I laugh and can't sit still.

I am stepping down to out patient.

Which means I am no longer going to treatment 4 days a week after work.
Which means no more 12 hour days.
Which means less exhaustion, less anxiety, less depression, less breakdowns.

It also means less support, less handholding.

It means more responsibility.
It means more time for me--who I'm getting to know.

And  It means I'm done with you ED.
It means I want a life, outside of THIS.
Outside of regimen and pain and relentless hounding.

Oh heavens this is more than I thought it would be. I can't collect my thoughts and what this actually means. I've got Strobe by Deadmau5 in my ears. Playing. Smooth. Calm yet electric. It's directing me.

I can grieve the past and all I have been through, the addiction, the pain, the sadness and the struggle. I can have that and I can hold that and I can feel that while also being really fucking excited--oh and scared.

You guys--I did it. I'm doing it. Here and now in this moment. I am the farthest I have ever come in my recovery. Just the realization that all of those little steps and the big ones and the hard work has really gotten me here. It's like I have been so focused on going forward I didn't look back.

My breath won't come out. I have to remember to breathe. The joy and the realization of "I've done it" or well "I'm doing it" and how fucking proud of myself I am is almost too much to handle.

I hear my boyfriend in my head "I'm scared but I know you can do it babe."

Breathe.

There is no real knowing when I'm ready to step down and try things on my own, but I do know when something isn't working. And the past month and a half hasn't been working. I've been drowning at work, with anxiety, overwhelmed by treatment, long hours, no time for friends, exhausted on weekends. No life. And I have been slipping. I was losing passion for writing, for getting up in the morning, for dancing, for who I was working so hard to become. That was my red flag--that's how I know something needs to change. And while I am working on getting a new job, right now I cannot do that, what I can do is let up on the long days, the stress and and anxiety.

So now what treatment looks like is therapy twice a week for an hour, a bi-weekly dietitian appointment for half an hour and an hour therapy group. Compared to 3 appointments a week plus 3 hours 4 days a week.

And it also looks like seeing my friends again, and incorporating them in this. I have not seen them in the 5 months I've done this hardly at all and I miss them so much. And I have a real fear that everything has changed while I was gone. That I am no longer welcome, that I am just the eating disorder girl, that I am fragile and they don't see me as a person anymore or that they even know who I am now. But then I listen to that voice in my head, my wise mind and I know that they were the ones who pushed me to go do this and they wouldn't abandon me, they didn't just see me as an ED before when I was mostly an ED so they can't now. I just fear abandonment, being less than, not worthy enough, a bother. Working on this.

I also fear you guys' (and I call myself a writer...doh) opinion. As soon as you hear that it was my decision and not the therapists to let me step down. Do you get mad at me? Do you support me to my face and then say she's going to slip? And again your opinion, your validation that I am ok is still something i search for. Working on this.

But guys, I am--here come the tears--I am so fucking excited.

It doesn't matter what other people think, it matters what I think and what I do.

And I want to live.