Homesick.

Wrote while listening to : Jon Bellion, Audra Mae Luxury

describe the indescribable

make sense of this confusion

dry wet eyes

reach out to no one

empty room, it's just me

oh the irony

everyone gone to familiarity

I'm what's left behind

oh, oh what I left behind

distant

my feelings, disconnected

oil and water

these roads have already become repetitive

but I miss the routine

what are you doing?

life goes on without me

don't break

singular

now I've known pain

and I've felt out of place

never knew loneliness like this

Pre Thanksgiving Post

Man all it takes is a good song, some nostalgia and a blank page on here and I'm waterworks.

This season is about different things for different people. Or I should say a lot of things.

There's the reflective part, the thankful part, the stressed the fuck out part, the Black Friday deals part, the family part (might go into the stressed the fuck out part sometimes), the food part and the diet part.

I can't remember a time when I would eat without some kind of emotion attached. As young as 10 I remember the surge of excitement over eating certain kinds of food in large amounts. And I don't remember a Thanksgiving where I haven't thrown up or under eaten. And this isn't dramatic, it's the truth.

When this time of year comes around and as my progression into recovery grows it's interesting to see my reaction to the thought of Thanksgiving dinner.

I will be hosting it along with my boyfriend. We will have 7 other people in our one bedroom apartment. And a shit ton of food.

This could go many ways. I used to start out very determined to make Thanksgiving "ok" to eat. I would workout harder all week and not eat a thing the day of going to the gym before. I would beg my mom to make everything low-fat, low-carb, calorie free please? She never would--and I don't blame her now. I would put as many veggies as I could on my plate to cover up that I was skimping on dinner. Then shamefully sneaking seconds while pretending to clean up the kitchen. Or I would eat. I would eat and eat and eat. And then I would purge.

Two Thanksgivings ago my mom caught me and screamed through the door. I was ruining Thanksgiving.

And as much as I never wanted to do those things, they always seemed to happen. I would get caught up, confused.

But this year I'm working so hard to make it different. I believe I didn't binge or purge last year and I would be so thankful and fucking proud if I didn't do it again. Just the thought of trying to do that with 8 other people in my house is just awful--and of course doing it in the first place is just terrible.

Starting down the recovery path I have chosen to blog instead of go to the gym tonight. I'm addressing my fears. I'm making a plan. I am ignoring what my ED and all you people (not really ALL of you) keep saying.

My coworkers and facebook friends don't know how much a words like "diet, fat, healthy" set me on a tailspin. I am much better but certain times make this harder for me. I hear people in passing talking about how they are going on diets before the holiday just so they can eat more. Wait what? Treatment told me that was bad. I see signs in the gym telling me to come work off the weight after Thanksgiving as though eating a larger meal once isn't ok.

I guess what I'm getting at and what I need for myself, because well sometimes I feel like this blog should be called By Me For Me, is reassurance that I'm doing the right thing. That this is ok. I don't feel very in control or safe not being able to know I won't gain any weight from turkey day.

Hearing all these diet tips tricks and comments constantly around the holidays confuses me. I only worked out for a half an hour today and coming off a weekend of not really eating on a meal plan rather when I was hungry makes me feel very unsafe. Like I can't do that without making up for it later. But instead I'm taking care of myself in other ways, by writing, listening to Zeds Dead, playing with the cat and eating.

I want to reiterate how hard this holiday is for those with eating disorders because of all the stigmas around food and "health" in this diet focused culture AND the stresses of being with family or friends probably triggers a lot of emotions / memories / stresses (just like in a 'normal' human). All of this combined is a very hard place to be with an ED, in recovery or not.

So I'm doing my best to not trigger my ED too bad while listening to a healthy voice. I will workout normally this week, I will eat all my meals and I will eat a Thanksgiving dinner according to my meal plan. And I'm going to check in with you guys about it. So there's the accountability piece that always gets me.

This time of year is about memories and what I want more than anything is to have good memories this holiday.

RoyGBiv

This morning I picked a fight with my boyfriend. I am sick, I was tired. I just wanted to fight.

After a stupid back and forth where I just dug myself deeper in things I would have to apologize for later--I apologized.

I know why I get angry, it's things from my past mostly that I haven't fully dealt with mixed with of course frustrations / changes with moving / being human, but I don't know why and how they seem to randomly come up. And I still don't know how to stop the anger until it just blows up.

I hear myself cut people down with words and my tone so vicious. I know I should stop but I don't want to. The anger feels so powerful and good, but then after I feel weak and ashamed. Going through this pattern to get my feelings out and to figure out what I'm really feeling is frustration and loneliness is annoying haha

So then the dude I'm cohabitating with in love with what have you leaves and I'm left alone. I immediately go to the kitchen. I'm not hungry. It's just automatic. I want comfort. I want food.

I fight the urge to binge by cleaning and telling myself to think of the future. It helps to distract myself. Minute by minute the urge lessens.

I look outside and see that the rain has subsided and turned into a rainbow.

Mother Nature showing me that the storm will pass and there's light on the other side. I just have to keep going.

Be Selfish.

My body is pulled back magnetically charged at my heart--or was it my head? Either way I'm back at the car the wind whipping my face--it's not a dramatic scene though tears don't stream my face--I'm too angry--at least I think it's anger. And I stand up for myself.

Our conversation included miscommunicated dirty texts, denied sex, fighting, telling the other one they were the worse one, me screaming at the top of my lungs into the wind.

Cohabitation ladies and gentlemen.

I had no fucking idea.

Suburbia. Vancouver, Washington.

I had no fucking idea.

No friends.

I had no fucking idea.

Moving from Seattle to Vancouver Washington to live with my longtime boyfriend with no friends and starting a new job and no car....I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I had no clue how hard this was going to be. Add onto that a new job--which is amazing mind you--but still new--and I'm one ball...avalanche? of anger. Anger for me signifies power. It makes me feel like I have some kind of control.

FYI I have no control.
I'm just a big bitch.

And that anger is getting in the way of a lot of love and enjoying the choices I've made. Now most of you--well it seems like it--are married some with kids now. And you've probably figured all this out but I'm late to the game and just starting down this road and it's hard.

How can someone I care about so much piss me off so fucking much?

I've thought about this a lot lately and most of it so far comes down to selfishness.

I think he's selfish (not always mind you but let me get my point across) and I think it's about time I am too.

And selfish gets a bad rep but really it has its place.

I want everything to be perfect here in my little home and my relationship because I can't control what goes on in my head or the fact that I have no friends here or that I'm incredibly lonely or that I don't know what road I live off of or where the milk is at the grocery store. I'm so out of my element and so uncomfortable I need something to work, to feel fine, to feel happy to feel perfect. So I put all this pressure on me and my boyfriend's relationship so I can feel OK. And because my expectations are not met. And he does not have mind reading capabilities. I do not feel OK.

So instead of me molding and folding and bending into this person I'm not to try to make this work and then feeling well small,..it's time for me to do what I want to do.

It's time for me to put on HGTV. It's time for me to serve myself first. And it's time to be selfish.

I've mostly created this storm on my own, and it only took me three weeks to untangle it, but I'm happy I did.

The other factor is the loneliness. I am too distracted from work to the gym to obsessing over my ED (ya it's kind of back--actively working on that) to realize how insanely lonely I am. How much I miss my friends. How much I miss being able to walk Broadway and see familiar faces however unfriendly they were. How much I miss the water. How much I miss happy hour with my best friends. And knowing where the weights are in the gym. I miss familiarity. I miss my home.