Coffee, Cigarettes, and Blogging

Good morning, all.

So, firstly, I want to welcome one of my closest friends to the blogging world. I love you, Amaris! Welcome!

So, I've promised to write in this blog for both accountability and for my mental health. It's always good to get things on "paper." Here it goes!

I've been feeling like shit lately. My muscles and joints have been aching, and my heart's been racing. After a month of this, I decided it was time to go to the doctor. So, yesterday, off I went. I love my nurse that I see. Her name is Mary, and she's young, and a woman (obviously :P) and just all-around awesome. She checked me out, and doesn't know what's wrong. She did some blood tests, and my CBC is normal (Thank you, God!), but the other ones haven't come back yet. So, I left with more questions than answers, but I'm accustomed to that.

So, recovery wise, everything is going pretty well. I have my slips occasionally, but 95% of the time, I'm in full recovery. I find that it's hard to eat most days. I do it, but it's still hard. After 5 months of being in complete recovery, the voices still haven't gone away. It's always, "You're fat," "Why are you wearing that? It makes you look like a (insert huge, fat animal here)," "You could stand to lose a few pounds." I won't lie to you, 9 times out of 10, I believe those stupid voices in my head. Sometimes they're just a whisper, and I can barely hear them. Other times they sound like they have a megaphone and are screaming in my head. I hear that sometimes they never go away. I've accepted that. I hope for the best- that they will go away- but I prepare for something less than the best. Maybe I'll hear them for the rest of my life. I can't control that, but I can control how I react to them. I do that now, for the most part. If you're asking if I never skip a meal, then the answer is "No". I do, some days. I decide in my head that lunch really isn't THAT important, and really, what harm comes from skipping a meal? Normal people do it all the time. The problem is, I'm not normal. Every time I skip a meal, I give a little bit to the eating disorder. I give it something to work with. Luckily, most days when I skip a meal, either my body protests fiercly, or I come to my senses and make it up later in the day. 99% of the time, I still get in what my body needs in the day. Why? Because recovery is so much more important than those stupid voices in my head.

So, today, like most days, I hear the voices in my head. "Why did you eat breakfast, you fat pig?! Now you have to skip lunch or you'll gain 10 pounds!" And to that, I say, "No, I will not gain 10 pounds. Matter of fact, I'll not gain anything. Why? Because my body is stable, and it's at it's set point, and if I eat, I'll maintain, which is exactly what I need." And they reply, "Stable?! Who wants to be STABLE? Who wants to MAINTAIN?! Everyone wants to lose weight. Especially you. Isn't that what your whole life thusfar has been about? You're never happy with your weight. How about this. You can lose just 5 pounds. 5 pounds won't do any damage. Trust me." And, I roll my eyes and say, "Five pounds won't change how I look, but it will throw me right back into my eating disorder, and I don't want that. And! Why would I trust YOU? You ruined my life for 8 years. Trusting you is not an option. You wont win this one, so shut the fuck up!" And, everything is quiet in my head for the moment. They'll start back up when I'm fixing lunch, and I'll have much of the same conversation that happened earlier today.

It's a constant battle in my head- the will to live and the will to die, fighting for control of my body and mind. The attainable and maintainable fighting against the unattainable. Thank God that I find life so much more becoming than death.

For the first time in probably 10 years, yesterday, I thought of death and didn't wish for it. Even in recovery this time around, I would still think of it and say to myself, "Dying wouldn't be so bad." Yesterday, though everything isn't sunshine and rainbows right now, I thought, "Damn, it would suck to leave all of this behind." Life is hard. Recovery is harder. And, yet, I find life to be a grand thing. I've been blessed with having a beautiful, imperfect, amazing, joyful (not always happy, but definitely joyful) life. It's too much to willfully leave behind. It's not my time yet, as God has proven time and time again, saving me from death at the last moment sometimes. But now, when it is my time to go (which I hope will be about 70 years from now) I'll have had much more joy than pain.

So, today, I choose to live.
I pray you choose that too.


Love,

S