Chocolate Pie Attempts and Grateful Hearts

Thanksgiving. A day devoted to being thankful for everything that God has given you. Sometimes I forget to be thankful and then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere something small reminds me and I realize just how incredibly blessed I am.

For example, a few weeks ago, it was talking to the students in my classroom. There were talking about lunch and this one boy was saying that he wasn’t going to eat just to see how long he could go without food. I explained that he had to eat in order to live. Then, the entire class tried to correct me and say that another one of the students never eats lunch and that’s how she is so thin. This broke my heart in half!!!! I then explained again that she must eat a little bit or she must be eating at another point in time. It was right then and there that I remembered how thankful I was that my eating disorder hadn’t…well, killed me…and I had the opportunity to try and help those students. I was thankful to be in that room of young minds and get to interact with them and help them learn; even though in that moment I was clearly learning something from them.

The other day, it was just some random song that came on the radio that reminded me how much I enjoyed the life that God has given me! And today, it was getting the notice that I passed my final teacher certification test that I took on Monday!!!!!!! (And also getting wedding pictures. I would post some, but apparently my internet just straight up sucks!) I was so nervous and worried over it, but it was God’s will that I pass that dang test. He was with me the whole time I took it which enabled me to excel at it.

Sometimes, it’s simple things in life that remind you of everything that you have. It makes you just take a moment and soak it all in. Life is wonderful, y’all and I am so blessed with everything and by EVERYONE that is in mine!!!

Now, I’m not really a fan of the whole Thanksgiving holiday/feast thing. Like at all. Me and food, well we go way back, but we aren’t really friends. So I still have quite the aversion to the whole ‘let’s eat/make a whole bunch of food’ thing.  Food brings a whole lot of anxiety and fear that I’m currently trying to cope with. However, I am quite a fan of thinking about everything God has supplied you with and being thankful, spending time with family (even if you get to see them often), spending time with friends, traditions, baking, the love and joy, and anything else you can think of that the holiday entails (….like the start of the Christmas season maybe?)  Today, tomorrow and Friday (I’m also celebrating that day) I’m just really trying to focus on everything in my life that brings joy, happiness and is positive. This holiday does have positive aspects!!! Even if through my eyes it’s mostly all about eating. I’m trying my very hardest to overlook that part and focus on the thankful portion or what I believe is the core of the whole day.

Since I’m already rambling…this year is my first Thanksgiving as a married woman. So, I’m trying out some new recipes as well as making some foods that are new to me, like chocolate pies. I had an attempt at that today (it’s basically the only kind of pie Marty will eat.) I attempted 1…okay 2. The key word there is attempted. Hopefully one of them turns out alright! If not, well I’m sure there will be plenty of turkey left.

Anyway……God has been so good to me, y’all!!!

These Wildest Dreams

The world isn’t black and white. Recovery isn’t black and white either. Not too long ago, I thought it was only in my wildest dreams. It’s not though! Recovery is about forging a new path in the snow. It’s like the coach I met with me said, “Recovery is like taking a sled and going down a snowy hill. You’ve been going down the same path for SO long that the tracks from the sled are carved so deeply in the snow that making a new path seems absolutely terrifying. But that’s recovery. That’s what we have to do!! The first couple of times, it’s bumpy, you may fall off, there are unexpected twists and turns, but eventually you get to the bottom. Then, you climb back up and do it ALL over again. The more we create and form the new path, the easier it gets.”

That’s what I’ve been doing for the past 2 weeks, forming a new path in my head and creating new habits. I’ve been trying to let go of fear and learn more about me. Recovery is about a journey to your true self. The actual person you are, your authentic self. The self without the eating disorder. I have goals, wants and needs outside the eating disorder part of me. That part of me doesn’t call all the shots! The part of me that’s constantly scared, fearful of other’s opinions, anxiety ridden, and that walks around so bogged down from fear that I’m tired and can’t be happy sometimes is NOT my authentic self! I have to learn to listen to myself, to listen to my body and what it wants. Without constantly catering to what the eating disorder part of me wants, I can have more time to focus on other things….like finding an actual hobby. This week alone, I read books I wanted to, cleaned, changed our bed set up, and even baked something (that was a slight fiasco). Nevertheless, I did have some time to focus on other things. Don’t get me wrong, it was hard as hell some days. You know that saying, “fall down three times, stand back up four times”? Or whatever it is. Yeah, that’s what I’m living.

Not every day is easy. Not every day is even fun. Life isn’t happy-go-lucky as soon as you decide to just stop listening to the eating disorder part of you. It’s still there. It’s still real. It still hurts! But, that’s what recovery is about. It’s about saying “hey, eating disorder voice, I hear you, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not going to deal with/listen to you right now. I’m going to go do….” Eating disorder recovery is about healing and part of that healing is learning about yourself. Which brings me to my next point…it’s about loving, accepting and being proud of yourself.

We live in a world where people preach confidence and then turn right around and criticize you for being confident and proud of yourself. I’m about to tell you that I’m learning to accept myself by saying “I am who I am. If you like me, great and if you don’t like me, that’s great too. But this is me, and I’m going to go on and be myself.’  I’m learning to try to be an actual friend to myself. I’m proud of myself for realizing that I need help. I’m proud of myself for meeting with someone. I’m proud of myself for being about to try and make a new path. I’m proud of myself for almost being through with student teaching (I finished my last evaluation this week.) I’m proud of myself for doing student teaching and somehow managing to get married in the middle! I’m proud of all of the things that my body can somehow manage to, and finally, I’m proud of myself for about to be a college graduate. I’m never actually thought it was okay to be proud of myself, but I had a short conversation with my coach today and she said to write down all of the things I was proud of myself for. She also said it’s great to be proud of yourself! That’s self-acceptance!!!! So, there is it. I’m proud of myself. You should be proud of yourself too.

In the spirit of the season of thankfulness (considering Thanksgiving is less than a week from today), on my way home I realized that I have so many things to be thankful for. I’m actually happy. I’m so incredibly blessed by everything that surrounds me and that has happened to me in the past couple of months. I’m thankful for my family (the new and old), my friends (especially the ones who have been with me through thick and thin…nudge, nudge), KIDS to teach, music, writing, books, GOD and the opportunities that I have been given in this life BY HIM. I find myself full of gratitude and looking at the world in a positive light rather than negative. Life is beautiful.  Stay Fearless, y’all ❤

 

Things way cooler than abs and a thigh gap ❤️

Source: Things way cooler than abs and a thigh gap ❤️

11/7/15: A Fearless Day

Sometimes there are just some things in life that you can’t handle all by yourself. I think that I finally reached that point…..So on Saturday, I did something pretty freakin’ terrifying. I went to meet with someone about eating disorder recovery coaching.

AND guess what? The world didn’t catch on fire, I didn’t die from complete terror, the person I met with was the absolute nicest and it helped me start a very rocky, long, difficult journey down a new path without an e.d. (I even got a pet rock out of it. Okay, it’s not really a pet. It’s one of those chakra rocks.) Doing that was probably more terrifying for me than intentionally going and buying a ticket to a horror movie at the movie theater or watching creepy things on Halloween night. But I did it and I lived to tell the tale.

While I met with this coach, we talked about a lot of things, my goals, how I wanted my recovery to be, why I felt like I was ready for recover, (did I already mention my goals?!) what the eating disorder made me feel and some of the underlying reasons we have eating disorders. For example, often times, we use eating disorders as a way to suppress feelings, keep away unwanted emotions and numb ourselves. I see myself feeling numb all the time, I just didn’t know that’s what I was doing. I thought I was walking around “sad”. NO! I was really just numbing my emotions. I didn’t even realize that’s one of reasons I may have developed this. At the end of the discussion, we decided that maybe I should try and eating like “a normal person” as I call it. We decided that I should try eating 3 meals and 3 snacks. This is going to be literally hell. There’s no other words. This is hard for me. SUPER hard.

I’m commemorating this day. This was 1 hour after my session was over.

     

I started on Sunday, so I’ve been doing this for 2 days. This kinda sucks. But as much as it sucks, it feels oddly….good. So here I am….trying to start this new journey.

These help me to know I’m doing the right thing, even if it doesn’t always feel completely comfortable. (These are from my coach.)

Rhythm of YOUR Heartbeat

I’ve never had to love someone who hated themselves. I’ve never had to watch someone dislike themselves to much that they curl up into a ball on the bathroom floor and cry until their eyes are slightly sore. I’ve never had to experience someone telling me they are angry at themselves for eating actual food for dinner. I’ve never had to hold someone as they cried and felt like they were insane because they didn’t like what the mirror reflected. Finally, I’ve never had someone tell me that sometimes they felt like they wanted to die instead of keep on hating themselves.

Personally, I’ve never been exposed to the receiving end of all those emotions that are probably more difficult to hear than I know. However, I have felt every single one of those emotions, last night to be exact.

I’ve found that at  night for the past couple of weeks, I’ve grown infuriated with myself. I get so angry because I made dinner for my husband and I and then I eat it. I get so angry that I ate a meal that wasn’t yogurt. I feel like I can feel my body changing….getting bigger with each passing moment. My brain is screaming, Ed is screaming, I literally feel like screaming and my fingernails dig into my skin. There’s nothing I can compare this feeling to. Then, mixed in with all the anger, I feel….sad. Sad because I literally can’t handle it all or make myself do it. I’m angry, I’m sad and I’m hurt.

As I’m sitting there on my bathroom floor, pretty positive that my legs don’t work anymore because I can’t get up and I haven’t moved in probably 20 minutes, something I’m highly unaccustomed to happens. My husband some in. He says nothing. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong and he doesn’t ask what I’m doing. He quickly shuffles around to the other side of me and I can feel his arms encircle me. He is literally sitting on the bathroom floor with me while my head is buried in my knees. I didn’t say anything for a while or even look up because I’m pretty ashamed of my puffy red face and snot nose. It’s just shaky breath sounds for a while. Finally though, when I do speak it’s just telling him I hate food and I don’t see how I can do this. All he does is reassure me that it’s all going to be okay and somehow, in that moment, it helps.

Whoever said that marriage isn’t worth it or doesn’t work was mistaken. I didn’t realize what it would be like to have someone to always come home to and to always be there for you (or sit on the bathroom floor with you 😉 ) It’s pretty freakin’ cool/amazing/fantastic/a feeling indescribable. I didn’t realize until my drive to work this morning that the part in our vows that goes “in sickness and in health” was something we would experience right off the bat. Not that I forgot I had an eating disorder, I just forgot that qualified as a “sickness”.

That was my Wednesday and this is my Thursday, feeling sad and unsure. Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it yet.

You Gotta Live It While You Got It

Y’ALL. Just an FYI I have a few things in the works that I can’t really write down yet because I am uncertain of how they are going to pan out, but hopefully soon I will have some good news to share with you soon.

Lately, I’ve been feeling and thinking that maybe I’m just not “sick enough” for someone to want to help me with this eating disorder. I’ve felt like “well, maybe I’m not actually that sick” or “maybe I’ve just made this all up in my head” “maybe I don’t physically appear sick?” or finally, “maybe I don’t actually have an eating disorder”. But is that true? Could I really have just dreamed it all up? I don’t think so. I think that all of those negative thoughts and feelings come from my Ed not wanting me to seek help and not wanting me to get better. My Ed (and me for the most part) think I need him. He thinks that I can’t do or handle life without him. While I share both of these thoughts and I can’t really actually imagine my life without him (because, quite frankly he has been a gigantic part of my life for so long now) deep down, I do know that life without Ed is probably possible. I don’t know that life yet, but it’s a really nice thought and life to consider.

I spent many of my lunch breaks last week looking up positive and encouraging eating disorder videos. Videos that were filled with positive notes and tips to maybe try and overcome an eating disorder. (Also, I watched a lot of Kid President videos. Sometimes, he just makes you feel good about yourself and sometimes you just need to hear encouraging words from a child.) I also found a site where I could download a recovery journal for absolutely free. Maybe that will help me and guide me through this whole process.

At this point, I don’t know where I’m doing. I feel like I am standing in the middle of a bridge and if I go left, I stay with Ed and go back to his comfort zone and ultimately choose death, but if I go right, I choose the bright side and choose life, love, happiness and all that freedom. Recovery embodies hope for life and encompasses a happy glow.

I’m really scared though. If I get help, it means I have to eat like a normal person….scariest thing in the world. It means I can’t be afraid of food anymore, which is an anxiety all on it’s own. It means that my yogurt addiction has to lessen. It means…well it means a lot of things, but mostly good things. I know that it’s a long, long, painful process and journey, but sometimes, you just have to choose to go right. Life is too short to constantly be worrying an anxious, right?