Find Your Way

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Why Recovery?

Written October 21, 2016: Though I didn't write this today, I wanted it to be the first post for this blog because it tells the true desires of my heart. The things I am fighting for. The things we are all fighting for. In the coming days I will also be adding my story here as well as the freedom foods I am working on conquering. Feel free to contact me at any time :)

Oct 21, 2016
I figured the best way to start this blog is the same way I started my true recovery just a few weeks ago. To sit down and write out exactly what I wanted in life. The things I dreamed of that ED robbed me of and so many days blinded me to so I would stay fixated on weights, calories, numbers, and food. ED made me nothing but a number, my dreams nothing but a distant memory, and made my whole world about being thin. Then my whole world came tumbling down, and before I knew it I was a skeletal weight, being forced on feeding tubes, having seizures, heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, and then having a doctor look me straight in the eyes and tell me if he didn’t remove ¾ of my large intestines (ie, a surgery I most likely would not survive) I would be dead within the hour. I had no one next to me, I was states away from my family, I had spent 10 months in and out of hospitals missing birthdays, Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s, Mother’s and Father’s day, graduation, and just life in general. All to be a lower number on the scale. A number no one but me knew and a number I was ashamed to let anyone know about (because the true Jessica inside knew it would break their hearts). So I want to start this blog remembering why I am starting this blog, recovery, and why I NEED TO and HAVE TO kick ED’s ass every day. One moment, one bite, one breathe at a time. (btw these are in no particular order and will probably be added to as I continue to recover….and if I accomplish any of them I will date it)
I have to recover because I want to:
·         Go to thanksgiving and focus on family not food. To focus on conversation not calories. To eat what is served instead of bringing my own pre-portioned food as I have the past 10 years. To be able not to just watch people eat the food I made, but have it with them
·         Go to family occasions without thinking about or stressing about whether I have exercised
·         To have a dessert spontaneously because I want it without having to plan days in advanced how to fit it into my caloric intake for the day
·         To eat out at restaraunts and trust the nutrition they give me. To enjoy the company without stressing the calories and whether I need to round them up
·         To eat a cupcake and fully enjoy the experience without stressing about how I am going to fit my assumed 700 calories for the cupcake into my intake (a number I came up with because I know it’s most likely too high)
·         To wake up in the morning, hold my husband/kids/dog in my arms, and savor the moment instead of worrying about what my weight will be and if I will be able to eat
·         To go on trips with my boyfriend and us be able to go out to eat
·         To be able to go on trips and enjoy them not because it’s a chance to restrict but because it is a chance to discover new things
·         To go to the grocery store and buy whatever items are on sale, not just my safe and healthy options
·         To get married and have my wedding cake without having to stress all day about it
·         To truly be happy on my birthday
·         To eat my easter candy from this year and to have candy on Halloween
·         To have Christmas cookies because that’s just what humans do
·         To lick my fingers or the bowl when cooking without worrying about the calories
·         To allow myself to try a bite of something or try a sample without having to rush to my calorie app to add 100 calories just in case
·         To inspire others to recover before they get to the rock bottom I had to
·         To write a blog with meaning not just surface level photos of what I eat and the same recurring theme of feeling too fat
·         To hug my family members without them crying because they can feel my bones
·         To make my Mimi proud so she can show me off to her Sunday school
·         To have a fried green tomato with my Mimi
·         To have a relationship with my brother again
·         To have my brother walk me down the aisle at church not in a casket, but in a wedding dress
·         (this one I am ashamed of) To fully engage in taking communion without worrying about the calories or about getting the smallest cracker
·         To have what I want even if I don’t know the calories in it without having to hide it and spit it out (another shameful secret of anorexia called chew and spit)
·         To spend a whole year of holidays at home not in hospitals
·         To prove the docs/nurses at St. Mary’s who believed in me right and the ones at Stanford who said I would never recover wrong
·         To be able to share my testimony of recovery at church
·         To laugh because I am happy, not because I am holding back tears
·         To go to spin class again
·         To allow my mom to be proud when she talks about me, not scared it’s the last time she will be able to talk about me in the present tense
·         To work with children as a social worker
·         To horseback ride
·         To be able to say satan tried to beat me down, but I got back up
·         To be able to say I am recovered
·         To go to my boyfriend’s families house and eat instead of us having to plan visits around how to avoid the topic of food and eating
·         To run a 5K and (eventually) a half marathon
·         To have meaning in my life
·         To be okay with not having my scale with me
·         To be able to eat packaged items without having to have a food scale to measure them
·         To eat any fruit or vegetable I want without weighing it, judging it, or worrying about the calories in it
·         To eat real peanut butter not the powdered kind
·         To be nuts about nuts again
·         To be able to eat something I cook/bake
·         To learn how to grill
·         To go to a crawfish boil with my brother
·         To be able to look my husband in the eyes and say “He/She is ours” as I gaze into the eyes of the child I just birthed, instead of having to look into his eyes and say because I refused to eat for most of my life, I can never have your child…or any child for that matter
·         To be able to ride a roller coaster without having to worry if my heart will give out
·         To go to the doctor without fearing if they will put me in the hospital
·         To go to a job interview for waitressing, nannying, cooking, or being a social worker without having to worry if they will be able to tell if I have an eating disorder and if they will refuse to hire me because of it
·         To be able to go out to eat with co-workers or my boss instead of having to say I am sick or already ate or whatever when invited to luncheons
·         To be able to eat at social work conferences instead of having to bring my own food or restrict all day
·         To go to a treatment center to share my story and journey, not to check myself back in
·         To be all God created me to be instead of just a shell of a human being
·         To take medicine without worrying about the calories
·         To chew gum without worrying about the calories
·         To have diet soda and sweeteners without worrying about the calories
·         To be able to go to drive-thrus or restaraunts because it is convenient, instead of being stranded with no options
·         To take my mom to Disney World
·         To save up enough money to buy my mom a condo on the beach
·         To be able to go back to my alma matar UGA and see my old professors and tell them of all the good things I am doing with the knowledge and faith they gave me, instead of having to avoid eye contact so they don’t see I’ve relapsed
·         To go to study groups and potlucks because they are fun, not avoid them because they involve food
·         To do the MS150 with my brother
·         To stop hurting people and starting healing people
·         To be something other than just an anorexic

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