Choosing the path less traveled

Tonight was faced with another recovery dilemma. I had promise self would increase intake this morning, but the day dragged on, I didn’t get the news I wanted, I got stressed, didn’t get in my steps, etc, etc, etc and ED had taken over. I had no appetite, no hunger, and the guilt of eating grew. I was gonna just call it a night. Call it a mess up day. And go to bed. But the thought of doing that killed me inside. The thought of letting ED win on a day that was laid out perfectly for me to win (ie non-scary weigh in, needing to fuel for waitressing job, healthy options planned)..it tore me apart. Then doing a xmas bible study with family I realized I have to fight so we can have a merry xmas. So I don’t have to spend another xmas in the hospital.

So tonight. I went all in. When ED tried to convince me to only do a slight increase I said F you and went with the larger increase. Sure its 25 vs 50 calories increase but anyone with ANA can tell you that’s a lot. And it gets me back to the amount was eating when came home from hospital.

I thought I would feel guilty but honestly I feel proud. Doing the lower increase still felt like ED because it was still cheating myself. So tonight, just for tonight, I chose the scarier option. I chose the road less travelled. I chose to eat and eat an increased amount even without hunger, without appetite, and without approval. I did it because I knew I had to. Because I knew it was recovery. And because I want something different.

Yes eating more despite the fear and reasons not to scares me. Sure it’s the path less traveled. But hey..like the saying goes…I took the path less traveled and that made all the difference. Here’s to hoping this difference is a good one. Love you all. Keep Fighting.

Motivation in the strangest places

It’s strange what causes you to be motivated. Today…it was getting hired again as a waitress. I know, it sounds stupid but I LOVE being a waitress. It’s like my favorite job. You get to interact with so many people and can really make their day. Family meals are so important and I feel so blessed to be a part of so many. But I also realize right now I look sick….and people will think things. I also know I can’t be the best waitress I can be and give them the best experience they deserve without fueling my body…and yes, maybe even gaining a little weight.

I also realized that ED has robbed me a lot of being capable. People don’t want to hire me because of the skeleton anorexia has left behind. Because I look sick and incapable. Inside I know I am beyond capable, but people don’t even want to hire me for hourly jobs. Jobs I used to easily book. And it’s not because of me, it’s because of this disease. I am still the capable Jess, but this skeleton left behind doesn’t make me seem very capable.

And my dream, to be a teacher or work in schools….it’s impossible looking like a skeleton too. And though I know I say and ED convinces me I’m fat or look big….I know deep down someone at my weight and height can’t look that way. I weigh as little as a 6 year old….and that’s not okay. It’s not okay for an adult to weigh what a child weighs and still refuse to eat.

So today my weight was up….but I am keeping my intake up too. I am keeping my steps down. I am choosing to fuel my body, my future, my dreams. I am choosing to do the adult thing and eat. I am choosing to believe eating is okay and I am choosing to recover. Because I am more than a scale. My life is more than numbers. And I deserve to be better.

One bite at a time. One breath at a time. One prayer at a time.

Nov 26: Lessons in Recovery

Nov 26^th, 2016

Hey readers and sorry for not posting for a while. Going to try and get back to this, honestly though I was in a struggle and didn’t want to trigger everyone. It started with GI issues, then a nutritionist telling me to only eat 1000 calories and egg whites, then stress of the holidays…it all just caused a spiral. But ever since that last post, I have been (for the most part) doing better. Slipped a little over the holidays but I am back on track now.

That’s the thing about recovery. It’s not about perfection. It’s about learning. Sometimes you learn from slips, sometimes from triumphs, but as long as you are learning, that’s what’s important. And I am learning. I am learning to trust others, learning to trust myself, learning it’s okay to like food. Day by day learning. Sometimes learning is coming through growing pains, but its happening and for that I am greatful.

So today I am taking the advice of others and choosing to do what is TERRIFYING and increase my intake back to where it was when I first came home. I am eating scary things…but things I want and accepting that’s okay. I am refusing to cut little calories here and there and going to try not to skimp on portions. I am going to do this. When I can’t do it for me, for my family who has stuck by me. For the nurses who saved my life (and who I wrote letter to). For my dad and honoring his memory as the anniversary of his death just passed. And to celebrate the good news about employment I just got (because its normal to celebrate with food).

Today I am learning just because its scary doesn’t mean its something to be scared of. It’s just misfiring of neurons in my brain. But by facing my fear and giving a new way of living a chance, I can change my brain and make it so food becomes okay, but it only comes through action. Just because its scary doesn’t mean its wrong and, as I’m learning in recovery, sometimes it means its necessary. The fear is almost an indicator you should do it.

So if you have a triumph over a fear and want to join me comment below or give me a shoutout. Would love to know people are reading : )

What fears are you facing? What lessons is life teaching you? What lessons are you refusing to learn? Fear is just the place for faith. Lessons are just steps along the way of life. You got this. I got this. God's got us. And we will overcome.

It's Alright to not be ALL RIGHT: Step one

WOW! Had an amazing step one meeting tonight! It was all about how we are powerless over eating and how our lives had become unmanageable. I learned a lot from that.

First off, and biggest, I realized I had convinced myself my life was manageable, but having to measure everything, not eating out, missing out on things to get in 10,000 steps, not being able to eat full portions of foods, eating in middle of night…it’s not manageable. I said I was fine because was in Master’s school, but I was falling asleep in class because had been up late eating. I thought was successful because of success in jobs, then customers started to comment on how sick I looked and thought I was dying. I thought my roomates were the issue, but my eating was the issue. And then eventually I lost it all, my apartment, my schooling, my job, my health. I caused my family heartache and arguments. My life was not manageable….it hasn’t been for years. I was just in denial. But now admitting it is unmanageable…I am free to change.

Which brings me to big wake up call number two: I DON’T KNOW BEST. I know, shocker. When it comes to eating though, my thoughts are screwy. I look at others and want to eat as freely as them, but then when I ask their advice/opinion I decide they are wrong and my ED thoughts are right. And that’s not surrender and isn’t recovery. If I want their way of life and a new way of thinking, I need to start to accept they might have it right and I may have it wrong. The people I trust to ask advice from I need to listen to. Because when it comes to eating….I don’t know it all…I don’t know anything. And releasing that façade that I have it all together even after years in treatment, it’s honestly freeing. To surrender to the advice, experience, and expertise of others….it’s so freeing. I don’t have to pretend to be right. I am not right when it comes to eating, and that’s alright.

And the best way I can respect and honor those whose advice I ask for and who so lovingly give their time to respond to my same questions and need for reassurance is to actually listen. To accept I may be thinking wrong and they may be right. I mean this honestly always turns out to be true. Case and point, yesterday weight was up so I wanted to restrict…after just one day of weight being up but I finally surrendered to others and wasn’t stubborn. I listened to others who told me the less I eat the more my body will hold on…so I kept my intake. Like the better part of me said to do and today…well they were all proved right…the magic weight gain vanished. But only by surrendering to the will of others and letting go of my heldfast beliefs could I experience this freedom.

So I am surrendering. I am admitting my life has become unmanageable and that I don’t know what’s right when it comes to eating. Organic chemistry? I got that! Writing? Check. Waitressing? Count me in. But eating? I just don’t get it and it’s okay. I have a disease. But just like others have to listen to doctors for a cure, so to do I. I am sick, and I need to listen to others who are healthy to help me find the path out. So yes. I am a 24-year old who doesn’t know how to eat and I’m not ashamed. I am surrendered to my Higher Power, to the others who have walked the path to recovery, and to the experts into whose care I have been placed. I will recover, but only when I accept I am not right and that’s alright.

Nasty Fall to Wake Up Call--Nov 2

Wow! God sent me a wake up call tonight. I have been struggling. No, not with getting intake, but with the want to do it. I have been doing the next right thing and eating anyway, but the will….well that hasn’t exactly been there. Till tonight. I got the wake up call I needed.

I was on one of my daily walks around the neighborhood (except today it was a nightly one) and felt perfectly fine. Was just thinking to myself and trying to encourage myself to stay with my increased intake even though the scales are doing some scary things as of late (okay it may not seem scary to normies…but going up a lb overnight freaks me out). But I decided ED had enough stealing from me. He has stolen countless chances to be with my family and almost stole my life. We had a family emergency this week and almost lost a family member and all I could think was if she had died, she would have never seen me recovered and that would have broken my heart. So today I was eating for her.

Anyway (sorry I get off track easily), so I was walking and feeling fine. I mean I haven’t been exercising just going on walks, which I figured there was no harm in especially with me fueling myself. I was almost home when all of a sudden, the world went topsy turvy and my body suddenly collapsed. I fell into the street and completely scraped up my knee and hand. Cars stopped and asked if I was okay and my body shook underneath me as I tried to stand back up and shrug it off like I wasn’t a skeleton of a person collapsing in the street. Luckily I got to my feet, but my gashed knee and hand were pouring out blood. I threw off the emberassment and the pain and hurried home.

As I stood in the shower, trying to wash off the blood and stinge of emberassment, my body shook in pain and became filled with chills and cold. It’s freaking 70 degrees out and again I was shivering. Standing in the warm shower just to get warm. All the sudden my mind flashed to the days of old when I was restricting and overexercising. They felt JUST LIKE THIS. Even though I am nourishing myself and relaxing, my body felt the same.

At first I was frustrated with my body. I was frustrated because it was showing what everyone else had been saying, that I was still sick. Sure I was feeding myself and not giving into EDs pleas to workout, but I am still drastically underweight  and drastically undernourished. Even after 10 months in the hospitals, my body is still injured from the torment of ED. It was then my frustration turned to sadness, remorse, and a cry for forgiveness from my body.

You see, this is the reality of ED. The reality of the most DEADLY psychiatric illness there is (even more deadly than suicide….which is attempted death!) The reality is I, myself, had done years of abuse to my body. 18 years of abuse, 10 of those restricting and overexercising. Every day with anorexia I tore my body apart. I deprived it of food….the very thing it needs to survive. Food isn’t something for us to control because our lives are out of control, it is something we NEED. Something our bodies can’t run without. And the reality is when we decide not to give it what it NEEDS because of the scale, or the mirror, or just because we are too deep in ED to claw our way back out….we injure ourselves. I have injured myself. I have done years and years of abuse to my poor body and gotten it to the frail point it is now. I mean I weigh half what the freaking average American woman weighs. HALF. And as much as I want to think it’s okay because it has become my normal, it’s not. Eating enough to maintain a frail frame is not recovery. It’s just the same old abuse of this illness. That’s what tonight woke me up to. That at this weight….my body is still compromised. After years of abuse, I am only chipping away at the malnourishment it has to recover from. Reality is, no matter what the scale says, I not only need to keep this intake, but most likely need to increase it, just to undo what I have done to my body.

Seriously…I hope this wakes up whoever is reading this too. This illness, even when you are battling it is DEADLY. I am nourishing my body. I am giving it what it needs and more than I have given myself in a long time, and still it can collapse on me. Give out. And feel so close to death. I have countless friends whose lives have been lost fighting this illness. Because after years of abuse, they started fighting too late. I just hope and pray that is not the case for me. But I can’t dwell in that hopelessness and fear. All I can do is fight.

At my own hands, my body has gotten to this state. I have continued the torture of my past abusers and bullies by restricting my intake and depriving my body of the very substance it needs to survive. But the good news, the hope for us all---is that the same hands that have destroyed our bodies, our lives, everything…those same hands can raise up and fight this illness, restore our bodies, and reclaim our lives. With the help of our Higher Power (mine I choose to call God), the strength of prayer, and the support of loved ones, we can reclaim our bodies and lives. What do we have to do? Eat. Not just eat, but trust others to tell us how much to eat. Nourish our bodies with what our bodies crave. No matter if it is the scariest, most banned food. No matter if we haven’t had it in years. Our body deserves it. After all the years of abuse we have done, it is the least we can do.

Literally I am so awakened today and I hope this resolve stays. I just feel so bad that in an attempt to control my life, I controlled something my body NEEDS and I knew I was doing it. I was a freaking science major. I know the reality. I know my body needs food, and yet I deprived myself of it. Day after day, month after month, year after year I slowly but surely killed my body. Broke down the muscles, the organs, the functionality, everything. And now I sit paying the price….left to nothing but bones and a fraction of the energy my XC running, indoor cycling, weight lifting body once had. But I will get that back. I will reclaim my life. And I will not be a statistic.

I hope being this raw, this vulnerable, this honest helps someone out there. If you are in the beginning of an ED and think it isn’t that bad yet…be happy it isn’t and get out now. I said the same things to myself. I told myself I would never be this bad or that bad…whatever. But the reality is, it will get that bad. Days will turn to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years and if you do nothing you will stay in the dungeon that is ED…and things will get bad. It won’t even be about a number anymore, or a picture in a magazine (which it was never about for me)…it will just be about a true, deep fear of food…of the very substance needed for life. There is no replacement for food. You HAVE to have it, but you will become so paralyzingly terrified of it, that you won’t be able to give it to yourself. Even when you go to treatment, eating normal amounts of food will be crippling to you. Even hooked up to heart monitors, even undergoing life-saving surgery, even having seizures and going into a coma won’t be enough to take the fear away. Yes…it will get that bad. I was once one of those people who wasn’t “sick enough”. Things weren’t that bad. And I so wish I could go back to those days and stop myself right then and there. Not let it get to where it is now, because trust me…sick enough is not something you want. Months in hospital, osteoporosis, feeding tubes, losing intestines, having your heart, lungs, and kidneys fail is not something to be desired. And again…IT WILL GET THIS BAD. It will get to the point that even when you are fighting your body could fail. And….if you let it…no not even let it because ED becomes so big you don’t have control…so more…if you choose to not stop it…ED will take your life. I was once the person not sick enough…I was once the person who had only had ANA a few months, or a year, or a few years….and now I am the person who has lost my life 3 times to ED. Please, I am begging and pleading you….stop NOW….you don’t have to be sick enough. And trust me, even at this point, actually ESPECIALLY at this point ED will be so loud you still won’t feel sick enough.

And for those of you who are where I am, you can choose to fight too. I do each and every day. Some days ED is quiet, but others like today he is screaming. It is in those moments you have to remember and face the reality of your situation.You are dying and just one day, just one crumb, just one snack/one meal/one tiny portion can and will end your life. The reality is even fighting you can die, but at least fighting you stand a chance to live. And living matters more, family matters more, holidays at home matter more, dreams matter more, marriage, kids, graduation….it all matters more than ED, than fear, than scales (especially because you most likely know you are too underweight right now), than food. Choose life, choose freedom, and choose to say this is not how the story will end. Choose to use the hands, mind, and heart that once destroyed your body and life to reclaim both. If you are a Christian as I am, lay ED down at the cross and pick up the redemption of Christ. You can do this. You can save yourself. Rely on others, rely on professionals, rely on that still small voice inside of you pleading you to eat and release yourself from these chains. Trust me, if I can do it, if this girl who everyone had given up hope could recover can do it…so can you. You can do this. I can do this. WE can do this. One meal, one breath, one bite at a time WE WILL OVERCOME. I can’t wait to see you on the other side.

And so tonight…I do the next right thing. I release myself to eat what the doctors want me to. And as I sit down to face my black bean burger, bun, spinach, and HUGE baked potato….and later my birthday ice cream dessert…I will celebrate. I will celebrate the cookouts and birthdays to come. I will celebrate that God didn’t leave me laying in the street tonight. I will celebrate that I have gotten another chance to fight ED. Another day on this earth. And I will celebrate, and hope, and pray that my struggle today and the triumph it brought inspires someone else to fight. Please…if this has inspired you…let me know. It would mean a lot. And if you need ANYTHING…please reach out.

I love you all and pray you keep fighting. Remember you are never alone. Out there, somewhere, is another brave soldier choosing to do the next right thing and take the next right bite. Fight on warriors, fight on.

Support Me

Hi everyone and thanks for reading. I would love to be pen pals, craft pals, any kinds of pals. If you would like to as well feel free to contact me. As well, finances are tight for me so if you could kindly share the following links to help financially I would greatly appreciate it.

https://www.gofundme.com/finally-free-2uyrxp3e

https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/U25R4ZB5Q4QP/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_1

If there is any way I can help you as well fell free to contact me :)

Love you all! Keep fighting.

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