eating-disorder-recovery

Hold yourself back, or heal yourself back together. You decide.

Soon, when all is well, you're going to look back on this period of your life and be so glad that you never gave up.

Eating disorder recovery becomes possible when you keep making the next right decision over and over. With time, these decisions become automatic.

My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn't think I would make it.

So many nights, I stared out at the inky black ocean, believing that if I could only learn how to eat again and keep my hands out of my throat, that would be enough. I prayed hard and desperately to God and the sun and the moon and the ocean and the universe and every shelter dog I__ ever met, as if they were all genies, that I wouldn__ ask for anything more.But perhaps God isn__ a collection of genies, and perhaps it__ okay to hope for more than relief. To hope big. To hope for Sunny__ limitless capacity to love.

Sometimes we take leaps of faith, and sometimes we take tiny steps. Even the tiniest step can require a lot of courage. Like climbing out of denial and admitting my real need for help. Like trusting someone who said I wouldn__ die from eating a bowl of pasta, and taking another bite. Like reaching for a pen or a yoga mat when what I really wanted to do was reach for a cookie. Like searching for a smile in my heart when my mind was busy screaming about how sad and serious I should be.

When I was around Sunny, there was no time to dream about some easier, prettier, more comprehensible, less fucked-up existence. Now was all we had: Sunny lifting her eyes to meet mine. Cupping water in my own hands to rinse the blood off her head. Sunny__ tongue on my nose, her tail thudding on my leg. The reach of my hand across her spine. The words of comfort and rage and fear and sadness and hope that I spoke only in her presence.

Because the truth is, while bulimia is a devastating illness I would wish upon no one, it has taught me about the fragility of life and the vital need for compassion. Today, I__ quick to love and throw my arms around any girl who has ever stared at a puddle of her own vomit and questioned the point of her life. Or who has ever let a Photoshopped image on a glossy magazine preach to her about her own self-worth, her own beauty. Or who has ever been afraid to face the pain and suffering, within and outside of herself.Today, I__ quick to love.

Whatever you did today is enough. Whatever you felt today is valid. Whatever you thought today isn't to be judged. Repeat the above each day.

Recovery is hard. Regret is harder.

Find Your Balance.

Find YOUR Balance.

Recovery doesn't mean putting your life on hold. Recovery means holding on so you can live your best life.

Let go of toxic control, in order to regain healthy control.

I am made of a thousand ghosts, only you can shoot me down.

While she is still hospitalised, I take Emma out for strengthening walks, for her muscles and been under-used for a long time. She is sometimes breathless, I notice with concern, and there are other changes in her, either through a nerve her therapy touches, or through her illness, or both, which make her, quite often, disagreeable to be with.

The reasons for Emma's illness and for her decision to allow life in, rather than die, are intertwined and involve the beginnings of her feelings of belonging, of safety and of competence to be in the world.