I have been spending the last few days up here at our cottage reviewing the past year. I am still struggling to figure out how I went from 20 years of recovery, a strong healthy "perfect body", to the place I am today. By the way the perfect body are others' words not mine. Even in my recovered state I never saw my body as "perfect". As a matter of fact it always made me uncomfortable for people to say this about me. Frankly I didn't see it, and it bothered me that people were so focused on not just my body, but any one's body for that matter. I actually had more than one person joke about not wanting to sit with me at the pool. Really? I think they meant it as some sort of warped compliment. Even then I felt a sense of guilt and shame because I knew what striving for perfection had cost me. Little did I know then that I would be paying up once again.
So I continue to review what brought me to the point of a 15-18 pound loss in weight, 7.6% body fat, size 2's that hang on me, B12 shots for the rest of my life, and visits to cardiologists, therapists, and nutritionists. All the while not really seeing myself as grossly thin as I am, until God used a picture of me taken on the beach to open my eyes. Now I see me. I see the bones that should be covered with flesh, veins that shouldn't be exposed, and the hollows in my face. It is shocking and I am scared. As I review, I am terrified by how quickly I was seduced and under the spell of the eating disorder.
It Called me. It reached for me. It pulled me in. Within 2-4 of weeks I am sucked back in, but I still believe it will be a passing phase. I am up at the cottage with my dearest friend and sister waiting to run the race that I have trained so hard for and the 3 days of purging has turned into many more days. I am hardly starving, but I have cut back here and there. I begin to deny myself the foods that feel indulgent or unnecessary. I begin by just cutting everything in half. All the while running 6-12 miles a day, biking, paddle boarding, and kayaking. Then in a blink of an eye, I am at the point where part of me is afraid to eat and part of me is afraid not to eat. I feel spent mentally and I am beginning to feel spent physically. Funny, I don't worry about my health. I worry that, after all my training I have sabotaged myself.
Come on Liz!! Take back your f-ing power! Don't let it suck you in! Why, why, why are doing this. Just 2 weeks I would eat to perform. To be strong and fast. Now it is all upside down. I have to perform to earn the right to eat. Am I sick enough to need help or have I gone just far enough to be left alone.
I really don't want to be sick. I feel an overwhelming sense of fear sweep over me, and in its shadow is great pain and shame. Yet I am enticed by the way being just ever so slightly smaller feels. I don't weigh myself, but the looseness of my clothes gives me a sense of victory and power. I still deceive myself that I am in control. Clearly I am not.
My mom calls from home. My father is sick. She berates me as I have know idea how bad her life is. She just knows he won't pull through this time. I hang up feeling battered and wounded. I am more than a little unsettled, and pissed off. I am so f-ing tired of feeling responsible for my family. I have friends coming in and really all I want is to be left alone.
I am tired of being strong. My shoulders bend an fold under the pressure, and all I want is for some one to hold me and rock me like a baby.
No comments:
Post a Comment