Labor

Labor

John 16:21 “it will be like a woman suffering labor pains of labor.  When her child is born her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into this world”

The last couple of weeks have been difficult as I admit to myself, my therapist, husband, and pastor that I spend so much mental, as well as physical energy on the eating disorder.   There is part of me that feels so defeated, and child like as I recognize the parts of the eating disorder that hang onto me as I am trying to let it go.  I hate it, I really do.  Even with words it is hard to describe how small and child like hanging onto being small makes me feel.  And then there is that look of pity that is thrown my way.  Pity is for the pitiful.  I am not pitiful.  The eating disorder, it is pitiful.  I am brave to wrestle with a beast that has the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness.  I am brave as I let go one finger at a time.  Releasing each symptom one at a time, and replacing it with more of me, more of who the Lord intends me to be.

It is hard to fix something you don’t know is broken, or remove something when you don’t see it taking up your space.  That is why this painful realization holds hope for me.  I have at least acknowledged uninvited distortion of what I see in the mirror, and the exhausting mental gymnastics.  Maybe now I can begin the process of ushering them out of my head, leaving room for my authentic self to unfold.  As I allow myself to unfold I hope to embrace the woman I see in the mirror, connect with her and know her.  The woman in the mirror still seems a little like a stranger to me because the parts of her that are emerging have remained dormant for so very long.  Some are good, some are bad, happy, sad, funny, and beautiful and some are downright ugly, but they are all a part of her, a part of me.  They are all okay.(I think?) 

I feel like a baby must feel like when they begin to walk and talk.  They are awkward clumsy and you never know what will come out if their mouths.  I am trying to become comfortable with so many things.  I am learning to be comfortable with feeling full and keeping in the food and my weight shifting here and there as my body re-sets itself.  I am also trying to be comfortable with all the parts me.  The good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly can all exist in this beleaguered body, and a brain that hurts from thinking.

As I think about how spent I am, I remember how tired I was when I was pregnant as it takes a lot of energy to grow another human being inside of you.  Sometimes I feel like, in essence that is what I am doing.  Growing a new person……me and laboring to give birth to the person I was intended to be.

It is not fair that at 50 years old I have to work so hard to rid myself of the burden of this eating disorder, but what other burden would I prefer?  There are so many choices.  As I am transparent in sharing my story, struggle, my burden (like people couldn’t see it), I find that no one escapes burdens in this life.  There is no “charmed” life being lived out there.  Some people like myself are just better concealing there burdens and pain behind pink lipstick a wink and a smile. I am tired of hiding behind the barrier of the eating disorder, so that is what causes me to be appropriately  honest.

All of us fear the protective wall, whatever it is made of, crumbling down around us exposing who we really are, and what goes on inside our walls.  So we are constantly getting out the bricks and mortar to repair our walls, or keep them from crumbling in the first place. It is exhausting, endless work.

So I ask myself again, “What do I want to trade my eating disorder for?”  Hey, at least it is fashionable.  It isn’t ugly like alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, but just as painful, seductive and deadly.  If my eating disorder were a drug addiction, I would have overdosed a long, long time ago.  Maybe that is why the weight of this burden is as fair as any other.  God gave me the burden that I could battle, grow from, and ultimately come out on the other side looking like, and feeling like the best me I can be, and that will just have to be enough.