I have been asked this several times during the course of the last year. It is a fair question to ask if you are at the Douglas Emergency room. Or if you are starving yourself (no matter the reasons behind it).
At the time, it didn’t seem like an important distinction (not wanting to die versus not wanting to live) but I see now that it was. I may have felt hopeless but I hadn’t given up, I hadn’t given in. And, as long as you haven’t thrown in the towel, there is still fight left in you. And that is all you need.
If someone asked me the question today, without hesitation, I would say: “of course I don’t want to die.” Some days I feel like my eating disorder is stronger than ever; some days I feel like I’ve made mistake after mistake in the past few years; and some days I think this might be as good as it gets.
And this is how I know I am recovering. Here’s the thing I am learning about eating disorders: recovery cannot be measured only in terms of weight and eating habits. Sometimes, you have to move forward in other areas before the numbers on the scale can shift.
After I left the Program, I started to feel that hopelessness creep in and turned to restriction to help me cope with the feeling. I was starving my brain and I was feeling completely lost…so I started to spiral. I found myself behaving irrationally again, allowing my issues to completely disrupt my life. After a day spent sobbing off and on and covering it up, I crawled into bed and thought to myself…no more.
The last 2 times I felt this way, I found myself at the emergency room. This time, there was no question in my mind that I was going to do things differently. Doing anything other than fight was not an option. But this time, rather than decide what I was going to do and bully everyone around me to support my decision, I involved them. And it felt good. I felt like we were in it, together. In truth, they were always in it with me but for the first time, I embraced them in the process.
I feel freer today, lighter. And I like it.
2018 will involve lots of change for Peiky. Last week, I dropped out of the coaching program I was enrolled in. It wasn’t the right fit for me at the moment. And I think it is important right now to focus on things that will help me move in directions that will make me happy and fulfilled.
More changes to come I’m sure. More lessons to learn, more mistakes to make.
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