CIRCLE

When I first started this blog, I knew it would require time, effort, honesty and authenticity. I hoped it would help my recovery, offer support and inspiration for readers facing similar challenges and, maybe, make people laugh. I wanted to share truths that are often left unsaid and find the freedom you can only experience when you feel understood.

I didn’t expect it to be all sunshine and rainbows. I knew that recovery would involve stumbles and setbacks, and that writing about these would likely hurt the people that love me and cause them to worry. But I also knew that, for this Blog to serve its purpose, I would need to continue to share fully and completely, no matter where my journey took me. I knew…

What I didn’t expect was to be sitting here today, writing this specific blog.

But, here it is, the truth that bulky sweaters and cancelled dinner plans have allowed me to keep “quiet”: in the last 3 months, I have lost all the weight I worked so hard to gain during this past year.

Shit! NOOOOO! What the hell?? Why? Oh….Christina….

I imagine your reactions were somewhere along these lines. A mixture of puzzlement, worry and disappointment. It is ok, I’ve had all of these thoughts.

So What Happened?

When I found myself gaining weight at the Douglas, I started to panic. Somehow, the target I had when I started recovery started to petrify me. Was I afraid of getting better? Was I afraid of letting go? I honestly don’t know. I didn’t talk about it. The Douglas didn’t ask. And I found myself out of the program, restriction taking hold. Just 2 lbs, I said to myself. Lose 2lbs and let your weight stay there for a while so that it becomes your new set point and then you can eat again. The problem was, as I have mentioned before, I am addicted to restriction. So, the minute I allowed it back in my life, I was hooked on the drug again and 2lbs was no longer enough.

And now, I promise myself, just 2 more lbs. Reach a certain weight that you deem low enough and then you can stop. There is just one tiny hiccup. No matter what I eat, the needle on the scale isn’t moving creating massive frustration, almost desperation within me.

You might be wondering how my brain did a complete 180 from wanting to gain weight and get well to wanting to lose weight, to believing that eating is wrong when only a few months ago I believed it was the right thing to do.

Sometimes I feel like Dory in Finding Nemo. Yes I have so much knowledge and awareness about anorexia, about the psychological factors behind it, about the risks, about the pain it causes others and about the treatment methods. I know all of this and spring into action toward recovery. Then, boom, almost overnight, it is like everything is erased from my mind and I am lost…wondering who I am, how I got here and where I need to go.

My therapist reassures me that this is not atypical to recovery. That I had to learn everything I learned in the past year at the Douglas and that I have to keep reminding myself of these lessons. This, she says, is the foundation I needed to build before I could go deeper. Know that I have a firm grasp of the What, I can delve into the Why…something the Douglas could not offer with a group of 15 people living together 6.5 hours a day/4 days a week.

This week, the plan is to start the descent into the Why.

I won’t lie. I’m exhausted. I am so tired of still being in this place…of still talking about this. But I am not really one to dwell on things. Just like Dory, I just keep swimming.