"Face"

ughh my face, I hate it. I think its too round, and I always tell my therapist that it doesnt look like I have an eating disorder because my face is still round and fat. I feel like I have a double chin and i look manly...sorry if its triggering...but its a body part and I have an ED so of course im going to bash my body parts haha.

The one thing I do like are my eyes. It's the one thing I always get a compliament on. My eye lashes are extremely long, but on the negative side I think my one eye is lower like it droops down more than the other....

"Soul"

When I saw this word I laughed and thought to myself, they want me to write about my soul? I feel like I dont have a soul. I have done some pretty mean/stupid things. If I had a soul I dont think I would have done them. For example, I had a huge problem with lying. Not even fibs, they were huge lies. (luckily I am out of that phrase) but the lies made other people feel humilated...

I started working on this with my therapist, and we came to conclude that the year my dad left us was the year that my ed started and the lying started. See my dad always hated liars. Its the number thing we got hit for, well when we did something wrong that is...but the lies started when he left was like a scream for him to find out and come and punish me...not that I want to get hit but at least I would know he knew I exisited...needless to say he never came back.

I think I got sidetracked. Ha. but the point was I would not have lied the way I did if I had a soul. right?

"Home"

Speaking of home...Im going! Im finalllllly going home on July 1st. I haven't been home for almost 4 years. Between being in treatment and my mom setting the boundry that I can't be home if im still in my eating disorder. My mom talked to my therapist and agreed it's what I need right now, doing tough love with an eating disordered person doesn't work, it makes it a lot worse...so learning that I was going home I jumped right into recovery. Well not completely. I am still restricting and exercising but im keeping it in for the most part. I have purge once in the last month and a half. My restricting isnt that bad, i mean its still a behavior but at least im eating everyday now.

Now being home is a good but scary thing. Good because I get to see my dog, Im around friends, I have my own place. Bad because I am not able to be alone...and my mom tends to take control which yall know that isnt a good thing. They also put a lot of expecations on me. Hopefully this time is okay though because my therapist has talked to my mom. So maybe she will back off a little.

For the past 4 years I have felt like I dont have a home. When I got out of treatment within a month I was kicked out. I moved in with a friend, which was great for ed...but horrible for me. She had anger issues and it was extreme. I was always scared of saying/doing something around her. She also took control. One time she told me "You will break up with Art, and you will eat deserts everynight" Hearing that I was out the door. Then back to treatment then out to my aunts 3 hours away from home. I have a room and everything but its not my room. Im scared of touching things because they arent mine to touch. Of course I have visited home but even there I dont feel like I belong anymore. My room has become a storage room and I just dont feel welcomed. Everytime I went to visit I refused to sleep in my room because it didnt feel like mine...

Home is a big value of mine. To feel welcomed. To feel like its where you belong. Hopefully this all works out...

"Fight"

I am tired of fighting. Seems like I have been fighting my whole life.

I have fought with my dad, ever since I was born. I was hit. I couldn't fight back. I tried to once. not physically. I ended up telling my school what was going on and they told me that I could be taken away from my parents...eventhough my parents were divorced and I lived with my mom. I got scared and told them that I lied about it...I was suppose to go to Germany that year and because of the "lie" it was taken away from me...

Then the fight with ALL, started when I was 8. Nothing has changed in a matter of 14 years now. So im done fighting against that now.

Now my ED. It's been 8 years now. I wouldnt say I actually tried fighting it. I mean sure I went to treatment. But it didn't do anything. I didn't want it too. My first stay I actually got kicked out for not cooperating. The others, seemed to hold me there longer the more I struggled. So I ran away, thinking surely this will get me kicked out...nope it didnt...so I started recovery, but the whole time thinking "just do it now so you can go home and  be left alone again" The day I was discharged was the day I relapsed. If you want to even call it a relapse since I knew what I was doing, I knew my plans...

I do have moments though.  I will do certain things so I dont use my ED. I call my sponsor, journal, go to meetings. Then other days I dont want to be bothered. Seems like I can manage getting to a month with no behaviors if I want to but as soon as I hit that 30 day period I freak out and run back to it. I tell my mom that I can't get better because i haven't hit my rock bottom yet. I need to for it to happen. Then I say I dont have motivation, everything has been taken away from me anyway and I dont see it coming back in my life. Then I get motivation and it always seems to fade away. The last motivation I had was my sister told me she is pregnant...she has a few weeks to go and its like ehh well who cares you will never see the baby anyway, if she moves 3 hours away. I learned that I will be going home in 10 days and I have been doing okayish since I found out, but I really feel like that might change once I actually get there...time will tell I suppose

"Compliment"

I can't take them. I say thank you, but in the back of my mind, im think yea whatever...I am always complimented on my eyes. I have very long eye lashes. I say thank you, then I tell myself my eyes are ugly because one eye is lower than the other. Yet at the same time, I crave compliments. I want to be told im skinny, and sometimes I do get them but its still like-nope not skinny enough. Compliments are never good enough to me because I see so many flaws in myself. My family nitpicks at my flaws so im sure this doesn't help me any at all. No matter what the compliment is I always tend to twist and turn it to make it a negative thing. I'm not sure why.

When it comes to my recovery, if someone makes a compliment, I think but I could do better, do it faster, or it can also be turned into see they noticed now your fat. youre disgusting.

So for me....the best thing is dont give me any compliments. not on my recovery. not on my appearance. just dont do it. It would be better for both of us...

"Tears"

I hold back my tears. I try to. I feel so weak and vulerable when I cry. I refuse to cry in front of others (exception on Mothers day when I couldn't control it and when my mom left when I was admitted in treatment). My therapist has been trying to get me to cry, but everytime I am close it to I change the subject or ask her too. Most of the time, I act like I get distracted like "Denise you know you look like Mary from so you think you can dance?" She knows exactly what I am doing. Luckily she doesn't push it, she knows my limits and she wont even bring stuff up if im already in a bad place. 

When I was younger I cried at everything. My family (mainly my sister) would refer me as the cry baby. My dad always yelled when I cried said it was for babies and to suck it up and deal with it. So because of that, I have been trying to get rid of that label lingering on me. By getting rid of it means not to cry...which obviously is not the healthiest thing to do. 

Other than entering treatment, I can't even remember the last time I cried in front of my mom. 

When  I do need to cry, I completely isolate, I won't let anyone see and if I am interrupted  I immediately put on my fake smile, wipe my eyes and act like everything is okay. 

When I am crying because of something (mainly my dad) I wont let them know that they have that power over me. When I exploded on mothers day ( he came on a surprise visit and completely ignored me. Like I didn't exist) I felt so out of control and I like an idiot for not being able to hide my pain until everyone left. The second he left I broke down. It took over me. I hated it and I kept apologizing like I did something wrong. Anyway, when I found out my sister told my dad that I was upset, I was floored. I didn't tell her why I was upset because I didnt want her to run to dad and tell him and without knowing why I was upset she ran to him and told him anyway. I was so mad because know he knows he has this power over me still. I have tried so hard to act like what he does, says, doesn't bother me. Now he knows. 

"Laughter"

Laughter is the best medicine. When I was down, I would always sit and watch Ellen, even if I saw it a million times and I could quote it. Then I started calling a friend who made me laugh. It is a good distractor for me. Its tells me that even when things are bad or wrong or not what you expected there is always a reason to smile and to laugh. Always. No matter where you are. When I am in a bad place I often focus on just that, that I forget all the good things. Earth is pretty balanced with good and bad but we tend to notice and stay stuck on the bad, that we dont see or we forget about the good. I would much rather laugh at something than sit there and cry, that is for sure!

What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.  ~Yiddish Proverb




This makes me laugh eveytime =)