Not Ready to Give It Up?

For many years I documented my own personal journey with disordered eating and body-image challenges. In no particular order, these entries offer a glimpse into my story, pulled right from my personal journals and diaries. These posts are not screened for potentially triggering language and are retyped as they were originally written. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder please read at your own discretion, and reach out for support when you need it.

So I surrendered to intuitive eating again. And in the beginning it always feels fantastic. I immediately feel less frantic around food. I relax. I live. I feel some peace and sometimes even manic joy. But then things begin to unfold in a way that has become predictable...

First, I have a day where I'm coming face to face with my body again. A day where I'm around friends, or doing something that forces me to be seen. I really see my body again and realize with dark clarity that it is still unrecognizable to me. I begin to feel trapped. Stuck in a body that isn't mine. A body that disgusts my lower brain. That inspires shrieks of frustration from the voice of my inner critic. The voice is kinder than it used to be. Less disgusted. It is now a voice of deep hopelessness rather than the voice of a bully.

From there I experience fear. Sadness. Overwhelm. I entertain thoughts of dieting. Restricting. I give attention to thoughts that promise a solution. Thoughts of self-punishment. Thoughts of deprivation. I spiral into a frenzy. A whirlpool of problem solving. Exhausting all my options. The fury of the mind.

I enter the all-too-familiar and all-too-powerful world of mental restriction. Introducing a whisper of possible future "lack." Possible not-enoughness. And just the possibility brings me back into a mental state of chaos. Of wanting more than I need right now.

Hating my body is the most powerful mental restrictor. When awareness of my body's not enoughness seeps through the barriers of my consciousness, I'm reminded that I'm still here. In this body. That I'm still not ok. And the not-ok-ness makes me afraid. Through fear there is lack. And that lack, that not-enoughness, is exactly enough to cause an uprising of my compulsion. The binge. I rebel against a body that isn't right and that isn't mine.

I know it's mine. I know it's trying. I know it's functioning the way it is designed to function. But the power of the pain pushes all the ok-ness away. It hides it in the recesses of my being. I can't see it. I can't feel it. I can't find it.

I'm present in this space today. Making room for fear, but staying just present enough to remember that what I can't see today is still real. That wholeness and enoughness is here and it's real, even when it can't be felt.

Sometimes I think I don't want to let this go. It is so familiar. It is so mine. The calm that food brings is a blanket. The kind of blanket you hide under to escape the monsters under your bed. The kind that offers no real safety, but the illusion of safety. And it's an illusion so real that it holds the power to comfort your anxieties. To take them away. To remove a threat that really isn't a threat at all.

How do we beat that? How do we stay resilient in the face of the threat? How do we find the strength to face something that feels immeasurable and intolerable? A fear that lives deep in your bones. The not eating is a threat to my safety. A threat to my ability to function in the world. To be able to show up at all.

Who am I without this? What does the world even look like without this?

I am afraid of healing because I am afraid of my own power. I'm afraid of the overcoming. I'm afraid of what will be left. And of what will be gone.