fighting side by side

We're all in this together right?  We are here to do life together, to encourage each other, to bear one another's burdens, to restore each other.  We fight together through this mess of life.  Today I want to fight alongside someone whose battle I've never personally fought.  Just because I haven't fought it myself doesn't mean that I should hole up in my corner of the world and only pay attention to the battles that have affected me directly.  Today is Mesothelioma Awareness Day.  If you have a moment and you want to hear the story of an amazing woman, strong and beautiful beyond belief, please check out:

www.mesothelioma.com/heather/awareness

Heather, I'm glad you are cancer free.  I'm glad that you are encouraging others in their fights around the world.  I'm glad I can share your story.

a walk through my mind

I have mentioned recently that I am noticing the healthy thoughts getting louder.  I'm back at a healthy pre-relapse weight.  I'm usually engaging in healthy behaviors rather than disordered behaviors.  To the outsider, I don't look the part of someone recovering from an eating disorder.  Even to my friends, I look healthy and therefore most people think that the eating disorder has gone away.

Sometime the noise in my head gets loud though.  Sometimes I look healthy but my mind is screaming inside of me for relief.  It has been one of those times this past week.  Like the day I ended up wearing an extra tank top when I met up with friends simply because I was unsatisfied when I looked in the mirror so I was trying to hide my body.  There was also the shorts day.  Oh my, the shorts day.

My shorts that I have fit in for the last 2 summers have been too tight this summer.  Yes, I know, that is a good thing.  But it doesn't feel like a good thing.  It doesn't feel good to realize that pre-relapse weight also means another clothing size bigger.  I've settled it by not wearing shorts rather than buying new clothes.  But this weekend was hot and my friend had given me a pair so I decided to wear them.  They were a bit too big but too big is better than too small and they were just long enough to cover the space on my thighs that touches again.  But my body felt clunky in them.  I felt like the hips were huge and the thighs accentuated.  How on earth do women wear shorts and not feel like I did that day?????  I applaud you if that is you.

Yesterday I changed clothes 7 times before I finally realized that the problem was the mirror not the clothes.  And then after realizing that, I still changed 2 more times. 

The healthy days are regular and beginning to feel consistent,  which is nice.  But that doesn't mean the disorder is completely gone either.  Days like yesterday take every ounce of my strength,  lots of prayer support and truly God's grace to hold on to my recovery.  It is awkward to still struggle when I look like I'm all better.  It is frustrating to fight what is a now an invisible battle.

I'm doing better.  I'm still recovering though and it is hard to remember that I still need help,  that I still need to give myself grace and that recovery is a journey not a quick fix.

anniversaries and healing

Today I want to celebrate a little bit.  It's an anniversary for me but not one most people would celebrate so just bear with me a little while I explain.  On this day 3 years ago relapse hit full force.  Typically one doesn't remember the day things started going south but I do.  I had been allowing disordered thoughts, actions, and habits for more than a year but then something snapped.  July 24, 2010 I drove to the airport to pick up a friend and suddenly every single calorie in my drink attacked my brain.

I panicked and restricted.  I restricted severely.  I exercised until my body collapsed.  It wasn't pretty.  It was among the darkest times of my life.  So why on earth would I want to celebrate the anniversary of the day relapse became official?  Well, because I don't remember the date that I started recovery.  I can celebrate today because I can clearly see how different my life is now than it was on this day 3 years ago.

That is part one of this post.  Where I was then.  And now for where I am today.  

I recently did something brave, something really brave.  Something I thought was a gift for my husband but turned out being a gift for myself as well.  I did a boudoir photo shoot for Hubby's birthday.  This is the 3rd time that I have purchased a package, and the first time that I finally had the courage to actually use it. I just have never been able to convince myself that my body is beautiful enough to take pictures of it.

In a random and quick burst of bravery I called and made the appointment.  Somehow I made myself  show up for the photo shoot.  I'm not particularly modest but I am uncomfortable in my skin.  How on earth that happens I don't know.  My hesitation wasn't about posing in my underware, it was about not liking my body. I'm not really sure if that makes sense but it does in my head.

It was a different experience than I could have even imagined.  It was actually fun.  It was empowering.  I felt pretty even in my own skin!  I didn't tell Hubby I were I was going.  I didn't even tell him after I had done it.  For two weeks I kept the secret.  Finally the day of the consultation I had a friend watch the kids, told Hubby I had a surprise for his birthday and drove him to the photographers.

He was SHOCKED.  He was amazed.  He loved all of it.  And then I was able to finally tell him what had happened to me through the experience.  I was able to tell him how I thought I was giving him a gift but how I had been able to relax and be ok  with my body during the shoot.  I told him how healing this experience had been for me.  I don't know if I can even fully express the healing this brought to my soul.  And at that moment he informed me that I was the best gift I could have ever given him.  The gift wasn't the pictures, the gift was me.  The gift was seeing me smile.  The gift was watching me begin to heal.

vulnerable

So I totally overreacted to something stupid.  I made a big deal over what was meant as a joke.  When he looked at me confused, wondering what could have possibly done to warrant my reaction, I started talking.  I talked myself into a corner.  And then I did it.  I blurted out something I didn't even really realize was in my heart until the words tumbled out of my mouth.

I now feel like I overshared.  I shared where my safe spot is.  I told him what I dreamed of when I was a little girl and needed to escape my reality.  I now want to rewind time and leave those words unsaid. I want to keep that spot only in my head.  I want it back.  I want it to be mine again not ours.

 I feel vulnerable. I feel guarded.  And I feel those things with the person in this life who loves me most of all, with the one person that I don't need to feel guarded with.  And feeling those things makes me feel lonely also.

I want to crawl into my head and stay there.  I don't want to be vulnerable.  Even though this vulnerable is safe.  I want to protect my heart but I'm trying to protect it from the wrong thing.

Speed (up)dating

In the 5 minutes I have before I leave for work, I'm going to update. I have noticed some really healthy things going on in my brain.  I weigh the most that I have since before relapse.  Let's face it, I am back to pre-relapse weight.  In some areas that is very scary.  I feel like I'm one brownie away from being post-baby weight again but I know that is perception not reality.  I've heard things come out of my mouth like....

This summer I am working on accepting this new body.

I'm trying to find clothes to fit my body rather than make my body fit my clothes.

and the best one yet.....

Please don't edit my birthmark out of those pictures.   I need to be able to be beautiful just as God created me and I need to be ok with that "flaw" on my body.  

It isn't all easy-peasy.  There are days that the fact that my thighs are beginning to touch again really bothers me.  But as a whole, the healthy voice in my head is starting to get louder than the unhealthy voice which is, in my book, huge progress toward healing. 

That's all for now, must head to work.  Love you friends!

What's posture got to do with it?

I have so much going through my head.  So much that God has been working on in my heart.  And I sit down to write about it and the words just won't come.  I can't tell you how many times I've started a post  only to backspace the entirety of it.  It all makes sense in my head but the words sound jumbled when I try to say it.

God has been dealing with me on things like my hatred of a set schedule and why I feel so strongly about it.  Things like having gained weight since last summer and trying to keep a healthy mindset about accepting my  new body.  And things like understanding what posture means to me and how my posture reflects my body image.

Yeah, strange huh? I slouch to avoid standing out.  I just want to blend.  I just want no one to notice me.  And yet I want to be known.  Not noticed but known.  And I just can't have both.

I think I'm ready for another blog challenge.  I need to get out of my rut.  I'm thinking deep but I'm writing not so much.  I just can't seem to quite embrace the words right now.  I want to hash it out but I want to hash it out by talking rather than writing this time.  It's getting late and my brain is starting to wander. 

What about you?  How are you doing right now?  What is important to you?  What to you want to talk about or write about?  Are you realizing new things about yourself? 

uninsurable

My insurance agent made a mistake and didn't switch my bank account on my life insurance when we changed banks.  He switched it for my car and home insurance, he didn't get the life insurance policy switched.  It lapsed, I realized, I panicked.  He told me reinstating it  was easy, just fill out these forms.

I fill out said forms which ask  questions about physical and mental health within the last 5 years.  Well, you can't lie, that is insurance fraud, and I do have things on my medical record that weren't there when I first got my policy.  Things like an eating disorder and a stay in the mental hospital.  Things like suicidal ideations, Major Depressive Disorder, anxiety, and PTSD. 

Apparently insurance doesn't like those things.  They asked more questions.  I answered them.  Yesterday I received the letter stating that my request for policy reinstatement was denied.  I have no life insurance anymore.  I am not insurable anymore.  And I lost my coverage all because of a clerical error.

I have a myriad of emotions about it.  The first was anger.  And let's be honest, I'm still pretty hot about it.  I felt a little bit of overwhelm.  And I also feel a bit like Marshall in the episode of How I Met Your Mother when he is imagining bears jumping out at him in NYC and attacking him.  Ok, so that last one makes me laugh so at least when I feel the pit in my stomach growing I can switch gears and laugh for a moment.

One more thing that this eating disorder has taken from me, insurability.  I don't know if I'm most angry at my agent for the error, at myself for not catching it sooner, or at Orange for stealing one more thing from me.  I'm going to get better.  I'm going to prove them wrong. 

And now I need to take a deep breath, finish getting ready for work and take this day one step at a time.  I will trust myself to my Creator, both physically and emotionally.  He sees it all and He is here with me, even here, even without insurance.