This week has been a bit of a roller coaster all around; very little went as planned, but overall, I think that’s okay. Things that would have triggered me in the past, didn’t. Things that at one time easily could have pushed me into a tailspin didn’t. Despite high stress levels, emotional questioning and searching, I think that - for a change - I acted rather than reacted.
Last night I didn’t feel much like cooking even though there was plenty here that could have been made so we went downtown to one of the few restaurants in town (I don’t often do this, mostly because I feel like they all overcharge and strive for mediocrity, but it could just be that I’m a little picky sometimes). We started talking about different things - including my being caught up in my thoughts and feelings this week.
I finally said out loud one of the things that’s been on my mind but that I haven’t wanted to admit: as desperately as I want to move out of this area, I’m reluctant, and the biggest reason is the relationship that I have with my doctor. I trust her completely, and that’s not something I’ve found before. Even her nurse made me laugh yesterday when she called to follow up on my blood work and said “Okay, I gave you shit, she gave you shit but we’ll both back down a little because you blood workup shows that you’re healthier than you’ve even been while in our care.” Yup, that was the statement, and in her typical way, she pretty much hung up on me after that, just telling me to have a good weekend.
It’s funny; it’s strange to see the way that life changes over time. All of those moments where I could have questioned whether or not I really was alright, all of those moments where in the past I would have felt doubted (at least on some level) played out very differently this week. It’s odd to be in a position where I think that just maybe this time the work that I did in therapy a few years back stuck - I’ve finally found a lot of the tools that I need just to keep going, and to really make the progress that I’ve always wanted to make in my life.
Part of that, for me, for right now, is looking at moments in time, bits and pieces, choices, paths that could have been but weren’t. Part of it is knowing that I no longer want the illusion of control in my life - the illusion that anorexia provided me with: I want to be in charge.
Part of being in charge though, for me, means knowing what my emotional reactions are, understanding my triggers and recognizing that the behaviors of my eating disorder may crop up from time to time - and that’s it not the end of the world if they do.
I would not like people who have occasional psychological informative incidents of their eating disorder symptoms thinking they have lost their recovery. Nor would I like people who have no symptoms for two years to think that their disorder is over.
No one knows what challenges life will present in the future. I doubt that any of us are fully equipped to deal with what the future will reveal. We all need to keep learning and growing
to survive and thrive in this life. And we all have signals that let us know we need to learn and grow beyond our current limitations.A return of eating disorder urges is one kind of signal that more growth and learning is required.The more recovery work the person has done the more capable he or she is of continuing the recovery work when those inevitable life challenges emerge. Those urges can help open a blind eye or a dulled psyche to a new challenging reality and help a person continue to live a full life.
A new challenging reality - that’s what seems to be showing itself. But rather than being afraid and anxious, I’m relatively calm. Rather than wanting to turn and run away I’m looking into the situation and looking into myself and thinking that it just might be alright.
Recovery - at least for me - is ongoing. Maybe it’s that I feel better about uncertainty than I do about commitment most of the time, but I think that “recovered” is almost too strong a term to apply: it seems to assert that there’s no more work to do.
There’s always progress to be made. There are always ways that we can grow - within ourselves, within our relationships and within our lives. I don’t believe in stopping or in giving up - though there have been times in the past where those were great temptations; I don’t believe that anyone ever stops learning.
I do believe that it’s easy to look past the triggers and to ignore that they’re there (and for some people, I think this is too much of a temptation to resist). I believe that there are the more subtle eating disorder behaviors that are easy to ignore as well as those behaviors that stop us on the side of the road shooting up flares. But I think that ignoring them or brushing them aside - saying that the possibility for them to exist in us no longer exists is something that sets a trap that can be hidden even from ourselves.
Recovery is something that has a very different meaning for me now than it did even a few years ago. Lately I’ve got life struggles - and every once in a while there’s a warning sign that I look at very closely, eying cautiously, because I’m not sure that my reactions are something that I can fully trust. Lately I’ve been looking in and looking around. What I’ve come to realize is how ready I am to keep moving forward.
I think that there’s a certain reality that needs to be acknowledged - a reality that’s mine alone to point out - and it’s this: I’m not writing this blog because I’m caught up in where I’ve been and I’m not writing this blog to focus on the challenges that growing throws at me. Instead, it’s to give me a chance to explore where I am, where I’m going.
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