I haven't posted since last June, when I was fairly new to treatment phase one million (it felt like that) in Santa Monica, CA. Since a little before Christmas, I have been back home in Fort Collins. I have a new place to live with some nice roommates, a family close by willing to help me in my moves toward life and health, I have a class at the local community college and a job slated to start the week after this one. I have friends, a loving church family ... I have a lot to live and be grateful for.
Yet. I still act out. This week has been progressively worse than the last, which was worse than the one before. I don't eat. I eat too much. I purge. I sit around feeling sad, lonely and sorry for myself, instead of reaching out to those friends and tools that I know are there. I am like the man in James who looking in the mirror knows his own face, but when he leaves the mirror forgets it entirely. I need to be constantly reminded of my tools and my support people or I forget. And habit, the habit of the eating disordered behavior, is what I fall back on. Lonely? Tired? Hungry? Anxious? Bored? Feeling something? Self-destruction is my go to answer, covered with a veneer of denial. It's got to come off. I have to face all that I'm avoiding by trying to self-destruct.
