Home Alone

So the past four days I have been home alone. My parents have gone to the Virgin Islands for their 25th anniversary and that left me home alone. At first I was super excited because this meant there would be no one nagging or bothering me! :) WOO! It also meant more time for my eating disorder to come in :/ And he did. BIG SURPRISE.

Being alone these past few days has really showed me how disordered I am with food... like for instance, last night I spent a full hour and a half making something I knew I was NOT going to eat. I prepared this elaborate baked mac and cheese and when it came out of the oven, I took a small bite, panicked, and threw the whole thing in the trash. WHAT A WASTE OF FOOD. I don't know why I even made the freakin' dish! I knew from the start I wasn't going to eat it. UGH.

Then the last two days I have obsessively spent HOURS upon HOURS looking up low calorie recipes and foods... Mind you I had 3 days off from work this week (in a row) and I didn't know how to spend my time. Plus I was starving since I've been restricting the past few days. Not too much, but just enough to cause me to go on crazy binges...IT'S NUTS. As strange as it sounds, I can't wait to have my parents back. I need them for support so badly. Me doing this alone is not working.... not working at all. I can't feed myself properly. I know I should... I went to the Anna Westin House, did IOP and IDP, all places that help you to learn how to freakin' feed yourself! I SHOULD KNOW HOW TO FEED MY BODY. Breakfast is the only time I know what to do basically. Well, maybe not.... I mean, I eat two things and I know that in order to eat a full meal you need three food items...

UGH. IDK. I feel like such a moron. Why can't this be easier?!

I HATE ED SO MUCH.

I remember...

I still remember the day that I distinctly heard that voice in my head. The voice we now call ED. It's like it happened just yesterday. That's how clear it is to me.

I was 11 years old. I remember standing in front of my mirror looking at myself. I don't remember why I was looking but I was. Then, all of a sudden, the voice appeared. It was literally like someone else was in the room talking to me. Standing right behind me whispering in my ear. It was telling me I was imperfect. I was fat, ugly, a disgrace. It told me my parents were disappointed in me and that I would never amount to anything… That I would be the one to make all the mistakes.

I remember it started picking me apart piece by piece. First my face, my hair, my arms, my legs… then my stomach. I remember my body suddenly began to overflow with emotions and thoughts. Thoughts of destruction and emotions of sadness and anger. It was like I was smacked in the face. I remember I began to cry so hard I couldn't breathe. I was terrified. I thought I had completely lost myself. I was a disgrace. I was a failure. I had let myself go too far. I was fat and I had to do something about it. And that's when everything began. The restricting, the exercise, the purging, the laxatives and diet pills… all because this stupid voice started talking to me and filling me with lies. Now I'm 21 and I look back at this little 11 year old girl and wonder how I could have let this happen? I wish I had been stronger back then and had been able to ignore ED and push him away before he had gotten his claws in me so deep that now I feel like there's no escape.

Tonight I looked in the mirror, the same exact one that I did that night all those years ago, and again I listened to ED pound me with horrible thoughts, and sadly, I listened. I took it and I believed it. But then I stopped and I thought to myself "Why? Why, when after these past two years of hard work and dedication to recovery do I still choose to stand in front of this mirror and listen to ED criticize me?". I don't want to do that. I want to walk away from that mirror, without one glance of myself, and go about my life knowing that I am perfect and beautiful just how I am. I don't need ED and I don't need his little lies. I need to start loving this body and know that it's the only one I've got and I need to cherish it.