Tuesday, May 11, 2010

thunderstorms are necessary

As the thunderstorm outside is winding down i have finally found the time to reflect a bit on the past weeks. I must say i have grown a small seed of compassion for myself.... sounds pathetic but that is just what it is. I am more and more aware of my flaws and that is not something i am proud of. The perfectionist in me hates my mistakes and would love to do what i used to be doing most of my life... hide them. But the truth is that i feel even though i have a strange and embarassing kind of disease that does not make me a bad person. I have disappointed many of my friends in the past weeks i know that. I have made them feel helpless because i know that they would love to help me but they cannot. i have to be able to help myself. But how?? Obviously the eating part doesn t work too well and therefore my weight has been dropping. No not as bad as it used to but there is reason to be concerned because the tendency is not the right one. Yet i decide to do this and that is so hard for my friends to watch. They cannot understand what the problem is. After all, some of them have watched me twice going into the hospital and staying there for a long time. Neglecting my duty as a mother as a wife and as a friend. My parents think i am doing this on purpose. And guess what? I think sometimes that they are right. I am deliberately choosing not to care for my own self but to look away. Yet in these past weeks i have started to actually not only hate myself for this but to at times feel some sort of compassion for my sick personality. I am a person with anorexia. Not more not less. But i am also somebody else. i can do things well and i am not too bad with the boys. i do an ok job with them most of the time. They are on my mind most of the time. Yes, i am acting irresponsible with myself. But not the whole time. The disease is part of me but that is not the only part. I need to convince myself of that daily when i fight against myself. I hardly ever win when i fight but i win when i accept myself. And that is a great lesson for the fighter in me. Fighting has delivered many results but it has not created happiness in myself. Instead it has created more and more self hatred. So the strategy to sit in front of food trying to eat it but not wanting to is not very succesful. it worked in the hospital because i wanted to get out. But now it does not work anymore. What does work is to find things in myself that i actually like and stress those... not focus on the food intake too much. I am very very sorry for all the stress and unhappiness i am causing my friends. Believe me i dont want to cause this. At least not all of me does that. The sick part yes but the other part feels the sadness that i am causing. What could help me? More inner peace with myself. More calm words. Less fights. A goal i could work on.
I am not giving in and i will continue to try hard. i cannot make any promises. I am tired of disappointing people so i just want them to know that i truly love my friends and that i feel with them. I am not an easy task and it gets worse. The only work that my friends can do is to not do anything. I need to come to terms with myself. As long as it may take. My recovery depends entirely on my behaviour not the one of my friends. I never assumed much responsibility when things were getting bad. Always when i benefited from them... but i know i am not the only one doing this. it gives me great comfort to look around and see that there are more people out there with issues around food than myself. I might feel alone with my problem but i am not !
So by letting everybody know that right now i am struggling i am doing a first step towards accepting myself. And i dont know how to solve the current issues but other people dont know either. By acknowledging that i am still very sick i go down the right lane. i am not my disease but it is a huge part. What the future brings whether it is more hospital stays or less i have no idea. I will sit and wait and reflect.