Life After Recovery.

Through the launch of Letters To My Body, a lot of things regarding body image, self-esteem, and eating disorder recovery have been kicked up for me personally.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the fact that I try very hard to keep my recovery and resulting “issues” off of Jogger’s Life.

Why do I keep these things off of Jogger’s Life?

Truthfully, there is no other place that I’m venting these issues, other than in my own personal journal.  Letters To My Body is not set up as a place for me to personally blog about these things–it is a place that I’ve specifically set up for others.

The fact that I am a recovered bulimic is a very real and alive part of myself.  To ignore the fact that I face issues on a daily basis where this is concerned makes me feel like I’m sort of being a sham.

And, it bothers me.

So, I’m not going to let it bother me anymore.  I’m just going to put it all out there, and hopefully all of you will follow along with me still.  There are things that I either feel very strongly about or I’ve had to deal with over the past year, but haven’t been voicing them.  It’s really my own fault…I just don’t  want to alienate anyone.

But, I gotta keep it real, and I have to go with my gut.  In an effort to metaphorically purge these thoughts from my mind…

Top 10 list of things that I’ve wanted to tell you, but haven’t:

1. I’m terrified of the weight that I’ll gain when I become pregnant (my stomach actually just had butterflies when I typed that because it’s so scary to admit).
2. I want to get back into bodybuilding, and fulfill some of my dreams in that area, but I’m afraid that I’ll become obsessed with food and calories again.
3. I still get scared and anxious when I’m faced with a “buffet” style meal.
4. I had an anxiety attack at The Healthy Living Summit when I saw my options for Saturday’s lunch.  I felt like there was nothing I could eat, and I had that “spinning out of control” feeling that I haven’t had in ages.
5. I am not ashamed to talk to anyone about my eating disorder.  Immediately after I had the incident mentioned in #4, I sat down at a table full of strangers and proceeded to tell them about my history of eating disorders.   This probably freaked some people out, but it helped me get over the moment I had just had (when faced with the endless lunch meat options).  P.s…I hated lunch meat even before I stopped eating meat.
6. During treatment, I stopped reading all magazines.  I only recently started reading magazines again, and I don’t enjoy them now as much as I did in the past.  They have brought up a lot of concerns since I started reading them again.
7. I did not read any books specifically about eating disorders before or during my treatment.  I started reading books about eating disorders over the past 6 months.  This has been a very enlightening experience post-recovery.
8. The fact that young people are commiserating regarding eating disorders and encouraging and supporting each other to fast through Twitter breaks my heart on a daily basis.
9. I still hate my stomach, and I still compare myself to other women all the time.  I hate that fact.
10. I am happy to have stopped the negative behaviors that I was practicing related to my eating disorder, but sometimes I miss the “feeling” of losing weight.

There.  It’s all out.  This commences my blogging purge.

You can all proceed to delete your subscription now!

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Tagged as: confessions, ED recovery