Connecting

Today in session, my therapist and I began going through my timeline, which is a super brutal undertaking. We didn't get into any of the major stuff, but we spent a lot of time discussing my childhood and how that has impacted me as an adult. We all know that childhood has a tremendous impact on everything in our lives; however, she brought up many points that I had never thought about before in terms of different types of connecting. There are many different types of connecting. The two biggest ones we focused on today were how I connect myself to my emotions and how I connect to other people. 

As I have said in previous posts, I have an extremely difficult time connecting with my emotions. I do everything in my power to not feel them. So, when going through my timeline, my therapist and I are really working on figuring out where that all started. Honestly, I'm not really sure I know at this point in time. I think, to some extent, it has always been there. Growing up as a military kid, you experience these major changes that you can't cry about. It also becomes a norm after a while. You get used to saying goodbye. You learn not to cry, because you're getting a fresh start in a new place. It becomes easier. Your emotions become less heightened after each move, each new place, every new face. It becomes routine. So, in many ways, I feel like I am desensitized to emotions. Also, after so many years of stuffing everything, it's just second nature at this point. There are definitely some topics that are so triggering to me that stuffing everything just doesn't work. We spoke briefly about those topics today, but I only teared up at them. I'm really nervous about how deeply my therapist pushes a lot of these issues. I think it will be really helpful, but I am also really nervous. There's just a lot there I haven't touched in a long time, so who knows what is all behind that Eating Disorder wall that's been up for the last 10 years. I think it will truly help me learn to connect to myself more in the long run though.

Connecting to other people has always been a pretty easy thing for me. I consider myself a pretty social person, very extroverted. With that though, I keep a lot of myself locked away. Any time I have unveiled these small parts of myself, especially anything trauma related, those people leave or hurt me with that information later. So, my issues with abandonment kick in, and the wall gets higher.  Then, it turns into a "Why bother?" situation. If I continually unveil these small pieces of myself to others and they walk away, they take those pieces with me, and it breaks me down in the process. Sheltering myself and my heart have always seemed like the best options. Even when I meet people who I truly connect with and feel like I can share those pieces with, I am always so terrified to say anything about my issues that I shut down. I literally can't even say what's wrong sometimes, because I am so terrified of it. I just get weird. That's not fair to the people in my life or the relationships I have/had. I like to think I am doing better with it, but who knows. I don't think I'm a good judge of that.

Overall, I think recovery is all about connecting. For me, I have begun connecting to the identity I have never truly had. I am working on connecting with others better. I am attempting to connect with my emotions for the first time in a long time. I am connecting my rational mind to my body. I am connecting my mind to messages of positivity. It's all about the connections. My connection with my recovery will ultimately be the only way to defeat my eating disorder. If I am not in sync with that connecting, ED will sneak in, and I will relapse. There truly is strength in connections.