For the first time in months, I feel like I am at a really solid point in my recovery; a spot that I haven't felt good in in years. In my 10 year battle with anorexia, something has always lingered. Typically, it has been manifestations of my negative core beliefs. Some part of me always feels unlovable or unworthy of anything good. That tiny voice builds and builds until I ultimately relapse. Those core beliefs have defined my life since elementary school, so 15 years later, it's hard to let go of, but here I am. I feel calm.
This calm is a strange feeling. After a week of high anxiety and feeling unsafe, it all seems to have alleviated. There is no real rationale for it, but I feel like I am starting to solidify a stronger identity and idea of what kind of person I want to be. For having so many years of being lost, I am starting to figure out what I want my life to look like.
As kids, we are always asked what we want to grow up to be. Mine radically varied from ballerina to nursing to journalism to who even knows what else. I think it would be better if teachers started asking who we wanted to be. As adults, most people go into college, their first step into the "real world" to figure out what they want to do the rest of their lives. That's a huge decision to make in your late teen years.
When I first entered college, I was barely 17, about to experience another series major trauma, and had my college plan radically shifted from what I intended it to be. I was originally going to move to North Carolina to study dance and psychology (as a back up career). I had this idea of what my life was going to look like. By the end of my first year of college, I was still living in Sheboygan, engaged to someone I had been dating for 2 months, and living in survival mode while my eating disorder and trauma consumed my mind.
So, I went through college and did pretty well. My first taste of identity came in 2010 when I studied in Madrid for a few weeks over the summer. It was my first taste of actual freedom: no parents, partner, or responsibilities to anyone but myself. I knew that my independence was fiercely important to me, and I wasn't getting that at home. I held onto that and thrived for those weeks, but came home and quickly lost it all. I fell into the same patterns and continued on.
At the end of 3 years, I was able to graduate with a double major in Psychology and Spanish and a life plan; I would be the good Navy wife. I planned to complete grad school in a year and then join my partner out in Maryland. My identity had become a path towards becoming a wife. My life had no other meaning. Yes, I had a college degree, but I was ready to give up my dreams for someone else at 20 years old. I was so blinded by dependency on another person that I didn't need to figure out who I was. I had my identity through him. Why did I have to do any work on that at all? Then, life threw me for a curve ball... again. My life plan walked out on me.
After my break up the summer after college, I was lost. No identity to call my own. I was just a girl with a 2 hour commute to grad school 3 days a week and working 2 jobs. I didn't have time to figure me out, which was a blessing and a curse. I was able to survive through work again. I took the first steps towards an identity. I decided to use the money I had been saving for a trip to see my partner, and I put it towards a flight to New York to go for the dream: auditioning for the Rockettes. That was my first glimpse of who I wanted to be. So, I decided to start a new life in Milwaukee to try and figure out who I was.
Milwaukee was both good and bad for me. The good? met the most amazing people there that I could never live without now. I got my Master's Degree. I found that counseling truly is the career for me in the long run. I had freedom. The bad? I had freedom.
After 3 years of a rough relationship, I was back on my own again after a major bout of depression and eating disorder behaviors. Then, I was introduced the bars that I could actually get into, and I was hooked. My partying ways definitely got out of control when I lived there. At my worst, I was drinking half a bottle of Jack Daniels by myself every night. I was in a major relapse and was scary skinny. My identity became grad school girl by day, alcoholic by night. When you're super busy with grad school and numbed out at night, there's no need to develop a real identity. Your behaviors define that for you. This went on and on. I (again) got into a relationship that I changed my identity for in order to be loveable. My eating disorder behaviors were encouraged, and I became dependent (again). Once he left, I cracked. After a 3 day drinking binge, I was so broken and lost that I had no idea what to do. I knew I wanted to end it all, but it didn't feel like the right option. I knew I couldn't do that. So, here I came to St Louis.
Through treatment, you have to break away at all the survival armor and walls built up to protect this fragile identity that hasn't had the chance to grow. Somewhere, that little person is trying to get out. As I have said before, I did a lot of identity work with Travis. He really pushed me to look at who I was without my eating disorder. I was nothing. How can you live for 10 years having no clue who you are? I was a shell of a person for a long time. I had good qualities on the outside and nothing on the inside. Treatment was rebuilding and bringing the outside qualities in towards myself.
Now, I feel like I am starting to figure out who I am. I value the people in my life, especially when they are openly supportive of me. I value honesty and looking at life in a realistic, but positive way. I value loyalty as I have a lot of issues with abandonment. I value so many more things, but those are what create my identity. By living in accordance to my values, I am living in a way that I respect and feel good about. That's how I feel calm.
I'm pretty excited about the things happening in my life right now. I feel like I am on the start of something new. Where it will lead? Who knows? But for the first time in a long time, I'm excited for the ride.
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