Tired

Today is one of those days where I am just tired of recovery. Every day lately has been the ultimate battle of just trying to make it through a full day having consumed every calorie I need to, even with the epic war raging in my head. While I battle with my eating disorder every day, I have also had to battle recovery. It truly feels like a no win situation.

I have woken up lately with insanely high anxiety. It feels like I can barely handle the day ahead of me, because I am anticipating the meal plan that I have to fit in amongst the other crazy in my day. It feels like a chore. I wish I could just get to the point where I just could eat when I'm hungry and not have to obsess about the number of calories it has or if I am going to lose weight or face repercussions from skipping it. Recovery is a full time job in itself; one that makes facing the day to day that much harder, and I am tired.

I am happy being in recovery, because I know that this is where I need to be and don't feel awful every single day like I used to. Recovery has led me to things that I never knew were possible and happiness that I haven't had in a long time. Yes, my ED voice and negative body image are still there everyday, but they are nowhere near as bad as they once were. Recovery is a beautiful thing. It just consumes so much mental energy, but is it any worse than anorexia?

Today, I am tired from the daily focus on recovery; however, I still have more energy than I ever did when I was sick. Even though I am tired of eating when I'm not hungry and what feels like huge quantities every 2 hours, my body has the energy to actually go and do things now. I am tired of thinking about what I need to cook, but it's better than thinking about how fat I'll get from eating that cooked meal. I am tired of my recovery record alarm, but I am grateful that I am still alive today to hear it.

I may be tired of recovery today, but it's only because I was tired of living a miserable life in my eating disorder.

All of the Changes

Well, it's been an interesting few days to say the least. I have found myself on another precipice to another major life transition, and it happened much faster than I thought it would; however, it is at the sake of keeping my recovery intact, which has to be the main focus of my life. If it isn't, I'll end up back in partial hospitalization or residential treatment in no time.

I made the decision to put in my 2 weeks notice at my job this week. While I love my coworkers, the actual work I was doing felt very tedious and mindless, and ultimately, it went unappreciated by many people. It felt very monotonous going into work every day, and I could feel the restlessness creeping in. I just have not been happy doing this unfulfilling work of making schedules and dealing with student demands everyday. It ultimately came to a head when I was told I would be facing a pay cut with no notice and shaky rationale. It was my breaking point, because I know that, for my own mental health, I cannot continue to work for this company; however, I have no plan.

The idea of up and leaving a job with no plan when you have bad anxiety is unsettling, to say the least. I had been thinking about leaving for about a month, so I had at least started to apply for other jobs and had 2 interviews back in December; however, nothing really had panned out. So, I went on an application frenzy, attempting to find any job in my career field that would be more fulfilling. As of today, I still have no real plan; however, I did have a second phone interview for a position today, which I am hoping will turn into an in person interview and maybe even a job. So, I have no plan, but I have a lot of motivation to keep going, which is a big change from previous situations.

Ultimately, the stress and unhappiness in this job led to more struggles in my recovery. When my mood is low, I tend to restrict, which ends up derailing my meal plan for the rest of the day. The worst part is no matter how hard I try, I can never quite make up the missed calories before going to bed. Sometimes I'll come close, but it's still hard to tell if it's my full day's worth. Also, with feeling unappreciated, it feeds into my negative core beliefs of "You're worthless" and "Why would anyone reward your work? Clearly, it's not good enough, because you're not good enough." Dealing with these thoughts in my head all day on top of mindless work has been difficult to manage. So, ultimately, I have decided that it was best for me to protect myself and move on.

If I have learned anything in my journey over the last year, it's that if you don't take care of yourself first, everything around you may remain stable for a while, but it will ultimately fall apart. When I'm eating my full meal plan and taking the time to destress, I am at my personal best in those moments. While I recognize that not everyday in recovery is easy, having more bad than good days catches up with you. Sometimes, we need to make the hard choices in order to keep ourselves happy and healthy. If I don't, I will ultimately relapse, and that's a life I don't wish to live anymore. Put yourself first, and the rest falls into place.

Finding Motivation

Do you ever have those days where you just don't have the motivation to do the things you need to do, but you have to do them anyway? Lately, recovery has started feeling this way. While I'm doing what I can do each day, there's still a distinct lack of motivation that I'm trying to overcome.

My meal plan is becoming more and more of a chore. It's like taking out your trash. You never really want to do it, but if you don't, you'll end up with nasty consequences. One of the biggest focuses is treatment is transitioning from seeing food as this negative thing to learning to enjoy and embrace it as a necessity for life. I have just had an overwhelming feeling of dread everytime my Recovery Record alarm goes off lately. It's an instant "Oh no, not again. That went way too fast." Then, I begrudgingly retrieve my food and eat it in a very disconnected fashion. It's like I don't even taste or recognize that this is delicious food. It's made following through with my total meal plan everyday that much more difficult. With no motivation, how do you keep moving forward?

My biggest motivator right now is avoiding returning to inpatient or partial hospitalization treatment. The first time I went, I had to give up everything and attend treatment 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. Treatment became my life. While I met the most amazing group of people there, it still is a difficult thing to go to, especially if you're returning. You already feel like a failure, but when you see the look on the staff members faces that you've returned, it feels even worse. I still have some motivation to maintaining my life outside of treatment.

Another motivator is my continuing therapy. I have continued with EMDR, which is a completely exhausting process. 45 minutes of sitting with feelings and negative images is the most  uncomfortable situation ever; however, I feel like it's helping in some aspects. The catch is my therapist has stated that she will not continue with this if I relapse. Addressing those behaviors would have to come first, which is never a fun topic. Again,  it feels like failure.

There are always smaller motivators like: my family, my boyfriend, friends, the ability to work, freedom, choosing what I want to eat to fulfill my meal plan, and more.  But my biggest motivator will always be avoiding feeling like I have failed.

Looking for motivation on bad days can be hard,  but it's still important. I have learned in recovery that there will never be days that are truly easy. There are new obstacles to face everyday. But if you lose all motivation, you lose all hope of remaining in recovery.

Enough?(!)

Enough. A word that I hear in my head entirely too often. Everyday, I feel like this is the one thing that comes up in conversation and self-talk most frequently. It's such a loaded word, and for me, it's always used negatively.

Enough to me has always symbolized a baseline. It means I have made it to an adequate level, but there's still more to strive for. There is always something better that I need to try and get to.

My Eating Disorder voice loves this word. ED latches onto it and uses it to make my self-talk that much more negative. On my really bad days, I have a constant cycle of You aren't thin enough or You aren't strong enough to handle recovery, and the most popular one: You will never be enough.

I have always felt a huge sense of inadequacy. Even as a child, I remember feeling that, even though I was a fairly good kid, I was never enough for anyone else in my life. That idea was perpetuated more and more as I got into middle and high school as I fell into the unknown middle of social circles and classroom standards. Then, as I began entering romantic relationships, it came to have a whole new meaning: I will never be good enough for someone else to love me. When that idea was reinforced by my father, it got even worse.

I constantly feel like I am falling below that baseline. One of the biggest reasons is because I set that bar so much higher for myself than I do for other people. I have to hold myself to a higher standard, because I can only control myself, not others. ED doesn't help that bar fall any lower, as it is constantly pushing it higher and higher until that baseline isn't even obtainable anymore. Then, I am stuck in this realm of imperfect purgatory, doomed to stay there until I find something to validate me. Another is my intense skewed self-perception. I don't see myself the way others do, in terms of: body image, intelligence, shape, personality, talent, and more. I have never been able to see what others do, even with their validation and my own lack of evidence. To me, I am not enough; a core belief I have held onto so strongly that I have sacrificed relationships because of it. But when is enough enough?

In this journey of recovery, I have learned that I have to have self-compassion and use the opposite of the phrases my ED voice has been telling me for years: I am enough. I am good enough that others love me. I am managing things one day at a time, and that is enough for now. We all know that that's easier said than done.  I can tell myself these phrases over and over, but saying them doesn't make me believe them. My most difficult task is deciding when I have had enough of the behaviors and thought processes I have been surviving on. Not allowing myself to have enough food. Not ever being thin enough. Isolating because others won't think I'm worth enough, and in turn, believing that I am not. I have been punishing myself for 10 years for my "inadequacies," and I realize that I have had nothing but self-sabotage and self-hatred most of my life. That's when I know:

Enough is enough.