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.