Don't Just Say It, Do It

Don’t Just Say It, Do It

This week, I am not going to write about how I want recovery. How I want my full life back. How I want more than anything to free myself from the chains of the eating disorder and live a life of happiness and freedom.

This week, I am not going to write about how I hope to start taking my life back, start walking the path towards recovery. How this is the beginning. How I must take this opportunity and never let it go.

This week, I am not going to write about starting.

This week, I am going to write about continuing. And not just continuing, growing, thriving, and succeeding.

Because last week, I took the leap, dove in, and started my journey towards recovery. Officially. And completely. 100% dedication proven through 100% action.

Last week, I didn’t just say that I wanted recovery, or say that I knew exactly what I needed to do to get to recovery, or say that I wanted my life back. Last week, I put those words into action and acted on my goals, breaking the pattern of saying with a whole lot of doing. Because I finally realized that I can say that I want recovery and my true life and each and every one of my goals, but until I actually take action towards making all of those things happen, I will remain stuck. And never move forward. Wanting something is great. But action is the essential step necessary to bringing you what you truly want.

So you may be wondering how, in fact, I started my journey towards recovery. What steps I took this week to actually change rather than just talk about change. And what could have possibly made this week different than the countless weeks prior in which I wished for recovery, but never actually dedicated myself 100% to taking that leap of faith, taking that plunge back into my life.

And to be quite honest, I don’t have all of the answers for you. And this is many times the case in recovery. We can’t quite identify what creates that switch in our brains from one day idolizing the every word of the eating disorder to the next day having the strength to stand up for ourselves and brave the battle of recovery.

But I do know one thing. I hit a point this week where I couldn’t stand to live another day in agonizing physical and emotional pain, exhaustion, weakness, torture, and abnormality. I hit a point of pure exhaustion where my body completely revolted against the inexplicably cruel torture I have subjected it to for countless weeks too long.

And in the pure exhaustion came realization. Realization that this agony is completely self-induced. And at any point, I can stop this self-torture and start living a normal life, and not just a normal life, a better than normal life. I am 100% capable of the life I desire. If I just stop this madness, stop letting the voices in my head rule my life, and start living my life the way life was meant to be lived.

So with that realization, I walked into my therapist’s office on Wednesday with a goal. And with this goal in mind, we came up with a plan that would combat the eating disorder in any way that it might try to block me from achieving my goal. And we brainstormed all of the ways this goal would bring me to the life I truly wanted to live. This goal was the essential first step on my journey towards recovery.

And this goal was to stop running. To stop waking up at four in the morning, dragging my body out of bed and forcing the speed and incline up on the treadmill, wearing my body into the ground before my day had even begun. To stop engaging in a deadly habit that only serves to torture me and take me away from recovery, prolonging the weight restoration process that is eventually an inevitable part of recovery I must embrace. To stop wasting my body on useless exercise that strips me of the energy, strength, and life I could be sharing with the world, using my energy to make a difference rather than to waste my life away. To stop running away from my life in recovery and to start sitting still and giving recovery a chance to catch up and come into my life.

And this goal is a goal I have set for literal months, knowing that running has always been a source of trouble, a source for my eating disorder to take complete control and disguise the deathly behavior as an “outlet for my stress” and a “way to release some endorphins” and a “way to feel good about my body”. But in reality, the runs did everything but relieve me from stress, increase my endorphin levels, or make me feel better about myself. I only found that, the more that I ran, the more anxious I felt. The more obsessed my mind became on when I would fit my run in each and every day, no matter what time or what the cost may be. The more vigorous and strenuous my rans became, and in return, the more pain and exhaustion my body felt. The more intense the eating disorder became as it saw just how easily I fell into its traps and listened to its commands. And the more I hated my body, found new flaws every day, and wished to run away from it, to escape from it in any way that I could.

In a world where exercise, cardio, and weight loss are drilled into our heads as essential lifestyle choices for beauty and happiness, it is extremely difficult to go against the mindset of the majority and put my own physical and mental health first. I could go on for pages about just angered I am by the current goal of our culture to diminish every individual to extreme thinness as they strive for beauty and happiness, but I will save my rant for another post. It has been a major challenge for me to separate myself from the majority and realize that my physical and emotional health are in a much more vulnerable place than most, making what most people would consider a “healthy” activity, a harmful, addictive, and even deadly stressor for my mind and body.

For months, I have constantly attempted to avoid the truth that running is not a healthy choice for my mind and body at this point in time and this place in recovery. And in all honesty, it may never be the healthy choice for me, and this is a reality I must learn to accept. I have walked into countless therapy and dietitian sessions and begged and pleaded for them to allow me to keep up my runs, even if that meant increasing my caloric intake. I have spent countless hours obsessing over, planning out, and engaging in a behavior that I validated as normal and healthy and necessary for my health and happiness but only turned out to be an abnormal addiction that stripped away my health and made me miserable. I have wasted away too much time and energy forcing my body to tear itself down rather than build itself up.

For months, my body has not been given a rest day to catch a break, repair its muscles, replenish its energy, and recover from damage. Through sickness, injury, and exhaustion, I pushed my body to relentlessly complete the duties my eating disorder deemed necessary, the duties of running countless miles to attempt to improve the countless flaws of my body. And my eating disorder convinced me that this was an accomplishment. Something to be proud of and something that designated strength, willpower, and endurance. But the more days my body went without a day to recover, the more strength I lost, the weaker I became, and the willpower that I appeared to have was only a representation of the extreme fear of and allegiance I pledged to the eating disorder. And this allegiance represented weakness, an inability to stand up for myself and the health of my own body because I feared the wrath of the eating disorder more than the screams of my body.

But this week, my mind and body broke. The pace could not be kept up anymore. I had reached ultimate exhaustion, both physically and mentally. And so, as a response to my body and not my eating disorder, I decided that the necessary first step would be to consider the goal that I had set for myself for months. The goal to stop running. And for the first time in months, my healthy self shined through first and latched onto the goal, relieved, satisfied, and overwhelmed with pride that I had shown a glimmer of compassion to my body. This was a first. Being able to hear my healthy self before my eating disorder had a say was an occurrence that very rarely happened, a reason that it has been incredibly difficult to make recovery-oriented decisions, and knowing that this occurrence was rare, I gave every ounce of my attention to the cries of my healthy self. This time, my healthy self screamed its message loud and clear. The run must stop. You must put your body first. We need you to care for and love us again.

So, Thursday morning, the run stopped. And I put my body first. And not just Thursday morning. Friday morning. Saturday morning. Sunday morning. And with this momentum, the runs will continue to remain out of my life, a part of my past and not my present.

For the first time in months, I have allowed my body to recover, rest, and reclaim itself from the hands of the eating disorder. And although this has been the best thing for my body, it has been one of the most difficult steps that I have made in recovery. Anxiety attacks, excruciating screams from my eating disorder, extremely low self-esteem and negative body image, and a sense of failure as I am giving up an “identity” I had held for so long. I have broken down in tears as the compulsions become overwhelmingly strong, the irrational voices scream that my body is turning to fat and ugliness, and the intense fear of losing my identity rushes over me as I make the choice to skip my run. But through these tears and the screaming of my eating disorder, I have not given in. I have stood my ground. No matter how difficult that may be.

In past relapses, the only way I have broken my running has been with an admission to an inpatient setting as a result of my failing health and inability to fight for my own life against the eating disorder. But this time was different. This time, I made the choice to break the behavior that I knew only led to the inevitability of another full relapse and admission into treatment. This time, I didn’t need the intervention of medical professionals to reclaim my health for me. I made the choice to treat my body with compassion and give it the rest and recovery it needs to thrive in this world. I made the choice to take my body back and build it up to all the potential it holds.

And in making the choice for myself, I have reclaimed my recovery 100% by myself, for myself, with myself in mind. And this is the key to my full and lasting recovery. Taking 100% ownership for my life in recovery and not relying on anyone else to do it for me. This is a battle that I have to face each and every day, and I am the only one that can make the decisions to battle the voices in my head and carry out the necessary actions for my overall health and success. I am the only one with complete control over my mind and body. And I am the only one who can make recovery possible.

This week, I made recovery possible. I proved to myself that, in taking action, I can do this. I can reach recovery. I can reclaim my life and live the life I actually want to live. And I can have an identity other than that of the eating disorder. I have held on to the realization that my identity holds so much more potential than the false sense of identity the eating disorder provides for me. The identity of the eating disorder only has the capability to tear lives down. My identity has the incredible capability of building lives up and saving lives. I am NOT my eating disorder. I am a nurse-in-training, an ED recovery blogger, a daughter, a girlfriend, a twin sister, a friend, a student, a supporter, a future speaker, author, and recovery representative. I am whatever I wish to be. And I have finally come to the conclusion that I am everything BUT my eating disorder.

I have finally gathered up the strength and courage to make the first step on my path of recovery. I have broken the pattern of saying and replaced it with doing. And with a step of momentum under my feet, I am ready to continue my pattern of action, my pattern of behavior-breaking, my pattern of recovery-making.

Welcome to my path of recovery.