Fighting the Past With the Present

May is a month known for its excitement, full of celebrations, graduations, ceremonies, proms, picnics, barbeques, and countless other activities. May is a month of warmer weather, longer days, outdoor activities, a taste of summer. May is a lively month, a time to participate in and enjoy the excitement of life.

But unfortunately, May is a very difficult month for me. Because May is full of memories of relapses, treatment, hospitalizations, pain, and suffering caused by my eating disorder. Memories from not just one May, but from May of 2013 and May of 2017. And so each and every May since 2013, I have been faced with flashbacks and indescribably vivid memories that attempt to hold me captive in the past and prevent me from remaining in the present and looking towards the future.

One moment I am going about my day, and the next moment, I am fully immersed in a flashback, reliving each and every moment of the pain, anguish, and suffering that the eating disorder put me through. Flashbacks of behaviors that ruined my life and the strength of the eating disorder screaming through my head. Flashbacks of not being able to fight the voices despite knowing the inevitable consequence of hospitalization, possibly even death. Flashbacks of being stripped of all my freedom and all my life as I was signed into an inpatient eating disorder unit. Flashbacks of my mom, her eyes full of tears, saying her final good-bye as the doors shut her away from the inpatient floor. Flashbacks of having a nasogastric tube shoved up my nose, only for it to take another hour to fully drop the tube into my stomach. Flashbacks of overnight feeds, difficult meetings with treatment team members, daily blood work, scary vital signs, sleepless nights. Of staring out the window, eyes filled with tears, wishing I could be out in the real world again. Of believing all hope was lost, all possibility of life gone, all Shell dead to the eating disorder.

And following a flashback, I am left exhausted, drained, anxious, and upset. I feel as if I have relived each moment, experiencing the same pain and suffering, the same hopelessness and defeat. And the worst part is that the eating disorder holds on to the flashback and uses it to try and pull me back into its control. It does this by attempting to make the memories compelling, by covering the pain and suffering in lies and aiming to convince me that I was happier, healthier, and more successful when I was at my lowest points. It manipulates the memories to its advantage, creating a compelling image rather than a repelling one, an image I desire to go back to rather than an image I try to avoid at all costs.

And this creates a war in my head. One side, my recovery side, fighting to show me just how terrible, treacherous, and painful those times of relapse were, how much better my life is now, how much I lose by letting my eating disorder win, and how much I have to live for if I choose not to let myself go back to such a low point. And the other side, the eating disorder, fighting to drag me back into relapse, hospitalization, and pain, to convince me that thinness is the only key to happiness and success, to wear me down into believing that my life is better as a patient, as the sickest I can possibly be, as just one step away from death. And this war tears me down, making recovery and day-to-day life in the month of May that much more difficult.

It is so difficult to explain to others just how powerful and compelling the eating disorder makes the memories seem, especially when it is so difficult for myself to understand why I would ever want to go back to such difficult, painful times. And the only explanation I can come up with is that the eating disorder is so terrible and so manipulative and so deceitful and deadly that it will do absolutely anything in its power to get me back, and it knows that memories are its perfect resource as a tool to drag me back down. Especially when it sees me taking steps farther away from its command and power and friendship, it tries with all its strength to work its lies on me, to win me over again.

But this May, I have finally found my weapon to use against the manipulative pull of the eating disorder. Because I want my recovery, and I will not let the past stand in my way of my present and of my future. This May, I am fighting past negative memories by forming new memories. By living in the moment, for the moment, making the most of each moment. By going on adventures, spending time with the people I love, and enjoying everything that life has to offer. Because when I fight back against the eating disorder by showing it that I have found the key to happiness in living in the moment and making the most of my life, its fight to win me over with the past will slowly diminish, being replaced with a stronger base in recovery and countless memories to cherish for a lifetime.

And whenever a negative flashback comes into my head, I am replacing it with one of the many positive memories that I formed last May and throughout this past year. Because although last May was an extremely difficult month, it was also one of the best months. I started dating my amazing boyfriend, and despite all of the struggles that began to accumulate as I got sicker and sicker, he stood by my side every step of the way and still found ways to brighten my day, taking me on countless amazing adventures and helping me form so many positive memories despite the strength the eating disorder was gaining. I am so lucky to have him and to have these amazingly positive memories to look back on and to help me fight the negative memories that are trying to hold me back. By fighting the negatives of the past with a combination of the positives of the past and the positives of my present and future, there is nothing stopping me.

This May, no matter how hard it has been, how loud the eating disorder has screamed, I am embracing the present and looking towards my future instead of remaining in the past. Because I would much rather be going on countless adventures, getting away for the weekend, and spending time with the people I love than being admitted to a hospital and having a tube shoved up my nose. Because I would rather be enjoying, embracing, and living my life than being told I don’t have much left life to live, staring hopelessly out a hospital window only imagining the life I could be living, expecting to face death rather than leave alive.

The only way to let go of the past is to live in the present and embrace the future. So my goal for this upcoming week, my hardest week of the year, is to spend each and every moment in the moment. And not just surviving the moment, but thriving in the moment, making the most of each and every moment. And I am going to take that one step further and say that this week, I will challenge myself more than ever, pushing myself to take steps I have never taken before, moving me farther and farther away from the past and closer and closer to the amazing future that lies ahead of me. Because there is no better way to conquer the past than to face it head on and conquer the challenges that took me down in the past.

I will not let the past become my present.

I have a whole life to live ahead of me. The whole book of my life is awaiting to be written. This is my story, and I will do everything I can to make my story the best story it can be.

So I am starting today. I am not letting the eating disorder have any chance of using my past against me. I am leaving the past in the past and holding on to the present.

Always forward. Never backward.