Christmas Eve.

I keep thinking back to last year, after the candlelight service at church, I was sitting downstairs watching some Christmas special with my family, writing a post reflecting on all of the growth that had taken place in my life that year.  I wrote about being recovered, feeling valued and beautiful and loved and worthy.  I wrote about being more than my past, about never being alone, about hope and healing.  I wrote about my complete faith in an all-powerful, healing, restoring God.

Christmas 2012 I was in a very different place than I was Christmas 2011.

And Christmas 2013 is no different. 

Tonight, I sit alone in my room, thinking.

Thinking about how my life has changed in the past year and has put me in a position that I never once thought that I would be in.  I dropped out of my first semester of my second year at college because I had a major relapse with my eating disorder, depression, and anxiety.  I took medical withdrawals from all but one course, in which I’m taking an incomplete and hope to finish up soon.  I’m taking the entire spring semester off from school.  I’m spending at least four hours a day in different kinds of therapy groups, with different psychologists and psychiatrists and doctors and nutritionists, trying to learn how to completely accept and manage life with an eating disorder, with depression, and with anxiety, trying to learn how to manage my life with this illness.

I never once thought that my life would go back to this, not even all those days I spent in treatment in high school, when I was so excited to go to college so that I could fully engage in my disorder and no one would notice.  I never once thought that things could get this bad again. I never once thought I would be in very intensive treatment again.

I never once thought that my life would do a complete 180 on me. But it has and that’s something that I’m just going to have to accept because even though I think that I've convinced myself that I've accepted this situation, I reach a moment where I get really pissed off about having been given these genes with this temperament and these personality traits and having been dealt this environment.  And then I’m back at square one, trying to accept it all just one more time.

But it’s never just one more time.

Looking back on my post from last Christmas, I can’t help but be a bit judgmental about where I am now and thinking that I’m in a worse place now than I was then.

This Christmas Eve, I’m not thankful. I’m not filled with joy and hope and strength.  I’m not feeling encouraged or blessed.  This Christmas Eve, I am filled with anger and bitterness and resentment.  I’m filled with depression and loneliness and insecurity. I’m filled with anxiety and distress and worry.  I’m filled with shame and guilt and regret.  

I’m filled with questions like “Why me?” and “Will this ever be over?” and “Will I ever feel and live a ‘normal’ life?” I’m questioning what my next steps are, where I stand with my relationships with everyone in my life, and how my faith fits into this.  I’m filled with questions about what my life will look like next Christmas and the one after that.

And something that I've learned in the past five weeks of treatment is that all of this is okay. Having questions and doubts and emotions—it’s all okay. Even during Christmas, when the expectation is joy and peace and contentment. My emotions are real and I am allowed to feel them, even now. Even at Christmas.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that things change. People change. Lives change. And things don’t always go how you expect them to go. You don’t always end up where you want to in life. Sometimes the unexpected is exactly what happens and sometimes you take a giant leap backwards.

All of that is okay.

It’s life. And life doesn't stop for anyone.

Not even at Christmas. 

I think I'm scared...

I'm really bad at emotions.  I hate them, actually.  Having them, feeling them, identifying them, expressing them, communicating them... its all hard for me.  

These past few days have been a roller coaster of emotion for me, as much as I hate to admit it.  I've gone from not really feeling anything to anger to apprehension to fear to more anger and I don't know what all else.  Like I said, I am really bad at emotions.  

But right now, I think that I am just afraid.  

I spoke with my mom this weekend for the first time about what has been going on.  Like picked up the phone and called her.  Needless to say, she did not react in a way that I wanted.  That made me angry.  I threw my phone and yelled at my roommate and stormed off.  Exactly how I used to act as a child when I would get angry.  I calmed down a bit, received an angry text from my dad, and then I got angry all over again.  

Sunday morning, I woke up feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I knew that I only had a few more days left here, at Gettysburg, and that worried me.  I knew I was going to have to speak with my suitemates about what was happening, which worried me.  And I still had not heard back again from my parents, which isn't normal, so that also worried me.  

I don't like emotions, especially anxiety because you have to feel it full out--it's not one that can be numbed out with sleeping or television or walks or anything. With depression or angry, I can numb out by sleeping or watching a movie.  I don't have to feel it in order to get through it, and so I don't.  But as much as I try to numb out my anxiety and ignore it, it never actually works.  

I woke up in a panic from a 'nightmare' at 4:30 am this morning.  In it, I was seeing people and having conversations with people who were not able to be seen by other people.  Talking to and seeing people who did not even exist.  I know how crazy that is, even though in my dream, I was on campus in Gettysburg, where people apparently see ghosts all the time.  

I don't believe in ghosts.  

I woke up because I literally went insane in my dream.  

No one is awake at 4:30 am.  Not even my brother, who I'm pretty sure doesn't actually sleep ever.  I typed a note in my phone that says, What if I'm actually crazy?  What if there is really something wrong with me?  I then put some music on and tried to go back to sleep.  I woke up every 15 minutes gasping for air, in tears, until 7:20, when I just decided to give up on sleeping any more.  

At that point, my roommate was awake, so I was able to talk to her about what was going on.  And I told her about my fears of actually being crazy (I do have an uncle with schizophrenia and it does manifest itself around this time in people's lives), and it was her that suggested that maybe it's just my anxiety and fear about this whole situation that is getting away from me.  That maybe that is why I'm not sleeping well and I'm lashing out and my dreams are weird.  

I'm beginning to think that she's right.  I am afraid.  As much as I try to portray that I am not afraid, I am.  So much so this time than every other time I have been forced to seek treatment over the past six years.  

I think it's because this time, I actually want the help.  I want to recover.  Not because I have to in order to work at camp.  Not so that I can go to college in another state.  Not so that my parents will leave me the hell alone.  

I want to recover for my health, for my future, for my life.  There's so much more at stake this time.  And because of that, it is perfectly normal to have emotions like fear and anger.  It's okay to feel them.  What is not okay, however, is turning around and running because of the fear.  

I was reminded of this over the weekend by a very wise woman who has been encouraging me so much in this terrifying process of leaving school to get help: 

"Recovery is not easy. Recovery is hard. Eating disorders are easy. Eating disorders will kill you. This may be one of the hardest things you do in your life, so it's normal for you to feel really anxious and upset and stressed and scared and all of those things! Those are all okay. The right thing and the easy thing are rarely the same thing!!!"